Spring St. near Bowery

"Paper City" @ Mixed Greens

This group show of a dozen artists focuses on paper-made objects. The 2 images above are by Mia Pearlman: an atmospheric swirling cocoon that catches the light and throws shadows in a nice way. The 2 lower images, by Andrew Scott Ross are details from an impressive and amusing floor installation of extremely intricately cut and propped up gray cardstock that pushes the positive-negative of cut paper pretty far. The overall diorama-style piece is reminiscent of the presentations in those TimeLife books about the Dawn of Man showing mastodons, neanderthals cowering in caves, discovery of fire, unclothed hominids running from sabertoothed tigers (good lluck!), etc. I have to say, I got a real kick out of this piece, and its wonderful economy of means. Most impressive of all was a video work that I couldn't photograph to show you. It is Metropolis, by Rob Carter, and chronicles a sort of urban history of Charlotte, N.C. The way the images segue into one another and the phenomenal noise-track really blew me away. This show ends August 15. Mixed Greens is at: 531 W.26 St.

A Summer Workshop

I treated myself to this neato weekend intensive at Greenwich House Pottery, "focus on terra sigillata". The instructor, Stephen Robison, who teaches at UNC, did a great job and had a terrific slide show for us ( always helpful for jump-starting ideas ). I really enjoyed working at this studio, and I'll post pics of things post-glaze firing. The small pots show what our group's trial pieces looked like after applying the terra sigillata slip, but before firing. These three leather-hard pots with the funky shapes applied outside I will glaze and then fire in GHP's gas kiln, a type of firing I am not able to do at the dojo, so that should be pretty exciting. The large gas kilns have an array of kiln gremlins sitting atop that I thought warranted a photo.

I (heart) Philip Guston

No photos are permitted at the intensely moving show of Guston drawings on view at the Morgan Library (thru aug. 31), which I would say is a must-see, but the MoMA has its spacious second-floor gallery devoted to some knockout works from the Edward R. Broida collection. Again, I wish my photos were a bit better, but the work looks great in person. A sense of desperation in these works that somehow manages to be weirdly reassuring in that existential angst-y sort of way. The painting of these skyward-looking Byzantine Madonna-style eyes puts me in mind of that famous late Goya where the little dog appears to be struggling to stay afloat atop a giant wave of liquid asphalt. And as for this bird's eye view of an open wound that's been sutured to stay that way, well, what can be said, really?

Cosima Von Bonin

This piece by the Kenyan-born German artist Von Bonin was part of a truly sprawling summer show called "Painting Now and Forever, part 2" that stretched across Matthew Marks chelsea space and Greene Naftali gallery. To sum it up: too much of a good thing, and lots also of not-so-great, but what of it? I find this artist pretty interesting, and she does lots of different types of work. My friends accuse me of having a too-soft spot for anything craftsy, and if it involves tapestry or the like, even better. Guilty as charged! That said, I could say there were things about this work that I couldn't quite "get", and, of course, I need to beg your indulgence for the details-only photos. Entitled "Straight, No Chaser", it is put together beautifully from fabrics upon which you can see there are tidbits of narrative-ish embroidered scenes ( think "hookah smoking caterpillar"). How these do or don't mesh with the embroidered title, and the somewhat comical-seeming Mickey Mouse-style white puffy gloved hands are anyone's guess. I just found it fun to look at.

Chakaia Booker

Also seen at Marlborough Chelsea, "Midtown South", a sculpture using various types of tires, which are Chakaia Booker's signature material. The textures and draping of these, not to mention their smell, make for a very seductive experience. There is also a lot of energy and feeling of power in these coiled, cut and pinched shapes. Sad to say, I missed out on chances in recent years to see larger shows by this artist. By googling her, you can see wonderful images of large-scale works from a show at Storm King, which look phenomenal in a landscape setting, as well as lots of photos of work from solo shows at Marlborough in the past.

another summer show

Yes, these summer group shows can be taxing to get through. This one, at Marlborough Chelsea ( 545 W. 25th St. nyc ) was probably not my favorite, but I did get a chuckle from this sculpture by Manolo Valdez, one of their artists whom I know nothing whatsoever about. Do you recognize it? You saw this image in ads for the "Girls" show of early Roy Lichtenstein works this spring, which you loved, if you went to see it. Yes, it is an exact re-working ( in bronze, no less! ) of that beachball- brandishing blonde who seemed to distill the essence of play in Roy's early sixties masterpiece.

Eric Hollender

Spotted this piece today, which is part of yet another summer group show thing, at Carolina Nitsch Project Room ( 534 W. 22nd St. nyc till Aug. 8 ). It is called "A Bed Of Grass", and is ( I'm told ) made up of slab-built, sliced porcelain units that are then embedded into a porcelain slip, soda-fired and presented in an array on top of wooden blocks of slightly varying height. It has a tousled, non-uniform quality that does suggest movement, and enough variation in tone to keep it from looking hard or sterile. On a more prosaic note, I can't help thinking of the tipping ends of pyrometric cones when I see these. I've always been a bit drawn to those little curvy shapes that are the castoffs after a firing. But yet I do wonder how the individual blades were made, since there is more variation to their shapes that just slicing up slabs would suggest. Pretty labor-intensive if this is a one-element-at-a-time kind of construction. Anyhow, this artist has a website that shows some of his other work, which includes some interesting, drawing-based pieces on clay tablets and other types of objects, and since he provides some contact info there, maybe I will just see if I can pose my questions directly to him, then report back. Kudos and big thanks to helpful gallery staff as well.

" I Won't Grow Up" @ Cheim & Read

This is a typically crowded summer crowd-pleaser type of show, containing dozens of pieces from lots of well known folks. The gallery website allows views of all the rooms, as well as each individual work, so you can get a good sense of it even if you can't manage a visit. My two favorite pieces were these: an early ( c. 1938 ) Louise Bourgeois painting with pencil on canvas " The Runaway Girl ", and this wall of Mummified Barbies by E.V. Day. Using beeswax, twine and silver glitter she has come up with something that is delightful and disturbing at the same time. They had a kind of Lonely Space Traveler allure to them that brought to mind the lyrics from Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" ( "Flying Mother Nature's Silver Seed to a New Home in the Sun....") ( C'mon, you know that song ) Show continues through august. 547 W 25th St. nyc

Richard De Vore @ Max Protech Gallery

I will probably write again about this artist's work once I've had a chance to sort through my photos and digest some of the material in the catalog, but I thought I would sound the call for any clay lovers out there who might be able to catch this show. Run, don't walk. It is part of a major retrospective, the other part being held simultaneously at the Cranbrook Art Museum outside Detroit, Michigan. It will continue through the rest of the summer.
It was quite by chance that I happened upon this show. The fact that I could easily have missed seeing it is quite disturbing. You see, running concurrently at Max Protech (511 W 22 St. nyc) is a fun show of Buckminster Fuller prototype objects and works from his private collection. I've been a fan for a long time, and it was with that show in mind that I went. But I digress.
De Vore passed away in 2006, and had spent time teaching at Cranbrook, winding up finally in Colorado. I felt an immediate sense of his complete devotion to idea, feeling and craft. Bringing about these forms, these surfaces was clearly no mean feat, from a technical standpoint, but the tension and balance they bring to the fore make these works a sensual delight. A major ceramic artist. Gorgeous pots.

Division Museum of Ceramic Art and Glassware

Formerly located on Division St. in Manhattan's Chinatown, this collection has relocated to 259 Tenth avenue in Chelsea, and will perhaps enjoy the greater cachet conferred by proximity to the hub of galleries found there. Its focus is to present the permanent collection of broken and chipped ceramic and glassware, all donated by the Friends and Founders of the Museum itself. The Clay Dojo wishes them well in their new space. www.divisionmuseum.com

details, details.....

Here are some details, all taken from the Met museum this week. The Turner show which just opened has some thrilling work, especially ( of course ) the late paintings in oil and ( of course ) watercolor. No way to get a good shot of any, though. You will just have to go see for yourself. One of my all-time favorite Cezanne still life paintings. One where the bunching folds of the linen tablecloth come really close to resembling the mountains he loved so much. I think it was subliminal for him, but there are so many instances where you can see it. The only other explanation is that it is my own imagination. A gorgeously painted chinese tea set from a Mary Cassatt painting. Don't know why she spent so much time painting ladies with babies when she could do this. ( btw, I will count this tea-set towards "relevance to pottery in this blog", something I resolve to adhere to a bit more ). Finally, the hands of Gertrude Stein. The great early Picasso portrait. I just love looking at that painting.

Zhang Huan @ PaceWildenstein

People who know me know that I LOVE woodcuts. Love making them, love looking at them. So, it turns out to be a good thing that this section of the multi-part show encompassing all three of Pace's chelsea galleries was photo-friendly. Their other two spaces featured a strict no-photo policy and the kind of disdainfully weary welcome that could pose a real threat to Gagosian uptown's domination of this particular aspect of gallerism. Actually, it is the other 2 shows, together called "Blessings" that form a single, two-venue show, and this show of large, monotype woodcuts at Pace Prints Gallery on west 26th street is running concurrently to help us grasp how super-duper important their artist is right NOW. On w.25th st. a single, enormous sculpture," Giant No. 3" dominates most of the space, and is said to relate to some of Huan's past performance work. It is a 15' tall cowhide and foam figure which looks like a gauchely taxidermied doll and has another smaller doll-like figure climbing up it ('nuff said). In another part of this gallery are some of his Memory Door pieces that combine photography and wodcarving and are an interesting combination of graphic image and finely worked three-dimensionality, and for my money, these would have made a better focus for the show, might have worked nicely in tandem with the woodcut prints.
At the 22nd street space is" Canal Building" - a huge block of compressed ash (obtained from burned temple incense - a favorite material of the artist) which takes up nearly all of the interior of the gallery and whose upper face can be seen only after climbing the steps of a specially-built viewing platform. It is on this upper edge of the semi-solid ash block that a studio assistant paints, using additional mixed ash, an image culled from a vintage photo of Chinese laborers digging a canal. The ongoing process of creating this image has taken up most of the time during which the show runs, although the assistants are not working constantly, and I don't know if there are several of them involved here, or just one. I have to say that, for me, this reworking of historical imagery into grandiosely complex presentation modes ends up being unavoidably anti-climactic. The press release here reminds us again of the relationship to Huan's past incarnation as a performance artist, and the time-taking unfolding of the work would tend to make folks consider a revisit to chart the progress of the evolving image, as well as to see if the gallery workers have come up with newer, better ways to dis them. One thing I couldn't help noticing while up on the viewing platform was the layer of fine ash dust sitting on every surface (pottery girl knows a health hazard when she sees one). Do the painters spending their days aloft creating this work wear masks? (no). For me, this was the resonant, unintended parallel between the imagery and its current reworking as cultural artifact for today. No photos, please!
So, in anticipation of further disappointment, I went almost reluctantly to see this show of woodcuts. They are beautiful, and wonderfully printed. Again, I have done my best to get a decent photo, without too much success, and what doesn't come across at all in these pics is the places where uninked areas of wood have embossed their texture. I think one reason (besides my affection for the medium) that these are more fun to look at than the other work is that they seem unpretentious. Yes, we learn that the wood panels used here are castoffs from actual doors, as those he uses in other works. That's fine, but it starts to feel like superfluous information. And the iconograpy looks like it may be combining traditional Chinsese motifs and some personal ones, but the sources are not over-explained.

Beautiful

Yes, I know I have posted a lot of photos lately of things that have caught my eye whilst rambling around the city, but I can't resist sharing this one. I suspect it is the work of the well-known but secretive artist Swoon, who has had work shown at the MoMA, and at other established spaces. This appears to be a linoleum or woodblock print, quite large, on the signature fragile paper that she adheres to public spaces, considering the eventual decomposition of the work as part of its meaning. Of course, I can't be completely sure that this is her work, but it is masterful, and really does take things to another level. As Tuesday is my usual day for visiting a few galleries, I do have photos of some other observations, but they will have to wait for another posting.