Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Flashback: MTA's Second Avenue Line Inaugural Ride / December 31, 2016

Cuomo at the Second Avenue Line Press Conference discussing visions for New York's future, and
Invitation to the Inaugural Ride! 
The party begins: New Years Eve, December 31, 2016. After standing on a reasonably moving line one was admitted to the station  with a wristband.


Need to ride the train and find out if these stickers are still all over it.

Vik Muniz's mosaic passenger portraits

All on board! 


The rest of this post ogles Chuck Close's truly spectacular mosaic Subway Portraits, fabricated by Mosaica Art & Design and Magnolia Editions, commissioned by the NYC MTA. The quality is mind-blowing!  










Thank you MTA. Photo Courtesy: MTA. All other photos my own. More about the commissioned art here (I only rode one stop).  MTA Page about the art on the Second Avenue Line

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

World-Building on the Lower East Side

EJ Hauser at Regina Rex, building on the Amphibians show from several years ago: Gallery Link

The new imagery refines nascent Amphibians forms, insisting on short, dry lateral marks to build the imagery. 


Looking at the Basquiat-inspired 'notes' on paper, the lateral marks make sense as a handwriting, a script to be read as both image and mark: building a world through gesture. 
Imagery and word flow through a series of works on paper in the back of the gallery, exposing the interior mechanisms of world building from glimpses and associations.
Seen alone, the paintings are handsome and imposing. If divorced from their context of a conversation about painting, they also appear mysterious, unreadable. Surrounded by mementos of their evolution (the works on paper) they create a world of riffing, expansion from passing thoughts and ideas.
Long-term evolutions from Ohio-based digital musician Scott Olson at James Cohan: Gallery Link
A strange and mutated 1940s vibe. The lighter paintings in particular are beautiful.
More riffing and world-building from specific works of art: Russel Tyler at DennyGallery.  Gallery Link
Conflating various compositions to one size, and going in with clear color and loaded brush.
Juicy, Gustonesque slathering, without the form-building.

Painting as model, painting as module, painting as object, painting seen from digital moment.

Jackie Saccoccio, new pours on large sheets of  Yupo at 11R's street front gallery. Gallery Link

Detail



Entering, though a hallway, the back gallery--recessed like a cave, in which these paintings dwell. 











What words, for Apocalypse Confetti? The press release considers its relationship to portraiture, Italian painting and  pouring techniques. But in the end, this group of works builds a world through making, a process of silence analagous to concentrated viewing.





Tomory Dodge at CRG. Gallery Link to Artist - show under Past Exhibitions




Described in the press release as a transitional  period in the artist's work, the paintings recycle information in a variety of forms, contracting the possibilities within a narrower frame than before. This form of building results when the artist hones in on his or her concerns. 
Carol Salmanson and Katherine Daniels co-curate Tonal Shift at Station Independent Projects. Gallery Link

What a lovely surprise to hear audio and see kinetic sculpture as a part of the theme.




From the synopsis: "Our brains are wired to detect changes of all kinds-it is essential to our very survival. They can be extreme or subtle, and sometimes barely imperceptible. At times, our senses know instantly that there is a shift; at other times we come upon it slowly, as our senses adjust. Whether clear or vague, fast or incremental, the observation that something has changed creates a place to return to for inspection. How did we get from there to here? The color, tenor, medium, and sound can be switched, requiring us to look or listen again and again for understanding. 

Our contemporary culture focuses exclusively on the sharp changes, a reflection of our era of broad sweeps and blaring oppositional politics. We have witnessed a coarsening of all aspects of our culture, and perhaps this is the right time to re-focus on the nuances of both contemporary art and public discourse. 

The eight artists in Tonal Shift represent a broad spectrum of media in today’s visual art, and create works that take shifts in tone in different directions."

Adding:
Hyperallergic's wonderful series, Beer With a Painter, featuring  Jennifer Coates whose All You Can Eat exhibition at Freight and Volume rightfully belongs in this post and has been extended to April 23rd, 2017. Did not photograph the work as I snuck in right before the opening, somewhat illegally, as door said Do Not Enter. View the work and read about it here: Beer with a Painter: Jennifer Coates and Gallery Link

Leondard Hurzlmeier at Rachel Uffner. His All New Woman suggests the geometric forms of Mernet Larsen and graphic posters. Gallery Link
These paintings are complete but no less pleasing for graphic obviousness, belied by a  sanding and building layer technique that primes surface color with vibrating edges and eye-popping shapes.
There's a "Small World, After All" feeling to the images, but not the paint, which feels serious and focused.

Drawings upstairs did not equal the paintings' intensity; seemed irresolute.

The first painting you see entering the long hallway. It stopped me in my tracks.  So much like the beautiful graphics on  German toys from the 1970s, beautifully painted.