Archive for the 'Art' Category

A collage of lesbian pornography at the Metropolitan Opera makes us question the boundaries between Art and smut. It would’ve been cause for scandal if any one of the girl-on-girl images contained within the painting in question had been arbitrarily taped to a wall, but situated within the setting of The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, Richard Prince’s Madame Butterfly takes on more significant meaning.

The painting exists to shock the viewer. According to curator Dodie Kazanjian, Richard Prince—an artist already known for his rather explicit photographs—was specifically selected as one of the artists who could “bring highly idiosyncratic and challenging perspectives to the exhibition.”

Prince was commissioned “to capture on canvas the operas being given new productions, with a focus on their heroines.” His portrayal of Madame Butterfly engaged in various sapphic acts certainly challenges preconceived ideas of the Japanese geisha who killed herself after discovering her American husband had married an American woman.

“I went to the opera. It was Madame Butterfly. I fell asleep. When I woke up the music was by Klaus Nomi and Cio Cio San had turned into a lesbian and refused to commit suicide. It was a German ending,” state the block letters (in the typical fashion of Prince’s joke paintings) superimposed over the photographic montage. Like David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, Prince’s Madame Butterfly uses homosexuality to confront race and gender stereotypes. As a lesbian, Prince’s leading lady rejects expectations of her to be a sex object designed to please men, which in the opera was her calling as first, a geisha, and then, a wife. Prince’s heroine choses life in both a physical (she “refused to commit suicide”) and social (her mental state is not destroyed by ill-requited love) sense. Although the painting is orderly—rows of equal-sized photographs all in black-and-white—its message deconstructs the mysogyny of “the most often-performed opera in North America.”

While Prince’s painting is the most overtly sexual contribution to the exhibit, it’s perhaps not as problematic as Wangechi Mutu’s Love’s a Witch, Orfeo’s Underworld Coronation for Euridice. The heroine’s body is desmembered. Barbie-like legs explode across the canvas. At least John Currin’s Helena looks like she’s in the throes of passion.

Some patrons have been so disturbed by the graphic content at the Gallery Met that they’ve walked right out. The good news for those who don’t blush so easily is that you don’t have to have a ticket to the opera to visit the gallery. It’s free and open as late as 11 PM, through this Saturday, May 12. And, if you do go to see an opera, don’t be surprised to find that they are oftten as sex-tinged as the heroine paintings. After all, what do you think inspired the artists?

Soon the season of picnicking on overpriced-but-irresistible Whole Foods lunches will be upon us. If you want to impress your picnicking pals with more than just your ability to pick out a ripe cantaloupe, choose a park that has some public art that will wow them. Here are some highlights of temporary public art currently on display in Manhattan.

Union Square Park

Union Square Park has something straight of a 70s horror flick–a looming bronze rabbit playing a drum.After a bit of investigating, we learned that it was not some silly rabbit, but Large Left Handed Drummer, one of the hares in Barry Flanagan’s famous series.

We won’t bore you with the details, but apparently rabbits and hares “differ quite radically.” We weren’t the only ones to mistakenly interchange the two lagomorphs; Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe praised Flanagan’s sculpture as a “whimsical rabbit.” The Parks & Recreation gave us a little background on the artist and his work:

This exhibit, on display at the Museum of Modern Art, is a collection of works harvested from fifteen different modern artists with abstract sensibilities. It ends June 11^th and I highly recommend a viewing. If you can’t go or are too lazy to put the remote down and get off your hedonistic ass, check out this review.

First off, the whole concept behind the exhibit is kinda nifty. It explores how the artists,” have culled from slapstick, comic strips, film, caricature, cartoons and animation as springboards for abstraction, not to withdraw from reality but to address perplexing questions about war and global conflicts, the loss of innocence, and racial stereotyping.” Deep, huh?

Here’s a list of some of my favorite pieces to give you a glimpse of the kind of coolness on display:

Inka Essenhigh

Cheerleaders and Sky

Like a fresco you might see painted on the ceiling of a cathedral in Bizarro World, this is a gorgeous rendering of cheerleaders floating through the sky like retarded lil’ angels.

In the artists own words: “The cheerleaders must be divine if they come from the heavens, but they drop like fat turkeys while trying to maintain their composure.”

Juan Munoz

Waiting for Jerry

This is an empty white painted room. The only thing in the room is a mouse hole cut in the middle of one the floorboards with light poring out of it. There is also manic Tom and Jerry- like chase music playing in the background. Simple, but mind blowing.

Philippe Parreno

Speech Bubbles

Dozens of helium filled white balloons clinging to the ceiling. All in the shape of speech bubbles, the kinds we see in cartoon strips. Trippy.

Gary Simmons

Boom!

What this guy does is sketches in chalk on blackboards or dark canvas. Then, he puts on golf gloves and by applying different levels of pressure in different areas, erases and blends and stretches the image. It’s a lot sweeter than I make it sound.

This one piece is an image of a cartoonish pluming explosion done on a canvas with more square footage than my apartment.

According to the artist: “Cartoons are the first and earliest form of getting pleasure from a violent act.”

Those are just my personal favorites, but there are a bunch of other truly unique and thought provoking pieces there as well. Like I said earlier, it’s worth the trip.

A Valuable Lesson: I also learned that MoMA, which normally charges $20 to go into, has FREE admission every Friday night from 4pm till 8pm. This is provided as a service from the evil overlords of the Target Corporation. (Thank you, Satan!)

Most everyone I passed on the street today looked at me kinda funny, which I suppose had something to do with the HUGE backwards henna tattoo on my forehead: “EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN AWAY”.

If you’re wondering what possessed me to do this (and the other 60 - 100 or so other NYC folks out there walking around with the same message emblazoned on their heads)… it’s all in the name of art.

Adrian Piper, an extremely educated conceptual artist and philosopher based in Berlin who rumor has it avoids traveling to America due to being on a creepy security list that apparently involves all sorts of fun airport searches, is putting her latest art piece on people’s bodies.

Everything #10 is art turned social experiment and was made possible through Creative Time- an organization that brings art to the community. Producer Gavin and Intern Tess were onsite for the project and really cool people in general. Henna artist and musician, Mollie King, painted everyone during the 2 day project. I personally want to know how she can write backwards! Oh and it’s backwards because that way it is legible to each individual when they look in the mirror.

King, who admits she was at first a bit skeptical about the project, came to truly appreciate the significance of it all as she literally painted the mendhi/henna onto people’s heads over and over again. It became her mantra- the meaning deepening with each new subject that trickled in.

HOMEWORK:
All participants will be keeping a journal of their experience 3 times a day until the henna fades completely in approximately 4- 10 days. Then, on the 1 year anniversary they are asked to review their journals and share their thoughts on the project.

MY EXPERIENCE SO FAR:
Today it just means that I have backwards letters stuck on my head. By the time the message fades I think it will mean much more. I’m looking forward to this.

So far, many stares have come my way on the subway, in stores and restaurants and on the street. The 1st person to actually acknowledge it directly was a very nice homeless man. When I saw him approaching I started gathering the change in my pocket, but he only wanted an answer to his query: “What them words on yo head say?” When I told him, he just looked at me with knowing eyes, nodded and walked on.

A child on the subway finally asked what everyone else on the train was wondering- Is that a tattoo? Why’s it on your head? Does it come off? Why did you get it? Does it hurt? Some people smiled, some rolled their eyes, some pretended to ignore me completely.

I have a date tonight- he wants to stay in instead of hanging out with the mantra-headed artsy-lookin chick- HA! I think not- I want to wander the streets to see what the reactions will be.

Overall: This is a crazy way to spend a few days. I’m looking at people through different eyes through this process- learning a bit about people and society. I’ll be interested to follow this project to see others reactions, as well as my own. Would you wear art on your head??

The Williamsburg art gallery Like the Spice (224 Roebling St.) fearlessly tackles the sensitive topic of Organized Religion. Originally scheduled to close this week, the exhibit is so popular it has been extended till June 8.

Organized Religion. The phrase alone conjures up strong feelings. For some, they may be positive. For others, negative.

In today’s hot political climate, people are searching for hope. Although many believe there’s something bigger out there than themselves, they do not trust organized religion. After all, the media would have us believe that we’ve got the Islamic Fundamentalists to blame for 9-11, the Right-wing Protestants to blame for the War on Terrorism, the Mormons to blame for immigration issues, the Catholics to blame for child molestation, so on and so forth.

No religion is left unturned as the (lucky number) thirteen artists tackle issues of holiness, the apocalypse, possession, and divine healing. The exhibit is wide ranging not just in the different religions addressed, but in its media. There are paintings, photographs, collages, plaster sculptures, and even a digital video.

Historically, religion and art have gone hand in hand. Art has been both a way to encourage faith and a way to challenge existing belief systems. Since imagery stands on its own for the viewer to interpret, visual art is a non-confrontational form of communicating one’s beliefs. The art included in Organized Religion is as hit or miss as church coffee. A lot of it is watered down and lukewarm, but there are some meditative pieces. Yoshio Itagaki’s work stands out the most for its design and message. In “Cloning Jesus,” he depicts a woman wearing a white lab coat stitched with the words “The Second Coming Project.” She is holding a baby with a halo around it. In Santa Cross he depicts a Japanese display window that shows Santa Clause nailed to a cross. (Dana Carvey’s Church Lady SNL character rearranging the letters of “Santa” to spell out “Satan” springs to mind.) On a Mac in the back of Like the Spice is Heather Boaz’s “True Miracle,” a digital video that tells the story of possession and faith. It’s very This American Life. It’s scary, incredible, and funny—and autobiographical. At one point Boaz recalls a family member putting holy oil on trolls in a toy store.Robert Guillie and Tatiana Kronberg each have a series of thought-provoking prints worth scrutiny. Tom Billings’ “Missionary Position” sculpture points out the use of a religious term in the act of sex.It’s not that the other artwork on display is without merit—some of in fact have better craftsmanship and style, and are actually quite beautiful—but the other works aren’t as memorable within the context of the exhibit. With such a dynamic topic as religion, Like the Spice could have selected images that really pushed boundaries and made one think.

For the first time in her short but celebrated career, Lori Earley has a solo exhibition in New York. If you want to be among the uncool kids in the know, you’ll venture to The Opera Gallery (115 Spring Street, NYC) this Saturday, April 28^th, from 6 pm – 9 pm, for the opening reception of Lori Earley’s Anima Sola.

We got our prying eyes on the ten paintings on display at last night’s private press preview, and are here to report that Anima Sola is a must-attend art affair. Lori Earley could very well be the person art historians will fuss over for years to come when speaking about pop surrealism.

Obsessed with couture fashion, Earley’s paintings are inspired by the fashion world’s attention-getters, Alexander McQueen, Donatalla Versace, and Jennifer Nicholson. The women in her paintings therefore wear high-fashion outfits that evoke a sense of their personalities.

In one painting, Time Passed, a young woman drapes herself over a chair in a room full of dressmaker’s dummies. In a self-referential moment, Earley includes a painting reminiscent of her The Drought in the background. Perhaps the background of cloths-making props and the artist’s own painting are true to the development of the piece, and offer further insight into Earley’s methodology:

The artist arranges a photo shoot in her studio with a model to enhance mood and accuracy of pose and figure. Lori Earley then creates a final sketch from her photograph of the model, and only then begins her painting in oil. For her new series of portraits, Lori Earley’s models pose in original Jennifer Nicholson couture dresses. The celebrity fashion designer is an avid collector of Lori Earley’s work.

Earley’s portraits depict alluring yet dangerous vixens—femme fatales who know how to use their beauty to get what they want. Take for instance, Ms. Celose, who wears a strapless pink shirt, body-hugging brown skirt, and fur, all of which could be considered indications of sexual confidence and even aggression. Her perfectly highlighted hair swells outward, conically, like many of Ray Caesar’s renditions of women. She sits resolutely on a chair that could easily be a seat in an open carriage or a throne, and it is clear that she thinks highly of herself.

Despite their alpha-dog qualities, the women show their vulnerability. Sarah channels a brooding Christina Ricci. She looks pissed off, but protectively holds her arms over her chest. The stunning woman in Regret at first glance appears strong in a sleeveless fur turtleneck, her blonde hair pinned into Princess Leia buns; but as you step in closer, you realize her eyes are brimming with tears.

The most striking aspect of these women is not their fashion statements but their eyes. Ever-expanding, the eyes of every woman painted stretches across her face. Many are almost without pupils.

Two guys at the preview had opposing views of the women. “This one scares you?” he said to his friend. “What’s wrong with you?” He was clearly enchanted by the women’s beauty. They walked away saying the paintings looked like “women from mars.”

I kept circling around the pictures, looking at them from various angles. Due to their eyes, the women looked very much like characters in a fairy tale that could summon the power of metamorphosis to turn into wild wolves. One painted women in particular conjured up images of changing into something altogether different than who she appeared to be at the moment. She was naked on top, and the painting cut off the brown that started at her waist—was she wearing a skirt, or was she perhaps part fawn? She had a siren-like lure, as if she would use her beauty to ensnare men in the thick of the forest before turning into a more vicious creature.

The dual nature of these women circles back to the exhibition’s title, Anima Sola. In the Catholic tradition, Anima Sola refers to the Lonely Souls who remorsefully worry as they wait for judgment. Perhaps the women in Earley’s paintings suffer for their wicked actions of the past.

So what did Lori Earley wear to her own press function? A tight reddish dress with a little black lace peeking out around the chest. She accessorized with black fishnets, black heels, black jewelry, and a goblet of white wine.

Hats can either make you look really cool or really dorky. Picture, for instance, the following celebrities in hats:

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that going out without a hat would be cause for scandal — despite what you looked like in them. Fortunately, Lilly Dache entered the fashion world in the 1930s to save the world from frumpy hats.

Lilly Dache knew how to wear a hat. Not only that, she knew how to make other women feel fabulous in hats, too.

Self-deprecatingly referring to herself as an “ugly duckling” in childhood, Dache confessed, “More than anything else, I wanted to be beautiful.” By the 1950s, she was called a “beauty expert” and named one of the best-dressed women in America. The sappy, uplifting story gives us all hope that we, too, can go from uncool to cool.

Dache set out to transform other women into swans, as well. She knew that outward appearance does in fact play a role in how people are viewed and perceived. She said, “A hat is an expression of a woman’s soul. It is something she wears on her head but it belongs to her heart.”

The French-born milliner built an empire out of designing hats that stretched beyond mere headwear and into the realm of art. The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology pays homage to the milliner with its current exhibit Lilly Dache: Glamour at the Drop of a Hat. If you hurry, you can catch it before it closes this Saturday.

There you can see such signature pieces as:

These certainly are a lot fancier than that rag MK’s been sporting on top of her head.

Also on exhibit at FIT right now: She’s Like a Rainbow: Colors in Fashion

Lilly Dache: Glamour at the Drop of a Hat is on view from noon to 8 PM on Tuesday through Friday and from 10 am to 5 pm from now until April 21 at The Museum at FIT (Seventh Avenue at 27th Street, NYC). Admission is free.

“I think trash is beautiful,” says Krista Madsen, owner of Stain. Her penchant for salvaging rejected sofas, garbage-can lids, bricks, and other knickknacks makes the cozy Williamsburg bar the idyllic ambience for its crafting sessions. Every Monday, beginning at 5 PM and going until closing, artists, crafters, and barflies come together for PAINTstain, where they fashion art out of the bar’s ragtag collection of art supplies and found items.

Blonde hair cut into a sinewy bob, Krista settles into one of the deep couches as she goes on to explain that she thinks of Stain as “more of an arts lounge than a bar.” She opened the bar two and years ago in the artsy Brooklyn neighborhood, and uses the space to promote local artists’ work. One of the pieces currently hanging embodies the recycled-art aesthetic, repurposing ordinary items into art.

Art so often being a solitary experience, PAINTstain encourages those in the community to socialize and create side-by-side. Much of crafting is a repetitive process that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. Instead of sitting by yourself in front of a television to knit or doodle, you can surround yourself with friends and friends-to-be, trading ideas and supplies.

PAINTstain gives everyone a chance to be an artist. Even if you can’t draw a straight line, you can have fun at the Monday craft night. The bar offers a large supply of magazines and children’s books, crayons and markers, bottle caps and wine corks to rummage through. While collaging may have gotten Sonic Youth’s front man into a gallery, it’s not terribly difficult to cut and paste pictures, dried flowers, and pieces of netting into a masterpiece of your own creation. Encouraging shy artists and those who think they’re not good enough to come out, Krista says, “It’s dark in here, so you can’t even see.”

Like most book clubs, the craft night is really just an excuse for culture-savvy intellectuals to hang out … and, more than likely, drink. The menus—made out of circuit boards—peddle New York-made beers and wines exclusively. Beyond the typical, ashy Brooklyn Lager, Stain offers Diablo’s Blood, a concoction of red wine and black-cherry soda, and staingria, among its impressive selection.

It was just about 6 PM when I got to Stain yesterday, and the bar was empty. The gray clouds still lurking after splashing us with 7.57 inches of rain the day before seemed to be keeping everyone at bay. Krista said craft nights don’t usually pick up till around eight anyway. While she went to return phone calls from people interested in using Stain for various events, I got to work on my own collage. Quiet indie tunes like rain clouds dripped notes through the bar. By the time I left, an hour and a half later, only two other girls had come by to chitchat about boys.

PAINTstain is a great concept and Uncool Kids would love for some of the craft night’s regulars to tell us their experiences and stories. What’s the crowd usually like? What type of crafts do most people make? Any good memories of hanging out at Stain?

At a glance:
PAINTstain is free and occurs every Monday night, from opening to closing. Stain bar is located at 766 Grand Street in Brooklyn.

It’s fitting that Thurston Moore’s first solo exhibition, Street Mouth, is debuting directly across from the Knitting Factory, at KS Art. As it turns out, the Sonic Youth front man brings the same DIY attitude to his art that made him famous at the experimental-rock club.

In his own words, Moore is “utilizing some kind of punk Photoshop method” to make collages that showcase New York’s underground scene. Cut-and-paste style, he rips up vintage newspapers from the 1970s, fastening them alongside press photos and overlapping those with personal letters, without ever making a piece look cluttered. News clippings that could have easily been dumped in yesteryear’s trash suddenly become Art in the hands of someone infatuated with counterculture New York.

“I am basing the work on exercises I did as a teenager cutting out pictures from Rock Scene, Creem and Circus magazines and collaging them as an obsessive diarist,” says Moore. You can almost picture a pre-Sonic Youth Thurston Moore, awkward and uncool, rifling through stacks of magazines for the latest pictures of his favorite bands in hopes of someday making his own rock-star dreams come true.

In large (24 X 21 1/4 inches) collages, Moore the devoted rock fan creates montages of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, the Ramones, and Patti Smith. He pairs his rock iconography with images of Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and Kathy Acker, nodding his head to the fact these downtown musicians hung out with the great writers and artists of their era. In places like St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery and Max’s Kansas City, the subterranean elite united, riffing off each other’s work and inspiring each other.

Now, all grown up and famous, Moore says, “I can actually drop myself and other referentials into the pieces [and it] has allowed me (starting) at age 47 to create an ongoing open-heart bio-historagophy.” The Sonic Youth clippings and personal letters that Moore pastes into his collages do not feel self-promoting. Rather, they seem like another page torn out of the collage-filled diary from his teenage years. He comes across as posing to be cool but really being homespun dorky in his letters, writing, “I’m going to the rodeo. I just had some fried grits, bacon and root beer. . . . I’ve been doing some boss water skiing.” Even placing Sonic Youth within the context of such legends as the Velvet Underground seems more like a kid sticking his unknown, local band’s bumper sticker on his guitar case next to famous acts’ professional stickers than an egotistic display of stardom. Despite being one of the most influential bands on the scene, Sonic Youth and its front man seem to stay true to their roots.

Street Mouth opened last week to a large crowd. “His mom even came,” said Kerry Schuss, owner and director of KS Art. Schuss assures the readers of Uncool Kids that he did not choose to exhibit Moore’s work simply because he’s a famous musician. He likes Moore’s collages and gave him a solo show after first showing his work alongside Jocko Weyland in 2005.

By now, Moore is no stranger to the art world.
This past February Moore curated Free Living Papers, an exhibit focused on the same sort of magazines that inspired his own collages. Meanwhile, his wife and band mate, Kim Gordon, is an artist with her own exhibit, Dead Already, on display this month.

Street Mouth will be on display at KS Art (73 Leonard Street, NYC) through May 12. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 - 6:00. Admission is free.

Conventional thinking preaches that sugar and spice and everything nice are all that little girls are made of. Kimberly Hart in her exhibition, Open Season, reminds us that conventional thinking has no place in modern art.

She laughs in the face of convention and shows us that little girls can be balls (ovaries?) tough, little bad asses that buck pre conceived notions and recreate social norms on their own terms. In this exhibit she’s unleashed an alter ego to counter Degas’ pink frilly tutu wearing prissy lil’ Daddy’s girl.

She has created a persona reminiscent of a modern day Scout,(Yes kids, that is a “To Kill a Mocking Bird” reference… you’re welcome.) a sequins clad warrior princess who could very well be the love child of Ted Nugent and a pre- felonious Martha Stewart.

A child who is,” an aspiring angler, a fortress defender and impudent enough to strike down her own pony.” It’s this audacious alter ego that has created the instillation on display at the Chelsea gallery- Mixed Greens .

 This is a collection of works that depict hunting scenes as only an adolescent girl could imagine them.  The largest piece, dominating the room, is an acrylic painting of a quiet, bucolic forest scene.  There’s a river with fish jumping out of it, there’s birds and ducks and butterflies, there’s even an 8 point buck and a unicorn.

Also in the upper right hand corner are four wooden shelves holding plaster busts of unicorns, crows and bunnies.  Placed in front of the canvas is a white stool with a pyramid of old- timey milk cans on top.

A nice enough piece of art on its own, but the genius of it, the slap in the face to Jane Austin’s “Little Women” fun of it is the dozen or so palm sized felt bulls eyes scattered throughout.  My favorite one is right over the heart of the unicorn.  It reminded me of the old light gun shooting gallery at Six Flags.

That’s just one example.  The other selections she has created are equally hysterical and uniquely girly in their depictions of traditionally non girly subject matter.  But that’s just part of what makes them so wonderful.

These are the works of an adolescent’s guilt free imagination.  Only a child could view nature and the hunt with such giddy macramed glee.  Only a child could create a piece of art with bunnies strung up by their feet above a puddle of blood made out of red felt, and have it not be about violence.

There’s no adult voice at work here.  There’s no fear or mean spiritedness.  There’s simply the vision of a lil’ tomboy rambunctious and wild with a runaway imagination.  This instillation is about the joy of childhood, the joy of LIFE, and that’s something we can all dig.

 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Mixed Greens Gallery- 531 w26th St- between 10th and 11th

• (take the C or E to 23rd  and walk west)

• Hours: M- F 10am- 6pm; Sat 11am- 6pm

• Closes April 21!