All: Cattelan at the Guggenheim - rewrite

Hailed as a prankster and provocateur of the contemporary art world, Maurizio Cattelan recently exhibited his first retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. On view through January 22^nd, All compromises 130 pieces, the most prominentworks from the artist’s career from 1989 until present. This retrospective marks Cattelan’s retirement from artmaking.

The Italian artist has taken all his work, mainly sculpture and installation and suspended it from the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, producing one collective behemoth that collectively hangs as a work itself. Viewers are able to explore the intertwined retrospective from all perspectives, starting at the bottom and gazing up from below as well as circling up the spiraling ramp from the ground to top floors to see the works from all sides, angles, and elevations. Much of Cattelan’s work deals with frustration, politics, and critiques of the state of art, all communicated through human forms, puppets, installations, and even figurative representations of the artist himself. There is a miniature functioning elevator, a little boy who drums out a beat atop of a horse drawn cart, and taxidermied pigeons littered throughout the tangled retrospective, perched on both the art and ropes throughout its length.

At the top floor, visitors can see the circular metal platform that holds up the dense mass of works, and most of the ropes (whether needed for actual suspension or for an additional aesthetic rawness) hold up only one piece each. The ropes, however, drop off at varying heights throughout the rotunda’s six stories from ceiling to lobby.

For the exhibition it is beneficial to pick up a pamphlet, or perhaps familiarize yourself with Cattelan’s pieces individually. In this retrospective, many pieces lose their message because some works are contingent on original context which is impossible to translate into the hanging retrospective. Further, many pieces which normally stand on their own, are intentionally or unintentionally juxtaposed next to others, creating a new dialogue and meaning between the work altogether. The separation of viewer and artwork are disadvantageous as well. For example, when hung, Cattelan’s 2007 marble sculptured body bags (also titled All) lose elements that are crucial to experience the work. When presented in the museum setting, viewers are invited to circle around the pieces as they lay on the floor, and can fully conceive of the solid marble “deceased.” Suspended and seen from a distance, the works lose their solidity and overall impact.

Likewise, many of Cattelan’s installations depend on the gallery or museum setting as a component to the piece itself. Works of this nature, such as his 2007 piece, Untitled, which is yet another taxidermied horse installed into a museum wall from the neck down (with the illusion that the animal permeates the gallery’s wall) are presented with “stand in” museum elements. In this instance, such as Untitled, the horse (which is normally attached to a solid wall) has only a piece of white sheetrock of severely less proportions where the wall meets the neck. Which has more of an impact: a full sized horse attached a good height up to brick wall in an art institution, or a horse with a plain square piece of material attached at the neck of the animal? For the pieces contingent on the art museum, perhaps he should have left these in the galleries of the Guggenheim that line the spiraling ramp to the top floor. These galleries, I believe, were intentionally left bare producing a dizzying journey as you descend down to the lobby.

Despite changes stemming from juxtaposition of the works (or the actual installation) The presentation of the retrospective warrants it as a single complex piece. Perhaps the changes were intentional, as Cattelan is known for flipping the politics of the art world on its head. As a notorious prankster, who in 1989 infamously hung a sign for his first solo exhibition that read “be back later,“ he should have pushed the recontextualizing of his work and exhibition space further. Like translating a book, one can go word for word or simple rewrite the book around the same plot. Cattalan went with the later, rewriting the context and meanings of his own art works. The means of installation forces the viewer to continuously look inward instead of around the rotunda. The work is loud and deserves attention, but cheaply relies on it being a central spectacle, a mammoth mobile hung in a museum, which we continuously gaze upon as an infant does in its crib.

One piece in particular that I was let down by were the taxidermied pigeons. In the recent 2011 Venice Biennale, Cattelan littered the outside and interior of the main pavilion with these animals, found on every inch of the façade, its pipes, and supports, which left a strong impression on my experience at the Biennale. If Cattelan went with this, perhaps the experience of his retrospective would have had a similar impact as the animals dauntingly surround his viewers from every corner of the museum space.

Overall, Maurzio Cattelan succeeded in the respect of staging an exhibition that breaks the expected conventions of a retrospective, such as works arranged chronologically. The works are treated not as a collection of objects in linear time, but as a collective work that complements, degrades, and communicates within. Despite this, Cattelan was involved with the retrospective and it shows, leaving some issues unresolved. As his departure from the art world and his reputation as prankster and provocateur, perhaps Cattelan simply does not care.

Revision Sherrie Levine Mayhem

My first inclination after reading the text accompanying Sherrie Levine’s exhibition, “Mayhem” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, was to disregard it. The title I found to be relevant to Levine’s work because of the large array of works in Levine’s ouerve, but I felt that the goal of the curators was to convey to the viewer that the artist’s point is to honor the masters who came before her. This idea seems to puts the wrong context around the work. Levine’s work is less about exalting previous artists and more about asking the viewer to question the validityof that art., pertaining to the question of why the master’s work is important. By appropriating or reinterpreting master’s works, Levine pushes the boundaries of art in an almost comical way. She reexamines pieces that are influential and interprets them in ways that make them seem humorous. Levine uses parts of ideas from masters works and creates pieces which push the boundaries of what art can be. In doing this Levine has become known for appropriation and the critique of authorship in art. In this exhibition the pieces ask the viewer a series of questions; Is this art? What makes this art? Who’s art is it? By asking these questions and several others the artist challenges the accepted system of art and proposes that viewers open their minds to the possibilities of art.

The exhibition is arranged into five rooms, each containing several replications of works by well known, influential, and recognizable artists. The artists include Marcel Duchamp, Walker Evans, Gustave Courbet, Man Ray, as well as others.

The first piece you encounter when entering the exhibition space is a series entitled “After Walker Evans”. Levine rephotographed photos taken by the artist, during the Depression era and displayed them in such a way that when encountering them all together an interference pattern becomes visible. The photographs blending together when viewed as one piece calls into question the importance of the individual works.

Settled next to this series is a piece entitled “Fountain (After Marcel Duchamp)” Levine replicates the infamous Duchamp readymade “Fountain” but has cast this version in bronze. Levine’s version of the readymade combines Duchamp’s gesture of appropriating an everyday object with the materials of a colleague Constantin Brancusi. By merging the two, Levine’s piece is paying homage to the lineage of the masters but also calling into question authorship and what makes an artwork belong to a specific artist, if that work can be replicated by another.

Levine has a knack for choosing a particular pieces from an important artist and recreating those pieces in such a way that makes the work unique. For example, in the second gallery twelve eerily lit skulls are placed in wood and glass panelled boxes in the center of the room. The artist is responding to the European still life tradition in which artists used skulls to depict the presence of death. Levine begins to pokes fun at this concept by placing the skulls in repetition so that the gallery has become a place where one could come gather supplies in order to create a still life, as if the skulls were an everyday commonplace object. The repetition of the skulls places the context of vanitas, or the presence of death, as inconsequential because they reference the idea that death happens constantly and is not of any consequence.

In the piece “La Fortune”, after a painting by surrealist artist Man Ray, Levine has reworked the imagery from a two dimensional surface into a three dimensional, functional object. In Levine’s version four, life size billiard tables occupy almost the entire space of the middle gallery. When entering this space I felt dwarfed by the presence of the tables. There are fairly wide rows between each table but the colors and materials used have an ominous feel to them because of their scale, color and presence in the room. Levine blurs the line between the reality of an actual pool hall and a minimalist sculptural installation. Out of the context of the gallery the works would be likened to nothing more than pool tables used in a familiar pastime except that the tables aren’t functional at all, they have no pockets. This calls into question the idea of the importance of the gallery space or context in which art is seen and if art can be functional or not.

Overall the exhibition was enlightening and the questions the artist wanted to convey through her work were apparent. It was also exciting to have the opportunity to guess who each work was created to copy. What I found confusing is that the curators of the exhibition, seem to have interpreted, at least in my opinion, the ideas behind Levine’s work in a way that is inconsistent with what the work is actually about. The works in the exhibition were not about honoring the master but trying to convey the idea of questioning the validity of the works presented. Maybe it is presumptuous to assume that what I interpreted the works to be is more correct than the way in which the curators have interpreted it, but I did not understand the work in the way that the curators seem to have expected. What I understtood from the exhibition was something different than what was outlined in the texts accompanying the work. Instead of honoring the masters who came before, Levine’s work probed the viewers with questions about why we exalt certain artists, or aspects of art. The artists works stand for themselves and make statements without the need of texts to accompany them. The exhibition clearly ask viewers to believe in the validity of art because of the accepted norms within the art world, however what was conveyed were comments on the validity of those works, if taken out of the context of the canon and those accepted norms.

All: Cattelan at the Guggenheim

All: Cattelan at the Guggenheim

Hailed prankster and provocateur of the contemporary art world, Maurizio Cattelan recently exhibited his first retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. On view through January 22^nd, All is composed of 130 pieces in total, all the works the artist has created since the beginning of his career—from 1989 until the present—and with this retrospective marks Cattelan’s retirement from artmaking.

The Italian artist has taken all his work, mainly sculpture and installation and suspended it from the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, producing one collective behemoth that stands as an end unto itself. Viewers are able to explore the intertwined retrospective from all perspectives, starting at the bottom and gazing up from below as well as circling up the spiraling ramp from the ground to top floors to see the works from all sides, angles, and elevations. Much of Cattelan’s work deals with frustration, animals, politics, critiques of art itself, and even representations of the artist himself. There is a miniature functioning elevator, a little boy who drums out a beat atop of a horse drawn cart, and taxidermied pigeons littered throughout the tangled retrospective that claim, much like any given street in New York, the work and its means of suspension.

At the top floor, visitors can see the circular metal platform that holds up the dense mass of works, and most of the ropes (whether needed for actual suspension or for an additional aesthetic rawness) hold up only one piece each. The ropes, however, drop off at varying heights throughout the rotunda’s six stories from ceiling to lobby.

For the exhibition it is beneficial to pick up a pamphlet, or perhaps familiarize yourself with Cattelan’s pieces individually. In this retrospective, many pieces lose their message because of their original context. Further, many pieces which normally stand on their own, are intentionally or unintentionally juxtaposed next to others, creating a new dialogue and meaning between the work altogether. The separation of viewer and artwork are disadvantageous as well. For example, Cattelan’s 2007 marble sculptured body bags (also titled All) lose crucial elements to understand the work. When presented in the museum setting, viewers are invited to circle around the pieces as they lay on the floor, and can fully conceive of the solid marble “deceased.” Suspended and seen from a distance, the works loose their solidity and overall impact.

Likewise, many of Cattelan’s installations depend on the gallery or museum setting as a crucial element to the piece itself. Works of this nature, such as his 2007 piece, Untitled, which is simply yet another texidermied horse installed into a museum wall from the neck down (with the illusion that the animal permeates the gallery’s wall) are presented with “stand in” museum elements. In this instance, such as Untitled, the horse (which is normally attached to a solid wall) has only a piece of white sheetrock of severely less proportions where the wall meets the neck. Which has more of an impact: a full sized horse attached a good height up to brick wall in an art institution, or a horse with a plain square piece of material attached at the neck of the animal? For the pieces contingent on the art museum, perhaps he should have left these in the galleries of the Guggenheim that line the spiraling ramp to the top floor. These galleries, I believe, were intentionally left bare producing a dizzying journey as you descend down to the lobby.

Despite changes stemming from juxtaposition of the works (or the actual installation) Cattelan was involved with the retrospective and it shows. The presentation of the retrospective warrants it as a single multifaceted piece. Perhaps the changes were intentional, as Cattelan is known for flipping the politics of the art world on its head. Like translating a book, one can go word for word or simple rewrite the book around the same plot. Cattalan went with the later, rewriting the context and meanings of his own art works. As a notorious prankster, who in 1989 infamously hung a sign for his first solo exhibition that read “be back later,“ should have pushed the recontextualizing of his work and exhibition space further. The means of installation forces the viewer to continuously look inward instead of around the rotunda. The work is loud and deserves attention, but relies on its form as a mammoth mobile so that we continuously watch as an infant does in its crib.

One piece in particular that I was let down by were the taxidermied pigeons. In the recent 2011 Venice Biennale, Cattelan littered the outside and interior of the main pavilion with these animals, found on every inch of the façade, its pipes, and supports, which left a strong impression on my experience at the Biennale. If Cattelan went with this, perhaps the experience of his retrospective would have had a similar impact as the animals dauntingly surround his viewers from every corner of the museum space.

Overall, Maurzio Cattelan succeeded in the respect of staging an exhibition that breaks the expected conventions of a retrospective, such as works arranged chronologically. The works are treated not as a collection of objects in linear time, but as a collective work which complements, degrades, and speaks with its internal parts. Despite this, the retrospective does introduce some issues. But as his departure from the art world and given his reputation as prankster and provocateur, perhaps Cattelan simply does not care.

Revised: The Bearden Project

At the Studio Museum in Harlem the exhibition The Bearden Project sets out to honor the late artist Romare Bearden (1911-1988) by presenting works by contemporary artists inspired or influenced by him. Besides the connection to Bearden, the works differ in medium, intent, and even their relationship to Bearden. Some works being shown were even created specifically for the show.

With a style that has been described as a synthesis of Dada photomontage, southern folk traditions and African art, Bearden’s artwork, especially his collages, are an extensive well for contemporary artists to draw from.

Romare Bearden spent the greater part of his youth in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. After fighting in WWII, attending the Sorbonne to study philosophy, and experiencing the embryonic stages of the Civil Rights Movement, Bearden decided upon collage as his medium of choice. Partaking of Western motifs and African forms, materials, and colors, he focused his art on the crossroads of the African American/Black experience within the United States and the ways in which the Civil Rights Movement was changing not only contemporary society, but his art as well.

While the museum states that The Bearden Project has only just begun, it is clear that, at least for now, the unifying feature of the exhibit is the role of collage within the works being displayed. A few prominent examples are Njideka Akunyili’s Efulefu: The Lost One (2011), Dave McKenzie’s They Dreamed of Nefertiti’s Holiday (2011), and Glenn Ligon’s Pittsburgh Memories Redux (2011).

In Akunyili’s Efulefu: The Lost One, the viewer is confronted by a large vertical composition of human figures dancing. The central couple appears to be an interracial one. Done entirely as a combination of collage materials (photographs, paper, etc.) and painted forms, the artist makes the interesting choice of defining Caucasians through negative space, demarcating the white man of the interracial dance couple as almost completely devoid of color. This is juxtaposed by the vibrant colors of the other African figures and background of the piece. Akunyili uses a series of photos that display the same man and various Nigerian women, to create image-plastered floors, walls, and even clothing. Inspired by his life in Nigeria and Bearden’s ability to distill the communal mood of the Harlem Renaissance, Akunyili attempts to capture his experiential journey through self-portraits, like this one, and the constant duality of his Nigerian past within his current daily life.

Dave McKenzie’s They Dreamed of Nefertiti’s Holiday is less visually complex than Akunyili’s piece, in that McKenzie only uses images pasted onto the canvas. His composition is also far more abstract, with disparate images of the Ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti’s death mask being touched, held onto, and grasped at by bodiless arms and hands. Other extraneous images of a bird, a hat, and miscellaneous others are interwoven into the visual fabric of the piece, incorporating their forms into the dialectical discourse of the composition's opposing features. The stark white canvas pushes these images forward, confronting the viewer head on with this discussion. McKenzie describes his inspirational journey, imparted to him through Bearden’s work, as one in which future generations find themselves interacting with art that welcomes them into their heritage and cultural past.

Glenn Ligon’s work, Pittsburgh Memories Redux, like McKenzie’s is also a collage, but Ligon goes further in his use of abstraction. No white part of the canvas shows, all is plastered by disparate images, and few complete forms are left intact within the cutout pieces used. Graphic chaos ensues within Ligon’s composition, leaving viewers with small glimpses and faint glances of an incomprehensible world. Driven to create new images from preexisting ones like Bearden, Ligon incorporated one of Bearden’s images into this collage of cut-up newspapers to create an “image of an image made of images.” He is quick to point out that his images end up far more “quotidian” than any of Bearden’s, but that the relevance of this omission lies within the nature of contemporary life's visual inundation.

For a relatively small exhibit, the Bearden Project does a lot with very little. It provides a forum  on both Romare Bearden’s artwork and messages, and the ways in which they still influence a great many artists today. Since President Obama’s inauguration, it has become clear that America is still extremely divided over the issue of race. The artwork within The Bearden Project confronts issues of racism, both past and present, in subtle ways that create openings for empathy instead of outlets for antipathy. For while much of the artwork confronts the tragedies of the past, none of them appear to be inciting rage, prejudice, or violence as answers in response. And while there is always the chance that a visitor might be unmoved aesthetically by the objects on view, this exhibit nevertheless offers a dialogue about inequality and injustice that is still relevant to the world we live in. 

Satire at Shainman REVISION

Anton Kannemeyer: “After the Barbarians” at Jack Shainman Gallery

Strangely enough, it seems it is the combination of sameness and irony that makes Anton Kannemeyer’s work so powerful. Walking into the gallery, Kannemeyer’s framed sketchbook pages and smaller paintings depicting the respective preferred sports of black and white South Africans ease the viewer into the work, for the first and last experience of subtlety in the show.

Like many South African artists, Kannemeyer’s work primarily focuses on social and political issues in the country as well as issues of identity and race. Kannemeyer is aware that he is not the only artist working in this manner, and for that reason he exploits it. Rather than commenting on racism or stereotypes, he displays, magnifies, and satirizes them. He showcases examples of blatant prejudice and ignorance that force the audience to think not only about the subjects of the work, but also about their own reaction.

A cartoonist, and co-creator of comic book series “Bitterkomix,” Kannemeyer’s figures are overly exaggerated and often are inspired by the controversial Tin Tin in the Congo by Herge. “Very, Very Good,” a large painting in his signiture comic panel style portrays Kannemeyer himself (a white man) peering over an Herge-esque black man in a suit before a canvas. The painter appears to be considering the painting while the Kannemeyer character smiles and states via speech bubble,” Oh, no! I’m not just saying it because you’re black. I think it’s really very, very good.” The black man's painting is facing away from the viewer, so we have no way of knowing whether it is good or whether Kannemeyer thinks it is good.

The bright colors and graphic nature of the blown up comic strips are an obvious attempt to bring irony to the dark and discriminatory messages they carry. However, as obvious as this may be, it showcases how satirical they are meant to be and often perplexes the viewer. Kannemeyer challenges his audience, the paintings acting almost as a mirror to the emotions that are released when viewing them, whether they laugh, cry, or feel nothing. If one sees a colorful image with a shameless racist or stereotypical caption and they react in a way that surprises them, what does that say about a person to others and to themselves? It is this forced self-reflection that is often provoked that makes Kannemeyer’s work separate from the other South African artists who simply show how they feel with no consideration to their audience, no matter who that may be. One work illustrates this point perfectly, as it includes no text at all. “Black Gynaecologist” shows a blonde white woman receiving an exam from a black doctor. The viewer’s reaction, or lack thereof, becomes the real focus in this show.

Many of the paintings in the exhibition portray Kannemeyer himself. By using his own image, yet another important characteristic (stereotype, if you will) of South African art is put to use. The subject of identity and race are often themes in art, but many white South Africans post-apartheid have begun to express their own identity crises. He often portrays himself and other white persons as authority figures who seem conflicted as to how to act or speak. Yet another question is posed to the audience: who really is in authority? Is being an authority figure always proportional to having the power in a situation? As with “Very, Very Good,” another image included in a display of a “Bitterkomix” issue portrays Kannemeyer as a boss interviewing a black woman. “A Black Woman,” shows the boss figure staring at a resume with a thought bubble that reads, “I see by your resume that you’re a black woman.” This combination of dryness and absurdity is the core of Kannemeyer’s work and what makes it so compelling. It says one thing but implies another, and is as complex in meaning as it is simple in aesthetics.

Not every work in the exhibition is so dark or controversial. Two portraits at the back of the gallery portray Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er from Cape Town music act Die Antwoord. There are no captions besides the performers’ names and the portraits appear simply to be a toughened up comic book style portrait. The sketchbook pages at the beginning of the exhibit are equally tame, despite the occasional humorously collected news clipping.

Although much of the work must be thought of conceptually to be truly understood, the paintings themselves are quite remarkable. The quality of the work itself from these pages to the paintings is so neat and precise that the words in the speech bubbles become even more menacing. The more menacing they appear, Kannemeyer hopes, that once juxtaposed against the pastels of his comic pages, his audience will truly begin to think.

Michaël Borremans: the Devil’s Dress Revised

Michaël Borremans’s solo show in David Zwirner Gallery presents his most recent paintings, a collection of works that encourage us to believe again in the power of painting to express beauty. In the Devil’s Dress, as the exhibition is called, Borremans immerses the human figure on theatrical surroundings that evokes nostalgia and isolation. The appealing way of approaching the painterly gesture and oil paint’s physicality creates a visual scenario where to enjoy the painting.

These paintings are imbued with a painterly sense inherited from the Old Masters. The balanced use of color, atmospheric use of shadows and a thoroughgoing analysis of human morphology and clothing contain an obvious resemblance to Velazquez’s paintings. However, Borremans explores atypical compositions - with vanishing lines that ends out of the canvas-, that led into lonely spaces where he places human figures.

The attitudes the characters suggest are mostly ambiguous: we do not really know what they are doing or if what is happening is actually possible. In The Hovering Wood a woman lays on the floor while covered by a hovering piece of wood, or in The Loan, where the woman depicted has no head-. These impossibilities contrast with the realism through which the painting is accomplished, creating an effect of mystery and illusion. In other words, when we embrace a naturalistic painting we expect to find nature as it is presented in reality. For this reason, in a realistic painting the surprise of seeing an unreal element is stronger than in any other style of painting.

The Knives presents a young girl hiding her look by nodding her head. The fact that she is concealing her sight from us is not a random fact. Indeed, all the characters displayed in this series of paintings are hiding their faces from the viewer, as they were afraid to reveal their identities. However, instead exposing their gaze some of them show their nude bodies, as it were an excuse for covering their eyes. The result is an awkward confrontation between us and the image; we cannot get a clear idea about the character’s feelings. What does Borremans questions by hiding the character's look? Is he using it as a formal resource or does it has metaphorical connotations? What is obvious is that its consequences are strikingly disturbing.

Some undefined particles appear floating over the girl’s breast, and their blurred shallows are casted on her vest creating a sense of space and illusion. This manner of creating foregrounds over the layer where the main action is developed is a recurrent characteristic in Borremans’s painting. In fact, he achieves this effect through a few small highly luminous brush stokes that overlays from the entire picture. For example, in the Devil’s Dress we can see how the unique white paint drop there is in the middle of the red element creates an effect of deepness in relation with the layer where the character is placed. Other times the artist uses these ultra luminous touches to provide the figures with a wet-effect, as the Touch illustrates, while at the same time brings them a sense of unreality, because the shiny reflections cannot be cast on skin but only on a porcelain object. The human figure adopts extraneous features, and that is awkward.

Furthermore, the character’s bodies are displayed in very strange and unconventional positions, a fact that helps creating these perturbing scenarios. In the Wooden Skirt a girl’s gesture is ambiguous. She is contemplating her semi lifted arms–what is she doing with them?-, and her outfit is awkward; a semi nude body just with a skirt of the same color range of the skin, without shoes and stepping on a square carpet. Seems like she is meditating in silence, or feeling how her own arms float in the space. A self-reflexive attitude is present here as well as in all the other paintings; the girl is isolated and looks at herself as her body were her only company. There is no communication with us, she is only looking at herself. This make the entire image being closed in itself, mostly because its central composition; its lecture does not go beyond its interior trajectory, it is not directed to our gaze but remains within the composition.

Borremans achieved an outstanding creation of the atmosphere in this piece in particular. It feels like we can almost breathe the air that involves the whole scene; an air that smells like sack-cloth and cardboard.

The Loan may be the most shocking painting of this exhibition. First of all because its large scale absorbs us into its majestic presence. Secondly, because what it conveys: a woman which look is, once again, hidden by turning her back on us. Moreover, in this piece the sense of awkwardness goes further since she has no head but her neck finishes in a metallic lid, like she was a mannequin. The delicacy accomplished in the different textures of the skirt, shoes, and skin contrasts dramatically with the grotesque absence of the head. Once again a human character acquires features of an object -of a mannequin. However, Borremans approach this game of illusions with extreme subtleness; it takes some time to realize there is something “wrong” in the image, so the importance of the whole canvas is just not addressed to this fact –otherwise other values of the painting would be lost.

Sanford Biggers at The Sculpture Center

Walking into the Sanford Biggers exhibition entitled Cosmic Voodoo Circus was both jaw dropping and underwhelming.  The exhibitions title promises a dazzling festival for all of the senses, but in truth Biggers work, at The Sculpture Center, feels more like a poorly attended cirque funeral.The centers capacious interior is a work in itself, and is a massive undertaking for an artist to compete against. Biggers sculptures are a commendable stab at filling this tall order but fall short in completing the task and living up to the exhibitions own given title. Furthermore considering the very serious racial background of the work, one may feel it equal to blasphemy to contemplate criticizing the mouthful of content at play.

The exhibition is made up of three massive works and a trio of smaller pieces. Upon entering the institutions stark gravel filled courtyard, you encounter one of the trio; a decaying tree made of grey foam entitled “Barren”, which also happened to be the state of my reaction. Losing hope quickly I forged on into The Sculpture Center’s main gallery space, all at once I was delighted to be met with some of the stimulating imagery that Sanford Biggers has filled his career with. 

His signature smile “Cheshire (On Tilt)” greets you as you enter the space, this time, printed on a enormous vinyl billboard hanging from a precarious angle. The enormity of this giant blackface grin pulls towards an uncomfortable humor that is absent from the rest of the show. The next awe inspiring work entitled “A Jóia Do Orixá” (The Orisha Jewelry) is a hyper sexual candy red deity, which towers over the viewer like a goddess from a long forgotten religion. She is wearing a grass skirt and raffia veil over her face and encased in a shimmering transparent circus tent. The most involved and time consuming of the works is a video entitled “Shake”, the video is projected onto a large free standing screen. The surreal video follows Ricardo Castillo (a Brazilian-born, Germany based, choreographer, clown, stuntman and DJ) out of the Brazilian ocean and through shanty towns during a metamorphic costume change steeped in circus regalia and African-American urban culture.

   

After taking in the enormity and boldness of the three monumental pieces, the large masses of stale space in the gallery became more apparent. In the search for more, ones eye finally stumbles upon the last two works. The first titled “Backend Trick” consisting of a empty trapeze hanging high from the ceiling and two spot lit aluminum ladders on the coinciding walls. From time to time the trapeze jerks spastically, but offers little information to form an opinion or thought with. The final work called “Constellation 6.0” is scattered amongst two areas of the gallery floor and introduces shattered mirrors in the shapes of stars, reflecting whimsical beams of light around the gallery space. 

“Constellation 6.0” is another work full of extremely playful visual stimuli but is literal in its illustration of broken hopes and dreams. Thus, furthers my questioning of Sanford’s ability to articulate and provoke concepts that equal the amount of time, effort, money and space being poured into the work. All of the  reference points in Cosmic Voodoo Circus point towards a commentary on contemporary black culture. Yet one can hardly pull enough information out of the works to compose a profile of a single being. 

Turning to The Sculpture Centers supporting texts, for help understanding Biggers’ intention, we are thrown back to the promise of a circus, that we entered the exhibition with. Along with circus exploitation, a long list of topics are proclaimed. These vary from “profound issues of identity”, to religious/culture transmigration. Each of these exceptional topics are rich enough to cultivate completely independent shows. Once again the references to these points given by Biggers work are far too minute to equal a greater understanding of the issues proclaimed. Leaving one struggling to make connections amongst the work that simply don’t exist. 

It is rare that one gets to experience sculpture on this scale. Each work is engaging of it’s own, but combined together under the lofty ceiling of The Sculpture Center they fall short of the grandeur they deserve and appear repressed. Biggers work has a great amount of potential and hopefully will continue to grow and finally face the visual languages it is referencing head on, rather than dancing around the subject.

“Cosmic Voodoo Circus” is far from being a bad exhibition to say the least. If anything, the space reduced the work to forlorn theater props in a warehouse. But Biggers must take a stand and choose his language with the pride and the bravado this show lacked. The recycled imagery, feels premature in the worlds relationship with Biggers. However, great potential is present in what I feel is the star of the show, and also the most recent work constructed by Biggers. “A Jóia Do Orixá”, the attention demanding red goddess claims space and dazzles the viewer with her strange aura. She speaks to the rich African American background but does not feel worn out like the recurring imagery of the blackface grin billboard.  

Maurizio Cattelan: An Artist, A Joker, An Executioner?

Maurizio Cattelan: All
November 4, 2011–January 22, 2012


Come one, come all! Watch as the respected Italian artist and trickster of the art world, Maurizio Cattelan, dangles more than 100 pieces of his own work from the Guggenheim’s ceiling! Can he pull it off? Will the artwork survive? Will he fail???

The spectacle of Maurizio Cattelan’s retrospective, All, is certainly one to awe at. Never before has an artist seemingly endangered and disrespected their art in quite this way, in an institution such as the Guggenheim, none the less. As crazy as it may seem, this display is a symbol of Cattelan’s message as a retiring artist; a message of cunning rebelliousness towards the art world. If you are looking for another chronological retrospective in which the art is preciously nestled on the wall or on pedestals Maurizio’s All is not for you. If you are looking for a public hanging, shall I say, of the entirety of an artist’s work, come on down! With themes of dark humor, societal critique, the fear of failure, and death itself, the work seen in its entirety is a blast of comedy and tragedy.

This blast however is nausea inducing as well as innovative and clever. Those with a fear of heights will be challenged, as the viewer needs to peer over the small white barriers of the spiral structure to even glimpse any hint of detail within the pieces. This exhibition is certainly not meant to display the art as it was first intended. Seeing everything all at once is overwhelming and hard to stomach. The chandelier of his artistic career includes everything from his La Nona Ora (1999), a resin and wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite, to Him (2001), a kneeling wax Hitler.

La Nona Ora was originally exhibited at London’s Royal Academy on a red carpet surrounded with shattered glass giving the illusion that the meteor had crashed through the academy’s own window. The feeling and humor of the piece is altered when strung up and suspended from the ceiling, no longer in its context. Cattelan’s Him, a small statue of Hitler, meant to be placed alone in an empty room and approached from behind to trick the viewer into thinking they had come across a small boy, was placed on the outside of the installation face forward for all to see. Throughout the space were objects referencing past performances unable to be recreated and hung within the Guggenheim rotunda. For example, Torno subito (1989), hung amidst the chaos in memory of his first solo “exhibition” in which he closed a gallery and simply hung up a sign saying “Torno subito,” or “Be back soon.” Unfortunately the small sign is hard to pick out of the rubble so its inclusion is hardly noticed. Cattelan’s Pablo Picasso suit, Untitled (1998), reminiscent of a Mickey Mouse mascot at Disneyland, was once worn by a hired actor that stood outside the MOMA as if it were a sort of amusement park. This statement questioned the value of art as well as our perception of art in a museum as a society. Its shell is now positioned in a god-like stature between a giant foosball table, Stadium (1996), and a taxidermied horse, Untitled (2009). The pieces seemed to be more of a reminder of what they once were and stood for, which makes the installation more comparable to everything thrown in the kitchen sink than a career review.

The exhibition seems to be a catalyst for uneasy and controversial feelings. Cattelan specifically sought this unease throughout his career. Some of the most uncomfortable and obvious aspects of the work are the themes of suicide and death. These motifs run rampant throughout Cattelan’s work now hanging in the gallows of the Guggenheim. Life-size replicas of young boys on nooses, and a plethora of taxidermied animals such as dogs and horses are sprinkled throughout the space. The themes became more apparent while journeying up the spiral; they were impossible to overlook. You could say that Maurizio sent them all to their “death” just as an executioner would. Of course, this group hanging was not without Cattelan’s wit to provide comic relief to those faint of heart.

On a lighter note, the retrospective successfully challenged the way work is traditionally shown within the Guggenheim. Usually work is exhibited on the museum walls and adjacent galleries in a certain and rigid order due to the cyclical nature of the walkway and building. With All, the entirety of the work hung staggered in the center within the empty space, which left the remainder of the rotunda barren. This innovative curatorial choice solved the problem of showing the work in a specific chronological manner as most retrospectives do.

Another positive aspect of this display was the element of surprise and discovery while viewing the work from all angles. Smaller pieces were placed on top of bigger works making them only visible from overhead. Due to the enormity of the exhibition, the experience of traveling up the rotunda is dramatically different from the trip down. This is sure to spark interest even in the most attention deficient.

Did Maurizio Cattelan fail? Does he care? The overwhelming display of his life’s work seems like a final and unselfconscious release, a letting go if you will, of his successful career as an artist.

Rashaad Newsome

Rashaad Newsome’s Herald, his first solo show at Marlborough Gallery, usess the medieval idea of heraldry, baroque excessiveness, and hip hop and pop culture to create collages to serve as modern coats of arms.

Heraldry, originating in the Middle Ages, uses symbols of rank or prestige within the military. The Baroque influence on the show is most seen in the ornate frames around the work, some with bees that seem to reference the famous Baroque Barberini family, whose heraldic emblem included three bees, which were included in the frescoes for the Palazzo Barberini by baroque artist Giuseppe Chiari.

Newsome's collages are made up of images of jewelry with huge stones, gold watches, flat brim baseball caps, women’s legs and butts, chain necklaces, teeth grills, money, fancy cars, marijuana, fleur-de-lis, and diamond skulls (perhaps a nod to the flashiest artist of all, Damien Hirst). There was also clearly much attention paid to the framing of the work, and the flamboyancy of these frames range. There are more tame ones, such as with Baptism, to more ornate, such as Let Them Eat Cakes, which has miniature golden car rims on each side of the frame. Not all are gold, such as 37^th Chamber, which is black with one flower for each side, for which Newsome hired an auto body shop to match the paint colors of Ferraris or Lamborghinis for the flowers.

The downstairs gallery space is filled with collage work, with more upstairs. Upstairs a video piece, Herald, is also shown. It was shot in New York’s St. Patrick’s Basilica, and documents Newsome becoming a herald through a fictional and dramatized ceremony. Newsome also held a performance at Marlborough entitled Tournament, where he had a free-style rap battle between ten emerging emcees.

Newsome is walking a very fine line between outright spectacle and gimmick, and intelligent commentary on hip-hop and pop culture. I could not help but think of Terry Smith’s essay What is Modern Art, where he says art has become little more than a commodity in the global marketplace, and a work of art or exhibition’s value can be equated to the publicity it receives. Smith calls out artists and galleries for using spectacle and flashiness to garner interest in what ends up being meaningless work. Newsome is definitely flashy and interested in the luxurious and expensive lifestyle of hip-hop icons, such as Nicki Minaj, whom the piece Black Barbie is about, or Wiz Khalifa, who was the inspiration for Black and Yellow. Black Barbie has a bubble-gum pink frame with the Barbie logo around the sides. The collage has a bacground of diamonds and gems, and in the center there are two women's legs and her arms with hands clasped. Her body and head have been erased. On the sides of the piece are the profiles of one woman who has her tongue out, giving the appearance that she is licking the diamonds. Black and Yellow has an entirely black background and no frame. The collage is in the center of the black background, composed of gold jewelry and gold watches with black leather straps. In the middle is a diamond encrusted skull. However, considering the heraldic element, it would seem that Newsome is not just exploiting the ostentatiousness of these rappers and the hip-hop world in general, but likening them to medieval time warriors. Adding the theme from hip-hop culture of struggle and breaking out of the lower class, it seems that Newsome is in fact celebrating these people and their successes, venerating them as victorious soldiers.

In pieces that do not reference specific people, however, it seems that Newsome is just showcasing excess. Let Them Eat Cakes centers on a woman’s legs, butt, and one arm, surrounded by chains and jewels shaping what looks like the outlines of a heraldic emblem. Surrounding this is a repeated collage of a different woman’s legs and butt in black thong underwear and underneath that, a pattern of gold with rubies and emeralds. The frame is gold with car rims on each side. The title refers to Marie Antoinette, the original queen of excess, while the butts and legs recall images of girls from hip hop music videos. This piece is confusing. If this luxe hip hop life style is meant to be honored and celebrated by Newsome, then using Marie Antoinette seems odd, a historical paragon of carelessness, irresponsibility, and the horrors excess can lead to. Is Newsome warning his viewers to not be too excessive or is he laughing in Marie Antoinette, and history’s, face? The latter seems more likely, but with that in mind his work seems to not be about honor in the hip hop industry but just irresponsible flashiness.

It is hard to know what to make of Rashaad Newsome’s Herald. His intentions appear to be to give honor to hip hop through using the ideas of heraldry, yet a lot of the work seems to be empty of meaning and just a collage of excess. Fulfilling Terry Smith's ideas about modern art, many of the pieces had been sold already when I saw the exhibit. The show is fun and light, but I don’t think Newsome has figured out the best way to put his point across. In the end, the collages seem repetitive. I don’t think it is enough to imply that hip-hop is the most prestigious clan of modern times by using images of money, cars, girls, gold, and diamonds. If he wants to redefine hip-hop, he cannot just reuse obvious symbols of this culture. I look forward to watching what Newsome does next, I only hope that he develops his ideas, his style, and how to synthesize these two together.