Shelley Spector ‘Dreck Groove Wallpaper (One)’ (2011) reclaimed cardboard, courtesy Bridgette Mayer Gallery, photo: Shelley Spector

Any artist who makes ‘things’ that involve construction would think she had died and gone to heaven at NextFab. Its technical possibilities are endless; the difficulty is surely in making choices. Shelley concentrated on the computer-controlled laser cutter and sewing machine, which meant developing a proficiency with both the hardware and software (proprietary to each machine for most of the high-tech fabricating equipment); she said that took about two months.

Shelley Spector with parts for the computer-controlled sewing machine at NextFab

The work from the residency, a project addressing the nexus of consumption and environmental change, will be exhibited at the Esther Klein Gallery; Dreck Groove runs from Feb. 17-March 30, 2012.  Shelley used the computer-controlled sewing machine to produce a series of small embroideries whose imagery derives from weather mapping. What appear to be abstract patterns on textiles, decorated with the industrial version of traditional women’s handwork, were taken from graphs of fluctuating temperatures over time, infrared satellite photography, and charts of the spread of nuclear fallout. One embroidery lists all the names given to hurricanes during 2011. The decorative quality of the work makes the underlying criticism apparent only on second glance.

Shelley Spector, several small embroideries from ‘Dreck Groove’ courtesy Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Shelley used the laser cutter to create frames for the embroidered cloth and to cut out units from scavenged, consumer-product packaging which she will assemble to cover several walls (hence her description of the collaged work as wallpaper).  She learned a lot about her neighbors in the process of collecting sufficient gift boxes, food cartons and other household waste from their recycle bins; indeed, her project is a sort of alternative recycling. The units create a pattern that, at a distance, reads as a mid 20th-century modern design, until one gets close enough to read the writing and recognize the familiar imagery from boxes for cereal, crackers, and plastic bags.  This is the visual landscape of American domestic life.

Ian and Scott, engineers at NextFab Studio

Sarah McEaneany ‘Baseball’ (2010) tempera on wood

I ran into Sarah McEaneany at the most recent First Friday gallery openings as she was getting off her bike in front of the Vox Building, then laughed when I saw the image used (below) as the announcement of her current exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery (through March 10, 2012). Many of the paintings record a life of leisure activities (watching baseball, camping out in Florida, on the coast in Brittany, hiking in a wildlife preserve) except that a painter’s work is never done, and even when she doesn’t picture herself drawing (which she does while floating in the Dead Sea), you know that a sketchbook is close at hand.

Sarah McEaneany ‘Philadelphia Winter’ tempera

Most of the works are in a smaller format than those in her last exhibition at the gallery, and a number  show a particular sensitivity to landscape, from wetlands to trees in winter.  My favorite showed the artist at an open window, on her birthday, and most of the painting is occupied by patterns of various trees  surrounding an open field of snow that suggests the as yet unwritten story of the year, or years, to come.

Photo courtesy of Locks Gallery.

Across all the walls are floor-to-ceiling projections and interspersed amongst the few round columns in the big room are projectors, speakers, wires, headphones, and some small seats. A few flat HD monitors lie between the larger projections. Smaller, brighter, and higher resolution than their larger projected counterparts, the little monitors offer a welcomed degree of variance to the flow of moving pictures.

Some of the most immediately apparent images are those of Chinese parades and Communist regalia, some of which are glitchy and crisscrossed by rotating 3D cubes. The title 1967 is a reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s film La Chinoise which deals with a group of French students planning to change the world in a Communist revolution while studying Mao. Hironaka and Suib’s installation is a looped montage of clips from Godard’s film, original video, archival footage of the 1967 World Exposition in Montreal paired with Shanghai’s 2010 Expo, protest scenes past and present, and of course images from China’s cultural revolution.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, Occupy, and similar protest movements worldwide, the themes of this show are aptly timed to say the least. The installation acts as an intrigue into the roles of the artist and the revolutionary in society. Ideas of social orthodoxy, equality, and belief systems all come to mind. At times political upheaval is warranted, at other times dissent is quashed; sometimes revolution is widely supported, other times it happens by coup d’état. Regardless of the means for or reaction to social shifts, their inevitability looms outside the realms of political affiliation. In a universe where entropy rules, the only real guarantee is change.

The yin and yang of protest as illustrated by Ram Dass in Be Here Now.

As the images break down, the prevailing power structures emerge as targets of ridicule in much the same way as the protests themselves. This inherent yin-yang image of action and reaction has been similarly noted by Ram Dass in his “hippies create police/police create hippies” musing from 1971’s Be Here Now. In situations as diverse and interrelated as governing a country, it would appear that neither side has a monopoly on truth.

The characters in La Chinoise are dilettantes in a way, as young people romanticizing the concept of revolt. Much can be said about the need for economic equality or restructured government in the United States, but one also wonders how many supporters of either Ron Paul or Occupy Wall Street are on their respective bandwagons for questionable or superficial reasons. Thinking back to the beginnings of revolution in Tahrir Square, it is not hard to believe that the cinematic broadcasts on news and infotainment channels the world over helped to spur similar protests, in part, because of their excitement and danger. The mundane ennui of middle-class American youth can at least not be ruled out as a cause, in any case.

Photo courtesy of Locks Gallery.

When the silly, almost childish images of roosters and other animal “comrades” are displayed on the cover of Mao’s Little Red Book in place of his idealized face, the absurdity crests and begins to give way to other relevant questions. The phrase “Is it important to take action?” appears as the game-changing caption. Of course the artists provide no concrete answers, and pose only the question. However this is arguably one of the more important responsibilities of artists: to test the waters of antithesis and throw wrenches into the gears of established social mechanisms. Artists and revolutionaries – sometimes one in the same – have quite regularly shared many similar goals such as exposing outdated concepts, offering new ways of viewing surroundings, and often subscribing to a brand of humanism with a thirst for justice and equality.

Locks Gallery’s exhibition of 1967 dissects the topic of protest in a way that only artists can. With revolution being, by its very existence, bound to its intended target, an absurd presentation seems fitting – perhaps necessary. Protest is distorted through media channels and personal interpretations, and it is certainly no science. Dogma is dogmatic regardless of political preferences. Hironaka and Suib demonstrate that, no matter what side you’re on, the complex schisms of human argument and opposition are not quite as objective and clear cut as they seem.

There will be a live performance in the installation on January 28 at 5 PM by contributing artists C. Spencer Yeh and Aaron Moore; and another reception on Feb 3.  Check the website for more information and events.

Rivane Neuenschwander 'I Wish Your Wish' (2003) installation detail

The exhibition was held in the domestically-scaled rooms of the IMMA’S New Galleries, the area open during the renovation of the primary spaces in the Royal Military Hospital, Kilmainham. The initial room held At a Discrete Distance, a series of precisely-painted and rather cheerful landscapes which emphasized patterning of floor tiles, roof beams and stairs; they were painted on small panels which the label related to Brazilian devotional paintings, although they gave no clue to wished-for desires.

Rivane Neuenschwander 'The Tenant' (2010) video still

A room full of Involuntary Sculptures (Speech Acts) (2001-10) held vitrines full of of small, hand-made objects that Neuenschwander had found, abandoned, in various bars and restaurants. These small sculptures, three-dimensional doodles really, had been fashioned from corks, plastic straws, matches, toothpicks, paper napkins, chop-stick wrappers, pop-tops and champagne cork wires that had been twisted, folded, shredded, crimped and burnt. They were by-products of social activities whose excess energy had been channeled through manual activity. While they bore signs of varying degrees of craftsmanship and imagination, Neuenschwander’s interest was in their association with sociability, hence the second part of their title, Speech Acts. Intriguing as they were, it struck me that almost anything laid out carefully in vitrines comes to resemble art.

The protagonist of the video, The Tenant (2010) is a large soap bubble which meanders through the rooms of an empty house, and the conceit is so charming that it doesn’t matter how it was effected. I was willing to accept the agency of the wobbly sphere, always a moment away from bursting, that magically refracts light at its periphery. The wonder at soap bubbles does not diminish with age.

The widely-appealing, interactive installation, I Wish Your Wish (2003) is again based upon vernacular, devotional practice, where the faithful bind their wrists with ribbons which they then leave tied to the church gates. Neuenschwander’s adaptation had visitors leave a wish in exchange for a ribbon printed with a previous visitor’s desire, which ranged from the individual to the universal, the selfish to the profound: wishes for a dog, to get into grad school, for family’s understanding, for respect for native people’s sovereignty, peace in the Middle East, not to die completely alone. Participants were forced not only to declare their own wishes, but to choose among those offered by their predecessors, and while the process was something of an exercise in ethics, it was surprisingly effective. I left with my wrist wrapped in a turquoise ribbon inscribed I wish to find pleasure in things as much as I used to as a child; it struck me as particularly appropriate to Neuenschwander’s art.

Rivane Neuenschwander 'A Thousand and One Possible Nights' (2008)

A Thousand and One Possible Nights are collaged images of constellations, created from confetti punched from an edition of Scherehazade’s tales, A Thousand and One Nights. Images of the stars are always beautiful, as are these; the printing on the tiny dots only becomes visible at close range. Yet a second thought reminds us that Sherehazade told her stories to forestall death, something behind much art, perhaps, but the connection is rarely so literal and immediate.

Lygia Pape installation view of 'Ttéia 1 (The Web)'

I had hoped to get more context for Neuenschwander’s work in London, where the Serpentine Gallery is showing Lygia Pape: Magnetized Space, organized by the Reina Sophia (through Feb. 19, 2012). Pape’s two and three-dimensional work obviously derives formally from Constructivism, and some of it resembles Bauhaus pedagogical exercises. The large installation, ‘Ttéia 1 (The Web)’, whose illuminated wire shafts create an otherworldly atmosphere, looks like a stage set for a play about heavenly revelation.

Lygia Pape detail of 'Livro do Tempo (Book of Time)' (1961-63)

The 365 small wooden reliefs of Livro do Tempo (Book of Time), that covered a large wall, formed an irresistibly-fascinating grid of variations on a square; small sections had been excised from each and displaced on top of the original, with varying colors emphasizing the variations in forms. It and a room of black and white prints and drawings combined seductive elegance of both formal interest and execution. Yet the connection between this work and the interactive, communal performances for which she is known was unclear, nor did labels to several filmed performances provide much help. This was disappointing, since with many recent artists working communally and sociability an ongoing topic, the comparison should have been illuminating.

Lygia Pape 'Divisor' (1968), still from a filmed performance

For understanding the social and political implications of working in a repressive state for Pape and her fellow Brazilians, it was very useful to read the recent publication: Subversive Practices; Art under Conditions of Political Repression: 60s-80s / South America / Europe, Edited by Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler (Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2010,  ISBN 978-3-7757-2755-6 ). The catalog to an internationally-curated exhibition held in Stuttgart in 2009, it illustrates work by some 80 artists working in Latin America, Spain and Eastern Europe. Much of their surviving work consists of publications, documentary photographs and ephemera printed in connection with communal events, so reading the book might be almost as illuminating as seeing the exhibition.

Collective Actions Group's performance 'The Appearance,' one of their 'Trips Out of Town' in the countryside outside Moscow (1976)

The catalog is an extremely valuable complement to a number of recent publications addressing conceptual practices beyond the U.S. and Western Europe (such as Global Conceptualism; Points of Origin 1950s-1980s, the Queens Museum, 1999, and anthologies by Camnitzer, Albero and Stimpson, Breitwieser, Katzenstein and others). It includes essays by the editors and their 13 co-curators, and provides the first translations (into English and German) of numerous artists’ statements and manifestos. They give valuable context for a range of art practices and activities in public spaces that were inherent affronts to state power, despite seeming tame and unobjectionable in a Western European and North American context. Examples are Collective Actions Group’s Trips out of Town (above), which were nothing more than organized outings to the countryside, and the gathering organized by Edgardo Antonio Vigo in La Plata (Argentina) in 1968. Vigo advertised in the newspaper and on radio for people to meet at a specific time at a major intersection in the city; the object of their assembly: to contemplate the traffic light as an aesthetic object.

detail of light box in Magdalena Pederin’s ‘The Name is an Anagram’ (2006); all photos by Aram Jibilian

detail of Elena del Rivero’s ‘Mended Flying Letters’ (2010), type and ink on handmade abaca paper, with silk thread

Work by sixteen artists and collaboratives, produced from the 1960s to the present, reflected the continuing relevance of McLuhan’s ideas; all addressed aspects of the impact of changing technology, from letter-writing and typing to the World Wide Web.  As one might expect from the subject, much of the work utilized  technology (largely video, but one piece also incorporated the Web), although the range of media was broad, including a collage of typewritten texts that were stitched together by hand (Elena del Rivero’s Mended Flying Letters, 2010), artists’ books (Wolfgang Plöger’s Google Image Search (Map), 2006, which consisted of several volumes of images transcribed from a Google search for map), photography, and small-scale sculpture (Joan Rabascall’s 6″ model, Monument to Mobile Television, 1974).  It was a challenging and unexpected selection of work which avoided conventional categories.

Joan Rabascall ‘Monument to Mobile Television’ (1994), 6" h., from her series of ‘Monuments to the TV’

The exhibition emphasized the physical interactions between people and technology with changing sensual experiences:  Plöger’s books were perused by viewers seated at a table, turning pages; Magdalena Pederin’s The Name is an Anagram was shown in a darkened space where multi-dimensional images created a changing, immersive environment; Nam June Paik and John Godfrey’s Global Groove was a single-channel video, and having to standing to watch it was a reminder that the pioneering work was made in 1973, long before MTV brought music videos to our livingrooms.

The astonishing sound production in Ignacio Uriarte’s video, The Story of the Typewriter (2011), was human: the actor, Michael Winslow, seen creating the differently-inflected sounds of a series of typewriters, with remarkable fidelity. Winslow’s virtuosic performance emphasizes the multi-dimensional aspect of much technology; typewriters were designed to produce text, yet also generated sound. It’s hard to imagine how this work might be read by someone of the computer generation; I guess it will need an explanatory label. I had a similar experience, some years ago, while looking at an Oldenburg and trying to explain to a 10-year old what a diaper pin was.

Ignacio Uriarte’s ‘The Story of the Typewriter’ (2011) video, surrounded by ‘1s and 0s’ (2011) typewritten paper

Reporters with Borders (2007), Raphael Lozano-Hammer’s interactive video work, was activated by the presence of a viewer, whose silhouette appeared on the screen filled with tiny images of Mexican broadcasters on one side, Americans on the other, who began to speak; they produced simultaneous, cacophonous newscasts, yet remained segregated by country.

Raphael Lozano-Hammer ‘Reporters with Borders’ (2007) interactive video with shadow box

Chris Petit’s Content (2009) was a 76-minute video, and its length as well as its content emphasized the dimension of time. I had expected to watch a few minutes, but was so seduced and mesmerized by its beauty and subject matter that I stayed for the entirety. Petit interweaves several narratives that concern communication, self-presentation and masquerade, aging and responsibility, set within the context of a road movie where geography is equated with memory.

detail from Chris Petit’s video ‘Content’ (2009)

Marshall McLuhan’s misfortune was to be decades ahead of his time, with a vision so accurate that his ideas now seem commonplace. It is well worth commemorating his early understanding of the profound effects of changing media, and this thoughtful exhibition was a suitable tribute.

Bill Viola, far right, with his wife Kira Perov. Center is Robert Cozzolino and left is Julian Robson, Pafa curators

This is the same piece Viola showed at the Venice Biennale in 2007, in the Chapel of San Gallo. There are only three copies of this work–Australia, Korea and here. What a coup for PAFA and Curator Julien Robson!

Viola, a humble man, gave generous thanks to his wife, Kira Perov, at the press opening. “Kira deserves as much credit as I do for the projects we took on over 35 years,” he said. And he thanked audio master Benjamin Lee, who has worked with him for 8 years.

Kira Perov (center) and Bill Viola (right) speaking at PAFA

“I think we were all put on this earth to inspire each other,” Viola said. Then he said the work was inspired by the paintings on ancient Greek funerary urns. Giacometti was also on his list of influences, not to mention Sufi poetry of the 17th century. He said African society is still in touch with the dead, but we have drummed the dead out of our society. The work is partly a result of seeing his parents pass away.

Bill Viola, Ocean without Shore, film still, courtesy of PAFA and the artist

Viola said what started him on the journey that led to this video was seeing an image of an older woman on a funerary urn at the Getty in 2004. Viola’s mother had died in the 1990s. And then he read on the label that the woman’s ashes had been inside. “I can’t even say it. I’m too emotional to talk,” he said. He paused. Then he marveled at how the actors he worked with entrusted him with their inner feelings and emotions.

In Venice, he said, the ghosts outnumber the living and he felt connected to them in the now deconsecrated chapel where he originally showed the work. He also connected with the living–like the Venetian who walked his dog there daily and told him, “‘I was christened there and my son was baptized there.’”

The piece, like a Victorian-era ghost show, immerses you in a room where celestially-back-lit emanations swim into your sphere with a great orgasmic whoosh of sound. Death and birth are the unmistakable subjects. Actors, 23 in all, go through a watery baptism–walking through a sheet of falling water–and then evaporate as grisaille ghosts, perhaps turning to stone before your eyes. The water, when touched by the actors, creates auras of light and a spiritual magic. Viola later told us the piece, with its grainy ocean without a shore, was “a continual cycle of beings, something that will continue going on.”

As for the installation, it too will continue on. “It’s the most amazing thing it’s going to stay here. This isn’t a five-week show,” he said.

Levonian (BFA William and Mary; MFA RISD) first assisted on video animations as a child, with her father and sister. She is currently in the “here.” show at PAFA (closing Dec. 31, 2011) and was in the Art Museum‘s Live Cinema program last year. The music in many of Levonian’s videos are original work by Nathan Parker Smith (brother of Adam Parker Smith). She shows at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery.

Jennifer Levonian in her studio in her Kensington rowhouse home.

Below is a short clip from the interview. Click “read more” for the full interview on the jump page.

Download audio file (LEvonian_promo2.mp3)

Right click to download Jennifer Levonian 35-second sample

Download audio file (Levonian_edit1.mp3)

Right click to download full 16:12 min. interview with Jennifer Levonian
The YouTube slide show:

This episode is edited by Peter Crimmins. The music is by Eric Biondo. The slide show is edited by artblog Intern Alison McMenamin. Thanks to the Knight Foundation for helping us get the ball rolling on this project. Thanks also to J-Lab‘s Enterprise Reporting Fund and William Penn Foundation for additional support and to our partner WHYY NewsWorks for their ongoing support and for sharing artblog radio episodes on the arts & culture page of their community news site NewsWorks.org. You can subscribe to artblog radio on iTunes

Christopher Davison, detail of mural painting at Gallery 817, University of the Arts

Davison’s show at Gallery 817 is over, and his mural is now gone, painted over in preparation for the next gallery show. But because the artist took some videos of the piece in progress you can see the mural virtually come alive on the wall — it’s a dramatic 2-minute time-lapse video of a piece that undergoes surprising changes including one that will take your breath away for its savage — but ultimately right — decision.  We loved seeing the mural and asked Chris whether he’d repeat the labor intensive project.  He said yes, and we hope it happens…hello out there, want a really great mural?

Brawler (Time Lapse Drawing By Christopher Davison) from christopher davison on Vimeo.

Over the years, we’ve seen Davison’s work grow in sophistication as it’s grown in confidence. While Chris has always flirted with death and the evil angels, his fascination with human nature and the human psyche is what fascinates us in these seductive works.

Davison has a gallery in New York and a gallery in Los Angeles. It is shocking that he has no representation in Philadelphia–we can’t imagine why.

Villa Savoye, Poissy, with Santiago Borja’s installation on the grounds

There was no information on the structure, although the bookstore had leaflets on artists’ projects at the site, and someone was clearly working on something on the villa’s roof garden. A visit to the web revealed that we were a few days early for the opening of the installation, Sitio, by Santiago Borja, a Mexican artist well-connected to the international circuit of historical sites that have a history of inviting artists to respond to their buildings, collections and histories. The form of Borja’s outdoors structure (titled Destinerrance) was a doubled palapa, structures built in the Yucatan by the Mayans (hence the relationship with Seminole building); three traditional craftsmen from Mexico had come to Poissy to build Borja’s piece, which makes an association between the supporting logs of indigenous  Mayan buildings and Le Corbusier’s famous pilotis, the stilts which raise the bulk of his buildings above ground level. The two other parts of Borja’s project, to be situated in the living room and on the villa’s terrace, were not completed when we visited.

‘Destinerrance’, one of three parts of Santiago Borja’s installation, ‘Sitio’ at Villa Savoye

Borja has also produced work for the Freud Museum, London , the Swiss Pavilion at Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris  (more on that below), and Richard Neutra’s VDL-Research House II in L.A..  The Villa Savoye project is sponsored by the Graham Foundation and the regional department of monuments’ program, Balades en Yvelines, both of which have many art projects in the works and appear to give the artists appropriate budgets with which to work;  the artists who have worked for Landmarks Contemporary Projects, Philadelphia, have done some very interesting work, but on a shoestring, and some artists doing installations at Eastern State Penitentiary have lost money because the projects are under-funded and the artists are responsible for maintaining their work in situ.

One of Borja’s assistants working on the terrace portion of his installation at Villa Savoye

Corbu also designed two buildings at the Cité Internationale Universitaire, a campus housing international students at the University of Paris. The Brazilian Pavilion, being later (1957-59) reminded me of his only North American project, Harvard’s Carpenter Center (1963), where I had the great opportunity to study; the pavilion was extraordinary, even if we were only allowed to visit the extensive (and un-photographable) lobby. We were able to get into one of the rooms, with original furniture, at the Swiss Pavilion (1933, link above), whose sober façade hides much more interesting interiors, which have windows, hence lots of light, in the corridors.

Matthieu Gadoin (r.) and Diego Fellay hanging a recreation of Le Corbusier’s original mural at the Swiss Pavilion

In a ground floor meeting room known as the Salon courbe (Curved Room) we found the Swiss designer, Diego Fellay working with colleagues to hang a wall of black and white printed paper over Le Corbusier’s colorful mural of 1947 as his installation, Wall of Tomorrow ( done in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur, Dimitri de Preux and Matthieu Gadoin).  The project, which was opening that evening, was a re-creation of Le Corbusier’s original mural (barely documented and largely forgotten, it was damaged during World War II); it had included images from microbiology and architecture.  The temporary return of the original emphasizes the extent to which the architect associated his architecture with organic growth, and perhaps suggests that the famous modular, by which Corbu designed, might be seen as akin to the biological unit of the cell.

‘Wall of Tomorrow’ in course of installation over Le Corbusier’s repainted mural

Parole in libertà: Charles Sandison at the Musée du Quai Branly

The beginning of Charles Sandison’s ‘The River’ at the Musée du Quai Branly

The Scots artist, Charles Sandison, was commissioned last year to create a piece at the Musée du Quai Branly with his favored medium of video projection. The result, The River, is a striking success: a waterfall of words which appears to spill from the ceiling of the long ramp that takes visitors up two floors to the exhibition galleries. As they mount the ramp, the water eddies and flows (yes, uphill; but this is art, and not tied to the realities of hydrology). It is made up of 16, 597 names of the peoples and places represented in the museum, which collects from the continents beyond Europe, with an emphasis on indigenous material (where Europe, it might be noted, is hardly a leader).  Occasionally a word will stand out as legible, but largely they move and tumble as a mass  in what, undoubtedly, is the artist’s underlying metaphor for mankind. While neither novel nor complex as an idea, the installation itself is extraordinarily effective and turns what otherwise would be a long, uphill slog into an interesting as well as pleasant journey. I’ve seen a fair amount of commissioned artwork that primarily functioned as aesthetic quality control, but whatever criticism I have of Jean Nouvelle’s building and the functionality of the ramp, in particular, Sanderson’s piece is more than that, and valid on its own. I believe it’s a permanent installation; here’s wishing it a long life!

Jennifer Williams, inkjet ink on Photo-tex paper (that's Murray in the foreground)

New York artist Jennifer Williams’ installation photographs splayed on the gallery walls are spectacular. The one resting in a corner delights with the way it engages the viewer physically in its vertiginous urban spaces, delivering a sensation of instability, and at the same time trumpeting the architectural triumphs of the cityscape. The cityscape is a big theme in this show, from Arden Bendler Browning’s now familiar mural-size urban swirls, to Tim Portlock’s digital urban disaster zones, to Noah Addis’ Trump Plaza towering over urban decay (a straightforward photo).

Allison Kaufman, Trust Falls, Five Channel Looped Video Installation, Silent, 2011, Edition of 5. detail shows a woman shaving an elderly man

The vulnerability of buildings becomes a metaphor for the vulnerability of living things in this show. And that’s part of Allison Kaufman’s subject–the human need for companionship and loving care, in a series of five silent video loops by the New York artist. Her horizontal lineup of the video screens add up to a strong presence in the Gray Area foyer to the Ice Box. The tactility of a man braiding a woman’s hair or a young woman shaving an elderly man deliver the intimacy between people and show up-close people’s physical and emotional vulnerability. The intimate scale of the videos seems just right given the subject matter–at home with our good friend the telly.

Kimberly Witham, Still Life with Steak and Fox, Digital C Print, 20 x 26 inches, 2010, image © Kimberly Witham at www,kimberlywitham.com

Death and denial are what make Kimberly Witham’s beautiful still-lifes serious. Previously I had dismissed them as slight, based on Internet images. But with a look in the real world, I’m all aboard. These C-prints of road kill in decorative settings hark to the Vanitas tradition and William Harnett’s dead-critter still-lifes all gussied up with Ann Craven-like wallpaper paintings. The fiercest of Witham’s photos, Still Life with Steak and Fox, conflates beauty with bestiality, the red meat a perverse splash of delicious red caught on a hook!

Kimberly Witham, Still Life with Two Squirrels, Digital C Print

My other favorite of hers is a pair of squirrels floating in front of a blue sky filled with a pattern of white puffy clouds. The giddiness of the squirrels dancing in their blue heaven almost–but not quite–overcomes the questions of how dead the squirrels are–and how far we can delude ourselves as we enjoy their–and our–dance of death.

Bohyun Yoon's glass helmet is scheduled for a 2012 show at the Smithsonian

Installation and lighting conditions in the Gray Area take a toll on two video pieces. I had trouble seeing Bohyun Yoon’s marvelous Sound of Helmet Instrument, a video of a sort of tea ceremony with glass teapot-helmets, and Ana B. Hernandez’s Still Life With Figs, a projection of a performance with a lineup of sexy fruits.

Opening night, installation shot. Work by Jennifer Williams high on walls.

Others in the show are Lewis Colburn (I missed his performance), Don Edler, Laureen Griffin, Jordan Griska (his Oil Barrel), Mami Kato, Daniel Kornrumpf, Maggie Mills and Alison Stigora. The exhibit had a full house opening night.

The exhibition is open to June 29, 2011.

Core Samples, a one-person show featuring internet and new media artist Kari Altmann at Extra Extra Gallery, attempts to uncover the common denominators that exist between people, the exterior environment, and all of the images, products, and information that populate our existence. (The show can be seen at Extra Extra until the end of the month.)

Kari Altmann's show at Extra Extra. Still from large video projection

All of Altmann’s works in the show — videos, photography and sculpture — include a reference to the premise that core samples are extracted by boring a hole into a mass. By employing this metaphor, Altmann declares her idea that the internet, television, in fact all media new or old, comprises the meat of a great digital and ephemeral mass that takes up actual space in nature. The physical character of this media mass is not solid and redundant like a rock, but more fleeting and amorphous like a cloud. And because this is a mostly visual mass to be probed, the drill bit is not one of hardened steel but rather that of a piercing “eye”.

Kari Altmann, Still from large projection

The artist operates as though all of the media bombarding the airwaves is structured into a fabric similar to that of deep space and the mysterious properties of dark matter, where scientists imagine that space warps and folds over itself, making it possible to pass through portals and re-emerge somewhere else. By directing her drill/eye into this complex knot of media, it’s as though she is teleporting through alternate universes of space-curving, time-destroying layers of visual strata. The resulting effect acts to confirm the philosophical notion that all of time coexists with itself simultaneously, and that if you follow the correct thread through time you can freely jump from one moment to a completely different one.

The show is comprised of two large video projections that are beamed onto adjacent walls. It is the same video but cued up to play on an opposite schedule. The room is neither dark or bright, it has a sort of dim interior daylight quality. On the other two walls are mounted a few portable video screens, some photography-based works and also a few small sculptures. There’s sparse audio accompaniment that plays over some hidden speakers. Sometimes the audio seems to link up with one of the videos, other times it might just be minimal and reverb-y. The show mostly comes off as cold and corporately clean, and the distant-sounding audio loop gives the same impression as the echo-y loudspeakers in an uncrowded mid-day train station.

Kari Altmann, Still from video monitor

The large format video projections are most notable in conveying Altmann’s eye for poignant visuals. They are layered with her conceptual urge to bring disparate imageries together. As the scenes play out and randomly change at their own pace to the next video clip, the ever-seeing circular eye becomes the only thing bringing the disparate clips together. Sometimes the edges of this piercing eye lay dormant and quite benign, at other times Altmann’s use of special effects creates undulating waves of energy that drool and swirl from the central eye. This is her way, perhaps, of referencing the observer effect in physics: that the act of observation itself skews the nature of the scene observed. Her use of the stationary round authority and even the well chosen color schemes and vintage-seeming camera effects bring to mind Kubrick’s all-knowing Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kari Altmann, photograph

The exhibit is a strangely voyeuristic but detached experience. Although you are allowed to see images of so many disparate events, youʼve never felt farther away from them. Like Hal — programmed and essential to the mission yet mad at never actually experiencing life sensually as a living breathing human being—you, the viewer, are forever relegated to the spectator status.

On three small video screens, Altmann has created a series of short videos where one main spherical mass digitally morphs into another thing. Although the objects shape-shift into completely different objects, they retain the same general shape and color, again stressing the conceptual and formal thread that connects so many disparately existing entities.

Kari Altmann, glass sculpture with ID card embedded in it

Core Samples transplants Altmann’s wifi-centric video artworks from their natural home on the internet and into the confines of a more traditional, brick and mortar gallery-space presentation. Here she seems to experiment with different deliveries, not quite sure how best to convey her trippy, web-based morphing and mellifluous works into static art gallery time.