Dina Park…..

Posted on March 5, 2014 by melissa

The first day in Israel was a total blur. Arrival, customs, bags, pick up at airport, go to see new apt, go to the art center, my wonderful friends mark and Yael showed up to whisk me away to lunch in Jaffa, the hippest place, ever and then to Ra’nana to my cousins house, where I was to stay for my first week. That was day one. Day two began with a huge family lunch and then off with Mark and Yael to Dina Park a fabulous and totally off the beaten track park near Hertzelia. In the center is a heavily fenced off ruined building complex. It was the site of a munitions factory that blew up sometime in the 1970’s. The gov’t decreed that the land was too polluted to ever build on and this huge wild and natural sculpture park created itself. There are only a few roads and many of them are sand traps ( the park drops off into the ocean and the cliffs are truly perilous). No maps, no visitors center. it feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere, and in a sense you are- I just goggled Dina Park and virtually nothing comes up, which is actually kind of cool. It doesn’t even exist on goggle. It’s  just big open rolling fields dotted with sculptures. Wild and beautiful.  Deer and fox, gorgeous birds.  And then there is the ocean- pounding against the cliffs. There are some serious looking shipwrecks and signs everywhere about how dangerous the cliffs, the surf and the beach are… so of course we hiked down. This fella had been spearfishing in the dangerous surf. Check it out- what you can’t see is that the fish were almost four feet long. This guys looked exhausted, and he promptly celebrated by having a cigarette, they smoke alot, alot alot in Israel, but more on that laterspearfisherman

What you really want to see is pictures of the sculpture, so here ya go-

Beautiful, poetic little girl dresses, hung like rescue flags-

dina park dresses

Various sculptures out of wood, metal. Most of them are HUGE, thus a little hard to capture in one shot…..sculpture park-treedina park wood towerCrazy great sculpture made out of vintage children’s chairs-

dina park chairs

Elegant- fence made out of stones and wood-

dina park stones and wood

then this crazy guy ran past us and jumped off the cliff ( literally)…

parasailing....

And I’ll end with some incredibly trippy food in the marketplace.

candyfood market

It’s a beautiful and complicated country . Everyone is incredibly kind and welcoming….. Everyone tries to feed me, give me tea. And everyone has a brother, sister cousin in NYC!!!!

More fun to come!

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Hitting History Hard

Posted on February 19, 2014 by melissa

by MELISSA  Feb 18, 2014 •
Frohawk Two Feathers brings revolution to art and politics

Horace and Isabel (2014)

Horace and Isabel (2014)

Frohawk Two Feathers is re-writing American history.  In his current exhibition at Morgan Lehman Gallery, “Heartbreaking and Shit, But That’s the Globe. The Battle of Manhattan,” he has re-imagined the conquest of North America from a very different point of view than what you were taught in grade school.

Exquisite drawings done in the style of 18th formal portraiture depict a radically new narrative of American history. In Frohawk’s America the European colonialists, residents of “Frengland” (an alliance of the historically opposed colonial empires of France and England) have gone to war with “New Holland.” Both sides have formed constantly shifting allegiances with local Native tribes. Rather than the expected portraits of White Colonialists the works in this show portray various characters of the Native army. Both men and women are posed in a formal, somewhat stiff manner, yet the drawings pulse with life and excitement.

An elaborate narrative accompanies each drawing, a back-story of each character and the role they play in this grand parade of faux history. The show works on two levels. If one wanted, you could simply walk through the gallery looking at the drawings (and several faked “artifacts”) and enjoy them for their virtuosity. The artwork stands well on its own.  On the other hand, with a little time and your reading glasses you can dive into the strange and elaborate narrative that threads all of the work together. It is a totally engrossing, logically consistent story about empire building, conquest and the ways in which we create mythology from history.

Now here’s the kicker: the drawings, as mentioned, are based on formal portraiture. They are beautifully painted in acrylic and ink on coffee and tea stained paper, which gives the works a faux ancient look. But as you draw closer you notice that the Native Americans portrayed, though in period costume bear all the markings of contemporary urban life. Tattoos, on their faces, necks and hands- some reminiscent of gang tags, some filled with longing for a loved one. This device fast-forwards the work immediately into the present–right now–and adds yet another level of complexity to the narrative.

This exhibition is both subtle and brilliant. Think about the macro-story in simple terms. Frohawk creates a giant tale where the White colonialists are dependent on the Brown Natives, an underground army, if you will, of street-wise mercenaries whom the Whites depend desperately in their battle for Empire and dominance. These portraits then both celebrate the bravery, treachery and lives of a revolutionary army and remind us that there is a completely contemporary parallel to this grand narrative. We live in a society that is both fearful and celebratory of what is called “urban culture.” The tip-off is a drawing entitled “Paid advertisement for the Bartica Liberation Brigade.” It depicts a handsome couple, a man and a woman snuggled together, he, proudly holding a pistol in the air. Reminiscent of a Black Panther poster from the 1960’s or a defiant piece of street art, daring the authorities to act. Either way, it boldly promotes the possibility of revolution in a Colonial society. Frohawk hits it hard and once you’ve gotten this message then the entire body of work morphs yet again into a new narrative. A narrative that questions all of our notions about race and power and history in America, this is an exhibition that delivers on its promises–and then some.

Frohawk Two Feathers’ “Heartbreaking and Shit, But That’s the Globe. The Battle of Manhattan” through March 1 at Morgan Lehman Gallery 535 West 22nd St. 212- 268-6699 http://www.morganlehmangallery.com/

Tags: Frohawktwo Feathers, Melissa Stern, Morgan Lehman Gallery

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Working Class Art Hero

Posted on January 13, 2014 by melissa

The New York Press- Jan. 13, 2014

Spiegelman’s comix and more in Jewish Museum exhibition

museum-Spiegelman-comix-gallery
Much has been written about Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel that recounts the harrowing tale of Spiegelman’s parents’ experience and survival in Auschwitz. Much has been written about Spiegelman, the New Yorker magazine artist who produced challenging covers that addressed real New York issues. The Feb 15, 1993 cover of a Hassidic man and Caribbean woman, lips locked in a passionate embrace, for example.

Far less has been written about Art Spielgeman, journeyman, working artist working class hero, a career on view in “Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective” at the Jewish Museum. It is this aspect of Speigleman’s career that captured my attention amidst the huge retrospective currently on view at The Jewish Museum.

Spiegelman earned his first paycheck for drawing when he was fifteen. While still a student at The High School of Art and Design, he began to make money for his drawings and from then on has seemingly never stopped working. Imagine my delight to discover that it was Art Spiegelman who drew the absolutely wonderful and inappropriate “Garbage Pail Kids” stickers of my youth. Produced by Topps gum and Card Company they were guaranteed to piss off adults and delight pre-teens with their outlandish humor and gross-out sensibility. For Spiegelman it was both a paying gig and a chance to stretch his drawing chops and explore the world of satire.

Spiegelman drew for advertising, he drew for comic book companies, he drew for magazines–he always worked. Combining a dark and transgressive view of the world with an immigrant’s drive to work, earn money and make it in America, he plugged away at commercial jobs that paid the rent. At the same time he infiltrated the world of the underground comic strip sharpening his wit and drawing skills on such classics as “Ace Hole, Midget Detective” and “Breakdowns.”

It is in the preparatory drawings for both his advertising and comic strip art that we really see the artistry of one who draws constantly. These drawings are stunning. Vigorous strong lines breathe an incredible sense of life into whatever it is he is drawing – be it a first sketch for the Maus graphic novel or the cover of “Breakdowns”. Having the opportunity to see erasures, messy lines, the stops and starts of the pen is the revelation and gift of this exhibition.

Whether you like comics, graphic novels or commercial art is not the reason to see this show. The reason to visit “Art Spiegelman’ s Co-Mix: A Retrospective” is to witness the triumph a man who never stops drawing the world, both around and within himself.

12 Study for Maus II

Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective at The Jewish Museum thru March 23, 2014. http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/Visit for more information

Tags: Art Spiegelman, Melissa Stern, The Jewish Museum

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Re-launching the Ready-mades

Posted on January 2, 2014 by melissa

by Melissa Stern on Nov 27, 2013 •

L’Objet Trouve in Chelsea Alexis Smith- Femme Fatale 2009

2013 marks the 100th anniversary of the debut of Marcel Duchamp’s art-world shaking piece Bicycle Wheel. By mounting a bicycle wheel on an old wooden stool and declaring it “art,” Duchamp effectively set the 20th Century art world in motion.  To celebrate the act that launched a million artists, Pavel Zoubok Gallery has mounted an ambitious and satisfying exhibition entitled “L’Objet Trouve’: Readymade, Rectified & Reassembled”. Assembling an impressive blue-chip roster of artists, the show examines, in an idiosyncratic way, the use of found objects in artworks throughout the past 100 years. Certainly a big topic for one show to get its arms around, and Zoubok has done it with grace and intelligence.

Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Richard Pettibone, Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Mitchell, Sherrie Levine, to name a few, have contributed meaningful works to this show. The exhibition provokes numerous questions about the appropriation and re-use of found objects. Andras Borocz uses materials in a way that completely transcends their original purpose, laminating pencils into a large block and then carving them into a sinuous pair of legs. At the same time Ray Johnson, with his sly piece entitled Barnet Newman Belt Club (which consists solely of a belt hanging on the wall) is working within the original Duchampean definition of the readymade: If I say it is art, then it is art. This thoughtfully crafted show embraces both approaches to materials.

My favorite piece in the show is by an artist with whom I was not familiar- Rich Remsberg’s found-object, Solar System. Starting in an upper corner of the gallery and traversing in a gentle downward diagonal, we see the Sun; a record from Sun Records in Memphis, Mercury, a 1950’s machine handle, a Venus brand toilet tank ball can, an Earth tin of bicycle patches, a Mars lock, a Saturn radio, Jupiter brand rope reel, a Neptune meter cover, a Uranus watch and finally an empty bottle of Pluto soda. The sum is greater than its parts and this particular model of the solar system is funnier and more poetic than anything you made in elementary school. The objects are what they are, and at the same time by repurposing and ordering them in this way, they become so much more.

In addition to the thoughtful selection of the work, the installation of this exhibition is exemplary. This is the second exhibition that I have seen at this gallery in which the design of the exhibition itself becomes an integral and important part of the show. The way that Zoubok has installed the art, using color and shape to define the way the eye moves through the exhibition works to illuminate the connections between art and artists. Zoubok’s choices reinforce in a direct way the underlying logic that organizes this show.

This rare exhibition is an opportunity to see over 30 artists working with and around found objects, either transforming them physically or by declaration into something new.

“L’Objet Trouve’: Readymade, Rectified & Reassembled” thru Dec. 21. At Pavel Zoubok Gallery,  531 West 26th Street, 2nd floor http://www.pavelzoubok.com/  

***

On a swing uptown I went to the Art Spiegelman retrospective at The Jewish Museum.  I have no patience to shuffle along with a crowd and read graphic novels on the walls of a museum, so I focused on the preparatory drawings that Spiegelman makes before the work is codified into a comic strip or novel. Stunning, vigorous and full of life these studies are the jewels of this show.  Spiegelman is best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel; Maus, New Yorker magazine covers and subversive comic strips, and these are wonderful.  But for me, the revelatory part of the exhibition is the opportunity to see Spiegelman’s work when he is simply drawing – the flourish of the pencil, messy erasures, the marks of an artist working ideas out on paper, this is what makes this exhibition soar.

Art Speigelman- Breakdowns

“Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective” at The Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street thru March 23, 2014 

 

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Joy in Darkness

Posted on November 20, 2013 by melissa

Nov 14, 2013

The dark brooding men that are hanging on the walls at Steve Harvey Fine Art Projects these days are a powerful presence in a tiny gallery. The exhibition ”Lester Johnson: Dark Paintings” consists of six paintings and two drawings. Small in number, they inhabit the gallery with a strength that is ready to burst the walls.

These paintings, executed in the early 1960’s, are masterpieces of Johnson’s oeuvre. The marriage here between Johnson’s use of the materials and the subject matter shows the artist at his best.  Thick layers of impasto oil paint are delicately, but urgently, scratched through to reveal the somber portrait of a man (Dark Portrait 1965). Bits and pieces of architecture behind him, he stares impassively at the world.  As you move around the painting, light catching on the impasto reveals new nuance and depth within the painting’s surface.

In contrast, the works Three Transparent Heads, Untitled #7 and Untitled, Head 1961 work with thinner layers of oil paint, veils revealing and hiding the figures inside.  The luscious drips and strong gestural sweep of the paint elegantly connects this work to that of Johnson’s contemporaries working within the Abstract Expressionist movement. The play between matte and shiny surfaces creates a dimensionality that is both beautiful and emotionally raw. Most of the works in the show are black, blue and dark green, a disciplined and restrained palette that adds to the sense of monumentality and strength that these pieces convey. Beyond the literal subject matter, these paintings reveal a deeply felt love for the act of painting–an eloquent love letter to painting. There is joy within the “darkness.”

During the time that these paintings were made Johnson inhabited a studio directly across the street from The Bowery Mission, a long time refuge for homeless men. To this day, in the increasingly gentrified LES, one can see long lines of somber men lining up for a hot meal or a place to sleep. Clearly this daily ritual outside his studio window influenced the subject matter of the Dark Paintings. But to me they also refer back to an earlier 20th century vision- that of bread lines during the Depression of the 1930’s. Johnson, old enough to have seen and absorbed this history into his memories appears to have connected the turbulent 1960’s with the equally turbulent 1930’s. Either way he created a striking body of paintings that refer simultaneously to both subject and process, and in so doing, stir the soul.

Lester Johnson- Three Men in Hats

Lester Johnson- Three Men in Hats

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Media Men- Munch and Warhol together at Scandinavia House

Posted on August 6, 2013 by melissa

Published in CityArts Aug 6, 2013

At first glance the pairing of Andy Warhol and Edvard Munch seems an unlikely coupling. However, as expertly explained by the curators at Scandinavia House, these two artists shared a startling number of common interests. The exhibition, “Munch and Warhol, and Multiple Image” is an important one in the scholarship of both artists. A lavish catalogue and a full schedule of public programming throughout the month of July accompany the show.

The exhibition is centered around a commissioned but never released suite of 32 large Warhol silk screened prints entitled After Munch. Completing the work between 1982-84  Warhol, eventually bought back  the rights to the work and it disappeared into the vast Warhol universe. The curators have mounted an elegant installation that begins with the original Munch prints on which Warhol based his suite, setting the stage for this fascinating journey into the nature of portraiture, reproduction, and the art marketplace.

Self Portrait with Skeleton Arm

Self Portrait with Skeleton Arm

 By all accounts Edvard Munch was an extremely savvy businessman. He developed a market for his prints, knowing that it is easier to sell an editioned print than a one-of-a-kind painting. He was also known to alter the prints, releasing different versions to satisfy the tastes of collectors. For example his controversial print Madonna is shown here in several states, some including a small fetus in the lower left corner, some without, some versions have a bit more of the “sperm” decorative motif than others. This allowed Munch to reach a wider group of collectors than he might have with a single version of the image.

Mr. Warhol was also a savvy businessman particularly in his use of graphic media. Warhol created a massive business in the print market, portraying his collectors and media stars in flattering modes, often customizing the color to meet his client’s wishes.


Unknown

Both artists were fascinated with mortality and the loss of beauty, and one can clearly see Warhol’s kinship with Munch in his appropriation and reinterpretation of the four iconic Munch images in this show. Madonna, The Scream, Self-Portrait, The Brooch, and Eva Mudocci change radically in scale and color when placed in Warhol’s hands. But their underlying sense of desperation and loss are unchanged, if anything heightened by Warhol’s application of hysterical color onto Munch’s imagery.

The most successful and moving of this series is Warhol’s cobbling together of Self-Portrait and Madonna. There are six giant versions of this couple in the middle room, and they are simply stunning. For all of the hype about Warhol’s coolness towards his work and subject matter, we see here an example of real passion. Madonna and Self-Portrait are joined together into a single image that portrays true horror and beauty. The range of color changes in each one highlights differing parts of this shock show- a hit of neon blue in one, sickly green in another.

Madonna and Self Portrait

Madonna and Self Portrait

 This show is one of the most thoughtful and provocative- in the best sense of the word-that I have seen in a very long time. Try not to miss it.

 Munch/Warhol and Multiple Image- through July 27. Scandinavia House 58 Park Ave. @38th Street. Check web site for hours- http://www.scandinaviahouse.org/

 

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The Haunting and Lovely World of Benjamin Jones

Posted on June 29, 2013 by melissa

Posted on July 15, 2012

BENJAMIN JONES IS an artist who lives and works within a Universe of his own making. His work functions within the perfectly rational rules that he has created. Jones makes exquisite drawings that are both physically small and psychologically huge. Deceptively simple in line and color, they reveal themselves to be deeply complex and personal views of the world he sees. Because Jones is a man of few words, we must rely upon the lovely and apt description of his work by his long-time Atlanta dealer, Barbara Archer:

“Benjamin Jones creates haunting images that reveal a distinct visual language. Subjects include current events and icons of popular culture; however, his most consistent subject is himself. Inhabiting an intriguingly indefinable space, each of these poignant self-portraits reveals the artist’s innermost feelings and insecurities. Mixing whimsy with horror, humor with malevolence, Jones’ forms become vehicles for messages about the struggle of life and all its paradoxes. These seductive and intimate drawings, paradoxical in themselves, create a tension between the purity of their intuition and the refinement of their presentation. ”

Haunting and distinct, indeed.  And I would add, magical. Take a look for yourself.

Juggling Lives

Benjamin Jones is said to live a very solitary life.  A deep reader of the news, he sometimes wakes up at 5 am to begin his daily journey through three newspapers a day. Often his work reflects something going on in the larger world, as in these drawings entitled “Hurricane Katrina” and “Barely Surviving”

Hurricane Katrina, 2005 graphite and colored pencil on paper 12″ x 9

 

Barely Surviving, 2005 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ graphite, colored pencil on paper

Always there is a deeply personal view of the world, often comic and occasionally sad:
Broken Pride (USA) , graphite and colored pencil.Every time I look at these drawings I am struck by the utter beauty of Benjamin Jones’ drawing. Lines that are subtle and strong create figures that mesmerize. The occasional hits of hot color and minimalist composition propel these drawings out of the realm of “outsider” art and plant them quite firmly in a contemporary art  context.

Overpopulated Planet- graphite and colored pencil

 

Venus de Milo, 2003 13 1/2″ x 11″ graphite, colored pencil on paper

In Jones’ own words- “Putting pencil to paper without hesitation, without planning, my drawing emerges.  For me, the artistic process is one of discovery.” And we are indeed lucky that he chooses to share his explorations and discoveries with us.

For more information and images of Benjamin Jones’ work take a look at the Barbara Archer Gallery web site-  http://www.barbaraarcher.com/

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Art of the Mind

Posted on June 29, 2013 by melissa

Jun 25, 2013
[UN]SEEN finds art in Hell’s Kitchen
As the steamroller of development moves, seemingly unstoppable, through Manhattan, we see the loss of many things that lured us to the city in the first place. Amongst the first to fall have been music, performance and art spaces that once nurtured the young, the experimental and the under-represented in the arts. Imagine then, my delight at finding the Fountain Gallery, an unlikely gallery in a very unlikely location. Located on the corner of 48th and Ninth, nestled in the middle of a busy retail and restaurant neighborhood, the Fountain Gallery is an outpost of interesting and edgy art.

Above: Russo’s Sunspot Meditation Field

Founded in 2000, Fountain Gallery is a non-profit venue that showcases and represents the work of artists living with mental illness.  Working with both in-house and guest curators, Fountain Gallery seeks to present work that is truly outside the usual.

For the current exhibition  “[Un]Seen,” guest curator Elyse Goldberg has gathered a diverse mix of artists, both historic and contemporary. The theme of the exhibition, in Goldberg’s words, “In commonality, these artists share a curiosity with the unseen – creating works that raise questions about thought, vision, social and personal politics, and metaphysical states of mind or spectacle as they relate to the human condition.”  A bit of a broad definition, after all, isn’t this what most artists strive to do? Nonetheless, the show presents an interestingly curated point of view. A strength of the exhibition is that there is no mention of who is or is not creating through the challenge of mental illness. All the works are presented without commentary of any kind.  Upon researching, however, one finds that only five of the 25 makers in the show are resident artists from Fountain Gallery, the balance being artists living and working in the mainstream. I think that the curatorial premise of the show might have been better served by a more even balancing of the numbers, still the strengths of the selection shine through.

Ann Fischman’s piece, Black Stockings is a beautifully composed collage and painted panel. One seemingly disjointed bit of female imagery flowing seamlessly into another is a pointed meditation on the nature of “female.”

Pedro Pascoinho’s painting on paper presents a rear view of a man, wearing slightly mysterious retro goggles drawing a straight line across a field of black. Suggesting engineering, mathematics, and exactitude one is then left with the mystery of what he actually sees through his heavy head covering gear.

This is a provocative and intelligent show, worth seeing for its unique and compelling curatorial concept. But even more important, go visit the Fountain Gallery and support this independent and innovative venue.

“[Un]Seen” through July 10 at Fountain Gallery, 702 Ninth Avenue @ 48th St. http://www.fountaingallerynyc.com/index.cfm  212.262.2756

Above: Russo’s Sunspot Meditation Field

Tags: Ann Fischman, Elyse Goldberg, Fountain Gallery, Melissa Stern, Pedro Pascoinho

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Kitaj Under Cover

Posted on June 29, 2013 by melissa

May 15, 2013

New exhibit judges an artist by his books

When I visit someone’s home I am drawn inevitably towards their bookshelf. You can always learn something about a person by the books they read. The idea of creating a portrait through books, or to be precise, through the covers of books that someone has read is the central conceit behind the seminal project by R.B. Kitaj entitled, “In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part.” It is a portfolio of 50 screen-prints produced in 1969, 33 of which are currently on display in “R.B. Kitaj: Personl Library”at The Jewish Museum.

Kitaj-Composite-lg6998-1-1
Kitaj was an artist full of big ideas. He was an early British pop artist, working at the same time as David Hockney and Richard Hamilton. While Kitaj was primarily a figurative artist this specific project would later be seen as a sort of bridge from the 60’s into the era of 70’s conceptual art. While often sensual and emotional, Kitaj’s work was always overflowing with intellectual questions and riddles. The notion that a person is the sum total of the books they’ve read, the information they’ve taken in, and by extension the choices they’ve made, turns this set of prints into an artistic mystery game.

What are we to make of the man who has chosen to read both The City of Burbank Annual Report for 1968/9 and the collected Articles and Pamphlets of Maxim Gorky, Coming of Age in Samoa and a textbook entitled The Wording of Police Charges? Hints are dropped  by the inclusion of The Jewish  Question and W.B. Yeats’ The Tower. As you walk through the show each book adds another set of clues about the nature of the man portrayed. It is a fascinating and totally successful game; except for the fact that the curators have chosen only 33 of the 50 available images. One wonders why and how the choices were made of what to show and what to omit Pieces of the portrait are missing.

The project consists of large screen-prints based on photographically enlarged images of the book covers, bindings and dust jackets. Viewing the worn and torn edges of these mostly pre-World War Two editions, we see the history of Kitaj’s relationship with these books and the beauty that age and handling has added to their already luscious old-world book design. The enlarged discolorations, delicate scuff marks, and deep elegant colors force you to focus on how beautiful books used to be. By enlarging the scale of the book covers Kitaj has re-contextualized them as objects that carry the full weight of their original intent along with the bemused hipster coolness of Pop art. The mundane becomes precious.

The one jarring note to what is a strangely moving and beautiful show is a lackluster installation. The prints are hung on a dingy pale blue wall that feels institutional, making the room seem dull. One thing we know is that the man portrayed by “In Our Time” was anything but dull.

“R.B. Kitaj: Personal Library” runs through August 11 at The Jewish Museum. 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St.

Tags: David Hockney, Melissa Stern, R.B.Kitaj, Richard Hamilton, W.B. Yeats

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Ride On Time- A meditation on the nature of time and history at Grand Central Station

Posted on April 29, 2013 by melissa

published in CityArts/The New York Press April 29, 2013

What do you think passes through someone’s mind as they dash though Grand Central Station? I would wager that the most common thought is something along the lines of  “What time does my train leave?” or “Will I be on time?” Time is the driving force behind any working train station. And “time” is a precious commodity in New York City, where we move fast and the past is quickly overtaken by the present. How apt it is that curator Amy Hausman has titled her lyrical and compelling exhibition “On Time /Grand Central at 100,” tying the underlying constructs of speed and travel with the centennial celebration of Grand Central Station. This group exhibition is organized by the group  MTA Arts For Transit, in conjunction with the New York Transit Museum at the New York Transit Museum branch in the station.

Showing mixed-media work of 17 artists and one poet, this is an exquisitely curated show. Approximately half of the pieces were commissioned for the exhibition, including a poem by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Time is not a new concept for artists to explore, but in this show time is related to the great building that has both withstood the wrecking ball of NYC “progress” and every day serves as a conduit for living. Grand Central Station has become an iconic and romantic symbol of the past, an architectural ode to New York as it once was. It is also a very busy and entirely contemporary train station. This elegant and emotional exhibition captures the complexities and beauty of these two facts.

GrandCentral_Sophie-Blackall-Missed-Connections
It is fitting that video plays a large role in this show. Improv Everywhere has two videos on view. One documents their infamous performance piece where 200 people “froze” motionless in the Grand Hall of the station for five minutes, and captures the reactions of commuters and tourists. The second documents a commissioned “prank” staged on Feb 1, 2013 to commemorate the anniversary of the station. It involves blinking lights, camera flashes and the delighted responses of hundreds of people who just happened to be passing though the station at that magic moment. The unfettered joy of being in the right place at the right time. Both pieces portray GCS as a giant and benevolent performance space.

Jim Campbell and Ian Dicke use the tools available in digital filming to capture and play with the image of masses of people who pass through the station each day, slowing and quickening their movements to create visual poetry.

Mid-century photographer Paul Himmel contributes what are to me the most poetic and thoughtful comments in the show with two vintage black and white photos that capture a moment of stillness amidst the mad dash of humanity.

Illustrators Sophie Blackall and Peter Sis’s work will be instantly recognizable to any subway rider. They focus their gentle view of the world on the architecture of the station itself. Sis portrays Jacqueline Onassis as literally the guardian angel of Grand Central Station, and Blackall shows our ongoing fascination with the mythological world portrayed on the station ceiling.

The punch line is that this is an exhibition that asks us to stop and look around as we run frantically through Grand Central Station. Maybe even take a later train.

“OnTime/Grand Central at 100” runs through July 7, 2013. New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex in Grand Central Terminal. www.mta.info/art

Tags: Amy Hausman, Ian Dicke, Jim Campbell, Melissa Stern, Paul Himmel, Peter Sis, Sophie Blackall

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