For ‘Flash Art’ Magazine Jason Meadows, Protagonist, 2002, Wood, Aluminum, Hardware and Paint, 152 x 86 x 116 cm
Five years ago, the sun rose on a group of young sculptors from L.A. who shared nothing so much as a new look. Jason Meadows was one of the promising talents with a willingness to experiment with modernism and a gift for crafting objects at once familiar and strange. From this initial impulse, Meadows kept the momentum going with ‘Microcarving,’ his second solo show at Tanya Bonakdar in as many years.
The new work breaks loose from the strict minimalism and control of his previous sculpture and supplies plenty of evidence of the artist’s hand and his trips to the hardware store. Unhidden nuts and bolts, wooden joints taped together and hardware with the manufacturers labels still stuck on, along with frequent use of a black marker pen create a tension between the overall impression and the ‘micro,’ surface details.
Most of the sculpture is at the average human height (150-170 cm) making intimate viewing easy, and the shapes sometimes mimic the human form in a way reminiscent of Modernist sculptor David Smith. ‘Soldier of Fortune’ and ‘Upskirt’ are horizontal constructions of wooden beams, the former rough and tumble with protruding nails, the later involving a small square platform on wooden ‘legs’, draped by a canvas suggesting a dangerously short skirt.
Canvas reappears on the floor under ‘In the Process of Becoming’, a three-legged construction suggesting an artist’s easel with a shelf holding a Polaroid of a barred window in the artist’s studio. Is the angst-ridden ‘prison window’ and the triumph of the easel as it rests on top of canvas an ironic take on the creative process? Sculptures like ‘Albatross,’ in which a jaggedly cut piece of white, laminated composition board replicates ruffled feathers, suggest that Meadows is a playfully self-aware artist. But one thing is clear. Unlike the ancient mariner who wears the albatross around his neck for his sins, Meadows’ sculpture doesn’t languish in the doldrums.
For ‘Flash Art’ magazine Huang Yong Ping, Om Mani Padme Hum, 2001. Wood, copper, bronze, and burnt paper
Since ancient times, Buddhist civilizations have erected monumental sculptures like the cliffside Buddhas destroyed last year in Afghanistan. Carrying on the tradition in a distinctly avant-garde vein, Huang Yong Ping devised an ultimately unrealized project to install a 15 meter high Buddhist prayer wheel in the Christian Chapelle St Louis Salpétrière in Paris and surround it with Islamic tapestries. The enormous, dismantled wheel, and a scale model of the church are the basis for ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’, Huang’s latest New York show.
In Tibet, devotees spin handheld wheels in prayer. With Huang’s version, only a god-sized hand could wield the massive rod, made from an entire tree trunk. The rod and the lid occupy one room, while the circular drum housing a giant scroll covered in written prayers rests on its side in the back gallery. Two spiraling scrolls, one a Tibetan sutra and the other a text from the Koran, descend from the ceiling and a scale model of Salpétrière with motorized wheel rests on a Persian carpet. A modern version of an ancient chariot and a long scroll complete the exhibition.
Huang’s use of monumental scale is not unprecedented in his work. Nor has he shied away from overtly Buddhist imagery, once combining a bottle rack structure on the order of Duchamp, with 50 pairs of arms to create a version of the multi-armed deity Guan-Yin. Since his involvement in the radical Xiamen Dada group in the late 80s, Huang has strategically incorporated Western ideas into his Buddhist influenced philosophy. But given the artist’s past attack on the West’s self-perceived hegemony, it doesn’t seem likely that he is hoping for the reconciliation of three different faith systems by simply placing their symbols in proximity to each other. In previous work, Huang has often used insects and reptiles, often enclosing them together, forcing them to kill or be killed. Considering that the creatures were intended to represent different cultures, the Salpétrière project may be the subversive opposite of a wish to homogenize the world’s religions.
For ‘Tema Celeste’ magazine Adriana Arenas, The Precious Stone & Gold Factory - Twirling Flowers, 2002, 1 hour DVD disc and LCD Monitor, 16.5 x 11.4 x 12.7 cm
“Sublime soul of my being, my future with you is a pleasure,” croon the musicians of El Binomio de Oro. These sugary Spanish-language lyrics greeted visitors entering The Precious Stone and Gold Factory, an installation originally commissioned by Rice University Art Gallery in Texas. Arena’s trademark use of vallenato, the folk music of her native Columbia, set the mood for an adventurous show full of wistful meditations on romance and storytelling.
The music was accompanied by a small wall-mounted monitor that displayed not images of the band but the lyrics of the song “Full of You,” translated into English. On another monitor, flashes of lightning periodically shattered a perfect night sky full of twinkling stars. The presence of these stars during a storm was as mysterious as the unexplained dazzling light that appeared in a short video projected against a gallery wall. Shot at sunrise on a beach, the clip featured a beam of light on the horizon that was brighter than the rising sun. Both scenes served to introduce the short story that was at the heart of the exhibition: Using Dramatica, a software program used by writers to generate story outlines, Arenas concocted a narrative about a man who, suffering from unrequited love, exiles himself to the countryside, where he invents a machine to manufacture gems from the beauty of nature. On the back walls, three small monitors and three digital prints tracked the transformation of flowers, berries, and buds, sucked into a spinning vortex and released as sapphires, diamonds, and rubies.
The relationship between El Binomio’s lyrics and a story in which the countryside gives up precious stones for a clever inventor is hard to pin down but evocative. Perhaps the Golden Duo (a rough translation of the band’s name) was mining the language of the Latin love song to come up with its lyrical gems. In light of the fact that the lover serenaded in vallenato is considered by some to represent the homeland, Arenas seems to be making love to her native country while realizing that her recollections of its beauty are seen through the soft-focus lens of nostalgia.
For ‘Flash Art’ Magazine William Gedney, Diane Arbus Photographing Body Builders, NY, c. 1968, 1967, Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
Like good art, a well-curated exhibition makes some suggestions and then allows viewers to draw their own conclusions. The selections in this 35-artist, intergenerational show were sometimes idiosyncratic but never dull. The earliest artwork was Gene Beery’s 1961 painting reading ‘Sorry, this painting is temporarily out of style – closed for updating…” Located in the reception area, it set the tone for a show that makes thoughtful comparisons between art by established and emerging artists without chasing the fashion of the day.
John Miller’s eerie mannequin also subverted fashion and, positioned near the gallery windows, attracted attention from the street. Its physical presence was echoed in Sam Samore’s two-way mirror piece composed of the “room, viewers, interiority, exteriority, etc.” Mirroring was everywhere, with a mirror in the shape of a Rorschach by Kelley Walker, tree roots on a mirror by Sam Durant and a Roy Lichtenstein mirror painting. Sam Durant, Study for Strange Fruit, (Upside Down Tree, Southerrn Tree, Tree of Knowledge, 2002. Mixed Media with Tree Root and Mirror
The only color photography came in the form of orchids by Sherrie Levine and a sandcastle photographed by Wolfgang Tillmans, while black and white photojournalism by Diane Arbus, William Gedney, and Peter Hujar took center stage. A mysterious nighttime view of a Disneyland castle by Arbus contrasted with Tillmans’ beach scene, and a photo of a body builder by Arbus was complimented by Gedney’s picture of Arbus taking these shots.
Seven large paintings, hung salon style on the back wall of the gallery’s cavernous space, were a visual highlight of the show. What at first looked like one of John Tremblay’s frisky abstract paintings turned out to be a yellow and black Infinite Dot painting by Yayoi Kusama, while a Trembly in muted tones hung above. Next to these, an enormous date painting by On Kawara contrasted the open-ended possibility of the Kusama and Tremblay with its blunt statement of a single date.
It’s not always evident what curator Bob Nickas was intending by his eclectic mix. He admits that he curates “…as if free-association was an accepted curatorial/art historical tool,” explaining, for example, that Sherrie Levine appears because she is foundational to contemporary art in general. Lisa Ruyter’s day-glo jets are included because she invigorates her painting by working from her photographs rather than her having any specific aesthetic affiliation to the art on the walls around her. But as an exploration “from the observatory” into the deep space of contemporary art, Nickas provides enough connections to suggest a bigger picture, while still keeping us gazing with curiosity.
For ‘NYArts’ magazine Didier Faustino, Love me Tender, 2000 (prototype)
As the weather grows warmer and New Yorkers start longing for life outside the city, the attention of the art world begins shifting to Biennials, Triennials and other international group exhibitions outside of the U.S. This summer, the granddaddy of them all, ‘Documenta XI’ in Kassel, Germany, is rolling around again in its five-year cycle. Documania started early in New York, however, with the arrival in February of ‘The Short Century’ an exhibition of African art from the last fifty years, curated by ‘Documenta’ curator Okwui Enwezor. After traveling through several European venues, the exhibition arrived at PS1, stoking the fires of speculation about the content of ‘Documenta’.
New York based curator Lauri Firstenberg was a member of the curatorial team for ‘The Short Century’, and a curatorial assistant for ‘Documenta’, but she isn’t giving away any secrets. “I am excited to see what the artists’ projects are going to look like and how they manifest themselves after four or five years of discussion and labor,” she said. “I worked on ‘Documenta’ before a major staff was hired in Kassel and prior to the concrete infrastructure being set into place. Our research was broad, encompassing all aspects of the exhibition process, and the activity was centered in the New York office at that time.”
Although the hype for Documenta is building, and ‘The Short Century’ has finally arrived in New York, Firstenberg completed these projects almost a year ago. She is still in her late 20s, and had the golden opportunity to work with Enwezor right out of graduate school. According to Firstenberg, she was most impressed by “…what Okwui Enwezor refers to as ‘transparent process’ – that the discourse around the making of an exhibit is as acute as the exhibition proper. The extra-Documenta platforms perform a deterritorialization of the exhibition – distributing its influence over a wide field of venues and media.” What is perhaps most apparent in her current New York shows is the influence her of academic background. Firstenberg explains, “I see the creation of inter-discplinary programming and coordination with other institutions as ideal. What I bring with me, having been subject to collaborative teams of academics, curators, critics, architects, designers is an incredible mode of alliances as a critical model.” In 1998, Firstenberg finished her PhD coursework in Harvard’s art history department and moved to New York. Her short stint as assistant to former Whitney Museum curator Thelma Golden ended abruptly with Golden’s departure from the museum, but Enwezor’s offer to work together on ‘The Short Century’ came shortly after Golden’s boxes were packed. This led to Firstenberg’s involvement with Documenta. When the time came for the Documenta office to shift from New York to Kassel, Firstenberg decided to stay in New York. A few months later, she became the Curator at Artist’s Space where she has now mounted two well received shows.
Although it has only recently arrived in New York, ‘The Short Century’ first opened at the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich in February 2001 and is not intended as a precursor to this summer’s happenings in Germany. In fact, the project was originally conceived of as a book and is accompanied by a hefty catalogue chronicling 50 years of African film, theater, literature, music, art and architecture. Firstenberg explains that her academic background in photography structured her place on the curatorial team, saying “A lot of my responsibility stemmed from my own interest in the photo archives and dealing with the contemporary photography, but everything was done really collectively.” In light of her extensive archival research, her catalogue essay profiling the photographers Seydou Keita, Samuel Fosso, Santu Mofokeng and Zwelethu Mthethwa examines how photographic practice in Africa has impacted both colonial and post-colonial formation of identity.
Unlike many curators with an interest in African art, Firstenberg did not grow up in Africa, and in fact didn’t travel there until she made two graduate school research trips to Johannesburg. During her undergraduate years, she happened to spend a semester working at an African art gallery in L.A., and her interest grew from that point on. By the summer of ‘93, she turned down an internship at MOMA to spend the summer working at the Museum of African Art. When she went on to Harvard for her MA, Firstenberg took Nigerian artist Iké Udé’s photographic work as the subject of her thesis, which led to both a monograph and a touring exhibition that eventually appeared as part of a trio of African shows at Harvard University’s galleries last October.
In August, she arrived at Artists Space, the non-profit gallery for unaffiliated artists, with plans already in progress for her first exhibition, ‘Urban Pornography.’ Featuring the work of sixteen photographers, her inaugural show focused on architecture in urban, suburban, and rural spaces. From Alex Slade’s image of the decrepit skyscraper housing Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture to doreen morrissey’s minimal roadside rest-stops in the wide open space of the American West, the exhibition laid bare the built forms which might in everyday life be seen as unremarkable. Peter Zellner, Firstenberg’s architect fiancée worked with her on the project, and the two have plans to keep working on ‘Urban Pornography’ in the form of the book.
Firstenberg may have moved to a new institution and taken up her twin fascinations with photography and architecture, but she hasn’t abandoned her academic and curatorial background. In fact, the curator’s second show at Artists Space ‘Context and Conceptualism’ took a 1996 article by Okwui Enwezor on artist Kendell Geers as its starting point. Enwezor questions how an artist’s context (national origin) determines his or her entry into the discourse of the global art world. In response, Firstenberg presented a captivating installation of South African postage stamps by Siemon Allen, an intelligent video by Coco Fusco in which Spanish speakers from around the world discuss their exclusion from or inclusion in Catalan society and Melissa Gould’s installation relating her to grandfather’s deportation to Auschwitz.
For thirty years, the aim of Artists Space has been to exhibit work by “unaffiliated contemporary artists working in the visual arts.” With her international background, Firstenberg is taking this remit global. From late March to early May, she has invited architect Didier Faustino, who lives in Paris and Lisbon, and London artist John Timberlake to show work in the gallery’s project rooms. In terms of working with international artists, Firstenberg explains, “It is most interesting to work with artists whose work is critical, poses interesting questions, and will translate well to New York audiences. I think that the nature of my job is to look beyond Chelsea and try to travel as much as possible. As both an academic and curator, it’s about as much research as possible.”
New York artists don’t need to feel left out, however. In an independent curatorial project with Lombard Fried Fine Arts in Chelsea, Firstenberg is showing work by seven artists who live and work in New York. During the month of April, ‘Retrofit’ will showcase art that works in tandem with architecture, design and technology to ‘refit’ existing concepts and adapt them for new situations. Lombard Fried director Michael Lieberman explained the adaptability of the theme by saying that the gallery, curator and artists envisioned a show that “…created a dialogue between their work but didn’t impose too much of a heavy-handed curatorial vision or structure on their work. I think it makes sense to have a show that has… a theme and unifying idea but also lets the work breathe and stand up on its own.”
Lauri Firstenberg may have stepped out of the Documenta limelight, but she is by no means receding into the shadows. With her program of exhibitions at Artists Space, continuing independent shows, the ‘Urban Pornography’ book project, and the numerous articles she writes about the artists with whom she works, she is making the most of her location in New York and her role at Artists Space. In her commitment to research, Firstenberg regularly plows through the hundreds of slides sent in to her by emerging artists. In fact, it is from these slides that Firstenberg is charting new territory for herself by developing ‘Painting as Paradox’ a group show of painting scheduled for the winter at Artists Space. Firstenberg admits that the prospect of exhibiting painting, with her background in photography is daunting. But what could have been more daunting than working on the world’s biggest exhibition in Summer ’02?
