Chelsea 1.23.09

Terry Winters and Pipilotti Rist

Friday, I hopped on a bus for an 'art day' to be spent in Chelsea and at MoMA. My main reasons for going were the Terry Winters exhibit at Matthew Marks and the Pippolotti Rist piece, Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), at MoMA. Both shows were very much worth the trip. 

The Winters exhibition contained beautiful paintings based on loose grid systems of overlapping 'knots' (the title of the show was Knotted Graphs) that floated in layers of translucent colors. They were a welcome departure from the seemingly impenetrable linear abstractions of recent years. They were two very different shows in concept and execution, but I felt a slight correlation between the Terry Winters paintings and the Rist video piece that has to do with the implied sense of objects and light floating in Winters' painting and the immersion of the viewer experiencing Pour Your Body Out. 

It's a very tenuous connection. I mean, the Pippilotti Rist piece was conceived with the idea of enveloping the audience in a sensuous visual and aural experience, while the Knotted Graphs of Terry Winters only hint at possible movement of light and objects across the painted plane. However, I still felt a sense of lightness fluidity that parallels some of the water scenes and slow-motion action that played out across the walls at MoMA in Pour Your Body Out. 

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Chelsea

In Chelsea, I didn't have much of an agenda besides seeing the Winters exhibit. Other than that, I wandered in and out of some of the galleries and was happy to find a few nice surprises and artists that were previously unknown to me. In no particular order: 

Shinichi Maruyama at Bruce Silverstein

Bruce Robbins at Marlborough-Chelsea

Teun Hocks at P•P•O•W

Two group shows that I also enjoyed: 

Drawing at Margaret Thatcher Projects and Off The Wall at Lennon Weinberg

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The real and virtual worlds collide

I happened by the Jim Dine exhibit, Hot Dreams (52 Books), and had started leafing through some of the books hanging from the gallery ceiling when I heard my name called. I looked up to find someone staring back whose face I didn't know. 

I don't know many people who live in New York so the chances of running into them randomly was pretty remote. It turns out the voice belonged to Martin B., aka,  Anaba online. He mentioned that he was familiar with my blog and recognized me from my profile photo. We chatted for a bit about the various shows we'd been seeing, our shared history of living in Philadelphia and going to school here before parting ways after an half-hour. 

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I did a lot of walking on Friday and learned a very important lesson: if it's cold, always make sure to wear the pair of socks without the thick thread that presses on the two smallest toes...