ARTLURKER

Michael Kimmelman Mot du Jour: Innovation

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:01:51 +0000

The Literarium, a concept condo tower for downtown Miami courtesy of swampstyle.com. Some ideas are best left as such.

This weeks Mot du Jour is again courtesy of Michael Kimmelman, Chief Art Critic of The New York Times, who generously sanctioned the use of his erudite verbalisms for the purposes of our deified feature. Thanks also to Amir Bar-Lev, award winning Director/Producer who worked with Michael to generate this text.

“When you take an artist like Malevich who does black on white, or Robert Ryman who just does all white on white, a conversation arises within art about what is innovative; what seems to push the conversation forward; and why doing a certain thing in a certain moment becomes daring. It’s not necessarily about skill. That notion of skill, that pre-modernist idea of skill that something is skillful if it is a representation of something else is part of what modernism got rid of and replaced with a whole lot of other priorities– some of which were other kinds of physical skills some of which were conceptual, just in your head. And this is not unique to art; it’s true in other areas of culture that an idea itself can be important. The black circle on a white canvas may itself not be a physically great achievement, but it is a historical document by a particular artist and like a letter signed by George Washington or Napoleon’s diary (even if there’s nothing particularly interesting in it or if Napoleon didn’t have very beautiful hand writing) it may have incredible significance, and in the market place value too [.]”

Michael Kimmelman is Chief Art Critic of The New York Times. He is now based in Berlin, writing the ‘Abroad’ column for the Times on culture and society across Europe.

For more information on Michael Kimmelman please visit: www.nytimes.com

Tenacious Taggers Take Terrible Tumble

admin — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:27:32 +0000

Graffiti on the roof of the Design District studio megaplex

Recently, as two of the many artists inhabiting the Design District studio megaplex were working late in preparation for Art Basel Miami Beach they became aware of frantic scrambling on the roof. After scouting the perimeter of the building, shouting, and throwing beer bottles at the noises, a young lad came tumbling down from the roof only to be cornered by the pair who presumed that the rascal was trying to break into the studios via rooftop vent openings. However, seconds before the scamp’s nose was broken by the likely avengers, various night watchmen rounded the corner and in the confusion the tyke escaped; running down the street, the smell of his fear still lingering in the air.

Google map showing the roof of the Design District studio megaplex

Minutes later, a great clattering in the fenced alleyway which abuts the studio produced more ragamuffins who having made a rather unfortunate choice of exit pleaded desperately to the artists to be released. By this time, however, uniformed forces had closed in and the artists, fearing an unpleasant response from angry authoritarians, quelled their combatant spirits and stood innocently by as the scoundrels were arrested. As it turns out, according to a security services spokesperson, the first of the impish perpetrators who was lucky enough to escape both a beating and capture was later apprehended at a gas station just down the road where he may have been waiting for his ill fated chums.

Graffiti on the roof of the Design District studio megaplex

Despite a night in the cells the long arm of the law was clearly not sufficient to deter the rapscallions as two days later the graffiti, which on the night in question had only been partially sketched, was miraculously finished. One can ponder the significance of tagging an artist’s studio to the nth degree, but it is more likely the proximity to I-95 as opposed to a contextual sensitivity attributed by these scallywags to defacing a nest of high-art that was their abiding motive. Whatever their gripe, rhyme, or reason for lollygagging around in the middle of the night on our roofs, one has to appreciate their tenacity. At face value their monkey business might seem naught but puerile, but with attributes of such dogged perseverance and clear athletic abilities we would perhaps do well to open ourselves to the persuasion that they, just like all the other artists in town, are simply trying to stand out from the crowd in the run up to Art Basel Miami Beach by making their mark in a place of prominence. Graffiti rules!

Agustina Woodgate: Letting Down at Spinello Gallery

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:28:14 +0000

Image from the series Rapunzel, 2008. Still from 120 min. performance. Music by Alexander Puentes and Federico Nessi.

In the last year Agustina Woodgate has been developing a large body of work using human hair. Previous sculptural gestures using hair have since developed into more precise choices and decisions, for example the use for certain hair, who it belonged to, and the processes through which both the hair’s physicality and anthropology are changed. Always working outwards from her own experiences, her work includes heavy autobiographical references. Expanded to the level of biographical, and finally global, Woodgate’s themes, which emanate from personal beginnings, belongings and stories to universally recognizable truths draw attention to a multitude of boundaries. From private to public, internal to external, she weaves together the personal and collective.

Currently based in Miami, Woodgate works in an interdisciplinary manner. Her interests in the relationships between the human body, identity and behavior, are manifested in a body of work that incorporates a wide variety of media including photography, installations, sculpture, video and performance. Captivated by the absurdity of definitions that we have voluntarily restricted ourselves with, and the structures of identity that we cherish despite their obscurity, she is interested in how humans relate to each other and how we naturally or unnaturally relate to materials and how they in turn contribute to form our identity.

“I remember very clearly as a child four generations of hair; my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and me, all of us with our real brushes and our real hair. My work has a lot to do not especially with hair, but rather that hair became the material that I needed to communicate the concept of identity. In that respect, the concept rather than the material itself drives my work. Its not that I am a hair artist; it just so happens that when I tried to say something about my life the material that contained the most meaning or honesty, the material which said everything that objects could and more was hair.”

From this point of departure Woodgate has developed a whole series of work based specifically around her own childhood. In 2007 she was selected to present at MOCA’s annual Optic Nerve—a juried exhibition/screening of emerging video artists. Here she showed a stop motion animation of old toys that had belonged to her when she was growing up. This sentimentality or nostalgic, memory oriented direction very much governs her current practice and in particular was the catalyst for her most recent series of performances based upon fairy tales, which “Rapunzel” (2008)—the focus of her recent exhibition “Letting Down” at Spinello Gallery—was a part of.

Pivotal to the genealogy of this current exhibition is the artist’s intimacy with a wig that her grandmother wore in her youth—at the time it was fashionable to use wigs. As a child Woodgate would wear the then retired wig, incorporating it in dress up games. Somehow the same wig ended up in her house here in Miami and it is that same wig which is currently on exhibition at Spinello Gallery; the only difference being that it is now over ten yards long.

Through ancient means, specifically spinning, Woodgate painstakingly made countless strands of human hair which she then used to extend her grandmother’s wig. Having successfully spun enough hair-based yarn to complete the wig, the opening night saw the artist wearing the finished article whilst recreating the process of spinning for the purpose of the performance.

An amazing aspect to her practice is the way that the artist collects the hair that she uses in her art:

“I have a mobile salon that randomly appears in random cities and streets or venues. People call me. I put up the salon. I don’t know how to cut the hair. I am not a stylist. People know it, but they just let me do it. Its kind of funny because my whole concept has to do with human behavior and with tradition and with culture and basically with the relationships that we have between each other, between family, between strangers, between materials and between parts of our body. In many ways the whole occurrence of me cutting the hair is already complete as a piece, especially when people learn that it’s for an art project because the react like “Oh, this is for an art piece? My God, cut everything you need! Oh my God, my hair is going to be used in an art piece” etc so they kind of engage in another way with the piece—emotionally, as well as physically with their body; or at least part of it.”

Agustina Woodgate in her studio making the wig for Rapunzel. Photograph by Gwen Williams. Courtesy of Miami Photo.

The act of collecting for Woodgate is first link to an ambiguous poetic narrative behind each piece. In this way, the meticulous process of creation is as significant as the final result, which often develops an absurd paradoxical relationship with the materials that assemble it. As the process has so much bearing on the final result, and in many cases is integrated in the final piece, it naturally raises its own standing in the approximation of what constitutes the work. Equally important to the final result is the time that the process takes as this too can corroborate themes inherent within particular pieces. In the case of the Rapunzel performance, for example, for which Woodgate spent three years toiling over the wig, this aspect was especially pertinent.

The process of creating the wig for Rapunzel absorbed Woodgate beyond anything she had previously attempted. The many people invited to participate, the many appearances of the mobile hair salon and the many instances in which the artist was fraught with the notion that if people did not donate hair she would not have a piece, created a particular environment around the work of demand and dependency; resulting ultimately in the formation of stressful tangle of hair. This dynamic between the artist and her audience at such an early stage in the work’s life fed the project with not only a healthy diet of interaction but also sizable amounts of tension.

“From initially working with my grandmother’s wig I started to work with my grandmother herself and then I realized that I was telling a story. My work happens to be very narrative anyway and I have always had an attraction to literature, so in this new series, which Rapunzel is a part of, I am directly and completely based in an influence of literature in regard to my grandmother and the books that she used to read and all my favorite stories. So what I started doing was a series of performances based in fairy tales. What I do is I build stages, I put on lights and backdrops that I create; I make my own costumes, hairdos and every single thing. It’s about the elements of performance taken to the absurd extremes. Very much like when I was collecting the hair, people would hype what I felt was a simple and necessary act into a show when it really wasn’t supposed to be at all.”

Image from the series Rapunzel, 2008. Still from 120 min. performance. Music by Alexander Puentes and Federico Nessi.

In addition to hand making the set, every one of Agustina Woodgate’s three fairy tale performances to date have been accompanied by live music. Previous pieces have included a composed musical score designed to emulate the sound of a music box; another featured a guitarist and a pianist. In the case of Rapunzel, local musician Alexander Puentes and gallery artist Federico Nessi provided an improvised, at times uncomfortable and unsettling soundtrack of disjointed noise and sound effects using a mixture of string, percussion and electronic based instrumentation throughout the two hour performance. In every performance—which are typically long, progressive narratives—the actions of the performers—typically Woodgate and a family member—are very much directed by the musical score, or at least the audience perceives a variety of moods, tensions or dialogues depending on the feeling communicated by the sound.

In the original story of Rapunzel, the character Rapunzel’s hair, which she lowered from the tower in which she was trapped, was her only connection to the outside world. Instead of being trapped in a tower, Woodgate appears trapped on a stage; however, the element of communication through hair remains, the act of spinning and the spectacle of the wig itself presiding over the performance.

The fact that the wig began with something personal, a family heirloom (insert pun there) and yet grew to involve the hair of many people is significant in that the wig becomes a fetishistic object. Symbolic of our shared humanity which by means of participation becomes a shared experience. By carrying all these people on her head she is showing in a what would seem a very obvious but somehow extremely subtle way how we all carry the same experiences around, the same memories, the same occidental traditions and fairly tales and how they affect the social and political ways in which we behave. In a way her work is a dissection of social behavior, an expression that we are all part of the same collective conscious.

As with all of her performances, a camera was set up in front of the stage that took a photograph every five seconds. In the end all that will remain of the performance are the photographs; some 700 per performance. For the short term, the stage and the artifacts of the performance such as the wig and the spinning wheel will remain, soon to be accompanied by a small selection of the 700 photographs that will be hung in the gallery for the remainder of the exhibition, together with images from the previous two fairy tale performances Hansel & Gretel (2008) and Sleeping Beauty (2008).

Image from the series Hansel & Gretel, 2008. Still from 25 min. performance. Music by The Setier Brothers.

In each performance the endeavor has been to distill the action to the basic components of the primary message behind each tale. Hansel & Gretel, for example, is about Gluttony. During Hansel & Gretel, Woodgate and her brother ate an entire sweet banquette to the rhythm of music. They were puppets of the music. There was a pianist and a guitarist and when the guitar played Woodgate ate, when the pianist played her brother ate—a musical duel.

Image from the series Sleeping Beauty, 2008. Still from 15 min. performance. Music by Lucinda Chua in a Music Box.

Sleeping Beauty was about protection. The garden of thorns represented the character’s fear yet at the same time she watered, cut and tended to them. Taking care of that which preserved her comatose state whilst dancing to the sound of a music box.

Rapunzel on the other hand is about lust. A young girl, a sexual being, is trapped in a tower in order that she is protected from the cruel world, in particular and the advances of potential suitors.

Still from Rapunzel, 2008. Music by Alexander Puentes and Federico Nessi. Image courtesy of Wet Heat Project

This sexual aspect to the tale took the form of a strong undertone in Woodgate’s performance. Dressed in puritan garbs, temptingly virginal in their appearance, the young Rapunzel with her pouting lips and gray schoolgirl-esq knee-high socks was juxtaposed (somewhat erotically) with her mother (the artists real mother who played the quintessential fairy tale role of the evil stepmother) who through out the majority of the performance (making her entrance about twenty minutes into it and exiting toward the end) hammered hooks into the walls of her daughter’s cell onto which she snagged strand after symbolic strand of her daughter’s weighty do; restricting her further still.

Rapunzel, 2008. Music by Alexander Puentes and Federico Nessi. Image courtesy of Spinello Gallery

In addition to the heady sexual vibe, the disjointed music and the scuttling camera crews, a further unexpected aspect to the performance was the communication between Woodgate and the other performers. For the most part seemingly absorbed in her own world, Woodgate would occasionally look up in angst from her tangled spindle and glare furiously at either the musicians or the audience. At times she seemed to be mouthing obscenities at the Stepmother who in a placid passive/aggressive manner continued uninterruptedly to tie her horny and resentful step daughter down. At first it seemed as though the communication from Woodgate was private between the performers, but as her demeanor became increasingly irate, it became clear that it much like the occasional flash of thigh, these silent screams were intended to heighten the tension that progressively built throughout the performance. Often the confluence of the music and lights and cramped seating combined with her expressions made for a uncomfortable, at times prickely hot atmosphere, which itself, although quite uncomfortable, did lend something special to the peice. A potentially interesting and as yet unexplored factor could well be the manipulation of the temperature in the room, which could slowly be turned up or down depending on the mood of intentions taking place.

At the end of the performance there was no grand finale. Just as simply as Woodgate had appeared with her hair bound with white ribbons, the lights slowly dimmed to black and the gallery emptied. The inconclusive ending to a seemingly uneventful yet oddly enthralling few hours harking to the anxiety of whether our femme fetale will ever be set free—if the music stops, how will the story end[?]

Agustina Woodgate was born in 1981 in Buenos Aires, and currently lives in Miami. She earned her BFA from the national University of Visual Arts in Buenos Aires. Her work has been exhibited and performed internationally and has appeared in the Museo Nacional del Grabado, Salon Nacional de Instalacion, Salon Nacional de Arte Textil, Museo Casa Blanca, Hollywood Biennial, MOCA North Miami and Portland Art Center, among other venues.

For more information about this gallery please visit: www.spinellogallery.com

For more information about this artist please visit: www.agustinawoodgate.com

A word for our sponsors…

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:03:23 +0000

Your Ad as it will appear on Artlurker.com. 200 words or less may be applied below for free.

With significant local, national and international traffic representative of a demographic invested in the arts, ARTLURKER is now offering integrated advertisement opportunities. Designed specifically for the purpose of regular business and product endorsements and the promotion of one off events and exhibitions, ARTLURKER’s sponsorship policy will display an underwriter’s message prominently on the website at prescribed intervals.

Advertisements will take the form of an image which can be hyperlinked to a website of the clients choice. These advertisements, announced as “a word from our sponsor,” will appear exactly like our regular posts. In addition to the image/hyperlink we offer an optional 200 words or less at no additional charge which can appear below the image.

Advertisements will appear on ARTLURKER’s front page as the feature of the day. Integrating the advertisements in this way not only preserves ARTLURKER’s elegant layout but also ensures a more direct reception of information by the target demographic– far more effective than traditional Banner Ads that either fade into the periphery or annoyingly detract from the content or appearance of the host website.

Interested? For more information please download our PDF

Already have a project in mind? Send us a brief message and we will be in touch.

Kind regards,

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Michael Kimmelman Mot du Jour: Open-ended

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:01:07 +0000

Unrelated image contributed by swampstyle

“I think the beauty of art is in so many ways open-ended. And we should have this in life: that there should be cultural things which allow us add our own thoughts to them and to decide for ourselves whether we like it, but the truth is a lot of people don’t want to have to bear that burden. We want to be told what we are supposed to think; we want to be spoon fed stuff and the fact is that most of our culture is about that. You know, making things convenient, instantaneously obvious. Whether its fast food or most bad television shows or whatever, it doesn’t really take much effort on our part and so it relieves us of this obligation we actually have as human beings to try to make a little effort sometimes to ‘get’ something which might be worth it if we put in the effort. But its funny because we will accept it in certain ways and we wont in others. I think that people accept the idea that you’re not going to play baseball like Derek Jeter if you just decide one day to pick up a bat; that you’ve actually maybe got to practice a little bit, be in little league, have some skills and so forth and that effort is required and then we admire that effort. It’s just that in art the end result isn’t as clear to people when they haven’t made any effort at all. In other words, when Derek Jeter makes an amazing catch or hits a home run we think: “Yeah, that’s achievement, we get it!” But when Pollock is doing his drips, because most people have never made any effort to understand why that’s an achievement, they just think: “It’s meaningless[.]”

Michael Kimmelman is Chief Art Critic of The New York Times. He is now based in Berlin, writing the ‘Abroad’ column for the Times on culture and society across Europe.

For more information on Michael Kimmelman please visit: www.nytimes.com

Q: When and where is the exhibition ChaCha opening? A: Tonight at Twenty Twenty Projects

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:37:25 +0000

John Bucklin’s piece at ChaCha, a hat covered with a map of California

As most galleries have roll-over shows tonight’s art walk looks set to be somewhat lacking in openings.

It seems that the focus tonight will be mainly on Spinello Gallery which opens Agustina Woodgate’s Letting Down (special performance from 8-10pm), Locust Projects which open their tenth anniversary exhibition—a group show curated by Director Claire Breukel and Gene Moreno in which past contributors to Locust who were each asked by the non-profit to suggest talent—and for once Diet Gallery who have muscled their way into my conscious with a somewhat relentless e-mail blast campaign featuring their opening of Brian Burkhart’s bi(h)ome, a cluttered geodesic dome filled with bogus biological experiments. Apart from these shows and something at Castillo I have heard of little else of note other than ‘ChaCha’ at Twenty Twenty Projects.

Having taken the decision to remain closed last month in honor of last month’s SCHADENFREUDE, we are well within our rights to expect something spectacular. Thankfully, owner Scott Murray despite following the format of ‘traditional exhibition’ decided that this time he wanted to have some fun. The concept for the new exhibition is based around the idea of using ChaCha, a new version of the web’s www.ask.com (formally Ask Jeeves), to curate the show.

ChaCha logo from www.chacha.com

ChaCha, which also offers a text service, provides helpful if not basic answers to practical questions such as directions or event information, but Murray decided that it would be interesting to use this resource for a different purpose: to curate and co-ordinate an exhibition.

Texting the question “What Miami based artist’s work would be good in an art exhibition titled ChaCha?” Murray began to receive answers. Here is a sample of the transcript showing the first five questions and responses:

Sample of transcript from Scott Murray’s ChaCha account

He stated: “Initially I had thought it would be a cool idea to let ChaCha decide everything right down to what drinks we had for the opening but at a certain point that idea became extraneous. As my approach to using ChaCha evolved I decided to actually impose curative will over the show but with interesting elements concerned with the idea of ChaCha. Visually I imagined a show that was really handmade, clumsy and human. And that became my intention, to create the antithesis of the machine or to exemplify the beauty of human flaws. Its kind of a crappy science fiction theme despite the fact the exhibition has absolutely nothing to do with science fiction.”

Speaking briefly about the works Murray described a giant 7 x 10 foot map of the world on canvas, by Justin Long. Painted onto raw canvas with black paint, the map of is drawn entirely from memory and so naturally many of the countries are missing and those that are there are invariably misspelled.

Jay Hines’ copper pipe piece for ChaCha

Jay Hines’ contribution comes in the form of a piece of copper piping that the artist had acquired whilst on a job some point in the very recent past. Initially Hines had intended to scrap the copper for an estimated $40 but decided eventually to include it in the show and sell it as art instead for the same price making it the cheapest work that has ever been available from the gallery. The twist here is that it can never be sold or re-sold for more than the copper is worth; a contract stipulating this accompanies the work. Each day the artist will use the ChaCha service to calculate the current value of the copper. Tying this piece to ChaCha in this respect works well; however, it’s such a novel idea that it would still be an awesome piece without it.

Ambrosino’s Raul Mendez will contribute an audio video sculpture thing. Composed of an incompatible arrangement of electronics and objet trouvé like a fan on top a book of theories. The piece is poetically powered by a big tub of spent matches blowing on the skull of a squirrel which is attached to an antennae which feeds into a television in a little tin can. From the can comes an audio track of phone messages which accompany a video of the Gulf of Mexico as viewed from a plane. It’s a really calm scene, the ground below goes by so slow that you can’t even tell that it’s moving.

Daniel Newman, HALLOWEEN (CHACHA), 2008

For the past month or so artist Daniel Newman has been busy capturing video footage and countless images on his Motorola RAZR. His contribution to ChaCha is an image taken at a recent Halloween party (with the cell phone) which has been enlarged to 40 x 50 inches. The image shows a group of people in costume posing for a photograph. As is often the case when photographing large crowds at parties, the attention of the group was actually directed to another camera at the point that Newman snapped the picture.

The result of pushing the image beyond the reasonable limits of its pixel capacity combined with the harsh lighting, cacophonic garbs and unconventional composition allows for a very weird feeling. It’s a really cool image like a diverse super American hip group of people and seems to summarize the ambiguous socio-political of climate of October 2008.

San Francisco based artist John Bucklin sent a hat covered with a map of California (pictured above). Bucklin’s art often takes its departure from his passion for gold prospecting and discovery. In this instance, the artist imbued an already functional object with a dual function—that of direction—drawing comparisons between ChaCha’s service and its use of the cell phone.

Finally, two videos by Robert Chambers and Alyse Edmur complete the line up. Chamber’s video, although yet to be decided could likely be a dramatic sequence involving a chain link of hay bails being thrown onto a truck and Edmur’s is a fly on the wall scene documenting the entirety of a reunion at an Italian American club. The piece is inevitably long as it’s the whole thing but includes a lot of variety including old Italians dancing and the giving and receiving of awards. Like most of her work it’s not eventful, more spectator. Admittedly her piece Show and Tell was eventful but for this piece she very much takes the part of an invisible spectator.

Murray comments: “Sadly, owing to the spirit of Schadenfruede, which broke the projector, or rather Newman who in my opinion has the opposite of the Midas touch when it comes to technology, Alyse’s video is going to have to be screened on a TV. It’s a shame but I really like it so I wanted to include it. It may be in the back though so don’t forget to seek it out.”

The initial idea to do a show that relies 100% on an information service is novel and the notion of having to acquire a ton of Britto works and go through the whole process of relinquishing control is definitely something which Murray is considering for the future (perhaps ChaCha 2). For this show, however, the extent of ChaCha was that it started the ball rolling.

Regardless of whether you approach the service like a person or like a machine the response is ultimately generated by a machine. The spirit of ChaCha then resides entirely on how they do their research; especially when it comes to opinion based questions. Those that did the obvious and suggested Britto were of little help (probably they are paid by the question) but the initial person—who in actuality had the most open-ended question—that went and found Nicolas Lobo deserves credit as despite Lobo’s increasing popularity it is clear that they put at least some time and effort into their research.

The first piece Murray thought of after ChaCha suggested Lobo was a map he had drawn from memory of the Unites States, but Lobo did not wish to show this piece because it was old and because Justin Long had recently done the whole world from memory. Initially Murray had wanted to juxtapose the two maps to convey a theme that people had been thinking about—like a collective unconscious type of thing—but when John Bucklin’s hat came into play he decided that the show was getting to ‘mappy’ and took the ironic decision to exclude Lobo from the exhibition.

Speaking about the process Murray said: “It just kind of evolved. Nicolas was the first name mentioned and his map piece was the first thing that I thought of . I guess the reason that I thought of his piece was because of the relationship between him trying to do something from memory and ChaCha being this device or service that can remember things for you or function in that way. The clumsiness of the map juxtaposed with the idea that it– even an exact satellite replica –could be generated very easily nowadays using a machine. That really was the starting point for the idea of how I wanted the show to feel. Its not that I don’t think that running 100% with ChaCha’s advise it’s the wrong thing to do, it could be a really cool show but at a certain point… there’s just lots of ways that a thing like this could evolve.”

After receiving the answer “Romero Britto” four or five times consecutively, Murray realized that he would have to be a little more specific in his questioning. In that sense he began to impose his curative will over the final outcome of the questions and so the exhibition drifted inexorably away from the notion of using ChaCha exclusively.

But ultimately Murray’s taking control over the show is precisely the way in which the service is supposed to function. In everyday life ChaCha presents a strong direction right off the bat and individuals then have to follow that in their own way: you get the information and then you take it from there; you physically go to that place, eat in that restaurant, curate that show. Most people use it for practical things but there is an undeniably strong temptation to burden the service with heady philosophical questions. Using ChaCha like Murray did–as a sort of like a lucky 8 ball–is the romantic way to do it, however, the majority of questions are no doubt by comparison quite mundane– directions and such.

It seems reasonable to assume that if even you persisted with the same philosophical question that you receive a different answer each time as queries are undoubtedly routed randomly. The first answer Murray received was perhaps the most considered and despite the fact that they got the artists medium wrong it would seem to ARTLURKER that ChaCha has at least one person on their team who knows where to go for the info: Note the similarity between ChaCha’s answer “Nicolas Lobo is a Miami based artist with both high profile exhibitions and small showings. He could paint for Cha Cha!” and this sentence taken from the article Miami Industry of Luxury which was written by ARTLURKER for Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art in August “Nicolas Lobo is a Miami based artist. Like many artists in Miami today he mediates between high profile exhibitions and small group projects.” (Not to mention ChaCha’s response “Miami artist John Peck begins summer residency at Cooper Union”)

In light of the apparent credence ARTLURKER has with ChaCha we thought we might have some fun ourselves. The results, however, were disappointingly indecisive:

ChaCha can be texted on 242242 or called on 1800 0 242242. You can ask it, I am a vegetarian living on South beach, what should I eat today for lunch? And it will send you an answer. You can also visit www.chacha.com

The service is free as it probably pays for itself by inputting the questions people ask it into some form of information gathering machine for market research—pretty fucking scary, but convenient[.]

For more information about this exhibition please visit: www.twentytwentyprojects.com

UPDATE: In the hour since this article was published it has come to light that HALLOWEEN (CHACHA) by Daniel Newman will not be included in the exhibition. The company charged with the responsibility of printing the piece has demonstrated a regrettable lack of dexterity in regard to the artists intentions. As a perfect result at this late stage cannot be achieved, the decision has been taken to omit the piece from the show.

IT’S NOT OVER YET at INVISIBLE-EXPORTS

admin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:39:31 +0000

IT’S NOT OVER YET, 2008. Installation view.

IT’S NOT OVER YET, the adamantly titled inaugural exhibition at INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York, closed just four days ago (September 26 — November 2, 2008). The gallery’s insistent beginning brings to mind an incongruous confluence of Warhol’s abandoning “Art is dead” statement and the dedication of the beat generation; specifically the romantic portrayal of hardship as expressed in Kerouac’s On The Road. Not by chance, Kerouac’s contemporary, bohemian hedonist William S. Burroughs appeared in the exhibition in collaboration with George Condo, as do other works by later avante-garde protagonists such as Genesis Breyer P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle who collaborated with Eric Heist, a conscientious NY based conceptual artist interested in current social and political issues.

Aaron Krach, Indestructible Artifact, 2008. Pinata, copper leaf, chocolate, Plexi. 30 x 18 x 8 inches. Edition: 1/3. Courtesy of DCKT.

Presented in the show were various mementos of the aftermath of a party. Aaron Krach’s Indestructible Object, a spent copper-leaf piñata, which in defiance of its title was merrily smashed at the opening reception, appeared later encased in plexi; displayed as if in a reliquary it drew focus on posthumous recognitions of the intrinsic beauty of our common tragedy. In a similar vien, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & Eric Heist’s Candy Factory paintings examined the shadow cast by ‘The Factory’ over a post-Warholian art world. Also looking to Warhol but more superficially invested in the party context, Ivaylo Gueorgiev recreated the notorious lipstick vandalism (finally removed in 2005) on Warhol’s Bathtub with his oil on canvas entitled kissed Warhol.

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & Eric Heist, Untitled (Pandogrynous Diptych), 2001(from Candy Factory series). Sugar, acrylic silkscreen on canvas. 24 x 24 inches each.

The various mixed media works were tempered with that lingering but exhausted chaos synonymous with the morning after, and often a political overtone that encouraged a persuasion to ‘let the good times to roll’ rather than actively stagnate them–and many other moments of ecstasy–with the all too popular deconstruction of celebration.

The press release stated: “After a decade of booms and busts, careless art and scrambled politics, our sense of fun has shifted. We throw parties because we don’t know what else to do, carousing loudly but hedging our bets. This is New York, several crashes deep. And oddly, no one seems to mind. The parties tell us we’re still alive, but the art says we’re still hard at work. It’s not over yet.”

Ivaylo Gueorgiev, Kissed Warhol, 2008. Oil on canvas. 41 x 38.5 inches.

In a very round about way, the exhibition made us think about life and art and all of those tired post-modern concerns the contemporary world tends to labor over; yet surprisingly from the mire of hackneyed affairs something new emerged—a sense of enthusiasm. Perhaps piggy backing off of a conscious global desire to facilitate some form of change or rebirth, the exhibition highlighted various instances of destruction or moral and physical decay, and like a snake shedding its haggard skin, the contrast between the callused realities presented and our instinctual attraction for (and belief in) a fresher and better world affected a renewed vigor for shared possibilities.

Benjamin Tischer, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS’ co-owner commented in interview:

“Essentially, two things came into play putting this together. One, my partner and I decided that we didn’t want to start our gallery with the standard “these are our artists” exhibition or even a solo show. We wanted a celebration, and we wanted to be inclusive, showing work by people who were exploring celebration aesthetics: Old friends and new acquaintances; trans-generational. A good percentage of the artists here have representation by other New York galleries, and we wanted to set a precedent for working ‘with’ rather than ‘against.’ Then, over the summer I read Bag of Toys, the “true crime” account of art dealer Andrew Crispo, who essentially had his gallery director commit murder for him back in the 80s. The affair was thick with scandalous s&m imagery and ’so New York.’ Something about his behavior–notoriously rapacious but smart and successful–seemed to apply with all the doom-and-gloom predictions of the art market over the summer. And so the show took on some dark overtones. When doing studio visits, I explained it as a Bacchanalian orgy, where everyone had fun, but now it’s the morning after and we’re not sure, but we think there’s a corpse in the bathroom.”

Michael Bilsborough, Frogger, 2008. Ink on two sheets of archival drafting film. 30 x 30 inches.

Bacchanalian orgy or not, Michael Bilsborough’s Frogger, exemplified the suggestion of decadence and transgression intended in the show. Characterized by near-flawless draftsmanship and stylized, morbid renderings of genitalia, Bilsborough’s drawing is a portent of what everyday life for might be like if the temptations that beset mankind triumphed over its staunch conventionality. Rather than limiting the visualization of our shameful predispositions, the simplicity of Bilsborough’s line instead revealed with alacrity an alarmingly vile and clandestine world. Scented with the authority of anthropological textbook etchings, the depiction of a wretched humanity was allowed to flourish as a terrible and imminent fact.

The subject of futility was also present in Eva Marisaldi’s video narrative in which a one-robot-band traces the outskirts of a deserted seaside town before finally running out of steam, and to a certain extent in Paul Shambrooms 1987 Honda Civic, 300lbs. ANFO Explosive (2005) which depicts an exploded Honda and a pristine Hazmat suit — accessories and armaments reshaped and reflected in the crucible of a burning world.

Paul Shambroom, 1987 Honda Civic, 300 lbs. ANFO Explosive, 2005. Pigmented inkjet on paper. 42 x 63 inches. Edition 4/8. Courtesy of Stephen Wirtz Gallery.

Overall, an interesting theme of nostalgia surfaced– interesting because it is not so typical to look to the future by harking to the past. These days it seems that we have come to a common understanding that at some point, probably not too far back in our history, we deviated off course and are now left feeling marooned whilst simultaneously heading with considerable velocity toward an uncertain and undesirable fate. But somehow the values we cherish—which incidentally were mostly handed down from older generations and so never tasted first hand—are thankfully anchoring us, and now, at the cusp of a new beginning, having weathered the storm which loomed on the beat generation’s horizon we can confidently make the changes necessary to ensure that the certainty of our futures are not as vague as those of Sal sitting on a pier during sunset, looking west, reminiscing on God, America, crying children, and the idea that “nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old.” –Jack Kerouac

IT’S NOT OVER YET; on the contrary, it’s only just beginning… Waa-waa[.]

George Condo & William S. Burroughs, Untitled (Object), 1992. Barbed wire, leather waistband ammunition and gun holster, plastic Ken-doll, glasses, felt hat, vodka bottle, wood pedestal. 54 x 18 x 18 inches.

ITS NOT OVER YET was a group show featuring both gallery and invited artists including: Ed Baynard, Michael Bilsborough, George Condo & William S. Burroughs, Ivaylo Geourgiev, Peregrine Honig, Dorothy Iannone, Stephen Irwin, Lisa Kirk, Aaron Krach, Eva Marisaldi, Robert Melee, Franklin Preston, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & Eric Heist, Paul Shambroom, Conrad Ventur, Aleksandar Zaar

INVISIBLE-EXPORTS is a gallery dedicated to superior conceptual work located in the Lower East Side, at 14A Orchard Street, just north of Canal. The hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11-7pm, and by appointment.

For more information please visit: www.invisible-exports.com

HOMO SAPIENS vote for Mr. and Mrs. Candidate

admin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:18:29 +0000

Mr. and Mrs. Candidate, 2008.

Before I moved to the United States I paid particular attention to the last election. Mainly because I was interested to see if my own country was going to be led further down the garden path during another four years of ill advised action at the hands of an epsilon-minus evangelist, but also to get a handle on what my soon-to-be-fellow countrymen valued most in their leader.

In the run up to what was finally the worst possible result (in my opinion), I was shocked by what the public had to say after hearing the presidential candidates give a speech. When reporters interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Average American (in what appeared to me to be a particularly vague manner) about what they thought of their respective candidates (in this case either Kerry or Bush), to my disgust, instead of referencing key objectives or foreign policies people were offering responses as irresponsibly vacuous as “I love his eyes” or “He’s a great public speaker” and “I think he’s a real American.”

Clearly the horror of this was not enough to dissuade me from emigrating here, but it did leave a lasting impression upon me that the majority of Americans sadly portioned the lions share of their trust based upon how politicians appeared as opposed to their agendas for the future of the country and its people. In short; not what people say, but how they say it.

Mr. and Mrs. Candidate performance.

Having lived in the US now for some time (admittedly without a television), I get the sense that even though the present circus that is US politics is thank fully unique, it is not just the American people that think this way. Clinical psychologists say that only a diminutive percentage of our communication is verbal and that in fact most of the information we perceive, or at least the manner in which we perceive it, relies upon how a person smiles, uses the tones of their voice and in particular their body language.

It’s a fairly disquieting thought that we could be seduced into placidity by the timbre of a voice or hypnotized into voting one way or another by gesticulations, but apparently it happens and today leaders spend a great deal of time perfecting (or rather being taught to perfect) this secret weapon.

Mr. and Mrs. Candidate performance.

In response to this Miami performance group, Homo Sapiens Live Art - recently formed by David Rohn and Danilo de la Torre - has spent the last few weeks performing a continuous piece based on the way presidential (and other) candidates running for public office in the US express themselves. The piece titled “Mr. and Mrs. Candidate” has been performed at various locations around Miami including on the street outside of Artformz this past gallery walk (courtesy of Artformz and Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art) and most recently in front of the Miami Beach Cinematheque (512 Espanola Way, Miami Beach).

Mr. and Mrs. Candidate performance.

Taking the body language, gestures and expressions of political candidates as an interesting starting point, the pair examines the spectacle of election performance during this and past election seasons. Standing on a podium, often in front of a smaller but nonetheless similarly enthralled crowd to the real McCoy, the pair continuously change positions; holding a pose or expression for a few moments before changing it for a new, equally recognizable one. As we are generally obliged to discount what politicians say the cumulative effect of mimicking the silent actions of electoral contenders is surprisingly powerful – like watching the real thing on TV with the volume turned down.

Mr. and Mrs. Candidate performance. Photograph by Grela Orihuela of Wet Heat Project.

Billing their oeuvre as “Art for Evolution,” HOMO SAPIENS offer ‘live art’ that blends aspects of art-world-style performance, club/nightlife and theatrical performance, and potentially including (but not limited to) video, dance, vocals, music, photography, and installation. As their name suggests, the group has as a primary goal to bring to life the vast realm of shared human experience reminding us all that we are overwhelmingly more alike than different, and that our communality of spirit unites us all far more that superficial differences separate us.

Mr. and Mrs. Candidate performance. Photograph by Grela Orihuela of Wet Heat Project.

In the case of political inclinations, we each like to believe that we make up our own minds as to whose patter is the most effective and so motion in favorable response to that, but perhaps the results of this year’s election will instead illuminate how as a group we actually care more for smiles, age, or even the color of skin, because lets face it, at the end of the day they’re all pretty much saying the same thing anyway[.]

Those who did not get a chance to see these pertinent events can look forward to more ‘monkey business’ by HOMO SAPIENS in their forthcoming collaboration entitled “SILENCIO.” Also starring drag artist Juicy Pussy, performance artist Jasmine Kastell and Juan Carlos Zaldivar, “SILENCIO,” which features music by Miguel Prem and lighting by Frank Polanco, is about the Culture clash of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world. The piece takes the form of a love affair between a Detainee and a Soldier at a hypothetical US Detention Center. Performance takes place on November 21st at The Wolfsonian.

Flyer for SILENCIO.

David Castillo artists in OPEN SPACE

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:21:13 +0000

Frances Trombly, Caution, 2008

Miami artists Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova and Frances Trombly returned to Miami recently having completed their unique sculptural contributions to OPEN SPACE, a forum for individual artists and collaborative projects at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island that run concurrently with the parks group exhibitions.

Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite until 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of sculptor Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists and a neighborhood park for local residents. Today, it is an internationally renowned outdoor museum that also serves as a vital New York City park offering a wide variety of free public programs. This season, three new installations by Miami’s Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova and Frances Trombly, together with Brooklyn’s Barbara Westermann rejuvenate the once fallow landscape.

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, An Inaccessible Gazebo, 2008

Leyden Rodriguez- Casanova’s An Inaccessible Gazebo consists of a white vinyl gazebo that the artist has customized to be completely closed off. The railings of the gazebo go all the way around, offering no means of entry. This inaccessibility creates a sharp contrast to the structure’s familiar purpose. The artist is interested in the alluring nature of the pristine white structure, as well as undermining the viewer’s understanding of sub-urban structures as they pertain to the ideas of shelter and security; the exploration of space and boundaries; and questioning the establishment of value in the practice of art.

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova installing An Inaccessible Gazebo, 2008

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova was born in Havana, Cuba and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He has exhibited nationally in major cities including New York and Miami and internationally in Switzerland and Latin America.

Frances Trombly, Caution, 2008

Frances Trombly’s Caution consists of 250 linear feet of hand-dyed, hand-woven fabric on which the artist has embroidered the text “caution”/ “cuidado” to resemble actual caution tape. The artist often uses trompe l’oeil effects in her work to recreate mundane objects, making labor-intensive pieces through weaving, embroidery, cross-stitch and crochet. Her work questions the value of labor, and addresses issues of feminism, class and the American way of life. For her installation at Socrates, Trombly uses the meticulously crafted recreation for the same functional purpose as actual caution tape; as a barrier and a visual warning defining an otherwise undifferentiated space within the Park. The artist expects the piece to evolve over time and anticipates that audience interaction as well as the weather will cause the fabric to deteriorate just as real tape would.

Frances Trombly, Caution, 2008

Frances Trombly was born in Miami, FL, where she currently lives and works. She has exhibited in major U.S. cities including New York, Miami and Los Angeles as well as internationally including London, Vienna and Latin America.

Barbara Westermann, Observatory, 2008

Barbara Westermann’s Observatory is a cluster of architectonic objects that suggest the ability to transmit and receive worldly and otherworldly music and/or information. They are objects of and for meditation and introspection. The sculptures reflect and absorb light and sound like a tree’s leaves; a conceptual, aural photosynthesis. All the “satellites” are sculptures made from molds of satellite dishes, molded and hewn away from a prefabricated look. The installation underscores relationships between exterior and interior architecture, public and private arenas.

Barbara Westermann, Observatory, 2008

Barbara Westermann lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and has shown her work widely, including solo exhibitions at Brown University, Art Resources Transfer, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, and Real Art Ways. She has taught at the New School for Social Research in New York for many years, as well as studio courses at Providence College, Roger Williams University, and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova installing An Inaccessible Gazebo, 2008

Socrates Sculpture Park is a laboratory where experimentation and innovation expand, reinvent and redefine the tradition of art in public spaces. The Park’s existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to survival, humanity and the improvement of our urban environments. Both Rodriguez-Casanova and Trombly whose work strives to do exactly that (experiment, re-invent and redefine) were well selected for the location.

Rodriguez-Casanova is an artist who asks questions regarding domestic objects, suburban cliches, their environments and the labor associated with these traditions and Trombly, very much a crafts person, employs her hand in the production of woven works of art that mimic everyday objects with sublime realism. By drawing attention to the aesthetics of the banal and its production methods in relation to art history, both artists illuminate issues of value, class, ethics, economics and identity. Their combined efforts and skillful re-appropriations of the mundane have helped to assert their gallery’s place in the Miami arts and secured their place among the most successful emerging artists of within the gallery.

Socrates Sculpture Park is open free of charge, 365 days a year from 10 am to sunset and is located at the inter-section of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City.The current exhibition which opened on September 7th runs through until March 1st, 2009.

For directions to Socrates, please visit: www.socratessculpturepark.org

For more information about these works please contact Ellen Staller: es@socratessculpturepark.org

For more information on these artists please visit: www.castilloart.com

Socrates Sculpture Park and the artists are grateful for generous contributions made by Plant Specialists, Spacetime C.C., and for the assistance and support of our volunteers and friends. Barbara Westerman is also grateful for the support of Luke Mandle, Rupert Nesbitt, and Lisa Perez and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova is thankful for contributions made by Paul Sprangel, and Finyl Vinyl Inc.

Funding for Open Space projects has been provided by Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charina Endowment Fund, Mark di Suvero, Lin Lougheed (founder of Miami’s CasaLin), Thomas Smith Foundation, and Starry Night Fund of Tides Foundation. This exhibition is funded, in part, by public funds from the Visual Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.