Weekly Roundup

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, "Always After (The Glass House)", 2006. Super 16mm film transferred to high-definition digital video. RT 9:41, continuous loop, edition of 3 with 2 APs. Courtesy Max Protetch Gallery.

Making this week’s roundup are an upside down glass house, a floral puppy, fused bicycles and an empty white shoe box, a TV-inspired installation, two exhibitions focusing on American society, a few year-end lists, and an artist just two years shy of a century:

• Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With, a new project by Season 4 artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, is now on view at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA). Taking Mies van der Rohe’s uncompleted project 50×50 House (1951) as his point of departure, Manglano-Ovalle has built this glass-walled structure at approximately half its original scale and inverted. The ceiling of the original becomes the sculpture’s floor, the floor becomes the ceiling, and all interior elements are installed upside down. Two of Manglano-Ovalle’s films are shown in conjunction with the exhibition: Always After (The Glass House), plays in a continuous loop at Mass MoCA; and the artist’s latest video Juggernaut is on view nearby at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). The Mass MoCA installation continues through Oct 31, 2010. (See images from opening night on Flickr.) WCMA’s show closes March 14, 2010.

• The Museum of Modern Art’s highly anticipated retrospective exhibition of works by Gabriel Orozco (Season 2) finally opened last week. Here’s a few articles and reviews to check out: Slicing a Car, Fusing Bicycles and Turning Ideas Into Art, New York Times; A Whale of a Return to MoMA, New York Times; Gabriel Meets the Globe, Artnet; Don’t Knock the White Box, Artinfo; and Sightlines: Great Bones, Wall Street Journal. On Tuesday, December 15, the museum will host a conversation between Orozco, art historian Briony Fer, and Chief Curator Ann Temkin. The event begins at 6:30pm; purchase tickets here.

• On December 17, the first Australian survey of works by Jenny Holzer (Season 4) will open at the Australian Center for Contemporary Art (ACAA). For ACCA’s main exhibition hall, Holzer will project poetry in the form of light onto the floors, ceilings, and walls. She will also display works from a series that began in 2005 where she translates declassified government documents into paintings. These works come from, Holzer says, her “frantic worrying about the war and attendant changes in American society.” Holzer’s projections and paintings will be supplemented by her LED installation, Torso. In this piece, Holzer’s signs display statements, investigation reports, and emails from case files of soldiers accused of crimes in the Middle East. The exhibition closes February 28, 2010.

• Works by Holzer, Kara Walker (Season 2) and An-My Lê (Season 4) are included in the exhibition America, now on view at the Beirut Art Center (BAC). According to the BAC, the exhibition is “Neither an accusation nor a celebration, [its] purpose is to reflect on the mythologies that have built and perpetuated the idea of America and to consider the ways in which America has been both imagined and imaged by Americans and non-Americans alike.” Time Out Beirut says, “America offers no didactic solutions – but plenty of interesting ideas.” Artists Naji Al-Ali, Wafaa Bilal, Jospeh Beuys, William Eggelston, Ayreen Anastas & René Gabri, Ziad Antar, Mounir Fatmi, Matt McCormick, Catherine Opie, Julia Meltzer & David Thorne, Melik Ohanian, Martha Rosler, and Greta Pratt are also included in the exhibition.

• Horizontal Tracking Shots, the first show in New York entirely devoted to paintings by Mike Kelley (Season 1), is on view at Gagosian Gallery through December 23. According to the gallery, “Kelley has devised a spatial push-pull effect through the arrangement of large polychrome panel paintings and smaller framed canvases.” In his smaller works, with titles such as Mort’s Mouth (2008-2009) and Twin Henrys (2008-2009), Kelley draws from elementary school textbook illustration, New Age painting, comic strips, and science-fiction. The free-standing construction after which the exhibition is titled, Horizontal Tracking Shot of a Cross Section of Trauma Rooms (2009), is inspired by televisual space and incorporates colored panels, TV color bars on monitors, and found footage from YouTube.

• Season 5 artists William Kentridge and Yinka Shonibare are named in Time Magazine’s list of the top 10 art exhibitions this year: William Kentridge: Five Themes, on view at the Norton Museum through January 17; and Yinka Shonibare MBE, on view at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art through March 7, 2010. (Five Themes also won first place for Best Monographic Museum Show Nationally at the annual awards ceremony of the International Association of Art Critics/USA.)

• The Whitney Museum of Art has announced the participants of 2010, the next Whitney Biennial. Season 3 artist Ellen Gallagher (working in collaboration with Edgar Cleijne) is among this group of more than 50 individual artists and collectives. Watch the video announcement on the museum’s website.

• Adrian Searle of The Guardian cites Promenade by Richard Serra (Season 1) as one of his most memorable visual art experiences of the decade. Read Searle’s complete list here.

• In last week’s issue of New York Magazine, in which writers reflected on the passing decade, resident art critic Jerry Saltz dedicated his piece to the monumental flower sculpture Puppy by Jeff Koons (Season 5). Saltz calls the sculpture “The first of this decade’s public-spectacle art extravaganzas.” Read the article here.

• At almost 98 years old, Season 2 artist Louise Bourgeois is still garnering recognition and pushing boundaries. According to BBC, she is the oldest new addition to Who’s Who, the directory of noteworthy and influential people worldwide.

An-My Lê on Michael Heizer tonight at Dia

As part of Dia’s Artists on Artists lecture series, Season 4 artist An-My Lê will lecture on Michael Heizer tonight at 6:30. Trap Rock, Lê’s 2006-2007 series of color photographs, was on view at Dia:Beacon through September 2008.

The lecture takes place at Dia’s New York City space, 535 West 22nd Street, 5th floor. Admission is $6; $3 for members, students, and seniors. Tickets are available at the lecture only. Reservations are suggested, call 212-293-5583.

Letter From London: Protest Too Much

Whichever candidate succeeds this November, there will be a discernible effect in art. The last eight years have seen a resurgence of politically motivated art comparable to that produced during and after the Vietnam War. Characterizing the nature of art made now is, of course, a quixotic and thankless task. Contemporary art is far too multifarious and globally produced, experienced, and consumed to be bracketed into an “ism.” However, an art born of outrage revitalizing art’s shock tactics has emerged within the last few years, and may be seeing its twilight in the run up to a new administration.

Political outrage can blast the subtlety out of artmaking, and not all attempts to articulate it have been successful. Too often, real events throw artists’ discontent into stark relief. Thomas Hirschhorn’s Superficial Engagement at Barbara Gladstone in 2005, nail-studded, gnarly, and startling, looked mute and minor in relation to the Abu Ghraib revelations.  A new show of work by veteran minimalist and performance artist Robert Morris at Spruth Magers in London has a pre-emptively archaic look to it: all inverted American flags, big black eagles, and screaming skulls in relief: theatrical, even camp in its outrage.

However, some works have addressed contemporary history with a lucidity and thoughtfulness that has asserted the importance of art as a forum for non-mainstream discussion. Mark Wallinger’s State Britain installation at Tate Britain was a rare example of a poised and poetic response to the curtailing of civil liberties that have taken place during the Iraq war, and is one of a number of more oblique responses to contemporary events that drag the discussion into the realm of art without compromising their efficacy as works of art (Alfredo Jaar’s and An-My Lê’s works operate on similar levels). And Maypole (Take No Prisoners) (2007), by fellow Protest artist Nancy Spero, might be this generation’s Guernica: a howl of pain and anger distilled into a direct visual language that feeds into a historical continuum of the human cost of war—the visual articulation of horrified disbelief. Graphically simple paintings on paper of human heads–screeching, wailing, vomiting–radiate suspended from blood-red threads around a maypole, conflating historical circularity (the pole itself recalls the grotesque folk ritual dramatised in The Wicker Man), the theatrics of warfare, and raw human emotion.

The example of Spero is, in fact, instructive; the best political art has always been able to be comprehended in mass-media contexts. It’s significant that Goya’s Third of May and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa–both produced on the cusp of the mass-distribution period that produced Guernica, a painting that replicates the striations of newsprint–retain their visual currency in political cartoons. Conversely, successful photographic icons of wartime have a pictorial quality that links them to the heritage of painted protest. Staged propaganda photographs from the American Civil War and photographs of atrocities from Abu Ghraib share a compositional quality that taps into a subconscious compositional sympathy (Art21 guest blogger Emily Liebert has written succinctly and fascinatingly on the role of photography in wartime here).

The revival of protest in painting has re-engaged the connection between painted mark and emotional intensity muffled by the generation of post-Richter distanced photorealists. Increasing mistrust of mainstream media coverage and the euphemistic language of contemporary conflict may turn out to be art’s gain; we may return to it as the basic language of human understanding and communication. Whether or not that continues to be the case will, in part, depend upon what takes place in six weeks’ time.

SIDE X SIDE

Art and activism have been intimately engaged throughout contemporary art history, reiterating the notion that the personal is political. In 2007, Art:21’s Season 4 addressed activist strategies (in particular, the politics of war) in “Protest,” which included Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, An-My Lê, and Nancy Spero. A new investigation of art and activism (in this case, the AIDS crisis) can currently be seen in SIDE X SIDE, an exhibition curated by Dean Daderko for Visual AIDS on view through August 3, 2008 at La MaMa La Galleria in the East Village.

With works from the 1980s to the present by Scott Burton, Kate Huh, Nicholas Moufarrege, Martin Wong, and Carrie Yamaoka, Daderko’s project is rooted in the history of the 1980s in New York City where more than 10,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS in 1986. Between 1986 and 1991 there were numerous exhibitions, conferences, and artworks about AIDS in New York, while activist groups such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Visual AIDS worked to educate the public and insist on medical research and treatment. Art21 artist Oliver Herring (Season 3) has also made works related to AIDS, in particular A Flower for Ethyl Eichelberger (1991) a tribute to the performance artist who committed suicide in 1990 after discovering that he had AIDS.

One of the most noted exhibitions about the politics of AIDS was Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing (a 1989 review of the show can be found in the New York Times on-line) organized by artist Nan Goldin at Artists Space in 1989. The show highlighted a group of artists living in the lower east side of Manhattan who were directly affected by AIDS. Daderko’s project is a sobering reminder of this history as well as a tribute to those who have been lost to this vicious disease. Further details and upcoming events related to SIDE X SIDE can be found on the Visual AIDS website.

The Billy Joels of Art Education

This past Sunday, the New York Times ran an article about Billy Joel. The article focused on the fact that, despite not making a new recording in 15 years, Billy Joel still manages to sell out Shea Stadium—twice—in less than two hours. It got me thinking about the Billy Joels of art education. You know, the artists that we may admire and respect in one way or another, but have gotten tired of teaching about over and over. Think “Uptown Girl.” A fun song when it came out, but a song that’s been beaten into submission by its radio-friendliness. It got me thinking about the “Stairway to Heavens”of the art classroom and immediately I came up with three: Monet, Dali, and Warhol. These artists now have the unfortunate distinction of often having their names linked with the word “project”. For example, “Oh you tried a Warhol-project with your class.”

I started to think about artists that might offer very different takes on what Monet, Dali and Warhol often help us teach. Here’s are some initial ideas:

1. Juxtapose the work of Andy Warhol with Alfredo Jaar. Have students compare how both of these artists explore the idea of becoming desensitized to certain images. Students can create, juxtapose or layer contemporary images and symbols that, from their perspective, the public has become desensitized to.
2. Compare the works of Salvador Dali and An-My Lê. How do both artists deal with the the theme of violence in ways that are similar and very different? Students can create a variety of work that explores violence in our society. One approach might ask students to create a surreal illustration or staged photograph based on world news images.
3. View and discuss the work of Claude Monet and Robert Adams side by side. How do the landscapes painted by Monet compare with the photo landscapes by Robert Adams? What kinds of things does each artist want the viewer to think about? Students can then create a painting or series of photographs that explore landscapes (both literal and figurative) of personal importance.

Who are the Billy Joels of your own classroom? How can we use and incorporate contemporary art to give these artists a different, and perhaps more meaningful, place in our teaching?

Conversations: An-My Lê with Michael Almereyda part 2

Following is the second half of the conversation between An-My Lê and filmmaker Michael Almereyda that took place on May 5, 2008 at the Mid-Manhattan Library. This event was co-presented with BOMB Magazine.

ALMEREYDA: There’s one bit of work that you did that I am really dazzled by that’s not featured in the movie—your video footage of Twentynine Palms. The black and white footage of the particular company at Twentynine Palms is shocking because you recognize how young these people are. We see war movies all of the time, and you see actors striving to be tough and war-ravaged, but when you see people going into war, it’s shocking. I was shocked by this footage because they seem so innocent. That’s a tricky word to apply, but they seemed beautiful—the light and their attitudes. A particular shot roves around their faces while they’re being instructed on something, but you can’t hear it because it’s without sound, so it’s just a kind of feat of observation. It’s really beautiful. The wind is rustling through their hair, they’re backlit; it’s not glamorous, but it is beautiful. I look forward to seeing it again. What are you doing with that? Is that going to be shown in a gallery at some point? Can you talk about your other film work?

LÊ: Yes. You encouraged me to make films—that’s how I started. Originally I wanted to do film because of sound. I felt that pictures could not reproduce sound. And some of the dialogues that I heard were so amazing.

ALMEREYDA: I didn’t realize that.

LÊ: So I started doing that. Then after looking at the footage it turned out that film provided the kind of ideal portraits that I had been looking for. I feel it’s been beginner’s luck! I would like to do some more, but I’m not sure what I want to do.

ALMEREYDA: In the video piece that was just shown, there are people returning and being embraced by their families. So you were shooting there, but you haven’t organized or edited it yet?

LÊ: Yes, I haven’t organized it yet. I’m mainly a photographer so…

ALMEREYDA: I look forward to seeing that edited. Part of my homework was to actually read this book that I’ve been looking at the pictures of for so long. There’s a very good essay by Richard Woodward and in it he goes to great lengths, and maybe overreaches a bit, to draw historical references to what you’ve done and how this relates to the history of landscape photography, and how landscape photography measures not just human time but also geographic time. I wonder how much of that you’d absorbed from Timothy O’Sullivan and then thought about as you were taking pictures?

LÊ: Well, I certainly love Timothy O’Sullivan’s work, [Roger] Fenton, [Eugene] Atget and all of the 19^th-century photographers. I consider myself a landscape photographer working with a large format camera because I love the way it describes the space, the details, and the air between things. So when it came to working with the particular subject of war or the re-enactors, I had to reconsider my tool. I worked with a medium format at first and it did not describe space in the way that I wanted to. I’m not necessarily just interested in people fighting, holding guns, but I’m interested in people fighting and holding guns in the landscape. I felt that the large format camera was necessary so I just continue on with that tool and try to make it work. In that sense, I’m sort of a 19^th-century photographer. I think it’s also about not describing the action, but about describing something before it happens or right after it happens. And there’s no reason why you can’t do that with a view camera.

Continue reading »

Conversations: An-My Lê with Michael Almereyda part 1

The following is a conversation between An-My Lê and Michael Almereyda that took place at the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library on May 5th, 2008. This event was co-presented with BOMB Magazine. Stay tuned for the second part of this interview, which will be published tomorrow.

MICHAEL ALMEREYDA: I guess we’ll just leap into this. I have to confess that I’ve never interviewed anyone in public before, so you’ll have to bear with me. But I’ve known An-My for a long time—for about four years or so. I’m feeling lucky to be asked to talk with her.

I wasn’t familiar with the Art:21 series before, but it’s clearly a strong series. But I want to register my own polite protest in that I have to confess that I’m not sure how An-My’s work can really be considered “protest.” I’m really intrigued by the idea of artists who vocally protest, but it seems that what she’s doing in her work is asking questions. One of the great traps of vocalizing protest in art is that you tend to be strident, or corny, or obvious, and I think her work is none of those things. Having known her work for a long time and having recognized a certain progression, I guess we’ll just talk a little bit about that. I also wanted to mention that there’s a great show up right now at the Murray Guy Gallery on 17th Street, is it?

AN-MY LÊ: Yes.

ALMEREYDA: I recommend anyone who’s remotely interested to go check it out. In some ways the work is similar and has continuity, but it’s also very different. It’s in color and you found your way to Antarctica. It’s a different landscape, but a similar sensibility.

I’m curious about your background in that it’s touched on in the movie. There are things I didn’t know even after knowing you for a while. You grew up in and around the war—what are your clearest and most vivid memories of the war?

LÊ: I think my memories are vivid in the sense that I remember very specific events, whether they were the Tet offensive, or a mortar falling into my school half an hour before I showed up, or my great grandmother who was saved because she decided to spend the night at our house instead of going home; her house was then mortared. But at the same time, war was part of our life so we never really questioned it. I just accepted it and lived through it.

Continue reading »

Day 6 – Art21 Online Fundraising Drive

As I write, Art21’s founder and executive director, Susan Sollins, is attending the 37th Annual George Foster Peabody Award ceremony to accept the award being given to the Protest episode from Season 4 of Art:21–Art in the Twenty-First Century. What a way to start the week!

We hope you will consider making a gift today in honor of this momentous occasion. Donations can be made via Art21.org/donate or the Art21 Facebook Cause.

As filmmakers we are very deeply honored to receive the Peabody Award. One of 35 programs selected as “the best in electronic media,” our fellow awardees, include producers for major news organizations (CNN, ABC, CBS, BBC) and established PBS programs (Nature, Frontline, Independent Lens), as well as those of The Colbert Report and 30 Rock – a testament to the importance of artists’ voices to our national conversation and to the Art21 series that allows their voices to be heard.

Our winning episode features Nancy Spero, Alfredo Jarr, Jenny Holzer, and An-My Lê sharing their processes of making artworks that grapple with the complexities of global politics and activism, and exemplifies Art21’s approach of showcasing artists’ deep engagement with the world around them.

If you haven’t seen the full program yet, consider entering to win your very own copy! Donate $10 or more to Art21 by Friday, June 20, 2008 to be entered to win Art21 DVDs and books, including our Peabody-Award winning episode. Read here for details.Thanks so much to all of you who have already made a donation, or helped to spread the word on Facebook. As of this post, 118 people have joined our cause! We greatly appreciate everyone’s support during our first-ever online fundraiser.

An-My Lê | Becoming an Artist

EXCLUSIVE: An-My Lê discusses how she came to be an artist after studying biology, while printing a photograph from the series Trap Rock (2006) in her New York studio.

An-My Lê’s photographs and films examine the impact, consequences, and representation of war, framing a tension between the natural landscape and its violent transformation into battlefields. Suspended between the formal traditions of documentary and staged photography, Lê’s work explores the disjunction between wars as historical events and the ubiquitous representation of military power in contemporary entertainment, politics, and collective consciousness.

SEE: More images, videos, and news for An-My Lê.

LEARN: An-My Lê is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Protest of the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.

DISCUSS: What do you think about this video? Leave a comment!

PHOTO | An-My Lê, (Right) Trap Rock (shot I) and (Left) Trap Rock (truck load out), 2006. © An-My Lê courtesy Murray Guy, New York.

VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Lizzie Donahue. Artwork courtesy: An-Me Lê.

Tonight! An-My Lê with Michael Almereyda at NY Public Library

Art21, BOMB, & the Mid-Manhattan Library
present

a film screening and conversation

Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 4 episode Protest
After the screening Michael Almereyda, filmmaker and writer, will join artist An-My Lê for a conversation and Q&A session.

Tonight, May 5, 2008 at 6:30pm

Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue, 6th floor
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871

Elevators to access the 6th floor.
All events are FREE and open to the public.