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...

Martin Puryear at MoMA

Caught the Martin Puryear show at MoMA the day after our opera night (see previous post). This show covers Puryear's development from the late 70's to the present and features around fourty-five pieces. The bulk of the work is on the sixth floor special exhibition spaces, but a few of his larger works are placed in the second floor atrium area, where my photos were taken. No photos were allowed in the sixth floor section, of course.

I first became aware of Martin Puryear in the mid-late 80's when I saw a great exhibition of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Quite a few of the works I saw then were in this show and it was like seeing old friends again after a long separation. Right alongside the older works were newer ones, a non-chronological arrangement that was a great asset to the show since you could see Puryear's ideas going back and forth between works completed years apart. At the same time, there wasn't a sense that he was repeating himself. That's something that I think contributes to the sense of timelessness his sculpture has.

The allusive quality of his work is really strong but you can never quite put your finger on what it might be that he is refering to. I can look at one of his pieces and be on the brink of recognition, just about to have an 'a-ha!' moment, but then something happens-a shift in materials or surface treatment-that makes me re-evaluate my original assumption; is that a wooden facsimile of a sawblade or one side of an unfinished flight of stairs? Puryear takes fairly recognizable forms like ladders, wheels, tools, etc..., and places then in unusual formal relationships that creates things that are tantalizingly close to what we know in our world but just different enough to exist on another plane altogether.

Placido and Puryear

Last Light IV

Goin' to get some high culture tonight!

A couple of months ago, my wife found an announcement somewhere online that Placido Domingo was appearing in an opera at the Metropolitan Opera House and promptly purchased tickets. The only seats we could afford were the family circle, a.k.a., 'the nosebleed seats', but we figure it's worth it since we're there more to hear him than see him. I've never been to the Met, so maybe the sightlines are better than I might think. I think they have screens now at some opera houses, but I'm not sure. Might have to rent some binoculars just for the hell of it.


The opera we're seeing is Iphigénie en Tauride. There's a synopsis of the story here. Domingo sings the part of 'Oreste', brother of Iphigénie.

We're staying overnight at a friend's house in Brooklyn and tomorrow we're planning on seeng the Martin Puryear retrospective at MoMa. I've long been a fan of Puryear's work, especially since seeing a show of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art back in the late '80's. I've always loved his craftsmanship and how he's been able to work near wonders with wood and other materials. Tyler Green had a lot of good things to say about the show as did Roberta Smith in the New York Times. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this long-overdue exhibition.

I'm going to be in an art coma by the time we're home tomorrow night.

Serra, pt. II

Video walkthrough of Richard Serra's sculptures Torqued Torus Inversion (2006) and Sequence (2006), on display at MoMA as part of the exhibition Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years. The exhibition is on view through September 10, 2007.

E and I went to see the exhibition for the second time yesterday ((first time was here)) and are still buzzing about the work. One thing that came up in conversation about the work is the difference in effect it would have if the pieces on the 2nd floor (Band 2006, Torqued Torus Inversion 2006 and Sequence 2006) were located in an outdoor setting. One of the major effects of walking thorugh the works is that of directional disorientation.

The tops and bottoms of the steel panels curve inward and out, while you follow seemingly endless curves along the horizonal plane which can cause you to feel like you might lose balance when you look up. We figured that if there were open sky above instead of MoMa's ceiling, the sensation of being unbalanced would be enhanced, perhaps. That these large works are indoors and in a cavernous space, they feel even more imposing and threatening due to the enclosed space. If they were ourside, I think the sense of expansiveness and open space outside of the sculptues could make them a little less imposing if there is enough distance away from them. Maybe. It doesn't really matter since the power of Serra's large works seem to translate well outdoors and in.

Richard Serra at MoMA

I've been waiting for a long time to see some of Ricahrd Serra's larger works in person and I finally got the chance a couple of weeks ago. I was in New York with my fianceé to meet up with a friend of hers, along with visiting a couple of jewelry supply places for her and to see the Serra retrospective at MoMA.

We hit the sixth floor first, where the earlier works are shown. Some of the works up there hadn't been shown in years and most I hadn't seen in person. It's always kind of surreal to view artworks by iconic artists whose only contact I'd had was as reproductions in books and magazines. Incidentally, the first time I even found out about Richard Serra's work was toatlly by mistake. It was back in '90 and I was in New York for the first time with a former girlfriend. MoMA was on the agenda and I don't even know if it was a special exhibition, but I remember turning a corner, walking into a room and finding myself in the center of a piece I later came to know as Circuit, four steel plates situated in the corners of the space, bisecting the room diagonally with an open space in the center.

There were other works of his there that time, but Circuit II really made a lasting impression with it's sense of danger (collapse) and reassertion of how the space was navigated by the viewer(s), something that has been integral to Serra's work for years.

The earlier work took up the entire sixth floor and includes a good representation of the early 'prop' pieces, like Prop(1968) and One Ton Prop(House of Cards)(1969) in lead as well as works in rubber such as Belts(1966-67) and To Lift(1967).

The newer pieces in the cavernous space on the second floor, Sequend, Band, and Torqued Torus Inversion, all made in 2006 are amazing to behold. Band, is particualirly beautiful with it's 70-something feet of twisting curves with no interior space. It's like walking along a piece of ribbon standing on edge, except Band, like most of Serra's works, weighs tons. That these three huge works were even able to be put in the space together and not feel crowded seems like a miracle. It still messes with my mind to know how much tonnage is sitting there, looking much lighter than it is. Some of that also has to do with the oxidation that takes place. These works have a beautiful orange patina that can make you forget that you're standing next to and touching a material that is used in much more utilitarian ways, as in steel girders and other architectural substructures.

Photography isn't allowed inside, but if you're unfamiliar with Serra's work, the exhibition pages on MoMA's site will give a good overview (Flash 8 required). The two pieces in the sculpture garden, Intersection IV and Torqued Ellipse II were fair game and I tried to take as much advantage as I could (click images for larger views):

Intersection II







Torqued Ellipse IV

Puryear at Moma in '07

I was just perusing Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes and came upon this bit of news that almost made me have an art orgasm. Martin Puryear is one of my favorite contemporary artists and I'm very happy that he's finally getting a long-overdue retrospective at MoMa in late 2007. Images of his work can be seen on this page.

I've loved Puryear's works for years and got to see a bunch of them up close and personal at a large exhibition of his works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art almost 12 years ago, probably more. My memory isn't always the best, but I do remember Puryear being shown at the PMA a good while ago. I'll see if I can find mention of it somewhere.

His work is amazingly beautiful, powerful, and seductive all at once. I can't always put my finger on it, but Martin Puryear's sculptures have a way of drawing me in and I don't care to resist at all. He's one of those artists who pulls together craftsmanship and formal interests in a way that goes beyond the limitations of labels like 'craft' or 'fine art'. Puryear's work trandscends such labels simply because it is good, solid art.

This exhibition will definitely be on my 'must see' list for 2007