navigating the narrative in art and design

LABEL NEW YORK

2009-06-24T14:56:00.001-05:00

I love this shirt. Each one is hand dyed, and the color combination is amazing. Super Om! The t-shirt is soft.
All of this is done by a local New York City designer who makes these in his Hells Kitchen studio. I first saw this on a guy walking down the street, and I was filled with envy! Luckily I bought one at a shop downtown, but I just found the website for this designer so I thought I would share it. Support this local designer. (via Label New York)

2009-04-30T10:25:00.003-05:00

Richard Milazzo speaks with David Salle

2009-02-19T08:56:00.018-05:00

February 17 David Salle with Richard Milazzo In conversation at the New York Studio School

David Salle - Painter; currently represented by Mary Boone Gallery. Richard Milazzo - Critic, curator and writer

Below are some random quotes, commentary and images from the evening.

Richard Milazzo speaking about David Salle's, Satori Three Inches within Your Heart, 1988; described it as "something like Carravagio's Basement." A wonderful mental image that motivated me to drive out to the painting studio after the lecture, and get to work on a painting that I am wrestling with. There was much discussion between the two men about the associations of the work. Milazzo seemed intent on trying to "figure it out" find meaning in the composed pictures. Salle was reluctant to explain the images, but reassured Milazzo that the impulse to find meaning in his work, and in painting is the same impulse that drives Salle when he is looking at pictures. Salle however didn't spend much time focused on the "narrative" of the work. Rather he spoke a bit about the composition of images, on picture planes, in a rather formal way.

"Composing a picture on a picture plane has more to do with page design rather than art history."

Two early birds sitting in the front row with Good Bye D projected onto the wall in the distance.

"What feels like authenticity for one generation, looks like bogus posturing to another."

R/GA a place where I work...

2009-02-15T22:10:00.001-05:00

I've worked with R/GA since February 2002, and I've enjoyed most of it, to be continued...

Opening at Eye Level tonight

2008-10-03T10:34:00.002-05:00

Eye Level and Victor Osborne
364 Leonard Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211

opening TONIGHT!

Friday, October 3rd, 2008
From 8-11 pm

RSVP to eyelevel@victorosborne.com
A real live DJ
21+ to attend
Cocktails provided by SKYY

A conversation with Steve DeFrank

2008-09-26T19:03:00.001-05:00

Originally written for ArtCal.net; the following is a conversation between artists Steve DeFrank and Andrew Cornell Robinson. The conversation took place in DeFrank’s Brooklyn studio on Tuesday 16 September 2008.

Introduction
Steve Defrank’s new series of paintings in the exhibition Mirror, Mirror at Margaret Thatcher Projects plumbs the depth of personal myth to reveal deceptively cheerful and malevolent emotions. His paintings depict a saccharine sweet caricatured naturalism rendering images of hidden sexual desire represented by images of degradation such as tree stumps and wooden boards riddled with carvings of phrases such as “Aunt Fancy” and “I Love Cum”. The paintings are playful, but in a mischievous and subversive way and offer a significant departure for Defrank who had developed a signature body of work based on the format of the lite-brite toy.

Steve and I had the opportunity to speak about his work shortly after the exhibition opened.

Andrew Cornell Robinson: You made a transition in your work. You moved away from your signature lite-brite compositions and created this incredibly rich language of painting. Tell me about what was going on as you were going through this transition.
Steve DeFrank: I was doing the lite-brites. It was my gimmick, my shtick. It was beautiful, it gave me many gifts, and what I’d like to say is that my medicine finally kicked in.
Read the entire interview on ArtCal.net

Red Badge of Courage ReVisited

2008-09-22T00:01:00.003-05:00

My work has been included in this group exhibition.

Location

570 Broad Street, 9th Floor Newark, NJ

Dates

October 26-November 30, 2008 (time and hours open to the public soon to be announced)

Sneak preview, Fundraiser and Curator’s Tour: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 6pm – 8pm

Reception for public during Open Doors: October 26, 2008 6-8pm

Press Release

The Newark Arts Council is pleased to announce the opening of Red Badge of Courage ReVisited on Sunday, October 26th when it will present new work created specifically for this exhibit by 31 artists from New Jersey and New York in a 14,000 square foot space in downtown Newark .

Curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud, the exhibition is based on the life and work of 19th century writer/poet/journalist Stephen Crane, a native of Newark .

Participating Artists

Agitators Collective
Remy Amezcua
Kathleen Anderson
Ina Archer
Jane Benson
James A. Brown
William Coronado
Lowell E. Craig
Evonne Davis
Andrew Demirjian
Stephanie Diamond
Brendan Fernandes
Matt Gosser
Adler Guerrier
Jayson Keeling
Shaun Kessler
Nick Kline
Francesco Longenecker
Brian Lund
Cameron Michel
Ted O'Sullivan
Rosemarie Padovano
German Pitre
Rebecca Potts
Ryan Roa
Andrew Robinson
Jose Ruiz
Nyugen Smith
David Smith
Anna Stein
Juana Valdes

Although he died young -- at age 28 -- Crane's work and life have inspired many artists throughout the years: His portrait was used by the Beatles on the cover of their album "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band". The 2001 film The Dark Riders was based on a Crane poem. And there have been a number of film versions of "The Red Badge of Courage," the most famous of which was directed by John Huston and released in 1951. "The Red Badge of Courage" tells the story of a young man’s life as a soldier during the American Civil War.

More than one hundred years after Crane’s death, the artists in the show “Red Badge of Courage ReVisited” will use historical references as a tool to interpret and represent their concerns with contemporary society. Newark is a city rich in history, from the 19th century manufacturing boom through the depression years and past that to the infamous 1960's riots. But today’s Newark is also going through many changes as it is on its way towards becoming a major economic and cultural center again.

Funders and supporters of the Newark Arts Council Artists’ Studios and Available Space Tour 2008 include: lead sponsor JPMorgan Chase Foundation; Prudential Financial, Port Authority of NY&NJ, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, National Endowment of the Arts, City of Newark , Ivy Realty Group, Star Ledger and NJ TRANSIT.

Press and Information Contact

Alyson Nash

Zing Marketing "Put Some Zing in your Fling!"

PO Box 32027 Newark, NJ 07102

(ph) 973 623 9464, (fax) 973 556 1385

AlyNash@ZingMktg.com

Art Installation, Collaboration and Event

2008-09-21T23:57:00.003-05:00

My work will be included in a site specific installation.

Crime Drama

Collaboration and art installation event.

location

Eye Level and Victor Osborne
364 Leonard Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211

opening event

Friday, October 3rd, 2008
From 8-11 pm

RSVP to eyelevel@victorosborne.com
A real live DJ
21+ to attend
Cocktails provided by SKYY

press release

A solo show by the artist Andrew Robinson, will open at Eyelevel Gallery hosted in the Victor Osborne Atelier Friday, October 3rd. Curated by Gabriela Alva, the show will feature all new work from Robinson, whose 20 year plus history in ceramic arts leads the show, mingling with painting, sculpture and installation. As the title infers, crimes, or imperfect histories, are explored through sculptural multimedia portraits and objects that serve to suggest secretive narratives that are begging to be discovered.

Simultaneously playful and meticulously crafted, the ceramic forms that adorn painted portraits or stand alone provoke humor, forgotten folklore, and always a reference to process. Robinson says that much like the tradition of the craftsmanship he was schooled in, material texture informs the objects which informs the feeling of his work, ranging from poetic, humorous, jarring, and at times cryptic.

Apart from producing work as an independent visual artist Andrew Robinson is also an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design.

Press Contact: Zachary Barnett,
Contact 347-967-9734 or zachary@victorosborne.com

New Work by Andrew Robinson (Acrstudio)

2008-06-11T19:35:00.001-05:00

New Work by Andrew Robinson (Arcstudio)
Originally uploaded by hragvartanian.

Hrag Vartanian mentions my work from his visit to the Bushwick Open Studios 2008. Here is a shot of some works hanging on the walls of my studio at that time.
From left to right:
Left: Crime Drama (blue tondo)
Center: (working title: When the gods are at war salvation is in the arts)
Right: Morass

2008-02-15T15:07:00.002-05:00

view my portfolio:
coroflot.com/acrstudio

Alex Da Corte - I Attach Myself To You

2008-01-01T11:14:00.001-05:00

Artist Alex Da Corte's current body of photographs and sculptural installation examines the evidence of power dynamics in human relationships. His work deals with appearances and intimacy and the potency of what lies beneath appearances, the soul rather than the surface of the work, the person, the subject.

Through a series of what Da Corte calls "activities", he cruises straight men in public parks, and engages them in collaborative art experiments. Each participant is asked to repeatedly perform an activity over a 1-3 day period, until Da Corte feels he has caught his subject in a moment of "letting go;" the social mask of masculine bravado giving way to a more vulnerable self-expression.
According to the artist, the activity project began with Da Corte as the model performing different self-appointed tasks as a cure for loneliness. Da Corte, a 27 year old gay man describes these situations in his own words:

"If I'm asking people to do things they normally wouldn't do, I feel some obligation to get out of my comfort zone. These people have very real lives. All these people that I see in the park; they know that I'm gay. I seek out men who I assume are straight hoping to engage them in a relationship that brings about feelings of fear, anxiety, rejection, embarrassment, excitement, lust, etc."

Da Corte's activities explore those awkward personal interactions and while they result in compelling photographs and curious, near comic installations of paper party streamers that spell out phrases such as "I love you so much it makes me sick" and flags comprised of weathered burlesque fringed garments; there is an insidious undercurrent in the work that captures an unspoken tension within the evidence of these activities.
According to Da Corte, "It's totally awkward. It's not fantasy, it's NOT about the prelude to a wild and sexy time. It's the exact opposite." Da Corte creates these activities as a safe and non-threatening platform for which a person can act as freely as they please knowing that like many a MySpace photo or Google image - all the world may one day see- but in the moment that is the Activity, they are the star and creator of whatever personae they choose to present. By removing the opportunity for sex the artist and the willing participate in the activity meet as equals. It's much more of an exploration of what a real human interaction is about. These activities celebrate something as basic as a conversation and the comedy of a human interaction. The evidence of these activities range from rich color photographs depicting young men captured in transgressive moments, as they roll around half naked in glitter, or lay prone on their back while the artist shoves berries into their face and mouth. The work is all at once comedic, charming, aggressive and seductive.
Da Corte's work departs in a significant way, from the cannon of queer gaze. Consider how other artists such as Paul Cadmus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jack Pierson, Nayland Blake and many others utilize the queer gaze, often using the male figure as an object of beauty, lust, and taboo desire. This approach can be contextualized, to some degree, by seeing queer artists responding to the oppressive weight of social, religious, political and public policies which directly admonish and attempt to erase the queer eye from the world. And in response to that threat, a common conceptual theme is to transgress the boundaries of civil society and celebrate what is perceived by the straight world, to be abject and forbidden. Da Corte continues in this tradition, but I think he brings something new to the visual vocabulary of the queer gaze; recognition that the power dynamics of the queer eye and the object of desire are in fact equal participants, accessible and vulnerable. According to Da Corte "These experiences break down ideas of fantasy, stereotypes, power roles and develop the idea of the other as someone not very different from the self." The artist attempts to return some humanity to the interaction between his and indirectly our gaze and the objectified corpus of the model and that is a radical reaction to the context of contemporary conversations which are all too often mediated by a digital cacophony of acronyms devoid of emotion that supplant real human interaction today.

Exhibition Information
Alex Da Corte
I Attach Myself to You
Stonefox Artspace
611 Broadway, Suite 405, NY NY 10012
212-473-7900
www.stonefoxartspace.com
December 11, 2007 - February 12, 2008
Hours Mon-Fri 12-6pm and by appointment

Related Links
Alex Da Corte's website www.alexdacorte.com

Image caption: Activity # 31 (Black Eye) 2007
Archival pigment print mounted on Sintra, 35x47" Edition 1/3

Open Studios in NYC Fall 07

2007-11-21T22:23:00.000-05:00

Making ones way through the maze of art produced and exhibited in our time and in our city while trying to form an opinion of ones own, can be a challenge to say the least. But I thought this week I would step around the white cubes of NYC and plunge head first into looking, by going straight to the source, the artist and their many open studios, yes my dears I went to Brooklyn and beyond. It's a great way to see art for your self. Mind you it can be a challenge, especially when there are many studios to enter with the occasional brooding artist on the other side of the door awaiting your entry, with cheap wine and old cheese on paper plates. But that is the price to pay to see something new. And in the end there are lots of opportunities to look and talk about art. It's my favorite way of looking at art.

There were over a hundred open studios during the Annual Gowanus Artists' Studio Tour last month, and on that parade were potters, painters, sculptors, stained glass makers, and the like. A high point on this tour was seeing the ceramic sculptures by Pamela Sunday, whose work is reminiscent of Saint Clair Cemin's playful organic plastic and ceramic forms. Sunday's work taps into natural symmetries, and are stunning objects to behold. Also Elinor Dei Tos Pironti's simple and methodical paintings have an alchemist's sensibility to the way that she approaches color layered and drawn out across the canvas. There are also some great art spaces just off the canal. One of my favorites is the Reanimation Library, a small independent library which is building an anachronistic collection of resources made available for creative inspiration. This past weekend there was some great art to be seen at the Crane Street Studios Artists' Community. It is hard to miss this colossal graffiti covered building just opposite from MoMA's PS1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City. This open studio offered a bounty of incredibly talented and ambitious artists. Painter Ben Beshaw had some amusing realist paintings. His paintings often have a male protagonist, (an amusing self-portrait in most cases). In one painting, titled "Rainbow in the Dark" the artist stands with a steely gaze while he cradles a doe eyed rainbow tinted horse. In the background, according to the artist "is a laser light show in the sky, celebrating the rescue of the rainbow horse." It was hard not to laugh at the sheer audacity of the artist whose talent and sense of humor are terrific. Maia Marinelli, a fascinating young Italian artist, has developed some powerful knit and sewn sculptures as well as a series of devastating photographs. In one series titled "Gretta's Journal", closely cropped photos capture the scarred bodies of young girls forced into prostitution. Another series called "Fear of Love" is a meditation on female sexual and emotional identities. Reminiscent of Sophie Calle's enduring social narratives, and David Wojnarowicz's acid poetic imagery, Marinelli's work navigates soulful human commonalities with a sense of engaging mystery. Other artists of note are Cair Crawford's monumental oil paintings which abstract semacodes and labyrinthine patterns. Robert Walden's ontological road maps are a mesmerizing exploration of maps and meditations on the grid. Photographs by Anne-Katrin Grotepass contain compelling created and captured moments, reminiscent of the sculptural orchestrations of Sandy Skoglund, but there is a restraint in Grotepass' work which is more contemplative.

In the idiosyncratic context of the artist's studio, all sorts of wonderful things are available to see and understand. Everything is laid bare. There you can see what led to the decisions before the work of art is wrenched out of the artists' lair and with any luck you can talk to the artist too.

The next big artist run happenings will be the Arts in Bushwick's "Open Spaces" a one day art festival on December 2, 2007. You can find out more online. See website addresses below.

Open Studios and Events

ArtsInBushwick.org "Open Spaces" is a one day art festival on December 2, 2007 12 noon to 8pm in Bushwick Brooklyn. More than thirty spaces will be hosting events and exhibitions featuring over 200 local artists.

The events will be centered in the neighborhoods of the Morgan and Jefferson stops on the L train. Check in at Ad Hoc near the Morgan stop and Wyckoff Starr Coffee near the Jefferson stop to pick up a brochure and map of events. All events are easily accessible by foot.

Here is a link to their press release which I posted on my website. View the press release for the Arts in Bushwick "Open Spaces"

Crane Street Studios 18-19 November cranestreetstudios.blogspot.com

Annual Gowanus Artists' Studio Tour 20-21 October agastbrooklyn.com

Selected Artist Websites

Ben Beshaw benbeshaw.com

Anne-Katrin Grotepass annekatringrotepass.com

Maia Anthea Marinelli maiamarinelli.com

Pamela Sunday pamelasunday.com

Robert Walden robertjwalden.com

John Jurayj - Not Here

2007-11-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

John Jurayj, a talented young painter, plumbs the landscape of memory in his second solo exhibition at Massimo Audiello. This new body of work includes a series of colorful paintings and works on paper that operate in an ambiguous space.

Much like painter Mary Heilman's serious but playful approach to paint and Brendan Cass's infantile palette, Jurayj's abstracted landscapes have rich surfaces. Some sparkle and appear to be on a traditional chalk ground of deep rich flat color that is abruptly interrupted with slashes of bright energetic paint spatter and stroke. Other paintings reveal bold lines that strip away the painted layers to reveal a reflective colored Plexiglas ground in which reflections of the room and the viewer become a part of the work.

In an uneasy manner the artist is taking us away from real world moments through his distant cool focus on color and surface. Yet upon a closer look, below this visual activity are buildings and cities, dwellings bombed and burning. The subject matter of the paintings, central to the artist's personal history, is inspired by the pointless wars of his ancestral Lebanon.

Once a vacation destination for stylish jet setters before war tore the towns and people to shit and continued for a dismal generation. These paintings capture the horror with colorful tricks upon luscious surfaces to put us at ease, as if we might find some calm escape for a moment in gazing upon impotent abstraction.

Amidst the body of robust war-torn canvases are several powerful portraits on paper. The eyes of various men -- Lebanese political leaders -- have been burned away as if with a cigarette in some fetishized moment of punishment or perhaps through a blinding unleashed by national or ethnic pride. These portraits of their blindness exhibited in juxtaposition with the explosive paintings bring down an indictment on the world's deciders.

The spiritual and intellectual comfort I might have wished to find in an exhibition was replaced with a welcome reminder of our own times. The playwright Eugene O'Neill captured the spirit of moments like this rather well in a letter he wrote to his son shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

"It is like acid burning in my brain that the stupid butchering of war has taught men nothing at all, that they sank back listlessly on the warm manure pile of the dead and went to sleep, indifferently bestowing custody of their future, their fate, into the hands of State Departments, whose members are trained to be conspirators, card sharps, double-crossers, and secret betrayers of their own people; into the hands of greedy capitalist ruling classes so stupid they could not even see when their own greed began devouring itself; into the hands of that most debased type of pimp, the politician, and that most craven of all lice and job-worshippers, the bureaucrats."

Artists in a time of war find ways to respond, some turn inward, others outward, radicalized and poetic on a fine line that allows us to turn away from the landscape confronting us, but only for a moment. And when that moment is over we return to the here and now, more energized and clear-headed. Jurayj's personal is political and offers us a succinct response to the blind governors and the sleeping mind in the face of stupid, stupid, stupid war.

By Andrew Cornell Robinson, Artist
Written for the Gay City News

Exhibition Information

John Jurayj "Not Here"
Through 22 December

Massimo Audiello
526 West 26th Street No. 519
New York, NY 10001
www.massimoaudiello.com

DGENERATE NATION - Skate With Me on Vimeo

2007-10-13T20:57:00.000-05:00

DGENERATE NATION - Skate With Me from DGENETICS on Vimeo.

Event at the Rapture Cafe NYC

2007-10-10T20:57:00.000-05:00

Some Very Funny Information Design About Relationships

2007-07-18T15:12:00.000-05:00

Designer Gregory Dizzia has created an information graphic which documents all his significant amorous relationships with the opposite sex. And it is very funny. There are icons representing what they did (eg. Kissing, etc..) positive attributes (nice eyes, lips, good listener) I thought it was telling that there was no attribute for "talking" or "conversation" I guess they didn't talk much. Any way this was hysterically funny. It reminded me of the guy who posted all those audio files of psycho ex-girlfriend voicemails. HAHAHA

You can download a pdf of the poster. to see it in detail.

Jacques Louis Vidal's Wood Woman

2007-07-11T21:26:00.001-05:00

Saw this spastic dancing wood woman at the gallery Sunday on the lower east side last week. I love how incredibly awkward and unapologetic it all is.

dove evolution

2007-07-04T21:29:00.001-05:00

Compelling advertising that tells a story with a point.

Slob Evolution

2007-07-04T21:27:00.001-05:00

Very funny parody of the Dove "Real Beauty" campaign film.

Jim Lee "Altamont"

2007-06-14T19:31:00.000-05:00

Space is a simple thing which can be difficult to comprehend and generations of artists through out history have played with space whether it be the spatial illusions of perspective and Trompe L'oiel or the Gestalt trickery of optical patterns which appear to vibrate between the trick of the eye and mind. And there also continues to be a tradition of artists taking apart space and reconfiguring it, from the cubist fragmentary picture plane to more conceptual approaches of artists like Gordon Matta Clark who famously cut a house in two and Lucio Fontana who pierced and slashed the skin of his canvas to subvert the power of painting and plumb the depths beneath. Material concerns and its relationship to the space a work of art occupies become architectural and emotive when it's working and impotent or even worse, disruptive when it's not. From Joe Fyfe's felt and fabric "paintings" to Phoebe Washburn's cardboard whirlwind constructions there are many artists today who successfully endeavor to push the idea of a painting or the physicality of an sculptural space with the use of raw materials and a deceptively simple visual bravado.

In the case of Jim Lee's exhibition entitled "Altamont" the artist uses the architectural elements of the exhibition space at Freight + Volume gallery to construct a wall that is then cut apart, and constructions are integrated into the space in a playful manner that places the viewer into the figure ground and plays with the lines of perception elusively drawn between his painting/sculpture objects.

Lee employs an eclectic approach to materials and detritus from the street and he creates a variety of compositions some accentuate their flatness, and raw material origins. Other works such as "Half Gassed" use the material of painting (painted canvas and wood stretchers) and yet the "painting" bends and twists out into the space. Its human scale appears to drunkenly falter outwards and into the middle of the room to dance with the viewer. There are several shaped canvases and while these tactics have been employed time and again by artists from Fontana to Elizabeth Murray, Lee manages to make them his own by instilling an awkward playfulness in the manner with which he approaches each construction. In "Untitled (Rust/Slit)" the object first appears as a painted cut and shaped flat surface. There is a rough hewn humanity to the appearance of thr image on the surface that draws the eye in closer. Peering behind the surface there can be seen a hodge-podge scaffolding of sticks propping the false front out into the physical space and away from the flatland of painting's illusion. There are several of these visual fake outs that occur and each is a curious surprise.

Lee's efforts to change the characteristics of the picture plane, twisting his constructions and puncturing the physical space on both a human scale and on a smaller intimate scale manage to disrupt the pristine white space of the gallery and there fore the viewers comfort zone. And in the end the works force us, the viewers, to approach each object in our space and address the emotional physicality of the work as well as pay attention to the materiality, form, and function.

By Andrew Cornell Robinson Written for the Gay City News

Exhibition Information
Jim Lee "Altamont"

May 4 - June 16, 2007
Freight + Volume

542 West 24th StreetNew york, NY 10011

www.freightandvolume.com

Image courtesy of Freight + Volume

Untitled (Rust/Slit) 2007acrylic and flashe paint on linen over wood11.25 x 14.5 x 9.25 in/28.6 x 36.8 x 23.4 cm

Jean-Michel Fauquet - "Kaïros"

2007-05-18T15:36:00.000-05:00

According to Carl Jung, scientific experimental inquiry has often resulted in a psychologically biased view of the natural world, which discounts that which cannot be statistically grasped. The perceptions of unique intangibles may amass a chaotic collection of curiosities, rather like those old natural history cabinets where anatomical monsters are suspended in bottles, and just next to that is the horn of a unicorn, a dried carcass of a mermaid and a stack of 19th century "spirit" photos all presented as "evidence" of the inexplicable anomalies of the physical world. And while each of these things can be easily revealed as a hoax by a thinking person, ephemeral events and manufactured relics are continually rationalized to exist as fragmentary beliefs in a person's mind. A mind where dreams or fantasies are confused with reality

It is humankind's ongoing attempts to fathom the relationship between the corporeal and the spiritual that seem to have led artist Jean-Michel Fauquet to explore his phantasmagorical imaginings through constructed realities, meticulously crafted, photographed, and manipulated into a series of unhinged events and made up relics whose meaning has been lost to the frail memory of history.

While Fauquet's primary medium is photography, his work begins with the construction of settings, objects made of cardboard, dust, dirt, paper clips, glue and the mysteries of the soul. The exhibition consists of two large scale portraits with peculiar implements inserted into the mouth of the subject. There are also a multitude of close-ups of what Fauquet terms "unnamable objects". The artist's initial preparation begins with making sketches of imaginary things which are then constructed and photographed. The negatives are then scratched and drawn upon, and the prints are seeped in oil paint highlights and a residue of wax. The result is more like a drawing than a photograph.

There are images of stairway labyrinths leading no where and yet there is an uncanny paramnesia, a déjà vu which may settle on the mind grasping for some recognition and the comfort of understanding the incomprehensible. These settings where a heap of cloth serves as an understudy for a mountain range allows the artist and the viewers' minds eye to believe that a faux-relic construction when photographed becomes an image of a monumental thing; a theatrical crescendo crafted out of darkness rather than light. These incredible relics thus require a mysterious setting deepened with the patina of a black edge that underlines the opposition to the edge of the image within the image, and the belief or imaginings within the artist and the viewers' mind. The resulting work is an enigma; a created illusion, a mimic which imitates the natural world and implies a divinity where there is none.

By Andrew Cornell Robinson
Written for the Gay City News

Exhibition Information

Jean-Michel Fauquet - "Kaïros"
3 May through 30 June 2007
Haim Chanin Fine Arts
121 West 19th Street 10th Floor
New York, NY 10011
www.haimchanin.com

Dylan Graham, The Stars Never Lie, But The Astrologs Lie About The Stars

2007-04-15T09:26:00.000-05:00

The art of the cut paper has it's roots in many traditions including Chinese and Japanese rice tissue silhouettes, German, Aztec and Mexican papel picado (perforated paper) and most famously the French silhouette named after Etienne de Silhouette, the Controleur-General of France in the eighteenth century who "invented" the leisure folly which was quickly adopted by the upper classes in Europe and the Americas. More interestingly however are the separate and parallel roots in Meso-America. The Aztecs used cut tree bark decorated with colored liquid rubber and hung the cut outs during various seasonal festivities. After the Spanish conquest papel de china (tissue paper) was introduced and became the material of choice for Christian holiday decorations. This tradition still survives today in Mexico. These wide ranging traditions have carried on into contemporary art by the likes of Matisse who created lyrical painted paper cutouts, and more recently the art form has become synonymous with artist Kara Walker who has managed to subvert the medium with her engrossing narratives about the grotesqueries of American slavery and the racist mythology in American culture.

Given the rich history of this art form it is a wonder that any artist can claim this currently loaded medium. But Dylan Graham, a New Zealand-born artist appears to be up to the challenge. He has been working on a series of meticulous, obsessive, even extravagant cut paper silhouettes? His work in the recent past has included large scale installations with physical objects, and dazzling patterns that take over the interior spaces in ambitious ways. The work for his current exhibition at Rare gallery include a variety of cut colored paper pinned to the white walls, like lace. The play of the shadows and the muted colors create welcome complexities in the visual field. His work takes some inspiration from European silhouette figures in anachronistic costume, Mexican papel picado's use of skeletons, and meticulously cut grids overlapping with elaborate embellishments as well as pop iconography used by contemporary graphic designers and artists like Ryan McGinness.

With the choice of this medium and content Graham takes on issues of colonialism, forced migration and servitude. But unlike Kara Walker's interpretation of similar issues, Graham's work maintains a degree of emotional distance. It's less operatic passion and more visual delight. The filigree and decorative excesses of the medium are utilized in the extreme and act as a sort of go-between with the aesthetic pleasure of the line, figure and ground, vs. the distant narrative.

The silhouette lends itself to avoidance of the subject because all interior detail is omitted and yet this abstraction still carries the narrative in unexpected ways. The figure-ground is commonly exemplified by the Face/Vase illusion based on experiments by Edgar Rubin. This visual Gestalt can easily lull the viewer with a sense of aesthetic distance yet there is an opportunity for multiple and simultaneous interpretations of the images.

Graham is in a peculiar position because he is a white male of northern European descent (Dutch) and he is commenting on the injustices of colonialism from the days of the Dutch East India Company to the current situation of privatizing the Global South, through neo-liberal economic wage slavery under the auspices of global corporatism.

There is allot to explore here, and his imagery includes a lot of visual punch. "Rain Follows the Plow" is one of the more stunning examples hung in the center wall of the gallery. Cut ocher colored paper depicts a stylized swooping swirling dust cloud peopled by wind gods, blowing and hovering over the heads of unsuspecting farmers, preachers and pickup trucks. The work is a commentary on misguided theories of climatology and poor agricultural policies in the United States which in part led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Dylan Graham's hand-cut paper works are an ambitious and impressive effort of skill and delicate sensibility. At times the narratives in the work feel vague or heavy handed. But the work is still a visual pleasure and is worth spending some time with.

By Andrew Cornell Robinson

Written for the Gay City News

Exhibition Information
Dylan Graham, The Stars Never Lie, But The Astrologs Lie About The Stars
April 7 - May 12, 2007
Rare Gallery 521 West 26th Street New York, NY 10001
www.rare-gallery.com

Bushwick Open Studios

2007-03-27T07:45:00.000-05:00

The 2007 Bushwick Summer Arts Festival and Open Studios will be taking place June 1-3 in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

BOS is a volunteer-run and volunteer-organized event, which will feature the work of hundreds of artists, musicians, performers and community members. It's shaping up to be an amazing event! For more information, check out http://www.artsinbushwick.org/

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¿USTED VIVE O TRABAJO EN BUSHWICK? ¿ES USTED UNA ORGANIZACIÓN DEL ARTISTA, DEL EJECUTANTE, DEL MÚSICO, DE LA COMUNIDAD O DE LOS ARTES, ETC? SI SÍ, ENTONCES USTED DEBE SER PARTE DE B.O.S. 07. http://www.artsinbushwick.org/

High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975

2007-03-24T11:54:00.000-05:00

Entering the National Academy Museum I happened to glance upon an ornate hand written message in the visitor's comment book.

"This is one of my least favorite exhibitions at the Academy…"

I stopped reading because I didn't want to spoil my first impression. However, what with my contrarian nature, I couldn't help but wish to contradict the author of the message. I wanted to find something heroic about the New York painters of the late nineteen sixties and mid seventies who forged ahead when the market and the larger culture had declared painting to be dead. So off I went into the formal Academy galleries.
The exhibition "High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975" promises to shed some light upon a time in the art world when painters were pushing the boundaries of their craft, opening up new ideas about process, and adopting new technologies such as video art and the resulting performance narratives that evolved out of it. The commonalties across most of the artists' center around new materials, techniques and processes all resulting in unlikely outcomes. Since painting at the time was dead and buried these painters through caution to the wind, they had nothing to lose. The resulting creations such as Mary Heilmann's "The Book of Night" extend the role of painting into that of an object. The effect was quiet and less baroque than Anselm Kiefer's later explorations on the same form but still Heilmann's book is a potent object and one of the stand-out works on display. Lynda Benglis's lumpy morass of paint-as-sculpture titled "Blatt" seems comic, strange and an anachronism within the antiquated galleries of the Academy.

In some ways the experimentation and caution thrown to the wind reminds me of the New York art world at another transitional time; namely 1991. It was a time when the market was in a slump, the art world was closing galleries in droves, Soho was dead, neo-expressionism was suspect and yet it was at this same time that many younger artists were pushing the boundaries of what could be art. There was a rapid adoption of new technologies, new MFA Computer art programs were launching, Matthew Barney was breaking new ground with performance and film, identity, and queer politics were raising new questions about representation. Painters were mining graphic design, Japanese animation and a neo-graffiti street culture was beginning to assert it self. Before both of these fertile times the cannon was upheld by heroic and heady ideas about what art was and could be. For the painters in the exhibition their response to their place and time contained an appropriate disdain for the cannon amidst an anarchic counter-cultural revolution. The resulting art seemed to forge ahead tentatively, awkwardly and in spurts of subversion. This generation on the outside looked not for answers but better ways to question. Perhaps that is what we can learn most from them.

Jack Whitten questions what it meant to paint by raking paint across the canvas. The resulting mash up of color is akin to Gerhard Richter's later abstractions. Lawrence Stafford also pushed painting forward with a peculiar process of spray painting canvas which was bound over a turning drum. The resulting effect looks like the static on television channels that have gone off air, an anachronism in itself these days.

Peter Young's odd ball "#13" at first seems out of place in the gallery. It is a simple shaped canvas; awkward in its presence, and yet it has a disconcerting home made quality. A quality that is queer the way Robert Gober fashions a sink out of glue and paint and odd bits of unexpected materials.
The biggest challenge in this exhibition however is not the compelling story of painters pushing boundaries; the real challenge is getting past the distractions of the space itself. Much of the work feels out of place, like a bride at a funeral. The oversized paintings hung haphazardly over grandiose architectural details seems sloppy and takes away from the art works' attempt at boldness. For example an Elizabeth Murray painting while solid on its own merits, looks clunky and awkward hung on a concave wall. And Ron Gorchov's shaped canvas "Cock Robin" seemed to get lost in a crowded parlor gallery. There were many other examples of how the installation and the architecture competed with the overall narrative.

I left the galleries with a sense of frustration because the opportunity to open a dialogue about how these artist's in spite of or in response to the market and the cultural climate moved contemporary art forward, was obscured by the competing visual dialogue between the art work and the stodgy architecture. In the end the art on the walls was compelling but the over all effect was a disappointment. Perhaps the curators will consider expanding upon this exhibition in a space that can accommodate more artists in a more compelling manner.

By Andrew Cornell Robinson Written for the

Gay City News

Exhibition Information
High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975February 15 - April 22, 2007The National Academy Museum1083 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10128Tel: 212.369.4880 www.nationalacademy.org

Womanizer

2007-01-16T00:23:00.000-05:00

The outsider, the queer, the goth rock priestess, the pandrogyne , the side show freak, the trannie and the power of pussy are on parade in the current exhibition "Womanizer" curated by Julie Atlas Muz and Kembra Pfahler at Deitch Projects.

This exhibition takes an up close and personal look at the work of seven wild, irreverent and audacious performers and artists who manage to confront shock and transgress the ultra-commoditized, faux-culture, within which we are usually immersed.

Visitors to the main gallery are greeted with a "welcome" spoken in multiple languages by the ever so talented "Mr. Pussy" aka Julie Atlas Muz's costumed and animated genitalia. The image of Muz's "Mr. Pussy" is featured in a looping welcome video as well as multiple color photographs of "Mr. Pussy" in various poses with props from pipes to a well groomed and waxed mustache and plastic googley eyes. In the far end of the gallery is an installation by Kembra Pfahler of the band "The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black." Kembra has created a bed set tucked into a corner and surrounded by walls plastered and colored with a thick menstrual like red paste. The bed contains a skeleton and several plush dolls in multiple colors. Off to the side a video plays showing Kembra ripping the dolls out of a birthing canal, with thick red blood spurting and an unnerving audio track akin to the tinkle of a small girl's musical jewelry box. Another treat on the opposite wall is the visual variety of surgical and anatomical photography and a horrific gumball machine filled with blood stained dried up tampons and various examples of spinning taxidermy. This wonder cabinet of pandrogyne creations is brought to us by Breyer P-Orridge, the artistic entity and brainchild of Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the latter of "Throbbing Gristle" fame. These two gender variant activists / performance artists explore and deconstruct a culturally imposed narrative which resides in the environment of the body. According to P-Orridge

"It's not about gender... Some feel like a man trapped in a woman's body, others like a woman trapped in a man's body. The pandrogyne says, I just feel trapped in a body. The body is simply the suitcase that carries us around. Pandrogyny is all about the mind, consciousness."
P-Orridge goes on to say that "...Pandrogeny is not about defining differences, but about creating similarities. Not about separation but about unification and resolution." †

† On the flip side of ambiguity and away from the tumult of the main gallery can be found a queer confessional created by Vaginal Crème Davis. The small pinkish room is plastered with memorabilia, photographs, pornography, and shelves filled with correspondence, and personal artifacts, which visitors were invited to peruse. It looks like the dressing room behind the scenes of a Nan Goldin photograph. In the background is an audio of Davis elaborating of a variety of topics which include sucking on big cock, and ecstatic exclamations such as "Tom Cruise has the cleanest asshole I've ever seen!" This verbal barrage goes on and on, and I found myself laughing guffaws as I riffled through her drawers. Outside of the confessional are a series of side show pin up photographs created by Bambi the Mermaid of Coney Island. She manages to draw out a comic sensibility through her saccharine portrayals of characters such as Bambi the Dog Faced Girl and other hypnotic grotesqueries.

This exhibition illustrates the unique vocabulary of these funny, transgressive and powerful heroines who celebrate and ritualize themselves through their theatrical use of the body and its visceral qualities.

By Andrew Cornell Robinson Written for the Gay City News

"Womanizer"Julie Atlas Muz, Breyer P-Orridge, Liz Renay, Vaginal Crème Davis, Kembra Pfahler, Bambi The Mermaid, E.V. Day
Deitch ProjectsJanuary 06 - January 27, 2007 76 Grand Street, New York http://www.deitch.com/

† The Guardian "Body Politics", by Mark Paytress, Saturday October 7, 2006 http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1888323,00.html