Stage II at The Project Receives Undue Love

by Art Fag City on February 4, 2009 · 5 comments

The Project, Art Fag city, Stage II
The Project, Stage II installation view, 2009.  Photo AFC (Sorry my picture sucks)

I’m surprised to see Stage II, a sound art show in The Project’s two small adjoined galleries in Midtown recommended on both Rhizome and Time Out.   The exhibition includes the work of Dave Allen, Larry Krone, Lucky Dragons, Rashaad Newsome, and Superamas all of whom are fairly well known, but weren’t exhibiting work worthy of much attention.  For example, moving around the sparkling rocks of the well known musical group/artist collective Lucky Dragons disturbed an electrical field generating sound, but the piece literally took half an hour and the help of a gallery assistant to get it to work. That sculpture was the high point of the show.

The low point is reached upon entering the gallery.  The Superamas’ Billy Billy takes up the first room,  a film slicing together the mundane movements of choreographer Milli Bitterli with related scenes from cult movies by directors such as Mike Leigh and Pedro Almodovar.  The result is boring.  It also inspired the following comment from my friend, “Do artists have any ideas of their own anymore?”

“Of course”, I responded, also annoyed with amount of altered “canonical” work currently being made, “but this show is amongst the more likely to incite uncharitable reviews indicating otherwise.”  I guess I was wrong about that the latter.

Art Fag City, Lucky Dragons
Lucky Dragons, Showing, 2009, Photo AFC

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  • http://eageageag.blogspot.com eageageag

    Could you go into more detail about why you didn’t like the exhibition? I am also very interested in hearing your thoughts about the ubiquity of appropriated film footage.

  • http://eageageag.blogspot.com eageageag

    Could you go into more detail about why you didn’t like the exhibition? I am also very interested in hearing your thoughts about the ubiquity of appropriated film footage.

  • http://eageageag.blogspot.com eageageag

    Could you go into more detail about why you didn’t like the exhibition? I am also very interested in hearing your thoughts about the ubiquity of appropriated film footage.

  • Art Fag City

    Sure: Dave Allen filling the gallery with the silence of empty studios and concert halls: Yet another variation on John Cage’s 4’33″. Also, it’s not all that interesting when there’s a video and film playing in the same space.

    Larry Krone’s Mylar curtain and backstage paraphernalia is a rehashing of countless exhibits doing the like. It was an awkward narrow space at the back of gallery that seemed wholly determined the pre-existing dimensions of The Project, as opposed to the artist.

    With regards to The Superamas, while every piece is different, I think there’s far too much by way of shallow “homage to so and so” art being made. Why should a new context necessarily add anything meaningful? Also, at this point isn’t engaging the mundane the ultimate art cliche?

  • Art Fag City

    Sure: Dave Allen filling the gallery with the silence of empty studios and concert halls: Yet another variation on John Cage’s 4’33″. Also, it’s not all that interesting when there’s a video and film playing in the same space.

    Larry Krone’s Mylar curtain and backstage paraphernalia is a rehashing of countless exhibits doing the like. It was an awkward narrow space at the back of gallery that seemed wholly determined the pre-existing dimensions of The Project, as opposed to the artist.

    With regards to The Superamas, while every piece is different, I think there’s far too much by way of shallow “homage to so and so” art being made. Why should a new context necessarily add anything meaningful? Also, at this point isn’t engaging the mundane the ultimate art cliche?

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