February 23, 2007
A scintillating retrospective featuring 40 examples of Jeff Wall's stunning oversize lightbox photographs opens on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art. Although frequent visitors to MoMA—as well as to London's Tate, where a retrospective of Wall's photographs closed just over a year ago—will recognize some of these images, the breadth of his work on display here highlights major themes and concepts behind his vivid tableaux, delineating the intriguing ways in which his still lifes and studio pictures have evolved over the past three decades. Rather than discussing the exhibit as a whole, instead I focus below on Wall's techniques and effects by discussing some of his major works.
The show opens with Destroyed Room (1978), which immediately sets the stage for this virtuoso performance by illustrating both Wall's great abilities both at evoking a famous work of art (here Delacroix' 1827 painting The Death of Sardanapalus) as well as masterful director of props and lighting. For the many elements of this studio picture required extensive ripping, tearing, and arranging to create a scene of such destruction. Given our mediated relationship to photography in the Internet age, the viewer might wonder initially how and why this happened—while of course the walls belie the artifice of this entire scene.
In The Storyteller (1986) Wall rephrases Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863), placing the picnickers of Manet's painting aside a concrete bridge in relative squalor. Here the native people of Western Canada are depicted in an animated scene, one of rapt attention around a pathetic little fire that further underscores the wretchedness of their situation, divorced from modern society that whizzes by unseen on the bridge above. Another fanciful scenario, that of Eviction (1988) shows a woman leaping towards a man struggling to free himself from two security guards while the neighbors watch from the corner and next door. Again Wall cleverly taunts the viewer into recreating how this faked scenario will unfold: Who are these people? What are they doing? As with The Storyteller and next lightbox under discussion, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) (1993), here the seams running midway through the photograph—where both pieces of transparent print are sealed together—are quite visible, reminding the viewer again of Wall's cunning creations and the craftiness of these scenaria.
In particular, how Wall evokes the painterliness of Hokusai's classic High Wind In Yeigiri seems most brilliant: here the man's hat swirls high above this irrigation canal; papers fly out of a sheath; leaves blow in the air. These disparate elements unite in the air—obviously a carefully contrived procedure whose artificiality nevertheless seems somehow entirely plausible. During this split second in time, those papers could indeed blow out of a sheaf; a woman's scarf could indeed blow up over her head; a man's hat could indeed fly away in the wind. Yet as with his street portraits such as Mimic (1982), Milk (1984), and Trân Dúc Ván (1988) the elements are carefully aligned to craft this precise moment in time.
In Milk (194), for example, note the tension in the man's left arm and jaw. While the milk sprays out of the container, his arms are perfectly still and he stares at some distant point; the alienation effect is phenomenal here. Obviously to achieve just this split-second in time took extraordinary precision, which moreover appears accentuated by the muted earth tones of the bricks and shadow effects on the sidewalk.
When Wall poses multiple figures in a tableau vivant such as in Dead Troops Talk (a vision after an ambush with a Red Army Patrol, near Morqou, Afghanistan, winter 1986 (1992), these flashback milieu achieve additional dramatic effect. The one real-appearing Pashtun digs obliviously in his bag (at left) while the Red Army soldiers act out mock horror—some with funny faces, some more heavily coated in theatrical blood and gory effects than others. Unseen figures hover over a pile of guns at the upper right, while the imagined battle scene plays out in full staged bathos. Do observe your fellow gallery-goers here, for this work sits in a room by itself. As with many of Wall's oversize works, the effect is vastly different from afar than from close up. Seen thirty feet away, it's but another image of gore with which we are presently daily confronted. In two visits to this show, it was intriguing to watch visitors merely stare briefly at this image from afar, then turn away, rather than enter the room. One suspects Wall would love this.
Similarly, the extensive artifice of A Ventriloquist at a birthday in October 1947 (1990) is augmented additionally by period costumes, here with props such as antique soda bottles, plates of half-eaten cake, and the genial lighting. Note especially highlights on the dummy's face, the back wall and especially the ceiling. The balloons hover above the scene, drawing focus downwards to the children, who stare at rapt attention observing the dummy, who receives additional prominence through the V pattern in which the children are placed. The fifth child from right has a particular glow on her face, and the texture of the ceiling seems remarkable. How utterly deceptive that this highly staged photograph seems so remarkably 1940s.
A well-known lightbox from MoMA's collection, After "Invisible Man" By Ralph Ellison, the Prologue (1999) utilizes perhaps more props and more creative lighting than any of Wall's other works. Recall the Prologue, in which the protagonist lives obscured in a basement room, illuminated by over 1000 light bulbs. The sheer scope of this project is breathtaking, but Wall's illuminated lightbox, itself a representation of illumination of the "unseen" man from dozens of sources, probably contains enough referents to produce a doctoral thesis—assuming such a thesis has not already been written.
Another scene of domestic solitude gone awry, Insomnia (1994) displays remarkable precision of the middle-of-the-night delirium, here evidenced by pepper shaker and butter dish next to the toaster, salt and ashtray on the table, open cabinets, and man under the table of his ruined tenement. With crumpled brown paper atop the refrigerator and dishtowel haphazardly placed over the edge of the chair—both chairs are at awkward angles—Wall creates a near-hallucination both with objects and shadow effects.
Finally, as with Dead Troops Talk, the lushest qualities of The Flooded Grave (1998) seem to escape the attention of many visitors, and you will want to hover nearby to observe them missing the most amusing and unusual elements of this lightbox—the starfish, sea urchins, anemone, and crayfish floating in this freshly-dug grave! For the humdrum elements of this graveyard—all the more intriguing due to the unusual perspective of Wall's shot, plus the pile of dirt, the gravediggers, the shovel, the crows flapping about—distract from the real gem here, Wall's artificial seascape. As Wall gave Artforum an account of the incredible amount of work that went into this project some years ago, suffice it to say here that The Flooded Grave remains an astounding work of tremendous genius. Note even the multiple earthworms crawling around the pile of dirt, as well as the cleverly placed hoses in background. Then meditate on all the possible uses of that green tarp while this scene was constructed.
That MoMA has finally bestowed a fitting retrospective on the brilliant Jeff Wall—this exhibit travels on to Chicago and San Francisco—merits an additional comment on the museum; specifically, its physical maintenance. Given the proper excoriation of MoMA's overpaid and illegally-compensated director, Glen Lowry, that appeared one week ago today on the front page of the New York Times, it seems appropriate to comment once again on the dreadful use of space on the sixth floor of this museum. Just 30 minutes after the museum opened, I found a bathroom on this floor—reached after traversing a narrow and quite scuffed corridor—rather a mess. On both days the visibly bored and sleepy guards—some of whom I observed vigorous yawning—were also overheard chatting quite loudly and inappropriately with their colleagues about their grievances with security management. A pity I did not have my voice recorder with me! But given that this exhibition had not yet even opened to the public during my two visits, one wonders what members as well as first-time visitors might think about the performance of its director, who was paid $5.35 million between 1995 and 2003 and who lavished $858 million on Taniguchi's dysfunctional building. Perhaps members—as well as visitors paying $20 a head—might suggest diverting funds to those facilities in urgent need of an overhaul. Today two out of three elevators serving the sixth floor were out of service—the one I found out of service two days ago had still not been repaired. Two of three sinks in the sixth floor restroom were out of order for several days. The one working sink, it should be noted, sprayed water in multiple directions, perhaps in homage to Wall.
Tags:
delacroix, glen lowry, hokusai, jeff wall, manet, moma, ralph ellison
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Posted on 2/23/2007
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February 18, 2007
Perhaps it's appropriate for the Lunar New Year that a thought-provoking new show of Huang Yong Ping's work has opened at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Once again this Xiamen-born artist cleverly incorporates Western and Eastern motifs in this exhibit "From C to P"—"C" as in Coliseum of Rome and "P" as in Pentagon. Ingenious room-size models of both of these monumental buildings feature all manner of plants gracefully potted within their interiors as well as erupting from the edifices. Thus, these world-historical centers of state violence are mollified or even tamed through foliage. They recall the classic mid-18th century etchings of Piranesi, wherein trees and foliage spring forth from ruined edifices. A testament to the classic term coined by Spinoza, natura naturans, Huang Yong Ping here depicts changing identity when nature takes over after the violence of man. For the cracked and decayed exteriors of this Coliseum and Pentagon further evoke their transmutation through random growth of flora—think of that trip up the river in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, "when vegetation rioted on earth and the big trees were kings." Or think perhaps of that famous tree precariously growing from a temple at Cambodia's Angkor Wat, the colossal growth of which became possible in part by benign neglect and nature's overpowering forces at the massive temple complex.
In contrast, the intriguing set of oversize glazed jars that greet the visitor upon entering the Gladstone Gallery explore this theme in a converse manner. Rather than nature erupting from the exteriors, here nature is trapped within interiors. These jars, some four or five feet high, each contain an animal within, and the startling effect of peering inside has multiple effects. A fierce wolf appears ready to jump out of one; a rather sad bovine stares pitifully from within its jar; a steinbock appears trapped in a rather creepy twist of fate, but not of nature; birds and rats permeate one jar, and tiny bats another. And yet from within any other sightlines of the gallery, these pitfalls are completely invisible, and the animals utterly unseen. Meaning? Has Huang Yong Ping mastered Brecht's alienation effect with these jumbled things and heterogeneous themes? Or is he simply the playful virtuoso of the Xiamen Dada group, again creating a masterful illusion some twenty years later?
photo credit: Coliseum (2007). Ceramic, soil and plants; 89 x 217 x 298 1/2 inches (226 x 556 x 758cm).
Tags:
angkor wat, gladstone gallery, huang yong ping, piranesi, spinoza
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Posted on 2/18/2007
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February 11, 2007
MoMA's new Armando Reverón exhibition opened this morning, and within 20 minutes was already quite well-attended, rather impressive for a cold Sunday in February. The museum is quick to underscore how this exhibit is like no other in the museum's history, which might be subtitled the moody blues. As you gradually meander towards the back of the sixth floor, the complex evolution of Reverón's style becomes apparent. Early in his painting career, Reverón relocated from Caracas to the northern Caribbean coast of Venezuela, and the canvases reflect the muted colors of the harsh light of that latitude. For example, "Coastal Seascape" (1927) on burlap with its coarse texture hints at the severity of the landscape, as does "El Playón" (1929), even brighter and whiter, with dabs of blue brooding on the sky and water. But the "White Landscape" (Paisaje blanco, 1934) beautifully evokes these glaring qualities, appearing as it does almost as a diapositive.
The doll-like figures in his portraits from the 1930s have intriguing features. In "Five Figures" (Cinco figuras, 1939) for example, their aspects are muted and the surroundings hazy, whereas a painting on burlap such as "The Creole 'Maja'" (La maja criolla, 1939) seems almost a bit mad, vaguely suggestive of Seurat and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in a more subdued setting, stripped of brash colors. A pro pos descent into madness, later portraits, landscapes and figural works clearly hint at his increasing schizophrenia. Life-size dolls, whom Reverón apparently treated as people, became his models. Though his dolls are obviously imbued with human qualities—as opposed to the Vivian girls his American contemporary, Henry Darger, was painting a continent away—the staged dramatic scenes nevertheless have similarly-haunting aspects. Dolls figure repeatedly in his late self-portraiture, and curiously the museum displays some of these objects and dolls that appear in his paintings. Most touching and also most unusual is a birdcage with around a dozen decaying little birds, seen at the very end of this exhibit. Their integral meaning to Reverón's mental illness becomes more clear when viewing photographs of his redoubt, El Castillete, which is neither imposing nor immodest. (The structure was wrecked in the ruinous mudslides of Venezuela's Macuto region in 1999.) For here was a talented painter whose stylized fantasy world yielded a bountiful harvest of artwork. How and exactly why this exhibit came to MoMA is a bit trickier—though it clearly has much to do with MoMA trustee Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
photo: "Self-Portrait with Dolls" (Autorretrato con muñecas, 1949), Collection Fundación Museos Nacionales, Caracas
Tags:
Armando Reveron, henry darger, moma
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Posted on 2/11/2007
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February 04, 2007
Two openings yesterday—Robert Gober at two Matthew Marks locations plus Doug Aitken at 303 Gallery—transfigure this current crop of shows in Chelsea. With uniquely American aspects that make extensive use of ephemera, the works under consideration all have rather playful characteristics that slyly explicate far more grave and subversive subject matter. While a major retrospective of Gober's work at Basel's Schaulager opens in May, fans of Gober's major shows at Dia: Chelsea and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles will recognize the hallmarks and context of his work currently of on display. On 22nd Street, a plastic milk crate filled with wax Granny Smith apples featuring Gober-made stickers sits atop a crudely-painted white stool with green trim. The object of note, a Winchester rifle that appears rather melted into the crate, evokes our gunfighter nation, the myth and reality of the Wild West and Westerns. When viewing the 21st Street piece—again a beat-up seat, here covered with a scraggly blanket with paint splotches on it—Gober's inventive and perceptive insights into crafting these inelegant hand-made objects seem all the more fascinating. On both side walls, two nearly identical framed receipts for a five-dollar entrance fee to Monument Valley can be found. But these mass-produced receipts here are actually hand-crafted wood engravings made on Legion interleaving paper, both with rips and tears that further elevate and enhance their status as objects of the American west. Produced in a series of 15, Gober typically tinkers with mundane items and recreates them with such subtle characteristics that their qualities are easily overlooked. Recall, for example, the hand-crafted rat poison boxes and the stacks of reprinted and transmogrified issues of the New York Post at Dia. Or at MoMA, the black-and-white self-portrait of Gober as a bride; the wax human-like leg emerging from a wall; and the Prison Wall on display on the second floor. Or the oversized coins, flowing water, and life-size Virgin Mary with bronze pipe through her midsection at MoCA. In each, the high caliber of his craftsmanship appears subordinate to the mundaneness and deceptive crudeness of the objects in the tableau vivant he creates. While Gober's work here perhaps evokes the infamous brutality of John Ford movies and Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the American West" shot in Monument Valley, so too do a printed wood engraving of an impermanent receipt, a hand-made cast-off blanket, and a wooden stool symbolize the permanent and lasting scars on this landscape. Seven drawings in space, all untitled, surround the 22nd Street sculpture, and a curious Gober-esque piece of filthy quilt has been charmingly mounted on the back wall. What of the transformation of nature (apples replicated in wax), the harshness of life and landscape (rifle, blanket, etc.), and artifice and genuineness? As always, Gober's work raises innumerable challenging questions and issues.
I noticed Bob Gober was the first to sign Doug Aitken's guest book at the 303 Gallery, a show in which Aitken also brilliantly plays with all-American motifs. The neon sculpture "99¢ Dreams" (2007) in the window on 22nd Street functions both as signpost and chaperone, guiding the visitor inside to this dreamy and visually compelling show. A light sculpture of nine letters forming the word disappear (2006) features blurry photographs of airplanes—mostly US Airways—parked in the barren desert of the Southwest, where old airplanes go for extended or eternal rest. Two sculptures—"Wilderness" (2006) and "beautiful and damned" (2006) underscore the kinetic virtuosity of this exhibit, as do two objects in the rear gallery, "K-N-O-C-K-O-U-T" (2005), a sonic table crafted by Michael Thiele as well as "don't think twice II" (2006), a hyperactive neon sculpture. Try to view this show in tandem with Aitken's sleepwalkers, which remains on display outside MoMA for another week and online as well. The experience of optical sculptures in a gallery as contrasted with video projected on a sterile museum wall—outdoors, in the winter—make for stimulating and visually striking pageantry on topical themes. Though not reviewed here, Robert Wilson's just-closed VOOM Portraits at the Paula Cooper gallery featured a likewise breathtaking and enchanting high-tech tableaux.
As to fractured 99¢ dreams seen on a larger scale, Brian Ulrich's photographs on display through Saturday at the Julie Saul gallery offer a more deliberate and forceful depiction of the seamy side of American commerce and the ephemeral nature of our newest national religion, shopping. The images from "Copia" are stunning, harsh and recall Andreas Gursky's seminal 99 Cent, the ultimate consumer paradise bathed in garish fluorescent light, gleaming floor tile, and endless rows of CPS (cheap plastic stuff). Yet Ulrich's photographs of CPS consumers have a fascinating angle, whether the cashier amidst a length hub of checkout stands at Target in "Granger, IN" (2003), the fishing-pole shopper in "Gurnee, IL" (2003) or those haunting "patriotic chairs" with "U.S.A." on back and sold in American flag sacks for $9.99. Other images reinforce the mutability of our 99¢ utopia, such as garish "final sale!" and "store closing total liquidation!" signs hanging in a barren shopping-mall landscape, or "Kenosha, WI" (2003), featuring the pallets of Faygo soda next to a dairy case, with spilled milk in the foreground. The ennui, boredom and humdrum qualities of consumer paradise could not be more evident here.
Gober's response to issues of gender and sexuality in America—such as in his reworked Saks Fifth Avenue advertisement, an exceptionally clever photolithograph in which he appears as the bride underneath an article "Vatican Condones Discrimination Against Homosexuals"—could not be more different than James Bidgood's outlandish and lush 1960s photographs on display at Clamp Art. Bidgood has spent formidable amounts of time in recent years scanning and color correcting these opulent images, and his digital C-prints deserve further attention, in particular, those of Bobby Kendall. Bidgood's luxuriant obsession—a film titled "Pink Narcissus" (1965-1971)—languished in relative obscurity until shown in 1999 by Frameline in San Francisco to a highly enthusiastic audience. Its protagonist, the hypersexual Kendall, was at the forefront of the radical alteration of erotic imagery in the 1960s. As with Cindy Workman's recent inkjet prints les demoiselles at Lennon, Weinberg, themes of multiple identities are explored in these extensive fetishizations of the (fe)male form. Whereas Bidgood created lavishly stylized studio portraits in his Hell's Kitchen tenement with brash colors and his male models' wild outfits along with partial or full nudity, here Workman uses newer technologies to explore and deconstruct gender identities with images of women found from various sources.
photo credit: Doug Aitken "99¢ Dreams"; courtesy of 303 Gallery
Tags:
303 gallery, andreas gursky, basel, Brian Ulrich, Cindy Workman, clamp art, Doug Aitken, frameline, James Bidgood, lennon weinberg, los angeles, matthew marks, met, michael thiele, moca, moma, Robert Gober, robert wilson, schaulager, voom portraits
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Posted on 2/4/2007
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