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Archive for the 'Openings' Category

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Print/Out: MoMA surveys contemporary printing

Earlier this week I attended the opening reception for Print/Out, MoMA’s latest exhibit to highlight printing practices, this time, surveying contemporary projects and series of the last two decades. Culled almost exclusively from the museum’s Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, the exhibit is as visually compelling as it is informative. A section devoted to the work of Edition Jacob Samuel, highlighted by a display and video demonstration of his portable aquatint box and Marina Abramovic portfolio, offers a rare glimpse at the technical artistry of the print master and his practice. In Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), Kara Walker’s solid black silhouette figures find new context, silkscreened against reproductions of an 1886 publication of Civil War prints. Selections from Damien Hirst’s 1999 Last Supper portfolio remind me why he was once interesting. Danish collective Superflex (who launch a solo show at Peter Blum next month) have set up a functioning workshop, inviting visitors to create replicas of iconic modern lamp designs by selecting a design and pasting computer print outs onto small wooden box frames. The works will be periodically hung from the gallery’s ceiling, growing an installation of art reproductions over time. The participatory piece in flux may just compel me visit again in a few weeks.

Jacob Samuel’s portable aquatint box.

Friday, January 20th, 2012

The Stuck Up Gallery Tour

This weekend, DB Burkeman unveils the 2nd installment of the Stuck Up Tour, a traveling exhibit that accompanies the meticulous ethnography of  Stuck Up Piece of Crap (Rizzoli), his book chronicling the history of sticker art in pop culture. Those in Chicago should brave the storm and head out to Maxwell Colette Gallery on Saturday Jan 21, for an afternoon (1-3pm)  book signing featuring DB and celebrated photographer, Martha Cooper.

Coinciding with the show are a number of exiting new additions. First, there’s the free  Stuck Up iPhone ap, which allows users to browse, upload and geotag stickers around the globe. It is a fascinating addition to the overall project. Next, a new video short called Gate Wars (watch below) presents a mesmerizing montage that weaves together a tale of competition and sticker rivalry amongst New York City’s locksmiths. It really is worth viewing. And don’t forget the swag! – go cop a truly cool t-shirt here.

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Barry McGee in Venice

Barry McGee has quietly opened a new solo show at Worshop Arte Contemporanea, a new gallery in Venice, Italy. The show marks a continuation of the artists shift in presentation.  Rather that engulfing space in wall to wall panel installations,  McGee is increasingly moving toward single isolated pieces, consisting of clusters of paintings on wood or framed photographs, and a greater use of white backgrounds as opposed to his past practice of overwhealming viewers with dizzying geometric color patterns. Recent exhibits at Modern Art (London) and Ratio 3 (San Francisco) also signal this move. The show runs through October 14.

Barry McGee
Sept. 3 – Oct. 14
Workshop Arte Contemporanea
Dorsoduro 2793 / A, 30123
Venezia, Italia

All text © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors
Images via  Workshop Arte Contemporanea

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Samuel Bayer Transitions @ Siren Studios

Transitions features large-scale still-life photographs and video installation by photographer/director/cinematographer Samuel Bayer. In this latest body of work Bayer uses both video and photography to explore consequences of man-made actions and natural occurrences. Bayer uses the butterfly to argue that complex structures and vexing situations are a dramatic catalyst in building depth, character and ultimately, beauty. Bayer does this by staging magnificent creatures on the outside of a cocoon while inside, a transforming event occurs. The event within is at times violent, painful and tragic. Yet Bayer believes that dramatic transitional experiences are keys to yielding beauty, creativity and achievement beyond belief.

The video installation is based on a documentary film Bayer is currently directing about a young man named David Anguiano. At a very young age David was severely injured. Since that injury David has been through a world of physical and emotional trauma yet, somehow, has managed to maintain an uplifting spirit and has literally found his voice through the arts. David, now 20, has taught himself how to play the guitar and is an accomplished actor. For the past five years David has written and directed plays for hospitalized children. Because of his involvement with The Art of Elysium and their volunteers, David has had the opportunity to direct a variety of actors including Eva Mendes, James Franco, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kristen Dunst and many others in his annual Christmas play. They all call him a genius.

Samuel Bayer
Transitions
Thursday, September 22, 2011
6:00 to 9:00pm
Siren Studios
6063 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood
Benefiting The Art of Elysium
In conjunction with The Art Reserve

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Internally Yours :: Nouar @ Helford

Nefariously clever Nouar is on the eve of letting us taste her latest visual treats at the Corey Helford Gallery, Culver City’s jewel. We’ve been fans for years, having interviewed the artist when she exhibited with Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Today, her evolution continues to provide delectable interplay of a highly personal narrative. The works in “Internally Yours” feature three-dimensional sugary confections, gelatin dessert molds and a bright, beguiling color palette that lure the viewer in. However, like Jeff Koons’ brightly-colored balloon animals, the characters have a significance beyond their deceptively innocent appearance. “For this show,” Nouar says, “I used food as a visual metaphor to symbolize how dangers are hidden, and how we don’t see them coming until it is too late.” For example, in her painting “Sweet Entrapment,” a bright-pink gummy bear smirks at the doe-eyed brunette trapped inside its stomach.

‘“Internally Yours” represents the idea of confinement, submission and eternity,” Nouar explains. “Sometimes, we find ourselves in situations we don’t want to be in. It feels like the world has swallowed us up whole.”

The techniques used in this exhibition were inspired by the 2009 group show at Corey Helford Gallery,“The Multi-Plane Show”, for which artists were asked to paint transparent panes in order to achieve a three-dimensional effect. “For my submission, I wanted to utilize the idea of actually being able to see through an object to see what is inside or behind it,” Nouar says. “After several attempts to tint the glass, I realized I would have to create a new transparent layer altogether. Thus I begun experimenting with sculpting and casting resin to achieve the effect I wanted in the final finished piece.”

Don’t miss the special ‘takehome’ tidbits on opening night.

Corey Helford Gallery
8522 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232

Opening Reception Saturday, June 11, 2011 from 7-10pm
On View June 11 – June 29, 2011 Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Time Before Time – Matt Leines in Italy

Our friend Matt Leines is set to open his first solo gallery show in Italy, at Galerie Patricia Armocida, Milan.  Matt he has been largely absent from public view lately, having taken time off to regroup and hone his practice. Though Time Before Time includes many pieces that have appeared in previous exhibits, the show is a welcome introduction for a new audience and serves as dialogue between old and new,. Presenting earlier illustrations from the past few years along side more recent works, Leines offers us an honest and  self-critical personal statement of a young artist striving to improve his craft and reflecting on his growth.

Matt Leines – Time Before Time
Nov. 25 – Feb. 14
Galerie Patricia Armocida
via Bazzini 17, 20131 Milano – IT

Friday, November 5th, 2010

Progress in the Face of Disaster :: Josh Keyes @ David B. Smith

Emergence, 2010 (All images via David B. Smith Gallery, text © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

I’ve been an admirer of Josh Keyes since first seeing his work in 2007. Yet, though his drafting and painting skills have grown increasingly impressive from a steady schedule of two solo shows a year, the delicate subtlety of his messages has largely disappeared. It’s a shame really. With Keyes, less has always been more, and his move towards increasingly overt imagery has actually simplified his art.

Collision (on view now at David B. Smith, Denver) signals a promising progression for an talent whose lightning paced success may have temporarily stunted his artistic growth. Within a single painting Keyes concurrently blends his blatantly apparent messages with ones more clandestinely cloaked, making this new series his most successful in some time. And, while this new body of work continues to include easy to digest post-apocalyptic environmental themes, the most successful ones are covertly suggestive and intertwined in history.

The show also marks a new and ambitious direction for Keyes, in that the ten paintings on view form a chronological storyline. Based on a a set of allegorical images of  regicide and resurrection that Keyes found in a sixteenth-century set of engravings, this exhibit promises to be the first installment in a trilogy of works depicting the fall, disintegration, and reemergence of Keyes’ protagonist in the face man’s destruction of the planet and a post apocalyptic world.

Josh Keyes – Collision
Nov 5 – Dec. 11
Opening Reception: Nov 4, 7-10pm
David B. Smith Gallery
1543 A Wazee Street
Denver, CO 80202

Friday, November 5th, 2010

KAWS @ Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris / Spongebob Print Release

(All gallery images via Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin)

KAWS‘ Paris outing offers the opportunity to witness his latest fixation with large-scale sculpture. After the debut of the giant black Accomplice at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum,  here we note the side-by-side accompaniment of a gargantuan pink Accomplice (both in an edition of 3, plus 1 Artist Proof). Aside from the massive dissected Companion at the artist’s Tokyo store Original Fake, Galerie Perrotin is the stage for an uber-scale brown 5 Years Later Companion (ed. 3 +1 AP). What truly marks this show is the ultimate evolution of brilliant colossal sculptural works, leaving the paintings in relative shadow. For the first time, KAWS has produced multiple immense sculptures for a solo gallery exhibition – an impressive offering indeed.

Together with the monumental 5YL Companion currently on display in Hong Kong, as well as the edition of life-size Chums, this exhibition clearly signals the direction KAWS is taking towards titanic renditions.

UPDATE: Just a few short hours before doors opened to the preview of the Editions|Artist’s Book Fair in New York last night, the Aldrich Museum announced the release of a new KAWS print at their booth. Priced at $800 the 20″x20″ edition of 100 depicts the artist’s rendition of the Spongebob character (image below) and is KAWS’ first print since his 2007 Dissected Companion edition. After the fair’s end, twenty remaining prints will become available via Art + Culture Editions.

KAWS – Kawsbob, 2010 print released by Aldrich Editions. (Image © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

KAWS, Pay the Debt to Nature
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
76 rue de turenne 75003, Paris
11/6/10-12/23/10

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

NYC Openings

The above Barbara Kruger print will be released at the Editions|Artist’s Book Fair in an edition of 200, priced at $200.

Here’s our picks for this week’s art openings in NYC.

Thursday, Nov 4
Robert Lazzarini – friendly-hostile-friendly, Paul Kasmin Gallery, 511 W 27 St., 6-8pm
FAILE – Bedtime Stories, Perry Rubenstein 527 W. 23 St., 6-8pm
Dzine  – Voodoo, Leo Koenig Projekte,  541 W. 23 St., 6-8pm
Editions|Artist’s Book Fair, 548 W. 22 St., preview 6-9pm ($20), Free Fri-Sun
John Currin – New Paintings, Gagosian, 980 Madison Ave., 6-8pm
Jenny Holzer – Retro, Skarstedt, 20 E. 79 St., 6-8pm

Friday, Nov. 5
Hiroshi Sugimoto – The Day After, Pace Gallery, 545 W. 22 St., 6-8pm
Matthew Monahan – Anton Kern, 532 W. 20 St., 6-8pm
Andy Warhol – Warhol’s Andys, Ronald Feldman, 31 Mercer St., 6-8pm
NY Art Book Fair – PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave,  Preview 6-9pm, through Sunday

Saturday, Nov. 6
Raymond Pettibon –Hard in the Paint, David Zwirner, 525 W. 19 St., 6-8pm
Luc Tuymans – Corporate, David Zwirner, 525 W. 19 St., 6-8pm

Monday, November 1st, 2010

On the Move with a Still Life :: TAC Visits Erik Parker in the Studio

(All images and text © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

Life for Erik Parker is far from still. Last year the artist broke from the text and icon based glyph-like paintings that had guided him through successful solo shows in NY, Europe and Japan, unveiling new works with Paul Kasmin Gallery that were at once reminiscent of the dazzling colored psychedelia of Rick Griffin and portraiture somewhere between the twisted faces of Francis Bacon and the surreal-like heads of 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Now on the verge of his first museum exhibition, the Brooklyn based artist tackles yet another stylistic departure with a Los Angeles gallery show that is once again bound to surprise those familiar with his work. Earlier this month I paid Erik a visit in the studio to chat as he was putting the finishing touches on his newest paintings.

JN: Your upcoming exhibit reaches back to some of your work from several years ago, while also exploring new ground with still life paintings. Do you actively think about your next move professionally and where you are headed artistically, or take more of a Taosit approach and let the current take you where it may?

EP: That’s a good question! With the new body of work the idea was to make  paintings that were “pretty” and speak not of the grotesque but the good looking shit in life, so I looked to the still life.

JN: Interesting. I was wondering if any of them were specific references to other know works, but I think you said mostly they were from random, unknown Google searches?

EP: Yea, I did get some of the images from Googling but I also looked to Rousseau and Braque.

JN: For me the still life paintings were a surprising departure in content, while unmistakably still your own. It made me think back to some painters who all tackled this motif at points in their careers. Lichtenstein and Leger were the first to come to mind. Were you thinking about this dialogue at all?

EP: For sure man, absolutely!

JN: Did you get a chance to check out that massive Lichtenstein still life show that Gagosian had this past year?

EP: That Lichtenstein show was mind blowing. I love how his still lifes are his style but really honest too. I think he wanted them to be pretty on his own terms and that’s where i am coming from too.

JN: With the majority of the show focused on new material,  My Inventory is more reminiscent of your work on paper from a few years back.

EP: Word! My Inventory is the first of it’s kind on canvas. I just wanted to see if that type of work could be carried over onto canvas. It was sort of a personal challenge. That body of work and working that way is always fun and rigorous, so I do a few ever year and push them into diferent directions over a long period of time. The one on canvas had killer results. It became more graphic and illuminated in a post-pop kind of way.

JN: From the new paintings, it also struck me as the most personal piece.

EP: Right! But they are all a bit personal at the end of the day. There is no way out of that with me.

JN: Well, not to get too personal, but great record collection. It’s nice to see a fellow vinyl addict! What have you been listening to in the studio lately?

EP: Glad you asked man! I have been into heavy stuff for the last couple years. Off the top of my head, the Melvins, Sleep, Pissed Jeans, Hawkwind, Fela, Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Orange Goblin, Radio Moscow, Ghostface, and Children have been on a lot.

JN: So you grew up in San Antonio and went to college in Austin at the University of Texas, right? Were you in with the punk and indie scene down there?

EP: I think being Texan and being exposed to all that music and that kind of “fuck you, we’re from Texas” attitude had a big impact on me. That mixed with studying with Peter Saul definitely help me find my own voice as an artist.

JN: Right on! On that note, you’re about to have a bit of a homecoming with your first solo museum show. What’s the deal with that?

EP: I met the curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth through my gallerist Honor Fraser in L.A. and  we hit it off right away. I’m stoked to being doing a show there!

Erik Parker – Endless Anytime runs through December 18 at Honor Fraser, Los Angeles. Focus: Erik Parker opens at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth on December 5 and runs through February 6, 2011.

(All images and text © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)