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Tag: ny art
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SHOPTALK: LA Art News
LA Gallery Migration, Museum Make-overs, and more.New York, New York!
The art market is back, and here in SoCal we’re seeing it with a slew of New York galleries moving in. Pace’s “mergence” with Kayne Griffin is official, and I hear the new signage now bears the Pace name. Sean Kelly gallery is occupying a 10,000-square-foot space on N. Highland—to open anytime now. Looking ahead, another New York mega, David Zwirner, is planning on a three-building complex at 606 N. Western, slated to open next January. Two pre-existing buildings will be renovated, with a completely new one built from ground up. They have already announced the opening exhibition—a solo by LA-based Njideka Akunyili Crosby, whom they started repping in 2018. All this will be a real game changer for LA, and maybe now collectors won’t feel the need to seasonally jet off to New York to get their art shopping in.
One gallery is actually jumping across the pond and the continent to get to us—the influential New York and
London-based gallery, Lisson, is set to open in the fall in the Sycamore District of Los Angeles in a two-story building with over 8000 sq. ft., including outdoor patio, near a number of other existing galleries. Their opening show is Carmen Herrera’s “Days of the Week.”Meanwhile our own homegrown David Kordansky Gallery is expanding east, with a New York space opening May 6, featuring an exhibition of new work by LA-based artist Lauren Halsey. “Opening David Kordansky Gallery in New York has always been part of the dream, for both me and our artists,” said Kordansky in his announcement. “I’m excited to provide a new platform for our growing program and to merge our sensibilities with the rich history and cultural trajectories of New York.” The new gallery will be located on W. 20th Street in Chelsea.
Post-renovation façade of MCASD, photo by Maha Bazzari La Jolla Museum Redux
Over the years I’ve enjoyed visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) in La Jolla, but always felt there was a problem with the choppy flow. The building was born as a private home in 1916, became an art center in 1941, and went through various remodels over the decades. This time they hired world-class architect Annabelle Selldorf, currently overseeing the expansion and renovation of The Frick Collection in New York, and acquired an adjoining building to quadruple exhibition space. The result, unveiled in early April, is glorious, a contemporary art museum that feels comfortable to stroll through, designed in a way you can see everything without getting lost.
The latter is partly accomplished by a number of windows opening to the local landscapes. From the lobby you can see Prospect Street and other parts of town, from side windows you can see old bungalows, and in the rear there are many views of the seaside walk and the churning Pacific. “We decided to embrace our spectacular location on the edge of the Pacific Ocean,” said museum Director Kathryn Kanjo during the preview. “We were thrilled to take it all in,” said Selldorf. “We don’t think the windows are a distraction. It’s good to look out and be oriented.” Petite and soft-spoken, Selldorf is constantly thanking her collaborators, a refreshing departure from the egoism of many starchitects.
The elegantly spare design helps you appreciate the art, and for the first time I see what a really superb collection MCASD has. That includes the multicolor polka-dotted Kusama Yayoi pumpkin in the entrance, John Baldessari’s deadpan painting Terms Most Useful In Describing Creative Works Of Art, and Charles Gaines’ Airplanecrash Clock.
The special exhibition is “Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s” (through July 17), and it was a revelation. I knew of her early “shooting paintings” and of her colorful “Nana” sculptures—one of which is dancing in the center of a lower gallery. However, I was unaware of her assemblage and multi-media paintings of this period which often showed grim skyscrapers, sometimes being attacked by fighter jets and Godzilla-like creatures, and often on fire. Also included are several results of the “shooting paintings.” This is a show you may never see again, since much has been borrowed from European collections and some works are very fragile. Major kudos to the curators—Michelle White, senior curator at The Menil Collection, and Jill Dawson, curator of MCASD.
Jack Pierson, The End of the World, Twentynine Palms, High Desert Test Sites. Desert News
You know how I love an excuse to drive through the desert, and High Desert Test Sites (HDTS) has finally returned. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this latest iteration, “The Searchers” (through May 22), features nine art installations dotting the high desert region around Joshua Tree and Coachella Valley. The curator is Iwona Blazwick, director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, who brought six artists from the East Coast and abroad, to add to the three regional artists in the mix.
Here are a few highlights, and the fact that they have stuck in my mind a week later is testament to the smart thinking that has gone into curating HDTS 2022. A work that injects some black humor into its commentary is Jack Pierson’s The End of the World, gigantic all-cap letters that loom large in the desert behind The Palms Restaurant in Twentynine Palms. They’re constructed of chipboard and painted silver, and make a great Insta grab. I have always thought that deliberately divey bar had an end-of-the-world feeling, a great place to grab a few drinks and have a few laughs before The Bomb goes off.
The two videos are really really good ones, by the way, and worth driving down some uneven dusty roads. In Harese, Erkan Özgen worked with Marine vets from the Corps’ nearby training base for a film short in which they slap their bodies, ready rifles, and flick bullet shells to a hypnotic beat. In Other Dessert Landscapes, Dana Sherwood worked with Joey’s Home Animal Rescue in Yucca Valley to provide horses for her dreamlike video, in which they nibble on lavish desserts set on outdoor tables, with a shot of humans thrown in now and then. It was captured with an infrared camera and it’s surreal—I’m still thinking about it.
Stop by Kate Lee Short’s Respite, a small building partly sunken into the ground. If you go on a day when the wind is blowing, you’ll hear a little concert, because there are pipes built into the roofline. This, like Rachel Whiteread’s cement-cast Shack I and Shack II, are pre-existing structures, but generally aren’t open to the public outside of HDTS. Other artists in the event are Dineo Seshee Bopape, Alice Channer, Gerald Clarke Jr and Paloma Varga Weisz.
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OUTSIDE LA: Emily Oliveira
Geary Contemporary, New YorkHidden amid the bustle of the Bowery, one of New York’s most chaotic streets, is Geary Contemporary, a gem of a gallery that has been quietly making a name for itself with engaging exhibitions of emerging artists. In its latest show, Red Velvet, Orange Crush, Geary presents new sculptural and quilted works by Emily Oliveira.
Taking over both of Geary’s gallery spaces—the one on Bowery, as well as their upstate New York location in Millerton—Red Velvet, Orange Crush, is a rich example of contemporary textiles. Oliveira combines different colors, textures and materials, including velvet, cotton, cyanotypes, beads and sequins, to create amorphous sculptures and quilts that resemble orifices. Depicting scenes of transformation, both supernatural and natural, the whole of the show seems to challenge our understanding of order and logic. Oliveira takes this otherworldly, science fiction feeling further by treating the entire space of the gallery like her canvas, paintings the walls with a rich ombre of colors that resemble a celestial sky.
Oliveira’s hints of velvet command attention. In Two Goddesses Witness the Miraculous Resurrection of an Ox Under a Solar Eclipse, Even as Two Dogs Fight Over the Bones (2021), a black velvet circle representing the sun sucks in the viewer’s eye as if pulled by some unknown, otherworldly source. Below the black orb are, as the title states, two goddess figures, fighting dogs and an ox in the process of resurrection. Nearby, in The Goddess is Transfixed by The Blood Moon Reflected in the Water at High Tide (2021), velvet appears again in a rich, red moon and its reflection in the water’s surface, as well as in a fiery orange flame emanating from the goddess’ head.
Emily Oliveira, I am weak with much giving, I am weak with the desire to give more (2022) on view at Geary. Courtesy of the artist and Geary Contemporary. While subtle hints of velvet serve to emphasize specific details in these works, it is the main attraction in a giant, amorphous sculpture installed in the corner of the room. Titled I am weak with much giving, I am weak with the desire to give more (2022), the lustrous, sparkling velvet surface dazzles. The sculpture’s folds and flaps seem to be moving, as if alive or about to come alive. Wedged in the corner, the sculpture appears to have bubbled out from the building’s cracks.
Oliveira’s show comes at a time when textiles are increasingly celebrated in New York. Just across the street from Geary Contemporary is Faith Ringgold’s stunning solo show at the New Museum, which includes quilts, sculpture and paintings from throughout the 91-year-old artist and women’s rights activist’s long career.
Emily Oliveira, We Are At a Moment That Will Be Remembered as the Beginning of the Great Change, For Who Can Say When a Wall Is Ready To Come Down mural at Bandshell, Courtesy of the artist and BRIC Like Ringgold, Oliveira also excels as a mural artist. Her exhibition coincides with a new wall mural in the Lena Horne Bandshell at Prospect Park. Titled, We Are At a Moment That Will Be Remembered as the Beginning of the Great Change, For Who Can Say When a Wall Is Ready To Come Down, the vivid mural depicts a pink brick wall and brightly colored figures engaging in an apparent scene of rebirth or transformation. Oliveira created the piece, on view through May 31st, to celebrate moments of collective action, in particular the groups that rose up against violence and hate over the last year.
Whether coincidence or clever scheduling, the juxtaposition of Oliveira and Ringgold’s work can be seen as aspirational. With Oliveira’s mastery of her techniques and mediums, in particular her memorable use of velvet, her work stands strong in such impressive company. It would come with little surprise to see Oliveira follow in Ringgold’s esteemed footsteps.
Red Velvet, Orange Crush is on view at Geary Contemporary at 208 Bowery and 34 Main Street in Millerton, New York through April 8th.
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OUTSIDE LA: Robin F. Williams
P·P·O·W New YorkRobin F. Williams’ latest solo show Out Lookers at P·P·O·W teeters between dream and nightmare. It’s unnerving and off-putting with witches, ghosts and trolls whose eyes burn like balls of fire. At the same time, it’s exciting, inviting and challenges us to embrace discomfort. Even the accompanying catalogue by Carmen Maria Machado starts out with a degree of unease: “Come Here. Come Here. Do you believe in ghosts? It doesn’t matter. They believe in you.” Out Lookers plays upon this discomfort and invites the viewer to enter Williams’ supernatural world full of subtle references to urban legends, climate change and horror films. Reframing the way in which women are portrayed in popular culture as scapegoats or mistrusted characters, Williams’ figures are powerful, larger than life and waiting to stare right back at the viewer.
The largest work in the show, Final Girl Exodus (2021), plays upon the horror film trope in which one woman remains at the end of the film to confront the killer. She is often the subject of sequels, doomed to relive the same trauma over and over again. Williams creates a new narrative for the final girl in which she and her fellow pawns come together and walk off into the sun. Is this scene foreboding? Is it triumphant? While the implication is the final girls have made it out of their horror narrative, they are all transparent, as if they’ve become ghosts. One final girl looks back and smiles. Her arm stretches around to invite you to join.
Robin F. Williams, Stalkers, 2020 The viewer is a central character throughout the show as the ghosts and trolls stare, wave and smile as you walk by. In Stalkers (2020), four women hide in plain sight behind a thin pole and look out as if you’ve just interrupted something. “Act natural” personified, the suspicious figures seem to be frozen in place, pretending to be innocent and invisible. Their bodies defy logic as they disappear behind one another. In the background, Williams has painted a cartoonish forest of leaves with pairs of bright dots that recall the piercing eyes of trolls seen in other paintings. The title Stalkers implies being watched or pursued, but who exactly is doing the stalking? The eyes hidden in the background appear to watch the viewer and the women, the latter of which also smile creepily at the viewer, who in turn watches back.
Robin F. Williams, A Sound Around No One, 2021 The work perhaps most grounded in reality, A Sound Around No One (2021), features a rainbow-speckled, supernatural figure calling out into the world beyond the canvas. Their mouth is open as wide as possible and the full force of their body is behind the sound they’re trying to make. Behind the figure is a smoky forest. Seeing the desperation in the gesture and the apparent smoke billowing behind the figure’s head feels personal. Williams is a dedicated climate activist and member of Artists Commit, a group that shares resources on sustainable art practices and tips on how to keep galleries accountable. P·P·O·W is tracking the carbon footprint of Out Lookers and will donate to permanent, old-growth forest conservation at the end of the show. It’s hard not to see a parallel between climate activists and the figure trying so hard to raise alarms in the smoky forest.
Robin F. Williams, Troll, 2021 There is so much more to say about Williams’ paintings in Out Lookers. She has a remarkable ability to combine techniques, textures and colors and engages with many topics in subtle ways. You may be creeped out, you may be inspired or you may have nightmares of a troll with fireball eyes. What is certain is that these works, ghosts and all, will make you feel something. I for one can’t wait to see them again.
Out Lookers is on view at P·P·O·W through November 13, 2021.
