Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Tre Reising currently has a solo installation up at Big Car Gallery in Indianapolis called No Space. Reising has worked in printmaking before, but his artistic practice consists primarily of installation art and sculpture. No Space, and art in general at this point in Reising's career, represents somewhat of an internal struggle. Sure, it has deeper significance than what immediately confronts the viewer, such as the concept of being stuck between two pages of an artist's sketchbook and the investigation of drawing and painting's relationship to sculpture. On the other hand though, Reising just wants to make art. As Frank Stella would say, "What you see is what you see." With that said, Reising's art is abstract and its independence from figurative representation is, of course, a definite step towards art for art's sake.
Despite being abstract and in a square room, No Space succeeds in creating the effect of a Cyclorama. In this regard, Reising's new work has some similarity to Kara Walker. Regarding the Cyclorama and its effect, Walker states "It's like the pique of the painter's creative enterprise to make the painting surround the viewer and to create the illusion of depth and of space, and to lure the viewer into the feeling of being a part of the scene." Reising creates illusions of depth and space through his use of similar shapes in varying sizes and lines that do not form right angles. Reising has also explored the territory first mapped by Fred Sandback through three dimensional yarn sculpture in the past, but in this installation the yarn stays on the walls. Painted shapes always take precedence over yarn in No Space, literally breaking the yarn's continuity, and this is also effective in creating illusions of depth. Overall, No Space is an intense and enjoyable aesthetic experience that surrounds the viewer with appealing colors and shapes that really pop off--or into--the walls.Tuesday, December 22, 2009 0
Monday, December 07, 2009
images by Charles Fox, Nick Allman and Christopher WestOn Thursday, December 3 a new show opened up at Dean Johnson Gallery called New Design: Nick Allman, Morgen Bosler and Lauren Zoll
Quoted from Dean Johnson Gallery's website is a description of the show, which was curated by Christopher West:
Three local designers put their own unique spins on what are traditionally mundane items. Nick Allman imagines an environment where an entryway table and an iconic Arco Floor Lamp burst through (or crash into) the existing architecture of a home or building. Morgen Bosler handcrafts ceramic urns designed to honor a loved one’s individuality and spirit. Each piece is an expression of pure art and design created to bring a lifetime of comfort. Finally, Lauren Zoll has created a series of vases intended to represent the antithesis of design. Using materials such as rebar, Zoll is able to combine the brutality of the materials with the beauty of a functional vase.
Nick Allman recently won First Prize for a furniture piece in the Herron Galleries Undergraduate Student Exhibition, and the work he has featured in the Dean Johnson show is daring, strong and surprisingly functional. Destroying drywall in order to insert or remove objects, Allman creates furniture pieces that question perception and undermine traditional notions of design, space and aesthetics. Upon first viewing Allman's work in this show looks like a series of disasters rather than intentional design, and it is this element of surprise and rethinking function that gives the work its strength.
I had a conversation with Nick in two parts, during the installation and upon its completion. Hear what he had to say at Outposts From The Material World
Monday, December 07, 2009 0
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Hopped on a shuttle Friday morning and headed back to Miami’s Wynwood Arts district to make my way towards two private collections, The Margulies and Rubell Family collections. One idea for the organizers of the Miami fairs: Please figure out a way to coordinate one single comprehensive shuttle system that stops at all the major locations. The current system seems to be certain individual fairs sponsoring their own shuttles, which make the arduous and time consuming haul from Miami Beach to the arts district, drop-off and pick-up at disparate locations, and just doesn’t work well. A circuitous route with shuttles running every 15 minutes would be much better.
After a 15 block walk from the closest shuttle stop, I joined my Chicagrapher pals at the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. This private collection rivals the Menil Collection in Houston, and honestly is worth a trip to Miami in itself. In it’s current installation, you are greeted by major work by Sol Lewitt, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, George Segal and more. That’s just the beginning. The cavernous warehouse seems unending, and two mezzanine spaces contain even more art. The Margulies collection is balanced between major works of 20th century art and contemporary art, representing all mediums, and especially my favorite – photography.
Ranging from a great installation from the New York photo league of the 30’s and 40’s and early photographs by Margaret Bourke-White to contemporaries Justine Kurland and Alec Soth, the photography work here is amazing. A favorite of mine: Jason Schmidt's portraits of artists, of which I have seen a few, but the Margulies collection displayed ninety-four.
I could go on and on about this collection, but time does not permit. More favorites below.
Danny Lyons, 74 photos from 'Conversations With the Dead.'
Paul Fusco images from the Kennedy Funeral Train
Ursula Schulz, bus stops
Justine Kurland
Angel Marcos, Un Coup De Des #16
An incredible light installation by Anthony McCall, You and I, Horizontal (III), which pictures cannot really capture the experience of
The Olafur Eliasson skylight rooftop installation Your Now is My Surroundings
Chul-Hyun Ahn's Well
After the art overload of Margulies, we headed a few blocks over to the Rubell Family Collection. It was also impressive, but very postmodern by our analysis. images below.
Matt Siber studies Piotr Uklanski's Nazis, 1998, perhaps my favorite piece in the collection
Uklanski's Untitled (American Eagle)
Kelly Walker's "Black Star Press, Star Press Star, Black Press (Rotated 90 degrees clockwise)" and Wade Guyton (from Hammond, IN) X
Gallery of work by Aaron Curry
A great set of early Cindy Sherman prints, Untitled #427-446 from 1976
We left the Rubell and promptly recaffienated at a great little local cafe. We then headed to Pulse, which was a great fair. I'll have to blog that in the next post - back to the fairs for now!
Craig McCormick
Saturday, December 05, 2009 1
Friday, December 04, 2009
Above, Workshop Workshop at Design Miami
The brutal 6am flight to Miami via Baltimore became worthwhile when I stepped off the plane into 86 degree heat, a welcome change from the waning temperatures in Indiana. I dropped my bags, devoured a plate of fish tacos (the kind that you get in the south with cabbage and vinaigrette), removed my socks and diligently headed toward the art fairs.
For those not familiar with the Miami art fairs, let me say this: They are THE events in the US for art galleries to showcase and sell new work. Here is a link that I am using with a comprehensive look at the fairs, just to give you an idea of the scale: http://www.boydlevel.com/pdf/MiamiGuide2009_FinalV3.pdf. Take these 24 fairs and multiply by VIP parties, brunches, lectures, and book release parties, and you get a sense of the overwhelming nature of this week.
First stop – the Design District to catch Photo Miami and Design Miami.
This is my first trip to the fairs in Miami, so I have little context for the changes which have occurred year to year. I’m told by friends that some photo dealers have left Photo Miami for the other contemporary fairs Pulse and Art Miami. Knowing some of those galleries, I could see their absence as lessening the overall impact of Photo Miami.
As a conceptual fine-art photographer myself, my first pass through photo Miami left me disappointed for a few reasons: First, because there was so much large-scale diasec-style (front-laminated print to acrylic) work which had so little substance – a trendy presentation method with little photographic mojo to back it up. Secondly, there were so many highly-romanticised photoshop-created works which relied upon misty sepia tones or depth-of-field manipulation or fauvistic color to create a dreamy yet contrived surrealism… I just couldn’t stomach most of these, yet I know that people buy them. People buy precious moments figurines too. Third, there was so little work that was about anything. Maybe I’m the one falling behind, but I find substance and depth in serial works of photography that dance around a concept. One more thing – and this is a straight up diss from me personally, a large-format photographer: If you’re shooting 35mm or medium format or even digital, don’t blow your prints up to 6’. Why would anyone intentionally lose the quality in their image to gain some massive proportion? Bigger is not better. Better is Better.
All that said generally about the fair, there was some great work to be seen. The work shown by Stephen Cohen Gallery (Los Angeles) was strong. In particular, I really liked the images of Icebergs in Greenland by Olaf Otto Becker.
They were peaceful and beautiful and relevant. I also liked Austrian Josef Hoflehner’s images of posts and sticks – immaculate and finely printed work which reminded me of Harry Callahan’s work, but a bit broader and more interesting.
Of the more abstract work, I admired (but was not totally taken by) the work of Nicholas Ruel, represented by Galerie Orange of Montreal.
These layered images are printed on aluminum or stainless steel, which can be entirely gimmicky. But these were the first I’ve seen that tonally blended well with the metal, utilized interesting photographs (which might stand alone) as layering material, and just presented a comprehensive and interesting image a la Rauschenberg, but different.
My favorite gallery and artwork of Photo Miami was MR Gallery (Mother River) of Beijing, China. Work by Tibetan artist Mo Yi (pictured below)
documents cultural phenomena of his neighborhood in objective series. I was also very fond of the work of Qiang Jin, who photographed Chinese villagers in reenactments of iconic catholic religious history, including the birth of Jesus and the last supper. At first I thought these were constructed images which spoke to the nature of China and how it’s growth and change was subsuming American Culture. Then, when speaking to Mr. Toni Nan Li from MR Gallery, I got the real story. These remote villagers from Liuhe Village had been converted to Catholocism 200 years ago and were devout. The photographer discovered this, and asked the villagers to re-create these historical Biblical scenes, which they did to glorify God and serve Him. I found this story very interesting in light of China’s changing culture… not to mention that the pictures were immaculate.
Also notable was the disturbing series of images from Jasper Debesier titled ”Udongo.” Irvine Gallery from Washington DC showed nice work by Phil Nesmith titled “Flight Patterns,” which were exceptional photograms on emulsified black glass, as well as some incredibly rendered fictional photographs (yes, photoshop constructed!) by Kahn & Selesnic.
I really loved Design Miami. My friend Dung Ngo, a Senior Editor at Rizzolli International publishers, curator and all-around design guru, told me that the fifteen or so exhibitors at the fair was about ten less than last year – a sad consequence of the economic downturn I’m sure. Below I'll post some of my favorites from Design Miami without much elaboration due to my time constraints - but great design speaks for itself as you will see.
After the fairs, I hit a whirlwind of mixers including a Rizzoli book launch party for "Indochine-Stories" at the fabulous Mondrian Hotel; Next met up with Chicagraphers Brian Ulrich, Matt Siber and John Gitelson at a really mediocre event party hosted by the Scope Fair where the muscle at the door turned away VIP Scope guests (me included) who failed to procure a blue wristband during the day; And finally we hit a party hosted by David Byrne promoting his work with bicycles at the amazing Standard Hotel. We didn't get to meet David, but we did sip cocktails waterside in the ocean breeze and geeked out with our iPhone apps for a great end to a long day.
Lamp and Table by Tom Dixon:
Amazing work by Maarten Baas:
"Tassenkast" by Lotty Lindeman:
Now, back out into the wilderness for more...
Craig McCormick
Friday, December 04, 2009 4
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Heading to Miami early Thursday for the art fairs and will do my best to blog on what I see. Should be hanging with some interesting peeps - artists, publishers, musicians and surely more, so I hope to expand my own perspective beyond the highly conceptual and minimal preferences of my own tastes. I'm gonna freestyle the blogging a bit - from both my phone and my old skool clamshell iBook when I can find wifi, so stay tuned!
Craig McCormick
Thursday, December 03, 2009 0
