Culture

Joe is now part of the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum, according to Artnet.

Collectors Janice and Mickey Cartin have given the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn., a group of 104 photographs ranging in date from 1949 to 1983 by 12 contemporary artists: Roger Ballen, Zarina Bhimji, Edward Burtynsky, Frank Breuer, Lucinda Devlin, Olafur Eliasson, Esko Männikkö, Arnold Odermatt, Lorraine OÂ’Grady, Joe Ovelman, Collier Schorr and Chris Verene. A selection of the acquisition goes on view at the museum in “Old Masters/New Directions: A Decade of Collecting,” Aug. 6-Dec. 18, 2005.

For more on Joe, visit his website.

Updated: James pointed out that the range 1949-1983 doesn’t make much sense when we’re talking about the work of Joe Ovelman (or Collier Schorr and Chris Verene).

A photograph of a celebrity is a thing, not a picture.

– Rachel Harrison

Improv Everywhere’s latest action, titled Look Up More at Union Square. [photo from the site]

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Via Wooster Collective, we learn than an artist know as Banksy dressed as a British pensioner and installed work in several New York museums. The piece above was at the Museum of Modern Art for three days before being removed. [photos from Wooster Collective site]

There is also a NY Times article on Banksy’s adventures, with a slide show!

We had a good day in Chelsea on Saturday. I told a gallerist that we had seen no duds that day, and she handed me a pink highlighter to “mark my calendar!”

The shows:

Richard Aldrich, Kamrooz Aram, Amy Granat and Van Hanos at Oliver Kamm 5BE. The installation in the front mixing film/sound work (using scratched film) by Granat, combined with collage/works on paper and sculpture by Aldrich, is one of my favorite rooms in months. The combination of paintings and works on paper by Aram and Hanos in the “main” room is also wonderful.

Nancy de Holl and Kalup Linzy at Taxter & Spengemann. de Holl does photos (printed in a way similar to iris prints) of still lifes that are so brilliantly lit and arranged that I was sure they had paint on top of the photos. Linzy has several videos in the back that had us watching for a while, laughing much of the time. I think he is one to watch. We first saw his work in an Andrew Guenther-curated show at Capsule (see James).

Robert Gober at Matthew Marks. As James said, I felt like I was in church, but this time I mean it in a good way.

Marjetica Potrč at Max Protetch. Her drawings (including wall drawings) commenting on the social aspects — for good and evil — of architecture, are moving and beautiful to look at. Just ignore what the NY Times had to say. I think they were disappointed that there are no sculptures in this show.

Marjetica Potrč, The English Garden, 2005 (detail)

Marjetica Potrč, The English Garden, 2005 (installation view)

Stranger Town at Dinter Fine Art. This Taylor McKimens-curated show of “eight successful artists who have each risen to prominence in areas outside the walls of the established art world” includes musicians, successful commercial graphic artists, and lots of good drawing plus some video.

Ben Jones at Foxy Production. Ben is a member of Paper Rad, and this is his first solo show. I think the solo format has provided him with a chance to show the formalist/conceptual aspects of his work in a way that’s rather difficult when doing the collaborative shows. I look forward to the future solo shows by other members at Foxy.

Ben Jones, Kay Nine’s Lament (2005)
DVD, Commodore 64, and sculpture

Ben Jones, Dog Face (2005)
acrylic on canvas

Lastly, I loved the Mary Heilman show at 303 Gallery, but didn’t like the “no photos allowed!” policy or the fact they don’t send out e-mail announcements. They have decent images on their web site of individual works, but sometimes one wants to show the interesting placement of two images. Check out the image of Heaven on the site. That’s the one everyone sees and says, “Is that one of her paintings?”

The last time I put up a photo from a Foxy Production Paper Rad show, I used my phone cam. Here is another, from Ben Jones’s excellent solo show at the gallery. That’s the gallery’s lovely and talented Michael Gillespie in the photo with Face Maker (2005).

Curator extraordinaire Renee Riccardo has put up a page on Artnet with images of artists within her purview, including Michelle Weinberg and Fritz Chesnut (just to name two artists whose work we have).

Speaking of Michelle Weinberg, I love this 2004 work from her web site:

Perfect Intersection, 2004
132” × 90”

Updated: Also, for those in Miami, Michelle’s collaborative project IPO is in performance this week.

Sorry I haven’t posted much. I’m working and feeling a bit under the weather after all of the art excitement last weekend. To tide you over, here is a book recommendation. It’s one of our favorite books to give as a gift (particularly to visitors from other countries), and it’s on sale at Amazon and elsewhere for a very good price right now.

We saw some good stuff today (now yesterday) at Eric Doeringer’s one-day show at Apex Art.

We went to the DiVA Art Fair today, and it was definitely the most pleasant experience of all of my art-going this weekend. It’s at the Embassy Suites downtown on two floors, with a big atrium, so there is a nice feeling of openness and light as one wanders from room to room. I think it’s also a result of the pace of viewing video works. It’s harder to just run from space to space. One spends a minute or two seeing if a work is interesting, and then staying longer if it seems to be. Having plenty of chances to sit and look at work in dimmed lighting is a welcome change from the Armory and Scope experience. I found it intereresting that the majority of the galleries are from foreign countries. Also, an art fair featuring time-based work that gives out tickets that allow one to return on following days is a great idea.

My top picks, in somewhat random order:

• All of the video work by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy at Paris-based Yukiko Kawase – quirky, funny, and brilliant work by a 20-year-old(!) artist

• Jill Miller’s I am making art too at Galerie Anne Barrault. The artist received permission (described as “enthusiastic” in the press release) from John Baldessari to create a new work based on his 1971 performance video titled I am making art. The resulting video, mixing her performance with that of Baldessari, all set to Missy Elliot’s Work It is both funny and brilliant.

• Patrick Jolley’s Here After (2004) at Prato-based Nicola Fornello. Yes, that’s edgy video work from a gallery in a town outside of Florence. Can you imagine such a thing in Westchester? We last saw Jolley’s work when we saw Burn in a group show at the Chelsea Art Museum.

• Steffan Saffer, Susanne Weirich, and Christoph Draeger at Müller DeChiara

• Federico Solmi at Boreas — see James for more info on the artist

• Corinna Schnitt’s video Living a Beautiful Life at Galerie M+R Fricke. The artist interviewed adolescents about their idea of happiness and filmed this work about idealised lives at a luxury home in Beverly Hills.

• Robert Boyd’s Xanadu at LMAK Projects. We first saw it at White Box, and it gets better upon each viewing.

• Carina Diepens’s two videos at Marijke Schreurs

• Carolee Schneemann at Elga Wimmer

• Alexandre Castonguay’s interactive video-based works and Marc Audette’s amazing video installation involving projections on curved photo screens in the back at Montreal-based Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain.

• Eva Koch’s NoMad at Galería Magda Bellotti

Some more quick notes, before I head out to the DIVA fair and Apex Art:

Two of the best overall gallery booths I visited were Alison Jacques from London — including Dean Sameshima, Jon Pylypchuk, and a wall of Mapplethorpes selected by David Hockney — and Dallas-based Angstrom Gallery with a cool video/sound/movement sculpture by Jeff Shore and John Fisher, plus work by Kevin Landers, Ann Craven, Paul P. (including his first prints!), and outsourced-to-China editioned paintings by Ludwig Schwarz.

Oh, and someone needs to buy me the Mary Heilman paintings at Kenny Schachter.