Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Review of "Wow-House" at Johalla Projects and Laura Letinsky at the MCA
Johalla Projects – “Wow-house”
Johalla’s “Woo-house” was a refreshing gallery show. It did not take itself to seriously, yet it was dealing with a complex and very now topic: the intersection of furniture, décor and art.
The collection of pieces in the show blurred the line between art and edifice in a way that made the viewer consider the possible implications “living with art.” Most interesting perhaps was the paper circle rug. It was decorative and constructed like a rug would have been. Yet it was not a functioning object, you could not walk on it, instead I found myself walking around it. By referencing the nature of the decorative object but then completely altering its function, this piece addresses the complicated relationship between function and décor.
For a gallery to mount this show was surprising to me, in a way the show is questioning their very purpose. Galleries sell work to clients who then choose how to display the work, sometimes using it as décor. The space between the production of art and the act of selling it to private collector has always been a fascinating disconnect in the art world. This show is very frank in the way that it explores this disconnect through a body of work presented in a gallery.
Laura Letinsky at the MCA
Letinsky’s past still lives have always had a contemplative stillness, and a very formal esthetic. While the objects in her earlier work felt “off” in a certain way (used, or rotten, or askew), her new subject matter feels both playful and contemplative. By using manipulated images Letinsky is playing with the very nature of representation and perhaps decay.
These still lives have the same quietness as her earlier work, yet the play with images on paper, becomes a surprising punctum. Letinsky is using both the positive and negative space of her cut outs, implying the significance of form as well as subject matter. Her play with both presence and absence is also reflected in the very way that she photographs, her images are very flat and evenly lit. This creates a flattening effect between the background and the various forms present on the picture plane. The manipulated three-dimensional nature of the prints within the image become flatted again through the way Letinsky photographs.
This work seems to be a natural departure from Letinky’s earlier work, yet a more playful examination of the same theme, producing compelling results.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Review of Three Vertices at LVL3
The current exhibition Three Vertices at LVL3 celebrates this phenomenal gallery's two year anniversary as well as the opening of their new publications shop. Indeed this show is a reason for celebration; the art and curation of Three Vertices is spectacular.
Showcasing five artists, there is a modest amount of work on display in LVL3. Even with such a humble quantity of art to see, the curatorial direction of the show is clear to see. The audience is confronted with a playful adaptation of the utopian icons of high modernism with the materials of a postmodern era. Of particular noteworthiness is Austin-based artist Nathan Green's work Inlay that utilizes various pieces of corrugated cardboard and paper to construct what is essentially a modernist grid. Subtle variations in fragmented green and blue allude to the work of Bauhaus artist Josef Alber's infamous color studies. Green indeed notes in his statement that his work is a combination of "art history [meeting] Home Depot".
The only downside to Three Vertices (and it is a minute grievance to be sure) is the inclusion of Clay Hickson's graphite drawings. These pieces amalgamate absurd postmodern subject matter with the hyper-formalist geometric abstractions of modernism. While they certainly deserve merit in and of themselves, they differ greatly from the rest of the works by combining art history with the contemporary in purely subject matter rather than the combination of material and image.
Three Vertices runs at LVL3 until March 25th with viewings arranged by appointment with the gallery's staff. Email them soon for this exhibition is well worth going out of your way to see.
Showcasing five artists, there is a modest amount of work on display in LVL3. Even with such a humble quantity of art to see, the curatorial direction of the show is clear to see. The audience is confronted with a playful adaptation of the utopian icons of high modernism with the materials of a postmodern era. Of particular noteworthiness is Austin-based artist Nathan Green's work Inlay that utilizes various pieces of corrugated cardboard and paper to construct what is essentially a modernist grid. Subtle variations in fragmented green and blue allude to the work of Bauhaus artist Josef Alber's infamous color studies. Green indeed notes in his statement that his work is a combination of "art history [meeting] Home Depot".
The only downside to Three Vertices (and it is a minute grievance to be sure) is the inclusion of Clay Hickson's graphite drawings. These pieces amalgamate absurd postmodern subject matter with the hyper-formalist geometric abstractions of modernism. While they certainly deserve merit in and of themselves, they differ greatly from the rest of the works by combining art history with the contemporary in purely subject matter rather than the combination of material and image.
Three Vertices runs at LVL3 until March 25th with viewings arranged by appointment with the gallery's staff. Email them soon for this exhibition is well worth going out of your way to see.
Review of Carl Baratta's Sweet Water at Lloyd Dobler
Carl Baratta's exhibition of new work entitled Sweet Water, currently on display at Lloyd Dobler until April 28th, is by all means a showcasing of contradiction. While Baratta's newest paintings seem to offer up a multiple course meal of intriguing processes, content, and aesthetics, there is a slight hitch in that all of these elements ultimately lead to a vacuous cancellation of coherence.
The paintings in Sweet Water are almost all relatively small-scale works of egg tempera, gouache, and watercolor on boards. The exception of course is the 5' x 10' leviathan entitled You're never Going to Make It, & No One's Gonna Help You that dominates an entire wall of Lloyd Dobler's modestly sized space. Baratta looks to landscape for subject matter and depicts hellish looking forests with hidden figures and withered trees in a style reminiscent of both childish naivety and art brut. Already we have a perplexing contradiction as the aesthetic inclinations of a kindergardener collide with this Ballardian atrocity exhibition, a collision that synthesizes little more than a quick shock that is soon made predictable by repetition. One might hazard a guess that the use of egg tempera, an ennobled medium, juxtaposed with puerile application of the paint leads to interest. But again, the disturbing and subtly anthropomorphic landscapes of Baratta's paintings prevent the egg tempera-rendered childishness from forming a dialectical unity. It is in fact this nearly dialectical relationship that annulled my last hope of finding a concrete message of ecological activism in the artist's decapitated trees; how could one possibly incite a political implication in a painting that looks as if it were made by a 5-year old schizophrenic obsessed with the materiality of non-secular Byzantine art?
This show is essentially a series of near encounters and non-sequiturs, brushes with cohesion that never quite resolve themselves. A patron going to see Sweet Water will likely come away from the exhibition pondering on a plethora of eclectic (and admittedly interesting) topics that nonetheless Baratta has unfortunately failed to address with more than a brief and infinitely vague allusion.
The paintings in Sweet Water are almost all relatively small-scale works of egg tempera, gouache, and watercolor on boards. The exception of course is the 5' x 10' leviathan entitled You're never Going to Make It, & No One's Gonna Help You that dominates an entire wall of Lloyd Dobler's modestly sized space. Baratta looks to landscape for subject matter and depicts hellish looking forests with hidden figures and withered trees in a style reminiscent of both childish naivety and art brut. Already we have a perplexing contradiction as the aesthetic inclinations of a kindergardener collide with this Ballardian atrocity exhibition, a collision that synthesizes little more than a quick shock that is soon made predictable by repetition. One might hazard a guess that the use of egg tempera, an ennobled medium, juxtaposed with puerile application of the paint leads to interest. But again, the disturbing and subtly anthropomorphic landscapes of Baratta's paintings prevent the egg tempera-rendered childishness from forming a dialectical unity. It is in fact this nearly dialectical relationship that annulled my last hope of finding a concrete message of ecological activism in the artist's decapitated trees; how could one possibly incite a political implication in a painting that looks as if it were made by a 5-year old schizophrenic obsessed with the materiality of non-secular Byzantine art?
This show is essentially a series of near encounters and non-sequiturs, brushes with cohesion that never quite resolve themselves. A patron going to see Sweet Water will likely come away from the exhibition pondering on a plethora of eclectic (and admittedly interesting) topics that nonetheless Baratta has unfortunately failed to address with more than a brief and infinitely vague allusion.
tomorrow!
meet in classroom
start midterm crits
go over to bfa show at 10am
do bfa crits
then
back to room
finish other midterm crits
i put a christian marclay article on the portal but we won't discuss
it until after spring break....
bring your game face tomorrow, jason!
start midterm crits
go over to bfa show at 10am
do bfa crits
then
back to room
finish other midterm crits
i put a christian marclay article on the portal but we won't discuss
it until after spring break....
bring your game face tomorrow, jason!
Monday, March 12, 2012
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