Gregory Coates

Gregory Coates, Positions, at Opalka Gallery, in Albany....

Piece above is a detail shot of one of the twelve bars pictured below, all of them wood wrapped with black inner tubes, painted.

Wrapped and woven, gorgeous up close... it's hard choosing images.


3 x 4 = 1, 2006, acrylic on rubber on wood pallets.

Like Donald Judd.


How Do You Like Me Now?, 2006, acrylic on rubber with pvc

The title is a reference to David Hammons' white Jesse Jackson.


Inner-tubes sprayed white.


Installation shot of Kiki: Short for Christiane, 2007, pigment on rubber on wood pallet (left), Monument For Steve Cannon, 2007 (right), Strut, 2006 (foreground)


Detail of Kiki: Short for Christiane, 2007, pigment on rubber on wood pallet.

Stretched, wrapped, tied, and painted. Looks like powder. Like seeing the air valves poking out everywhere.

This blue still doesn't quite match the blue of the piece...


Daytime, 2007, acrylic on feathers on wood panels.

One of four large feather paintings in the show... I like this one, but the two next to it not so much. This one is better.

Gregory Coates is one of the artists I liked in the show with Al Loving. I was loving Alvin Loving so much I never got around to posting Coates and Betty Blayton.

Roam, 2006, industrial plastic wrap on wooden pallets.

There are so many tiny lines in the plastic...


Detail of Roam, 2006, industrial plastic wrap on wood pallet.


Monument For Steve Cannon, 2007

Monument For Steve Cannon consists of a sofa on a carpet, facing a large black feather painting. Steve Cannon is the poet-professor founder of A Gathering of The Tribes. Is this sofa from Tribes??

James Kalm talking to Steve Cannon at Tribes.

it's a sofa-bed sofa.

Gregory Coates is also showing at Magnan Projects, through March 29th. Go to my flickr set to see more work, or to see any of these images larger.

Wafaa Bilal, at The Sanctuary for Independent Media... SHUT DOWN

Wafaa Bilal, re-opened at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, has now ALSO been shut down. This is the place that was going to show the Wafaa Bilal piece after it was canceled by RPI. Wow.


The City of Troy has closed Wafaa Bilal's installation.

That was the sign on the front door when I visited today to see the Wafaa Bilal piece. Two guys were out front fixing the porch light... they said I could go in and look around, but that the piece would not be screened.

BREAKDOWN to catch you up:

Wednesday 3/5 pm - piece is shown at RPI
Thursday 3/6 am - show is closed at RPI
Monday 3/10 pm - piece is shown at The Sanctuary for Independent Media. A protest outside is led by Robert Mirch, majority leader of the County Legislature.
Tuesday 3/11 am - The Sanctuary is notified that due to code violations it cannot hold public gatherings. City inspectors had visited The Sanctuary on Monday afternoon, before the screening, ostensibly drawn by media attention after The Sanctuary had announced it would show the Balil piece.

UPDATE: Robert Mirch, leader of the Monday protest in front of The Sanctuary for Independent Media, is the City of Troy Public Works Commissioner, responsible for enforcing code violation. What an embarassment...


An empty room.


Sanctuary Archives.


Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy, NY.

RELATED: Read the 3/12/08 Troy Record newspaper article.... and Game Politics (many comments), Paddy Johnson, NEWSgrist, We Make Money Not Art.

found

found a bunch of someone's unsigned art at a junk shop near glens falls... the dealer said that they came from an estate sale and that there were hundreds, which were split between him and another dealer. the estate they came from was not that of the artist... it was a hoarder whose house was filled with treasures and junk. so no idea where they originally came from. they are spread all over now.

stylish

LOOK at this Brooklyn Rail article. That is crayzee. You will laugh.

...putting a poster on the Times Square Army Recruitment Center

Judith Supine bombing the Times Square Army Recruitment Center.

Judith Supine in Richmond, Judith Supine in the studio.

James Wagner on the most recent bombing, with images.

Mildred Greenberg

Mildred Elfman Greenberg posters for ..."ice age to the space age", a 1984 work-in-progress exhibition held at Marian Locks Gallery (now called Locks Gallery), Philadelphia.

Mildred died in 2003, at 91, and her daughter, with the help and support of friends, has documented most of the work - more than three hundred items - left in storage. All of the stuff pictured below was made roughly 1980's and very early 90's. Please scroll down through these previous posts to learn more about Mildred and her work.


Space Goddess with Spaceship... looks like it includes a collaged photographic image, some glittery-type stuff, and maybe a toy spaceship. Mildred often included small three-dimensional elements to her drawings. Click on the photo to see it much better.

Here's a good example, from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


This flag structure belongs with this base.... here is a picture of the finished piece, Quagmire, 1990-91, flags, fan, toy armaments, soldiers and animals, artificial flowers (found objects sprayed with enamel paint) on wood coated with black ensemble paint.

Quagmire was made in response to the Gulf War... it's hard to see, because everything is an oily black, but she's placed army men and animals in a floral jungle.


Darth Vavadar, White Knight... not sure if that's the correct title or what may be missing here. The storage locker contains a number of sculptural assemblages... we need to consult some period photos to make sure everything is together. This one includes an electrical cord, so something must light up or move.... another (awesome) one includes a blacklight.

told you!

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from anaba 7/17/2005 -

Cai Guo-Qiang: Inopportune - Cai Guo-Qiang has filled Mass Moca's great hall with nine Ford Taurus' flying through the space. There is something coming out of them that looks like fireworks. It's pretty and interesting when you first walk in but by the time I got to the end of the big hall the thrill had left. Another dead boring room is filled with what looks like stuffed tigers (actually paper mache) shot up with arrows. The strongest part of this show is seeing the car that was used in the making of a firework-exploding car video. He filled a car up with heavy duty fireworks - took out the seats, removed all the windows, cut a hole in the roof - and set them all off to make a video. The car is on display here and calls to mind terrorism and car bombings.

from anaba 9/18/2005 -

Cai Guo-Qiang, ugh. I saw that show at Mass Moca and it was so boring. Dead. Lifeless. No energy, no motion, really nothing. I'd cut him some slack and say it is a very tough space to work in but he did the exact same thing with fake tigers in a smaller room. The cars are a one-liner, the dry sawdust tigers are a one-liner, both the same line. The only good part is the one bombed out car. Libby saw the show and liked it. JL liked it. Charles Giuliano really didn't like it at all. Adrian Searle is talking here about a different show, not liking what he sees either. I really liked the tiny ink-on-matchbox landscape paintings done by Guo-Qiang's father and featured on the show last night, those were very nice.

from anaba 3/7/2007 -

Installed in the same room at Mass MoCA, less than two years apart, Cai Guo-Qiang's tired tiger installation VS. Huang Yong Ping's tired tiger installation!

RELATED: Tom Moody, Catherine Spaeth, Roberta Smith for The New York Times, Peter Schjeldahl for The New Yorker, Howard Halle for Time Out New York.

Clark Anti-Forum, aka Balancing Act, by Christoph Buchel

The Clark held a "forum" (in NYC) last week -

Recent conflict between artist and institution has generated a highly publicized and polarizing debate between artists and art museums over the completion, ownership, and sale of site-specific works. In the end, who determines whether a work is “complete”? Who “owns” the work? Should the commissioning institution also benefit from the sale of a work, or parts thereof?

Did you go? Probably not, as it was unannounced and invitation-only. There is no listing for this event anywhere, including on the Clark's own website.

From the Clark, in response to my request for information -

"The Clark sends out invitations for Clark Forums - they are not public events. We do not advertise forums or include them in general event listings"

This had better not have been the promised Mass MoCA symposium.


A discussion with Barbara Gladstone, Kathy Halbreich, and Matthew Ritchie, moderated by Judith Dobrzynski. Hosted by Michael Conforti, Director of the Clark, with Joseph Thompson, Director of MASS MoCA. Tuesday, February 26, 2008. Luncheon and Program 12:00-2:00pm, at The New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Michele Maccarone lists Balancing Act as a current exhibition of Christoph Buchel, and Clancco features it as "A Project of Christoph Buchel" ... both of which are at least as accurate as the Clark's terming it a "forum". Someone at the Clark needs to crack open a dictionary.

Virginia Rutledge on Christoph Buchel and Mass MoCA, for ArtForum.... new spirit of sharing photos of the stalled (pre-tarp and pre-lawsuit) installation-in-progress here.

Hulk Demo-Derby Hoods

Hulk Demo-Derby Hoods.

His wife paints The Hulk on his cars before he crashes them. Hulk Smash.


Have you seen Jeff Koons' Hulk painting? Have you seen Richard Prince's hoods? NO CONTEST.


You can see the back of Elizabeth Olbert's stretched bedsheet, on the right.

spirit of sharing

nice painting in the house.






"For Mr. Büchel the point of a continuing, obsessively detailed post-mortem seems not only to prevail in countless matters of fact but, in a larger sense, to lift the museum curtain." - Randy Kennedy, for the NYTimes

"He calls the museum's refusal to give him all the documents censorship." - Randy Kennedy, for the NYTimes

"This new series of works I have been doing is a kind of physical manifestation of the principle of freedom of speech and expression that the dispute is about" - Christoph Buchel to Randy Kennedy, for the NYTimes

"It says to the museum: You cannot shut me up. You tried, with your lawsuits and your fancy pro bono lawyers, but you cannot do it." - Christoph Buchel to Randy Kennedy, for the NYTimes

Elizabeth Olbert

Elizabeth Olbert

Visited Daniel Field's North Adams space... I'm not sure what to call the space, it's a storefront space filled with interesting stuff. Daniel uses it as his studio, and is surrounded by his own stuff and stuff he's collected, but I think everything is theoretically "for sale".

REALLY liked this Elizabeth Olbert painting, hanging from the ceiling. A many-beady-eyed gentle hunchbacked creature, holding a candle, surrounded by bubbles, butterflies, and clouds. I think it's from the late eighties, or maybe early 90's? The pastel palette, candle, soft curves, beady eyes, sweet grotesque, dreamy atmosphere all had me thinking of Lisa Yuskavage... (+ Robert Crumb).

It's painted on a cloud-printed bedsheet.

1995 David Ebony AiA review
1996 Peter Plagens Newsweek feature on Elizabeth Olbert, Nicola Tyson, Lisa Yuskavage
1998 David Ebony Artnet review
2000 Roberta Smith NYTimes review
2006 Caren Golden exhibition

update

Met Nancy Spector and got to ask her about a couple things I was wondering about -

The heavy use of exhibition prints in the Richard Prince show was both a practical and conceptual decision, mostly practical, or at least a practical decision with a full awareness of the conceptual reading. The prints won't be destroyed... they'll be saved and stored for possible future use, and right now those prints are in Minneapolis for the upcoming Walker show. Regarding the fate of Second House, they - the artist and the museum - are not sure what to do with it yet, but it won't be re-made... they're trying to decide whether it should just be torn down or can somehow be preserved as is, maybe inside of a larger clear structure, somehow.

Nancy Spector will be lecturing on Richard Prince, at the Walker, March 22nd.

late

better late than never, some photos finally retrieved from my phone.... all stuff i liked from a nyc visit last fall -


Patrick Hill, Forming, at Bortolami - excellent show... maybe i can add more later.

nice installation shots here.


Lady Pink and Jenny Holzer, Tear ducts seem to be a grief provision, 1983, from I Am As You Will Be, at Cheim & Read.

More Jenny Holzer + Lady Pink images here.... and here's a good image of one. Ilona Granet did the lettering for Jenny. I'm not sure how it works credit-wise, who the "artist" is... the Cheim & Read show label said the piece was by Jenny Holzer and Lady Pink, the Monika Spruth Philomene Magers listing says they are by Holzer, with credit to Granet for the lettering and no credit to Pink. Lady Pink's paintings are AWESOME...

Jenny Holzer's flaming rocker. Jenny Holzer utilized by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla.


Marcel Broodthaers, Femur d'une Femme Francaise, 1965, from I Am As You Will Be, at Cheim & Read.


Wendy White, from The Show's So Nice, at Monya Rowe - like the edges...


Charles Searles, at GR N'Namdi Gallery.

clown of the corn

corn clown.... it has taken almost five months but i've finally gotten all the photos off my phone. this clown statue was at the halloween corn maze, in which you can get seriously lost.

i'm going to buy a real camera. top choice would be an slr, a nikon d80 or nikon 300, but i'm not ready for that stuff yet and can't afford it anyway... right now a nice point and shoot will be a HUGE technical step up. zoe strauss took a lot of earlier photos with a konica minolta dimage s414, so if a 2003 4-megapixel point and shoot was good enough for her i think i'll be fine.

flickr has been an amazing camera research tool. you can see all the cameras used on flickr, look at the specs, read reviews, and look at all the pictures taken with whatever camera.

i'm definitely getting a canon. these are the ones that look best right now -

a. canon powershot sd1000 digital elph - 7.i megapixel, 3x optical zoom, 2.5 lcd, rechargeable - $179.00

b. canon powershot sd1100 digital elph (the update of the above camera, coming out in march) - 8 mp, 3x oz, 2.5 lcd, rechargeable, image stabilization - $249.00

c. canon powershot sd850 is - 8 mp, 4x oz, 2.5 lcd, rechargeable, image stabilization - $299.00

d. canon powershot sd870 is elph - 8 mp, 3.8 oz, 3x oz, rechargeable, image stabilization - $349.00

Alan Shields

Today, Saturday 2/23, is the final day to see Eat the Document, a show at Larissa Goldston, curated by Dean Daderko, featuring work by A.K. Burns, Jimmy De Sana, Alan Shields, Eileen Quinlan... all of which looks good but I especially like Shields.

Alan Shields show at the Parrish Art Museum - MISSED... super regret
Alan Shields show at Dieu Donne - MISSED

FAAN, especially FAWN

When I was on the Pocket Utopia blog last week I saw a link to something called the Fine Art Adoption Network, aka FAAN.

FAAN is full of artists... you can explore by artwork or by artist... hoping to find deserving homes for excess artwork. Everything is FREE, if you see something you want just contact the artist and try to explain how you will provide a loving and supportive home, and why your home is the best home for the well-being of the piece. Go to the website to learn more about the adoption process.


Fawn Krieger, CORRAL, 2003

Fawn Krieger's CORRAL is one of my favorite pieces, but unfortunately I cannot offer it the home it needs. Fawn is hoping to place CORRAL with a little girl.


Sand T, Negotiating the Irrationalities, 11"x11", 2008

Also like this piece by Sand T... and am happy to see it... because I met Sand T when I showed at her space in Malden, but have never seen her work. NICE SURPRISE!! Now I want to see it for real.

FORTUNATELY, if I get to NYC before too long I can see Fawn Krieger's show at Art in General. I think the store will be open for two more months. I would like a pair of the art handling gloves, or something LV. Maybe I can get a fawncified LV bread tag necklace....

NEW! & Maccarone Approved

more from the statcounter -

Deutsche Bank was checking out this post... I guess because Deutsche Bank was mentioned in the comments -

"i'm assuming carol bove and corey mccorkle's permission to participate in the upcoming whitney biennial means that deutsche bank has been sufficiently vetted"

Har har.

RELATED: Maccarone Approval is fickle, not as cute as Seal of Approval...

FDIC TESTED, MACCARONE APPROVED!

Mission Creep

So sad. I have a statcounter which shows me the things that people google. Someone googled "does white columns respond to artist". Answer posts here and here.

Next week White Columns shows Janice Guy. Janice Guy's gallery, Murray Guy, shows White Columns Director Matthew Higgs.

Janice doesn't really make art anymore, she'll be showing her work from the 1970's. White Columns' website states, "Guy abandoned art making in the early 1980s"... sort of like how White Columns abandoned support of emerging artists in the early 2000's.

Concurrent with the Janice Guy show will be an exhibition of work from the collection of critic Vince Aletti, and a show of stuff from the collection of curator Bob Nickas.

RELATED: White Columns now-joke Wikipedia page, Matthew Higgs on Wikipedia, my White Columns page.

burned house baggie + photo

collection of timothy buckwalter.

From: Michele Maccarone

To:
John Baldessari, Kris Kuramitsu, Weston Naef, Cathy Opie, Ann Philbin, Paul Schimmel;
and the Deans or Chairs of:
Art Center College of Design, California Institute of the Arts, Claremont Graduate University, Otis College of Art and Design, University of California in Irvine, University of California in Riverside, University of California in Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California

January 29, 2008

Re: LA25

Dear Colleagues,

In the summer of 2006, the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (Skadden Arps) announced a three-year program, LA25, intended to aid twenty-five artists from a select group of Southern California art schools and university art departments. I write to you in order to bring to your attention the fact that Skadden Arps is also the law firm that counseled and represented the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), probono, in Mass MoCA's recent lawsuit against artist Christoph Büchel. As you may know, Mass MoCA sued Mr. Büchel in order to obtain a court ruling allowing them to distort and exhibit Mr. Büchel's artwork without his consent.

I find it very ironic and deeply unsettling that Skadden Arps has initiated this program and collection using the existing professional and highly-respected institutions in the Los Angeles art community, all the while counseling and representing an institution that not only disseminated false and negative press about an artist, but also strategically initiated a lawsuit which claimed that either Mr. Büchel's project was not art, or alternatively that the Museum was the co-author of Mr. Büchel's unfinished art work.

The lawyers of Skadden Arps were so aggressive and manipulative in their tactics against Mr. Büchel that they are now responsible, along with MassMoCA, in establishing an unprecedented decision which made it legal for a museum to exhibit an unfinished and unauthorized installation by an artistagainst her or his consent. The negative historical consequences of this matter remain to be seen, but ostensibly the impact of this aggressive and manipulative maneuver by an art institution and its representative is frightening.

I write to urge you to not participate in putting together a collection for a corporation who has challenged the authority and authenticity of a fine contemporary artist, and simultaneously diminished legal protections for the very same visual artists we all help produce, educate, nourish and support.

Yours truly,

Michele Maccarone
Maccarone Gallery
New York City

(Via Geoff Edgers, Via Clinton)

previously -

5/16/2007 - predicting the show will never open
5/22/2007 - expecting notoriety
5/29/2007 - report from tarp show
6/12/2007 - some views
6/18/2007 - Buchel exhibits legal documents in Switzerland
7/27/2007 - tools of the master
7/30/2007 - CLANCCO cranks it up
8/20/2007 - World's First Google image search sculpture
9/05/2007 - Robert Storr VS. Nancy Spector
9/19/2007 - announcement, links to NYTimes, Brooklyn Rail...
9/21/2007 - report from the motion hearing.. part 1
9/22/2007 - report from the motion hearing... part 2
9/24/2007 - on Roberta's piece, and more
9/25/2007 - 2nd correction to Roberta's NYTimes piece
12/09/2007 - Buchel's Miami Basel coda, with a Jenny Holzer reference

KAI SIGHTING!

Kai sighting on Pocket Utopia's blog, at the Rico Gatson opening.

Jenny Holzer

Jenny Holzer at Mass MoCA...

Strange to see how intimate she has managed to make this huge space... it was like opening the door to a dollhouse. The space is practically empty, she's done it all with lighting and scale... the projected words are in fact huge, but from across the vast hall you don't initially realize it... and the beanbag chairs are as big as cars, but again, standing at the door of the darkened space they're like clumps of mushrooms.

The experience is so relaxing and pleasurable, I'm not sure what to make of sinking myself into a giant soft pillow and being soothed by war poetry... or rather, soothed by scrolling atmospheric lights, because I can't say I focused on trying to read much of the text.

The projected text scrolls along the floor and ceiling, wrapping around at the walls... in effect you are sort of embraced by the text while laying flat on your back, cuddled by the soft chair... lulled into passivity. People enter the space, weave around a little, and drop... bodies scattered everywhere.

It is impossible to consider this show without comparing it to the almost-Buchel show; Buchel's unsuccessful attempt to fill the space as densely as possible, Holzer's emptiness... Buchel's bodies required to investigate and navigate a labyrinthe, Holzer's motionless bodies... Buchel's need to push and provoke, Holzer's willingness to aid in time of need (even the Holzer books and merchandise for sale in the shop area have been donated by the artist).

RELATED: Cate McQuaid for Boston Globe, Charles Giuiano's Maverick Arts, Ken Johnson for NYTimes.

Porch Heads

porch heads.


like Devo.


weird things look weirder in the snow.

RELATED: Abraham Lincoln considering naked woman and naked boy, window head. Hit FREAKY and scroll down for lots of freaky stuff.

Endangered Snow Tiger

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PHOTO REMOVED AT REQUEST OF ARTIST DANIEL RICHMOND.
EnDangered Snow Tiger. - by Daniel Richmond

PHOTO REMOVED AT REQUEST OF ARTIST DANIEL RICHMOND.
Approach with caution.

UPDATE 2/20/08: This post originally included three photographs of a snow sculpture of a large animal (tiger?) skull in a public park, part of an advertised small-town outdoor sculpure festival, taken on a snowy day. The guy who made it, Daniel Richmond, pretty much demanded that I remove them... legalities were mentioned... he's not worth it!
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Tom Sanford

Tom Sanford is interviewed on Bad at Sports. These are some images of new work from his studio, discussed during the inteview, which will be included in his show at Leo Koenig (opening on May 2nd).


Dollar Bill Y'All!

RELATED: I think No Rules Jules is part of this body of work and will be in the May show.
UPDATE: I've added a Tom Sanford label.

two friends showing in LA

Timothy Buckwalter has a show at Pharmaka (101 W. Fifth Street). The show begins Feb. 14 and ends April 1. The opening reception is Feb. 16 from 6-9pm.


Meridith Pingree is at Fringe Exhibitions (504 Chung King Court). Meridith's show has already opened, and runs through Feb. 23.

GO!!!