This is the first of many opera’s to involve artists. Coming soon to the Lincoln Center is the Tristan Project- an adaptation of Tristan and Isolde, with video work by Bill Viola. In an interview I heard with him on NPR, he simply spoke about how he was able to fit existing ideas and work within the framework of the opera. I felt that this was somewhat missing the point, but it is difficult and expensive work to produce- and the act of lending his work and name to an Opera will already draw a far wider audience. I haven’t seen it yet so I can’t really provide an opinion.

Also on the way is a work by Philippe Parreno: “Parreno is also co-curating a group opera called Il Tempo del Postino with Hans Ulrich Obrist for the inaugural Manchester International Festival in July 2007. Showcasing international artists such as Matthew Barney, Olafur Eliasson and Carsten Höller, the opera is based around the idea of artists occupying a duration of time rather than an amount of space.” Parreno is currently showing at the Haunch of Venison Gallery in London.

In the meantime it’s back to work for me-with my Thesis exhibition coming up at Pratt Institute in about two weeks.

If you don’t know his work, he pretty much makes small, or large scale super-realistic sculptures of humans. Average humans – not your Gwen Stefani’s or your Brad Pitt’s, just the man in the street. The work he became famous for- a small version of his father, was on show, including a 16ft(3m) long baby, having just been given birth to-still fresh with blood and the umbilical cord. There was also the spaced out village idiot on a chair-his shin bone as tall as a man. These sculptures make you fell like your on stage with the cast of a the Big Friendly Giant.
The show is very slick. Very minimalist to a degree. It is only people- all naked and clean. But the sheer amazement is what makes it work. Each hair is visible. Each wrinkle and skin blemish has been replicated, created.
The grand finale was a woman alone in bed: her head as tall as us, staring vacantly out into the distance. It was at this point that I realised that it takes some time to get past the size and realism, to the root of what Mueck is dealing with. The size almost detracts from the issues of reality, social class and expression of life experience that these works deal with- showing everyday people in various states of distress, death, depression or mental illness: the baby has just been born, the man in the boat looks as if he is about to be transported through a black hole. The women in bed seems to be contemplating whether or not to get up for work and the man in the corner seems to be trying to stop the thoughts inside his head. The village idiot-well, he’s the village idiot. We all need one as a measure. And maybe that’s what this is to some extent-a measure for us and for the artist… So that we can place ourselves in context and see where things really are and how they are for us.
Mueck communicates communication-or the lack of it maybe.
The only criticism I would have of the show is the section related to his artistic process. He drills the holes in the silicone by hand and threads them in! Each Hole!!! Each Hair!
It is fascinating to see this but I think it is a mistake for him-As it removes a level of mystery that these works have. His video of him working in his studio has a shocking soundtrack to it. But other than that you really get the sense that some of these pieces are going to jump at you.
Check out the work on the Brooklyn Museum website.
And if you haven’t been to one of their first Fridays then you should go. They are great.

Other than this Chelsea has been largely depressing. Nothing significant going on there. Makes one wonder.

Her buildings are elegant forms, each work designed for and of the space it uses, both on a practical and physical level, as well as a conceptual level. Her design is practical-something many architects have garnered much criticism for not being. In the last few years she has begun to build and receive commissions across the world- with projects on the go everywhere. And in between all of this she still finds time to paint, draw and keep abreast of the latest technology in building and production: admittedly she has a small army working for her, probably living in fear of being fired at the drop of a hat (something for which she has become notorious for). As one blog stated-great show-now take a chill pill!

Recorded by 112 digital cameras, they will simultaneously answer 100 questions chosen out of thousands donated by the global public. The resulting 600+ hours of audiovisual content will launch an unprecedented online resource: a knowledge portal and dialog forum created to host a global conversation covering the most pressing questions of our time.

Among 112 participants, a number of them are artists, musicians, filmmakers and authors. A complete list of participants can be viewed on the site.

Please visit www.droppingknowledge.org for more information.

With his own brand of printed wallpaper (the pattern extracted from one of his photographs), Thomas Demand darkened the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens in London this summer. Each room a busy dark hue of green interfering with your vision in the same way that a chain link fence does: making us struggle to see the actual artwork. His intention was supposedly to make us aware of the domestic scale of the Gallery.His show consisted of large scale, slickly produced Plexiglas laminated photographs of “Life size sculptures painstakingly made by him” (Shame!) .Using rudimentary materials like paper and cardboard, he constructs banal scenes like a window surrounded by ivy, A kitchen, a photocopy shop, you get the drift right?

He has been working in this way since he left Goldsmiths in the early 90′s and has yet to find something new, rather choosing to attempt to refine the way of working and his idea.
The scenes are of course devoid of human presence and are crafted as accurately as possible. An image of a dead plant looks life like from a distance, but is revealed to be fake and constructed upon closer inspection. This show, and his work is really just a refined version of a concept that was better and more impressively produced ( and allowed to run its course) by Fischli and Weiss. The pair produced woodcarvings and Styrofoam sculptures of similar scenes and human scenarios, having since moved onto other methods of production and so, other ideas.
Demand has just reduced the same concept first to cardboard, and then to a photograph. Beyond the initial surprise of realising that what your looking at is constructed and not real, there is not much else to hold your attention, when it is really just an idea we have seen before, reduced to a large reflective photographic surface. Maybe it is more designed for the contemporary kind of travelling show, along with the need to edition, sell and adapt to the commercial museum and exhibition culture and the public’s constant need for exhibits.

How I wish for something new. The Serpentine Gallery is not one to give much away on their website.

Solid Light
by Sean Slemon at David Krut Arts Resource
opens on 22 June at 18:00 @ 140 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood.

140 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood.
 Tel: 011 880 4242
 www.davidkrutpublishing.com
 www.davidkrut.com
 09h00-17h00, Sat 09h00-16h00

My first Biennial
What to say. Simply being in New York and keeping an eye on the process of first, the selection of curators, then general banter in bars over what will happen, subsequently leading to the artist selections being released and now finally the show, predictably leading to all sorts of bitchiness, boredom and disinterest along with a review here and there by both artists and critics, things seem to be just about on track.
Now to wait while the mistakes slowly disseminate themselves into the market, burning themselves out to leave the strongest surviving. It’s beginning to sound like a battle ground is’nt it. Well in some ways it is. The good work really does stand out. Further research into the bad work simply makes it even worse. A closer look, should you wish to depress yourself, will reveal frequent use of the naive, the abject and the complete lack of skill, concept or even thought.
Come on Chrisi! What made you think when you saw that work by Miles Davis that it would really fit in or look good in the Whitney, hung at its low low level that you had to stoop to see some of the Basquiatian scrawl at the bottom. Not to mention the adolescent drawings of a simple badly told depressing fairy tale by Taylor Meade. Daniel Johnston had a go too- with a group of A4 drawings in felt tip pens, supposedly reminiscent not only of himself but also our time.
The work that stuck in my mind the most was 1st Light by Paul Chan: intelligent use of a projector with an animation that was gentle, subtle and well coordinated with the installation, the medium and its subject matter, well installed and stunningly made. Robert Gober has a series of photographs, which were the quiet from the storm. Parts of the installation made you feel like you were in a shopping mall. The substantial doses of teenage angst here and there with bad drawing and lack of skill didn’t really serve to impress me over all. Many went for the shock factors of sex and death. The Wrong gallery produced a show that was intelligent and straightforward getting its message across and its political opinions with skill.
Richard Serra’s drawing simply stating, “stop b sh”. A clear message that really here I am sure was speaking to the converted, and if they weren’t already did they really look – or even dare to go inside the Whitney. Some were offended by the overt political tones, but I cant speak to that.
I got the catalogue too. So far so good-some good essays on contemporary work, with the book designed to be pulled apart, to reveal fold out posters, one by each artist on the show.
Is’nt it ironic that now we need to design the catalogues so that they fall apart- lasting only a short time. Makes sense-this way we’ll have enough mental and physical space for the next Show.
More later on this.

This weekend my girlfriend and I went to Toronto for her bosses birthday. It was a chance to get out of town and have a bit of a break too.

We were directed to stay at the Gladstone-one of the longest continuously running hotels in Toronto. Its recently been redone and the owner-an artist herself, decided to curate a group of artists to design and decorate the rooms. We stayed in the Map room, which was easy on the eye and very simple but there are 37 to choose from. We looked in on a few others just to check them out. And its cheap too.
Thought I should just mention that they do leave earplugs on the counter in each room. At first I thought Amy had brought them, but later found out that we actually needed them. The room we stayed in was nicely done but not that user-friendly. A word of advice to any artist doing room in a hotel- Live in it first-with your girlfriend. This guy didn’t.
I know that artist decorated hotel rooms are catching on, with them being commissioned in Nelspruit at Harry’s and also more recently at Spier in Cape Town. Does anyone know whats up with that by the way? Who’s on the list and what are they doing? And when can we stay there? Lang and Baumann also did some fantastic rooms as well and they have a great site.

Thought this was worth a quick mention. This show being done when the man should have turned a 100 years old.
The work was generally smaller than I expected, but this realization really did only dawn on me halfway through the show, given that the sculpture works so well in the space. The galleries really show the work off well and allow you to see it on a very uncompromising scale. The building – subtle and powerful at the same time, much like the work of David Smith. The surprise was some of the drawing which became more and more abstract as time went by (what was edited out in between I don’t know but something is missing). Well worth a visit. Nothing wrong with a history lesson now and then. You might learn something.

 
So this last weekend I finally made it out to Chelsea, with a list of shows to see. This being the preferred method as opposed to busking it which usually tends to result in anger and disillusionment. My experience was more satisfying. I’m learning to filter through the rooms and rooms of junk and get to the important work.
Tara Donovan is a Brooklyn based artist who has risen to notoriety surprisingly fast over the last five years. She has built up an impressive resume of awards, exhibition and invitations.
She works mainly in pre-existing materials such as plastic cups, straws, paper plates as well as toothpicks and nails. She arranges these objects into evocative installations, often using the entire space, to communicate landscapes and nature, making use of low-brow manufactured products. Her materials are transcended by the concept and installation. Space and scale are effectively brought into the work and the results are very subtle and beautiful. Eva Hesse is clearly an influence and it is hard to get away from this in her cube pieces, where she has stacked toothpicks into a self-containing pile (not in this show). Though this work is fantastic, I feel the danger lies in its repetition of a single idea, as well as its reliance to some extent on scale and the material being transcended by the subject matter. Another area which has been brought to question, is her use of teams of female assistants, who produce her laborious sculptures for her. On this one I am not sure. We cant do everything ourselves these days and I use assistants myself from time to time, as the project requires it as do many other artists. Some people really take her to task on this. Im not sure where I stand on this but see the show. I think in this case its justified. It doesnt take away from the work.

The new exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor at the International Centre for Photography in New York has just recently opened.
This was a fantastic exhibition of photography, clearly indicative of the high level of contemporary African work, which is far more energetic, lively and real than any current American or European photography. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on photography but the show really does prove it. Current western work just looks bland and boring next to this vibrant and important work. As the curatorial brief states, the artists have taken up a problematic or focused attention on social subjects. They deal with the reality of everyday living.
South African artists were well represented on the show- Moshekwa Langa, Zwelethu Mthethwa,  Jo Ractliffe, Tracy Rose,  Mikhael Subotzky, Guy Tillum and Nontsikilelo Veleko. Some were present at the opening – a packed gallery on 43rd street across the road from the ICP University.
The show is definitely worth a look if you can get over there, otherwise check out their website.

Another show that I saw, expecting something exciting, was Bibliography by Rachel Whiteread at the Luhring Augustine Gallery. I was particularly disappointed to find cast after cast of the inside of cardboard boxes.. A token cast was transferred to bronze to allude to that solid heavy expensive monumental feeling. Most of them were placed on shelves and under chairs- a reference to Bruce Nauman’s cast of the underneath space of a chair. I found her previous work exciting-House and her work for the Trafalgar square Plinth. Its had a solidity and austere atmosphere about it, but this show clearly demonstrates that she just hasn’t had a new idea in years. There were some collages as well which looked as if they had been put together on the flight over to New York. Shoddy and uncaring in their execution.
She seems to be just cashing in on her name now and this kind of thing upsets me. I cannot take it seriously at all when people who have previously done such grand work, are able to degenerate into work that is opportunistic and does ones reputation no good at all- www.luhringaugustine.com. A review by Ken Johnson can also be seen here on the New York Times site.
My new motto: Tell it like it is. Few people do in the artworld.

On my own scene, I am moving fast with new work, new ideas and new installations. I have also just received news that my proposal for an installation has been accepted. It’s for Pratt Institute’s Manhattan campus and I will be making work for permanent installation for the 4th floor foyer. I am excited and ready to get working.

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