When in Rome 78
Through May 22nd at Anthology Film Archives is a retrospective of artist/filmmaker James Nares, perhaps best known for Rome 78, an anachronistic, subcultural take on decadent Rome via New York circa 1978, with a cast of “downtown personalities” that include Lydia Lunch and John Lurie.
James Nares: Motion Pictures also includes a bevy of never-before screened works from 1975 and 1976, discovered in deep storage only last year. Nares, who is also an accomplished painter, made these films solo and rapidly, usually in one take. They owed stylistically to minimalist, action-based “artists’ films” of the late ’60s to mid-’70s by notables such as Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman (both Season 1), “often combining live and sculptural elements.” Serra’s Hand Catching Lead was one of Nares’ favorites, which influenced subsequent films Arm and Hammer and Steel Rod.
Bantamweight Flickr Battle!
After the gorgeously gargantuan show at MoMA that held New Yorkers spellbound in its midtown courtyard, the whole country of France is now making a fuss this week over Richard Serra. The New York Times slideshow revealing his latest steel monoliths at the Grand Palais is surprisingly vertical. Plus, who can resist Richard Serra’s craggly mug, above.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere is a-twitter about whether Serra could be gathering steam as the most popular artist captured on Flickr. A recent Flickr search has revealed that at time of posting, there are 6,192 Flickr photos that match the search terms ‘Richard Serra.’ A new bantamweight contender, ‘Olafur Eliasson‘ is up to 4,256 and averaging about 30 adds per day, presumably fed by visitors to his current show at MoMA and PS1. Surprising names in the flyweight division are ‘Matthew Barney‘ at 1,139, ‘Marcel Duchamp‘ at 1,408, and the white canvas master ‘Robert Ryman‘ trailing with just 107 Flickr posts. Please note that photographing museum paintings by Robert Ryman is not encouraged.
In the heavyweight division, readers have suggested that Henry Moore, at 14,563, and Alexander Calder at 17,471 (by last name only), are positioned to defeat the overall reigning champion Andy Warhol, who currently has 18,900 Flickr photos tagged with his name. Further investigation has revealed that not all works tagged with Andy Warhol actually are by Andy Warhol, but include some creative appropriation.
MATRIX/REDUX at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the MATRIX exhibition program with a year-long series of events, beginning with MATRIX/REDUX (on view through July 6). The MATRIX format—spontaneous, flexible, small-scale, and short-term—was “key to engendering experimentation on the part of both the artists and the institution, resulting in a mix of exhibitions that defied categorization and kept Berkeley at the forefront of international contemporary art,” according to the BAM/PFA website.
MATRIX/REDUX samples from the history of this important program with selections from the Museum’s collection and loans from local collections rarely seen by museum audiences. Included in the exhibition is Crèche (1997), a group of bronze fox, deer, bats, mice, rabbits, and owls, created by Art21 artist Kiki Smith (Season 2). Past participants of the MATRIX program that have also been featured by Art21 include Louise Bourgeois (Season 2), Alfredo Jaar (Season 4), Elizabeth Murray (Season 2), Susan Rothenberg (Season 3), and Richard Serra (Season 1).
2007: a brief recap
2007 was a landmark year for many Art21 artists. Apart from the accolades and prizes bestowed upon such artists as Kara Walker, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Jessica Stockholder, Kerry James Marshall, and Cai Guo-Qiang, the multitude of exhibitions featuring Art21 artists reflect the pinnacle stages in many of their careers. While this is an achievement in its own right, we wanted to mention some of the other critical kudos recently published in print and online.
For Robert Ayers of ArtInfo.com, the two sculpture retrospectives organized by MoMA last year, Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years and Martin Puryear (on view through January 14), are the fourth and fifth best shows of 2007. “Having already visited [Serra’s] show several times, I actually cancelled all of my plans for its final day so that I could see it one last time,” writes Ayers. About Puryear he notes that the artist, “proves himself here a magician of forms that sit happily at the intersection of abstraction and representation and a poet of implied and suggested appearances and meanings.”
As previously cited in December, the top ten exhibitions of 2007 for Time’s Richard Lacayo include those of artists Richard Serra (#1), Vija Celmins (#3), Martin Puryear (#5), and Kara Walker (#6). For Howard Halle of Time Out New York, Serra’s show at MoMA is one of 2007’s best. “Serra put the me in heavy-metal postminimalism, but in this retro of curving labyrinthine slabs, he put you and I and just about everyone else in there, too.” remarks Halle.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the writers from 24 Hour Museum (to be renamed Culture24 this Spring) have their own opinions. Jon Pratty, 24 Hour Museum’s Editor and Head of Content, selected the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at Tate Modern as his top pick. For Pratty, this show (on display through January 20) “was the first in a long time I have seen bringing to life the peculiar talent, skill and craft of a true artist. Everything in her show had been chosen by her, crafted by her, formed by her. It was really inspiring.”
On a more somber note, 2007 sadly marked the death of Season 2 artist Elizabeth Murray, who passed away on August 12. But as Verlyn Klinkenborg writes in the New York Times, “her paintings will be with us for years and years to come.”
Serra, Celmins, Puryear, and Walker top TIME’s Top 10 Exhibitions of 2007
Major exhibitions of work by Richard Serra (Season 1), Vija Celmins, Martin Puryear, and Kara Walker (all Season 2) all made it onto TIME Magazine’s annual Top 10 Exhibitions list.
Serra’s seminal retrospective at MoMA clocked in at number 1, a show that, according to TIME, was the ‚Äúartworld thriller of the year.‚Äù Vija Celmins‚Äô drawings show at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (#3 out of 10), garnered similar hyperbole, as did Puryear‚Äôs current retrospective at MoMA (#5; TIME‚Äôs art and architecture critic/blogger Richard Lacayo proclaims Puryear ‚Äúone of the greatest living American artists‚Äù). Walker rounds out the Art21-related roster at #6, her current Whitney retrospective described as ‚Äúa fearless combination of righteous anger, ruthless clarity and fierce imagination.‚Äù
Read the full details here.
Video: Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses at MoMA
Video walkthrough of Richard Serra’s sculptures Torqued Torus Inversion (2006) and Sequence (2006), on display at MoMA as part of the exhibition Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years. The exhibition is on view June 3-September 10, 2007.
[via MoMA’s YouTube channel]
