Talley Ross-Ho!: or What We Saw in Chelsea This Week

We dropped in on our friend and dealer Daniel Cooney to drop off some work and check his new space at 508 W 26th St. The space is great and a new show of Dan Estabrook's work opens on May 9th. So instead we took in the following shows:

Amanda Ross-Ho, GONE TOMORROW @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash: Ms Ross-Ho continues her exploration of the iconography of girlhood. The show derives its title from the enormous gold earring hanging at the back of the gallery, but the show is dominated by a series of Black Rag pieces, enormous black t-shirts that have been slashed, cut and gathered and each subtitled (I Hate ____ ) where the blank is a day of the week. Four Untitled Still Lifes complete the exhibit and their collaged surfaces help bring the large t-shirts  into art history with photographs that seem to document performances of Yoko Ono's Cut Piece and bring some sobriety to a rather goofy grin of a show. I look forward to seeing more of the artist's work. Open until May 18th.

Tim Hawkinson and Richard Misrach @ Pace Galleries: Be advised! These are two very separate shows but once you're in for one you might as well take in the second. Mr. Hawkinson continues to explore the crossroads of nature and creation  Worth seeing for the enormous foot with roller toes and heel, but dive all the way into the back for Tagalong, a charming poly-resin sculpture of a sea horse with air bubbles. Mr. Misrach has headed back to the beach for more of his large-format aerial view photographs of lone figures on the beach or in the ocean. Even though the isolated figures create the desired sense of alienation, it's the images of just water I found most fascinating. New digital technology has allowed the artist to capture fleeting moments of light and color that become engrossing abstract prints at this scale. Walk up to one and don't see if you fall in! I dare you!! Both shows up until June 29th.

Sara VanDerBeek @ Metro Pictures: I'm very glad I stopped in to see this debut solo show at Metro Pictures. Ms. VanDerBeek's photographs are large, bold and shiny; minimalist studies of the photograph as an object. She then takes that objects and has us question it more through both subject matter and format. The back gallery is turned into a luscious monument, to what exactly is hard to say. The light gray stacks the artist uses throughout the installation harked back to Greek temples, but the large photographs of an oxidized wall that are then mounted under Mirona glass creates an artist's temple to self-reflection. Some delicate smaller works close out the show with subtle elegance. I want to see more! Open until June 8th.

Jannis Kounellis @ Cheim & Reade: Worth a peek. Kounellis is associated with the Arte Povera movement and these works reflect it. I find the choices interesting since they were "sourced" locally in Brooklyn for this site specific installation; large slabs of metal welded together to created "paintings" , many of which are turned into shelving units stocked with glass pieces one might find in a second hand store. I'm not sure if it's all that acreage of old glass, the hard dullness of the sheet metal, the coal, the train tracks or the many, many old Singer sewing machines, but I couldn't help get the impression I was viewing some sort of Holocaust chic. Or is it just a large-scale rehash of work we've seen done better by others? You decide!! Open until June 22nd.

Also seen:

Philip Taaffe @ Luhring Augustine: Philip Taaffe?!? I thought he was dead!! Well, no such luck Virginia, the onion man is still at it. Layers and layers of patterns and patterns. Hats off to the artist for donating the proceeds from the sale of prints covering the rear wall to Visual AIDS! until June 15th.

Tim Hetherington @ Yossi Milo: Gorgeous silver gelatin prints documenting the artist's work with young men and women at the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sombre but gorgeous. until May 18th.

Untitled Hybrid @ Robert Miller Gallery: The gallery continues their desire to upscale Lee Krasner's estate by grouping her with a number of contemporary women. Check out Alisa Baremboym's Useless Tool, Communal Cup, and Friends in the front left gallery. until June 1st.

Marisa Merz @ Barbara Gladstone: More Arte Povera from a female perspective. I liked the big flower piece on the floor! Do you have to have a fountain in your work to show at this gallery? until June 8th.

A BRISK STROLL THROUGH CHELSEA

Finding ourselves in the Chelsea area this sub-zero Saturday afternoon, we bundled up our mufflers, straightened our long johns and took a quick peek at a few exhibits in Chelsea. Here's what we saw:

JIM DINE "HOT DREAM (52 BOOKS)" @ PACEWILDERSTEIN - A gargantuan installation by one of the grandpa's of Pop. the gallery has been cordoned off into various shaped room which are overrun with drawings, photographs, prints, stenciled walls, audio tapes and sculptures. I was pleased to see the old man incorporate a few new images into his repertoire: Pinocchio and Santa appear in numerous guises and media (I had wished the large dark Santa in one room was chocolate and not clay, but.....). In fact the little wooden boy is ubiquitous. There is a notable large sculpture to your left when u enter that is a butch, manly piece featuring the artist's famed heart hanging from a Di Suvero-like framework of beams with wires and equipment dangling from it. An awful lot of stuff from one of our better known American artists.

NANCY SPERO 'UN COUP DE DENT' @ GALERIE LELONG - This large group of paintings and drawings date from 1954 to 1965 and show this artist in a period leading up to well-known later works. Done in Paris and exhibited there as The Black Paintings, these primal figurative works often deal with lovers and families. They also share a raw savage quality that is similar to that of her now-deceased life partner Leon Golub. Certainly smoother and more 'painterly' than most of his 'Giganticism' and political portraits, they share that power of deep gesture used for figurative purposes. WORTH A LOOK!!

Also seen:
DON BACHARDY: CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD, LAST DRAWINGS @ CHEIM & READ - A gripping and grueling series of portraits of the writer drawn by his life partner. Many of the later portraits, particularly those that focus of the head have the power of a Kollwitz or a Daumier. INTENSE BUT WORTHWHILE.

CHRISTOPHER MINER @ MITCHELL-INNES & NASH - new videos and a photograph from this satirist of proper, pious South. Definitely check out the "Via Delarosa" and "Closing Credits" videos. MADE US CHUCKLE ON A GRIM COLD DAY.

CHRISTOPH GIELEN @ DANIEL COONEY GALLERY: large color photographs of mankind at its finest, highways and housing. Taken around the world, they document a kind of corporate matrix has infiltrated the world; only the sign with Chinese writing is the only clue that the hi-rise we are studying is there and not Las Vegas or Dubai. Curving row of roads and houses taken recently in Texas look remarkably like original pictures from Levittown. If only they were computer-generated!!

"EVERY REVOLUTION IS A ROLL OF THE DICE" @ PAULA COOPER - A group show organized for the gallery by Bob Nickas of twelve artists. I didn't quite get the entire zeitgeist of the show but standouts include Barry X Ball's elongated Buddha head, Huma Bhabha's brancusi-esque sculpture and Carol Bove's peacock carpet. Note to gallery: As I remember the piece, the Louise Lawler by the front desk should have a pink wall or area of wall around it. We know Pratt & Lambert are out of business but its not impossible to match a paint chip!! Tsk tsk tsk!!

FAILURE HITS THE UES - William Pope.L @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash

As the financial and house markets seemed to be coming down around our ears, we journeyed up to that bastion of gracious living and expense accounts, Madison Avenue and 79th Street to pop in to the opening of William Pope.L's first show with his new gallery, Mitchell-Innes & Nash. And what a pleasant surprise! What should we find covering four walls of one of the two main gallery areas but hundreds upon hundreds of "Failure" drawings. These small intimate drawings where all done on available paper while traveling, so we get a wide range of sizes; coasters, hotel stationery, notepads, small photos, etc). Beautifully installed!!

In the second gallery, are two larger pieces, plus a small wall sculpture consisting of two drinnking glasses with water. The large wooden coffin for the US flag is raised off the ground and emits the soft sound of a flag flapping in the wind.

Screw the NY Times! A great little debut show! ENCORE!!!

AN AFTERNOON STROLL THROUGH CHELSEA

On a recent wintery afternoon, we took in some sun and some culture. Here's are some exhibitions of note:


CHRIS MARTIN @ MITCHELL-INNES & NASH - A very nice, well-curated show of recent paintings by the last of the great Williamsburg painters. The work is smart and loopy. They contain a joie-de-vivre that you can only experience first-hand (many of the paintings' surfaces are topographical). Several stripe paintings pay homage to Brancusi and Barnett Newman, colorful columns made of stacked semi-circular shapes. Circular forms bump up under the surface and flower into fanciful gardens. "Good Evening, Alfred Jensen, Good Evening" carries the joyous cacophony of that artist's work in a small canvas that surrounds a collage blond bikini model in a rainbow of thick colorful stripes. My favorite work, Afghan Painting, also involves collage, this time the eye of a lizard hidden amidst a day-glo color field painting done on an actual crocheted afghan. Don't forget to pat the lucky gnome by the doorway on your way out.


JUAN USLÉ @ CHEIM & READ - Another painter with a lot of textures and a lot of stripes. The first gallery contains three small horizontal paintings with vertical stripes segmenting them. They are rather charming. The larger the pieces got, the more derivative. All done in some exotic concoction of vinyl dispersion and dry pigment, some made me think of monochromatic Mary Heilmans, others of Agnes Martin on a VERY rainy day. Impressive but rather empty.

RICHARD ARTSCHWAGER @ GAGOSIAN - Artschwager has unpacked those packing crate sculptures and made himself right at home, displaying a painted series of domestic vignettes which echo Impressionist interiors along with two Tables made of Formica, subtitled (Whatever) and (Somewhat). The master is in peak form here. Be sure to check out the small gallery space behind reception; the small homage to Morandi is nice, but the enormous, hairy, turquoise exclamation point suspended from the ceiling steals the show! Bravo!!

NAYLAND BLAKE "WHAT THE WHISKEY SAID, WHAT THE SUN IS SAYING" @ MATTHEW MARKS - I think the title says it all; that is to say, absolutely nothing. Petulant and adolescent, it's a show of a lot of work you've seen done before by much better artists. I have never understood this artist's appeal, and this show hasn't changed my mind. Not worth the trip up the stairs!!

SARAH PICKERING @ DANIEL COONEY GALLERY: I liked these large color photographs by this up-and-coming photographer. Unlike her earlier work of explosions out in natural settings, which have left me cold, these images of "practise fires" bring us indoors into familiar surroundings. These set-up scenarios are extremely thoughtful but tilt towards the Anglophile (one bedside table contained a paperback Patricia Highsmith mystery and a can of Strongbow). Worth a peek.

Also seen:
Robert Gobers @ Matthew Marks - A creepy show taking up two small gallery spaces. Wall sculptures of the seats of wooden chairs sprouting breasts. The two on 21st Street included a flaccid shotgun and a snake-like set of feet connected by a hairy leg. Whatever.
Michal Rovner: Makom II @ Pace Wilderstein - Rovner builds a little bit of the Holy Land for you right here Stateside. A sonic hum brings an added solemnity to this imposing, cryptic structure. Worth a peak.
Shirin Neshat @ Barbara Gladstone - Two overly long, beautifully shot video installations, with some large color photo-documents. Just make a movie already.
Catherince Sullivan: Triangle of Need @ Metro Pictures - More video taking up a lot of space. If you have to go, check out the last gallery with the small pixelated projections of bridal picture shoots.
Luis Gispert @ Mary Boone - Even more video!! Something about kids. The sound track was annoying and the volume level unbearable. C-prints from the video are available in the back gallery, if you dare!!