Archive for October, 2009
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Interview :: Ryan McLennan
(All Images © Ryan McLennan via Joshua Liner Gallery)
Virginia based artist Ryan McLennan has created a dense visual parable for our own existence, where animals, much like we humans, shape their surrounding world while engaged in the struggle to survive and coexist. McLennan opens a solo show of recent works this weekend, at New York’s Joshua Liner Gallery. We had time to ask Ryan a few questions before packing up his new paintings and heading to the city. Make sure to click images for larger views.
TAC: The title of your upcoming show is “The Strain of Inheritance.” Can you talk a bit more about this?
RM: Basically it is the struggle for survival and trying to build upon what little there is to begin with. Who exactly these animals have inherited their world from is not important, but they have it and what they are doing with it and themselves is the focus.
TAC: How crucial is it for you to create images that contain a political, social, or environmental message? Is this the starting point for you when planning a piece or body of work?
RM: The environmental message built the landscape for my paintings so it remains prevalent, though not always at the top of my thoughts. Political and social issues come through in the narrative, but again not a focus. I think those messages seep in through the subconscious, as I don’t consider myself an overly political person, definitely not a political artist. I am telling a story, creating a world that in many ways reflects our own. The animals in this world deal with issues just as we do. They have social relationships, varying religious beliefs, love and family, opposing political views, crime, work, and so on.
TAC: What can you share about your creative process and the research that goes into your pieces? – Has it changed or evolved at all with the latest work?
RM: When I started making these paintings, I was concerned with factual information and researching the behavior of the animals. This is still important, but lately I have found interest in fantastic and absurd scenarios. Using what I have read in mythology and legend to create landscapes and taking influence from portrait photography to individualize the animals, giving them roles in society. These sources have pushed my work in a different direction. I feel like these paintings have evolved into stills from a fantasy movie.
TAC: There seem to be conflicting messages of both hope and despair, violence and peace in your paintings – as if new life is being sustained by the death and destruction of previous life. What are your thoughts on this?
RM: The life and death cycle is very important in my work as well as in nature. I recently spent some time in Yellowstone National Park, which is crawling with wildlife. For all the elk and bison I saw I also came across plenty of skeletons and antlers. Those remains help in sustaining the ecosystem there. I use this in my paintings, but I push it a little further. The environment in my paintings is so barren that anything existing there must be considered for sustenance, shelter, or as something sacred. I lean a little more to the despair and struggle, which brings us back to the show title, but there is still a feeling of hope…with a little humor, at least funny to me.
TAC: So, you’re packing up and heading to NY for the show – anything you are looking forward to in the city?
RM: I’m really looking forward to seeing my NY friends. My family, Boston, Richmond and Philly friends all coming together. Simen Johan at Yossi Milo Gallery and some other shows I want to see around Chelsea. Museums. Bookstores. Restaurants. Just being in NY and not in Richmond. I try to visit enough to not have to live there.
Ryan McLennan – The Strain of Inheritance
Oct. 17 – Nov. 14
Joshua Liner Gallery
548 W. 28th Street
NY, NY 10001
info@joshualinergallery.com
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Elizabeth Peyton Retrospective Travels to Netherlands
Democrats are more beautiful (after Jonhatan Horowitz), 2001, oil on board. Collection Laura and Satfford Broumand, © Elizabeth Peyton.
Elizabeth Peyton: Live Forever, the museum retrospective which premiered at the New Museum in NY one year ago, opens Oct. 16 at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastrciht, Netherlands. A comprehensive hard-cover exhibition catalog co-published by the New Museum and Phaidon is now available. For more commentary, see our previous post.
Flower Liam, 1996, oil on board. Private collection Courtesy Zwirner & Wirth, New York, © Elizabeth Peyton.
Jackie and John (Jackie fixing John’s hair), 1999, oil on board. Collection Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey R. Winter, © Elizabeth Peyton.
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Bring Home a New York Minute
(Image via O.H. W.O.W)
The New York Minute exhibition catalog is now available via O.H. W.O.W as a hardcover edition, limited to 100 numbered copies and packaged with a special t-shirt. The set is $75, so hopefully a softcover version will pop up, like the one seen in this sneak peek via the show’s curator, Kathy Grayson (who was just interviewed by Art Observed). Read on for images. Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Lori Early at Opera Gallery, London
(All Images: © Lori Early via Curated Mag)
Lori Early opens Laments and Lullabies this Friday, Oct. 16, at Opera Gallery’s London location. The event marks her first solo show since exhibiting at Jonathan LeVine in the winter of 2008. Check out Curated Mag’s new interview with the New York based painter.
Lori Early – Laments and Lullabies
Oct. 16 – Nov. 14
Opera Gallery London
134 New Bond Street,
London, W1 2TF
london@operagallery.com
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Let There Be Light :: Monumental Times for James Turrell
Roden Crater, view from southwest. (Image: © James Turrell, Photo: Florian Holzherr, 2003.)
James Turrell is about to unveil a new light work and his largest ever museum installation at The Kunstmuseum in Wolfsburg, Germany. James Turrell: The Wolfsburg Project opens Oct. 24 and runs though April 5, 2010. In addition, Pace Wildenstein, NY, is currently holding its fourth solo gallery exhibit with the artist, featuring fifteen large-scale light works on view for the first time.
Ganzfeld Piece, Begehbare Installation, Stuttgart, 2009. (Image: © James Turrell, Photo: Zooey Braun.)
The most anticipated events, however, are still a few years off. After more than three decades of development in Arizona’s Painted Desert, Turrell’s Roden Crater will finally open to the public for the first time. The unveiling is scheduled sometime during the course of the artist’s upcoming museum retrospective, which will debut in 2012 at the Guggenheim before traveling to LACMA, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and several international institutions. Since 1972 Turrell has been transforming the extinct volcanic crater into an open-air observatory that will enable visitors to witness celestial phenomenon with the naked eye, viewable from only a handull of locations around the world.
An interactive book entitled Turrell World Tour will coincide with the opening of Roden Crater. The publication will highlight 137 public works across 18 states and 23 countries, and will function as a passport that is signed and stamped at each of the 85 destinations. Upon completing the tour, readers will be invited as a personal guest of the artist’s to the site.
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Blu Decorates Deitch Studios
(All Images/Video via Blu.)
The Italian street and mural artist Blu recently completed a new outdoor commission at Deitch Studios’ Long Island City Warehouse space. Check out this time-lapsed video and photos from the project.
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Wild Things Arrives
Final Drawing for Where the Wild Things Are. (Image: © Maurice Sendak, 1963. All rights reserved.)
There’s lots going on in anticipation of this week’s theatrical release of Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the children’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are. While much of the spotlight is on MoMA’s survey of Jonze’s accomplishments in film, several other events focus on Maurice Sendak, the story’s creator.
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco is hosting There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak, on view now through Jan. 19, 2010. The exhibit features watercolors, preliminary sketches, drawings, and dummy books from more than 40 of Sendak’s books. All works are on loan from the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, which holds the world’s largest collection of Sendak’s art, including some ten thousand items including drawings and manuscripts for over one hundred books, as well as prints, paintings, hand-made books, and a wide range of other ephemera.
Bruno, 1979. Concept Drawing for Where the Wild Things Are Opera (Image: via Animazing Gallery, © Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
The Rosenbach Museum has aslo lent twelve drawings and two manuscript pages for Where the Wild Things Are: Original Drawings by Maurice Sendak, taking place at the Morgan Library in New York.
Coinciding with these exhibits is Sendak in Soho, the largest ever sale of original art directly from the artist’s collection, including over 200 works, as well as a limited edition bronze sculpture. The show is currently on view at Animazing Gallery and runs till Nov. 8.
Lastly, The Rosenbach is currently holding two of their own Sendak exhibits. While And It’s Still Hot: Where The Wild Things Are focuses on the popular book, Too Many Thoughts to Chew: A Sendak Stew presents a refreshing curatorial approach that does not focus on Wild Things, and instead explores the reoccurring themes of food, eating, and being eaten in Sendak’s books.
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Josh Keyes Scorch II Print Release
Josh Keyes – Scorch II will go on sale next Thursday, Oct. 15 at 11am (Mountain Standard Time) via David B. Smith Gallery. The print measures 18 x 24″, and was produced as a signed and numbered edition of 50.
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Bring Out Your Dead
Damien Hirst – The Dead – Imperial Purple/Oriental Gold Skull, 2009.
Though we aren’t feeling this one, Damien Hirst will release a new print entitled The Dead this Saturday, Oct 10. The foil block prints measures 72 x 51 cm, and will be available in 30 different two-color variations, each in a signed and numbered edition of of 15 (with 5 APs). Co-produced by Paul Stopler Gallery and Hirst’s editions company, Other Criteria, The Dead will be available at Other Criteria at 6pm, in store and online the day of the release. Price: £3,450.
Damien Hirst – The Dead Print Release
Oct 10., 6-8pm, on view till Oct. 24
Other Criteria
36 new Bond Street
London, W1S 2RP
Tel: +44(0)20 7629 5800
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Obey Graveyard Shift T-Shirt
Coming Soon to the Obey Clothing Shop. Limited to 50 shirts in glowing orange ink. We approve.