The Flog

Andrews, Cook, Vance, and Williamson at David Kordansky.

Kathryn Andrews, Heather Cook, Lesley Vance, Lisa Williamson @David Kordansky Gallery (January 23 – March 06, 2010)

From the press release:

The exhibition will contain new work by the four Los Angeles-based artists, and will highlight the contrasts and commonalities in their respective methodologies, while focusing on how each uses material criticality and formal relationships to suggest new possibilities for abstraction.

Each artist’s contributions reflect a heightened awareness of the history of her chosen media, as well as an incisive sense of curiosity and play. Andrews, Cook, Vance and Williamson are all deeply engaged in material experimentation. In particular, each addresses the legacy of minimalism, drawing attention to the basic physicality of objects while asking: Is it possible to perceive materiality in and of itself, apart from the symbolic so strongly associated with it? To answer this question, each artist trades in abstraction, but each elides its traditional mode, in which the movement is away from a given form toward a representation of it, opting instead for a lateral approach, a serial one, using materials differently from one work to another.

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The Art Collection of James Wagner and Barry Hoggard.

The Art Collection of James and Barry. New York. October 5, 2009.

October. Now February, and I am finally getting around to posting the shots of my wonderfully amazing visit of the art collection of two equally amazingly wonderful people, James Wagner and Barry Hoggard.

Back in the Fall, they were in the process of inventorying their now sizable collection – the couple began collecting in the mid 1990’s – with the project of launching a website that would present all of the works. The idea is nothing short of admirable and exciting – and to my knowledge unheard of, and helps reinforce the true foundations of a free, accessible and revealing internet.
The art world can certainly be one impenetrable vault, with its hushed prices, undercover investors and its mostly hidden collections, so when such initiatives are carried out, I breathe optimism back in and become intrigued and inspired again by what Art can generate and make us question.
And to my amazement, the site came to life a few days ago.

As the scrolling bar on this post indicates, I kept a relatively loose hand for the editing of the photographic results of my journey inside the visually inspiring salon. And I certainly hope that you will enjoy the visit as much as I did.

And because I ran into the following piece earlier today, I thought I would place it here, as an outro sort of commentary.

CLEANING PIECE III
Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three months
See what happens to your life.

Yoko Ono, 1996. Via.

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Note. Both gentlemen will be participating in the workshop, or #class, organized by Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida taking place at Winkleman Gallery, New York on Sunday, February 27th.

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By fette | Also posted in Studio Visits | Tagged , , | Comments (9)

Cody Critcheloe aka SSION at Peres Projects.

Cody Critcheloe aka SSION: BOY @Peres Projects (January 16 – April 3, 2010)

From the press release:

First things first! It’s SSION, pronounced “shun,” as in mission, fission, ambition-all apt words to describe the gesamtkunstwerk that is Cody Critcheloe and the queer punk/performance/art band he invented ten years back as a high school student in Lewisport, Kentucky.
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Critcheloe’s songs are catchy, not abstract, and his visuals and live shows are crafted to appeal to more than an art-going crowd. SSION could easily cross over to become a pop phenomenon-a potentiality (or prophecy) which, in a stroke of self-reflexive genius, Critcheloe has already written into the narrative arc of his work to date. The story of SSION is a raucous, louched up, camp parody of Critcheloe’s own life, in which a small-town punk kid hooked on doughnuts and pizza follows his dreams with razor focus to emerge as a svelte, smoky-eyed pop star embraced by adoring crowds.

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Patrick Lee and Russ Meyer at Western Project.

Justin Bower, Sush Machida Gaikotsu, Patrick Lee, Russ Meyer, Mark Dean Veca, and Liz Young: Cherry Pie @Western Project (January 16 – February 20, 2010)

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Patrick Lee.

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Russ Meyer.

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Tom LaDuke at Angles Gallery.

Tom LaDuke: Auto Destruct @Angles Gallery (January 16 – February 20, 2010)

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Chris Burden’s Big Wheel at MOCA.

Performance by Stacie B. London @MOCA part of the exhibition Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years (November 15, 2009 – Ongoing)

Chris Burden, Big Wheel, 1979. February 11, 2010.

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Bifocals resting on his nose, Chris Burden mounted the scrawny Benelli motorcycle and kicked the machine to life. Revving the motor in first gear to make sure the 41-year-old beast would stay awake, he upshifted to second, then third, forcing the rear wheel of the tiny bike to spin faster and faster against the big wheel with which it was making contact.
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Big Wheel in action is striking in its simplicity, mesmerizing in its movement and awe-inspiring in its scope and scale. The entire piece weighs 5,000 pounds, including the 3,200-pound steel flywheel (which was originally part of a generator and found in a Long Beach scrap yard), the 300-pound bike and the 1,500-pound trestle, which Burden engineered himself using building timbers.

Susan Carpenter for the Los Angeles Times, November 2009.

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Artemio at LAXART.

Artemio: ChakrAK-47 @LAXART (January 29 – March 20, 2010)

From the press release:

The ornamental patterned design on the tiles, while seemingly abstract and decorative, reveals an intricate assemblage of rifles, guns, knives and other violent weapons that formally contemplate Mexico as an increasingly complex and violent locale. The accompanying neon sculpture in the gallery space echoes the visual ornamentation of the exterior tiles to evoke a mandala-like structure that is both aesthetically rich and iconographically loaded. Artemio’s project coincides with the beginning of Mexico’s year-long bicentennial celebrations, while providing a distinct model of rigorous contextual responsiveness. His poetic treatment of Mexico’s current tumultuous political condition is reminiscent of a shadowy reality that permeates the intensely visual festivities, thus putting forth a provocative interrogation of a nationalistic climate dependent upon celebratory complacency. 

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Adrian Ghenie at Mihai Nicodim.

Adrian Ghenie @Mihai Nicodim Gallery (January 23 – March 6, 2010)

From the press release:

In this new body of work, Ghenie offers a contemporary position on a universal theme of those abusing power and those abused by them. It’s not just the execution of his paintings that reminds us of the heavy substance of the mantle of history, but also their content, which is narrative filled with historical facts, though not explicitly telling a clearly defined story. That’s the case for the „Berlin Zoo“ series which carry the metaphor of the traumatic collective experience of the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain was the way Europe was viewed after World War II. Physically, it took shape in the Berlin Wall.

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Daniel Dove at cherry and martin.

Daniel Dove @cherry and martin (January 16 – February 20, 2010)

From the press release:

Daniel Dove’s recent paintings depict structures in states of transition, either half-ruined or partially reconstructed. The subjects of Dove’s pictures range from suburban landscape detritus to charged contemporary artifacts (such as reconstructed bombed airplane fuselages), meticulously re-built to understand or reinvent their original trauma. In this rebuilding, Dove’s objects reveal a longing for completeness that can never be restored, much the way that his highly composed canvases offer distilled, ordered fictions based on chaotic and often dangerous real-world events.

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Benjamin Swaim at Le Palais de Tokyo.

Benjamin Swaim: Fertilité du Diable @Le Palais de Tokyo (February 2 – 28, 2010)

From the press release:

Oscillant entre imaginaire et autobiographie, la série compte autant d’œuvres que de questions : sa mère a-t-elle vraiment été artiste? Sont-ce véritablement ses œuvres qui sont représentées? Est-ce une fiction? Un exercice de mémoire de formes perdues?

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And this. Which is receiving first prize for best genuine installation using fire extinguishers, a fan and blue lockers.

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