I have to say that Libby and Roberta almost never lead me astray. Now
that I think about it, you can pretty much take the “almost” out of
that last sentence. So, when Libby forwarded me the announcement for Caleb Weintraub’s show, Cloudy with a Chance of Apocalypse, at Jack The Pelican Presents I knew that I’d be hopping the G train to Williamsburg.

Installation shot at Jack the Pelican of Caleb Weintraub’s show. All photos by Brent Burket.

More big Weintraub pictures. The artist works very large and very small, nothing in the middle. He’s extreme even in the scale he works in. [Ed. note: for posts on Caleb Weintraub's show last year at Projects Gallery, see here and here.]

Weintraub’s paintings give new meaning to the word “youthquake”. With this group of wonderful and caustic paintings Weintraub gives our culture the smackdown it deserves for the way it extends our sense of entitlement way past our mother’s breast and into our adulthood.

Small works by Weintraub

Let’s face it. George Bush is our President. No matter who you voted for, he didn’t get there by accident, the sad reflection of our collective babyhood. I found this show cathartic, in the same way that I found Get Your War On when it first appeared. It’s an artist in contact with what we hate and what we continue to embrace anyway. We’re all idiots.

More small works by Caleb Weintraub

I’m worked up. A good sign.

In the back room I was in the middle of an eyeroll in reaction to Reed Barrow’s Meteor when This Morning I Woke up with a SoreThroat scared the bejesus out of me. Not because I was startled by it, but because it was so damn good, and got under my skin and into my head so quickly. I couldn’t stop looking at it, and it put into context the other two pieces. As campy as these works might look at first, in the end they’re hyper-real. And it ain’t pretty. Not a bad idea to bring your therapist.

I find that Jack The Pelican Presents can be a little hot and cold (Although I almost never miss a show.), but when they’re on they are ON. This is one of those times. This is the last weekend to see this pair of nightmares. Dream hard.

–Brent Burket blogs his fingers to the bone at Heart as Arena and at Creative Time blog. How he does this and keeps a full time job and his sanity we do not know but we’re in awe.

Sometimes, obsession can be a good thing. Since she was a teenager Jenny Dubnau has been obsessed with drawing and painting head portraits of herself and of those around her. But let’s not get out the DSM-IV too quickly. One person’s obsession can be another’s practice and method.

When I visited Dubnau’s studio in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn the other month I saw what a lifetime of practice can lead to: Theoretically solid and emotionally penetrating work, executed with astonishing technique. The artist holds photo shoots with her subjects, and then paints her canvases from those photos. Although she does have an alarming knack for capturing the essence of her specific subjects, the work exhibits a longer reach than that. Her paintings sometimes feel like landscapes, but instead of disappearing to a horizon line, they tend to double back and become reflective experience for the viewer.

There’s a slight kinship with Gerhard Richter in her work. While Richter’s work so often confronts the failure of painting in general, Dubnau’s paintings take on the more specific challenge of portraiture. It’s not difficult to find a couple hundred contemporary artists who are having this dialogue with art history, but most of them achieve their goals by an exaggeration of form, by blowing things out. Dubnau follows the open secret that we’re all weird and vulnerable enough already. She just has to record it. Where others might explode, Dubnau digs in.

Out of the photo sessions she always seems to choose the image that catches her subjects in that moment between posing and presence, a door cracked open. What she sees in that sliver of vulnerability is what we get on the canvas. This is a beautiful thing, but that’s not to say that the results are always pretty. Her most striking paintings are sometimes the most raw. Dubnau is not afraid of what she sees in our faces or, for that matter, her own. In the space of a portrait she has the ability to reveal the hungry gravity that pulls us apart.

To achieve this in a recent series of self-portraits Dubnau has utilized slapstick and stage makeup. Her choice to cover up has led to some of her most revealing work to date. Here, the grease paint’s primal roots are showing. Entering the land of make-believe, whether it be vaudeville or straight theatre, has always been a way of working out deeper truths about ourselves. Dubnau tweaks the lie by setting snares
that send the viewer down some unexpected rabbit holes.

In “Self-portrait as Liar” (left) the artist has donned a long prosthetic nose. It’s obvious that the appendage has been crudely applied. There is no illusion about the illusion within a painting that is, of course, it’s own form of illusion. The artist’s glance to the side says, “I’m lying. It’s obvious that I’m lying. But I wonder if you can see that I’m lying.” It’s almost insanely hopeful, that childlike glance. It’s also something that we’ve all done, making it both disturbing and touching. I dare you to look at this painting for more than 15 seconds without running to your therapist.

Another painting, “Self-portrait with Tinsel Wig”, (right) is no less powerful. Behind a veil of shiny and raggedy tinsel is Dubnau looking pulled-back and dug in, her shoulders tight. She’s all dolled up with nowhere to hide. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt like that. OK, maybe a little bit. OK, maybe sometimes constantly. Did you catch my sideways glance on that one? Just because it’s someone else’s face doesn’t mean that it’s not a mirror.

These are only two examples of where these paintings can go, but it’s just the beginning. Jenny Dubnau’s paintings are always as much a window into their subjects’ lives as they are our own. With this new series of self-portraits she hasn’t even bothered with the latch. She’s just hurling rocks through the glass and right into our living rooms. Forget comfort. Forget history. Look into the unflinching eye of this painter and hold on. She’s taking you down.

If you’re interested in the reflecting pool that is Jenny Dubnau’s work, I have good news for you. A couple weeks after my studio visit,PPOW in Chelsea announced a show of her new work opening November 17. I think you all know where I’m going to be.

–Writer Brent Burket lives in Brooklyn where he produces the blog Heart as Arena and the Creative Council blog for the public art group Creative Time.

PS

I woke up this morning and realized that I had neglected to mention how Dubnau’s paintings carry a certain sense of humor with them. It’s something that one can find throughout her body of work. In the case of “Liar”, it’s the blatant obvious-ness of it all that yields a chuckle in all the wrong places. In a diptych called Paintbath, Dubnau has had a bucket of paint poured over her. Here the chuckle is immediate in the first piece, and followed up in the second with an “Oh, my God. I’m an adult and I have a bucket of paint all over me. Now what?” Now what, indeed. With these works you never know, and I like it that way. –Brent
dubnau, jenny

Saturday I went gallery hopping, and it was good. It was very good. There were a few ughs, a couple of shrugs, and a host of jaw-dropping silences. The day started with Projectile on 57th and ending with Bellwether in Chelsea. Two fine book ends with many excellent volumes between them. The art season is in a full and serious swing in NYC.
dicorcia, philip-lorca
Uptown reliables

First I went uptown to hit a few favorites. Projectile offered up some multimedia brilliance by Nic Hess. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This gallery, along with Maccarone and Zach Feuer, just doesn’t miss. The colored tape logo subversions were wicked fun, but the works that had me asking for prices were the color swatch plotting of MTV videos in the back room. The artist took the median color of each frame of iconic MTV hits such as Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and plotted the video out in strips of those colors. (image) His method and the outcome, although not as absolutely perfect, reminded me of Sherrie Levine’s brilliant iris print appropriations of Rembrandt.

Mary Boone’s uptown gallery had a collection of interesting papercut collages by Brian Alfred. At first I was unmoved, but then I found myself walking around the room a number of times. I became absorbed in the slight asymmetry of the pieces. Corners and angles never quite connect the way they should. The best piece was the video animation installation in the smaller gallery.

I also stopped at Pace Prints while I was uptown. A collection of new Sol LeWitt prints graced the walls of the gallery. I can’t think of the last time he disappointed me, and this show was no exception. This gallery is always worth the trip uptown, even if you’re not interested in what’s on at the moment. A walk through of the back galleries revealed a beautiful pair of monoprints by Pat Steir, an array of etchings by the ever-thrilling Tara Donovan, and some starkly expressive prints by Agnes Martin. The list goes on, but the list always goes on at Pace Prints. I love this place. Not only is the amount of great art overwhelming, but the staff is open and helpful. In fact, I find that to be the case for all the galleries under the Pace umbrella.

Speaking of which, just a spiral staircase away from Pace Prints is the Pace Wildenstein Gallery, with a show of light projections and holograms by James Turrell that is nothing short of miraculous. There have been books written about what Turrell does in regards to our perception. That’s fine and true, but above and beyond
his theoretical and perceptual bendings is something that is just downright beautiful. (Turrell, left)

The move from “How does he do that?” to “Oh, God. Who cares. I’m just glad he does. Feed me.” always happens quickly for me. Later, I can think about how he accomplishes something, but when I’m in front of his art I just want to let it own me. And, as usual, it does.

Hello Chelsea

My first stop in Chelsea was PPOW to see the Ann Agee. I felt like I was watching a cake after everybody had gone to the next room to open gifts. The color and composition echoes the feeling of uninhibited behavior on display. A blast. A big miniature pink blast. (Agee image right)
belott, brian
Next door was the Monique Prieto at Cheim & Reid . It was boring. I just couldn’t find my way in to these clunky things. The visit was saved by an absolutely transcendent Pat Steir painting I was able to peak at in the sealed-off side room.

I wasn’t expecting much from the Philip-Lorca diCorcia at the Pace
Wildensteinacross the street. At first I was distracted by an excellent Sol LeWitt wall drawing in a roped off back room. One of the associates let me go up to get a better look at the undulating graphite wallscape. OK. Calm down, Brent. Once I got that out of my system I went back downstairs and began to settle into the diCorcia’s photographs (if one can “settle” into something so unsettling). Hard work. These stretched and tortured landscapes of feminity seem worn from reaching back across the decades to an old Vegas that is still grinding away. The dancers’ sacrificial contortions tell the story. And Jesus wept.

(diCorcia image above left)

Speaking of contortions, I walked right past Orlan’s work in the front of Stux to get to Brian Belott’s work in the back. I first saw his work this summer at Joymore in Williamsburg. His exuberant books and the sentimental abstraction of his found photographs were just the remedy to the heavy heart of the diCorcia. Plus, giving the finger to Damien Hirst is always fun.

(image right is a Belott)

It’s always a pleasure when Gagosian Gallery
has an excellent exhibit, as opposed to, well, a Hirst or a Schnabel show. The Roy Lichtenstein sculpture show is not only excellent, but there are some nice surprises.

(image left is a Lichtenstein)

As fine a thing as the sculptures are there’s a smattering of unusual paintings throughout the gallery. The more I see of
Lichtenstein’s work the more I realize that, as familiar as his style might have become, he was an artist that never stopped moving.

Awhile ago I asked about some paintings that were in Mary Boone’s back gallery that had stopped me in my tracks. The artist, it turns out, was Eric Freeman and he was scheduled to have a show in the main room. Well, here it is, and it’s nothing short of luminous. And I am a sucker for the luminous. The way these paintings move remind me of Mondrian and Martin, although they bear more resemblance to Rothko. I think that Boone’s guardians might have found the duration of my stay worrisome. Too bad. Once I entered those paintings I didn’t want to leave. (image right is by Freeman)

Across the street at Perry Rubenstein’s tiny second gallery, a not-so-quiet conversation is going down amongst four heavy hitters, all delivering: John Baldessari, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, and Christopher Wool. ‘Nuf said. Serious weight.

At the always trustworthy Zach Feuer Gallery Danica Phelps was quietly rocking the house with her intimate drawings of showering and sex. She records her days and colors, and we get to watch. After so much overload from earlier in the day (Not a complaint, just a recognition of an ebbing energy flow.) her clean lines and the uncertain certainty of this show were reinvigorating (for two other artblog items on Danica Phelps, go here and here).
lichtenstein, roy

When the occasional light dance and soft singing broke out at Sonnabend
Saturday afternoon Candice Breitz was to blame. Her lined and stacked video portraits of Michael Jackson and Madonna über fans singing entire albums of their stars’ songs was both fun and poignant. I dare anybody who’s ever performed for the thousands of fans in their mirror to see this show and not smile with recognition and to not be touched by the open intimacy of it all. It’s more than entertainment though. It addresses the spectrum of what we can do with and to pop culture, and don’t ask me which is better: red or violet. I saw some excellent shows on Saturday, but this is the one that I cannot get out of my head. A bit like the most artfully crafted pop song ever. Immaculate. (right above is the Breitz piece)
freeman, eric

With much anticipation I headed over to see the new Adam Cvijanovic’s paintings that filled the ceilings and walls of Bellwether. He had one of my favorite shows at the gallery before they moved from Williamsburg to
Chelsea. This time around? Stunning . . . Stunning. Stunning. Stunning. Have I said . . . Stunning? Loosing all earthly things from their gravity requirements lets them fly, and I found myself swept up in the motion of this work. A yearning for what is being lost and a hunger for that which will replace it envelops the viewer. This is a Bellwether show that more than lives up to the hype. I couldn’t get enough. Hello Chelsea? Yeah, finally. Hello back! (image here and top are Cvijanovic’s installation)
cvijanovic, adam
Lastly, I went next door to an old standby, Alexander & Bonin. This was one of the jaw-dropping silences, but not in a good way. Are they serious? Robert Bordo’s paintings lacked, well, just about everything: color, depth, technique, interesting ideas. Supposedly it’s an exploration of the “line between subject and abstraction.”, but it just seemed lost rather than exploratory. Sometimes, deceptively simple is just downright
simple.
alfred, brian
I didn’t want to end such a good day on a sour note, so I ducked back
into the Cvijanovic for another long look. That did the trick.
Everything wrong was right again. At Bellwether it still looked like
disaster, but it felt like love.
turrell, james
–Brent Burket also writes for his own blog, Heart as Arena and for the Creative Time blog.

hess, nic
agee, ann

A photograph by Walead Beshty from his Dead Malls project kicks things off. Another excellent photograph of another bad plan. His piece is a nice contrast to the shiny and glowing altars and videos by Shana Moulton. Her hyper-giddy arrangements of new age paraphernalia and knick-knacks radiate a caustic and desperate vacuity. Having fun yet?

For a little relief there’s Brian Belott‘s photo albums of found photographs. It’s not a new idea, but to be quite frank I can’t get enough of this stuff. It’s the most Warholian thing this side of C-Span. Andy himself used to ask his drug store for pictures that people forgot to pick up. Lately found photographs have been showing up in coffee table books. There’s something wrong with that. Belott gets it right though. He places the photos in crappy albums that look like they were found in somebody else’s basement. Enshrining them in a format as careless as the pictures themselves gives all involved what they need most: Nothing. (top image is a different Belott book project shown at Canada Gallery. Thanks James Wagner for the image and information)

As much as I enjoyed Bellot’s work the real highlight of the show is Philadelphia artist Liz Rywelski. Oh, man. Deep and empty. Her idea is so good it would have killed even if the execution had fallen short. Not to worry. She nails it. Rywelski went to K-Marts around the country to have her portrait taken by the in-store Olan Mills photographers, using a $100 gift card to buy her wardrobe at the Big K. Sharing made-up stories about her life with the store staff she enlisted their help in choosing her “look”. By doing this Rywelski addresses the flattening of taste and culture with a sense of sadness, anger, and compassion. The void is not below us. It’s right here, in the middle. (image above and next two are Rywelski in the Olan Mills photos installed at Joymore)

In comparison to lesser artists mining a similar vein her deft touch reminds me of David Mamet‘s exquisitely brutal mirror in contrast with the ham-fisted finger-pointing of Neil LaBute. Like Mamet, Rywelski seems to be saying, “Pay attention. This is who we are, just in case you weren’t looking.” Also like Mamet, she doesn’t quite go so far as to ask, “Now what?” The viewer might walk down that dark hallway on their own, but they’ll do so without the bossy insistence of an artist god pushing them along.

This is where compassion enters the room. The image of the artist dressed in a business suit holding a beach ball is wicked and surreal, but it is also touching. I couldn’t help but think of the people who believed Rywelski’s story that day, how they made the decisions that led to this photo. Not every picture is this internally incongruent, but all the works draw the viewer in like that. How did we get here? This is not my beautiful wife.

Nope. Not at all. She’s at home taking pills; chasing the gauzy distance of the middle, far away from the edges of feeling, thought, and memory. These are the things that move us forward as a culture, and they’ve been bought and sold. The world isn’t going to end in fire or ice. It’s going to end in a store with low prices and bright lights. At least—thanks to this fine show—we’ll have pictures.
belott, brian
[Ed. note: Precious Moments was curated by Josh Kline aka Josh OS (see post and post). Kline often collaborates with Rywelski on projects -- like the Apex Art project they did for the Mauritzio Couldn't be Here show (they did a lecture for the Harrell Fletcher Come Together day]

–Brent Burket, artblog‘s New York correspondent, is a writer and art collector based in New York. Check out his blog Heart as Arena for more New York art commentary.
rywelski, liz

The place to begin sussing it all out is at the Clubhouse on Surf Avenue where maps, project paraphernalia, and a tour (by appt. and S/Su at 3 and 4) are available. The Clubhouse itself is a wondrous jumble of works-in-progress, a nice introduction to the fun close-at-hand. Also, having a storefront presence brings the art closer to the community. I love to think of locals and tourists alike entering such an unexpected doorway. Whether your perception of Coney Island has been formed by the day-to-day or “Under The Boardwalk” this show brings an element of surprise. That surprise doesn’t always come from works that have been made for the installation either. The Dreamland Artist Club enriches and is enriched by the past, a reverse crossover and fade if you will.

Once you’ve visited the clubhouse, I recommend total immersion in the spirit of Coney Island, and the best place to find that is Jones Walk. Around the corner from the Clubhouse, the Walk is an alleyway flanked on both sides by some of the loudest barkers and the flashiest games in the area. This is the perfect place to start submitting to the charms of Coney Island and The Dreamland Artist Club. Soon you’ll find yourself engaging in the timeless tradition of shooting water into the mouth of a clown until the balloon on his head explodes. (And you thought the “surreal” was going to come from the art.) While winning all the velvet monkeys your little heart desires you can also groove to the art of Ryan McGinness, Rita Ackerman, Dana Schutz, and many others. One of my favorite visual moments on Jones Walk is the pairing of Isca Greenfeld-Sanders’ “Happy Landings” with Christa Donner’s “Feed the Clown!” (right, by Ryan McGinness, and below left, by Rita Ackerman).

After the aural and visual gauntlet of Jones Walk it’ll be time for a little wandering. You can always refer back to your map, but I found the confusion of the “artful” and the “decorative” invigorating. In fact, it’s one of the great strengths of the project. Any argument about high and low culture is rendered pointless in a setting this alive. The new murals and signs mix it up with walls tagged late at night and lettering painted decades ago. Enjoy the visual mash-up and ask questions later.

The Dreamland Artist Club creates an organic dialogue between the past and present. Some of the most beautiful colors in the exhibit can be seen in works that were done for last year’s show and are now entering the time-honored tradition of decay. I love decay, especially when it looks this good. You can imagine how much I liked the signage that started it’s immaculate fade in the 80′s.

There is also a lively conversation going on between art and commerce. All art, whether commercial or fine, must attract. Otherwise it’s just a list or a treatise. All of the artists in the exhibition had to consult with their business owners so whether they had free reign or tight restrictions, the reality of what they were doing involved enticement. The two supposedly opposing worlds of the the Artist Club and old school Coney face off dramatically on West 12th Street. Here Dearaindrop’s vibrant mural at the Spider Ride shouts back at the brilliant and blasting spray painted backdrop for the Polar Express (right). King-size hip hop jams blare as a polar bear DJ brings Tupac and Biggie Smalls together in a frigid and dizzying afterlife. (Eternal peace is apparently a cool place.) In the end I’d call it a glorious draw between the two attractions, and I couldn’t begin to say which is more commercial.

Other highlights in the installation are The Basketball Game by Tauba Auerbach, Mimi Gross’s Plaza Mexico USA, Bruno Peinado’s Plaza Latina, and Beatriz Barral’s marquee for Water Racing. The list goes on, but two artists that deserve special attention are Os Gemeos (identical twins, Otavio and Gustavo) and Swoon. Swoon utilizes cutouts, collage, and prints to create visually and emotionally intricate images (see Roberta’s previous mention of her work here). She even nudges the decay forward by pulling and fraying the edges of her pieces. She can’t wait to fall apart, and I already have. Os Gemeos’ storybook mural on Stillwell Avenue (above left and below right) is the first thing that can be seen coming out of the subway station. I’m glad I didn’t take the train, as I might have spent 3 slack-jawed hours in front this enveloping heart-sized wall and missed the rest of the show. I’ll go so far as to say that it’s worth the trip out to Coney Island just to see this piece. It’s that good. (more on Os Gemeos from Burket here)

You wouldn’t need to throw a stone too far or too well to hit an art theorist who would be able make the case for sign painting and graffiti as two of the most important influences in contemporary art. This summer in Coney Island, for a fast nickel, the influence dances quite comfortably with the influenced. Both take the lead at various times without missing a single step. This dance floor, this boardwalk, this ocean of an installation moves in all directions at once, interweaving the currents of both time and space. There’s only one thing to do here. Leave your life preserver at home and just swim.

–Regular contributor Brent Burket also has his own art blog, “Heart As Arena”
powers, steve
coyne, alexa
mcginness, ryan
ackerman, rita
schutz, dana
greenfield-sanders, isca
auerbach, tauba
donner, christa
dearaindrop
gross, mimi
peinado, bruno
barral, beatriz
os gemeos
swoon

And now, a little sympathy for the filthy rich. I’m pretty sure that the only people who go to the galleries in the 57th Street area are critics, art students, a couple artists, and people who carry their money around in trucks. That’s a shame because some of the best art in town is up there.

Two recent shows are good examples of that.

Disturbing the Peace at Mary Boone

The Hilary Harkness show at Mary Boone‘s 5th Avenue gallery is the doll house birthing/killing floor we’ve come to expect from her. Notoriously and understandably slow in regards to her output, Harkness made a show that’s a collection of drawings, paintings, and a few things in between. It’s far from stop-gap though. In fact, it’s essential viewing. [Ed. note: View the busy microcosmic worlds here and on the gallery's website, fans, for the show closed June 25.]

(top image is “Air Raid” 10 1/2″ x 10 1/4″, graphite, oil, watercolor/paper, 2005; and left above is “Flipwreck,” 13″ x 22″ oil/wood, 2004)

I like that her work disturbs so many people from so many angles. Is it the substitution of women in predatory roles that have historically belonged to men? Is it the naked power plays that still appear in the absence of men? Is it that the women in her work are shown to have power, or more to the point that they have all the power?

These are all interesting questions, but mostly I like that her work is so well done, both technically and intellectually. It dares you to analyze it, but it doesn’t really care what you think. It’s too involved with itself for that. The real power here is wielded by the artist, a woman in full control of color, line, and yes, her odd little tableau world of birth and bullets, water and sand. Crack that whip, Hil. Turn that knife.

(image is “Heavy Cruisers,” 18 1/4″ x 20 1/2″ graphite/paper, 2004)

Master and Commander Schutte at Marian Goodman

An artist that exercises a similarly high level of control in his work is Thomas Schutte. The results couldn’t be more dissimilar but he too places the viewer in the voyeur’s seat in his new show at Marian Goodman (up to July 2).

Schutte’s austere archictectural models for ‘One Man Houses’ were a jolt after the obsessive details of Harkness. That’s not to say that Schutte doesn’t have his own obsessions. The perfect form would be one of them. But the perfect form for what? That’s something that we’ll figure out as we go. (image is “One Man Houses” 2003, metal, plastic, mirror, mixed. house: 15″ x 57 5/8″ x 50″ crate 50″ x 66 1/4″ x 58″)

With Schutte’s work there is always a feeling of something left behind; something present, gone, and possible. In this work where future use is implied, there is a sense of the past that lies ahead. The viewer first peers into this world of 1:5 scale models in the front gallery. There is a smaller scale representation of the houses arranged in community in the middle gallery.

When I walked through the full-scale model room in the back gallery I felt like a camera’s eye, documenting a room with an already-unfolded secret. After the giant’s vantage point of the first two galleries, I was keenly aware of my own size and perspective — my own humanness –when I was walking around the model room. I had become the one man, and the house wasn’t the room as much as it was the created memory that was surrounding me. (image is “One Man Houses III,” 2005. house: birch, mixed. 71″ x 39 3/8″ x 69 1/2″ crate: 41 3/8″ x 48 5/8″ x 72″)

schutte, thomas
Some would argue that Schutte’s body of work and the materials he uses are an indictment of the American art world. I find that he hits a broader mark than that. Nietzsche’s idea that progress is an illusion comes to mind. By keeping his forms and materials on such a rudimentary level he reminds us of that. By taking us to another place and time, he tells us exactly where we are. (image is “One Man Houses” installation 2005)
harkness, hilary
–Brent Burket is an art collector and writer who lives in Brooklyn.

It was the last day of a 3-person show, and I noticed the name of John Oswald who is best known for his plunderphonic sound experiments. He’s transferred his attention to video art and in doing so has created one of the best works I’ve seen this year, “Chronophotic.” (image above left)

I find so much of video art to be, in the end, disappointing. Jeremy Blake changed my mind about the possibilities of the genre this year, and now Oswald has brought it home. Oswald has always been a master of layering and juxtapostion. He took one of the most boring rock bands in the world, The Grateful Dead, and made their work thrilling with his release, “Grayfolded,” a collage of 100 separate performances of their epically static Dark Star.
howard, ridley

None of his gift for the graft has been lost in this move to the visual realm. Ironically, the basis for this video piece is still photography. Two photographs were taken of each subject, one nude and one clothed. The artist shows each image at varying degrees of visibility, overlaying over 100 of the subjects on the screen at the same time. People appear and disappear slowly, their two images cross-fading with each other and simultaneously with the other subjects going
through their own set of shiftings. Like a good painting the more I looked at it the more engrossing it became. (detail of Oswald’s Chronophotic)

In a perfect moment (And I swear I’m not making this up.), just as tears had come to my eyes, I was approached by the artist who happened to be in the gallery. Artist feedback should always be this good. In discussing my reaction I told him how much bad video art I’ve seen and how this work is one of the bright spots in a long, dimly lit hallway. He told me that this was reason he created “Chronophotic.” When viewing video art he always found himself thinking I’d rather be looking at a good painting.‘ Yes! And there we were, doing just that. I would love to comment on the other two artists in the show, Michael Snow and Pascal Grandmaison, but I wasn’t even able to look at their work after all that wonder. Sorry about that, but not really.

Feigen, no wait, Feuer, no really Feigen

Staggering out into the sun I made my way down to Feigen Contemporary to see the aforementioned group show, Life and Limb. I’m almost always pleased with what I find on the walls here, and this time was no exception. A painter from the Zach Feurer Gallery, Ridley Howard, had a fine painting right inside the door. All those hard lines around soft things. I was off to a good start. (image is a Howard painting)

There were two gloriously twisted Inka Essenhigh silkscreens. Another highlight in the show was the creepy and gorgeous pastel by Nicky Hoberman. (image right is a pastel, “Untitled (Chair and Owls)” by Hoberman and below is detail) When visiting this gallery I always go downstairs where they show works by gallery artists that are separate from the current shows. At the bottom of the stairs there were four smart and funny drawings by David Kramer. Another predictably excellent Jeremy Blake C-print stretched across the north wall. Come to think of it, these two artists couldn’t be less alike and it’s a good example of one of the strengths of this gallery.

When I first started to visit Feigen I thought their program was all over the place, but then I woke up and realized that it’s just one thing: good. And that takes nothing but focus on the part of everyone that works there. The gallerists at Feigen have a passion for their artists that is refreshingly not muted by the pretention that I so often find in Chelsea. Come to think of it, you could say that about all three of these galleries.

And I do.

Next up, a little pity for the filthy rich and a visit to the edge.

–Brent Burket is an art collector and writer who lives in Brooklyn.
hoberman, nicky

Post from Brent Burket
It was interesting. I was talking with the guy at the desk in DUMBO and he was saying that he and a number of his friends were all contemplating moving to Philly or Baltimore. The insane real estate market is really killing feasible living situations for artists up here. Although, from what I’ve heard things are heating up in that area in Philly too.

Leo [Berk] should have changed his name to Bark for the show. It’s a really nice piece and it smells good too. Totally Serra in the way that while you’re going round and round you don’t think that it will ever end. Not heavy enough to kill any assistants though. Unless they got splintered to death or something.

–Brent Burket is artblog’s New York correspondent