Carlos Amorales's Studio

Charcoal drawing machine to be used at Manifesta

view from studio

The first stop was the studio and home of Carlos Amorales who works in a variety of media. The project he is currently working on is for this year’s Manifesta. Amorales has created a machine that will make continuous charcoal drawings throughout the run of the exhibition. The drawings will be cut and hung on the wall much like we see here.

bookshelf

Next we headed to Emilio Chapela’s studio. I had seen his single-person booth at Henrique Faria’s stand at the fair and couldn’t wait to hear him talk about what I had seen. He is currently working on a project in Berlin where he has created a bookshelf and other artists will select titles and make books for it–the catch is that all of the books are made out of wood. Chapela sees books as a dying breed and so the physicality of them is intriguing. He takes wood from old “sleepers” (train tracks) and creates these gorgeous books.

appliances

Chapela searches images and phrases on Google and those become elements of his work. In the work above he typed in the word “appliance” and these are the images that come up. The work becomes both abstracted and a statement about society as we move further away fro human interaction and spend more time in front of our computers.

books

Here is another example of Chapela’s wooden and numbered books. Just as our books sit on most of our shelves and go unread, these books that have no pages become decorative objects in the home.

view from Maximo Gonzalez's studio

Maximo Gonzalez could not have been more welcoming. His work is varied and consists of drawings as well as wall works and sculpture but currency can be found in most of his creations. Utilizing currency that is out of circulation he either pushes holes and creates tapestries of patterns of negative space, or he glues fragments together to create woven textural abstractions like you see in the image below  (a crappy image that does not do the work justice at all).

Maximo Gonzalez work

Rafael Lozano- Hemmer at OMR

Pulse Spiral, 2008-2012

X no es la nueva Y is the new show by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer on view at Galeria OMR. In Pulse Spiral, each light bulb shows the pulse of a previous participant. This work is a smaller version of Pulse Park which filled Madison Square Park in New York with pulsating light a few years ago. The way it hangs in the space it is like a living chandelier, registering heartbeats of all who enter.

interactive Hemmer work

I love all of Hemmer’s work and I had the pleasure of speaking with him at a dinner after the opening. Not only is he interesting, but he is also extremely friendly. In this work, the viewer stands in front of what appears to be a mirror while the eyes turn black. Smoke then billows up from the eye sockets and the eyes fall into the bottom right corner, adding to the bank of eyes of previous viewers.

another kinetic work by Hemmer

In this work a bag fills with air and then deflates, just as a single breath would fill the bag. If the air flow stops, then it is as if the last breath has occurred.

Upstairs is a work with thousands of images of people kissing. When a person walks past the screen, the couple kisses. Settigns can be changed to show a steamier interaction as well as different combinations of sexes locking lips.

And the title of the show comes from an editioned piece which I am proud to now own as part of my collection. X no es la nueva Y looks like a circuit breaker with two digital readouts that runs on a watch battery. It has over 500,000 variations and when one holds the red button down, a new statement is made such as: Mexico City is not the new Hong Kong. What a fun conversation piece at my next party!

Gabriel Kuri at Kurimanzutto

Kurimanzutto

El Arte

Anahuacalli Museo Diego Rivera exterior

I did not even know that this museum existed. Nor did I have any idea that Diego Rivera had over 50,000 pre-Hispanic works amassed in a collection that lives in this beautiful building. What a treat to enter this magnificent space! Jose Kuri was brilliant to have Sarah Lucas create works that were peppered throughout the building. This was one of the highlights of the trip.

Murals

I didn’t know where to look as I made my way throughout the marvelous space. Figurines were displayed in cases behind glass, Rivera’s murals flourished in the natural light of the main upstairs gallery.

Lucas cigarette drawing

Sarah Lucas made several works constructed of cigarettes. This drawing is of Leon Trotsky who was both friend of Rivera and lover of Kahlo before he was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940.

Lucas

Lucas’s familiar stuffed nylon works seem less sexual and more regal in this environment. They dialogue nicely with the pre-Hispanic works.

snake on ceiling

Every room had a beautifully decorated ceiling.

small works in cases

Lucas

Sparse is the adjective I would use to describe the interior of the Zona Maco fair. I went three years ago (the year that Swine Flu broke out) and felt that this year the fair had lost some of its sophistication and clout from previous iterations. That was until I stepped into the vans that shuttled visitors to the collateral events for the fair held in various locations around Mexico City. I soon learned how well attended Maco is –I met curators, collectors, dealers and artists from all over the world. It was amazing! And with galleries like Lisson, Sadie Coles and Salon 94 participating, there was some stellar work to be seen. I particularly enjoyed the section of younger galleries and the single artist booths. However, the design area was in a terrible location and fell flat.

Highlights for me:

Max Wigram's booth

I loved the video installation at Max Wigram’s booth.

Buren at Continua booth

In two corners of Galleria Continua’s booth were Daniel Buren installations with mirrors that I found appealing.

Neon Cow

Mario Mauroner’s booth was topped with a neon cow. Hard to miss.

Richard Deacon at Lisson booth

Lisson came with some big guns including an Anish Kapoor, Lawrence Weiner and this beautiful Richard Deacon.

Table I liked at Enrique Guerrero's booth

I fell in love with this colorful felt-filled coffee table at Enrique Guerrero.

Installation at Raquel Ponce

I just found this visually fun.

Installation at Nordenhake

I loved this installation at Nordenhake’s booth!

Kolobrzeg, Poland, July 26, 1992, c-print

There is an amazing Mark Bradford show at SFMoMA as well but I have written at length over the years about his work. Instead I thought I would tell you about the wonderful exhibition of works by Dutch photographer, Rineke Dijkstra on view through May 28th. Whether it be through her famous beach series in which she photographed adolescents in their bathing suits in various places throughout the world, providing a glimpse into differences in comfort levels and body perception in various cultures, or through her series of bullfighters having just walked out of the ring, Dijkstra’s goal has always been to capture a “moment of truth” in her work.

Bullfighters series, 1994

In the 90s, she focused on imagery of people who had experienced traumas such as the bullfighters and women who had just given birth. In one of her most famous series, she takes pictures of Almerisa, a 6 year-old from Bosnia, whom she photographed every 1-2 years. We see the transformation from girl to woman and the cycle of life as the last images is of Almerisa and her own child.

Vondelpark, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 10, 2005

Her works always have simple backdrops so we can focus on the moods and emotions of her subjects. The fact that most of her sitters are less than 20 years of age, an age when there is a perceived freedom and lack of fear, an false sense of immortality gives her works a power and truth that makes me actually long for my youth. Don’t get me wrong, their angst and vulnerability are palpable, but that is what makes us connect–we have all been there.

Cindy Sherman's photographic murals at entrance of her show at MoMA

I should absolutely start by saying that I love Cindy Sherman’s work. Her black and white film stills from the 70s are some of the smartest pieces I have seen. And her entire oeuvre examines identity in a way no other artist has. But after being away from NYC and visiting the show subsequent to reading reviews (something I try to avoid), I have to say that I was disappointed. There were a number of great things about the show: the film stills , the room of history portraits, seeing all of her work together in one space allowed viewers to appreciate what she has accomplished over the years. But overall, I felt as if I had seen everything before. If you have seen one Cindy Sherman from a particular series, is it absolutely necessary to see 10 more? Sure, if you have the time and stamina. But if one is visiting NYC, there are so many other things worth seeing that will be new and fresh. However…

Untitled Film Still

I am including images from the works that I responded to. One of the best parts of this exhibition is seeing so many of the black and white film stills from the late 70s/early 80s hung together. I thought I had seen all of them, and while I did recognize many, there were a lot I had never seen before. And hung together, they were marvelous!

History portrait room

Hanging the history portraits salon style was genius. The viewer can immerse himself in them in this small back gallery. Placing herself within the context of Old Masters paintings, these are some of Sherman’s finest works. Sherman is not trying to fool the viewer into believing these are real scenes or that she has “become” a particular character. We see the spot where the bald cap meets her head; we can clearly see the fake breasts and the unevenly applied bushy eyebrows on some of her characters. The works are playful but at their core about identity and how false perceptions can truly be.

Cindy Sherman

In the final two galleries we see Sherman’s most recent photographs of herself as members of the upper class–the 1%. Her portrayal of these overly-tanned divas with sagging skin is spot on, making us almost feel sorry for them for their pitiful vanity.

Martin Schoeller, Cindy Sherman, c-print 2000

It’s funny, one of the pieces of art I have always wanted to own for my collection is a portrait of Cindy Sherman by the photographer, Martin Schoeller. It is a close up of her face, little makeup, freckles, and no costumes; this is as close to the artist as a person as we will ever get. We normally see the quiet Sherman dressed up as someone else. Seeing her exposed and vulnerable held great appeal for me. It’s as if those eyes have really lived all of the moments she has created in her art.

Cindy Sherman will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art New York through June 11, 2012.

Marco Rountree Cruz

This wall of photographs displaying red smiley faces on every figure made me laugh. I found it refreshing that the artist did not take himself too seriously. It reminded me of Baldessari but more playful. I love the simple presentation of the photos lined up side by side and taped to the wall in a long line.

Miriam Bäckström

This was the most beautiful installation. Held between two sheets of glass, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the photographs in both black and white and color with varying shades of light and shadow.

Lawrence Carroll

Like a dilapidated Judd, this work by  Carroll drew me over for closer inspection.

installation by Daniel Guzman

Installation by Guzman

This narrow hallway was lined with ephemera and tchotchkes and I found the installation quite intriguing. There was also an Urs Fischer crushed cigarette carton suspended from a wire that traveled around in a circle, a video by Francis Alÿs of his tracking of a storm, and some precious wear cups perched on a ledge by George Stoll that one could almost miss if engaged by other works.

Jumex party

This year, rather than heading out to the infamous Jumex party at the actual plant, the party was held in the historic district in a gorgeous building near the Zócalo. It did not disappoint–a good time was had by all–as well as a lot of tequila!

Rashid Johnson exhibition, installation view

I have to say I have a totally newfound respect for Rashid’s work after hearing him speak this past Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Message to Our Folks, his first major solo museum show, has been titled after a 1969 album by the avant garde jazz troupe called Art Ensemble Chicago. He selected the title because he liked the idea of “folks.” He wondered Who are “our folks?” Who is the collective us? Who is the message to? Viewers will either be embraced or distanced by the title. It was conscious decision to put the title inside the first gallery as opposed to the more common practice of placing it and the introductory wall text outside of the galleries. He wanted the viewer to read about the show while standing on an actual work, the wooden floor. He made the crowd the laugh by describing his desire to make the viewer look down in the first gallery (at the floor), up in the second (at the salon style hanging of photographs), and then down again at a work called “Black Yoga” which consists of a Persian rug and a video monitor of a man doing yoga all placed on the floor in the middle of the gallery. By nodding your head up and down by the time you make it to the third gallery, “you’ve already agreed with the show,” he stated.

Over his 14 year career, Rashid’s work has been about the exploration of the physicality of materials–an investigation of both visual and conceptual constructions of identity and abstraction using commonplace objects such as plants, books, records, soap and shea butter. He appropriates and his work is riddled with art historical references. Of course, his experience as a black man in the United States informs his entire oeuvre.

Rashid explained to the large crowd who had gathered to hear him speak to the curator of the exhibition, Julie RodriguesWidhom, that he uses materials that he was influenced by that had significance for him. The work is informed by these known materials. (Persian rugs from a trip to West Africa, shea butter from growing up in a home that used it for healing, plants which require the nurturing touch of the owner, CB radios that he and his dad used.) Viewers can either identify with the objects as well making it a shared conversation, “a collective conversation” or not. But things are continuously introduced and reintroduced in his work. Though being a black man influences his output, he explained that he experienced no trauma as a result of it, and he was careful to make the distinction between a person’s history and a collective history. He deals with his neuroses more than any tragedies in his work. Rashid’s very educated history involved both a grandmother who attended college and a mother who was a professor at Northwestern–a historian and thus historical figures were very important in his house. An example of this can be seen in a photograph titled “Self-Portrait with my hair parted like Frederick Douglass.” He wondered, if you part your hair like a brilliant man, do you get any closer to being a brilliant man?

Photography salon

His interest in photography began when he worked with a wedding photographer; it eventually led him to portraiture and then he became the subject of his photographs. That led to his interest in light and the question how does light interact with surfaces? How is work brought to life by the way light reacts to it?

I really like what he said about his fascination with people who live somewhere but don’t really live there–they live in the past where their history is. He is interested in finding a “now” space. Rashid wants to connect to his own experience rather than live through experiences of people who came before him. He grew up in a home filled with Afro-centrism early on but that stopped and he told the audience that he felt abandoned. He said it’s like having a Bar Mitzvah and then having your parents tell you that the family is not going to be Jewish anymore. His value system had shifted and he had to negotiate how to live in the world after that. It is for this reason, and others, that the shifting nature of identity is a recurring theme for Rashid.

Julia asked him about how and why he makes what are considered paintings without actually using paint. He said “I have always been enormously concerned with painting, I have never been concerned with paint.” His floor pieces are actually subtractive, not additive. He considers himself a “photographer that came to sculpture and my sculpture looks like paintings.”

"Houses in Motion," 2011, branded red oak flooring, black soap, wax and spray enamel

I am quite drawn to his branded oak floor works which he began recently in 2011. When hung on a wall, Rashid feels that they recall 1970s wood paneling. When asked about the iconography of palm trees and the cross hairs of a shotgun, he has logical explanations. Palm trees represented an opportunity, an escape vehicle. Being from Chicago, a trip to a destination with palm trees seemed like a privilege; it provided access. The cross hairs came from the logo of a group he loves, Public Enemy. He just loves the symbol which he finds formally aggressive. Across from the salon of photographs is a mirrored work which has the word “run” spray painted in white on it. Rashid is drawn to the word because it is the quick suggestion of something that moves your body. He likes simple suggestions that are significant and the word “run” and the cross hairs have a similar feeling. Is the gun pointing at me or am I pointing it at someone else? He explained that his work has no clear agenda but presents many views, some of them conflicting.

Rashid Johnson, installation view

When asked why he uses mirrors in his work he brought it back to the discussion of “nowness” that began in graduate school. He gave the example of fixing one last thing in a mirror before you turn around and walk out into the world. We never seem to care or acknowledge that 10 minutes later that same flaw we fixed will be back. It is our “now” character who believes that what people see is the image we just saw in the mirror. We seem to know who we are in that “now” moment and we stay with that when presenting ourself to the world.

When asked about his use of oyster shells, he told us about an essay called “Sharpening My Oyster Knife” that he found interesting. He explained that there is never a need to sharpen an oyster knife. The author is subtly saying in her work, don’t worry about me, I am fine. I’m just sharpening my oyster knife. He thought it was brilliant.

Another literary reference was explained. In a large central work there is a book, The End of Blackness. Rashid told his audience that he was intrigued by the theories in the book. He went on to explain that if you can walk up to something then we can experience it together. But a collective group cannot walk up to concepts such as “blackness” so it cannot be monolithic.

In the first gallery “Sweet Sweet Runner” is a video from 2010 that references an independent film in which a black protagonist runs from white authorities. In this version, the protagonist is simply going on a jog in Central Park. In the next gallery, Rashid’s emotive portraits highlight the humanity of his subjects. One series considers black subjects within the history of photography. The double images and reflective nature in his pieces are influences from W.E. B. DuBois’s notion of “double consciousness” when one always looks at one’s self through the eyes of others.

A thorough look at the work of an artist who still has much to offer us.

Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks is on view at the MCA Chicago through August 5, 2012.

WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2012

Installation view

While I was pleased that an entire floor was given over to performance by the curators of the 2012 Whitney Biennial, there were no performances going on the day I was there and thus, an entire floor was empty during my visit which I found a bit frustrating. At the last Whitney Biennial I enjoyed the emphasis on videos and found the work on view compelling. Sadly, this iteration left me a bit cold.

Floor 4. performance space

dressing room

I did like that the “green room” for performers, created by the artist Wu Tsang to look “like a dressing room in an old blue collar bar turned drag venue,” was also used for a video installation and that there was a proper dressing room with lattice structures that viewers, like true voyeurs, could peek through to see performers changing clothes and getting their hair done.

And I enjoyed Rober Gober’s second curatorial effort at the museum, showing the late Texan self-taught artist, Forrest Bess’s work.

all over

Lutz Bacher hung 85 framed book pages of celestial imagery throughout the entire museum. And I wondered what the point was.

Nick Mauss entryway

Mauss’s installation confronts the viewer as they walk through white doors after stepping off the elevator. As it attempts to place one in another time and place, it was Mauss’s hope that the work “disrupt the expected experience of a contemporary art exhibition and initiate a spatial, temporal and psychological shift for viewers.”

Joanna Malinowska installation

I found Joanna Malinowska’s work some of the most interesting in the exhibition. From the Canyons to the Stars is a sculpture in the middle of the gallery made from replicas of walrus and mammoth tusks native to the Arctic. Inspired by Duchamp’s readymade, she explores ideas such as “collective consciousness” as well as trying to bridge the gap between two very distinct cultures. This work “enacts a fantasy of Arctic peoples creating a sculpture that unknowingly echoes both everyday Western art and life.” On view closer to the wall is This Project is not Going to Stop the War./Journey to the Beginning of Time which is made up of a tv screening a video of the artist enacting various rituals of indigenous cultures while having visions of Joseph Beuys doing similar things. The last part of her installation is a painting on a wall by Leonard Peltier, an “imprisoned American Indian Movement activist.” She makes a statement by “smuggling in” the work of an artist as “an intervention….questioning both her inclusion in the Whitney Biennial and the absence of Native American art in the Museum’s collection and exhibitions.”

wall of Nicole Eisenman works on paper

I also really liked the two walls of works by Nicole Eisenman in the Biennial. I know everyone has seen her work before but so what. Exploring a “broader interest in the human condition,” the works are just more interesting than a lot of other work out there these days. Part of that is the result of Eisenman treating each of her subjects differently and respects each figure’s “isolated psychological space.” It is for this reason that some might not even know the works are all by the same artist if they were not part of an installation, hung a certain way with wall text.

Kate Levant, 'eyenter 'integra intra' impression, 2012, mixed media

Across from Eisenman’s work was an installation by Kate Levant. Made from scavenged remnants of a burned house in Detroit, Levant’s work is hopeful. Though there is poverty and crime in cities, just as the work utilizes crumbling and used objects, they are used to make something “new and unknown.” Another artist, Michael E. Smith, also creates his works out of materials from his urban Detroit surroundings. One work is made of handles covered in oats.

Elaine Reichek's work

Influenced by the Greek myth of Ariadne in which Theseus, a warrior, found his way out of a Minotaur’s lair by following thread given to him by Ariadne, the artist Elaine Reichek uses both hand as well as digital sewing techniques to craft impressive and quite beautiful works.

Two artists whose work I have written about for many years also have pieces on view, Moyra Davey and Liz Deschenes. Davey’s photographs that have been mailed to female relatives are poignant, beautiful works with personal subject matter that highlights the effects of time. Liz Deschenes has been experimenting with photography in all forms for a few years. Her photograms on view are not made with a camera, but simply by using light-senstive paper. Usually photograms involve placing an object on paper and exposing it to light. Deschenes chooses to focus on the light itself and places nothing on the paper.

Dawn Kasper, THIS COULD BE SOMETHING IF I LET IT, 2012, from the series The Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment

The Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment came about because Kasper has been without a studio since 2008. So, galleries invite her to use the gallery or museum space as her studio. So, in the work in the Biennial she places all of the items from her studio and most from her bedroom on view in a gallery. During the entire 3 month period of the show, Kasper is holding studio hours and making work. She thinks of it as a “living sculpture.” This studio time thus becomes as important a part of her work as  her final performances and artworks. Honestly, this felt so ridiculous. How many times have I seen an iteration of this before. I felt like I was seeing Tracy Emin’s Bed all over again.

NYC GALLERY SHOWS WORTH SEEING….

Chelsea

Ryan McNamara at Elizabeth Dee (not just because I am a part of it but because you can be too)

"A Long Night" by Ryan McNamara

Walking into the gallery I had no idea what I was getting into. Ryan McNamara’s current show at Elizabeth Dee involves visitors, six different canvas backdrops, two large mirrors, costumes galore and is extremely participatory. An ebullient Ryan asked me and Tony, my boss, if we would mind being photographed. We replied no, but timidly moved into position in front of the colorful backdrop. Ryan was immediately taken by my strand of pearls and he knew just what he wanted me to do with them. Unfortunately Tony didn’t make it in the final photo. All of the pictures he takes during his three week stay in the gallery make it up on the Elizabeth Dee website. They will then be used as elements of a collage in other works. It was a very fun way to experience art and now I have my own portrait by an artist, as odd as it may be.

Donald Moffett at Marianne Boesky

Installation view

The Radiant Future exhibition is just that–radiant. Moving away from the walls that confine him on some level, Moffett has created paintings that almost exist as sculptures. He calls the structures that hold the paintings (with oval and circular holes cut in them), “contraptions.” To see the paintings nailed to wooden boards that are taped to concrete blocks or suspended in space from wires, gives them a freshness that his work has not had in awhile.

Paul Graham at Pace

Paul Graham

My favorite show I saw in Chelsea was “Paul Graham: The Present” at The Pace Gallery. Graham’s new work is the third part of a trilogy that includes earlier series: a shimmer of possibility (2004-2006) and American Night (1998-2002). Included in this show are 16 diptychs and 2 triptychs whose subject matter is life on the streets of Manhattan. Shots appear to be taken just seconds apart causing the viewer to look carefully to see the subtle changes in the urban landscape that Graham so thoughtfully captures. The photographs remind of us how things can change in an instant. One woman walks down the street only to trip in the next frame. The energy of the city, but also its palpable loneliness fill the compositions. Hanging the works very low to the ground gives them a real intensity and power. We, the viewers, feel as though we are there acting as voyeur.

Corinne Wasmuht at Friedrich Petzel

Installation view Corinne Wasmuht

I immediately recognized this artist’s work from the last Venice Biennale. In fact, if you watch my video coverage of the Biennale, I mention that this was one of my favorite works in the Arsenale section. It mixes the squeegee-like abstraction of Richter with figuration. The artist are “generated from an array of abstracted and overlapping photographic imagery that Wasmuht sources form a combination of the Internet and her own personal photographs.” The layers of paint on boards that have been whitewashed and polished give her works a luster and glow. I was immediately drawn to her large-scale paintings and was thrilled to see and recognize her work.

Polly Apfelbaum at D’Amelio Gallery and Hansel and Gretel Picture Garden

Polly Apfelbaum

Titled, Flatterland Funkytown, Apfelbaum’s show is the first at the new D’Amelio Gallery though she has shown often when the gallery was D’Amelio Terras. The press release states it so much more eloquently than I could, “The installation consists of hundreds of crushed synthetic velvet pieces, all hand-cut, dyed, and laid out across the gallery floor. Always situational, Apfelbaum’s intentional arrangements expose the temporal and improvisational currents running through her abstractions. The flatness that characterizes Apfelbaum’s installation is less about form than it is about horizontality, a structural flattening of hierarchy that can be found in musical forms such as funk and punk rock.”

Hansel and Gretel Picture Garden

Contemporaneously, Apfelbaum is showing Flatland: Color Revolt at the fantastic new space Hansel and Gretel Picture Garden. They are doing some of the most innovative shows in Chelsea. If  you are not familiar with their gallery, you need to check it out. It’s right next to Jack Shainman’s space on West 20th.

Alec Soth at Sean Kelly Gallery

Soth, Installation view

At Sean Kelly (who if you have not already heard is moving from his 29th Street space to a 22,000 square foot space that Exit Art used to inhabit on 36th and 10th), Alec Soth’s Broken Manual is getting great reviews and is his first show with the gallery. The work is influenced by the artist’s obsession with the reclusive Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. While researching for this body of work, Soth created an alter ego, Lester B. Morrison. Morrison has written a manual for living a life of seclusion, hence the title of the show. This Broken Manual makes up the installation in one of the galleries. Placed inside found books to hide the secret life these introverts take on, the manual is created as a special edition. Also on view in the first gallery is a documentary, Somewhere to Disappear, which follows Soth in his travels while working on this project.

Zak Prekop at Harris Lieberman

Prekop

I am a huge fan of Zak Prekop’s work. The works on view in this show were Ad Reinhardt-like with subtle taped off sections in grids. Some have an almost a Rorschach Warhol feel to them. There was one work with a great deal of raw canvas and two shades of striated blue giving the work an amazing texture. HIs works are really so beautiful. So many are so subtle in color palette and then you turn the corner and there is a bright blue work. In the work viewed here, I didn’t even notice that the black marks had a maroon diamond pattern until I got close up and looked carefully. His work is full of pleasant surprises.

UES

Bharti Kher at Hauser and Wirth

Kher

Kher

Kher installation view

The Bharti Kher show at Hauser and Wirth titled, “The hot winds that blow from the West,” includes pieces unlike the work I have previously seen by Kher which have all consisted of thousands of bindis on objects. The bindi is a signature material for Kher and it is a “loaded symbol.” Not a symbol of marriage or fashion, it actually represents the “third eye” linking the spiritual and real world. Though the staircase on the first level is covered in bindis, the next gallery has a room full or stacked radiators whose function is removed to create something totally new– a beautiful work of art. The second floor includes “Reveal the secrets that you seek.” Made up of 27 shattered found mirrors with bindis in grid formations, it reminded me of Pistoletto where the viewer’s reflection becomes an important element of the work.

Albert Oehlen at Gagosian

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2009-2011, Oil and paper on canvas, Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

In his first show with Gagosian, Oehlen has created new large-scale works. He uses paint and collage to create his pieces. Now with computer-aided design, he makes the viewer question what has been made by the artist’s hand, and what has been computer generated and altered.

LES

Ellen Harvey at Dodge Gallery

Upstairs installation view

Downstairs installation view

Kristen Dodge is not only a fantastic gallerist with great knowledge of her artists, she is also a crime fighter. When someone came into her gallery and stole paintings from her current show, she chased them down and retrieved the works. You go girl! Harvey’s first show at the gallery includes explorations of the nude that make up part of her ongoing series Museum of Failure.

Harvey seems fascinated with the draw of the artistic nude as well as its lack of ability to satisfy and pay dividends. In Nudist Museum Gift Shop Harvey displays ebay and junk shop nude paintings and tchcokes she has accumulated. These banal objects become fine art. And in some cases, fine art is appropriated in the making of everyday objects such as Venus de Milo salt and pepper shakers. The show “makes explicit both the gallery’s function as a shop and as a creator of museum-like value.”

Henry Taylor at Untitled

Installation view

Henry Taylor worked as a psychiatric nurse for ten years and during this time he began painting. Based in LA he paints friends, as well as strangers who visit his studio. In this show, March Forth, an African hut (made of scraps from his studio as well as a trip he took to Ethiopia) is the centerpiece. The thread that links the hut and his paintings is the spontaneity of its creation.

Sam Moyer at Rachel Uffner

installation view Moyer show

Sam Moyer

Moyer attempts to “explore the liminal space between the two and three-dimensional” worlds. These are gorgeous works with a great deal of depth that images cannot accurately capture. Unlike Tauba Auerbach’s work which I was initially reminded of, this is not trompe l’oeil but a multi-stepped process. The process involves dying the canvas in India ink and folding it to dry with creases. She then draws on it with a bleach pen, ultimately ironing it and gluing it to wood panels.

Franklin Evans at Sue Scott Gallery

Franklin Evans

Frnaklin Evans floor

Franklin Evans creates an environment in every show I have seen his work in. You step into his world and in this case, on his world as the floor very much becomes part of the work.

NEW YORK CITY ART FAIRS

The Independent

Rob Pruitt at Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Oscar Murillo's installation at Stuart Shave

Mac Adam's installation at gb agency

The Armory Show

The Armory Show 2012

Eric Yahnker at Ambach and Rice booth

Beautiful paintings by Philippe Cognée at Galerie Templon

Golden bird prints by Carsten Höller at Nitsch

Massimo de Carlo's booth

Curtis Mann photo/collage on Gordon Matta Clark book page at Kavi Gupta

Spencer Finch at Lisson

SSudarshan Shetty at Galerie Templon

Ruben Ochoa work on paper at Suzanne Vielmitter

Nico Vascellari at Monitor

Ian Tweedy at Monitor

Baudach, Grenne Naftali and Krinzinger booth definitely the most colorful

Dependent

Ambients Gallery, work by Jessie Stead

Marshmallows by Stead

Last year this small hotel fair lasted four hours. This year, in a new location, I had 8 whole hours to make it to the Comfort Inn to see the work on view. You could tell it was a success by the wall to wall people in the halls and stairwells. Once again, it provided a completely different almost anti-art fair experience than the other events taking place throughout the city.

ADAA The Art Show

Tanya Bonakdar's booth featuring Sarah Sze

Francesca Goodman, Untitled, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire, 1979-1980

Francesca Woodman black and white still lives and self portraits were on view at Marian Goodman Gallery. A retrospective opens soon at the Guggenheim.

Pace opted for a Yoshitomo Nara booth

SPRING/BREAK Art Show at the Old School

Spring Break bar area

A more off the beaten path experience was a curator based fair called SPRING/BREAK. One of the organizers said about this event:  “SPRING/BREAK definitely has a niche, for the people that are kind of off the beaten path a little bit. It’s experimental; you can do crazy strange things. This is obviously not for sales only. If there are sales, that’s great, but it’s definitely more for art and experiencing the space. I think it being in this old school lends a whole other thing to it. ”NYC ART FAIRS

“Sarah Sze: Infinite Line” at the Asia Society in New York

Installation View

Sarah Sze is having one hell of a year! She has been selected to represent the United States at the 2013 Venice Biennale and she currently has a solo exhibition at the Asia Society in New York (her work was also on display at Tanya Bonakdar’s booth at the ADAA Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory).

The first work I saw of hers was a fragile paper cutout that was pinned to a wall and then cascaded down to the floor like a broken accordion. Her work has evolved to include scroll drawings, assemblages of everyday materials and installations that fill rooms–all in her attempt to explore the boundaries between drawing and sculpture. She is “interested in the depiction of gravity and weightlessness as disorienting.” Born in 1969 in Boston to Chinese and American parents, she received her MFA from SVA and her career has been on a meteoric rise ever since.

In the main gallery, Sze uses elements from the gallery walls such as lights switches and thermostats and incorporates them into her assemblages. Other materials that can be found in her works are: rocks, blue painter’s tape, wood, pen tops, a clove of garlic, a tree branch, coffee cups, ticket stubs, metal clips, a driver’s license with change tied to it, thread laid out in concentric circles on the floor, airline boarding passes, sand, a pillow, mirror fragments, lights, photographs, cutouts, a clock, toothpick constructions and clay just to name a few. Throughout the show she plays with the number eye tests made up of small circles in two colors that eye doctors used to use to check your eyesight. Some works look like miniature cities, one looks like a loom with thread running through the paper which is tied at the ends to pill containers and matchbooks. I felt as if there was a theme of perhaps memory or identity for Sze that ran through all the pieces. But instead of trying to psychoanalyze, I simply enjoyed taking them in–what fun!

In the smaller gallery, works on paper from 1996-the present are on view. I enjoyed being able to get up close to the works. And, there were figures in some. In fact, my favorite pieces were the portrait drawings Sze made by asking people for a list of 12 seminal events in their lives. She then drew her interpretation of each event. She says, a “portrait can be a revelation of a pact of intimacy between an artist and the subject….how it explores what it is to capture a person, and how it might reflect how we document our lives through events and memories.” These are lovely intimate works. Also noticeable in these works on paper is her preoccupation with perspective. As can be found in Chinese scroll paintings, there is no middle ground in some of these drawings, confusing the viewer as to what is foreground and what constitutes the background. Line, light and the arrangement of materials lead the viewer’s eye throughout her carefully constructed compositions.

Sze installing her show