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New York Tales
Katy Diamond Hamer
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 | | | | | | 11.05.2012
April showers bring Mayflowers, or so the old adage goes. The weather in New York has offered a climate kerfuffle, with recent temperatures at 85 degrees Fahrenheit fluctuating to a measly, wintery, 45 degrees Fahrenheit. The art world, however has kept itself at a lukewarm temperature, which is going to start steaming up for the month of May. April was a busy month in the galleries and with the onset of the first ever Frieze Art Fair New York, May is forecasted to be busier. Some of the gems on view in New York during the month of April include; Anne Collier at Anton Kern, Valerie Hegerty at Marlborough Gallery, Chelsea, Alex Bag and Patterson Beckwith at Team Gallery, “Cash from Chaos/Unicorns & Rainbows”, one of my recent favorite exhibition titles. I attended the opening for Anne Collier at Anton Kern Gallery with artist Paolo Canevari. There was quite a turnout and the gallery was teeming with familiar, New York based, art world personalities. Also, recently attended was the opening of Brice Marden, New Paintings at Matthew Marks. The artist made these works, oil on marble, last year during a stay on the Greek Island of Hydra. The paintings are somewhat timeless in appearance while also paying homage to a distant historical past and the phenomena of patterns found in nature. Here, Marden plays upon textures found subtly within the marble surface, delicately marking each chunky, rectangular, wall hung block, with color markings and geometry. Making the rounds, I spoke with Chuck Close, Francesco Clemente, Robert Storr and artist Luca Buvoli. The energy at the gallery was fantastic and everyone present seemed to forget that it was a blustery, unexpectedly cold evening for April.
| | | | |  | | Alex Bag and Patterson Beckwith. Installation view of Cash from Chaos/Unicorns & Rainbows. Courtesy Team Gallery, 2012. | | | | | Another event I attended worth mentioning was the screening of artist Laurel Nakadate’s 2010 film, The Wolf Knife. The screening took place at the IFC Theater in Greenwich Village, following a discussion between Nakadate herself and novelist, composer Rick Moody. The film is a contemporary translation of the ever-popular car films, a road trip movie but instead of the protagonists being men, this time they are two unassuming, teenage girls in the bloom of post-pubescence. Nakadate, who also had a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2011, is an important video artist who focuses on the female presence and relishes in the awkward, implicit sexuality between her subjects and their male counterparts, who are usually older, worn-out and down on their luck. The Wolf Knife is the artist’s second feature film and once again takes the viewer on a ride with two young women seeking independence from uncomfortable home situations but in attempting this task; take a road trip across several states, to the home of a creepy former 3rd grade teacher. Luckily, the girls recognize their possible implications of their blunder and are able to retreat, even if the friendship loses some of its’ connective glue along the way. | | |  | | Installation view, Giverny, at the Hole Gallery, 2012. By E.V. Day and Kembra Pfahler. Courtesy The Hole. | | | | | Some other exhibitions worth mentioning include two shows at Luhring Augustine, one that recently closed and another, which will be on view until July 2012. The first was “Lavoro - Vietato l'ingresso” by Michelangelo Pistoletto featuring his silkscreen paintings on highly reflective, polished surfaces dating from 2008-2011. The latter is Charles Atlas, The “Illusion of Democracy”, on view at the new Luhring Augustine space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with video projections containing numbers as content. Both exhibitions offer ways to include the viewer in the artists work. Pistoletto with his reflective surfaces and Atlas with the projection into physical space which one can inadvertedly walk through. While Pistoletto’s mirrors may at first glance seem contrived, I have followed his work after seeing the Arte Povera themed group show “From Zero to Infinity” in at the Tate Modern, London, in summer 2000. In “Lavoro - Vietato l'ingresso” all of the silkscreen content has been derived from construction workers, their tools and equipment. Each piece is compositionally masterful, reminding us that not much information is needed to communicate an object or instead just a color-blocked area that can be void of the functional object from which it is made. | | |  | | Laurel Nakadate, The Wolf Knife, 2010. Digital film still. Courtesy the artist. | | | | | Lastly, how can I not mention “Giverny” at the HOLE Gallery. E.V. Day and Kembra Pfahler collaborated on transforming the entire gallery into a New York based version of the lush, green gardens often painted by Monet in Giverny, France. The opening was bananas. Hundreds of guests shuffled through the garden, or rather gallery, on pebble paths and flanked with grass. A pond with a replication of the famous arched bridge was in the main large room, and magical lily pads, were present as well. For the duration of the exhibition, which closed April 24th, gallery director Kathy Grayson invited people to have picnics in the space and also sponsored “poetry night in the garden”, inviting several poets, musicians and artists alike to read erotic poems. Hawt! | | |  | | Michelangelo Pistoletto. Lavoro – Betoniera, 2008-2011. Silkscreen on polished super . Mirror stainless steel. Courtesy Luhring Augustine, 2012. | | | | | That’s my report for New York Tales for now. Be sure to check back to be updated on what’s going on in the galleries, what you should see or might have seen already. | | | | | |
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