Josh Kline at 47 Canal
Josh Kline’s, QUALITY OF LIFE, is a must see if you want to know what the new trajectories in video
and 3D printing are and also if you have an interest in the body and reflecting
on youth. There are two videos,
one of Kurt Cobain the other of Whitney Houston and they are being interviewed
as if they are alive today. It is
well done and there is a strange mash-up, mix-up, glitchy delay of composite
rendering of said dead celebrities.
These hover heads are over real life people that are body vessels for
this act of suspended disbelief.
These videos are very interesting to watch and the content of what is
being said is just as interesting as the visuals, perhaps more so. In addition there is a brand
illumination that spills red and blue pills over a “Forever 21” logo and to get
even more pill like there are also IV drip bags filled with such health
preserving things like spirulina and Emergen-C. There are sculptures as well. I have always found Kline’s molded heads and the plinths
they reside on to be a bit lacking in something but it is a thing he seems to
enjoy doing and one can understand their place within this larger show. Overall, this show is very tight, very
actualized and worth a viewing or two. QUALITY OF LIFE gets to the point of the first line of its press
release, “Youth is the ultimate commodity in a society of dying people.” Macabre in an embracive sort of way.
Korakrit Arunanondchi, Greg Parma-Smith, Ben Wolf Noam at
The Suzanne Geiss Company
Digital Expression is
the title of this show. It
presents just this but there is a slight curve here as the works are very much
about texture, nay fabric. This
results in an exhibit that is not just another iteration of ‘things that have
been happening for a while now.’ Arunanondchi is like so very hip right now, I
don’t really get it, but I can understand why people do(?) I have to admit the Parma-Smith works
sort of recessed back while being installed with these other two artists. Not his fault. Wolf Noam, organized the show and he
did a good job in his contribution of works. They are very large columns that fill the space and are as
impressive as they are interesting as object and as surface. This show feels a bit like a favor
somehow though… But hey, isn’t that how this whole art thing works now a days?
Matthew Higgs, James Hoff, Margaret Lee, Georgia Sagri at
Team Gallery
Miriam Katzeff organized this group show entitled, Parasitic
Dreams which, “…explores
the ways in which textual elements can be used to prop up, destabilize and
misdirect meaning in the realm of visual art.” Katzeff knows what she is doing and the
works in the show are well selected and placed. James Hoff’s towers of floppy disks were very fun to
see. Columns, even mini ones, are
so in and make one think, “body!” so quickly. The pairing of Higgs and Lee, as they are wanton to do
often, was very tight and well done but had a removed feeling in a way with the
rest of the show. Parasitic Dreams takes a lot of what is current; technology, words, still
life as joke, and presents them in a chin rubbing way. I must note that Higgs is really
showing himself to be a true blue artist.
Some of the things that I reacted to the most were by him, to my genuine
surprise.
David
Adamo, James Castle at Peter Freeman Inc.
Okay,
so this show is like the best thing I saw all week. Adamo selected works by James Castle, a self taught artist
(deceased) who was a rural farmer, and also has new works by himself on view at
this surprising but captive space.
Adamo’s selection of Castle’s works are refreshing, even for one who
adores and has sought to view as many Castle works in real life as possible. There is a suite of small figures that
runs the length of the gallery’s main space, a selection of sticks/pencils, a
series of letter drawings, vases downstairs and more by Castle. Most are drawings and all of them are
so alive with charm and visual freshness it makes the heart ache a bit. Adamo went all out as well. There are his well-known columns of wood
chopped to almost fall down sticks.
These are made interesting by his lovely white tile flooring made out of
chalk sticks. Adamo links himself
with Castle in direct ways, like a collection of erasers which fooled me into
thinking they were Castle’s at first, but also makes clear he is contemporary
like his bronze M&Ms. This show’s success does not lie only in that fact
that I like both artist’s works respectively, this helps, but because the
combination of what is shown and how it is shown makes both of their works
stronger in their shared binds.
Jeanette
Mundt at Clifton Benevento
I
like Clifton Benevento programming a lot and not only that, they are very
classy yet highly professional.
Rare these days. Sadly, the
current show with Jeanette Mundt, I know I am when you make me, is a bit of a safety. There are landscape like paintings, a love of diptyches,
mini walls with posters and other elements that make you think “prop” but there
is something lacking. Maybe I just
don’t get it. Probably, but yeah,
this was a bit surprising to see in it’s feeling of quickness.
3D
Notion at Bruce High Quality Foundation
A
show with a lot of artists that use 3D technologies to make work, mostly
sculpturally actualized. Wow. This show. Wow. Really
bad. Like gamer flea market meets
very bad street art. So many
artists on this list are very very very good artists. How this failed is beyond me. Ah well.
Live and learn?
