Haim Steinbach, Meyer Vaisman... The Incomplete!

Haim Steinbach, from The Incomplete, at The Chelsea Art Museum.

I went to the opening for The Incomplete last month... lots of good work, all from the collection of Hubert Neumann. Actually, I am now remembering that I was introduced to Mr. Neumann at the 31 Grand opening in July, but then I saw James Kalm and pretty much ran over Neumann in my excitement to say hello to James Kalm. I don't know, maybe I am exaggerating... maybe it was more normal.


The Meyer Vaisman was a creepy favorite. It's a stuffed turkey under two black wigs, on a pedestal. Or maybe it is two turkeys? I don't know, but there is only one head. It's very sensual, very repulsive. I can't believe I have the only Meyer Vaisman photo on flickr, and it isn't even very good. Sorry, Meyer.

It was a busy opening, so I didn't get a lot of pictures or take any notes.. but I think I saw almost everything in the show (it was like three or four floors of work). Most artists included were represented by a number of works, the standouts for me included Haim Steinbach, Meyer Vaisman, Tom Sanford, Ashley Bickerton, John Simon, Haluk Akakçe, and Kelli Williams. This was the first time to see Kelli's work for real, the paintings were a lot smaller than I had imagined, really dense. Haluk's stuff was unexpected, different than the previous stuff I'd seen.


John Simon, aka John F. Simon aka John F. Simon Jr. - this was one of the few artists whose work I was not familiar with, and this may have been his only piece in the show. I don't remember seeing anything else. Was really drawn to it...

Here's John Simon on James Wagner's blog two plus years ago.


Tom Sanford - sorry, this picture is crap. I love the shine, and textures that Tom builds up on some of his surfaces, or rather the devotion to surface of some of the represented objects - the bumps on the basketball, the scales on the snakeskin - and the way those contrast with the flatter parts.

Writing "devotion" above I'm thinking about how that word sort of carries through all of Tom's work for me... the format, subject, presentation. Not writing very clearly, but maybe I will edit later.

EDIE FAKE - definitely a high point of this evening was meeting Edie Fake, or seeing Edie at the show and meeting outside. I first saw Edie inside walking up the stairs carrying a big flowery suitcase, dressed kind of strangely... later, walking down the street Meridith and I saw Edie again, and we all walked together a few blocks and talked about the show. Edie also liked the John Simon. The suitcase was because Edie had just come from the NY Art Book Fair next door, and the suitcase was full of Edie's books.

RELATED: Here's a 1997 NYTimes profile on Hubert Neumann.