Friday, February 28, 2020

Agnes Denes: Absolutes and Intermediates @ The Shed


Agnes Danes’s show 'Absolutes and Intermediates', currently showing at The Shed, presents an extensive survey of Denes’s work from the 1960’s to the present day. The work exhibited shows a wide range of her mathematical drawings, anatomical studies, meticulously rendered graphs, philosophical prose and striking poetics in addition to her more widely acclaimed environmental instillations and ecological remediation projects. As a whole, the pure volume and comprehensiveness of the work was overwhelmingly impressive.

Whilst the content of the work is intellectually ambitious to the point of almost alienating the viewer, it seems that Denes creates work that is aided by science, mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, ecology, and psychology in order for her to be able to analyze, document, and ultimately aid humanity. The work emits a strong feeling of inquisitiveness that seems to be more concerned with a process of understanding than it is about coming to any sort of concrete conclusion.

The image of Denes that emerges through this selection of work is both prolific and intellectually hungry. Her dedication to understanding the human condition in relation to the physical space we inhabit demonstrates her agency for real-world change as much as it shows her profound artistic ability.



Review: Agnes Denes's 'Absolutes and Intermediates' at the Shed ...

Madeline Hollander, Heads/Tails at Bortalami Gallery

Madeline Hollander’s Heads/Tails is an intensely New York piece of art. Focused around the driving patterns of New Yorkers and stoplights around the city, the piece is oddly human despite it being a bundle of car parts. Connected to a nearby traffic light and set to turn on and off based on an algorithm of Hollander’s own design, it is impossible not to feel connected to something that's greater than a singular person. It's heartwarming to feel connected to New York as a whole in this way.
It brings to mind a specific nostalgia to stand in this room and think of the advance of technology. but at the same time we lose something so integrally New York. All this floods immediately to mind as the lights in the room build up to a varying crescendo until each springs to life with an indignant “go f*** yourself” to the stoplight ahead.
Image result for madeline heads/tails
At times living in such a large city can feel incredibly lonely. However, there are always moments when this is disproved and we are reminded that we are all residents or the same place. Seeing this piece is one of those moments. What could be more New York than the honking, yelling, and consternation of traffic at rush hour that are all brought to mind with only a room full of tail lights.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Duchamp Threads the Needle: A group show at David Nolan Gallery

Madison Wilds Burger 
The Current Season 
E. Diaz
02-28-2020

Group B- Exhibition Review 1
Duchamp Threads the Needle
A group show at David Nolan Gallery

When entering Duchamp Threads the Needle, it's not difficult to feel puzzled as to whether you're standing in one's ready-made bedroom or on your way into someone else's fantasy world. This generous group show on display at David Nolan Gallery showcases the works of 19 artists, working primarily within the mediums of painting, sculpture and drawing. Most of the works manage to challenge their unconventional use of material while paying respect to Duchamp's pioneered readymade movement. 
Your feet graze by Andrea Zittle’s, A to Z Living Unit 1994 upon entrance, a sculpture originally commissioned by art collectors, Leonora and Jimmy Belilty. This work brings me back to the emergence of prefabricated houses during the 1960’s; a genuine readymade of its own. On the other side of the gallery just past a blockade of drab gold trophies is Theaster Gates’s, Mantle with Hose III, 2011 and Gavin Turk’s, Turkey Foil x4, 2007, two more pieces you may have seen at some point in the imagined home of Zittle. Intermingled are paintings that orchestrate the larger picture of what the viewer may be trying to figure out while walking throughout the show. There is a piece for everyone...except maybe photographers. 

I Can Make You Feel Better

Tyler Mitchell’s “I Can Make You Feel Better” comments on how the black body is forced to move within a vacuum that prohibits one from partaking in freedom of expression. A vacuum prohibits one's expression because the black body is forced to maneuver in space where there freedom of expression is restricted. In an ideal world a black individual would be able to freely express themselves. Mitchell depicts images of black beauty, black love, the playfulness of black youth and black culture which is not often represented in today's media. The images that are often pushed on various social media platforms usually portrays negative stereotypes of the black individual which can be detrimental to the black community.
The viewer is first guided into a space that depicts several black individuals laying on a picnic blanket while accounts of the black experience play on a speaker. As you move throughout the exhibition you begin to consider your role within the narrative of a black person having the freedom to express themselves through any means without any limitations placed upon them by society. Mitchell's show then guides you into a space where you lay on your back and look at a screen of young black boys enjoying their youth by flocking on the grass; in our society even the act of young black boys having fun is often met with police brutality. Lastly Mitchell depicts images of black individuals displayed on different fabrics that are hung in the form of a laundry line. As you weave in and out the space the viewer becomes immersed in a utopia where the black body is free from all constraints.  




Martha Rosler at MoMA PS1 "Theater of Operations"

Martha Rosler’s House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home (2002-2006) was a response to American politics in the Iraq War and the seeming oblivion of Americans in their luxurious homes. In this series of photo collages, Rosler handmade each frame through scanning and printing images of contemporary home interiors and juxtaposed with photographs of Iraq War soldiers. This extreme contradiction of peacefulness and brutality was Rosler’s way to forewarn Americans of the consequences of war. “Bring the war home” was not only commenting on the violence of war that could disturb a peaceful home, but also the post-traumatic stress disorder which many soldiers faced after coming home from war.

Rosler originally created this series in 1967-71 using photographs published in Time magazine and images from the home décor magazine House Beautiful. Both series, 40 years apart, brought attention to the continuity of foreign affairs in American politics. They should be a reminder for Americans on the mandatory draft during the Vietnam War that elevated public protests, where else less attention was on the Iraq War. Rosler’s photo collage series was a wake-up call for Americans to oppose foreign war affairs before it was too late.




Election Lynndie, from the series Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, c. 2004–2008, Martha Rosler.

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Theatre of Operations: The Gulf war 1991-2011, MoMa PS1




You find a little red stain on your white sleeve.
What would you do?
This movie clip of Alfred Hitchcock's Marine
leads me to think about
the meaning of wars abroad.

This exhibition is so well installed that you
can view the wars from almost
all personal perspectives. Refugees, weapon makers,
and ethnography editor, etc.
But still, the dominant media is video.
When I see the corpses on the streets,
I do feel pity for these victims of war.
However, most of those scenes are isolated
from me by the screens.
This means the violence is the same as reality
shows to American residences.
What can art do for the war which is happening?
The same question is stated by Francis Alys.
He made the video piece documents his drawing of
the scenes of the war and blurs the images
he painted back and forth.
This exhibition does serve the function of
reminding us of how big
the disaster a war can causes.
But we almost forget it because of the mass
medias and news
we see around us everyday.

"War as the landscape is needed ",
this quote from the animation
<the genocidal organ> pops up in my mind. 
From 1865, almost 155 years no war on the mainland.
Here, this exhibition wants to tell us: Shall we continue
relocating our
barbarities abroad and keeping our house clean?


Saturday, February 22, 2020

Federico Herrero - Volume

Federico Herrero's exhibition of paintings and sculptures at James Cohan Gallery titled Volume, pop with bold and yet soft patches and shapes of color that draw you in from the street, desiring to enter into the works. The exhibition consists of large to mural size oil and acrylic paintings on canvas, made up of round edged, bulbous flat shapes overlapping and intermingling with one another.  The shapes range from cool magentas, blues, and purples to warmer reds, greens and yellows. Yet no one color feels particularly abrasive, as if each color was tinted with a bit of white or black, softening the boldness of the forms with a pastel undertone. Coming closer to the paintings make the viewer realize that smaller, even microscopic marks and versions of the larger shapes seem to swim in-between and amongst the  forms, making you feel as if you're looking down at an aerial view of a city with people moving in-between buildings. Breaking up the paintings are cast concrete forms, with sections painted in the same flat pastel tones as the canvas works. The sculptures feel like more hard-edged referential versions of the paintings, the forms of which reference both public area and interior architectural space. Herrero states how the shapes examine his crossover of influences from urban environment to natural forms. Standing in front of Herrero's Visita, 2019, feels like you're moving down a bustling city market path, with each vendor's sign wiped of any information.

Installation view,&nbsp;Federico Herrero,&nbsp;Volume,&nbsp;291 Grand Street, January 17 - February 23, 2020

Thursday, February 20, 2020

"I Can Make You Feel Better" by Tyler Mitchell

“I can make you feel better" is a mixture exhibition of a black artist called TylerMitchell. The exhibition contains three parts. The first part is a short film presented on a triangle installation with three pieces of screen. The fashion video shows that the negroes are picnicking on the grass by using a slow moving-speed lens. The floor is cover with soft fake grass and views could choose to sit on the pillows or simply lying on the ground. In the video, the negroes lying on a long picnic and enjoying the fruits or simply having a sunbathe. Everyone's face is filled with happiness and peace. The content of the video reminds me of the oil painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" painted by Georges Seurat. In my view, TyperMitchell is trying to mimic these beautiful old days but with negroes figures.
In the second part, visitors are supposed to go through an aisle with several clotheslines with fabric like cotton socks. The washed textile fabric creates an effortless and relaxing atmosphere. The third part is a photo collection. In those photos, the black models are either lying on each other or doing group activities. No matter what they are doing, the subject of those photos is the same. They present themselves as free, expressive, effortless and sensitive figures.
The artist used photography and video as his two main way to add vraisemblance to the Black utopia he trying to create. Typer Mitchell said, I Can Make You Feel Good is simply a declaration. He wants to put punching in this optimism.

Melanie Baker: "The Optimates" at Cristin Tierney Gallery



Melanie Baker "Smoke" 2019
Melanie Baker presents four monumental mixed media drawings that evoke a sense of charged foreboding. She depicts old white men wearing black suits, their faces obscured, cropped, or looking away. The corner of a presidential podium and neoclassical moldings are among the atmospheric architectural clues that cast these characters as political archetypes. You are the outsider looking in. Baker invites you to look closer, to inspect a fold of fabric, a grey hair tucked behind an ear, or ominous billowing clouds of smoke which evoke the proverbial ‘back-room’.
   
Melanie Baker "Mouthpiece" 2018


“Assembly of Elders” depicts a large red pleated curtain, the only splash of color in the otherwise monochromatic show. The red drapes behind the heads of three closely huddled men, you cannot see or hear what they are discussing, but whatever it is, it’s not meant for you. In the background of the image, the window dividers form what resembles a tall white cross against a pitch black sky. 
Melanie Baker "Assembly of Elders" 2019
In “The Optimates”, Baker references a conservative anti-immigrant political group from ancient Rome. Translated from Latin: “The Best Ones”, this movement rivaled the liberal ‘people's’ party The Populares (Latin: "favoring the people"). The show's title is an historic nod to the current American presidents' clannish and chillingly parallel polemical persuasion.  Baker’s work interrogates our fraught political moment through indirect perspectives on collusion, tribalism, male privilege, and white supremacy. Her focused scenes begin to erode the psychic power of the invisible hand that has an outsized impact on our everyday lives.






I Can Make You Feel Good

When visiting Tyler Mitchell’s “I Can Make You Feel Good” a sense of euphoria washes over the viewer. The sublime world curated by Mitchell tells the story of black kindness, black power, black perfection but in that, he exhibits to us the constant suppression of that experience. His video work is comprised of black individuals participating in scenes Michelle always imagined to be fit for the black body. Portraits of peaceful, moments of soft touch, scenes of calm typically attributed to Eurocentric walks of life. As you glide through Michell’s work you begin to contemplate your own narrative within it, you begin to live the work. Picture laying in a room of quiet strangers gazing up at a screen fastened to the ceiling as young black boys play undisturbed. This beautiful moment invites the viewer into the landscape Michell has curated for himself and other marginalized individuals. As the boys dance above your head you can feel the intent of Mitchell. These beings as stand ins for any black man, woman, or child who float through the trails of unnamed suburban dystopia. After the video installations, Michell ends the show with a tactile interpretation of his light and dreamy disposition. The walls are adorn with his portrait work strung up on various textiles. As you weave your way through the hanging silk and gauze Michell again is able to immerse the viewer in his utopia. “I Can Make You Feel Good” is a space for serenity one in which the black body and safe, strong and validated.


Monday, February 17, 2020

Jiha Moon - Enigmatics

Jiha Moon is a Korean artist, whose latest exhibition at the Derek Eller Gallery showcases a collection of ceramic masks and vessels that speak to identity and displacement. 

images provided by derekeller.com

Moon’s masks blend a multitude of textures, colors, and symbols into each cohesive piece. A specific color palette aids in each work’s narrative, with complex combinations of hues providing strength in the objects’ visual presentations. Hazy purple tones are paired with subtle pinks, beiges, browns, and accents of vibrant green in one mask, alluding to a dream-like state and the natural world. Another mask uses muted orange and green tones along with a vibrant yellow, displaying a disruption of some natural state. 


Knotted yarn and braided hair, as well as strings of chain and other small ornaments all provide a dynamic display of materiality when combined with Moon’s ceramic works. Jiha Moon has an extensive background in painting, which is certainly made evident in these works. Painterly brushstrokes flow together and traverse the ceramic forms, along with floral patterns, geometric designs, and text/symbols which allude to Moon’s heritage. While Moon’s sculptures are busy and loaded with strong imagery, they feel cohesive and function to tell a narrative of lived feelings and experience. 

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Andrew Kreps Gallery: Andrea Bowers - Think of Our Future

Andrea Bowers’ show Think of Our Future presents a series of works about the current climate crisis and includes her interviews of activists involved in the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. The gallery was kept dark to display several neon sculptures surrounding the periphery of the gallery, and the video of activists projected in the middle. 
The video showcases interviews of young activists filmed in the sacred, expansive green landscape of South Dakota. The neon sculptures are wall-pieces featuring branches, leaves, and quotes from eco-feminists such as "Let us be the ancestors our descendants will thank". Exposed wires, powering the neon, lead to boxes under the sculptures, emulating stems or roots. The sculptures are made of recycled or reused materials.
At first, the connection between the sculptures and the video was not entirely clear. The video identifies specific individuals and events that one would expect the work surrounding to be directly referring to them. However, the quotes are unattributed and use the first person plurals “we” and “us”, broadening the sense of community and connecting the viewers with them. The works affirm that this crisis is of the Earth and since “We [all]belong to the earth” it affects us all collectively.