Art

installation view

detail

Hydrangea, 2007
found objects, oil on canvas, acrylic and gold leaf on wall
50 × 58 inches

 

Love Machine Prototype, Airborne, 2006
acrylic and paper on canvas
24 × 24 inches

 

Here is more work I spotted and liked last week at the SVA open studios for the Summer Art Residency program.

The artist’s website tells us a bit more about the work.

My artwork depicts organic machinery and hand-crafted nature: tree machines, emotion machines, and sea kites, or byproducts such as factory-generated insects and sunlight circuitry. I think about the meaning of hand-made, machine-made, and nature-made, and I create a world in which all three categories can define a single object. In each case, the mechanism almost works properly. I’m interested in the poignancy of this pure, unattainable goal being earnestly (and naively) sought. I paint about fragility and hope.

The most recent painting series is entitled Love Machine Prototypes. Each is a single scenario from an otherworldly marketing experiment in which the Love Machine Prototype is tested. It is mostly learning how to walk.

Until Repetition Becomes Endurance, 2007
Modified acrylic polymer, pigment, gesso, rust and alkyd resin on canvas on mounted wood
approx. 19.5 × 19.5 × 3 inches

 

The Purpose And Function Of Art, 2007
Modified acrylic polymer, pigment, latex house paint, gesso, rust and alkyd resin on canvas on mounted wood panels
approx. 40 × 30 × 24 inches

 

Duration And Constancy, 2007
Modified acrylic polymer, pigment, gesso, rust and alkyd resin on canvas on mounted wood
approx. 24 × 48 × 3.5 inches

 

James and I met Gabriel some time ago, but this is the first time we’ve seen the work in person. I like the painting/sculpture combination of these black shiny works. Check out his website for more images, and James‘s remarks and photos.

Note: The bluish shine you see is from the lighting, and is not in the work itself.

Here is James Kalm’s video of his visit that night:

David Newton
Found Space, 2005
Found object suspended in steel form, held in place by wires, on top of geometric wooden form
77”H X 22”W X 33”D

 

David Newton is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Guilford College, Greensboro, NC. He is also the latest ArtCat artist, having found us via Emily Noelle Lambert. I love this sentence from his statement:

The sculptures sometimes include wheels, which highlights the tragicomic reality that most of us are rolling around, trying to keep it together.

Check out his new site for more information.

Manuela Leal
Kalashnikov Close-Up, 2007
58 × 78 Inches (4 parts)

 

I haven’t seen this work in person. I saw it on Manuela Leal‘s RSS feed for her website. Yes, I still actually follow via RSS every artist on ArtCat. I have emailed with her about this series of work in the past, and learned a few things about where these come from.

These are color pencil and spray paint on inkjet prints. The images come from various war-related foreign videos on YouTube. I watch the videos and take stills from the computer screen with a digital camera. I then print the images, have layers of spray paint and then color pencils on top… I have been interested in war images and in “rebuilding” images of war and bombed, decimated buildings and places for a while now…

On YouTube, these videos are often posted as “responses” to other videos, as “justifications” (i.e.: a documentary on Croatian concentration camps will be posted in response to a serbian nationalistic video, and a video of a foreign mujahideen on the side of Bosnians torturing Serbian soldiers will be posted in response to a video on the massacre of Bosnians in Srebrenica by Serbs…).

I recognize that detached from language (they are often in languages I cannot understand), these images of war (and often propaganda) are posted, watched and commented on by people to whom images still carry immense urgency and power – they need to be seen…

I would like to know if” art” could still envision another reality, if by “altering” images one can offer the possibility – even if fictional – of change…

Sarah Braman
Jody Wants to Know More about Lasers, 2007
Plexiglass, furniture, and paint
31 × 36 × 36 inches

 

Here is another work from the show I mentioned Friday. Sarah is one of the artists who runs the excellent Lower East Side gallery CANADA.

Carrie Marill
Whooping Crane, Endangered, North America
Kokia Drynarioides, Endangered, USA
Monkey Puzzle, Threatened, South America
Baishanzu Fir, Endangered, China
Brown Pelican, Protected, USA
Eurasian Wryneck, Endangered, Eurasia
Hawaiian Crow, Extinct in Wild, USA
Whiskered Tern, Threatened, Europe
Arizona Leather Flower, Threatened, USA, 2007
Gouache on paper
30 × 22 inches

 

If you’re reading this right now in Los Angeles, you can head on over to Carrie Marill’s show opening tonight at sixspace. Caryn Coleman of sixpace was cool and together enough to be IMing with me right before the opening, and sent me a link to some images. Having just watched a PBS show about John James Audobon, I was particularly struck by these beautiful images of “gouache-on-paper paintings depicting threatened or endangered flora and fauna existing in an imaginary world.”

I was not surprised to see Walton Ford interviewed on the TV show about Audobon.

Michael Yinger
all i know is that i don’t know nothin’, 2007
mixed media
approx. 10 × 20 feet

 

This work is part of an exhibition curated by gallery artist Ryan Schneider closing today, so head on over! There are a number of great installations in the show. Michael Yinger is from Indiana, so note that he chose white trash to make up that state. Priska told me she had asked him about the cigarette butts used for Washington state, as we both agreed it seemed an odd choice. He said he just liked the way they looked, and Washington was a big state.

Related: Heart As Arena did a post on the show.

 

 

Apparently last weekend’s WSJ, in an article on art collecting, mentions ArtCal in a list of recommended art blogs, luckily as the first one!

Also, keep an eye on group shows at galleries during the summer months. That is when the elite of the art world go on extended vacation and newer artists get a shot to exhibit. Art blogs can also be a good source of information about emerging artists. Popular sites include artcal.net, artnet.com, edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com, galleryhopper.org and artsjournal.com/man.

Note: The logo above is the new ArtCal logo. We’re launching a new design this month.

 

James and I are fans of Duke Riley’s work, and I just got a note from KeylimeSteve on Flickr about his photos of a recent Duke Riley adventure on the Brooklyn Waterfront called “Adventures With an Egg” inspired by a (failed) Revolutionary War era submarine. Check out the photoset.

Duke Riley has a website for more information on the artist.