Installation — NYLON WILD

1 March 2011

Haunch of Venison is currently showing ‘Translation’, a collection of work by Korean artist Meekyoung Shin. The show features several of Shin’s impressive installations examining the dynamics of subversion between material and cultural form, managing to avoid what can come across as witty attempts at cultural reference that are seen often in post-modern art and design. The first gallery houses her ‘Translation Vases’ (2009), where a collection of Chinese porcelain vases having seemingly been left in the moment of unpacking, some displayed on top of their wooden shipping crates, some still remain well out of sight inside the partially opened boxes. Shin uses this moment of transition to conceptually ground this work; Featuring the dislocation of a ‘cultural known’- in this case cultural object icons- and highlighting the moment of its transition into another world- England via China; Gallery via factory. In working with forms of Chinese porcelain vases, which have been highly collectible in the past centuries, she directs attention to how cultural obsessions have lead to reproduction and subsequently the dislocation of the ‘original’ with its cultural heritage; The British ceramics industry had especially committed itself to imitating such Chinese techniques. Contrary to what the eye can observe of these vases- which are apparently imitation porcelain sans floral arrangement, the nose might pick up on the fragrant quality to the air- and thus one beholds a room that is in fact full of imitations in soap. This added level of material awareness becomes an immediate point of obsession for the viewer- taking our initial reaction and voiding it completely; The same room is now a double vision of the philosophical and tangible, housing both cultural dislocation and enslaved material translation.

Entrance to 'Translation Series' (2009) in the West Galleries, Haunch of Venison, London

'Translation Series' 2009

Detail from 'Translation Series' (2009) Soap, Pigment, Varnish

Continuing through a few galleries is a second installation titled ‘Ghost Series’, featuring collections of translucent vases in soap. These forms appear to be very modern and industrially made, but still make reference to original Chinese shapes. In this case they are stripped of their decoration and materiality, allowing us to consider how they exist without such features that were meticulously imitated and treasured.

'Ghost Series' (2010) Blue, Jade, Yellow, Black, Pink, Purple, Clear

'Ghost Series' Clear, 2010

'Ghost Series' Jade, 2010

'Ghost Series' Black, 2010

The show flips forms through the galleries. Adjoining the rooms showing Chinese vase translations are rooms with smaller mythological and religious figurative works which add breadth to Shin’s success in material translation of highly treasured, coveted forms. The Kuros series speaks to the disintegration that ancient statues undergo overtime, themselves having been naturally weathered. ‘Crouching Aphrodite’ and ‘Venus’ are rendered in soap, the slight translucency and gallery lighting creating believable replicas of such classic sculpture.

Seeing Shin’s ‘Toilet Buddha Series’ and ‘Golden Buddha’ reminded me of another Buddha by Chinese artist Zhang Huan, created from the ash of joss sticks pressed into a large aluminium mold. The work used a material relative to the form but subverts the representation. Similarly Shin is using the soap to connect an idea of cleansing with religion, of daily washing as a ceremonial act- both still disintegrating the soap form. Similarly, with Huan’s Buddha in Haunch of Venison’s Berlin establishment, the community of viewers entering the gallery mimicked visitors in a temple, the Buddha crumbling from slight vibrations in the floor; The material in both cases becomes a tool for accessing the metaphysical.

Translation - Greek, 1998 140 x 44 x 30 cm

Detail of Translation- Greek, 1998

'Crouching Aphrodite', 2002 + Toilet Buddha Series (2010)

Detail of 'Crouching Aphrodite' 2002

Detail of 'Golden Buddha' 2010, Soap, gold leaf, varnish

'Venus' 1998, Soap, pigment, varnish 125 x 73 x 45 cm

Detail of 'Venus' 1998

Kuros Series no. 1, 2, 3 & 4 (2010) Soap, pigment, varnish

Detail of Kuros Series no. 2 (2010)

Hand Over the Machine

6 Hands @
The Aram Gallery

by Melissa Gamwell

Filed: Aram Gallery, Casting, craft, decorative art, design, Ella Robinson, Ellie Parke, furniture, India Carpenter, Installation, Matisse, Peter Marigold, textiles

14 February 2011

The Aram Gallery is currently showing ‘6 Hands’ an exhibition of hand-made work by three London-based designers, Peter Marigold, India Carpenter and Ella Robinson, all working in the fields of furniture and textiles. In the past the gallery has presented a series of exhibitions about prototypes which featured handmade tests of designers, pairing the methods of handmaking with the forms of pre-production prototypes. While that is a common encounter of the hand-making process in the field of design, we are refreshed here with collections of handmade work presented as finished objects. Curator Ellie Parke walked me through the exhibition to talk about the ideas and process behind these pieces, revealing the wonderfully subtle qualities of handmade accomplishments.
The most notable element of this exhibition is that these designers have chosen to work by hand, which doubles the feature of the show in a way that one can imagine the processes, then consider the results. The three proposals are incredibly different in what they choose to make by hand and how these processes fit into their more typical work routine. We can see that the prompt of hand making something yields conceptual test-work from one to final products of another.

6 Hands Exhibition

India Carpenter: Digital silk screen prints

India Carpenter: Hand-Woven upholstery

India Carpenter: Office chair hand-altered with pony hair back and woven seat design

India Carpenter: Screen in process

India Carpenter: Detail of hand screen printed geometries

India Carpenter: Detail of hand screen printed geometries ( specifically showing how the removal of the clips in the process of printing leaves the waver in the shape profile)

Peter Marigold takes a step away from his furniture for this exhibition, showing a series of objects that are the result of a wood-formed casting concept. In the back corner of the gallery displayed down the length of a narrow plinth and shelves, live three sets of what appear to be objects in stages of growth. Looking more closely one can see that they are made of press-molded clay and are the result of a reductive process. Each shows a step of the depleted interior of the wooden log molds. Initially Marigold cut the log into four quadrants, then began carving out the interior. Once a portion was carved away, he would press mold terracotta clay into each quadrant of the log, then tie it back together, casting the negative interior shape of the cavity. After pulling out the cast, he would carve away more, repeating this process until he had reached the limitations of the interior wall of the log.
This resulted in a fascinating set of progressive forms that exhibit both grain marks from the natural material and seam-line/casting marks from the process. These objects conclude as works that are neither functional or intentionally decorative, but use the idea of hand-making as an exploratory process, more relative to creating process-driven structures in design.

Adversely India Carpenter uses the handmade process in her final designs. This work was by far the most graphic and eye-catching with large, boldly colored, geometric block prints. A floating wall displayed four silk squares with geometric patterns which were digitally printed, one of her methods of working. These contrasted a larger double screen, and broken up installation of a screen construction in process. The set of unfinished hanging panels immediately reminded me of Matisse’s cut-out shapes from his later years; Their profiles were an extremely delicate contrast to the entirety of the geometric form. These wavers in the line-work which are shown in some of the detail photos, are a stunning result of her hand-printing. In pinning the silk for printing, the bands of the fabric are being stretched before they are printed on. When the clips are removed to release the print the line is distorted, no longer straight as it would have appeared to be when being printed. The attempt of precise geometries in combination with the hand-making process is what brings complexity and a slight animation to these pieces, which are made for larger architectural room divisions.

Ella Robinson’s work is a complete contrast, in a way the least subtle and the most decorative. Her work involves the process of hand-wrapping around pieces of driftwood from her native Brighton, resulting in multitudes of individual wrapped forms. These initially set a tribal tone, a series of small celebrations, drawing us very close to them. The simple use of material is made contemporary with colored fibers, rayon thread, stranded cotton and plastic tubing. Unlike the other work in the show these objects are conclusively decorative and are the least producible outside of the handmade realm.

India Carpenter: Double-printed standing panel. Hand-screen marks are left as evidence of the process

Peter Marigold: Dug and Stuff

Peter Marigold: Dug and Stuff, wooden log mold

Peter Marigold: Detail of terracotta cast surface

Ella Robinson: Experiments

Ella Robinson: Experiments detail

Ella Robinson: Simple shapes

Ella Robinson: Simple shapes detail

Ella Robinson: Experiments detail

6 Hands continues through 19th February 2011 at the Aram Gallery, 110 Drury Lane (near Aldwych) Covent Garden, London,WC2B 5SG.

Many thanks to Ellie Parke for the tour of the exhibition.

Toby Ziegler

The Alienation of Objects

by Melissa Gamwell

Filed: Artangel, ceramics, Elizabeth Neilson, Fischli & Weiss, Installation, Josh Tonsfeldt, Mathilde ter Heijne, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Oliver Michaels, Swiss, Toby Ziegler, Zabludowicz Collection

9 December 2010

The Zabludowicz Collection is currently showing a commissioned group of new sculptural works by British artist Toby Ziegler. The Alienation of Objects show Ziegler’s reactions to the transformation of historical artifacts through digitization. The main chapel space houses seven new faceted aluminium sculptures which are supplemented by video work that the artist curated out of the collection, further addressing his interest in the experience of communicated narrative and historical relevance in object and digital media.

In his statement Ziegler writes:
“In many of the works I have chosen there is allusion to the way information can be recieved as cultural flotsam and jetsam, and somehow they all examine the erosion and projection of narrative. Mathilde ter Heijne’s Woman to Go is a series of black and white postcards featuring found images of anonymous 19th century women. Printed on the back of each postcard is the mismatched biography of a different woman from that age. Oliver Michael’s films from the Musem Postcard series are derived from photos of historical sculpture. Using crude software they are animated and anthropomorphised to become mouthpieces for discordant monologues. A ponderous ceramic lion muses poetically, and a marble monk rants excerpts from the Unabomber manifesto. Josh Tonsfeldt’s and Michele Williams Gamaker’s human subjects are cropped, decapitated and objectified. In Tonsfeldt’s film a figure dressed in boots and jeans dances in an American barn. There is no music, only the ambient sound of his feet. His old-time hillbilly dance slowly reveals possible undertones, of M.J.? Britney Spears? Eventually he kicks up so much dried horseshit that he disappears in a cloud of dust.”

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010,Installation View

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Picasso's Iberian Stone Head

The show directs visitors through the lower level of the chapel past a few of the aluminium works and into the back galleries which are a maze of tiny rooms, the first room showing Oliver Michaels Lion and The Mourners. The projections effectively place one in-front of two giant, speaking, museum post cards, offering for assessment the relationship between artifacts and their take-away counterpart. Postcards are perhaps the cheapest, insta-experience of a museum, and pose insight into how museum-goers view artifacts- how there is a sense of possession or understanding of art or history in obtainment of this card. As a conveyor of information they possess more than a specimen photograph because they are inherently collectible objects. One can curate their own museum with them, without any historical lineage- simply because they are relatable with artifact iconography, memory, or personal narrative. The monks and the lion were reciting what is usually a silent conversation- a very abstract, and personal narrative between viewer and object. The lion was making statements about the atmosphere of the room, and then confirming or countering them…something to the effect of “It smells like leather, and metal.. yes, it does smell like leather and metal”. Because the animation is so raw there is an appealing surreality in watching the lion speak to you. The crudeness of animation reflects the crudeness of what the objects are saying, often-times speaking over one another so there is little to be understood, but whatever is being said is done profoundly with purpose, narrative, and a confirmation of existence. The projectors were placed visibly on plinths in the center of the room- appropriately a bare bones installation. There was no attempt at pulling wool over the viewers eyes as the importance was in the awareness of the translation of artifact to nonsensical animation, simultaneously, comically, isolating the dialogue of such an experience.
Ziegler also used a video of a cat lapping milk by Swiss duo Fischli and Weiss. Since he was able to consult with the artists about the installation of their pieces, they allowed him to project this film extremely over-sized in the screening room in the back of the chapel, miniaturizing the viewer and placing them on the same ground plane as the giant cat, forcing an alternative way of visual investigation of such an experience.

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Hellenic hermaphrodite pair

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Installation View

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Staffordshire Dogs

Staffordshire Dogs Detail

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Mezzanine View

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Installation View

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010, Hellenic hermaphrodite pair

The Alienation of Objects, 2009-2010

Mathilde ter Heijne, Woman to Go, 2005, postcard installation

Mathilde ter Heijne, Woman to Go, 2005, postcard installation detail

Oliver Michaels, Lion (2010) & The Mourners (2010)

Oliver Michaels, Lion Detail(2010)

Oliver Michaels, The Mourners (2010)

Oliver Michaels, Lion (2010) & The Mourners (2010) Installation view

Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Busi (Kitty) 2001, DVD

Josh Tonsfeldt, Untitled, 2008, HD video

Zabludowicz Collection, The Alienation of Objects

Zabludowicz Collection Bookstore & Cafe

After spending about an hour travelling through the video galleries, the exhibition leads to the mezzanine level of the chapel where a large hand-full of Ziegler’s sculptures hover over the lower chapel. Even though these were the largest and visually most impressive works of the show, I felt that they turned into punctuation or parentheses for the curated video work which pushed the theme out in so many directions. The faceted aluminium sculptures stand more as museum objects, taking on a direct life of an artifact of process: In lacking a refinement the surface detail is not explored further than the immediate result of the artists dual interpretation and creation. While I felt initially that video work had become a outshining child of the parent installation, this later congealed into a effective experience, a sequence of concept which allows the visitor to enter the world of these questions by experiencing (perhaps unknowingly) Ziegler’s answers, then progressing to an abstract construction, an open-ended platform for observing these themes, then finishing with an exit of the same answers which now have a strengthened context in narrative and media.
The Alienation of Objects is up from 7 October- 12 December 2010
The Chapel at 176 Prince of Wales Road

Roman Signer

Four Rooms, One Artist @ The Swiss Institute

by Melissa Gamwell

Filed: Fischli & Weiss, Installation, Roman Signer, Swiss, video The Swiss Institute

5 December 2010

This post was meant to go up a month ago and while the show is no longer installed I still want to share these images. This is one of the few solo exhibitions that Roman Signer, the Swiss artist from St. Gallen, has had in the United States. Titled ‘Four Rooms, One Artist’ at the Swiss Institute in Soho, the show was a combination of installation and video documentation dealing with Signer’s signature scientific object experimentation- one of his newer videos show an Eames chair for instance moving swiftly down a river- an object whose function is normally induced by human needs, but finely addresses the relationship that fluidity has both in the subjects of the video and the video as subject. ” All of Signer’s actions are carefully choreographed. As well as working in his studio, which he calls his lab, Signer often takes off to the Swiss mountains to conduct larger experiments. “I’m no scientist”, he maintains, ” I’m a tinkerer.” The sense of the home experiment of course makes his results resonate so powerfully with immediate and fantastic transformations, a chair rocking next to a lone guest at the opening instantly gives them spiritual company; the umbrellas tied together in his Umbrella video become more of an unruly animal than the inanimate, humanly-employable plastic and nylon structure.

Because Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go, Fischli & Weiss 1987) was a profound moment in my comprehension and admiration of video work, it is a rare and lucky find to see a show of museum quality on such a small, intimate scale by an artist who essentially pioneered and inspired that way of using the medium of video, objects and natural phenomena almost 30 years ago.

Thank you to the Swiss Institute for supplementing my images. For more information their press release is quoted at the end of the post.

Roman Signer, Piano, 2010, Image courtesy of the Swiss Institute

Roman Signer, Piano, 2010

Roman Signer, Piano Detail, 2010 Image courtesy of the Swiss Institute

Roman Signer, Piano Detail, 2010

Roman Signer, Shirt (2010) and Two Umbrellas, Iceland (2008) installation view, Image courtesy of the Swiss Institute

Two Umbrellas Detail, Iceland (2008)

PV Installation View

Installation View

Roman Signer, Cinema (detail view), 2010 Image courtesy of the Swiss Institute

Roman Signer, Cinema (detail view), 2010

Roman Signer, Waiting for Harold Edgarton, 2010 Image courtesy of the Swiss Institute

”

Even though many of the works by Roman Signer do not deal with explosions, but rely on water, wind, sand, electricity, and fire, people tend to remember the experiments that blow up. All of Signer’s actions are carefully choreographed. As well as working in his studio, which he calls his lab, Signer often takes off to the Swiss mountains to conduct larger experiments. “I’m no scientist,” he maintains, “I’m a tinkerer.” Many of his happenings are not for public viewing, and are only documented in photos and film.

This exhibition at the Swiss Institute is divided into four rooms. The first room presents Piano (2010), which is comprised of a grand piano that is filled with table tennis balls. Two oscillating fans are placed on either side of the instrument. The gentle airflow causes the balls to dance on the chords, creating ambient music. The second room presents Cinema (2010) an installation with rows of wooden chairs and a projected film. In the back of the room, one chair mysteriously rocks back and forth, as if led by an invisible hand. The video is a transfer of one of the artist’s “Restenfilm,” or “leftovers,” clips of experiments that were never constituted into artworks and shots of places or events that are of particular interest to Signer. In the third room, three respective video projections of recent actions are shown: Shirt (2010); Two Umbrellas, Iceland (2008); and Office Chair (2010). The fourth and last room hosts the installation, Waiting for Harold Edgerton (2010), a minimal intervention that deliberately remains enigmatic. It gestures to the American photographer, who was well known for his speed photography and perpetuated as “the man who made time stand still.”

It is in the bathtub that Roman Signer develops the ideas for his creations (an important detail in case you book him a hotel room). He then tests them as simple setups in his studio. That is often far from easy; but the failures and adjustments generate new concepts. Roman Signer has been creating his unique sculptures for over 30 years, earning praise and recognition all over the world. And he does not seem to run out of ideas.”

Curated by Gianni Jetzer

With kind support of Hauser & Wirth, Zurich London New York and Kulturförderung Kanton St.Gallen and Swisslos.

1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces

Victoria & Albert Museum

by Melissa Gamwell

Filed: architecture, Architecture Festival, ceramics, design, Helen & Hard Architects, Installation, Japan, London, Malene Hartmann Rasumussen, National Art Library, Norway, Rintala Eggertsson Architects, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Studio Mumbai Architects, Terunobu Fujimori, Tokyo, Treehouse, Victoria & Albert Museum

4 July 2010

For the Architecture Festival in London the V&A hosted seven buildings amongst some of the most impressive collection rooms in the museum. Nineteen architects were originally invited to submit proposals for the project, curated by Abraham Thomas, to create spaces that examined refuge and retreat. All of the buildings are accessible to the surprise of visitors- The Fujimori Beetle House rocks every time one of the allocated six spaces is climbed into. The buildings are both secretive and bold in presence. Studio Mumbai Architects built ‘In Between Architecture’ in the Casts Court, a space full of enormous figures and replicas. The building camouflages itself with a divoted plaster treatment, distinguished only stylistically yet remaining unobstrusive and affectionate towards the looming study replicas of David and company.

Studio Mumbai Architects in the Cast Courts

Cast Courts with SMA

David

From the inside

Interior with plaster cast tree

SMA Cast Courts

Terunobu Fujimori’s Beetle House was hosted in the Medieval & Rennaissance Room. The structure, in keeping with Fujimori’s style, possesses many dreamlike and spiritual sensitivities. This one in particular is a close replica of another Beetle House that he created in Japan, spanning two tree’s in the forrest. He built the structure from pine trees, and the exterior was charred onsite in the museum. The interior is grained with smaller bits of the charred wood, adorned with sparse belongings, a small bicycle to represent transport to the home, and a teaset designed by the Danish artist Malene Hartmann Rasmussen. Fujimori, since the opening, has hosted several tea ceremonies ( for six) in the miniscule structure. The whimsical nature of the structure is further enhanced by the wooden medieval spiral-staircase-to-nowhere, and the menacing grid of clay heads mounted onto the nearby brick wall.

Terunobu Fujimori's Beetle's House

Beetle's House in the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries

Descent

Malene Hartmann Rasmussen with her teaset designed for the Beetle House

Charred Walls

Foot Traffic

In the John Madejski Garden lived a literal treehouse designed by Helen & Hard Architects from Stavanger, Norway. The house, titled ‘Ratatosk’ was built from splayed trees, becoming more basket-like and woven as the structure developed in height.

Ratatosk in the John Madejski Garden

Ratatosk

Ratatosk Proposal Model

At the bottom of the National Art Library stairs lived the “Ark” built by Rintala Eggertsson Architects from Oslo and Bodo, Norway. The building allowed three people in at a time to browse books at leisure. The books themselves acted as the interior walls, spine-in, and also as the exterior shell of the building, striating the structure with faded pages.

Ark designed by Helen & Hard

Reader

Ark Detail

Interior

From the entrance to the National Art Library

Top Floor

The gooooorgeous National Art Library

On the second floor entering the main architecture galleries lived the Inside/ Outside Tree designed by Sou Fujimoto Architects from Tokyo. This was a large faceted structure of plexi-glass which created a semi-enclosed looking glass for one viewer.

Inside Outside Tree

Inside/ Outside

Sou Fujimoto Architects

Storm King Art Center

The View from Here: Storm King at Fifty

by Jonathan Lee

Peter Fischli & David Weiss

15 June 2010

Last Saturday in a balmy, Mountainville, New York, Storm King Art Center celebrated its 50th anniversary with an exhibition that explored its rich sculptural history. Part of the historic Hudson River Valley, Storm King features over 100 sculptures on an lush 500 acre estate, making it a “singular haven” for experiencing some of the most renowned twentieth century sculptors in a pristine and unspoiled environment.

The anniversary exhibition is located within the French-Normandy style mansion, and leads visitors through Storm King’s history, archival documents, exhibition timelines, landscape architecture, and the many processes and conservation concerns for some it’s major pieces (illustrated by artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Alexander Calder, Alexander Liberman, and Loise Bourgeois). The rooms of the mansion are beautiful and offers views of the sprawling estate, and sculptures in the distance.

The View from Here

Exhibition detail

Room

3D CNC Model and projected history Storm King

Projection Mapping

Model Detail

Calder timeline and model of The Arch

Calder Model

Model of Five Swords by Calder

louise bourgeois - conservation room

David Smith Room

David Smith Detail

The grounds featured over 100 works from the permanent collection, and the landscape was absolutely stunning. I could have easily spent far more than the 4 hours I allotted to my visit. The 2010 season closes in November, and I highly recommend a visit. Sculpture heaven.

Louise Nevelson, City on a High Mountain, 1983

Alyson Shotz, Viewing Scope, 2006

Kenneth Snelson, Free Ride Home, 1974

Mark di Suvero, Mon Père, Mon Père, 1975-75

(rear) Stephen Talasnik, Stream: A Folded Drawing, 2009-10

Sol Lewitt, Five Modular Units, 1971

Mark di Suvero, Jambalaya, 2002-06

Mark di Suvero, Old Grey Beam, 2007/2010

Andy Goldsworthy, Storm King Wall, 1997-98

Richard Serra, Schunnemunk Fork, 1990-91

Maria Elena González, You & Me, 2010

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sarcophagi in Glass Houses, 1989

Alexander Liberman, Iliad, 1974-76

South Fields with longview to Mark di Suvero's Beethoven's Quartet, 2003 and Pyramidian, 1987/1998

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled, 1970

David von Schlegell, Untitled, 1972

Tal Streeter, Endless Column, 1968

Meadows

Alexander Calder, The Arch, 1975

Alexander Calder, Five Swords, 1976

Triple the love at Matthew Marks Gallery

by Melissa Gamwell

Filed: Bear, Black, Casting, ceramics, Chelsea, clay, Fischli and Weiss, Installation, Matthew Marks Gallery, Rat, rubber, Swiss, Tate Modern

10 January 2010

Peter Fischli & David Weiss are basically my favorites from the realm of celebrity artists, and Matthew Marks currently has given them the attention of all three of his Chelsea galleries. This show is almost over! It ends on the 16th and I strongly recommend a visit.

The show is in three parts, the first (in the order that I visited them) is Clay and Rubber at 523 W24th. This show included 26 objects that span the past three decades of the duo’s rubber casting and hand-built clay works. I have seen some of these pieces at their Tate Modern retrospective, but the lot is an amazing spectrum of elemental beauty in objects. The clay pieces are primarily models of machined, recto-linear objects. Marks of the artists hands are proximally apparent, subtly highlighting the surface and distinguishing their over-sized forms from a real smooth-cast brick, sono-tube or chain-link. The rubber objects contrast as casts of natural or highly detailed forms, and the material is often hidden by the original detail of the pieces. Both of the materials engage the viewer and the object, negating the importance of purpose and true material, allowing the pure form of everyday objects to be considered. The gallery was also perfect, in that it didn’t overwhelm the objects with massive space, but was large enough to investigate the pieces with/out the context of the others.

Matthew Marks Gallery@ 523 West 24th

Wood Table, 2005, Black Rubber, 157 x 96 x 45cm

Raven, 1986, Black Rubber, 28 x 41 x 14cm

Chain, 2009, Reinforced clay, 14 x 107 x 14cm

Little Wall, 1987, Black Rubber, 77 x 34 x 41cm

Root, 2005, Black Rubber, 60 80 x 60cm

Stairs, 1987, Black Rubber, 36 x 87 x 53cm

Drawer, 1987, Black Rubber, 14 x 51 x 43cm

Down the street at 522 West 22nd is Sun, Moon and Stars, an exhibition of a book that F&W started as a project for an annual report. The book is pretty daunting to flip through, but here I spent quite a bit of time re-examining the flats which I thought were more successful than the original format in conveying the visual and topical similarities. Below is quoted from the MM press release:

“Sun, Moon and Stars is an encyclopedic accumulation of 800 magazine advertisements culled form hundreds of international periodicals. Begun as a project commissioned by a Swiss corporation for its annual report, the finished project is displayed in thirty-eight wood and glass tables, totaling 330 feet in length. A dizzying reaction to late capitalism in various chromatic groupings, the ads are shown in a specific order that exploits the formal, thematic and color similarities between advertisements.”

Matthew Marks Gallery@ 522 West 22nd

Case Detail

Gallery Detail

Resting next door at 526 West 22nd, are the deflated avatars of Fischli & Weiss, titled Sleeping Puppets. Rat and Bear were first shown in the film The Least Resistance, 1981, and The Right Way, 1983 ( translated dialogue quoted below) Click on the links to watch the films.

“BEAR: Do you see the moon? Look at it carefully.

RAT: I need more stones. We have hardly begun.

BEAR: I’ve been watching it. It’s like me.

It comes and goes.

Always on the move…looks at everything.

It does what it pleases.

RAT: So you want to leave.

BEAR: What am I suppose to do? Are you staying here?

RAT: Now all it needs is a roof

BEAR: Good. I’ll come with you.

RAT: I’ll leave the stones here..

BEAR: …but I’m taking the dream with me

Into the unknown.”

Bye Bye! Matthew Marks Gallery @ 526 West 22nd

Peter Fischli & David Weiss

Matthew Marks Gallery

October 30, 2009- January 16, 2010

Roger Hiorns

Seizure

by Melissa Gamwell

Filed: architecture, Artangel, Arts Council England, Blue, Copper Sulphite, Crystals, Installation, James Lingwood, Magic, Modernist, Roger Hirons, Tate Britain, Tokujin Yoshioka, Turner Prize