New York

Dueling Lectures, September 17, 2009

There are at least 3 competing Lectures tonight. They are all battling for me to attend who will win...

In this corner, the Chairman of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media at School of Visual Arts...


Burlington, VT, 1990, Pigment print. Copyright Charles H. Traub, Courtesy Gitterman Gallery

Charles Traub
The Camera Club of New York Lecture series.

Thursday, September 17th 7pm
The School of Visual Arts Amphitheatre
209 E. 23rd Street (2nd and 3rd avenues), 3rd Floor
(please bring photo ID)

Book signing and sale to follow the lecture.

Free to CCNY members, SVA students, faculty, and staff
General admission $10, $5 for other students with valid student ID

Charles Traub will be speaking about two of his projects: In the Still Life, his most recent book; and his forthcoming one, Still Life in America: Looking at US. He describes his work as such, ”Real world witness is my concern and for one such as me, the road and the street are the muse. Whether standing on the street corner or on the road trip, it is the great irony and humor inherent in the human condition. To record such is the great delight of my life.“

Mr. Traub is Chair of MFA Photography, Video and Related Media, School of Visual Arts in New York City, the largest independent college of art in the United States. He holds an MS from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a BA degree from the University of Illinois. He was formerly the director of the prestigious Light Gallery of New York. He is President of the Aaron Siskind Foundation for support of creative photography. He is one of the co founders of Here is New York, a Democracy of Photographs, which received the Brendan Gill Award of the Municipal Arts Society, Cornell Capa Infinity Award, and a Distinguished Service Award from the Children‘s Aid Society of New York. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions including Marcus Pfeifer Gallery, Van Straaten Gallery, Art Directors Guild of New York, Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Light Gallery and the Hudson River Museum. His work is currently represented by the Tom Gitterman Gallery in New York. Mr. Traub has authored and edited many books including Beach, Italy Observed, and Angler‘s Album, and has had his work published in Connoisseur, Fortune, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, American Photographer, Popular Photography, Aperture, and Afterimage. He has received awards from the New York State Council on the Arts, Hendrecks Foundation, Illinois Art Council, Manda Foundation, Olympics Arts Organization Committee, and the Mary McDowell Center for Learning. His textbook In the Realm of Circuit was published by Prentice Hall in the spring of 2003. In the Still Life, a monograph of his recent color photography, was published in September 2004. He recently co-edited the book Education of a Photographer.

And in this corner...

Words Without Pictures presents

Confounding Expectations VI: Photography in Context

Thursday, September 17, 2009 7 pm

FREE Admission

Tishman Auditorium
66 West 12th Street, New York City

Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis

This first event celebrates the launch of the innovative Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) book project Words Without Pictures, which documents roughly one year of conversations about the most pressing issues shaping contemporary photography.

Moderator:

CHARLOTTE COTTON is the Curator and Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Previously, she was the Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1992-2004). She is the author and editor of books, including Imperfect Beauty: the making of contemporary fashion photographs (2000), and The Photograph as Contemporary Art (2004). Charlotte will be returning to London later in the fall to take up a new position of creative director of the London space of the National Media Museum, which will open in 2012.

Panelists:

DENISE WOLFF is a photobook editor, known for her work with both contemporary and historic photography. She recently joined Aperture from Phaidon Press. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work on many beautiful books with the world’s top photographers, including Mary Ellen Mark, Martin Parr, Eugene Richards, and Stephen Shore to name a few.

MATT KEEGAN is an artist based in Brooklyn, N.Y. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Altman Siegel Gallery, San Francisco; Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis; Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles; D'Amelio Terras, New York; White Columns, New York; and Wallspace Gallery, New York in collaboration with Leslie Hewitt. He is co-founder and publisher of the annual publication North Drive Press.

ALEX KLEIN is an artist based in Los Angeles and the editor of Words Without Pictures. In Spring 2007, she co-organized with James Welling the conference Around Photography at the Hammer Museum. She is currently the Ralph M. Parsons Curatorial Fellow in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and an adjunct faculty member at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts.

With special guests Fia Backstrom, Johanna Burton, Melissa Catanese, Sarah Charlesworth, Moyra Davey, Darius Himes, John Lehr, Miranda Lichtenstein, Arthur Ou, Ed Panar and Laurel Ptak.

The lecture series is presented with generous support from the Kettering Family Foundation and the Henry Nias Foundation. The program is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

More info at the New School website here

And lastly,

At the SVA Theatre

Dave Hickey: The God Ennui

Thursday, September 17, 7pm

Writer and educator Dave Hickey is the author of two highly regarded collections of critical essays, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (Art Issues Press, 1993); Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (Art Issues Press, 1998) and the forthcoming Pagan America (Simon and Schuster, 2010). He was the recipient of a 2001 MacArthur Fellowship, and is currently Schaeffer Professor of Modern Letters at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street
Free and open to the public

Who will win my attention? I don't even know yet!

Although afterwards I will surly be trying to attend this Blind Spot related event:

From SLRs to disposables to digital cameras to PDAs, the photographic image is more prolific than at any point since the medium'

Rizzoli International and Ken Miller invite you to join us in celebrating
the publication of

SHOOT
@
New Museum of Contemporary Art
Thursday September 17, 7-9pm

SHOOT is a collection of 'photography of the moment' by Stephen Shore, Nan
Goldin, Walter Pfeiffer, Boris Mikhailov, Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen
Teller, Mark Borthwick, Ari Marcopoulos, Hiromix, Glynnis McDaris, Linus
Bill, Jason Nocito, Yurie Nagashima, Tim Barber, Peter Sutherland, JH
Engstrom, Dash Snow, Kenneth Cappello, Louise Enhorning, Michael
Schmelling, Nacho Alegre, Ola Rindal, Paul Schiek, Madi Ju, Jaimie Warren
and Thomas Jeppe.

"From SLRs to disposables to digital cameras to PDAs, the photographic
image is more prolific than at any point since the medium's inception.
Whether working in personal documentary, editorial, fine art or fashion,
the photographers in SHOOT share a democratic, emotionally intuitive
approach to picture-taking that reflects an era in which we increasingly
use ephemeral images to define our own lives."

SHOOT includes a foreword by legendary photographer Stephen Shore, in
addition to a critical essay by professor Penny Martin (of pioneering
fashion site SHOWstudio.com and the London College of Fashion) with a
historical overview by editor Ken Miller (Revisionaries; A Decade of Art in
Tokion).

Upcoming Fall 2009 New York Art openings... (updated x2)

These are the openings that I am excited to see coming soon. I will update this post for the remainder of the fall with new shows coming soon. I hope to go to as many of the opening as possible but if I post it here I will at least attend the show if a can't make opening night.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Group Show: OFF THE GRID: LUIS MALLO, ANDREW A. LUCAS, MICHEL CAMPEAU, AND TROY PAIVA
at KUMUKUMU Gallery

OPENING RECEPTION: SEPTEMBER 9, 6-8 PM
On View: September 9 - October 1, 2009
42 Rivington Street

Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition
Photographs by Michelle Arcila, Daniel Cheek, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss and Kurt Tong.

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 6-8 PM
On View: September 10th - September 19th, 2009
6 Spring Street

Carter, And Within Area Although, Salon 94 Freemans
Opening Reception: September 9, 6-8 PM
On View: September 9 - October 24, 2009
1 Freeman Ally

Zipora Fried, Trust Me. Be Careful, On Stellar Rays
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 6-8 PM
On View: September 9 - October 25, 2009
133 Orchard Street

Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE, 30 YEARS OF BEING CUT UP, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 6-8 PM
On View: September 9 - October 18, 2009
14A Orchard Street

Colin Dodgson, Just because it's in your head, doesn't mean its not real.
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 6-9 PM
243 Broome Street (Corner of Ludlow)

Grace Kim, Under the Glass Bell, A Dream, Melanie Flood Projects
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 7-10 PM
On View: September 9th - October 7th, 2009
186 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

Thursday, September 10, 2009

First off is my thesis advisor at SVA. I saw some of this while in progress at his studio and I'm looking forward to seeing it finished and installed in the gallery.

Simen Johan, Until the Kingdom Comes, Yossi Milo Gallery
Artist's Reception: Thursday, September 10, 2009, 6 - 8 pm
On View: September 10, 2009 -October 31, 2009
525 West 25th Street

Anthony Pearson, Marianne Boesky Gallery
Opening reception Thursday, September 10, 2009, 6 - 8 pm
On View: September 11 - October 10, 2009
509 West 24th Street

Juergen Teller: Paradis, Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Opening Reception: Thursday, 10 September 6 - 8 PM
On View: 10 September - 17 October, 2009
540 West 26th Street, New York

Nicholas Nixon, Old Home, New Pictures, Pace/Macgill
Opening Reception: ???
On View: September 10 - October 24, 2009
32 East 57th Street

Chris Ofili, Afro Margin. David Zwirner
Opening reception September 10, 6 – 8pm
On View: September 10 – October 24, 2009
525 West 19th Street

Nicolai Howalt, Car Crash Studies, Bruce Silverstein
Todd Hido, A Road Divided, Bruce Silverstein
Opening reception: Thursday, September 10th, 6 - 8 pm
On View: September 09 - October 24, 2009
535 West 24th Street

Nature as Artifice: New Dutch Landscape in Photography and Video Art, Aperture Foundation Gallery
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 10, 6 - 8 pm
On View: September 10 – October 15, 2009
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor

Amy Stein, Domesticated, Clamp Art
Opening reception September 10, 6 – 8 pm
On View: September 10 – October 31, 2009
521-531 West 25th Street

Jason Hanasik, He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore, Kris Graves Projects
Opening Reception: Thursday, 10 September 6 - 9 PM
On View: September 10 - October 10, 2009

The Open, Deitch Projects LIC
Opening Septermber 10th 6 - 10 PM
On View: September 10 - October 25, 2009
4-40 44th Drive, Long Island City

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Tim Davis, The New Antiquity, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery
Opening Reception Brunch: Saturday, September 12, 2009 11 am – 4 pm
On View: September 10 - October 24, 2009
730 Fifth Ave., at 57th Street

Hans-Peter Feldman, 303 Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday , September 12 2009 6-8 PM
On View: September 12 - October 17 2009
547 W 21 Street

WOOD, A sculpture show featuring: Carol Bove, David Lamelas, Corey McCorkle, Oscar Tuazon + Eli Hansen Kaari Upson
at Maccarone Gallery

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 12th from 6-8 PM
On View: September 12 - October 24th, 2009
630 Greenwich Street

First Openings of the Fall Art Season 2009

I hope that last week's openings are a sign of the upcoming quality of future fall openings because that would make this a exciting art season (f' a recession!).

Last Thursday SoHo was a buzz with three big openings. Davis Rhodes at Team Gallery, Kehinde Wiley at Deitch Projects on Grand Street and Tauba Auerbach at Deitch Projects's Wooster Street space.

I walked into the Davis Rhodes first not really knowing what to expect. The gallery space was fairly crowded but you could still see the artwork. Rhodes minimalist paintings heavily referenced sign advertising production as well as sculpture and minimal painting traditions. Not really very exciting for me. He made solid pain fields on vinyl material with a large shape cut from the center. Each piece was then loosely hung creating a sculptural effect. I feel like I may be the wrong person to really give these painting their fair shake but I left that gallery board - flat color felt exactly that, flat boring. I crave some thread of detail or narrative to get excited with, this just didn't work for me.

The next stop was Kehinde Wiley's new show. Barely a half block down Grand Street at Dietch's smaller space; Wiley was showing a collection of expertly produced photographs and one large painting in the front room of the gallery. These photographs add nicely to Wiley's overture of highly realistic paintings.

Each image fits his aesthetic but exists in photographic space rather then the surface of a additive painted canvas. The poses still heavily borrow from painting but the clarity of the photographic production is striking and I thought the effect created from bringing slices of the background inform of the subject created a nice dimension to the work that reminded me of painting and less of photography.

From the Press Release:

September 03, 2009 - September 26, 2009
76 Grand Street, New York

Deitch Projects is pleased to present Black Light, an exhibition of photographs by Kehinde Wiley that thrusts the black male image, captured by means of light manipulation and digital technology, into focus. This shuffle of Wiley's artistic process reveals an integral component of his studio practice rarely seen while remaining, uniquely, Kehinde Wiley portraiture.

Enlisting the technical tenor of Hype Williams' hip-hop videos from the 90's, Wiley saturates his consummately styled subjects of Fulton Street Mall pedigree- caps flipped backward, wearing gear of New York legend- in "super rapturous light". To transcendental and beatific effect, such illumination proffers a new measure of Wiley's technical abilities, so that the medium of photography propels each figure to the point before paint consumes canvas- the moment when flesh, at its three dimensional, truth-telling, reveals scars long ago enacted. Browned fingernails, questioning red-glazed eyes and voluptuously glossed, cigarette-charred lips heighten what, for some, is no longer visible: a vulnerable microcosm of our metropolis- a black light. Through the 17 photographs on display, Wiley produces an intimate study of embattled psychologies whose adherents are at once flawed and majestic, canonized and misunderstood.

The exhibition Black Light will be accompanied by, Black Light, a full-color book published by Powerhouse and will be available at Deitch Projects

Lastly I walked around the corner to the airy Wooster Street space where Tauba Auerbach was showing paintings, photography and a performance on a organ she helped create with her friend Cameron Mesirow of the band Glasser. When you enter the gallery you are greeted with several large abstract photographs. In the center of the space there is a large wood two person custom made organ called the Auerglass. Behind the organ were several lager paintings from different series she has been working on, nicely reflecting the photographic abstractions shown at the entrance of the gallery.

From the Press release:

September 03, 2009 - October 17, 2009
18 Wooster Street, New York

The collapsing of two conflicting states is the central theme of HERE AND NOW/AND NOWHERE, Tauba Auerbach's new exhibition at Deitch Projects. The artist deliberately composed the title as an anagram. The paintings, photographic works, sculpture and the musical instrument that comprise the show are all structured around the threshold between order and randomness. The philosophical conflicts explored in the work include:

The liminality, or intermediate state between two dimensionality and three dimensionality.

The past and the present.

A combination of the two: a past three-dimensional state and a present two-dimensional state.

Being HERE vs. Being THERE, and being both HERE and THERE at once.

Randomness vs. Determinism and the unpredictable order of chaos.

In the marrying of two conflicting states, the work is also about the number 2, a concept that is inherent in the remote interdependence central to the sculptural works in the exhibition.

There are five bodies of work represented in the exhibition:

Crumple Paintings

The next generation of the Crumple paintings previously shown in Deitch Projects' Constraction exhibition last summer and in the New Museum's Younger Than Jesus. These new works have been created for the large space of Deitch's 18 Wooster Street gallery and require that the viewer stand far back from the work to perceive the illusion of a crumpled surface constructed from large Ben Day dots.

Static Photographs

A new series of more representational, but still undecipherable Static photographs. They focus less on the emergence of pattern as in the previous series, also shown in Younger Than Jesus, and more on the emergence of form. They address the question of what makes something "something."

Fold Paintings

A series of incrementally sized fold paintings, painted on raw canvas with an industrial paint sprayer. They explore the merging of a past three-dimensional state with a present two-dimensional state.

A sculpture that is half inside the gallery and half outside of it.

There will be a form resembling a black orb hanging from the gallery facade. It will blow in the breeze. Inside the gallery, there will be a light source dangling from a thin rod, moving around exactly the same way as the form outside. The sculpture is based on the phenomenon of entangled particles, two particles that, when separated from one another, continue to behave identically, even at a great distance. If you stimulate one, the other reacts too. It is as though they are supernaturally connected.

The Auerglass

The Auerglass, which is the central work in the show, is a two-person wooden pump organ designed by the artist with her friend Cameron Mesirow of the band Glasser. The instrument cannot be played alone. It requires two people to play. One player has to pump in order for the other to play and vice versa. There is a four-octave scale that is divided so that each of the two players plays every other note. Auerbach and Mesirow will play a composition written specifically for the instrument. It combines music that Auerbach wrote as a child, songs from Glasser and new material. The Auerglass will be played at the opening on September 3rd, as a prelude to a Glasser performance at 8pm on September 11th, and daily at 5pm from Tuesday through Saturday during the exhibition. Ida Falck Oien, who creates the costumes for Glasser, has created special costumes with shifting states for the Auerglass players to wear.

The highlight of the openings was the Auerglass performance. I highly recommend trying to catch the performance for yourself. It begins is a very amateurish tone. Sounding exactly as it was promised like a child's composition and really reminded me heavily of my own fumblings as a child trying to play piano. The piece then progresses into a crescendo of sound that washed over the audience a great ending. It was as if the artist's composition was also about them learning music and learning to play their invented instrument. The piece was about their very learning of music itself. starting off in the childhood composition of Auerbach and ending in the musical adultness of the new Glasser material.

I found some youtube footage of the concert check it out below. If you look carefully you can se me bopping my head.


Soho, Manhattan, New York City, Thursday, September 3, 2009.
Per New York Times:
"Wear your new statement accessories to Deitch Projects tonight for two big openings. Tara Auerbachs Crumple paintings mimic creased paper with patterns of Benday dots that can be dizzying when seen up close, writes Karen Rosenberg. But most of the focus will be on an The Auerglass, a wooden pump organ that the artist and the band Glasser will play at the reception."

On Saturday, I trekked out to see the Creative Time installations on Governor's Island called PLOT09: This World & Nearer Ones. I was only able to see a few of the shows but their quality was fantastic. Here are some of my highlights from Creative Times' TV:


Lawrence Weiner discuss his work in PLOT/09: This World & Nearer Ones entitled "AT THE SAME MOMENT"


Mark Walling discusses his work in PLOT/09 This World & Nearer Ones, entitled," Ferry".


Krzysztof Wodiczko discusses his work in PLOT/09: This World & Nearer Ones entitled "Veterans' Flame"


Anthony McCall discusses his work in PLOT/09: This World & Nearer Ones entitled "Between You and I"

And lastly, I caught the last showing of the night of The Bruce High Quality Foundation's "Isle of the Dead" Movie. This was the surprise of the afternoon. Really nicely made 18 minute site specific motion picture. With much of the final climax of the film taking place in the theater you are viewing the movie in. The theater is an old relic from when the Island was a Coast Guard base and Used to show first run movies when the base was operational. the haunting effect of watching a chorus of 200 zombies sing "Summer of '69" by Brian Adams was haunting and nostalgic at the same time. I'm still thinking about this movie and the fantastic sound production. If you want to listen to their song you can on The Bruce High Quality Foundation's webpage to the middle right.


The Bruce High Quality Foundation discuss their work in PLOT/09 This World & Nearer Ones entitled "Isle of the Dead"