Eastern Standard: Western Artists in China

Eastern Standard: Western Artists in China, at Mass Moca.... I was excited to see this show, as a former Western Artist in Japan (8+ yrs), but it was disappointing. I think there were only one or two artists who actually live and work in China, so the show is more like Western Artists Make Brief Visits to China and Share Many of the Same Simplistic Responses... lots and lots of repetitive photos and video (the medium of the tourist) of shipping containers and apartment blocks.

Wall texts inform that the work "references China's economic and commercial development as well as the loss of cultural and social traditions in the wake of such progress", or "this poetic work subtly reminds viewers of the environmental impact of China's new development". Those are from two different pieces, but you could almost walk around with a blindfold on and attach wall texts, it wouldn't really make much of a difference. They should maybe just all read "tsk-tsk", or "KEYWORD: Three Gorges Dam"... it would have saved some time. I can imagine the roar of the collective Chinese groan. What would happen if every person in China rolled his eyes at the same time? Would the Earth spin off it's axis???

The most off-putting inclusion is Jules de Balincourt's snooze of a painting, previously seen in his most recent Zach Feuer show (scroll down). Why is this here? Thanks for your insight. Please.

It's interesting to see what artists/gallerists (Feuer, Koenig) are evidently still interested in working with Mass Moca, despite Michelle Maccarone's lobbying against it. I suspect that all of the shows currently at Mass Moca are the most cost-effective shows possible, after all of the money spent and wasted struggling through last year's Buchel/MassMoca mess. Lots and lots of easily shipped and insured video and photography, a collector's vanity show (of work by Anselm Kiefer), Jenny Holzer's projected piece (I think Jenny has covered a lot of the costs of her show, she is awesome).

GREAT NEWS is that Mass Moca no longer prohibits photography! They've even started a flickr pool.

NEXT: i liked some of the individual work in Eastern Standard, if not the show. next i'll feature some of the artists i liked... Tobias Bernstrup, Patty Chang, Walter McConnel, Catherine Yass.

gallery gossip

Another 27th St gallery is supposedly closing... Clementine. That closing derails this gallery's plans to move into the vacant Oliver Kamm space. I guess the Oliver Kamm space was a sublet under the Clementine lease.

Overheard at Clementine last week -

"each month has gotten worse and we were hoping matt's show would turn everything around and it hasn't..."

"we knew three or four months of bad business and we'd be in trouble and that's what's happened"

clementine on anaba 4/6/07 -

Neil Farber at Clementine - SNOOZE. The piece pictured above is one of the first ones you see, many many many many little heads with faces... I initially thought it was an unusually unimaginative and drab Deki Yayoi. This show was a yuck that I probably wouldn't have mentioned except I'm playing this follow along with the NYTimes game.

Bridget Goodbody says - the show "brings to mind Dante’s Divine Comedy"... she also describes the show's "pièce de résistance".

HOLY SHIT! What crap! What is happening? She writes for the NYTimes??? Is that some kind of Sanjaya thing they are doing? I don't get it.

UPDATE: i was in chelsea months later... Clementine gallery's storage racks are viewable from the window on the tunnel... the Farber is sitting on a shelf in the back.

clementine on anaba 3/27/06 -

Daniel Johnston at Clementine - Went to this show ready to hate. Most of it was an awful waste of space, but some of them were strong. The person in the piece above is burning in hell and screaming "Please bring me back... I don't want to die. I don't want to be dead!".

The lack of editing was lame. The whole place was just one big ring of framed $2500 drawings. It could have, maybe, been a good show, but this just smacked of cashing in.

clementine on anaba 7/23/05 -

Clementine - Wayne White is so unbelievably boring. Please, no more! David Rathman is a doodler and boring (the link is from his old cowboy work, now he's doing boxers). No more scrappy drawings, please!!! There are very few people who can do scrappy doodles and lots-of well, and more are not necessary. Give me some meat and I'll take a scrappy doodle on the side, but I don't want any more scrappy doodles as the main course. It's not healthy!! Where is the nourishment in Chelsea? I can't believe I used to want to be in this gallery. Okay, I would still do it - but it's not my first choice!!!

Feature showing TOTAL CRAP! why???

.
Last week I made brief mention of a snooze at Feature -

"The Gentle Wind Project, at Feature - Paul LaFolley + Emery Blagdon.... without the magic, passion, or intensity ."

I knew it was a lame show, but... HOLY SHIT!... I did not realize what a bunch of complete crap it was. I've since received an e-mail about the group, and spent a little time yesterday researching them.

e-mail -

"We noticed your reference to Gentle Wind Project "healing instruments" which are, for some very strange reason, on display at a NY art gallery.

'The Gentle Wind Project, at Feature - Paul LaFolley + Emery Blagdon.... without the magic, passion, or intensity .'

We have no idea why these gallery owners, or anyone else, would want to call these snake-oil products art, but perhaps they have connections to GWP and are looking for ways to promote the group to others.

For more information, see Wind of Changes, which describes Gentle Wind as a cult and also follows their history of suing critics and former members.

Defense against Gentle Wind's lawsuits was assisted by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and was eventually ended by the Maine Attorney General's lawsuit against the group for fraud, which put this rip-off group out of business in Maine.

For another commentary on this so-called "art exhibit" at Feature Gallery -- Disinterested Party.

Sincerely,
Judy Garvey
former member of gentle wind project"

Hudson would not remember it, but we've met and he's awesome, and I really like Feature and most of the artists they show... PLEASE EXPLAIN what this stuff is doing in the gallery. How did they get this show?? So aggravating. I hope no suckers bought that shit. Hudson, seriously... WHY?

Is this a rental? Are you, or were you, affliated with the "group"? What is the deal? All struggling artists, please puke together with me.

Related: 5/10/2007 Boston Globe article, Cult News from Rick Ross... so much more.

PS - Feature is not reviewing unsolicited artists' documents at this time. Please check back with this page in the spring of 2008. Thank you. Blech.

UPDATE: follow-up after talk with Hudson

more in group shows

Larry Bamburg, in Stubborn Materials, at Peter Blum - his sculpture is made of silvery detritus attached to fishing line, spinning from a ceiling fan... really beautiful in the sunlight. I don't think there was any sound, but I'm remembering it like soft wind chimes.

I made a bad video, it's on youtube.

This show also had soft yellow foam sculpture... I think I saw three soft yellow foam sculptures in three different shows this visit, including the John Chamberlain at Zwirner. Plus, this is the gallery that recently had a yellow foam piece by John Beech. Some yellow foam pieces are better than others, for sure.... I liked the John Beech, but not the one in this show (can't remember who did it).

Philip Akkerman, at Goff + Rosenthal - he's in a three person show with Francis Alys and Stephen Bush. Akkerman is really good (again), Alys is interesting, and Bush is a snooze/yuk.

Here is a shot of Bruce and Ryan, studying Akkerman. Bruce is up to something... be careful, Akkerman!

Pierre Manzoni, in Substance and Surface, at Bortolami - Achrome, 1959 - stones on small canvas, painted white.

There is disappointingly little, in English, about Pierre Manzoni on the internet. It's funny to see what artists are on Wikipedia, and who is missing. Kind of a joke. Some galleries are really on top of all that, maybe? I think any artist that is bought by Saatchi, his people put on Wikipedia... but it's amazing who isn't listed... no Joe Overstreet, for example, no Rosalyn Drexler.

Not saying there is anything at all wrong about Saatchi, or whomever, putting his artists on Wikipedia... just that being included, or not, on Wikipedia doesn't seem to be much of a measure of artistic relevance or significance.


Elliott Green, in By Invitation Only, at Kinz, Tillou + Feigen - Saw this show, enjoyed seeing the Elliott Green, and then happened to see the same painting on the cover of a literary magazine a few days later; he has a small spread of more work in the center. I think the magazine was called Fence.

He sometimes works with Amy Sillman and David Humphrey, as a collaborative called Team Shag; I also relate his stuff to Ellen Birkenblitt's.

barely related: the Elliott Green was at Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, the gallery that JB shows at. I can't believe it... and it wasn't long ago, late in the fairly depressing comments here, that I brought up Ader and Johnson, and the lure of suicide at sea. Too sad, maybe it isn't true.. nothing's confirmed.

Richard Artschwager, in Shadow, at Galerie Lelong - Speaking Woman - made of rubberized hair? So weird, rainbow afro.

Catherine Lee, also in Shadow, at Galerie Lelong - two flat hanging pieces of canvas, covered with a tiny grid, each little square filled with the same teeny tiny calligraphic element. I think it's from the seventies.

Didn't at all care for the dull Angelo Filomeno in this show. A big piece of silver embroidery, with skull. Covers all the bases I guess, except, no yellow foam.


Patrick Smith, in New Mutants, at Canada. Oh. He's on Wikipedia... that's funny.

The Ahmed Alsoudani drawings at Thierry Goldberg were good... bigger than I expected, after first seeing them on James Wagner.

Philip Akkerman, Michael St. John.... PLUS

Michael St. John at Marvelli - Think I especially liked the room of fourteen small Negroes with Guns paintings.... inspired by an important book with that title (they are book-size).


Plastic over stretchers and wooden Guston clock...

the next day in Brooklyn - at Sideshow - the guy showed me a small Lauren Luloff painting on something see-through... looked so good held up to the window, with the light coming through.


Philip Akkerman at BravinLee - Wish I'd spent more time here...



PLUS -

regretfully missed:

Ludwig Schwarz at Sunday
James Ensor at Peter Freeman
Paul Thek at somewhere around Chelsea
Giant Robot show somewhere...
Philip Pearlstein somewhere in Chelsea

regretfully went out of my way to see:

33 Bond Gallery - but i won't give up... it was "on my radar" for some reason. ugh, i hate that expression.

strangest coincidence:

running into a really nice Pat Lipsky, who showed me her studio, and finding out that she once LIVED IN HOOSICK FALLS for a short time!!! FREAKY.

most strikingly similar critical sensibility:

Roberta Smith and I both compared Jim Turrel negatively to Roy Colmer... BUT I DID IT FIRST!! (if I was Tyler Green I would have made a special post announcing that, ha ha. TRUE.)

He has an interesting look at George Cope and Marsden Hartley today

more that should have been posted with the other yucks, snoozes, and so-whats:

Pierre Bismuth
Jim Turrell
Teresita Fernandez
Rirkrit Tiravanija

THE photo of the first week of April, 2007... PLUS: a brief report on some Chelsea yucks, snoozes, and so-whats

Saw this Mitch Epstein photo like 4 different times in one week... first I saw it on Tyler's blog, then I saw it on Paddy's blog, then I saw it in the exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins (briefly, because the show was a snooze).... THEN, I saw this HUGE one at night in a big window.

This big one was the best, because the photo already had such a stageset feel... seeing it in those footlights at real backdrop size seems right. Plus - the daytime photo, spotlit, at NIGHT... something about all that... I like the two opposing light sources, the sun vs. the spotlights... makes the picture more eerie.

Constable and Pisarro are both tooo much of a stretch for me, sorry. Maybe X-Files, okay.

Some Chelsea YUCK!s, SNOOZEs and So-Whats -

YUCK!s:

Julie Evans at Julie Saul - they were GUSHING over these paintings on Winkleman's blog... they make me feel ill.

Christopher Tanner at Pavel Zoubok - i vomited. which sucks, because i like zoubok's john evans and lanigan-schmidt, so i was hoping this would be a good one.

Susanne Kuhn at Goff + Rosenthal - i can't decide if this is a yuck, a snooze, or a so-what.

So-Whats:

Borf video at eyebeam - oooo, look at me push over a port-a-potty. i'm a bad boy. look at me. hey, you're not looking at me! please pet me.

(this one is a snooze/so-what)

SNOOZES:

Amy Cutler at Leslie Tonkonow

group show at CRG - i tried to get into them, but failed. Tomory Dodge is definitely better than last time... in 7/2005 i liked Dufresne's small pieces at Monya Rowe better than the big ones at Lehmann Maupin; the pieces here are all big. maybe she was my favorite in the show (?).

all four of them are okay, but they all remind of someone else (in a negative way), and all of them seem to be missing something... a spark or something.

Torben Giehler at Leo Koenig - BUMMer when you go to a gallery prepared to really like whatever they are showing... and it is a snooze. my bad timing.

um... some are okay from far away?

group show at Alona Kagan - (can't find it on-line)
Saeko Takagi at ATM - maybe with a second visit i would like it more?

Elliot Hundley at Andrea Rosen - i'm almost there... but again, that spark.

PLUS... the UNDECIDED:


Lamar Peterson at Freericks & Frieser - some weird stuff happening.

UPDATE: i've decided i really like it.


Josh Smith at Luhring Augustine- some are seriously unbelievably horrible yuck/so-whats, but a few are interesting(?).

chelsea, april 2007, #4 - some likes

Robert Colescott at G.R. N'Namdi - one of his last paintings (he's still alive, but not able to work anymore), and one of very few abstracts. this was a treat for both those reasons, but also because i just saw what is probably his most famous painting only a few weeks ago.

also liked:

Joe Fyfe at Cynthia Broan - circus-y, they feel happy. i preferred the ones on white grounds.

Michael Rodriguez at Oliver Kamm - these are really cool paintings, with a danger feel. if i had better photos i would post one, but the cellphone camera just can't get the subtle colors and textures. orderly bubble systems on faint pastel grounds, kind of Matta, splattered along the bubble axis and structure with what first looks like paint, then drippy colored sand, then swiped felt... but is actually colored flocking.

Margo Victor at Venetia Kapernekas - went to this one specifically on the advice of brent, because he was so dead-on about wade guyton last year. it's a good show - though i definitely preferred the two videos, especially the short margo victor 2000, with the colored lights and muffled noise, and retro sci-fi tv signifiers.

Mitzi Pederson at Nicole Klagsbrun - nice installation, futura light + material luca buvoli feeling, totally unphotographable with my shity camera.

Per Enoksson at Derek Eller - some interesting works on big sheets of paper, nice mix of line with drawing, wash, and collage. fun. makes you want to break out the ball point pen and get to work. chris domenick in brooklyn had some interesting-ish ballpoint pen drawings also.

Tala Madani at Lombard Fried- saw the one that was on paintersnyc and was surprised at how small it was. this is the same gallery that had the good cao fei show last time.

Yutaka Sone at David Zwirner - i thought the wintery paintings were fun, but the show was hurt by the dead crappy paperweights. zwirner was an unexpected letdown.. wasn't into the other shows at all, not even with free food. rirkrit can be a snooze, sorry.

chelsea, april 2007, #1... a SPECIAL EDITION anaba supplement to the NYTimes

i saw a lot of stuff... AGAIN. i mean, a LOT of stuff.

My plan was to start off with posting a few FAVORITES, but I saw that today's NYTimes reviews three of the shows I saw and had planned to mention in the next few days... so I think I'll just tag along with the Times and compare impressions.


Wilhelm Sasnal at Anton Kern - this show was a letdown... the painting posted above is probably the only one I liked(?).. it was a pretty WEAK painting show. BUT... it seems I completely missed an instructional video that was hidden somewhere and which supposedly provides all kinds of help(?) in appreciating the paintings. ALSO... Anton Kern exhibitions invariably "stay with me"... meaning that more than once I have left that gallery sort of disappointed, with a little more appreciation/understanding coming later.

Roberta Smith says - the film "helps explain but doesn’t really justify the deprived, unfinished look of the paintings and their general lack of color"... and that Sasnal "doesn’t give the viewer enough to work with."

UPDATE 4/7: artnet has posted a review of the show, including an image of the painting that is reversed... scroll all the way down.


Anya Keilar at Daniel Reich - not interested in any of the stuff in the front space, but enjoyed the three glamour-y mixed-media relief pictures in the back. They're like shadow boxes, with suspended layers of fabric and paper, really nice... lots to engage with.

Roberta Smith says - she likes the front stuff a little more than I do, but seems to agree that the three boxes in the back are the best.


Neil Farber at Clementine - SNOOZE. The piece pictured above is one of the first ones you see, many many many many little heads with faces... I initially thought it was an unusually unimaginative and drab Deki Yayoi. This show was a yuck that I probably wouldn't have mentioned except I'm playing this follow along with the NYTimes game.

Bridget Goodbody says - the show "brings to mind Dante’s Divine Comedy"... she also describes the show's "pièce de résistance".

HOLY SHIT! What crap! What is happening? She writes for the NYTimes??? Is that some kind of Sanjaya thing they are doing? I don't get it.

UPDATE: i was in chelsea months later... Clementine gallery's storage racks are viewable from the window on the tunnel... the "piece de resistance" is sitting on a shelf in the back.