Keepin' it on the "DL"

Every week for a year I've been walking by a poster of Picasso's 1900 Moulin de la Galette (above) in the hall of my graduate department. I think Picasso's pre-Cubist career is too often overshadowed by his Cubist works, but recently this painting has stepped into the limelight--and not for the work's technical bravura. Since 2007 this painting, along with Boy Leading a Horse of MoMA's collection, have been in the middle of a Nazi restitution case. The Guggenheim and MoMA just settled out of court with the claimant, Julius H. Schoeps, without the judge's authorization. He was less than pleased.

Check out the story on bloomberg.com

Richard Avedon at ICP

My own familiarity with the photographer extraordinaire Richard Avedon is his portraiture, such as his iconic image of Marilyn Monroe with her guard down; after hours of posing for Avedon, the tired actress plopped down on a stool and let him snap a few more, which artist Vik Muniz rightly characterizes as "a picture of Norma Jean, not Marilyn."

The current show at the International Center for Photography showcases another side of the versatile photographer's oeuvre: Avedon Fashion photographs, 1944 - 2000. The exhibition opened on May 15th and runs through September 6th (note, press release says Sept 6, website says Sept 20). Roberta Smith had nothing but glowing things to say about the dynamic, vibrant photographs in the ICP exhibition:

Avedon’s fashion photographs from the late 1940s to the early ’60s are everything you want great art to be: exhilarating, startlingly new and rich enough with life and form to sustain repeated viewings. Their beauty is joy incarnate and contagious. The best of them are as perfect on their own terms as the best work of Jackson Pollock or Jasper Johns from that era, and as profoundly representative of it.

You can read Roberta Smith's full review here. I am putting this exhibition on my must-see list of the summer!

(below, left: A 1994 shot of Stephanie Seymour; right, Veruschka, dress by Kimberly,
New York, January 1967. Copyright 2009, the Richard Avedon Foundation)

Can You Hear Me Now?

In the summer 2009 issue of ArtForum, the magazine is publishing a conversation between Rirkrit Tiravanija and Yoko Ono. The former is presenting at this year's Venice Biennale, and the latter is being honored with the Biennale's Golden Lion award. The preview of the phone interview on artforum's website is, uh, rich. Here's a snippet:

RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA: Hello, Yoko?

YOKO ONO: I’m here. You sound really distant; why is that? Is it your phone, or . . . ?

RT: Well, I am in Thailand. [laughter]

YO: Oh, of course, that’s right. So we’ll have to sort of stretch our ears. It’s very interesting, doing it like this, you know. But please go ahead. You wanted to ask me some questions?

RT: Well, something noteworthy to me is that it’s the fortieth anniversary of the Bed-In, and maybe we should talk about that. Many people have heard a little bit about that moment already, I think, but maybe you could say more.

YO: I do feel that it was a very interesting performance-art work, in the sense that it has stayed in people’s minds for such a long time.

RT: That was something I found myself quite interested in, actually, because Bed-In seems like something that happened in an almost completely natural way.

YO: Yes, it did begin as a rather natural thing to do. At least, you know, we were in bed. It wasn’t like standing around every night for four or five hours. It was very comfortable.

RT: But you had started it in Amsterdam, and then you went to Montreal, where you continued it, right?

YO: Montreal is a very, very beautiful, beautiful city. And we enjoyed that.

RT: And that was also when you recorded the song . . .

YO: Pardon?

RT: That’s also when you recorded the song.

YO: Yes, yes.

RT: And was the song just written in the bed?

YO: About what, the bed? This what?

RT: You wrote the song in the bed?

YO: [pause] You know, maybe you need to talk a little farther from the microphone or receiver.

RT: I just kind of continued on the question about the bed.

YO: Or maybe say it slowly.

RT: It’s about how you came to write the song that was set in the bed, right? [laughter]

YO: I think this is very interesting, the kind of challenge that we have been given. You’re an artist, and I’m an artist. And somehow we were given this incredibly strange situation where we have to communicate over a very, very long distance, which means a huge amount of air is between us.

Hopefully the fully published interview in the magazine issue is more than a chronical of "huhs?" and "whas?". If you'd like to read a little bit of reflection Rirkrit was able to squeeze out of Yoko, check out more of the interview at ArtForum online.

Happily Stranded in LIC

One of the best kept secrets of the Manhattan art scene is its extension to other boroughs, where one can experience the refreshing work of emerging artists without the 'tudes of Chelsea gallerinas. Opening this Sunday, June 7, at the Dutch Kills Gallery in Long Island City, is Stranding Memory, a sculptural video installation by collaborating artists Erik Sanner and K Staelin. The work will only be on view Sunday (2 - 6pm) and Tuesday June 9th (5 - 8pm), during which time both artists will be present.

A description and image (digital collage) from the collaboration are below, although something tells me that neither will truly do the piece justice: this is the kind of work that must be experienced in person, so get your hide to LIC on Sunday or Tuesday! And as long as you're making the "schlep" (really, no griping, it's just a few subway stops!), here's some other current LIC art events and shows worth checking out.

Stranding Memory
A sculptural video installation by Erik Sanner and K Staelin
Sunday, June 7, 2-6pm and Tuesday, June 9, 5-8pm
Opening: June 7, 2-6pm


Press Release:
Dutch Kills Gallery presents Stranding Memory, a collaboration between Erik Sanner and K Staelin, two artists who grew up in the same town yet first met in New York City while living around the corner from one another. Stranding Memory uses the structure of the double helix to explore our movement through time and the falling away of events and memories. Captured within a translucent plastic membrane, fog rises, forming one strand of the helix. Images of people are projected onto this fog and as they ascend their movements gain speed. In contrast to the people in the rising strand, video and animated pictures of discrete events in the artists' personal lives is projected onto the descending mist and slowly spirals down the second strand. On the journey, portions of the images blur while other portions become more focused and delineated. Some memories become intertwined; all are lost.

Dutch Kills Gallery is a contemporary exhibition space that presents new work of various media from artists with a diverse set of creative practices that draw on the energy of the rapidly evolving artistic hub of Long Island City. The gallery is committed to fostering a rigorous and open community as well as providing a place for experimentation and interaction. In addition to monthly exhibitions, programming at the gallery includes frequent performances, screenings and events.

37-24 24th Street, Suite 402, Long Island City, NY 11101 +
718.784.2737 + www.dutchkillsgallery.com

Dutch Kills Gallery is located at 37-24 24th Street, Suite 402 which
is between 37th Ave. and 38th Ave. in LIC. Three subway lines are near-by:

N/W to 36th Ave.
7 to Queensboro Plaza
F to 21st Street/Queensbridge

Highline to open in June!?

Ever since I started visiting my friends in the West Village - long before I moved here - I have heard stories about the Highline Project.

An abandoned above-ground railway - built in 1930 and left empty since the 80s, the Highline has gained a reputation among many of being "one of those dreamed-up projects that was never going to happen". The city has long envisioned it as a new kind of green space, floating above the city - stretching up the West side of Manhattan. Well it looks like Section 1 of the "park", located in the Meatpacking district, may finally be opening in Mid-June.

See the video below from the Sundance Channel

LES

Well I had a great time this past weekend - I made it to Chelsea and saw a lot of work that was really great. I'm planning on heading over to the LES (Lower East Side) at some point this week because I've heard great things about some shows over there.

For starters, there's a project that is in an old medical clinic, entitled HomeBase, where artists are "exploring their own ideas of home".

There are a few other things that some friends of mine said not to miss, so I'll pass them along:

Voshardt/Humphrey, Double Blind / Double Blind at Greene Contemporary

George Sagri, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is and if Approaching Pain Gives You A Way of Recovering Memory of Flesh Then Go Elsewhere at On Stellar Rays

Hilary Harnischfeger at Rachel Uffner Gallery

Philip Argent, New Paintings at Luxe Gallery

Springtime

So now that it's SPRINGTIME!!! in the city and I'm just about done with finals, I'm going to come out of the dungeons/libraries and make a huge effort to go see a lot (really a lot) of art over the next month or so. There are so many things that I want to see, and that I've been putting off - I really can't wait.

First, I think I'll head over to Chelsea, where I'll be sure to stop by:

Sophie Calle at Paula Cooper

Rosemarie Fiore at Priska C. Juschka

Anne Eastman at ATM

Joseph Grigley at Sara Meltzer

and Charles Ray at Matthew Marks (see image below)