A Garden Grows in the Meatpacking District

Posted on November 2, 2023 by melissa

Specimens.- 2018. 287 pieces of wood with powdered graphite, 42” x 35” x 6” approx.

Sculptor Loren Eiferman has brought a veritable garden of strange to Ivy Brown Gallery this summer. Her meticulously fabricated wood sculptures create a fantastical garden of forms that are both biomorphic and often anthropomorphic at the same time.

According to Eiferman, the body of work is loosely based on a cryptic 15th century manuscript of illustrations (real and imaginary) housed at The Beniecke Library at Yale University. The Voynich Manuscript is a wild compendium of botany, astronomy, astrology pharmacology and who knows what else. It’s original language and code was finally cracked in 2020 after decades of attempts.

46r/New Growth- 2022, 217 pieces of wood, acrylic paint, linseed oil, 43”x26” x 3.5”.

One can see the influence of this clearly in the show, entitled Welcome to My Garden. The sculptures inhabit their own perfectly imagined Universe and the language of form and color is totally original. Fabricated out of found wood Eiferman has seamlessly constructed forms that look like that they just popped out of the ground or beamed down from a spaceship. It is as if they too are visually written in a secret code. Hard to crack but arresting to look at. The palette is soft and muted, though not shy. The wood has been deeply saturated with rich color often highlighted by hits of metallic pigment. Constructed of many, perhaps hundreds of small pieces of wood, Eiferman has contrived to make these sculptures look effortless.

Abutilon- 2022. 118 pieces of wood with silver metal coating. 33 x 32 x 7

8v- 2022, 154 pieces of wood, pastel, graphite, paper pulp and linseed oil, 60”x12”x4”. (detail)

Most are large wall pieces with some charming small ones displayed on shelves throughout the gallery. There is one larger floor piece that incorporates a found plastic object. I didn’t quite understand this one, but perhaps it’s the beginning of the next step and direction for the artist. Often artists end one body of work with w hint of what is coming next.

 

Left- 5r- 2020, wood, earth, graphite, pastel and matte medium, 24” x 15” x 6”.

29/17v- 2021, 76 pieces of wood, earth, matte mediums, pastel, linseed oil and silver leaf, 17” x 5”x 3.5

The sculptures are accompanied by two large spiral bound books of drawings that the artist has made, one a day, based on photos from the New York Times. They are quite accomplished and really deserve to be shown on the wall. A very separate but no less interesting body of work.

Polarity- 2022, silver metal coating with Caran D’ache crayon, graphite and acrylic paint on newspaper, 11” x 14

The show closes on August 2, so I urge you to get over to the Meatpacking District where the gallery occupies a top floor space in a Flatiron type angular building. Nice views of the tourists and fascinating art inside.

Welcome to My Garden – through August 2. Ivy Brown Gallery 675 Hudson St, NYC.

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Just say YES to NADA!

Posted on June 22, 2023 by melissa

Posted on by Melissa Stern

Paul Wackers- First Time, Long Time. Jack Hanley Gallery

I’ve been to more art fairs than I can count, but the ones that I’ve had fun at I could count on two hands. Many are too big, dealers are either stressed out or bored, mundane work or work that is inaccessible or silly. The last show that I went to before the pandemic was The Armory Show at the westside piers. It was a few days before the world shut down and the fair was eerily empty. I wandered alone through a fair that typically had been jam packed with beautiful art lovers. And then everything went quiet for about a year and a half.

Since the pandemic is now over (old news!) the NYC art fairs have come roaring back and this past week has been what feels like an avalanche of art and art related events. Overwhelming, to say the least.

I’ve always been keen on the smaller venues – The Metropolitam Pavillion is a perfect size venue for an art fair. Second to that, in no hierarchical order is the old Dia Building on west 22nd street. The building, despite its extreme verticality, exudes good vibes and holds many memories of great exhibitions and fairs. Suffused with good light, remnants of the building’s industrial past and a new (at least to me) rooftop space. It’s little surprise that visiting NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) 2023 is so satisfying.

On the whole the work being shown is sophisticated and mature. The exhibition space is nicely laid out, giving the galleries space to curate coherently, but not over-stuff the space. I have never attended an art fair where so many dealers seemed, well, happy. From speaking without about 1/3 of the dealers it appears that first day sales were good. That always makes art dealers happy, but beyond that the general vibe was upbeat and energetic. One suggestion to exhibitors- maybe have the name of the artist available to those visiting your booth. Demanding that everyone use a QR code on their phone to find out who you’re showing is a buzz kill.

Here, in no particular order are things that I fell in love with:

Glorious still life paintings at Jack Hanley Gallery (see opening photo). Though “still life” is a misnomer, as these paintings are anything but still. Bursting with energy, color and sly surprises.

Kambel Smith. Shrine Gallery

Shrine Gallery, whose program consistently shows a mix of contemporary and self-taught artists has brough the sculpture of Kambel Smith. Smith is a self-taught artist who makes very large scale architectural models of famous buildings and monuments from discarded cardboard. The sculptures are both funny and poignant. A mashup of scale and proportion animates these iconic buildings, everything seems ready to dance.

Europa Gallery has one of the most coherently curated booths, showcasing sculpture by Brandon Morris, carved wooden stools/sculptures by Nik Gelormino and paintings by Brian Degraw.

Brian Degraw- Europa Gallery

Making their first visit to NADA and NYC is South Parade from London. They brought a small, but stunning group of carved and painted wood wall reliefs by Tom Hardwick. Totally fresh work, they are like microcosm Universes, a must see.

Tom Hardwick- detail of Allan Sq. South Parade, London

I’ve long been interested in the mixed material work of Sacha Ingber and was happy to see a beautiful grouping of their work at Rachel Uffner Gallery.

Sacha Ingber- Cruel Anatomy. Rachel Uffner Gallery

Luis de Jesus has brought a suite of narrative paintings by Aaron Maier-Carretero. The show is entitled “a lobster named dinner”. Viewed all together the paintings tell a short story, based on childhood memories of family and food. They are awash in luscious color. I found myself drawn to the most stripped down of the group. The richly painted surface of the black, white and grey painting told its own story.

Aaron Maier-Carretero- black shadows, white noise. Luis de Jesus Los Angeles

Focusing on portraiture, Galerie Anne Barrault has brought some deeply moving paintings on paper by Marie Losier. Though I didn’t connect with the videos, the portraits were very powerful.

Marie Losier- Tito et Floencia. Galerie Anne Barrault

If you can fight your way through the jungle of competing art fairs and cultural events in NYC this weekend and have the bandwidth to look at one more fair, this would be the one.

NADA NY- 548 West 22nd St.

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Ulf Puder at Marc Straus Gallery

Posted on June 15, 2023 by melissa

Taormina, Oil on canvas,39.4 x 47.25, 2018

Marc Straus Gallery is currently presenting the paintings of Ulf Puder, a German artist whose landscape paintings are deeply evocative and strangely alluring. I was not familiar with the artist or his work, and I’ll admit, it took a beat to enter his Universe. But once in I began to see deeper into the complex issues he deals with in his paintings.

Puder paints landscapes that seem both contemporary and timeless. His images are of an imagined past and a dystopian future. Of the eleven paintings in the exhibition, six are of iced landscapes, that is, either icebergs or winter structures, buried under what appears to be mountains of snow. Big, big skies loom over the diminutive dwellings and icebergs. A palette of multiple somber shades of blue and soft greens infuses the works with glacial coolness. There is no sun, as if the sun might be gone forever. The buried buildings are either abandoned or there may be people trapped inside the smothered landscape. In either case the scenes are eerily empty of life. The icebergs in these paintings are both architectural and sculptural; they could be giant ice palaces. They make for perfect partners with the landscape paintings that face them from the opposite wall.

GroBer Eisberg, 31.5 x 39.4, 2022

Opposite, there are five paintings of structures in various states of collapse. Dancing between abstraction and realism these paintings portray a strange and ominous world of shifting geometries – the planes of the vaguely mid-century modern houses are slipping and sliding off of one another. Partially dismantled into piles of colorful debris, they appear ready to tumble into the dark bodies of water on whose shores they sit. Nestled under dark skies these tableaux feel like a pause between catastrophic storms. There is a sense of calm to the work, but it is not entirely peaceful.

The palette of these paintings is oddly off. The colors are at once lush and slightly acid in tone. They reminded me immediately of the palette used often by Neo Rauch. I was not surprised when the Gallery Director told me that Rauch and Puder had been students in Leipzig, then in East Germany, at the same time. Though there is zero similarity in subject or execution, the artists share a strong color sensibility.

Kleine Winterlandschaft 2, 19.75 x 23.6, 2022

Winterlandschaft, 82.75 x 70.55, 2017

Puder sets up a very dynamic relationship between these two sets of paintings that one can interpret in several ways. There is an obvious nod to climate change and the havoc wreaked upon the Earth by man. Everything in Puder’s Universe is under a state of siege, smothered, melted, dismantled, scattered. The world is literally falling apart. The quietude of each body of work feels at once ominous and seductive.

The Icebergs, 19.75 x 23.6,each, 2022

Yet in every one of the landscape paintings with houses there is a hit of light. It might be artificial– the fluorescents that light the porch of Willy Lott’s House– or a ray of brilliant sunshine along the horizon of Mondscheinlandschaft. Is this Puder’s way of showing us that there is hope, a ray of optimism? Or is it simply a powerful and skilled painter delighting in his ability to show us how color can glow, how the radiance of light can alter the geometries of his paintings. Maybe it’s both.

Mondscheinlandschaft, 47.25 x 63, 2018

All photos courtesy of Melissa Stern. Courtesy of the Artist and MARC STRAUS

Ulf Puder- Thru March 5, 2023. Marc Straus Gallery. 299 Grand St, NYC, NY

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RADIANCE: THEY DREAM IN COLOR. THE UGANDA PAVILION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

Posted on June 1, 2023 by melissa

 

Posted on by Melissa Stern in ArtSpiel

Install photo of Radiance: They Dream in Color

The Venice Biennale, a sprawling art Universe, takes over the city every other year alternating its focus between art and architecture. Due to Covid, 2020 was cancelled, and the 2022 festival attracted an unprecedented number of visitors. The 2022 exhibition has received almost unparalleled praise for its inclusiveness, its artistry and its cohesion as a statement of the art Zeitgeist. It hasn’t hurt that the principle exhibition, The Milk of Dreams was curated by women, celebrates women and under-represented artists, and is for the most part simply superb.

You can feel Venice almost groaning under the weight of visitors, especially at the Biennale’s official gathering points, the Arsanale and the Giardini, at the western end of the city. The wealth of exhibitions outside of the formal Biennale would be enough to warrant rapturous praise. Anselm Keifer at the Palazzo Ducale and Marlene Dumas at the Palazzo Grossi are each breathtaking. But everywhere you turn there are shows and performances and music. It’s deliciously overwhelming.

The Giardini is an exquisite city park housing over two-dozen exhibits each representing a single country. There are a limited number of National Pavilions so countries not anchored there bid to install in spaces all over the city. The result is some unexpected delights far from the maddening crowd.

The official Ugandan Pavilion is a show called Radiance: They Dream in Time. It’s a two-person show by London-based curator Shaheen Merali. Installed on a second floor in a series of small rooms above an office on an undistinguished alleyway, is one of the standout shows of the Biennale. It is the first time that Uganda has hosted a pavilion at the Biennale.

Collaged and painted portraits by Collin Sekajugo are hung alternately with fascinating mixed-fiber weaving constructions by Acaye Kerunen. Each artist has a solo room for installation, which allows both of them to really have their work sing. Sekajugo’s series of large paintings are titled Stock Photo. Some have a descriptive comment tacked on, such as “Water Tanks” or “How May I Direct Your Call”. Using stock photos as a starting point he has taken the images and totally made them his own. Using multiple, often overlapping patterns, large and small, bark and wax cloth as collage elements and vibrant saturated color, the paintings leap off the wall.

Sekajugo captures wry moments in the lives of contemporary Ugandans. A young couple on a date, a woman measuring her waist, a dapper and confident young man sitting on a mid-century mod sofa, (this one titled I Own Everything). Mundane scenes from everyday life, but each with a subtle twist and beautifully composed. The curatorial statement explains that the photos were originally of White models. By substituting Black figures Sekajugo makes a nuanced political statement about the evolution of a modern Ugandan society.

Stock Image 009-Oh No!, 2022, Acrylic , barkcloth and mixed media on canvas

I love that the fabrics and patterns frequently march out of their designated role and merge in unexpected ways. In Oh No!, Sekajugo uses wax cloth as wainscoting behind the figure, but its entire midsection has been taken over by the fabric, just as the metallic 70’s wallpaper has crept downward into the fabric. The man, nattily dressed in matching turquoise trousers and tie seems unaffected by all of this pattern creep. Sekajugo, often employs sgraffito through the solidly painted areas of his work, which adds yet another layer of texture to the paintings.

Stock Image 10—Falling In Love, 2022, Acrylic , barkcloth and mixed media on canvasStock Image 10—Falling In Love, 2022, Acrylic , barkcloth and mixed media on canvas

Stock Image 10—Falling In Love, 2022, Acrylic , barkcloth and mixed media on canvas

In his solo room installation, entitled Call Center, Sekajugo has painted the walls dark red and massed a series of smaller paintings of cheerful call center operators in the corner. Bright desk lamps, attached to an old-fashioned wooden desk, light them dramatically. On the desk are scattered vintage books about Uganda and dictionaries of varied local languages. It’s a funny and provocative installation. The room exudes good cheer and efficiency. The lighting may have been a clever solution to a less than ideal exhibition setting (there was no other light in the room), but it also suffuses the installation with brilliant tension.

Call Center Girls 1-12. 2022, Acrylic on canvas

This work is paired with sculpture in fiber media by Acaye Kerunen. She has worked with village women throughout Uganda, using local fiber techniques and materials to create completely fresh contemporary sculptures. She often takes functional woven objects like baskets or mats and combines them into one sculpture, irrespective of regional origin or use– recontextualizing them into lyrical sculptures that marry traditional craft with contemporary art.

Myel, 2022, Banana fiber, palm leaves, banana stem, stripped sorghum stems, raffia

A sculpture called Myel rises over five feet from the floor. It’s a tower of stacked basketry and weaving. Organic and architectural at the same time, the sculpture feels alive. The graceful forms and beautiful textures lead the eye up the tower to a tightly bound ball perched on the top. Ribbons of fiber optic cable grace the “neck” of the piece. The curator’s statement says that this represents the bringing of fiber optic technology to East Africa. The old meets the new.

Passion Flower, 2022, Banana fiber, palm leaves, raffia

The Uganda Pavilion introduced me to two artists whose work I might never have seen before. The two compliment each other beautifully and give us a small, view into a blossoming, vibrant African art scene. This year’s Venice Biennale boasts both high profile and praise-worthy work like the triumphant sculptures of Simone Leigh, the official representative of the United States. But for me the real magic were the hidden gems, the out-of-the-way exhibits, and the newly discovered artists. Surprise and discovery are what keep this bi-annual art Mecca fresh and of global importance.

All photos courtesy of Melissa Stern

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Vanessa German – SAD RAPPER at Paul Kasmin

Posted on April 20, 2023 by melissa

 

Partial installation view of Sad Rapper

So much has happened in six years. It was six years ago that I last wrote about the work of Vanessa German for Hyperallergic. Donald Trump had just been elected, and the country was bracing itself for a trip down a new and dangerous path. Vanessa German, a poet, activist and visual artist, had mounted a powerful show at Pavel Zoubek Gallery entitled I am armed. I am an army. German filled the gallery with a fighting corps of women, armed with weaponry, poetry, history and power. It was a fierce exhibition, and one that both mourned and celebrated the power of women.

Fast forward to German’s debut exhibition, now at Paul Kasmin Gallery, that gives us a new view into German’s Universe. Instead of an army of warrior women, we are immersed in a neighborhood in LA, circa 1980’s. To be clear, this is an imaginary neighborhood, one made of the people who inhabit German’s dreams and memories. Entitled Sad Rapper, the exhibition is a huge leap in terms of physicality and concept. The work is bigger than anything I’ve previously seen. Some of the pieces brush nine feet in height. They hang on the walls, stand on plinths, ride bicycles and skateboards.

The Three-Headed Man. 2022. 95.25 x 72.5 x 20.5

The biggest change is that for the first time there are distinctly male figures in her Universe, as well as figure that are gender fluid. The figures that one can identify as “male” have crudely formed lumpy objects protruding from their crotches. These symbols of manhood are painted gold, so we know that they’re precious, but though thick and club-like, they are inert. They give cause for a double take. German’s work is so lyrical, so beautiful and lush in its use of materials that these “clubs” seem to intrude on the complicated beauty of this neighborhood. Perhaps that’s the point.

As always German’s use of materials is astonishing. She manages to deploy everything under the sun in a fluid and graceful way. The mass amalgamations of fabric, beads, objects, and electronics, wood – and so much more – look as if they have sprung fully formed from her imagination. They are all perfectly made, at once complex in execution and effortless in gesture. With figures towering over the viewer, we are at first struck by the majesty of German’s characters, then drawn into the intricate and joyful love of both the materials and the making of these pieces. I long to see the warehouse where she stores her work and her materials.

THE BEAST or Self Portrait 2022. 78.75 x 42 x 30.5

Partial installation view of Sad Rapper

Man- Man and his Inner Child 56 x 36x 29

Detail of Man-Man

 

 

While the work forms a coherent Universe, each piece is unique. A Black boy rides a tricycle, his body is small but his face seems too old to be on such a childish bike. All of the children in German’s work are prematurely aged. The man-child grips the handlebars tightly; his body and the bike covered with bunched and pillowy watermelon printed fabric are unified by an obsessive wrapping of pink yarn that completely covers the figure and the trike. The fabric is a children’s novelty print, but of course used in this context it is perhaps not so innocent. He is at one with his bike. A joyful feeling I remember as a kid- feeling so much control and freedom riding though my neighborhood.

But as always in German’s work, things are not quite so straightforward. The child’s face is frozen in a rictus grin. The bared teeth covered in rhinestones. His eyes, fixed forward in a hypnotized focus on the future. Or perhaps focused on escaping a past. Is he riding in joy or fear? His body sprouts a massive bouquet of fake flowers in all riotous shades of pink. Underneath he sports an array of heavy faux gold jewelry. On his back is a vintage tin lunchbox, a souvenir of the TV show Julia that appeared in the late 60’searly 70’s on television. Julia was the first TV show that not only featured a Black woman leading character (the luminous Diahann Carroll) but one who was a professional working woman with a full and rich life, rather than the stereotypical ways in which Black women had previously been portrayed on TV.

This nod to an iconic Black woman and a specific moment in American popular culture fortifies all of the pushes and pulls between mass culture and childhood in America. It’s an example of the deep dualities in all of this work. Joy coupled with fear. Beauty coupled with horror.

 

7 Beautiful Ni$$As Awe-Struck in the Glory of An Appalachian Sunset (Detail). 88x 30.5 x 20

Each and every sculpture in this exhibition demands this kind of deep dive look into the multiplicity of symbols and emotions and messages they contain. It is by far German’s most complex body of work to date. Her vision extends not just to the inclusion of men, but also to fantastical creatures that are animal with human heads. I don’t know whether to call them a flock or a herd. They inhabit one side of the gallery, like a mutant petting zoo.

Vanessa German understands the force of language. Spoken and written word has always been a critical part of her artistic life. In this exhibition the captions of each piece are prose poems that both describe the work’s physical properties (as is typical for exhibitions) but also describe the psychological state that underlies each piece. They are critical to the work, but far too long to be included in this essay. Please refer to the gallery’s website to read the texts. Or better yet, go see this important and deeply affecting show.

All photos courtesy of Melisa Stern.

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Motel in the Catskills

Posted on April 6, 2023 by melissa

Published August 17, 2022 in ArtSpiel

The rural Catskill mountain village of Fleischmanns an unlikely a place to find a world-class contemporary art installation.

In the nineteenth century, the village was a flourishing, prosperous Catskill vacation spot for the New York well-to-do, resplendent with Victorian mansions and lodging houses, attracting both Jewish and non-Jewish summer residents. By the mid-twentieth century, the town had languished, and many properties had fallen into disrepair. Over time, Fleischmanns became a summer retreat for a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community who juxtapose oddly with deer hunters, RV owners, motorcycle enthusiasts, and other locals. “Eclectic” is an understatement. If Fleischmanns were on a deli menu it would be an Everything Bagel.

To the delight of this visitor, the town is working very hard to revitalize itself. There are now two little cafes, and a wine bar is opening soon. And there is a stunning contemporary art gallery located in the old police Station. 1053 Main Street that has been open for just about a year, showing very exciting contemporary art.

The current exhibition MOTEL, by sculptor and puppeteer Dan Hurlin, is a full-gallery installation project with some ancillary objects. It is so magical and odd that before I look at it critically, I have to first attempt to describe it.

In the center of the gallery, set on an angle to the walls, is a large open boxlike object with viewing platforms along the two long sides of the rectangle. When you peer down into the open space you see that it’s a complete and exact ½ scale replica of a cheap generic hotel room- the sort once found all over America along highways and in small towns. And it’s perfect. Every single detail from the circa 1970’s TV set to the small roller bag set carefully on a luggage rack. And of course there is a Bible on the bed.

It’s a twin room. One of the beds is perfectly made up; the other has a rumpled bedspread as if someone had a tumultuous night on top of the bed. The ugly lamp is turned on. The first impulse is to admire the craftsmanship that is took to produce this small room. And then you start to notice the details…and the woman.

She sits in a well-worn upholstered armchair, gaze turned sideways and down. She is sad or pensive or both. She’s wearing a modest, blue dress and looks like perhaps a Mormon or Mennonite (my projection). Long silky brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail and her hands hang limply on the arms of the chair. She is one of the puppet figures that has made Dan Hurlin one of the most famous and accomplished of contemporary puppeteers.

But she is still. There is no movement in this performance but there is sound. And as you ponder the mystery of this woman– who is she, why is she here, why is there a crumpled letter on the dresser as well as a stamped and addressed envelope? Why is there an envelope of cash on the side table next to her–you begin to hear the soundtrack that plays out of a cheesy vintage radio by the bed.

The sound track is subtle and extraordinary. Crickets, dogs barking, trucks rumbling by. It all sounds as if it is happening at that moment. I kept glancing at the door of the gallery, looking for the dog. But it all serves as backdrop for the droning sound of Richard M. Nixon testifying in front of a Grand Jury about Watergate. The sound of his voice, from so long ago is a bit of a shock. It sets the tableaux in time and adds to the deepening mystery and allure of this artwork. It should be noted that Hurlin shares generous credit with the sound designer Dan Moses Schreier, as well as the extensive fabrication team.

The gallery sitter told me that the tapes of Nixon are alternated with those from the Jan. 6 2022 Congressional hearings. I can’t speak to how these would inevitably change the tone of the piece; I was there on a “Nixon” day.

The entire experience is mesmerizing and tantalizing. You are watching a scene from a film noir or a vintage mystery tale. All the elements of the story are laid out and it is up to you the viewer to create the narrative. There is something deeply moving about the experience of watching this woman from above as you listen to the soundtrack of her moment.

Hurlin is obviously aware of the magnetic, sometimes voyeuristic power of this installation. There is a large book on the gallery desk where people have written extensive, almost short story length comments about their interpretation of the work.

The exhibition includes several small gouache paintings of close-up details of a motel room as well as a perfect facsimile of a motel welcome folder including postcards and tiny pens. The paintings are quiet and appropriately contemplative of the generic details of motel rooms. But I found myself drawn back again and again to the mystery of Motel and wondering…what happens next.

All photos by the author.

1053 Main Street Gallery has an ambitious program of live events that accompany this exhibit, including an artist talk and showing of Puppet, a 2010 documentary about puppetry that highlights Hurlin’s groundbreaking work. Please check the gallery website for details

MOTEL – runs through September 18. Artist talk and film screening on August 27. For details here.

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My Upstate Art Weekend Adventure

Posted on March 2, 2023 by melissa

July 30, 2022 in ArtSpiel

Vanessa German,  Black on Black, 2021, Handmade folk art cloth Black woman pin cushion, glory, wood, love, astroturf, Black seed beads, confusion, Black rhinestone trim, Black bead trim, (they traded your grandmother for a handful of beads), vintage hand purse, rage, old doll parts, ptsd, the fallout from white supremacist delusion, cork, Black pigment, sorrow, vintage mirror, self loathing, cotton, a miracle, twine, tears, yarn, heartbreak, love. 26 x 18 x 9 1/2 in.

Last weekend was the third annual Upstate Art Weekend, a wildly ambitious and fun three-day art fair that winds its way from Westchester to Catskill NY. Founded by impresario Helen Toomer in 2020, Upstate Art Weekend celebrates and promotes visual arts throughout the Hudson Valley. One hundred and forty venues participated this year, and there was everything from art in a big-box truck in Kerhonkson to the gallery/studio campus of Foreland in Catskill.  The intense heat of last week made this year’s event a challenge, but totally worth the sweat. Here is a brief travelogue of my schlep around the Hudson Valley: 

I started in Beacon on Friday and caught the two-person show at Mother Gallery, entitled We Flew Over the Wild Winds of Wildfires. I am a fan of both Vanessa German and Zoe Buckman’s work individually, but for me the two artists work did not “sing” together. German’s pieces are so strong, as always, that I feel like she carries a room all by herself.

I hit Kingston on my way home and went to a number of small studio exhibitions. Lemon Sky Projects, Lite Brite Neon Studio, and Headstone Gallery  all hosted interesting group shows. The city was brutally hot and still there were a lot of people braving the heat to visit these small venues scattered across the city.

On Saturday I headed across the river to T’Space. Founded by architect Stephen Holl. It is an estate, dotted by buildings that house his architectural archives and an artist residency, and plays hosts to musical and poetry events. The gallery is a jewel that sits in a wooded area with lovely views that bring the outside in a most poetic way. This season’s featured artist is Arlene Shechet. The elegant gallery space holds two of her equally elegant large sculptures and two small wall pieces. Shechet’s sculptures are a perfect pairing with Holl’s spare architecture. They are evocative of both architecture and contemporary abstract forms. Each is imbued with deep and rich color. The cast iron piece is a luminous play of orange and shades of rust. The mixed material sculpture combines deep, woodsy blue greens and a flash of silver. It was a lovely pause from the heat of the day, and the work looks perfect in this space.

Mystery History, 2022, Dyed hardwood, steel, glazed ceramic, and silver leaf, 84” x 34’ x 24“

On to Kingston and the non-profit space called Artport Kingston. Located in a spectacular 19th century steamboat building, the space is simply breathtaking. A venue this big, with no space divisions, is very hard to curate. There are three current shows, and it’s a bit of a grab bag of small shows within the space. A little more signage would be helpful in an exhibition of this size and scope. But I look forward to seeing how this project develops over time. The potential for the space is very exciting.

Installation by Jeila Guermian

Installation view at Artport Kingston

At this point the temperature was 105 degrees (literally) and I needed to get out of Kingston. I headed west towards a new artist-in-residency program called Swimming Hole Foundation. Not locatable on a GPS and perched on a mountaintop, at the end of a very winding one-lane dirt road, this is one of the most breathtaking places I’ve been in a long time and quite a respite from the rest of the world.

Founder Deb Johnson has turned her property into a magnificent residency program that focuses on collaborative projects. Groups of up to 12 artists, from all disciplines are invited to spend a week working collaboratively on a single themed idea. The residency is in its first year and has visionary plans for the future. The nature of the final collaborative project—a sound and light collaboration filling a two-story space—made it difficult to photograph.

Parallel to the residents’ exhibition there was a solo presentation by Advisory Board member Matt Nolen, showcasing work in clay and watercolor that he completed during a recent residency in Sienna, Italy. The work looked enchanting, displayed on rough built wooden pedestals with the mountains in the background. The soft Italian palette that Nolen uses popped magnificently against the brilliant green of the countryside.

Sienna Albaello- fired terra cotta clay. 13”x 5 x 5. 2022

And that was it. I was dehydrated and ready to have a beer on my own porch and get ready for Sunday, the final day of Art Weekend.

On Sunday three friends and I decided to tackle the East side of the Hudson.

Starting in Germantown we started at Alexander Grey Associates which is featuring a tranquil show by Harmony Hammond. The show is very spare, perhaps a little too spare for my taste. But the gallery is beautiful, with a barrel vaulted brick ceiling and understated soft lighting.

Onward to Hudson, and a plethora of galleries to visit. As we trudged up Warren Street towards Susan Eley Fine Art my companions began to fade. Thankfully the gallery was crisply air-conditioned and we spent a delightful 45 minutes chatting with Susan. The current two person show Earthen Energies, Ancient Roots is an apt summer exhibition, full of light, flowers and insects. Jackie Shatz’s small ceramic wall figures are a delightful foil for Ashley Norwood Cooper’s paintings of people interacting with nature in humorous and slightly alarming ways.

Artist info. Unavailable

And then went out for ice cream. It seemed like the only answer to the day.

It was an exhausting, exhilarating, art-filled weekend, an inspiring celebration of the growing art scene in the Hudson Valley. Some very good shows, some meh shows, some wholly new discoveries. In all a great adventure, one that I highly recommend you take next year.

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Hew Locke: The Procession at the Tate Britain

Posted on December 7, 2022 by melissa

Published on July 28, 2022 in Art Spiel Each year The Tate Britain commissions a large-scale art installation for the iconic Duveen Galleries at the museum. This is a vast space, an art-filled hall, more than a typical gallery that winds its way down the center of the museum on the first floor. This year they tapped the Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke whose visual musings on migration, history, national identity and ritual are well known in the British art world. Locke has long worked these themes, but never on such a scale. It is a wildly ambitious vision that embraces his interests and presents a fully developed Universe.

Locke has created a massive procession of about 150 life-sized figures fabricated from a wide array of materials. As they march through the soaring white marble space we are drawn into the history of the British sugar trade; Henry Tate, the founding benefactor of the museum made his fortune in the Caribbean sugar trade, a lucrative but abusive business built on the back of slave-labor. The installation references Carnival, British military parades, Caribbean death rituals, weddings, the BLM movement, farming, flood- in its dizzying yet always coherent parade of imagery and objects.

There are figures on horses, bands playing musical instruments being carried on palanquins. As we walk around the procession we see flags both real and imaginary. Sugar plantation certificates printed on fluttery silk. Men, women and children all moving in silence. It is a procession that is full of both sorrow and joy. Many of the figures are masked… or perhaps these are their true faces that we are seeing, without their “social masks.” All are wearing elaborate costumes that reference historical and social events and that carry baggage, both real and conceptual.

It is an extraordinary project. I have never seen anything quite like it. A part of me longed for music or sound to accompany the procession. It seems to beg for that. But after spending over an hour circling the work repeatedly, I began to understand the beauty of its silence. One could extrapolate a metaphor from this- of a people being silenced. That is perhaps too pat an explanation and Locke too nuanced an artist to provide such an obvious answer. I began to appreciate the music that viewers can bring to the project via their imaginations. I heard British marching songs interspersed with the sounds of the Caribbean. And I heard the silent weight of history marching resolutely forward, acknowledging its past and seeking to transcend it.

 

Hew Locke: The Procession Runs through Jan. 23, 2023 at The Tate Britain. Millbank, London SW1P 4RG.

 

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KATHY BUTTERLY AT JAMES COHAN GALLERY – COLOR IN FORMING

Posted on September 12, 2022 by melissa

Posted on March 22, 2022 in Art Spiel

Dances With Color and Form

Installation view

Staring at Kathy Butterly’s ceramic sculptures, I am overwhelmed by an urge to reach out and touch them. The marriage of color and form is perfectly wrought, shapes and colors inextricable yet sharply distinct. I want to trace my finger along that delicate whisper thin band of orange in Between Things, and feel the little bumps along the rim of Luminious Flow. I want to feel the change between matte and gloss surfaces and the weight of the sculpture in my hand.

Butterfly starts from a classical, deceptively simple premise: a formal vase sitting on a base. She has coupled this form with concepts of modernist painting; in the ways she uses color and composition in the glazing process.  Starting with a very simple slip cast ceramic form, Butterly alters each one, boldly folding it in onto itself and poking through the skin of the clay. The forms are augmented with delicate ropes of porcelain or carefully carved beads, both of which remind me of sewing notions- ribbons, piping, and trim. They drape elegantly around, over and through the forms, adding a lyrical note to each sculpture. Though diminutive in size (6-12 inches tall), these sculptures pack a wallop.

Luminous Flow, 2021, Porcelain, earthenware, glaze, 6 3/8 x 7 1/8 x 6 1/4 in.

And then there is the color. Much has been said about Butterly’s masterful use of color and in particular that she uses glaze to create surfaces more commonly associated with painting and drawing.  It is important to note that glaze, a form of colored glass, literally moves on the surface of an object while it’s undergoing the firing and cooling process. There is always a degree of unpredictability in the medium and as glorious as the results can be, there is always the possibility of heartbreak, as colors may drip or melt in an undesired way. Butterly, as both a master of the medium and as a flexible artist, works with the uncertainties and surprises of the firing process. She fires her sculptures up to 40 times in the kiln and is thus able to layer color and texture in completely new ways. I would bet  that she also works with the occasionally errant firing result and uses it moving forward in the sculptures. The pools of glass and swirls of color are adeptly offset by precise painted lines and carefully crafted ornamental elements. Between the hard gloss of the glaze and the softness of the clay forms, the sculptures feel simultaneously hard and soft.

Subtle Slide, 2021, Porcelain, earthenware, glaze, 7 7/8 x 6 x 5 1/2 in.

Between Things, 2022, Porcelain, earthenware, and glaze, 8 3/8 x 4 3/4 x 9 1/8 in.

This, 2022, Porcelain, earthenware, and glaze, 8 x 6 x 6 3/4 in.

Butterly has always used color in beautiful and startling ways. The color palette throughout this body of work suggests a strong mid-century modern influence. Odd oranges play off of slightly sour greens, with a hit of yellow running though. There is a shade of pink that often appears that reminds me of my mother’s Russell Wright dishes. However, within these color choices, there is never even the faintest hint of nostalgia; rather it feels that she is referencing these colors of another era and through eccentric mixing and combinations, making them her own.

Color in Forming is a show that deserves more than one visit.  We are drawn into the dramas that happen in each sculpture. They are alternately funny, alarming, serious and joyful. Each telling a tale that winds around, in and out, up and over the small sculptures, and stays with you after you’ve left their presence.

All photos courtesy of Melissa Stern

Kathy Butterly: Color In Forming Gallery Exhibition at 48 Walker St | 24 February – 26 March 2022

 

 

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Report from Kinderhook: Feedback at Jack Shainman Gallery/The School

Posted on June 22, 2022 by melissa

Oct. 21, 2021 ( yeah I know, I’m posting a wee bit late!) in Artcritical

Installation shot of the exhibition under review, with Karon Davis’s Double Dutch Girls (2021) in the foreground. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

Jack Shainman opened The School in Kinderhook, NY as a satellite space to his New York City galleries in 2014. A 30,000 square foot former schoolhouse built in 1929, it was renovated by architect Antonio Torrecillas. Some elements have been left intact: girls and boys bathrooms, fixtures removed, are still painted in the pink and blue of the era, the decaying plaster walls sealed permanently in their beautiful, melancholy state, in sharp contrast to the “white box” galleries elsewhere . It is worth the 2-1/2  hour drive from the city just to see the building.

This summer, the Schoolhouse presented a 22-artist group exhibition, “Feedback,”curated by Helen Molesworth “Feedback is filled with art works by artists who I’ve been following for a while,” the curator has written. “In other words, artists I ‘like’ and who I have asked to gather together today to form an assembly, a class, a chorus.”

According to Molesworth, the idea for the exhibition was triggered by first experiencing the audio piece by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller that now greets visitors upon entering The School. When a visitor steps on the “wah wah” pedal, the amplifier placed behind it begins to play a Jimi Hendrix-inspired version of the Star Spangled Banner that is amplified to the point of aural pain. When I visited there was a guard stationed nearby to turn it off immediately, so unbearable is the noise: An inauspicious introduction to an exhibition that is in many ways a gentle exploration of contemporary visions. Among its other meanings,  “feedback” is a term for the sound generated by this pedal.

Mixing and matching in each room, Molesworth has installed works to create small universes where the artworks are orbiting each other in meaningful ways and in turn responding to the architectural implications of each space.

Kerry James Marshall, Ecce Homo, 2008-14.  Acrylic on PVC panel, 9 x 24 inches. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

One of the most successful in what the checklist calls the “southeast unfinished classroom,” an eerie space with peeling and pockmarked blue paint on the old plaster walls. Molesworth has assembled the works into a tableau of relationships that carry the echoes of an old schoolroom.  Taylor Davis has a trio of three watercolors that riff on the American flag (ever present in American classrooms of the past), their stars and stripes morphed into calligraphic poems that float across the page. The room is bookended by two powerful paintings: “Ecco Homo by Kerry James Marshall and The Treasures by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Each portrays a young Black man, perhaps teenaged, in very different states of mind, looking at each other from across the room. Both send mixed messages of slavery and freedom.

Marshall’s painting, with his typical attention to crisp detail, presents a young man adorned with a massive gold chain encircling his neck which can be read as a golden yoke. He meets the viewer’s eye with what can be taken, equally, as pride and a plea for rescue.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, The Treasures, 2012. Oil on canvas, 9-1/2 x 51-1/8 inches. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

Rose Simpson- Storyteller. Ceramic, steel

But it’s the two freestanding sculptures that, for me, tie the theme of the room together. Rose B. Simpson, whose masterful ceramic and mixed media figures populate several rooms in the exhibition, has a piece here entitled Storyteller. A medium-sized figure, glazed in matte yellow ochre and painted with dark simplified symbols, sits on the floor. Out of their mouth erupts a steel framework upon which are perched small terra cotta figures. Huddled together they reach, cuddle, whisper and climb on one another. The work is at once evocative of pre-Columbian and Southwest American pottery forms and totally contemporary. The sculpture personifies the passing of knowledge, albeit in a different kind of classroom.

Karon Davis- Game:9:43 am ( Frankie) . Plaster, found objects. Lifesize

Karon Davis’s Game: 943am (Frankie)  is provocative and open-ended like other works in this room, disturbing but alternatively perhaps amusing. An elementary age schoolgirl, fabricated out of stark white plaster, sits under a vintage school desk looking upward with human eyes. An open schoolbook lies on the desk above her, as if abandoned hastily. Evocative of so many things at once. There used to be “fallout drills” in U.S. schools; upon the sound of an alarm we would all scuttle under our desks for protection from the possible atomic bomb that was about to land on us. Hardly reassuring, but a potent image of the era. Is our young girl participating in a drill or is she hiding from an unseen threat? Or is it a game of hide and seek?

Feedback is an ambitious exhibition whose success lies in imagining the school space as a totality. The exhibition is especially resonant as American’s rethink their relationship to public spaces and the nature of childhood and schooling. Feedback is an endearing and affecting artistic take on the late-summer theme of “Back to School.”

Feedback at Jack Shainman/The School runs through October 30, 2021,  25 Broad Street, Kinderhook, NY 12106. jackshainman.com

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