CINDY HINANT AT JOE SHEFTEL GALLERY

Cindy Hinant's solo show, Aesthetic Relations, at Joe Sheftel features her projects in the past two years. Wandering inside a gallery filled with Sephora logos, questionnaires, graph papers and monochromes, viewers can easily recall some moments of their lives -- a past shopping experience or taking notes on a grid notebook. This feeling of connection is probably what Hinant aims to create in this exhibition, through which she conveys the message that art can be a universal experience, rather than a lofty aesthetic practice. While taking inspirations from relational aesthetics and minimalism, the works on view are neither a direct reference nor an apparent opposition to those movements. Instead, she borrows from them certain ideas and forms, reshapes them through distortions and additions, and tries to form a dialogue with general audiences who may come from any background. 

Taking advantage of people’s familiarity with the French cosmetic chain store Sephora, Hinant created the Sephora Project in which she visited more than two dozen stores in Manhattan. She recorded her shopping experience of each visit, such as her conversation topics with the store employees, and whether free samples were received, in a questionanaire. This project is displayed in three parts, with two of them being questionnaires framed in glass, while the third part serves as a map of Manhattan, utilizing Sephora logos to indicate store locations. Similar to relational art that aims to create a social environment in which people participate in shared activities, the Sephora Project also brings its viewers (especially females) together through their common interest in physical attractiveness and their recognition of a popular brand. But there is also a clear difference between Hinant and her predecessors. Relational artists in the 90s usually created actual events that required people to come together. For example, artist Rikrit Tiravanija cooked Thai food for visitors at 303 Gallery in 1992, where the event itself was a show, and the viewers’ experiences became art. In Sephora Project, however, Hinant places herself as a central hub and connects people into an intangible net, without asking anyone to meet anyone. This is achieved by transforming a general experience (shopping for beauty products) into her own specific experiences in those Sephora stores, which would share some common aspects with almost anyone’s individual experience. And through those non-concurrent encounters with her, the viewers are also related to each other.

While making a reference to minimalism by employing geometric shapes, Hinant’s Bed Grid series, three graph papers of identical size, fails to suggest the order and control that are usually embedded in minimalist art. Drawn with red or grey pens, these handmade grids are full of flaws -- some intervals are larger than the others, some lines are not parallel to one another, and sometimes the same line can be thicker and darker in one part while thinner and lighter in others -- perhaps intentionally done as a protest against precision. As apposed to the intimidating perfection of computer-generated graph papers, Hinant’s “tolerance” with these flaws certainly brings the viewer closer to her works, since mistakes are something we all make. As an extension of the Bed Grid series, Selfish, 2012, a HD digital video, shows static computer-generated grids in black, with vertical lines missing on a third of the screen to the right. Instead of breaking the perfection with defective lines, Hinant challenges the notion of minimalism by adding a Britney Spears song to the video. Not only is the addition itself the opposite of “reduction” -- the very essence of minimalism -- it also destroys the “fine art” feature of minimalist art by mixing it with products of popular culture. 

While many artists today try to make art exclusive to a small group of audience, Hinant insists on inviting everybody to the party. In this exhibition she plays with the elements found in relational aesthetics and minimalism, but injects her works with naughty deviations. While a general audience may not understand her works from a historical context, everyone can feel her friendly effort in seeking what we have in common. 

VALERIE HEGARTY: Figures, Flowers, Fruit

Upon the splattered, cracking, punctured walls of Nicelle Beauchene Gallery are displayed simultaneously humorous and grotesque works by Valerie Hegarty in her solo show Figures, Flowers, Fruit.  The first piece that the viewer encounters is a still life painting of a watermelon wedge that sculpturally extends out of the picture frame mimicking the form of a large, plump, dripping tongue.  Watermelon Tongue, from which a bloated pink tongue protrudes into the viewer's space, provoking feelings of disgust and amusement.  By combining such an iconic food item as watermelon with the grossly exaggerated, yet immediately recognizable shape of a human tongue, the work conjures associations to lust and gluttony.  Inspired by an episode in China in which genetically engineered watermelons exploded due to the flesh growing more quickly than the rind, the piece hints at the darker concept of mankind's fascination with manipulating nature to make it produce in ways that are no longer natural, and that those pursuits may yield undesirable results.

Continuing the theme of nature and human greed, the works Girl in White with Flowers and Flower Frenzy both display "natural" growth and decay overcoming material objects and spaces.  Girl in White with Flowers depicts a woman in a white dress.  Plant matter erupts from the part of the portrait the viewer knows should be a face, as well as from a small emergence near the figure's hands and lap, and several leafy vines that cascade from the bottom of the canvas.  By concealing the face of the figure Hegarty contradicts traditional attempts to preserve a likeness in portraiture, and instead reminds the viewer that appearances are impermanent. Similarly, a nearby painting of a flower still life also bursts with twigs and plants, but the proliferation of growth continues to spread beyond the confines of the painting, seemingly encouraged by the water damaged and peeling surface of the gallery wall that was made to look decayed.  Flower Frenzy seems to reference flower still life paintings made during the 1600's, a time when the inflated economic value of real flowers was higher than the paintings depicting them.

Exploding Peaches is a framed painting depicting a still life of peaches, but is riddled with perforations as though it has been repeatedly shot with a gun.  The peaches are painted to look as though the bullets are hitting them, causing them to burst all over the painting and their juices to splatter on the gallery wall.  The destruction of the subject matter differs from the other works in this show as it isn’t implied that nature is responding to greed or time, but instead is the result of a human act of violence.  The way the peaches depicted in the work seem to spray outside the edge of the frame also test the conventional assumption that there is a delineation between the artwork and the gallery space that houses it.

Each of the works in the show push the boundaries of traditional painting with the inclusion of non-traditional media such as modeling paste, paper, glue, foil, gauze, glue, and thread, and by creating a specific context for each work by purposefully "damaging" the gallery environment around it.   Hegarty also uses quirky humor to communicate multiple layers of meaning.  The messages of greed, vanity, and violence are presented in a novel way.  The aggressive and absurd presentation of fruit and vegetation are entertaining and expressive, but the works also convey deeper criticisms regarding the selfish and reckless qualities of human nature.

PS1: THE NEW PICTURE OF COMMON OBJECTS

Lining the walls of PS1 MoMA is a group exhibition, New Pictures of Common Objects, a show highlighting the changes in how objects are viewed and distributed through today. The variety of artists produce how the common object is perceived and viewed in contemporary society, focusing on technological advances that have led to the mass distribution and enigmatic state of objects. The objects, ranging from banal household items to water, are presented by the artists in the form of photographs, videos, home appliances, or representations of luxury hygenic services. 

Lucas Blalock presents viewers with photoshopped images of items such as fruit, dishware, plants, and magazines. The different depictions of objects blur and distort the renderings, making the final product of the photos look like a collaged still life poorly rendered on photoshop. Blalock’s practice of layering and erasing parts of his images gives the images a dispsable nature. To what extent are the images of cups, plants, or domestic environments important to the composition? Blalock’s work speaks to the mass produced and dispensable nature of technologically distributed images. He extracts from plainly photographed objects and collages it with others. This is similar to how if one needs to reference an apple, all they need to do is type in the word apple into a Google search bar and thousands of images will appear on the screen for choosing.

Margaret Lee presents telephones in the form of vegetables such as eggplants or a pickles. Although mundane and funny, how often do we see such strange and lighthearted design today? Within her sculptural renditions of mass-produced appliances, she also presents the common practice of representation within the designing of commodities. Although it may seem silly to turn a pickle into a telephone, home appliances are usually imitating aesthetically appealing forms that are part of the design canon. Lee’s work brings a friendly approach to reveal the awkwardness of home decor.

Josh Kline’s work includes depictions of things as common as water. However, Kline’s work questions the extreme luxury of such a “common object”. His video in the back of the room displays people entering a penthouse bathroom overlooking the West Side Highway in New York City. As they enter, they are asked what type of water they prefer, tap or distilled water, and enter a bathtub. Large quantities of gallon jugs of the chosen water are poured into the bathtub as the participant is allowed to relax, read books, or talk about their life. The video is saturated with imagery of luxurious “necessities”: penthouse views, bottled water, spa treatment, and leisure time. Another video in the space, a high-definition slow motion video of water dripping into a puddle of water, resembles stock-imagery of water as if it were to first image to appear on Google search engine. Although it may appear to be “real”, a true recording of water, it is only an image, water dematerialized into pixels on a screen. What Kline explores in his depictions of water is the presentation of a common resource that is growing more elusive. Today, with the growing commercialization of bottled water, the element of life and hydration is becoming more accessible to those who can pay, than those who need it to survive.

The common object has become digitized, mass-produced, and enigmatic to some extent. The object can be something as flat as an image. With the dominance of the internet and other digital media, New Picture of the Common Objects could be foreshadowing a radically new future for what objecthood will mean in the future.

MICKALENE THOMAS AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM

                                                

Mickalene Thomas' first solo exhibition, The Center of the Universe, at the Brooklyn Museum offers multiple presentations of the African-American feminine identity. Through the combination of collage, photographs, decorated and furnished interiors, and a short documentary Thomas reveals complicated relationships with her subjects. The physical separation between the photographs and collages from the decorated interiors inhibit interaction between the two spaces but ultimately do not exclude the viewer from participating in Thomas' dialogue about African-American identity.

The references to Western art history begin before the viewer steps into the exhibition space with the show's title, an allusion to Courbet's Origin of the World (1866). The first third of the exhibition features large scale collages and photographs that Thomas worked from. Thomas' photographs are sensitive portraits that hold their own beside her glittering collages. These collages make explicit references through composition to paintings by Modernist masters such as Manet, Courbet and Matisse.

In another room are a collection of furnished interiors decorated in the 1970s American style of Thomas' childhood. These installations focus primarily on social rooms, such as the living room or den of a household where family members would gather and guests would socialize. Moving from the flashy and bright collages to the quiet interiors is awkward and initially they appear unrelated. Exploration of this confusing transition proves fruitful because Thomas' domestic interiors provide an alternative presentation of the African-American female identity when juxtaposed with the collages. Opposed to the flashy subjects that Thomas places in glamorous settings, the interiors construct quiet and livable spaces that realistically depict a 1970s American lifestyle. The final third of the exhibition presents a short film about Thomas' mother, who models in some of her larger works. The documentary creates a personal link to the interiors and collages, which I interpret as cultural rather than personal commentary. By introducing one of her muses and showing the places she grew up in the Thomas provides the viewer with an intimate portrayal of her identity.

Thomas' collages, arguably the centerpiece of Origin of the Universe, catch the viewer's eye with their bright colors and large scale. Thomas draws her audience in with a pleasurable “ah-ha!” moment of correctly identifying the reference and hopefully holds them as they contemplate the issues raised. A Little Taste Outside of Love alludes to Eduard Manet's Olympia and the art historical tradition of the reclining nude. In Olympia Manet depicted the black woman as a servant, a role in which people of African descent were mainly portrayed in throughout Western art history. Here Thomas places an African American woman front and center against a background filled with patterns and glitter. Is this a boost to the status of African American women, or a comment on the sexualization of African Americans in popular culture? Thomas is an African American lesbian, so while she is closer to the subject than Manet was, sexual desire remains a component of her depiction of women. This element of sexualization either becomes neutralized or more complicated when it is her mother posing.

As Thomas' first solo museum show, Origin of the Universe addresses the depiction of African-American women, Thomas' personal identity via her complicated relationships to her subjects and even Western art history, as the vehicle through which she makes some of her commentary. The juxtaposition of Thomas' collages with her decorated interiors raise a thoughtful question about the portrayal of African-American women versus the reality of their lives. 

A DOG REPUBLIC AT LUDLOW 38

A tremendous group of artists recently gathered at Ludlow 38. The artists Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, Nico Dockx, Helena Sidiropoulos, the architect Yona Friedman, the musician Krist Torfs, and invited guests, including the graphic designers Camille Henrot, Molly Nesbit, Vanessa Place, Rirkrit Tiravanija, gave life to this effective collaboration. This group of works of great diversity converged at a point of real interest. The transhuman and complex nature of the social man is represented through an extension of the artists themselves, socializing and inhabiting isolated places, this time by animating bodies of stray dogs.

When viewers enter the gallery, they may feel attracted to the final dark space wherein dwells ‘Demonstration #1’, the video projection of the collaboration of these artists. It is a black and white video, almost naïve, which reflects how simple and basic is our existence as human beings, where in a specific plane there is no distinction between men and dogs.  As the camera moves through an abandoned railroad in Bangkok, very thick lines drawing an animation by Jean-Baptiste Decavèle appear, which shares a common aesthetic in relation to the sketches of Yona Friedman in his utopian proposals for the city of Paris. The main video piece shows a pack of dogs, a group, a collective body, and likewise a human group, they establish a social parallel structure. These drawings in their ambiguous composition might be characters or typographies from the eastern world. As they are fast and basic drawings that recall Pollock’s dripping paintings, they acquire life and generate dialogues between them, generate constructions, and hence they generate communication. The fast morphing process of characters to dogs takes the viewer to contemplate how these dogs walk, some of them on two legs while others carry protest posters. The video is hypnotizing and penetrates deep into one’s memory; it feels familiar and connects with the most primitives and inner properties of the human kind.

An experience of traveling has been taking place in the MINI/Goethe-Institute Curatorial Residencies - since 2011 at Ludlow 38 - with its different cultural cooperation and international projects. This Project followed the same spirit; the meetings of this group of artists were instances of generous dialogues between participants who flipped the process towards a common experience. The artists themselves were protagonists of this project; they talked and listened to each other.  They understood the system of signs, where the topics of language and meaning are explored, and, in particular, how language organizes society, and who actually formulates social rules and laws. This is shown in the second less interesting space - the reception of the gallery – which contained a series of photographs and videos of the meetings, in which Yona Friedman, Jean-Baptiste Decavele and Nico Dockx held talks.

As for 'A Dog Republic', our more evolved nature and simultaneously more primitive features are reflected in the example of stray dogs. “Let’s Talk Peace!” - the subtitle for this event - refers to generating a system based on the idea of freedom. This project refers to a possible sustainable identity, where languages face needs and crisis in local communities around the world. Is not a matter of barking or talking. They conceive a relationship that is an altar and refuge: a relation that is founded in communication. The success of this project is in the translation and comparison of men with dogs. Just as simple as it sounds, our essence as social beings.

JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO at Bosi Contemporary

Soto Unearthed at Bosi Contemporary takes the discovery of a rare 1968 film of Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto as inspiration for an exhibition of five works Soto created in 1968-71. As art historian and curator Ariel Jiménez notes, these works represent “classic” Soto. The minimal, geometric sculptures are attempts at creating “vibratory situations,” a sense of energy beyond the works’ physical forms. As Soto claimed, “Every single line is looking for its dematerialization, all the time.” Thus, his pieces are meant to merge and interact with both their space and their viewers, to be both an environmental experience in and of themselves and fellow participants in that experience. Unfortunately, at this show visitors are not permitted to touch the sculptures, which detracts from the physical and spatial impact the artist intended them to have.

One of the first pieces in the show, 1968’s Rombo Cobalto, is a transitional one in the artist’s movement away from two-dimensionality. On the wall hangs a painted, diamond-shaped wooden panel. From the top point of the diamond, a thin rod extends from which falls a curtain of nylon threads, ending in a mobile-like sculptural creation consisting of dainty blue wires suspended in space. One immediately thinks of a puppet on a string, an object by definition intended to be manipulated rather than rigidly still. The threads invite touch, like the strings on an instrument or a cascading waterfall, and indeed, just a few feet down the wall, a film shows the artist running his hands through a similar river of nylon in another piece.

The 1968 film SOTO, created for the artist’s solo show at the Marlborough Gallery in Rome, depicts the artist literally immersed in his work—sometimes seeming to float with it in open space, sometimes with his face layered behind the work’s vibrating rods, sometimes strumming the pieces like instruments or caressing them like pets. The soundtrack of the film, which is allowed to echo freely around the gallery, is composed entirely of sound effects created by the pieces themselves. The artist’s voice occasionally intervenes, as he recites a poetic manifesto regarding contemporary art’s relationship to humanity. He sees “participation,” active engagement with the artwork, as imperative—not just for the artist, but for the viewer as well.

This desire for participation is nowhere more evident than in Soto’s Penetrable series. 1971’s Penetrabile Sonoro consists of a wooden frame holding a forest of hanging silver metal rods. This is the heaviest piece in the show, with its thick, squared-off rods standing in contrast to the delicacy of Rombo Cobalto. Nonetheless, both the film SOTO and the vintage exhibition catalogues on display show that spectators were just as delighted to engage with this piece as with similar installations of more insubstantial materials. This demonstrates that even with such a weighty presence, the addition of viewer participation brings about “dematerialization.” The piece dissolves into and merges with its environment and its viewers’ experience of the world, rather than being a static object. It is regrettable that visitors to Bosi Contemporary cannot have such an experience, but must make do with seeing historic photos or watching it on screen.

The film that inspired this exhibition adds indispensable depth to viewers’ understandings of the sculptures on display, as well as to Soto’s artistic practice as a whole. The film also has the effect, however, of inspiring desire to touch these pieces, to be as immersed in them as was the artist, but sadly, such immersion and participation is not permitted. This policy goes against the artist’s own goal to have his art “transform…into energy,” thereby frustrating a richer experience of the work.

ERICA BAUM AT BUREAU

Erica Baum at Bureau

Erica Baum’s second solo show at Bureau invited the viewer to explore a thoughtfully-curated and somewhat mysterious pictorial narrative.  In “Naked Eye,” Baum displayed a series of photographs of the pictures that illustrate several weathered paperback books.  Each snapshot creates a somewhat alarming disconnect between that which is contained in the pages of the book and the book itself.  The photographs are closely-framed images of the fanned-out pages of each book, flattening the three-dimensional object and leaving the observer to sort out exactly what is being viewed.  These compositions resemble carefully constructed collages of black and white portraits placed among strips of brightly colored vertical page edges.  Baum recontextualizes printed pictures, taking these common paperback books and adopting new perspectives as a way to encourage the viewer to derive his or her own narrative from the collection of unsettling images.

Immediately upon looking at each photo, similar themes begin to emerge, linking each picture to the other.  There’s something strangely sinister about each photograph: a cropped image of bare legs, a man bound to a chair - it’s as if you’ve stumbled upon a peep hole and you know your presence may be unwelcome.  The theme of desire develops in the nudity, sexuality, and drama, and is ultimately mirrored by our desire to see more of the picture in each frame.  In Shift, for example, the viewer is permitted to slyly peak into the world of a woman who does not notice her observer, though her expression alludes to a knowledge that she is being watched.  She glances over her shoulder in such a way as to invite the desires of the viewer.  Continued observation is allowed because her entrapment inside the pages of the book will never expose the voyeurs.  

Erica Baum, Shift, 2012

The display of the photographs at Bureau is straightforward and not overly crowded.  Had the gallery decided to display more images, the dramatic aspects of the desire present in the images may have gotten lost in an excessively complicated narrative.  Giving the viewer an ample opportunity to interact with a photograph like Shift allows the imagined narrative to progress.  Baum’s compositions enhance the voyeuristic theme that winds its way in and out of each abstracted frame.  Because we are not looking directly into the book that was photographed, and are ultimately unable to confront the subject directly, the point of view becomes a somewhat jarring, uncomfortable glimpse into this printed world of “Naked Eye.”  

NOW DIG THIS! ART AND BLACK LOS ANGELES 1960-1980

Spanning three decades and involving thirty-three artists, Now Dig This! Art and Black in Los Angeles 1960-1980 at MoMA PS1 presents a collection that chronicles the social, cultural and political experiences of African Americans during a particularly tumultuous period. The exhibit opens with Charles White’s Love Letter #1, a display of letters and a lithograph which narrates the artist’s plea to free UCLA professor and activist Angela Davis, who served 18 months in jail before being found innocent on the charges of kidnapping and murder. Love Letter #1 sets the tone for the show by introducing viewers to socially oriented art that functioned to both share tales and to incite action.

Focusing on the marginalized African Americans, a majority of the work on display sheds light on overlooked stories of injustice. White makes another contribution on this front with his Birmingham Totem, a charcoal and ink drawing that shows a boy shrouded in cloth and sitting atop a mountain of scraps. An ode to the victims of a church bombing in an Alabama town by the Ku Klux Klan, the pile of debris depicted covers faceless victims, pointing to how easy it is to forget such tragedies. The reference to a totem pole reveals the White’s motivation to immortalize the massacre.

Now Dig This! then goes on to break up art movements that emerged during the time, including Post-Minimalism and Assembling. While both were obviously significant in the L.A. scene, the quick shift from one to the other seemed disjointed within the small confines of the space. Of the mixed media art, David Hammons’ pieces shine the brightest. In The Wine Leading the Wine, a commentary on the rise of alcoholism in adult males, Hammons literally puts himself onto the canvas with his body print technique of slathering oil on his body to produce imprints of two men in the process of inebriation. Bag Lady in Flight intrigues the eye in a similar way, a close look at chunks of human hair stuck to greasy paper bags causing immediate aversion yet revealing refinement in the movement of the origami-like pleats when seen from afar.

Although comprehensive, the sheer number of work gathered at the show caused some of the more interesting pieces to disappear into a cacophonous background. Nevertheless, the wealth of strong visuals makes for a collection that pierces through very poignantly. And while it’s easy to leave with the uncomfortable residue of oppression in mind, the best take-away message comes in the form of Charles Gaines’ triptych of Faces: Set #4. A breakdown of a black and white photograph of black man to racially indistinguishable colors and shapes, one walks away with the realization that perhaps the reason the stories presented resonate so strongly is because at the end of the day, we are simply all the same.