antARTica: the selfportrait.net blog

Looking at Music

2008-12-25T14:45:00.004-05:00

This small, three room exhibit at the Moma is probably one of the most overlooked in the museum, especially with artists like Joan Miro and Van Gough currently on display. This is unfortunate because it is also one of the most interesting.

Looking at Music chronicles some of the art that emerged as a result of the 60’s/70’s experimental sound revolution, a time when musicians were starting to use digital effects, dissonance, and minimalism in their work. Painters, composers, filmmakers, and writers began to take notice and were eager to implement these same elements into their own work.

The first thing you see when you enter the exhibit is a haunting projection of John Lennon on the wall. He’s looking at you from under a dark mop of hair while he stands in the center of a courtyard. You can hear the crisp sound of cars and birds in the background. Slowly, he starts to open his mouth. “Hi,” he says, in a long drawn out growl. And you just feel like you spoke with John Lennon.

It’s a piece by Yoko Ono, which is surprising of course, because her name is associated with the breakup of The Beatles and not interesting thought-provoking art.

Also besides the entrance are a series of compositions by composer John Cage. At the time he was greatly influenced by eastern music, so he tried experimenting with obscure forms of musical notation. One “piece” is notated with a series of dots and circles spread across a graph paper. Two music students staring at it were able to make some sense of the thing, “well, that dot must be a staff, and that speck has to be a quarter note,” they observed.

A contemporary of Cage’s, composer Nam Jan Paik, turned a mini television set into an abstract musical instrument. A bright white line is projected running diagonally across the TV screen. It stays this way, shining through the black. According to Paik the bright line is akin to what a single note of music would be like if it was sounded forever.

There is a clipping from a 1965 issue of The Village Voice. A dark chalked drawing of a woman walks across the page, obscuring the article. The paper was printed that way, with a portion of the story almost impossible to read. This piece signifies how widespread the energy and excitement for experimentation was at the time. Even publications were willing to try something new.

The last portion of the show examines the emergence of experimental music videos. In the “Penny Lane” video, by the Beatles, the band is shown roaming around London, traveling through gardens by horse, and finally having tea in the middle of a park. Strange stuff. In another music video, “Secret Agent Man,” by Devo, the band is shown wearing disturbing Ken Barbie-like masks as they rock out in a dingy factory basement.

The best part of the exhibit however, is watching peoples’ reactions. A pleasant old lady, for example, put on headphones to listen to Steve Riech’s piece, “Come out,” from 1966. The piece consists of a looped voice, which is then slowly sped up to produce a blurring warbling trance. The lady started off with a smile, which then slowly turned into a bemused grin, with then turned into helpless confusion, and she was forced to take the headphones off.

Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton at The New Museum

2008-11-10T13:48:00.002-05:00

In an art world championed by monumental sculptures and large-format prints, Elizabeth Peyton, painter of small oil portraits and aquatint street scenes, would seem an unlikely success. But such is the mystery and romanticism that shrouds the elusive artists’ career; one that begun in a Chelsea hotel room and continues now in the monumental white box of The New Museum’s main gallery. Almost fifteen years and over a hundred paintings later, there’s still much to be resolved.

In looking for answers within Peyton’s work, we’re forced to contemplate her subject matter which ranges from historical figures (Napoleon, Ludwig II of Bavaria) to more recent celebrities (Kurt Cobain, Jarvis Cocker) to friends and family, many of who are famous in their own right, including the artists Matthew Barney and Piotr Uklański and the designer Marc Jacobs. The later are the most interesting, for what at first appears as systematic star fucking on closer inspection becomes a meditation on the temporality of life.

A portrait of the rapper Eminem, casually titled Em, finds the celebrity in a contemplative, vulnerable state, uneasily positioned against a monotonous grey backdrop while a portrait of the Oasis front man Liam Gallagher and Pulp rocker Jarvis Cocker captures a private moment between two very public figures. The people that populate Peyton’s paintings are not always famous, as in Spencer Walking, in which a friend walks into a bustling city landscape, but even as so they are cast in an iconic light surrounded by figures like Walt Whitman and Keith Richards.

Such romantic a notion could only be fostered by a gallerist like Gavin Brown, Peyton’s long time collaborator who has been known to allow his artists free range within his Chelsea space (even letting the artist Urs Fischer dig a crater into the marble of his gallery’s floor.) Peyton met Brown in 1995 while living in New York, a recent SVA graduate and Brown an aspiring gallerist on the brink of buying his first space. Peyton’s first show was mounted in a small room in The Chelsea Hotel, which Brown had rented allowing visitors to request a key at the front desk. The iconic locale, where Bob Dylan wrote Highway 66 and Dylan Thomas died of alcohol poisoning, is a monument of artistic death and rebirth, which provided the perfect setting for Peyton’s faded icons.

But here, finally on display in a museum, they seem out of place; naked without setting and bare without context. Against white walls, Peyton’s work looses its figurative duality but engages in an irony that so very fitting for her work. Spaced against the walls, lit from overhead, every piece, every fleeting moment seems to live forever.

Mighty Ink

2008-11-03T20:09:00.004-05:00

When Kevin Kallaugher was middle school, he thought it might be funny to draw a cartoon of his teacher. After he drew it, it soon started getting passed under desks and collecting giggles from every corner of the room. He was feeling proud and confident of himself, until, by some terrible stroke of bad luck, his teacher got hold of it. She was appalled by the image, which stressed her most prominent feature: a loud talking mouth. She made Kallaugher come up to the front of the class where she shamed him, making him promise that he would never do it again.

Kallaugher did not keep his promise; in fact he did the direct opposite. Today, Kevin ‘Kal’ Kallaugher is the chief cartoonist for The Economist Magazine, where every week, his distinct ink cartoons shed some light and humor on the generally dour state of affairs in the world-at-large.

He spoke last Saturday to a full house at the Edison Theatre, in the second of a series of programs hosted by The Economist Magazine. Audiences were made privy to the ins and outs of a professional cartoonist’s life; a highly specific line of work that he says, “maybe only roughly 80 people in this country actually make a living from.”

“The pen is powerful,” Kallaugher warned, as he spoke of the Muhammad cartoon controversy in 05’, in which a Danish newspaper printed cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, “People got angry, people were killed. There were riots,” he said, “That was because of a cartoon.”

Kallaugher explained that the “trick” to political cartooning, is to identify the signature features of your subjects, and accentuate on them. “Sarah Palin is a hard one to draw,” he said, as he started giving us an actual demonstration on a big white paper board, “because she has this one eye that keeps on blinking.”

McCain, he explained, “is Piranha-like” as he drew the candidate with a chuffed angry face, and John Kerry has a “massive chin,” for which he taped another sheet to the base of the first one to draw fully.

Kallaugher stressed the importance of political cartoons, and why we love them, “Cartoons are empowering to those under authority,” he said; they can poke and chide. “Our job is not to make you laugh,” he said, “its to make you think.”

The Work of Marc Swanson

2008-10-20T15:51:00.002-04:00

Rhinestone encrusted trophy-heads, laminated t-shirt panels; taxideremied peacocks and woolen yetis are all reoccurring themes throughout the work of Marc Swanson. The New York based sculptor and installation artist has garnered a reputation for his deeply personal and highly aesthetic works which deal with issues of identity, masculinity, mysticism and death. His latest pair of shows at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum in Ithaca and the Bellwether Gallery in New York, further his investigation into the divisive nature of man and the cruel irony of nature with an ensemble of new works and a well-picked selection of old ones.

Despite Swanson’s startling resolve and methodical approach to art making, his road to becoming an artist has not been a typical one. An art school dropout turned commercial sculptor, Swanson made a living designing trade-show displays and commercial plaster in San Francisco. As his skills developed and his confidence increased, he began to experiment with works of his own; consisting largely of small dioramas and installations, which challenged models of masculinity in the age of indentity politics.

With virtually no formal training, Swanson began showing in San Francisco and soon in New York before earning a residency in Switzerland. It wasn’t until 2000 that he enrolled in the prestigious nine-week residency offered by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and subsequently Bard College for his MFA.

As his work has progressed, it has become increasingly personal and much of the works in the Johnson Museum and the Bellwether Gallery shows make reference to his childhood; growing up the gay son of a devoted trophy hunter in rural New Hampshire and moving to San Francisco to pursue art. Embellished deer recall hunting with his father, while mystic symbols made of the artists t-shirts and underwear ask grander questions about the state of man, all the while a peacock perched above appears as both a phoenix and a vulture, a constant reminder of death and reinvention.
The majesty of Marc Swanson’s work exists in his ability to capture a dual narrative. At once highly personal and self-referential, Swanson’s work illuminates greater truths about life in the modern era.

The Saint at Large, Bellwether Gallery, New York, NY
Hurry on Sundown, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The Pigeon Meets its Match

2008-10-10T21:08:00.009-04:00

The Seagull is not an easy play. It’s about a group of artists who meet for a weekend retreat, and intense egotistical warfare ensues. It’s about a young writer trying to confirm himself, and the strange relationship he has with his mother. It’s about art and how it’s sometimes more a luxury and a necessity. At times, it’s a parody of art; it’s triviality. The difficult themes of Checkov's masterpiece are readdressed in a new, excellent, production at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

Christen Scott Thomas, though not the main character is the main attraction. She plays the role of, Arkadina, Konstantin’s beautiful, proud and arrogant mother. Arkadina is a character is so complex and intricate, and Thomas plays her with such ease, that it’s a wonder Thomas hasn’t gone mad doing so. Or who knows, maybe already she has? There’s still ten weeks left.

Mackenzie Crook, the gauntly cubicle worker from the British version of the Office, is gloriously redefined in the lead role of, Konstantin, the tortured young writer. And Peter Sarsgaard, though the weakest link because of his phasing American accent, plays the role of, Trigorin, the jaded writer genius nicely, with his deadpan butter face.

People say that you can judge the quality of a Seagull production, among other things, by its ending; if it gets your jaw to drop. Well these guys must have done it in spades.

For more information: http://www.seagulltheplay.com/

Built to Spill at Terminal 5 09/26/08

2008-09-30T13:31:00.015-04:00

It was a mash up. A triple bill of some of the most important indie bands of the 90’s: The Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr., and the headliner, Built To Spill, performing the entirety of their album, Perfect From Now On.

The Meat Puppets hadn’t aged well. Their legendary drug use had taken its toll, both the Kirkwood brothers looked haggard, especially Chris, the bassist, who looked like an old tree log. But they still managed to rock through their foot tapping country-tinged grunge with grace. They ended with an impressive jam that left behind a quiet audience in its quake.

The Meat Puppets were loud, but Dinosaur Jr. was a war machine. J. Mascis, their long white haired guitarist and front man, was like a towering Nordic God as he thrashed out angry riffs from within the confines of a Marshal Stack fortress.

Built To Spill played to a packed theatre. Part of front man Doug Marstch’s charm is that his face has a calm to it when it’s not whining melodies, but tonight it seemed that in many ways, he was genuinely tired. After performing the same album day after day for months on end, Marstch seemed weary.

When the band was finished, they were treated to a roaring applause. Amid the shouting and clapping Marstch’s strumming arm could be heard playing the introduction to “The Plan,” a song not on the album. Then they played “Center of the Universe.” And then in what seemed too good to be true, they jumped into their indie rock masterpiece, “Carry the Zero.” For the first time in the show Marstch seemed truly passionate. His face turned a violet red as his convulsing body banged on the strings of his guitar, and he sang with pure cold-blooded conviction about love as a failed math equation.

The Market Hotel: The Story

2008-09-15T17:43:00.013-04:00

Go to The Market Hotel for a gallery of pictures of when The Americans & The So So Glos performed.

- Greeley

selfportrait.net/greeley

Plastic Topography

2008-09-14T05:41:00.006-04:00

Normally, I only write about the galleries in the Paris, but on a recent trip to NYC I stopped by the Melville Gallery down at the South Street Seaport. It is a small gallery run by the South Street Seaport Museum. The show, Plastic Topography, curated by Carl Eckhoff, runs through the end of September. The artist roster includes: Steven Baines, Kim Baranowski, J.J. Garfinkel, Adam Henry and Duke Riley.

These works alternate back and forth between the emotional and the absurd - sometimes causing a vast sense of aloneness, sometimes loss, sometimes teasing and, at times, they are even more playful on your second look. The photographs of Antartica, by Kim Baranowski, awe with their absolute beauty and striking colors of nature. At first look, you too might not be able to tell they are real. I had to ask. Although this is just a small look at what these artists have created, you are left wanting more ... perhaps the best indication of a successful show.

Duke Riley, "Photograph of Duke Riley in the Acorn Submarine"

Duke Riley, "Untitled"

Steven Baines, "Monkey Lost at Sea"

Kim Baranowski, "Scenic View"

Tam Ochiai at team Gallery NYC

2008-09-12T15:43:00.002-04:00

With a far more sophisticated and dynamic touch than that of author Louis XXX or similar illustrators, Japanese artist Tam Ochiai has taken to delicately mimicking the honest and romantic style of an untrained child sketching with colored pencils—thinly veiling, of course, the formal talent he possesses as an established artist whose current show has been written up in artscape and Tokyo Art Beat.
The opening of Ochiai’s fifth solo show at team (gallery inc.) last Tuesday included seventy 11 x 8.5 colored pencil drawings framed and hung in a neat row which ran all the way around the white walls of the Grant Street space. Some of the forms are wispy gestures on shallow backgrounds, manifesting the crème of Western cultured life’s treasured indulgences—french fries, tennis, classical music; others are layered, waxy color fields in which hover what appear to be moons, but are titled far more ominously (“Benign Tumor”).

The stated source of the unpolished style is the show’s protagonist, real life 19th Century prize-winning show cat Tiam O’shian IV, through whose mind Tam Ochiai approaches his subjects, not unlike an experiment in, say, being John Malkovich. The thin, uneven pencil scratches do indeed suggest a feline presence, but I would argue that it is hard not to associate the drawings more with a gesture towards childhood and memory. One looks upon one of the pieces in the show as one looks upon a Tin Tin story—sweetly optimistic, bright and simple, but unerringly true and somehow aesthetically and emotionally profound. The moments he has sketched out are deeply personal in their rawness: the minimal strokes allow the viewer to fill in the face of their own long-distance romancier or favorite tennis partner, we identify which of the listed French breakfast treats hold special places in our hearts, etc. The more frenzied scribbles seem to reference the way in which emotions, in memory, fall apart, and their strands float freely through our remembered past, as we attach them where we will in its recalling. Tam’s drawings become somehow our own intimate pictorial memories, only more elegant and more exotic—the way we would like to remember them.

It was beautiful to see a slightly older Japanese artist look backwards in time this way, especially because he does it while distancing himself from the now-mainstream techniques of Nara or Murakami: channeling a daunting youth through the whimsical plasticity and consumerism of Japanese anime culture.

Best of all, the gallery was subtly but completely interrupted by two large installations: a giant tube in the main room and a white cube in the back room which creates a sort of square hallway path for viewing the series. You could walk through the show without noticing much of the sculptures except the inconvenience they cause…that’s the point. According to the press release, the objects “can’t help but alter the movement of a viewer attempting to move simply from drawing to drawing. The sculptures serve to foreground the role of the human body and of architecture in the “reading” of drawings.” They succeed—may I say that they explore the ways in which we construct and obstruct our own memories?
The party, too, was fun—photographer Ryan McGinley pranced past team gallery Associate Director Alex Logsdail and social fixture Drew Caldwell to browse the works. If you can’t make it to team for Tam, definitely pencil in time to see the Cory Archangel show which will take its place later in the year. Check out teamgal.com for details.

Selfportrait Summer Podcast

2008-09-09T11:10:00.003-04:00

We've all returned to school or whatever and I don't know about you, but I am savagely clawing to hang on to the last remnants of summer. Anyway, for those of you who are like me or for those of you who missed it, summer in New York City saw the production of some great music. Here is a small podcast of the best of it from up and coming recording artists living in the City. Listen to it in January when it's freezing and remember that June is only six short months away.

1. Self-Taught Learner -- Lissy Trullie
2. 123 Stop -- The Postelles
3. One Night Stand -- The Americans
4. We Got the Days -- The So So Glos
5. Start It Out -- Frankpollis
6. Anomalous Phenomena -- Earth Eater
7. Feed -- Julia Tepper
8. I Heart New York -- Samuel

Click here to listen.

-E.U.
selfportrait.net/eddieubell

Isaac Brest and Still House

2008-09-01T20:45:00.009-04:00

Isaac Brest is an exciting prospect to come across. He is a talented photographer though he never considered himself a photographer at all until a few months ago. Even so, he’s been taking pictures for years. Great pictures. And, as someone for whom photography does not normally speak to as a medium (the rash of lastnightsparty.com scene shots and contrived black and white digital works of New York City lamp posts make me really nauseous), Isaac Brest has absolutely renewed my interest.

Sitting in a small coffee shop around the corner from 7Eleven Gallery, the space that he and the artist collective he co-runs with longtime friend Alex Perweiler are transforming into a cohesive exhibition space (but more on that later...), Isaac enlightened me as to the importance of a good eye, film over digital, exposure length, types of cameras, and the general catharsis of the development process.

His most impressive work is a succinct series of photographs taken during time spent abroad in Cuba. Walking through the streets, Isaac captured a world that is rarely seen as a traveler. He exposes something through his pictures that displays a comfort--a familiarity, actually--with these scenes that is very hard to show as an outsider. It is noteworthy that Isaac values his film. He is not of the habit of taking pictures superfluously and then relying on probability to produce a handful of quality shots. No picture is taken without forethought and Isaac will not even focus his lens unless he is positive the photograph will come out well. Hence, these are not the photos of some turista snapping away at a countryside or ecclesiastical monument, they are the products of immersion and research.

As the photos are almost journalistic in their representation, they are artistically resonant. The importance of having a good eye and a handle on craft and technique are present as Isaac’s deft studies of light and shadow create dramatic Brassai-esque atmospheres for his photographs. Most definitely check out Isaac's work at his website.

Isaac is also doing something very exciting in the form of the artist’s collective Still House which he cofounded with his longtime friend Alex Perweiler. It is terrific to see peers and artists coming together with the sheer intention of exposing what they find exciting to the world.

The collective, which consists of Isaac and Alex, Lucien Smith, Jack Greer, Louis Eisner, Zach Susskind, Brendan Lynch, Nick Darmstaedter, Jack Siegel, and John Roman, is something that has been absent for a long time. The mission, according to Isaac, is to create a sort of "one stop shop" for the emerging artists that are working in New York City. Currently, the residents all exist within the same scene, but eventually Isaac aims for the group to be a more open forum based exploration of the youth-based art of high quality in New York. It is an assembly of peers that are very excited about eachother's work. To me, that is the purest form of artist representation. The group is inspiring. Anything that can bring artists together to engage in dialogue and promote the creation of work and generate exposure is always beneficial.

Go see their opening of photography, mixed media, and installation work on Friday, September 5th, from 6pm to 9pm and the 7Eleven Gallery located at 711 Washington Street in Manhattan.

-E.U.
selportrait.net/eddieubell

Eric Shaw: In the House

2008-08-26T09:49:00.008-04:00

The work featured by Eric Shaw in his new, one-man exhibition is a perfect sampling of the artist’s highly referential and tightly themed art. The show presents a series of painstakingly ornamental and stylized interior works. With meticulous attention paid to the intricacy of patterning, the non-gestural works actually gain body as the illusory effect of the twisting and turning lines weave and form patchworks of decoration. Meanwhile, Shaw makes appropriate reference to those who have preceded him in the same vein. With a clear grounding in history, there are smatterings of Op Art , ancient Mesoamerican symmetrical work, a de Kooning-esque portrait, and Pop Art explorations of camouflage and tie-dye. Like Édouard Vuillard within his own interior works, Shaw often flattens his dimensions and lets the embellished texture speak for itself. The amalgam of references is well taken though not overpowering and the artist is able to move forward with his own original thesis.

The most enigmatic aspects of these pieces are the representations of figures. Ambiguous and often androgynous, they are faceless with uniform physique and shoulder-length black hair; their bodies cut off or contorted at awkward angles. It is notable that they are simple, line-drawn creatures, bereft of the phantasmagorical color and detailing that permeates the works that they inhabit. As these blank humans reside within the Technicolor playgrounds that Shaw has created, the depiction is evocative. Man, in this world, appears very simple when compared to his environment.

Overall, the work is strong in style and creativity. Shaw uses an distinctive (almost 1950s retro) color palette to create his interiors making the work playful. His application of the palette to established patterns like camouflage or the normally two-tone, hard-edge abstraction that Bridget Riley uses in her optical art maintains the work’s lightheartedness. What makes it especially noteworthy is the juxtaposition of styles and object representations. Shaw does not partake in academic dimensionality or typical scaling. This technique creates a visual puzzle. When viewed, each piece needs to be broken down as furniture, wall hangings, and other fittings, organized and cognitively registered. Truthfully, at first examination, the works seem a little too big a mouthful to swallow. Once time is spent with them, however, the pictures reveal themselves as thoroughly conceived and carefully produced living areas.

“Eric Shaw: In the House” is available for private viewing at the selfportrait gallery until September 12th. The gallery is open from 12pm to 5pm. To arrange a viewing, for a complimentary catalogue, or for pricing please email info@selfportrait.net.

Photos courtesy of Antwan Duncan - www.ithinkyoureswell.com

Selfportrait.net presents the "Eric Shaw : In The House" opening party at the Market Hotel with Amazing Baby

2008-08-23T22:15:00.007-04:00

The opening party was a huge success! Special thanks to Amazing Baby, Colt 45 and Fizzy Lizzy.

Photos by Ryder Haske:

Bright Idea Shade: Design for a Changing World

2008-08-23T15:33:00.005-04:00

Contrary to popular belief, it is easy being green. As always, the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center is on the foreground of making ecologically conscious living a realistic and attainable goal. As your incandescent bulbs begin to burn out, try replacing them with compact florescent light bulbs (the spiral ones that burn brighter and longer using far less energy). But oh, the brightness! Here's a little video that can help you dim the harshness and show your design savvy:

Bright Idea Shade from Michael Mandiberg on Vimeo.

Check out the full info here.

-E.U.
selfportrait.net/eddieubell

Renovating The Market Hotel/ Eric Shaw : In The House (Tomorrow Night!)

2008-08-21T21:41:00.004-04:00

In preparation for Eric Shaw : In The House, the first ever art show at the Market Hotel, beginning tomorrow night at 7pm, featuring DJ Max Kamins, a set by Amazing Baby, 25 cases of 16 oz. Colt 45 cheap vodka and a shit load of Fizzy Lizzy, Greeley and I have built track lights:

The Market Hotel is in Brooklyn, on the corner of Broadway and Myrtle. Assuming you live in Manhattan, take the JMZ to Myrtle Aze. and walk 30 ft., just left of Mr. Kiwi's.

The Americans

2008-08-19T15:41:00.004-04:00

It is clear that Rolling Stone sometimes still has a point. This was especially proven in a small blurb under the editor's picks column last month. “Powerpop” they said, “is the new Afro-Pop.” And indeed, it seems that the type of music that Vampire Weekend made so popular last winter is being usurped by the style of music that is being played by a young, New York City band of great talent, the Americ ans. Made up primarily of Charlie Klarsfeld (vocals and guitar), Julia Tepper (back up vocals), Xan Aird (bass) and Peter Negroponte (drums), the band features accompaniment by the Dap Kings (Mark Ronson's house band) on horns. Together, they have created a wonderfully strong collection of catchy pop melodies that are as danceable as their lyrics are pertinent.

Klarsfeld, the chief songwriter of the group, has constructed an erudite, Baroque pop sound making excellent use of his musicians to create songs that remain chipper and lighthearted, yet orchestral and well contained. Dominated by thumping piano and punctuated by Klarsfeld's relaxed, garage-y guitar playing, the compositions embrace their retro feel while maintaining a progressive structure of successful transitions of disparate melodies; not just between songs, but within them. At the same time, nothing seems excessive or pretentious, the bells and whistles (literally) all fuse to a serious musical undertaking. Add his strong, Brian Wilson-eque voice, some goose-bump raising soulful licks (courtesy of Ms. Julia Tepper) and you have a combination capable of anthemic sensitivity in lyrics and musicianship.

Klarsfeld's words are something of the literature of place and, lyrically, he is clearly paying homage to his hometown of New York City. While songs about New York are nothing new, the urban schema provides him with a background for some seriously original reflections on life, love, our awkward yet often hilarious idiosyncrasies, and even a little backhanded hopefulness. The Americans are a band for the moment; a band for the summer in New York. Their exuberance and vanguard talent is something that has come along at the very best time. And, as Fall begins in the City and NYU students return to their dorms, the song "One Night Stand" will, I'm sure, become even more appropriate.

-E. U.
selfportrait.net/eddieubell

Louise Bourgeois: personal obsessions, the repetitions of them, and the binary relationships that keep them resonant

2008-08-13T12:09:00.005-04:00

A lazy accident at night happened in blurry vision and with a fast heartbeat caused by mildly extreme exhaustion from a long run and swim that were part of my triathlon training routine. I should not have been driving in the first place. The side mirror crashed into a stationary and even very shiny object, a warning object - a twist of irony. The mirror popped out and I still have hope I'll be able to pop it back in. The traffic starts bringing the car to a crawl. I have some time, roll the window down and fidget with the mirror, and then immediately realize that it is not easily fixable and the glass of the mirror is even cracked - a twist of the damage costs (later the next morning, I'd wake up, drive to the shop with only one mirror and find out it will be $200 more than the $48 I thought it should cost).

I dropped the car off at my parents' house, just as my mother was leaving, and I knew I would - and I did - confess my guilt. I can't drive anymore, or at least her look reacted to me that way. More flustered, I went straight for a donut and sat in my misery for a couple of hours watching olympians do things I'd never cared to try better than my imagination would let me do them had the thought even entered my mind. The phone rings. Someone wants me to meet them and I say I can't until i take care of some things, which, when I said it, I did not realize that meant going for an 8 minute mile run wearing only underwear - gray boxer briefs that day.

And so after I broke a sweat, then washed some of it off in the shower, I started my day and went to meet this person at the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Guggenheim, hoping that the cultural experience would also lead to me getting treated to lunch (it would). The run for me rested in my mind as a humorous triumph. Running in only my underwear served as a symbol for me of the pathetic state I was in after the accident, but simultaneously, the assertive decision to run and the aggression I let off reinvigorated confidence in me. Combined, the binary relationship of these two aspects formed the perfect catharsis.

Louise, as I like to call her, is a fascinating figure for several reasons. She is currently 96, an art world living legend, an obsessive personality, and a repetitious one at that. Throughout this retrospective, the form and content in her work does show an evolution, but it is an evolution of nuances within repeating themes. Louise's work remains resonant because of a strength in binary relationships and contrast including humor v. trauma, expanding v. contracting, male v. female, penile v. breast-like, and rough v. smooth among others. Repetition in her work reinforces, enhances and attracts interest in the themes, rather than signaling a staleness in it. Her work is tied together through a peculiarity and a genuine darkness that invokes the feeling of hearing someone that doesn't know you're listening reveal their deepest secrets out loud to themselves and then doing it again without losing any earnestness in its catharsis. There is a charm that is produced by that kind of intimacy and it forms yet another binary: attraction v. repulsion.

Louise's work is not impressive for its aesthetic qualities. More specifically, they are not pretty to look at. However, through being overwhelmed with the intimacy of the secrets in her work and the fervent, insistent repetition of them I found myself lulled into an intrigued boredom that I did not want to let go of, and could not escape if i tried. Slowly her secrets evolved from concerning me to reflecting my own secrets in her artwork. As I traveled up the rotunda, through the chronologically ordered display of her work, I became increasingly, but unaggressively, vacuumed into her world and, subsequently, into my own.

The introspective behavior taking place at this moment was a familiar place. I was experiencing repetition of my own in my reflection. Ultimately, it is a mistake to call it boredom, but that word does describe the vessel for which my own personal binaries were taking place. The feeling could better be described as an even hum in my head to the tune of contrasting elements canceling themselves out. The work conveys a steady and still powerful hum that inspires an investigation into acquired routines in life and the formative emotion experiences they are a product of and often cover up. Routines, it turns out, are made up of the same stuff as obsessions.

In this retrospective of Louise Bourgeois's work, the draw comes from the obsession, compelling one to look, to be unimpressed with the aesthetic, but to be moved into a familiar introspection in an unfamiliar way that then becomes recognizable once again along the walk as its obsession-ridden binary relationships begin to morph into one's own.

Not the Pompidou, she said

2008-08-10T14:07:00.012-04:00

Not knowing what I was going to see on Sunday, my expectations were quietly napping when I got there. A new friend, Maggie, suggested we meet at the Museum of Modern Art – not Pompidou, she said, and sent me this link. Looked good to me, and I welcome the opportunity to visit someplace in Paris I have not yet been, which is still a whole lot of places. Everyone told me I would love August in Paris - all the French people are gone, they said. And as this picture of the Museum front entrance will attest – empty as empty gets on an overcast, threatening but never really following through with rain Sunday at 11AM.

The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is in the 16th, right next to the Palais de Tokyo, which makes these two museums an excellent opportunity to hit 2 birds with 1 stone or, as they say here, faire d'une pierre deux coups.

There were 2 or 3 shows and a permanent exhibit. We went to see the Peter Doig show. At the end of the show was an interview with Peter that you can see on TateShots, in which he shares source material and describes how he constructs his work.

Concrete Cabin, 1992

Briey (interior), 1999

Gasthof zur Muldentalsperre, 2000-2002

Figures in Red Boat, 2005-2007

Tamur Records

2008-08-10T12:22:00.009-04:00

This summer, I moved in with my bassist to North Bergen NJ, which is right outside the Lincoln Tunnel. When I moved in, I had little idea that I was being inducted into the organization known as Tamur Records. Conor Meara heads Tamur Records, and along with playing bass in Le Rug, Conor played in the legendary but completely unknown NJ group Canaries. In our house, we had a fully stocked recording studio and we would produce groups for free, and then provide the groups with free downloads of their music from the Tamur Records website. With the way the contemporary music industry is only providing the tragically hip and trendy with record contracts, Tamur Records is effectively providing an outlet for musicians that doesn’t involve buying clothes from American Apparel and wearing eye make up. Scrolling down the Tamur Records website, one is able to download enough records to keep you listening for a whole month. So, if you are looking for new music that you would otherwise have never heard, or you are part of a musical project looking for a baby’s daddy, you will be pleasantly satisfied after checking out all of the wonderfully free music on Tamur Records.
Some of the groups on Tamur Records are....

Micheal Jordan
Micheal Jordan is a 5 piece throbbing noise punk machine from New York and New Jersey. Almost sounds like if the members of My Bloody Valentine decided to snort a shit ton of amphetamines and make love to Bad Brains. You can find an E.P. of theirs on the Tamur Records site. Seeing them live is a must, your ears might bleed being that they are one of the loudest groups on the planet, but you'll like the sound of that after a few minutes of their ferocious live set.

Every Bunny Welco me

Every Bunny Welcome is the Project of Alec Gabin after his previous group (Canaries) broke up. Gabin is an unbelievably talented songwriter whose influences range from Wu-Tang, to Black Sabbath, to Caustic Resin. The best thing is, that if you spend time getting enveloped in his records, you can hear snippets of the influences coming through the filter of Gabin's super excited keyboards, lush guitars, and visceral baritone vocals. E.B.W. has released several records, all available on the Tamur Records website (again here) the most recent of which is called 'Mericans, in which i was invited to play drums on the record. Sadly, Mr. Gabin is moving away to go to school in Canada at the end of the summer so its unlikely that you can see him live, but there are plenty of records of his to keep you busy until he gets back.

Eskimeaux
Eskimeaux is the brainchild of Gabby Smith. Gabby, instead of using the facilities of the in home studio, Gabby records everything on her mac book with garage band. The resulting sound is one of the most original groups I've ever heard. Ranging from dreamy, to atonal, to completely ear piercing, the songs are all intelligent, and well thought out. All of the Eskimeaux records are available for free on Tamur Records. On her record Helleaux, keep your ears open for a fantastic cover of umbrella.

Formative Years

2008-08-03T21:09:00.006-04:00

The Roger Mapplethorpe Polaroid exhibit at the Whitney is a story of growth. Long before Mapplethorpe was an icon of shock and rebellion in the late 70’s and 80’s, he was learning his craft. His weapon of choice was the Polaroid camera and his subject matter ranged from the boring to explicit.

You can see his craft visually develop. From mind-numbingly dull photographs at the start of the first wall he moves onto interesting faces, alarming objects, and oddities by the end of it.

The second wall shows Mapplethorpe turning his camera onto the dark world pivotal to his life, his still ambivalent homosexuality, and he does so with hunger. His fanaticism is evident: his subjects are numerous, he has begun experimenting: using new lighting techniques to create moods and something that will become a trend, taking several photos to tell one story. His self-portraits are now bold and unsettling, a striking difference from the cool art school self-portrait that starts the exhibit.

On the third wall five years have passed since he started shooting. Mapplethorpe has found his voice. The work is mature and polished and the photos are artful and disarming. He has control over the camera and the pictures no longer reek of doubt and insecurity. Through these Polaroids we not only see an artist in his formative years, but a young man coming to terms with himself. His rapacious observative eyes will not go on unnoticed any longer.

2 days, 2 shows - China Gold and Trisha Brown

2008-07-25T01:38:00.003-04:00

I wasn't planning to see a show, but on my way to the only salon in Paris that sells Aveda products, I saw a metro advert for the Musee Maillol's show China Gold, which tuns through October 13. And since it was so close to where I was already going, on Rue Bellechasse, I took the short walk there after my Aveda spree. And I wasn't disappointed, or let down, for my effort. The show was beautifully curated, the museum is absolutely beautiful and also holds, in their permanent collection, treasured works by Picasso, Gauguin, Ingres and, of course, Maillol.

Unfortunately, I don't read French, or I would know more about the show, the works and the artists. But here are two works from the show. The first by Tang Zhigang and the second by Cui Xuiwen.

This past weekend, I made plans to visit the Chateau de Chamarande on Sunday. Primarily to see the free summer show of Trisha Brown Early Works - part of the Festival Paris Quartier d'ete - but also because there is a gallery inside the castle and sculpture park on the land surrounding. The park is about 30-40 minutes south of Paris and a short 5 minute walk from the train station Chamarande (on the line RER C).

What can I say about the first work, pictured below? There was a clothesline of hanging clothes, and two male dancers eased into and out of the shorts and t-shirts and hung there for a bit before gracefully crawling out and into another pair. You never really know someone till you sit a while in their shorts? Or hanging out by a thread? Or I'm just here by the seat of your pants? All of these unrefined thoughts were tumbling around inside my head, like a freshly mined garnet in a rock tumbler, just hoping to come out shining. But they all ended up still a little rocky around the edges. C'est la vie.

Julia and Samuel at 169 Bar

2008-07-21T19:15:00.003-04:00

Of the plethora of emerging musicians dragging themselves from bar-gig to bar-gig along the streets of New York, few stand out as anything but superfluous. Heavy Roc Music, however, cuts through the fat. The small, independent label and production company is something of a godsend, especially with owner DJ Ben “BRoc” Ruttner’s keen eye for talent and his ability to foster it. That said, last night at the tiny 169 Bar in Chinatown, attendees were given the privilege of listening to two of Heavy Roc’s finest, Julia Tepper and Samuel as they showed more than just a little chops.

It is always a pleasure for me to support a friend and, with that in mind, I am very familiar with Samuel’s music. Last night’s performance, however, was a terrific new take on his synthy, pop bangers. Performed not only with a live band, but also acoustically, the music became successfully intimate with each song experiencing a virtual reinvention. Samuel’s raw talent is always showcased in his live shows. His unique voice was so complimentary to the stripped down, acoustic approach (the general antithesis of his normal performance) that the set emerged as a conscious and fortunate reexamination of already well-composed and conceived material.

Giving Samuel his deserved nod, however, allows me to now gush, literally gush, over the powerhouse of talent that is Julia Tepper. Ms. Tepper is so charming that it is almost unbelievable. On stage, she is a magnetic force and, I promise, it is impossible not to enjoy her music. Her cherubic voice, which is nuanced by a deft vibrato and accented by her light, jazzy accompaniment, is sublimely effective and lusciously soulful. Do not be fooled, however, by the diaphanous musicianship; Tepper’s lyrics are acutely substantial and often thematically surreal ranging from the macabre, to the whimsical, to the emotional. The dynamic combination of the music and lyrics is potent while remaining playful and, in the end, utterly winning. With a flawless performance and indisputable talent, Ms. Tepper is someone to watch closely. I look forward to her solo debut EP entitled “Pizza and Lasers,” soon to be released by Heavy Roc. In the meantime, catch her with her other projects which include Frances and the Americans.

After Nature at the New Museum

2008-07-20T21:02:00.004-04:00

In his second major show at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, special exhibition director Massimiliano Gioni unveils his desolate vision of a not-so-distant future that is at once hopelessly romantic and knowingly absurd. With ninety works by twenty-six artists, the exhibition spans three floors and makes use of the buildings cavernous interior to affect its post-apocalyptic austerity.

“After Nature,” named for W.G Sebald’s posthumous book-length poem, describes a portentous future plagued by disaster and disregard. Drawing inspiration from the decrepit and decayed the show comes to look more like an anthropologist’s’ study than a contemporary art exhibition.

Among the artists featured are Mauricio Cattelan, whose headless taxideremied horse appears in full on collision with the wall and Zoe Leonard, who’s resurrected a monstrous dead tree with industrial cables and steel plates. On opposite ends of the room, the works play off one another to create a motif that is as tragic as it is absurd.

The shows highlights include Warner Herzog’s 1992 film “Lessons of Darkness” which shows burning oil films during the Persian Gulf war and a short animation by Nathalie Djurberg in which an anthropomorphic blob of mud consumes a small town. One of the most striking pieces is a grotesque self-portrait of the Polish artist, Pawel Althamer, whose patchy complexion and yellow hue can be attributed to the intestinal patchwork he’s used as skin.

Other works include a predictable assemblage sculpture by the Iranian artist Huma Bhabha and a less expectant Dana Shultz painting of a man eating a hole through his stomach. More peculiar still is an installation by the collaborative artists Allora and Calzadilla in which they have assembled tropical plants at the center of Jenny Holzer’s 2004 projection Blue Wall Tilt.

The show is comprised largely of video artists who spare Herzog and Djurberg are uninspired and redundant. As is Polish sculptor Robert Kusmirowski’s scale model of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s infamous cabin.

But despite its inconsistencies “After Nature” is a remarkable show and an absolute triumph for Mr. Gioni and The New Museum.

Ruminations on Circa 2012: Ruminations on a Changing World at White Box

2008-07-18T23:23:00.006-04:00

Today I went into the new 16 Handles with the hope that among their 16 flavors of frozen yogurt, one would actually be good and make me forget about how hot this very hot day was. Well, it was refreshing, and the flavor of frozen yogurt was good (I've always been a sucker for mint) except that every bite was tainted with the taste of THE WOODEN SPOON. "Why not just plain old plastic?" My friend Lauren asked the girl who just rings you up (it's self-serve-soft-serve-- not as fun as you thought it would be). The answer: "It's green. The spoons are biodegradable." Yeah, but they also taste bad. Which is sort of anecdotal of how I felt last night at the opening of the second show of the Six Feet Under Program at White Box Gallery.

Six Feet Under is this great series of exhibits traditionally consisting of six artists's work by six curators in six weeks, all thematically linked. But because the gallery is moving to the Bowery, the powers that be decided to extend the series to seven week (and seven artists, and seven curators).

Last night was the opening of Kim Holleman's show entitled Circa: 2012: Ruminations on a Changing World, curated by Jason Goodman. A large wave made of used plastic bags, aptly named "TRASHNAMI!" was in the corner of the gallery. I'm tempted to make the "the room was awash in garbage" joke, but I'll refrain because the piece was actually quite beautiful. Holleman's work focused on the lack of open- or park- space in contemporary civilization, oil as evil, the awful alternative of ethanol, and of course, the bee crisis, and subsequent apocalypse that the Mayans predict to occur in 2012. Her work was clearly environmentalist and perhaps that's why there was no air-conditioning in the gallery.

Outside music was blasting out of the back of a truck, people crowded the Chelsea sidewalk chatting and smoking; it was regular opening fare tinged with a block-party feel, altogether enjoyable. Inside Grolsch beer was being served. And at first, it all seemed quaint and sweet and homey. And then I realized that everyone was on the street because the gallery space was sweltering, and people were chugging the Grolsch and moving on to vodka-tonics to keep cool.

Whether it was a lack of funding or a mindful nod to the environment that caused the lack of air circulation, it forced people outside and into Holleman's trailer garden that is exactly what it sounds like: a garden on wheels. This piece may be prescient-- we may have to create our own little bits of green to tow along with us (in our eco-friendly cars), but does the trailer have to smell like the monkey house at the Central Park Zoo?

It all seems like a great idea in theory, but sometimes we just want our art openings to be air-conditioned and to leave the somewhat obnoxious earth-activism at home. Especially when it's 90 degrees out. We're all trying to be green, anyway. No one wants the bees to go extinct. Hell, we're even eating frozen yogurt off of biodegradable wooden spoons....

That said, bravo to Holleman for furthering the cause, and Goodman for putting on an interesting show. And good luck to White Box at its new location!

White Box

525 W 26th St. betw. 10th and 11th Ave.

New York, NY 10010

Tues-Sa 11-6

This show is open until Jully 22nd

Dali at the Moma

2008-07-18T19:39:00.005-04:00

Dali still shocks: A man keeps laughing uneasily during Un Chien Andalou and an old woman has to turn around when “the eyes gets cut.”

Salvador Dali’s new exhibit at the Moma combines his passion for film with his paintings. Six of his surrealist films are scattered throughout the exhibit starting with his collaborations with Luis Bunuel, to a dream sequence scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, to a grainy psychedelic film about an expedition for overgrown hallucinogenic mushrooms in Mongolia.

Destino, Dali’s unfinished animated collaboration with Disney is in the third room. A princess runs across an endless Daliesque plain and enacts a love affair with a statue. It’s pure dreamscape of course, but gives viewers a chance to see what it might have been like inside this man's mind.

Some of his most famous paintings are on display: The Persistence of Memory, Metamophosis of Narcissus, and Illumined Pleasures.

Dali at any museum is an event. To be able to stand next to the paintings and works you’ve seen your whole life and witness the madness first hand is inspiring. He’s on display until September 15th, tread carefully.