NYC Art

The invitations have been coming on strong lately for some reason. The summer is supposed to be the art world's off season, but suddenly everyone's found my e-mail address; maybe it's because of all the group shows, which means more artists, which means more people trying to get obscure bloggers to write about them. I've tried to keep up with the invitations but I missed a couple of shows, alas. Then again, one of them was from a photographer, and he said he liked my blog, which leads me to believe he's never read it, because anyone who's read my blog knows how I feel about photography. On the other hand, his photos were of naked women, so maybe he does read my blog.

Not only are there invitations coming in but I'm also finding shows to go to. This time, I picked Elisabeth Condon because she commented on Stephanie's blog and her work looked interesting online. Her paintings are part of a group show, Into the Woods, at the Arsenal in Central Park. Elisabeth didn't publicize her show or ask anyone to go; I just followed along from her comment to find her site, was intrigued, and decided to go.

Unfortunately I found Elisabeth's works, at least the ones in this show, disappointing. It looks like she starts with a wonderfully abstract background, all full of spreading paint and swirls and drips and pours, which she then takes as inspiration to draw over. The trouble is her draftsmanship isn't that great. The physical action of the paint underneath her drawings is much, much stronger and more exciting than he more labored, obvious work above it. An unrelated series of paintings on her Website is titled "Seuss Dynasty," but Elisabeth lacks the lightness of touch of either Ted Geisel or Chinese porcelain. Reduced down to a JPEG, or maybe glanced at from across the room, her overpaintings appear deft enough, but standing right in front I found them clumsy.

Only a few other works jumped out at me in this show. There were a couple of really great brass eagles, but they weren't part of the show, just part of the old Arsenal building. Kurt Lightner's paintings caught me eye; they're not as good as I want them to be, and they play around the same ground as Elisabeth's, but they come together better. Kurt apparently paints on Mylar and collages the pieces together, and then paints over them. The effect is good and his sense of composition is pretty good.

The best work in the show, however, belongs to Kim Krans. I couldn't find a Website for her or any images online of the works in this show, which is a shame, because it's really excellent. If I just list her materials here, you might be horrified -- ink, gouache, spray paint, glitter, fur and glue on paper -- but she puts all of it together beautifully. In fact these three small works are mostly gouache on black paper, where the paint contrasting with the ground is meant to evoke the bark of a tree stump. The other ingredients are just, we might say, supporting players. Each piece is small, maybe 11 by 14 inches, maybe 14 by 18 -- I'm not a great judge of size -- but lyrical in its abstraction from reality. Each one isn't so much abstract, actually, as distilled; the essence of tree stump, with all the years of treeness, and all the sense of decay and renewal wrapped up in that. While all the other pieces in the show seemed to be there because they incidentally involved trees -- the show is called Into the Woods, after all -- only Kim's pieces really address the idea of trees, the importance of trees, and the impermanence of those seemingly most permanent of plants.

I wanted to talk to Elisabeth, to let her know I'd come to her show, and to Kim, to whisper that I liked her paintings best, but none of the women handing out drinks could tell me who was who, or even where the bathroom was. I didn't feel up to introducing myself to random people, so instead I left, and in honor of Central Park and the trees, took the long walk along 59th Street back to the bus station.

Labels: Elisabeth Condon, Kim Krans, Kurt Lightner

I love Ling Chang. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, and probably soon. I can't explain it. It probably can't be explained. Certainly I don't know her well enough to say something like that, but there I am, saying it. And it means this won't be an unbiased review of her show.

Of course none of my reviews are unbiased. I don't think unbiased reviews really exist. But in Ling's case it's going to be more unbiased than usual, I guess. I've noticed something interesting about me, though: People I like make art I like, and if I like the art, I like the artist. And the relationship is proportional: The more I like the artist, the more I like their art, and if I really don't like the art, whew, I can't stand the person who made it. This has even been tested sort of independently: There have been people I've met and sort of liked, then saw their art and didn't think it was very good; and then, as I got to know them, I found I didn't really like them at all. And then there are people like Tracy Helgeson, who I totally and unreservedly love, whose art I didn't really get to see for a long time, and when I did, it turned out I love it just as much as I love her.

There are a lot of possible explanations for this. Maybe I'm just incapable of separating my opinion of art from my opinions of people, and I fool myself into liking the art of people I like. Maybe there's some connection between the kind of art one makes and the kind of person one is. Maybe I'm an idiot.

I tend to think it's a combination of these.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I love Ling and so you have to think of that while you read this. Also, because we swapped e-mail while she was working on the pieces in the show, I have an idea of what she was getting at and what she wanted to include but couldn't because she didn't get everything done in time.

Ling's show is called The Curious Lore of Precious Stones and it's at Realform Project Space in Williamsburg, as of this writing, for the next few days. Realform Project Space, it turns out, is a storefront window, one of those old-fashioned walk-in glass boxes, fronting a hallway with a number of hip, groovy stores opening off of it. This was my first trip to Williamsburg, I'm pretty sure, and I can see what people like about it now that the actual artists have moved out and the wealthy would-be bohemians have moved in. Ling wryly noted that the average age on North Fifth Street outside was about 25. The whole place is overrun with tits and tattoos.

The show consists of a fanciful collection of rocks of all kinds. Strange crystalline amalgamations rub shoulders with delicate fans of minerals. Polyhedra loll around spiky stars. Colored layers ripple off into dark crevices. And everything is arranged almost as you'd see it in a museum exhibit or maybe a New Age crystal shop. But if you look more closely, you see that the stones aren't ones you've seen before. In fact -- they're not even stones. They're...something else.

It turns out the entire show is made of Crayola Model Magic, a light, airy foam-like modeling material, in some cases painted, other times left white. Ling really likes this stuff. I think it helps her to get her ideas across without being so fussy; Model Magic can't really be molded in extreme detail, so it's something of an impressionist medium. And the impression is excellent. Ling's faux finishes are good enough to hold up under anything but the most careful scrutiny. Encased in Realform's glass cube, it's easy to mistake the show for an actual sales display.

I asked Ling why she made things that were so realistic. I didn't mean to ask what was the point of doing something realistic, exactly. It was more like, what was her motivation to make fake rocks that look so much like real ones? I meant the question in a positive way -- "What's on your mind?" -- and not in a negative way -- "Why did you waste your time?" I think Ling took it as the latter, though, when she answered, "I guess when I was making them, I didn't think they were all that realistic. In fact I was worried that they'd look way too childish and crude."

They don't. In the short time of the opening a number of people -- some of whom just wandered in off the street -- asked Ling about the piece and were surprised to find that the stones were entirely imaginary and hand-made. The book -- the only real item on the shelves -- being swallowed up by the Model Magic is a clue, but not one most viewers picked up on, apparently.

My wife Dawn and I went to the opening together, which isn't normal for us, but then she doesn't usually know the artists I'm going to see. Dawn had met Ling when we were both at the School of Visual Arts and I think Dawn likes Ling almost as much as I do, so we went the extra step of getting someone to watch the kids while we trucked out to Brooklyn. While I was talking artspeak with some of the other people hanging around -- Lucy Gans and Les Fletcher, and David Gibson, the curator of Realform -- Dawn wandered off into the hip, groovy interior of the space and came back with a pair of earrings. Talk about your weird nights: My wife coming to an opening with me? And buying jewelry? If Dawn had told me she was leaving me for Jesse L. Martin I'd have been less surprised.

I know this review is going up late and thus really close to the closing of Ling's show, but you could do so much worse than rush out to Williamsburg to see this. The coffee shop just to the left of Realform makes really good frappuccino, too. Just in case you don't love Ling as much as I do.

Labels: David Gibson, Ling Chang

I'm having something of a personal crisis here. Just like last year, this crisis rather unfortunately coincides with the high point of the New York art scene, so when I should be out at openings as often as possible, and writing up a storm, instead I find I have a stack -- a stack, I tell you! -- of cards from shows I've been to but haven't written about, a blank calendar for all of April -- I haven't been to a show in months -- and an empty blog.

I'm not really part of the art world, except maybe as the most peripheral of spectators, but I do have one thing in common with most of the people in the art world: I have a day job. A lot of them don't talk about it because talking about it makes them look less successful -- if you can afford your Chelsea rent because you're, I don't know, a network technician or a real estate broker or something, and not because you're actually selling any art, then potential customers are going to take you a lot less seriously. I assume. So you simply don't let anyone know you've got a day job and you pretend you're staying in business because you're savvy and tenacious. This is called "keeping up appearances."

But I'll admit it to you because we're such good friends: I have a day job. Technically I retired from being a computer programmer two and a half years ago, but here I'm using "retired" in a very specific way: Two and a half years ago I officially told my wife and any business acquaintances who happened to be within earshot that I was no longer actively looking for work. However, I left myself the loophole: If work came looking for me, I wouldn't necessarily turn it away. I figured it was a safe bet, since who would actually want me working for them?

Well, for some reason, work did find me and has continued to find me. Not a lot of work, mind you -- I'm still making less than I was before I retired -- but enough work to keep me occupied here and there and prevent me from having nothing to do. Enough work to seriously cut into my art time, anyway. I'd turn it down if I could, but I'm incapable of saying no to anyone, and at one point work arrived when we had precisely 81 cents in the bank, so there you go.

It's not all about the work, though. There's something bothering me, something nagging at me. I'm filled with doubts. I can't tell if my art's any good, I can't tell if it's worth pursuing, I feel terrible about everything. Life sucks.

Recently Eric Gelber, commenting on a post on Ed's blog quoted Harold Rosenberg, one of the most influential art critics of the 20th century, and I realized I'd read nothing this guy wrote. I haven't read any Clement Greenberg, either. They're on my list. Something about the quotes struck me, though, so I ran right out to the library and took out Art on the Edge and The De-Definition of Art and started reading. I finished the former and am about halfway through the latter; what's blown me away about these books is good old Harry is writing things I could've written myself. In fact at one point he even does write something I wrote myself (although I'd be hard pressed to tell you where). Only these essays are from one entire lifetime ago -- mine. Most of these were published before my third birthday.

What bothers me most about this is it tells me the art world is standing still. Dead still. It hasn't changed in forty years. It's still playing out the same dumbshow from the late 1960s. Rosenberg writes about all the problems and they're in full flower then: The collapse of visual art into word-based philosophy; the collusions of the dealer-collector-curator complex; the ridiculous auctions and their distortion of the art world; the phony posing of the avant-garde; the shift towards art degrees and a professional class of artists playing out the old clichés. It's all in place already before my life even begins.

This isn't a crisis. It's so far beyond crisis I don't even know what to call it.

Labels: Edward Winkleman, Eric Gelber, Harold Rosenberg

I am a bad person. I've said it before but I don't remember if I've said it here; anyway, there it is. I'm a bad person. I'm a lousy husband, an incompetent father, an unworthy son, a faithless friend, a mediocre artist and at best a middling writer. And, worst of all, I haven't posted a word here in, according to Technorati, 84 days.

For this I have reasons but not excuses. A lot's come up in the last 76 days including a drop into the deepest crevasse of despair and the intrusion into my life of a PC capable of running Crysis along with a copy of Crysis, which enjoyable waste of time has eaten a fair amount of my life so far. In fact I'm seeing the game when I close my eyes, which is a good sign of having played it way too much.

In the meantime I've gone to a few art events and totally failed to write about them. What can I say? I've let you down. I'm a bad person. I can't make it up to you -- I can't make it up to anyone, ever, that's part of being a bad person -- but I can try and make amends like the friends of Bill W. say. Let's start now.

The first event I didn't get around to telling you about was the group show Another Last Year held by Ad Nauseam Lyceum. I was invited by Cathleen Cueto, with whom I became friends at the School of Visual Arts. I hope she didn't invite me because she hoped I'd bring lots of visitors to the show, because it's over now and you can't see it. Hell, I barely saw it, because the opening was so crowded it was almost impossible to see the art. I've never been asked to move over so someone could see something behind me at any show, but it happened here.

From what I could see it was a groovy show. Cathleen had a single elbow in it. She had made a cast of her own elbow and from that a plaster sculpture which she set on a square mirror atop a waist-high plinth. The elbow was bent and only showed from a few inches up her arm, so if you looked at it quickly you might think it was a knee or something more private, but an elbow it was.

Aside from Cathleen's, I only got a good look at a couple of other pieces. Due to the show's being nearly completely undocumented online, I can't figure out who made them or what they were. I'm pretty sure Brent Birnbaum had a really excitingly colorful wall/ceiling hanging thing with beads and sequins and gewgaws all over it. I wanted to get a better look at it but didn't. Matt Broach had a neat-looking animation up, something dark and landscapey going by a car window, maybe. Hard to tell. And there was another video whose creator I wanted to talk to, because they'd made a video of one painting being painted, followed by another painted on top, followed by another, over and over, until the canvas is painted white and the loop begins again. All this was projected onto white canvas, so it was like a moving painting, and it reminded me of one of my favorite movies, The Mystery of Picasso. And I think I met Brent's girlfriend, who has a tattoo of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting covering her upper arm, which is very cool.

I'd only gone for Cathleen and her elbow and would've left pretty quickly but then a bunch of other people I knew from SVA showed up and we stood around talking and I realized I was an idiot for not inviting them to the opening of the Blogger Show. If you'll permit me to name-drop, I met up with Steve DeFrank, Josh Harris and his girlfriend Cameron, Marcos Chin and his boyfriend Mikee, and Pooneh Maghazehe. I'd forgotten how much I love all these people -- is it love if you can forget it? -- and I plan to keep closer in touch with them from now on.

Next up: An art movie!

Labels: Ad Nauseam Lyceum, Brent Birnbaum, Cathleen Cueto, Josh Harris, Marcos Chin, Matt Broach, Pooneh Maghazehe, Steve DeFrank