the art collectors

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Armory Show :: Hits and Misses

Rosana Ricalde (All images © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

As is the case with any shopping mall of contemporary art, The Armory Show was a mixed bag of delightful hits and lackluster misses. Here are few memorable standouts on both ends of the spectrum. Read on for TAC’s hits and misses…

Hits:

Rosana Ricalde’s somber installation takes pages from the late José Saramago’s Nobel-Prize winning novel, Blindness. The story tells the tale of an epidemic of blindness afflicting the masses of an unidentified city, and the societal breakdown that ensues. Ricalde has deconstructed the book, rearranging its unbound and unfolded pages into neat rows, with each instance of “blind” and “light” cut out from the text and casting subtle shadows.  Its simplicity is captivatingly poetic, and a fitting homage to the recent passing of the Marxist novelist. (Baro Cruz)

Valeska Soares also relied on books as her medium, tightly clustering found frames together in a display reminiscent of the Mission School, each archiving a novel’s disclaimer page. The display is a light hearted take on the standardization of an art form, as the viewer is confronted over and over with different clauses discounting the reality of events and their associated characters. (Eleven Rivington)

Tim Davis’ Upstate New York Olympics was absurdly entertaining and addictively engaging. Several small video screens replayed an extensive series of one-man events in which the artist is the only contestant, including flag pole climbing, headstone exercises, puddle diving, lawn jockey leapfrog, and our personal favorite, the vanity plate lick. Nearby, an accompanying display of trophies for several of the events shines a light on the absurdity of art’s worth being propped up by recognition within the art establishment, and the superficiality of artists vying for attention through the awards and accolades of officials and experts. (Greenberg Van Doren)

Gilbert and George’s Urethra Postcard Art, comprised of souvenir shop postcards and phone booth sex ads and arranged into a geometric  symbol for the urethra was, all pun intended, quite a pisser and actually very compelling to be surrounded by. (Lehmann Maupin)

We loved the Los’ Carpinteros display with Sean Kelly, and the narrative extension it provided for their recent solo show with the gallery. For further discussion, see our separate post here

Misses:

Jota Castro’s golden helium balloons, each anchored to the ground by a bullet and together forming the word “Baghdad,” struck us as cheap and banal. Ok, we get it. Liberty  through war and destruction. Freedom by way of economic imperialism. The legacy  of the cradle of civilization’s golden age thrust against modern political, economic and religious warfare. Wow, what contradictions. (Gonzalez y Gonzalez)

I’m no hater of lowbrow, but Armen Eloyan’s painting of a gun toting suicidal cartoon dog missed its mark. Even if this were a joke, its not very funny. (Bob Van Orsouw)

David’ Kramer’s rips on Raymond Pettibon and  Richard Prince were entirely uninspired. In particular, one piece of a strutting Goofy with two school children at his sides struck us as overly reminiscent of a well known Banksy image. (Laurent Godin)