the art collectors

Monday, March 21st, 2011

TAC Focus :: Sean Kelly at Armory

(All images © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

Los Carpinteros‘ installation of recent works was a welcome extension to the Cuban duos’ recent show with Sean Kelly.  Four “architectural” watercolors encircled a melting chrome lantern, some serving as an extension to their new Rumba Muerta sculpture series. These are not merely the artists’ concept sketches, but an integral part of the Carpinteros’ overall message making, creating an extended narrative history to the primary sculptural works that were on view at the gallery’s main space. In Nueve Tabores Cuadrados pristine red congas are illustrated perfectly intact and prior to their meltdown into a bright liquid pool of red. A “blueprint” for Sala de Lectura Ovala shows preliminary plans for a reading room. Taken together with the final gallery construction which is still void of any books, the pieces relate to information control and media suppression of authoritarian political systems and are particularly relevant given the current crackdown on opposition movements in several nations including Egypt, Bahrain and Lybia.

Leandro Elich’s Subway consisted of a metal subway door recessed into the wall, with a video screen serving as its window, part of his video window series. A minute and a half silent loop of commuters Though not as nearly as mesmerizing as his 1999 Swimming Pool, a somewhere between a clever and kitschy take on voyeurism.

Though nothing special, a new study painting on paper by Kehinde Wiley and small scale sculpture were a reminder that  following the shuttering of Deitch, the artist has been snatched up by Kelly and is now in the company of Marnia Abramovic, Antony Gormley and Gavin Turk to name a few.