April 2006 Archive

International drawing opportunity

Here’s an intriguing email from artblog pal, Astrid Bowlby: If you like drawing, and accumulated mayhem, you might want to be a part of this project proposed by the artist Giacomo Picca. Check it out and pass it on. take care, Astrid Drawing by Yunsook Park. I believe it’s from the 2004 drawing show. Words say: I’m drawing from New York. Im not from New York but this photo is. USA The link takes you to Picca’s call for participants in his second international non-juried drawing show draw_drawing_2_. The last one was in 2004 and you can read about it ... More » »

The ugliness factor

Matthew BarneyOriginally uploaded by sokref1. Even before I knew it was Matthew Barney I knew it might be. Who else? An installation in a Chelsea gallery that snakes through four rooms and the entryway with huge objects made out of what appears to be fat or wax or some other dense repulsive material. This installation at Gladstone Gallery” has something to do with the artist’s new movie, made with his wife Bjork. I’m not sure the sculptures were used in the movie but they probably were. That’s the Barney m.o. Steve said “Yuck.” And that pretty much summed it up. ... More » »

Al Hansen, freshest of what we saw

Al HansenOriginally uploaded by sokref1. The back room at Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea had a show of works by Al Hansen. I hadn’t heard of him, or so I thought, but I loved the works. The room was full of female totems and female-obsessed works. There were fetish/torsos like this one, made of cigarette filters, that were great objects. There were also collage-maps made of cut up Hershey’s chocolate wrappers. The logo was cut up into Her’s and She’s and Yes’s and Hey’s and the whole thing was a weirdly wonderful obsessive playland full of Western-made but African-feeling totems. ... More » »

Not the yacht man

DSCN1694.jpgOriginally uploaded by sokref1. Tobias Rehrberger’s Stealth boat/coffin at Petzel gallery. Click image to see it bigger. And see pictures of the inside at my flickr. We stumbled into Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery because I spied a big black whatizit through the window and wanted to go look. We had no idea. It looked like a huge, arty trash dumpster with orange handles here and there on the tippy top. I walked around looking for a door to peek inside but finding none I got bored. Then Steve said somebody’s inside. I said how? He said, there’s a door underneath. I ... More » »

Cool, crisp cups of Tara Donovan

Tara Donovan at Pace Wildentein in Chelsea Tara Donovan’s Plastic Cup landscape looked like a part of the polar ice cap trucked into Chelsea to represent the threat of global warming. Click picture to see it bigger. And see more pictures at flickr. We caught the last day of Tara Donovan’s Plastic Cup exhibit at Pace Wildenstein Gallery in Chelsea. I felt like I was in an ice skating rink waiting for the Zamboni to come clear the rink. Steve wanted to know who would buy such a thing. I said people will. Let’s ask at the desk. So after ... More » »

Home on the DIY range

Oil Rugs in Themescapes, an installation by Paul Coors, Jamie Dillon and Nick Paparone Romantic notions of the American landscape, American optimism, suburbia and relentless home decoration meet in a sometimes hilarious installation by Paul Coors, Jamie Dillon and Nick Paparone at 222 Gallery in Old City. The installation, Themescapes, includes wallpaper that looks like siding, fabric that looks like bricks and cardboard fashioned into faux wood house framing. But where the work takes off is where it no longer looks quite like anything it’s imitating. The oil rugs, which suggest a fabulous griminess, are shaped like puddles with subtle ... More » »

Isaac Witkin, 1936-2006

Artnet News – artnet Magazine Memorial service at Grounds for Sculpture, 2 p.m., Sunday, April 30.

Weekly Update – Wyeth’s coolness

This week’s Weekly has my review of the Andrew Wyeth retrospective at the PMA. Here’s the link to the art page and below is the copy with some added pictures. Here’s Libby’s post on the show. Wyeth’s WorldThe virtuoso’s paintings are sensitive and beautiful, but pander to the public. Andrew Wyeth‘s 70-year retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art raises the issue of the great divide between what the public likes and what art insiders like-rarely the same thing. Trodden Weed, 1951Tempera on panel20 x 18.25 inchesCollection of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth© Andrew Wyeth Paintings like Christina’s World (not in ... More » »

Darn! Contemporary galleries closed

Darn! Contemporary galleries closed Originally uploaded by sokref1. Don’t go to MoMA expecting to see the Contemporary Collection installed in the second floor galleries. The whole area’s shut for re-installation of a new collection, the Edward R. Broida Collection, a recent gift, with works from the 1960s forward. That installation opens May 3.

Edvard Munch, tortured soul

Edvard Munch photoOriginally uploaded by sokref1. Christina’s World by Wyeth (see previous post) may not have been travel-worthy but Munch’s Little Mermaid, the triangular piece that the PMA just acquired and featured in a show over the winter travelled just fine to MoMA to appear in the Munch exhibition. It sits high on a wall and looks great. The Munch exhibit is large and enlightening. The artist was a tortured soul who had at least one spell in a sanitorium. What I loved best were the prints and works on paper. It seemed to me that the artist got real ... More » »