Marcel Dzama, Room Full of Liars, Diorama Image Size: 64.5 x 65.75 x 46 inches

Looks like New York has grown tired of Marcel Dzama. Nearly anyone I’ve talked to on the subject of his exhibition at David Zwirner emits a low groan when I bring up his name, and Roberta Smith reviewed his 6th New York solo show this past week offering only a few good words on the subject. She’s mostly right; the three elaborate phases are progressively compelling, the war time illustrations tedious, the puppet theater dioramas over produced, and the film with piano accompaniment, actually compelling. I would add to this assessment however, greater specificity to the tedium Smith observes in the first room; too many drawings, and not enough variation therein. Smaller works on canvas would have helped add dimension to the show, as would have removing many of the drawings. They all look the same after a while and nobody likes an artist who resembles a factory; it suggests an insufficient examination of the ideas propelling the work. Indeed, Smith closes her review with the assessment that Dzama needs to think about the nostalgia driving his work.

The drawings are unfortunately placed in this show, because they are the first works seen, and leave little incentive to carry forward. Like Smith, I agree that the elaborate sets in the next room suffer from over production; such problems typically exist due to lack of resolution in subject matter. For example, The Infidels, a vignette depicting a small dead animal with bats hovering over top, is stunningly beautiful, but a little too cute to carry the insidious message it would seem to intend. As a result, the subject matter feels benign and forgettable, even if the object isn’t. By contrast, Room Full of Liars, [above] a set made up of eight puppets, each with growing noses, presents a deeply troubling scene, their perfect arrangement and construction seemingly implicated in the doll’s moral depravity.

To be honest though, I probably wouldn’t be talking about this show or Smith’s review at all, if I hadn’t seen Lotus Eaters, the silent film projected in the back of the gallery accompanied by a live piano player. However, as means of eliminating unnecessary redundancy, rather than rehash sentiments I share almost verbatim, I’ve simply quoted her words on the subject below.

The show culminates in “Lotus Eaters,” a silent film about an artist’s loneliness and the role of memory, love and companionship in the quest for self-expression. It stars Mr. Dzama’s father, and begins and ends with a dancing bear, a longtime Dzama character. It is greatly buoyed by its musical accompaniment, especially on Saturday, when the pianist David Cieri improvises to the action on screen, delivering one of the most poignant aesthetic experiences currently available in Chelsea.

Bjorn Magnhildoen, NorwayWeb

Yesterday I discussed Virtual Jihadi, a repurposed video game by Wafaa Bilal intended to promote discussion by enacting a morally questionable act. At this point, I’m sure we can all agree that the game has achieved this end (see endless coverage), and though its opponents will tell you it crosses a moral line, Virtual Jihadi only proposes a humanized depraved act. By contrast, NorwayWeb by Bjorn Magnhildoen actually commits a crime and asks us to contemplate its morality. Scraping the web for public information, NorwayWeb somehow finds the tax information of each of its country’s citizens (roughly 4 million) and compiles it as a number carpet (see picture above). Hovering over a number in the carpet, will produce the tax payer information in an adjacent window, though the results are essentially meaningless since there’s no way to search for any one name. Also, since the program takes about 555 hours to complete, and the results are lost to the viewer once the page is closed, there’s not much most people could do with this data. And yet, it forces a conversation I feel guilty for even engaging. Just because the information is needlessly out there to be harvested, doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be done, even if the end goal is to make us more aware of the ways in which our privacy is being compromised. Is there no better way to make this point than by creating a poorly functioning tool that suggests the possibility of more sinister crimes?

Originally via: furtherfield

One of Michel Gondry’s sets at Deitch Projects

My latest review on Michel Gondry at Deitch Projects can be found in this weeks print edition of Time Out NY. Obviously the thing to do is go out and buy the magazine, but if you happen only to be interested in this piece, I’ve pasted it below for you.

“It is the spectators who make the pictures ” Marcel Duchamp once said, words now literalized by filmmaker Michel Gondry latest exhibition for Deitch Projects, Be Kind Rewind. Titled after his film of the same name, Gondry creates a sprawling art fair – like floor plan, with the gallery divided into 14 different sets with props, costume and planning rooms, all freely available to anyone who wants to come in and shoot their own films. The idea is that in doing so, they echo the characters in Gondry’s movie, who are forced remake VHS tapes from a run-down video store after they are accidentally erased.

Neither Gondry nor the gallery apparently think of this project as a wholly fine-art endeavor. The artist says nothing to that effect in his statement about the piece, while the gallery only vaguely connects it to the tradition of conceptual or performance art. In doing so, Deitch Projects timidly alludes to such recent practitioners of relational art as Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thomas Hirschorn and Tino Seghal, all of whom create their work by using human relations and social context as point of departure. Comparing Gondry to them is a bit of a stretch.

The fact that this show is framed by commercial filmmaking makes any discussion of art feel like an afterthought, while Gondry himself seems to be taking naive steps in a well-trod direction. But maybe someone will make a decent movie here, in which case a film critic can review it.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, To view this video click here.

Three times now I’ve tried to view in its entirety Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’ text based videos, In Black on White, Gray Ascending, (2007) at the New Museum and failed. Displayed on 7 screens, each 11:36 in length, the piece tells a story of conspiracy, abduction, and perhaps political assassination, all to the tune of some jazzy music you probably heard a few years ago at a bar in Soho. It’s a lively installation, and from what I’ve seen, a very good one, but it’s housed in a narrow glass room that makes almost impossible to stick around for the full hour plus worth of viewing material. Of course, in some ways, the space makes a lot sense for the piece; right next to the cafeteria, visitors can eat their sandwiches while watching the movie. The plan would have been perfect, were it not for the fact that the glass separating the two spaces provides a very effective sound barrier, so visitors don’t really experience the video installation while eating their lunch. Perhaps at some point we’ll see In Black on White, Gray Ascending appear online, and will be able to watch it that way.  Then I can complain about why it’s not the same experience, and how the overly large time investment required for a piece on the Internet deters possible viewers.

I understand the rejection of objects/interest in words has an important place in history, but something tells me that for most of us, it may be enough to have that knowledge and experience just a few of his works, as opposed to the 80 plus minutes I witnessed last night at Anthology Film Archives. Such were my thoughts yesterday anyway, after having viewed Weiner’s First Quarter last night and falling asleep for the last half hour. I woke up only to have a man in the audience tell me that Weiner himself had said it was perfectly okay to fall asleep in his films, admitting that he too had dozed off for a couple of minutes.

For all the annoyance associated with films that will almost surely ask you to watch someone perform an action until it’s either done, or interrupted, there’s more to this film than watching a particular Weiner line recited by a cast member in a variety of settings. Certainly some small satisfaction can be gained from identifying permutations of the texts he’d written assume action in film — be it painted on the side of a brick wall, recited on a road trip or listened to while making out on a couch — but beneath this, a sexual energy permeates the work, giving it an unexpected life and texture. More overt sexual scenes merely confirm feelings evoked elsewhere; even within the most banal vignettes include far too many slightly lingering shots of the body including hands, lips,and hair, for a gentle eroticism not to be noticed. What’s more the artist doesn’t just throw these scenes together, each carefully constructed, at times masterfully composed. Audience members may not make it through his films in their entirety — in fact, I suspect many of them will inspire the long sighs often accompanying difficult work –but they’ll at least last longer than they expect. I know I did.

First Quarter will be screened at Anthology again Saturday, January 26 at 8:30

Related: Ed Halter, Words on Film - An incredibly well considered and thoughtful review on Weiner’s films.

Paul Slocum, You’re Not My Father, Screengrabs AFC

Paul Slocum informs Networked Music Review blogger Helen Thorington that Full House re-enactors can’t be bought for 80 bucks, but tend to bite when offered $150.00. Launched this Friday, Slocum’s video, You’re Not My Father, remakes a scene from Full House featuring Candice Cameron and Dave Coulier with the paid help of actors and fans. The new vignettes take place in a photocopy depot, an actors studio, and array of suburban homes, none matching the exact rhythm of the original dialog delivery.

By layering the original and re enacted pieces, Slocum’s video may reveal a collective sympathy towards an essentially empty scene, but its real virtuosity lays in the musical composition. Carefully building a nuanced soundtrack whereby even the collective voice of its re-enactors never drowns out the source material, what might be an otherwise banal video collage eloquently shows our personal response to nostalgic ephemera to be a whisper relative to the flat and highly constructed voice of pop culture.

Greek and Roman wing, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image via the Met.

Is nobody else bothered by the fact that the Greek and Roman exhibition at the Met is organized with no discernible chronology? I was reminded of this question once more this morning after having read Edward Winkleman’s post about the renewed interest in antiquities. Winkleman mentions Jerry Saltz’s article in New York Magazine, which some what surprisingly names the Met’s new Greek and Roman wing as the best exhibition of the year. Saltz is right of course, the status are great, but for all the art and scholarly resources available to the Met, very little is done to establish a time line regarding how it all progressed. Call me old fashioned, but trying to piece all the details together on my own isn’t what I call a good time, particularly when the aesthetic arrangement of the sculptures isn’t designed to give the viewer a sense of artistic development.

Update: Blogger Tom Moody adds this comment to the discussion:

This much I have figured out from a few visits (and the Met website):

“The Leon Levy and Shelby White Court…designed to evoke the ambulatory garden of a large private Roman villa…[features] nearly 20 Roman sculptures created between the first century B.C. and the third century A.D.”

These are all in a hodgepodge, facing every which way, lovely but disorienting.

“The galleries surrounding the new Roman Court present a substantial number of works from the Museum’s rich collection of Hellenistic art as well as the arts of South Italy and Sicily.”

These are roughly chronological in a clockwise circuit around the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court.

Etruscan art, and other areas of specific focus, are grouped outside the chronology.

That’s the best I can come up with.

Brian Belott, Swirly Music, Installation view, 2007, photograph AFC

Glitter and cats tend to be materials that work best on the net, but Brian Belott successfully brings this subject matter into the setting of a gallery with a late 60’s early 70’s aesthetic and sound track. Belott’s Swirly Music, at Canada New York, mounts keys from a piano around the main exhibition space, several ascending speakers, and various sparkling cat and landscape paintings. In another room several more cat paintings face twin TVs mounted on a pile of books.

Typically, such exhibitions at least in part rely on the skill of material manipulation, and while there’s obviously some of that going on, the real virtuosity lies in the way the artist’s ability to find forms of representation and expression that so peculiarly match his own raw energy. The whole show feels like a cartoon, virtually every static object suggesting movement of some kind.  The value in this, lies not just in an invigorating experience, but in imparting the knowledge that such life and vitality exists in the objects around us.

I spoke to my brother Mike this weekend about the reopening of the New Museum, a relevant conversation only because he works as an architect and has a greater depth of background to draw on than me when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of a building. Aside from wanting a response to the building on architectural terms, I’ve had some questions about the effectiveness of the mess facade visa vi its “striking expression of the neighborhood’s warring identities”. As far as I was concerned the material, even close up, looked a little too ornamental to address the grittier aspects of the Bowery, as suggested by Nicolai Ouroussoff in the Times last Friday. My brother however took a slightly different approach to this writing,

The New York Times did a good job of explaining the finer architectural points of the building, but I still feel uncomfortable with the structure as a whole. Maybe my disappointment in the museum relative to Sanaa’s previous work forces a harsher review then necessary or called for but the facade seems like a cheep trick. The mesh screen may create a subtle sense of depth, but it’s still just a facade. It doesn’t tell me anything about the interior spaces or allude to a structure. All it does is break up the monotony of the white exterior surface, which, unadorned, might do the building more justice.

Ultimately, I worry the building does not take a clear enough position. How much of a connector between a troubled past and a bright future can it be when it sticks out like a sore thumb? Trying to clad it in a protective shield of metal isn’t going to make it look more accepting giving the surrounding context, at the same time the protective shield takes away from it’s purist form. If it is going to be that different celebrate that difference don’t muddy the waters.

Neither one of us knows if the mesh will rust over time, though we both agree that it might be more interesting if it did. My brother went on to discuss the use of light in the building, and while I’m not republishing it here, the conversation did lead me to search out the proposed look of the building at night, and what the Museum actually ended up with. You’ll note in the photo comparison below, the proposed museum looked a lot more like their Christian Dior building in Tokyo than the final project.

Left: Actual New Museum at night, Right: Proposed New Museum at night

Oh well. We’ll be discussing the art inside the museum shortly.

Image copyright Vanina Holasek Gallery

It’s hard to know which celebrity artist to dislike more, sculptor Damien Hirst and his jackass affinity for labeling every new work, “his most mature yet”, or graffiti artist Banksy for his seemingly endless juvenile commentary on art. In a head to head match, it’s unclear who would win, though Banksy’s temporary “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit” splash page last year during the auctions certainly gives Hirst a run for his money.

Unfortunately, it would appear idiocy merely breeds more idiocy; the press release for Banksy’s upcoming exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery putting proof in that pudding:

Following record auction sales of both Warhol and Banksy, critics have examined the similarities in both aesthetic and content between the two artists, their interest in celebrity culture, and their examination of social values. Like Warhol, Banksy has become a darling of the stars, with his works gracing the homes of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jude Law, Damien Hirst, Kate Moss, Robbie Williams. Banksy is undoubtedly a major player in terms of advancing the envelope of what art is with the result that over the past several years, his art has escalated in value faster than pretty much any substance known to man.

Only the emptiest promotion would identify Angelina Jolie and Jude Law as the arbiters of good taste and a legitimizing force behind an insubstantial at best Warhol comparison. Granted, a press release probably isn’t the right place to look for measured evaluation of any artist’s work, but the statement above only mimics the kind of spectacle many celebrity artists have become known for. In fact, following the quoted paragraph, piled accolades only add further to the obscenity: “He is a visionary, the leader of a new artistic movement and the anonymous poster boy for free speech,” reads the release as though the artist had single handedly invented graffiti. Who knows why anyone buys this crap, but surely those who spend too much time trying to figure it out will lose precious brain cells in the process. As a measure of self preservation, we suggest at least steering clear of his opening in Chelsea December 2. It’s bound to be a mad house, and will continue to contribute offer little to the field of fine art.

Image courtesy Colby Chamberlain 

This week at Time Out  New York I review The Dotted Line at The Rotunda Gallery.  I’ve pasted a teaser below, but you’ll need to click through to read the whole piece.

Administrative drudgery might seem an unlikely focus for a show, yet curator Colby Chamberlain manages to fill an office-size exhibition space with paper trails generated by ten artists. Work in “The Dotted Line” engages aspects of social, political and institutional critique with humor, but the most powerful pieces also suggest a certain sadness.

Michael Rakowitz’s Return largely takes the form of correspondence and receipts generated by the artist’s efforts to rekindle his grandfather’s import-export business, now 40 years defunct. Rakowitz’s efforts to ship dates from Iraqi orchards prove futile with the majority of them being held up at customs and spoiling as a consequence. Noting the ridiculousness of delaying fruit for national security reasons, Rakowitz points out in a wall text that the dates become a metaphor for Iraqis being denied refuge in the United States.

To read the full review click here.

Image via: BravoTV

The first episode of Bravo’s Project Runway aired last night at ten, introducing 15 new designers who compete for 100,000 dollars and various other goodies. I like Project Runway because it brings studio practice and critique to the general public, but I am sometimes annoyed with contestants who are given a platform to expound on Fine Art. Last year’s delightfully delusional Vincent Libretti created a “fine art” gown, his BFA informing his decision to attach a bunch of garbage to his garb and call it art. This season Elisa Jimenez represents the art contingent with an installation and performance background, and is already giving the field a bad name. It took all of 3 minutes before we saw other contestants label her insane, and her hokey relationship to spirituality has the unfortunate affect of making her performance and design work seem wildly contrived. As for her competitiveness, much like Vincent, who refused to listen to feedback from the judges or from mentor Tim Gunn, Jimenez hears nothing. Gunn warned her earlier in the show that her gown needed some finishing, which she interpreted as a threat to her own creative vision. Her decision to sleep as opposed to work to fix her project predictably resulted in Heidi Klum’s apt description of her gown as one that “pooed fabric”. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to get her kicked off the show. Much like Vincent, who undoubtedly was good for ratings I suspect we’ll see a lot more of this woman than anyone needs.

Update: Saul Chernick observes in the comments:

…I think the PR producers used some dirty tricks to make us dislike her even more and for that they should be called out. For instance, they played weird music every time she spoke or worked which was a subtle way of mocking her and getting us to take her even less seriously. Also they edited the show in such a way as to make us root against her spending a disproportionate amount of time dwelling on her weaknesses instead of focusing on a wider range of designers. I believe they wanted to audience to predict that she was most likely to get the boot so that when she didn’t we’re all the more outraged. This validates a popular perception of artists as tricksters who’s befuddling weirdness gets undeserved reward.

I absolutely agree, and would add that the blog of fashion editor and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia illuminates this editing process by revealing aspects of the judging process that don’t make it into the show. Providing a round about example Garcia begins, “The first person voted off is always the most difficult because we really have not had the chance to see that designer’s full potential,” the editor was speaking specifically about Simone, but followed the sentiment up in the next paragraph saying, “Even though Elisa’s look was poorly executed she, unlike Simone, had a point of view. Elisa has been a fixture in the industry and has a lot of underground success…” While Garcia goes on to say she was more critical of Elisa for her achievements, her spiritual interests and connected industry success were clearly not the liabilities they were made to be in the editing if designer potential is factored into decision making, and all they have to go on is one challenge and the portfolios that got them into the show.

Jackie Nickerson, Green Room, 2005, light jet print 47 x 59 inches

I wrote a short piece on Jackie Nickerson for ArtKrush this week. Don’t miss her work at Jack Shainman Gallery.

In the tradition of crossover photographers such as Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and Steven Meisel, Jackie Nickerson switched from snapping fashion spreads to staging inventive portraits. After establishing a commercial and editorial career, which included shooting for Vogue, Elle, and Marie Claire, Nickerson decided to pursue her own projects and has since traveled the world in search of new subjects. In the last ten years, she has lived in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ireland, and Spain, with each place facilitating her investigations of different cultural and religious practices.

To read the full piece click here.

Yuki Nakamura, Dream Suspended, 2006, porcelain, neon wire, AC drivers, dimensions variable Katsura Okada, Zest, 2007, 1,020 rice paper rolls and color SUMI ink, Photograph: B.

An artist recently told me he found the effort of visiting shows outside Chelsea generally yielded better results, but that the allure of looking at a lot of work at once usually won over. Having spent a good deal of time this week looking at over sized and ostentatious spaces housing like minded art in that neighborhood, this conversation held particular resonance for me. In particular, it reminded me that I should really discuss Compass: New Directions, an exhibition curated by Jill Conner currently on display at Black and White Gallery in Williamsburg simply because it provides some relief to the showier Chelsea scene.

Carol Boram-Hays , Wall: Limbo, 2005, mixed media, 3 x12 feet, Ground: Lethe, 2007, mixed media, dimensions variable. Photograph: B.

If nothing else, the work of the nine artists showcased in Conner’s exhibition share an interest in formalism, frequently through repetition of motif and material. Yuki Nakamura employs numerous porcelain soccer balls that hang from color strings and are attached to a motorized pulley system on the ceiling to create a moving arrangement of forms. Katsura Okada displays yellow rice paper rolls in clusters that take on a beautiful amorphous shape on the wall, and the solid cement and rebar formations in the courtyard by Carol Boram-Hays suggest movement that is literalized by the sculptures within the gallery space.

Left: Ann Ginburgh Hofkin, Intersection, 2007, digital color print, 60 x 40 inches, Right: Crit Streeds, Speak to Me, 2003 - 2007, video installation. Photos copyright Black and White Gallery

None of the works mentioned seem interested in overly concept driven work, which is just fine by me because the sculptures function so well as objects. The only stumbling points in the show come from works that either rely to heavily on formalism and thereby verge on decorative, such as Ann Ginburgh Hofkin’s floral Intersection, and those that speak to conceptualism without adding anything to the discourse, as is the case with Crit Streeds’ Baldessari inspired video Speak To Me.

With that said, group exhibitions with only one or two weak points are rare, so certainly the show warrants a visit. Notably, Black and White Gallery also happens to be across the street from some trendy clothing shops, which for those of us who either can’t afford or don’t care to dress like the pod people at Comme des Garçons, will be a welcome change.

Alighiero Boetti, Autoritratto (Mi Fuma Il Cercello), 1993-1994 Cast bronze, fountain system and electric heating element; 74 x 36 x 29 inches, Image copyright Gladstone Gallery

I suppose I find the edition size of the sculpture pictured above objectionable because I find the work utterly unmoving, but I really don’t see any reason to have seven of these things available for exhibition. The number can probably be attributed to Alighiero Boetti’s desire to distribute his work as widely as possible through the humblest means, though clearly the sculpture above indicates that by the end of his life, the latter half of that mandate had become less of a priority.

For those who are interested, Gladstone currently exhibits this sculpture in tandum with a number of other generative works by the artist. Autoritratto (Mi Fuma Il Cercello), the aforementioned bronze figure holding a water hose over his head contains a heated element which presumably makes the water steam off the work, an aspect lost at the gallery, since it’s either too subtle to be be noticed, not working, or turned on. Whatever the case, I’m not sure either would answer the question the show inspired yesterday; Does Gladstone makes the work of major contemporary artists look garish, or do established artists at Gladstone make garish work? Recent exhibitions by Richard Prince, Gary Hill and now Alighiero Boetti, don’t bode well for either party.

Alighiero Boetti, Installation view, Image copyright Gladstone Gallery

Adding to the sculpture I mentioned I didn’t like, five million woven works fill the main gallery, co-opting the artistic message of the canvases to read as little more than “for sale”. I suppose those pieces themselves are okay, but who can tell when you’re being beat over the head like that with visuals? The remaining quarter of the exhibition miraculously saved the show; an impeccably hung room in the back featuring Boetti’s trademark ball point pen-quotation mark drawings in ocean blue, a carpet map, and a woven hanging map, beautifully expressing visual metaphors of space, geography and language. Now if only we could get someone at Gladstone to remark upon this success, and repeat it.

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, Via PBS

Anyone who has spent any time at all in art school recognizes the above work from a photo essay in Ways of Seeing by John Berger whereby the author asks the reader to consider the painting on one page, and on the very next tells us to do the same thing with the knowledge that Van Gogh painted the picture the day he killed himself. I was reminded of this essay the other day when I noticed a new post by the now deceased blogger and partner of artist Jeremy Blake, Theresa Duncan. Try reading a piece about ghosts, and the possible lack of dogs in afterlife without connecting the piece to her untimely death. In all likelihood, the story and her suicide have nothing to do with each other, except of course, that she’s no longer alive so we’re now reading what amounts to a message from the dead,  about messages from the dead.

Related: LA Fishbowl on Autopost

Sharon Louden, Hedge, 2007

I wrote a review on Sharon Louden’s exhibition at Oliver Kamm this week at TimeOut Magazine, which also handily appears on their website.

Sharon Louden’s ability to marry organic forms with synthetic materials succeeds on more levels than even she might like. Just last year, the artist found herself in a legal battle with Yahoo over an outdoor piece she created for the company’s Silicon Valley HQ, in which real wetland grass was planted on a lawn surrounding the building along with artificial “reeds” made of steel wires tipped with reflective material. When the grass became overgrown, the company mowed it, damaging the work in the process. While Louden’s return to painting here may not be related to this experience, her renewed interest in a more conservative medium does make some sense, given the context.

A testament to the importance of variation in surface and gesture, Louden’s latest series of carefully controlled paintings on wood seduces with the application of pigment alone. The artist builds small clusters of swooping colored outlines and pools of black enamel paint upon a uniform background. The shapes resemble plant life, paper clips or maybe unrolled film. (Similar forms are featured in her animation work, where they look like strips of celluloid without the sprockets.)

To read the full review click here.

Chris Ofili, Iscariot Blues , (detail), 2007 , Oil on linen, 110 5/8 x 76 inches

I lead with Iscariot Blues [above] because I think it amongst the strongest paintings in the show, but set up the largely positive review that follows with the observation that the first works of art a viewer sees when entering David Zwirner Gallery — bronze clotial figures — provide an unfortunate framework to the show, since they are materially ostentatious and laden with the most obvious of religious themes.  Assuming you can forget the sculptures exist, the paintings are pretty good.

In my first year of undergrad, an art history professor wisely observed the obvious: great painters frequently steal the best moments from master artworks and incorporate them into their own. The artist’s ability to gracefully quote another remains among the most important in his or her skill set, namely because it’s much more difficult than it appears. A fine evocation requires not only the eye and intelligence to identify work worth the investigation but the technical ability to execute it well.

Among the better examples of this within the contemporary fine art scene, Chris Ofili’s current show at David Zwirner, “Devil’s Pie”, brings to mind the best figure work of Henri Matisse. Similarly interested in primitivism, Ofili paints flat shapes with a fauve-inspired palette, and even his surfaces, which were once thickly adorned with paint and resins, now more closely resemble the spare canvases of the great Modern master. Coincidently, Matisse offers a particularly apt reference point, as he also drew heavily from Eastern art. Is it an irony informed with a sense of play of revenge: a black artist seeks to reimagine black artmaking through the lens of a privileged white artist, who himself pilfered Eastern forms?

To read the full piece at the L Magazine click here.

Christine Catsifas, Outland, Adhesive Vinyl, Photo AFC

A virtual silent jungle awaits gallery goers who wish to pee in the Art in General bathrooms this month, an experience sure to inspire long lines once people get wind of it.  Apparently the impressive aspect of this work shows up in the methods of image rendering; in this case game software creates “fantasy within the ordinary.”   Such attribution makes it hard to know which aspect to dislike more: the fact that video games have enough art world cache that merely evoking the name can lend legitimacy to an art work, or that viewers are being asked to contemplate rec-room wallpaper as art.  Either way, the piece isn’t winning any points with us.

Judi Werthein, Corporate Logo, Installation view, Photo AFC 

Add to that no point list everything else on display at Art in General.  Judi Werthein’s Corporate Logo uses a rug to “transform” the exhibition space into a corporate lobby.  If ever there was a piece that said “this carpet cost the exact amount of my grant”, this would be it; minus two plinths, it’s the only object in the space.  Granted the rug looks good, if dated, but it certainly isn’t enough to hold a room together.  I kept wishing for some bad corporate art, and a flat screen set to a 24 hour news station.  At least then the piece would have looked like a little research had been invested. UPDATE: In light of a considered post by Tom Moody and offline conversation with b., I have come to the conclusion I was unfairly harsh on this piece. The installation still fails to move me greatly, but given that it was never the artists intention to make a pointed comment on corporate America, but rather the “corporatization of culture”, it’s pointless to ask for a more accurate representation of a lobby.

The Art in General splash page.  Screengrab AFC 

Notably, the TV (I no longer advocate) would have also represented the only functioning objects in the gallery.  Both the toilets and the computer provided in the archive room weren’t working.  Had I been able to find the wireless connection, I would have been able to peruse the newly designed Art in General website - a project I assumed fell under the umbrella of Werthein’s Corporate Logo.  A gallery assistant informed me yesterday though that the new United Colors of Benetton meets Art in General website was in fact permanent  and only Werthein’s logo will be replaced.   Too bad.  As a farcical statement on corporate identity on the web the site wouldn’t be a bad piece, as a serious branding effort, the non-profit has more than few problems to address.

Moma’s Automatic Update website (Left), Screenshot of my computer installing an Automatic Update (right)

I realize that Moma’s Automatic Update closed nearly two weeks ago, so I’m not trying to be a dick with above photo comparison, but I nonetheless want to point out the difference between what a computer does when it connects to the Internet to install new software, and what a show does when it claims the same action, builds an entire site around the premise, and then fails to feature any net art (except through an infrequently updated, and poorly followed delicious network.) Nobody questions the purpose of a computer installing necessary updates because the term accurately describes the results, whereas they might easily be confused by a show titled after the same action that largely takes the form of a video series, and a collection of largely pre dot-com like work.

“The exhibition reflects the ecumenical [general] interests of media artists”, Moma curator Barbara London explained to me over the phone when I asked her whether it might not be better to think of this exhibition as a video show. Her response to my queries of course, was dead on, at least in the sense that Automatic Update has no discernible thematic thread but for the fact that it all ended up in the same room for a couple of months. Included in the physical exhibition is Paul Pfeiffer’s famous basketball collage video John 3:16, Jennifer and Kevin McKoy’s trademark bendy light, moving sculpture-film, Our Second Date, an Ellsworth Kelly like keystone projection by Cory Arcangel, Xu Bing’s simple picture graphics story and Raphael Lozano-Hemmer’s self described LED installation 33 questions per minute.

London continued, describing the underlying themes she had in mind for the show, “The arcane and pop pieces fit together well. The globalization that carried finance and industry to remote constituencies and made for a “flat earth” has also flattened culture and taste.” While I agree with the observation that there has been a leveling of cultural production, at this point it’s so pervasive within contemporary art making practice it’s hardly useful as selection criteria. As a result Automatic Update takes on what a biennial does with only five artists and 20 films, producing a poorly thought out mish-mash of art, screenings and events without even the basic of premise of technology to hold it together.

Part two to arrive Monday