Within the underground, DIY, and circuit-bending communities of Chicago, NYC, and elsewhere Todd Bailey is the name associated with the 8bit sampler/kit WTPA (Where’s The Party At) and other unique home-brew electronics. For the last decade, Bailey’s activities have also found their way onto the shelves of toy stores like Target and the walls of museums like the Whitney.

Ashley Bickerton, "TITNW7" (detail), 2010-2011. Acrylic, digital print and plastic laminate on wood. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

In his recent show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea, Ashley Bickerton, a founding member of the 1980s “Neo-Geo” movement alongside Jeff Koons and Peter Halley, continued his exploration of the Western fantasy perspective of the Far East.  In his latest series of paintings and C-prints, Bickerton focused in on the debaucherous side of the Western imagination, crafting dystopic back-alley worlds set somewhere in Southeast Asia and lit by tawdry neon signs, strip clubs, and sex shops and populated by scantily clad, hyper-sexualized bodies, Western transients and sex tourists.  Having left the United States and moved to Bali almost twenty years ago, Bickerton is something of a postmodern Paul Gauguin, insofar as the subject of his paintings is not the alluring exoticism of the mysterious East as constructed in the Western imagination, but rather the underlying and sordid impulses of the fantasy itself.

The fascination with and fetishization of the East by the West is something of a point of departure for the artists in Catch the Moon in the Water: Emerging Chinese Artists at James Cohan Gallery, located just across the street from Lehmann Maupin.   Curated by Shanghai based Leo Xu, Catch the Moon takes its title from the verse of a Song Dynasty poem, “Seize the flower in the mirror, catch the moon in the water.” A mediation on the futility of capturing the real through its representation, the poetic verse in the context of this exhibition alludes to the stereotypes that have come to define (and be reflected in) contemporary Chinese art to Western audiences as part of the West’s preoccupation with the emerging cultural, military and economic juggernaut of China itself, including images of Mao, the Red Guard, Chinese characters, and other cultural objects and symbols.  Turning this intersection of the real and fantasy inside out, the Chinese artists in Catch the Moon instead reveal their own imaginings of the West, mining the ways in which America and American art in particular have served as inspirational sources in their own creative process and maturation.  The presence of such influences in the works on view are at times direct, but more often they are oblique and remote, filtered through dense layers of cultural and political scrims and across great social and geographical divides.

Cheng Ran, "Ghost of Tundra #2," C-print, 2010. Courtesy James Cohan Gallery.

There are many references to art and popular cultural imagery that have permeated the Chinese creative subconscious, be it an iconic Andy Warhol portrait and images of the twin towers with smoke pouring from them culled from print media, or the enduring allure of Hollywood and cinema’s role in both reflecting and shaping the image of America in the minds of people outside it.  The artists Cheng Ran and Chen Wei both craft exquisitely staged photographs steeped in cinematic romance and mystery, an aesthetic that suggests the impact of both Hollywood culture industry and the work such American photographers as James Casebere and Gregory Crewdson.

But there are also more nuanced references to America’s influence in Catch the Moon, as well as works that reflect upon the complicated realities and challenges facing emerging artists working in China at a time when Chinese contemporary art is being ravenously consumed by Western audiences.  One of the most poignant is Hu Xianqqian’s Xiangqian’s Art Museum (2010), a video performance in which the artist stands in a courtyard before a microphone and describes (in Mandarin with English subtitles) a series of Western art works that he remembers and considers influential to his own practice.  While he recounts the works with great energy and enthusiasm, bouncing and pacing back and forth and speaking passionately, Hu’s descriptions of iconic performances pieces by the likes of Richard Long and other western artists are decidedly imprecise and vague and as his own performance unfolds, his work becomes less about the specific works that have influenced him and instead a meditation on the power and the limitations of memory, and on the ways political realities and cultural divides can complicate access and confound artistic discourse.  Implicit in Hu’s work is the lack of resources and quality reproductions of the Western contemporary art that have so inspired and impacted his own work, yet which he had never actually seen or entirely comprehended—a “lost in translation” effect that goes beyond simple language barriers to subtly address the general lack of translated materials and his limited access to other art resources, both online and off.  More hopefully, however, Hu’s Art Museum also speaks to how art has and can in its own way find a way to overcome those same political realities and cultural divides, influencing and inspiring against considerable odds and in unforeseen ways.

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Participants at Ursula von Rydingsvard's studio last summer

We are very, very excited to be starting up YEAR 3 of Art21 Educators today. Sixteen teachers from a variety of disciplines and from across the country will join us for a week’s worth of workshops, discussion, planning and learning in order to utilize Art21 resources- bringing contemporary art into their classrooms for the 2011-2012 school year and beyond. Some of these teachers are already well versed in contemporary art, so the goal is to do it more efficiently and perhaps meaningfully. Others are just getting a taste of what contemporary art can offer in the classroom. We have an inspiring lineup of artist visits, workshops and activities planned for all.

If you missed meeting any of our Art21 Educators this year, please click on the links to see their individual blog posts including video:

Christopher Tourre and Derek De Haan (Chicago, IL)
Karen Melvin and Sue Carris (Pittsburgh, PA)
Samantha Melvin and Kim Timmons (Burnet, TX)
Todd Elkin and Teri Hu (Freemont, CA)
Jeannine Bardo and Mary Curry (Brooklyn, NY)
Jethro Gillespie and James Rees (Spanish Fork, UT)
Jack Watson and Holly Loranger (Chapel Hill, NC)
Maureen Hergott and Julia CopperSmith (Chicago, IL)

And before I go… just an early-summer THANK YOU to all of our Art21 Educators from last year. What a wonderful group to work with! We will soon be sharing some of the units, lessons and reflections from their work over the past 12 months.

Next week…… a full report on the 2011 Art21 Educators institute.

Jeff Jamieson in his studio. Photo: Deborah Denker.

Last week in this column, I discussed the preservation of Donald Judd’s artworks with art conservator Eleonora Nagy. This week, I talk with Jeff Jamieson about his experiences fabricating furniture and working for Judd, among other prominent contemporary artists.

I had the good fortune of meeting and working with Jeff Jamieson when he lead the installation of the white scrim elements of Robert Irwin’s massive installation, Light and Space III, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). Over the years, we’ve had conversations about Irwin and Judd. In light of the major touring exhibition of Judd’s furniture, A good chair is a good chair, I invited Jamieson to talk about his work.

Born in Claremont, California, Jeff graduated with his BFA in Ceramics from the San Francisco Art Institute and then moved to New York City in 1989. In addition to working for Donald Judd, he has worked for the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation and the Judd Foundation.

For many years, he has worked closely with the Chinati Foundation, a relationship that recently produced a large scrim-based artwork by Robert Irwin. In 2009, he returned to working for the Judd Foundation to fabricate Judd’s furniture. Today he is based in San Luis Obispo, California, where he owns and operates Compact Gallery and will begin teaching sculpture at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo this fall.

Richard McCoy: How did you first get involved in making furniture for Donald Judd?

Jeff Jamieson: In 1988, I was renting a studio at 44 Mercer Street in New York City with Richard Schwarzwald, who, at the time, was one of Don’s assistants. Our studio was a block away from 101 Spring Street, Don’s home and studio in New York. This was at the time when his big retrospective was being installed at the Whitney Museum of American Art and one day they were short-handed, so I went up and helped. I painted the Diamond  Plate on the sidewalk near the front of the building. So that was my first job with Donald Judd.

My next job for Don was guarding the Carl Andre stacked brick work, Manifest Destiny, at Spring Street, that was permanently installed on the first floor there. It was during a party and my job was to ask people to please watch out for the artwork. These experiences led to my starting to work for him and I did that for 5 years.

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Thanks to Nick Briz for his inventive Skype mashup interviews with new media practitioners. You can follow his pursuits at www.nickbriz.com.

Up next is Beth Capper. Beth is an independent film curator from Brighton, England, and a recent graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Art History and Arts Administration MA program. In addition to co-organizing SAIC’s graduate student film series, The Eye & Ear Clinic, she has programmed film screenings for the Maysles Cinematheque in Harlem, NYC, and the Roots and Culture Gallery, Stop Smiling storefront and Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. Beth is currently working on an online archive bringing together the documents of film/video artist Shirley Clarke’s Tee Pee Video Space Troupe workshops from the 1970s.

In June, Art21 launched its first geographically focused film series and public program initiative, New York Close Up. To date, ten films have been released, two public events have taken place, and multiple postings have been made on the project’s website. And this is just the beginning!

Today, Art21 invites you to join the New York Close Up Film Fund, a membership group that champions and supports the series. Membership begins at $50, with benefits ranging from advance notice of film releases to invitations to special premiere events and parties. Participation in the Film Fund contributes directly to future productions of New York Close Up including public events and online initiatives associated with the series. To join, please visit the New York Close Up Film Fund page today!

Why join?

You champion the creation of experimental films.
You want to learn more about artists’ engagement in New York City.
You believe in Art21’s mission and encourage expanded programming and new initiatives.

Thank you for supporting Art21!

Donate now

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Learn more about making a donation to Art21.

Margaret Kilgallen, "Untitled," c. 2000. Courtesy Ratio 3.

In this week’s roundup, Margaret Kilgallen summer selections, Mark Dion in the Netherlands, Kiki Smith in conversation, Laurie Simmons, virtually, and much more.

• Margaret Kilgallen: Summer / Selections is now on view at Ratio 3 (San Francisco).  This includes works on paper and paintings on canvas, some never before seen. The work emphasizes Margaret Kilgallen’s resourcefulness and economy of materials and features the artist’s iconic motifs such as leaves, trees, topography, and female figures, This exhibition closes August 5.

• Alfredo Jaar and Krysztof Wodiczko have work in Galerie Lelong’s (NYC) Interventions in the Landscape, a collective exhibition of photos and films exploring the landscape as a medium for social discourse.  As an activation of an array of sites charged with social and political connotations, these artists give voice to the terrain, allowing it to enter into an exchange with the subject and viewer.  The exhibition will run until August 5.

• The Bronx Museum (NYC), a friend of Art21, presents Taking AIM: 30-Year Anniversary Exhibition. The Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program has helped to demystify the often opaque professional practices of the art world for artists at the beginning of their careers and has introduced their work to the public.  The exhibition features sculptures, works on paper, video installations, photographs, and other works by 72 participants in AIM 2011.  The show closes on September 5.

• Mark Dion is among 100 international artists whose work has been selected for viewing in the Deichtorhallen (Netherlands).  The works show the many different layers of two private contemporary art collections as well as the various unknown aspects of them.  The exhibition will run until August 21.

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Serkan Özkaya at this studio in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: Baris Ozcetin.

Serkan Özkaya is a contemporary conceptual artist based in Istanbul, Turkey, and New York City. His work deals with topics of appropriation and reproduction and it typically operates outside of traditional art spaces. He holds an M.F.A. from Bard College, New York, and a Ph.D in German Language and Literature from Istanbul University, where he also earned his B.A. and M.A. Özkaya has been an artist-in-residence at the École Régionale des Beaux Arts de Nantes (2000–2001), Rooseum in Malmo with the IASPIS grant (2002), Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul (2003–2004), and at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2006). He has also been a fellow of the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. His work is represented by Slag Gallery, New York and Galeri Nev, Istanbul.

Serkan Özkaya, "Today Could Be The Day Of Historical Importance," 2010. (The artist collaborated with newspapers across the globe to hand-draw the text and images of pages of their papers after they were laid out by the newspaper’s editors. The drawings were printed in place of the typeset pages, resulting in accessible, affordable, and unexpected works of art that were distributed to millions of people. The book includes discussions, interviews, and articles on the project, in addition to hundreds of color reproductions of all of Özkaya’s newspaper pages and photographs documenting his working process).

Here is artist, writer, and friend, Serkan Özkaya.

Serkan Özkaya, "Sudden Gust of Wind, Paper and threat," Bilsar, Istanbul, Turkey, 2009. Dimensions variable. Photo: Baris Ozcetin.

Georgia Kotretsos: I’ve often wondered about the internal process of artmaking, hoping to comprehend the force behind it. Is it a need ‘to make,’ to ‘share’ and ‘communicate,’ and so on and so forth? For sure, there isn’t a fixed answer and for that reason I would like to ask you why, for what reason, and for whom do you make art?

Serkan Özkaya, "Spaghetti Chair," 2009. Spaghetti sticks and glue. Photo: Baris Ozcetin.

Serkan Özkaya: You know what, so have I! Most of the time, the case is that we have dinner and drinks with my friends and the conversation develops and everybody becomes tipsy and this or that idea comes up and I won’t even know if it’s me or somebody else who brought it up, but the next day nobody else has a recollection of it but me.

As a matter of fact, I do think that only the person you’re talking to can utter your very ideas.

I sometimes think that ideas are like butterflies, as Feyerabend calls them. They circle around in the air and anyone with a seeing eye can see them and it’s just a matter of choice to decide to take the responsibility to execute and go for them. And then the artist is mostly an exhibitionist who wants to share or actually show them to others.

As for who those others are, I don’t have a clue. I’d say, “Me, myself, and a couple of friends,” and/or the whole world. I don’t know, really.

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