January 2007 Archive

Not exactly a science

Someone heard my prayer and provided seats for the long videos The seating is glorious–three sweet little high-tech stools in front of each of the longer videos at Esther Klein Gallery. Each of those two videos is in its own little cubicle, one nearly a black box, the other more open, but both doing the job of giving a viewer a way to savor the videos. The four small dvd players, mounted on the wall, each had a couple of earphones, and each held ultrashort videos–short enough to make me not mind standing through the experience. Another highlight–the high-tech, ultra-designed ... More » »

Roxalyn Drexler at Pace-Wildenstein–Go!

Painter of pop noir, Rosalyn Drexler, whose collage paintings from the 1960s blew us away when they appeared at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery in 2004, is having a solo show at Pace Wildenstein Gallery! This is excellent news for all who are interested in correcting art history’s record and including strong artists like Drexler who were overlooked the first time around. I interviewed Drexler in 2004 (read the Q&A) and found her to be a warm, smart, nicely-quirky and delightful person. The Pace show, in the gallery’s 545 W. 22nd St. space, is called I am the Beautiful Stranger: Paintings of the ... More » »

Kehinde Wiley’s twin

We just signed up for Google stats, and imagine our surprise when some blog we never heard of turned out to be a key source of hits for us this first week. So we checked out Fette’s Flog-Aesthetic Los Angeles and found an image by chicken artist Eric Fausnacht (see artblog post) next to an image by hip-hop-meets-art-history artist Kehinde Wiley. The wallpaper’s a total match. So check the Flog’s Jan. 18 post. Sure enough, on the Muse Gallery member’s page, Fausnacht mentions Wiley as an influence, along with Jeff Koons, the king of kitsch.

Walt Goettman’s photogravure layers of urban life

by Walt Goettman, one of his copperplate photogravure printed images; once again, my own images are foiled by glass reflections, adding still another layer to Goettman’s own photos of reflections in glass. Sorry. The old technique that photographer Walt Goettman plies makes the ordinary modern world into a layered magic. In an exhibit of more than two dozen 9×9 photograph-based images at the University City Arts League until Feb. 3, Goettman uses an inky printing process to bring out the layered experience of walking down a city street, taking in the reflections and what’s behind the reflections and capturing the ... More » »

Locally Localized Excitement at ICA

Photo of Space 1026 installation at ICA in Locally Localized Gravity. In what my eyes told me was perhaps the best-attended opening at the ICA in all the years I’ve been going, many were happy with the energy, color and excitement in the downstairs gallery where Locally Localized Gravity lives, a tribute to the collective spirit, alive and at work now in Philadelphia, Portland and elsewhere. I was quite excited at the ebulliance and beauty and took a lot of photos which are on my flickr, and I know Libby will have many, too when she puts her photos up. ... More » »

R. Crumb Alert!

Thanks, Sid Sachs, for the heads’ up on the great article on Robert and Aline Crumb in today’s NY Times. (Read the article quick — and take the nice audio slide show — before it goes to Times Select.) Comic book page by Aline CrumbThe story is mostly about what it’s like being Mrs. Crumb–wife of the famous cartoonist but also a free spirit (in an open marriage with several liaisons) and also a cartoonist in her own right soon to have a comic memoir and a solo show in New York at Adam Baumgold Gallery, Feb. 15 through March ... More » »

Tracey Moffatt: Under the Sign of Scorpio

Post by Colette Copeland ScorpioCharacter Traits: Determined and forceful, Emotional and intuitive, Powerful and passionate, Exciting and magneticOn the Dark Side: Jealous and resentful, Compulsive and obsessive, Secretive and obstinate Tracey Moffatt, Under the Sign of Scorpio (Marie Curie), 2005, Archival pigment on rag paper, 17 x 23 inches. From her show at Stux Gallery. What do Indira Ghandi, Goldie Hawn, Nadia Comaneci, Tina Brown, Georgia O’Keefe, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Marie Curie, Whoopi Goldberg, Bjork and Margaret Mitchell have in common? They were all born under the astrological sign of Scorpio. In Australian artist Tracey Moffatt’s new photographic series, on ... More » »

J.T. Kirkland’s hotel exhibit revealed

James Wagner posted a nice appreciation of J.T. Kirkland”s hotel room exhibition. Very awesome what you can do with a little ingenuity and a take charge attitude. We at artblog are huge fans of J.T and his art and blog. Here’s an interview I did with J.T. in 2005.

Bambi, no Thumper

Steven Earl Weber’s Closets and Confessionals, installation with ceramic, found objects, plaster, iconographic figurines Bambi‘s large gallery space in Fishtown on Frankford Ave. has been in the business of showing art, jewelry and craft items for a while now and I finally made it up there on Friday. Steven Earl Weber‘s Confessionals were the draw, an installation of 6 phone-booth sized rooms with doors, each equipped with sinful or perhaps guilt-producing items (there’s a peephole through which you see a porn movie in one; another is filled with small cast plaster religious figurines). Another view of the installation. There’s a ... More » »

Eric Fausnacht instates the proud chicken

painting 2006, 001, by Eric Fausnacht The public rooms of a home never have chicken wallpaper. Those rooms are reserved for parrots and tanagers. The chickens are reserved for the kitchen wallpaper. And chicken tschotschkes are kitsch. But Eric Fausnacht’s chickens and roosters at Muse Gallery are birds of a different feather. In a way, his paintings and prints that seem to be reproductions of his paintings, make the case for chickens as dandies and grandees. Their plumage is spectacular, at least as Fausnacht paints feathers. And the cockscombs are baroque, looking more like the velvety flower of the same ... More » »