Four More Trees by Nathaniel Stern

performative digital scan turned into an
aquatint etching, engraving and drypoint, 2006
polyptych of four
top images each: 59 x 49.3 cm
bottom image: 73.8 x 49.3 cm
edition 5

Several of the hand-made prints, which were produced as details and iterations from my performative digital image series “Compressionism,” will be exhibited as part of a group show at David Krut Projects in Chelsea, New York from 7 February to 16 March. Here is more on the series and these particular works, and info on the exhibition follows. Please make it if you can. I’ll unfortunately only be there in spirit!

Swamp Eyes
7 February – 16 March 2009
Opening: Thursday, 7 February at 6pm

A curated exhibition of works on paper that contemplate the external, natural world from a set of aesthetic dimensions.  Bringing nature and culture into alliance, these works explore the natural and cultural with wit and sensitive observation. From the raised surface of the etched line to thoughtful use of colour, the works are emphatically physical and intricate.

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.” William Blake

South African and International artists exhibiting:

Ryan Arenson, Willem Boshoff, Wim Botha, Gail Behrmann, Willie Cole (US), Claire Gavronsky, William Kentridge, Alice Maher (UK), Suzanne McClelland (US), Colin Richards, Michelle Segre (US), Rose Shakinovsky, Sean Slemon, Kiki Smith (US), Nathaniel Stern, Sandile Zulu.

David Krut Projects
526 West 26th Street, #816,
New York, NY 10001
http://www.davidkrut.com

We love Sean Slemon, a South African, award-winning artist, currently living in NYC.

My favorite South African displaced in New York, and an inspired/inspirational sculptor and artist, Sean Slemon, is having his Masters Solo Show at the Pratt Studios in Brooklyn, 30 April – 4 May. If you’re around, do yourself a favor and attend (and tell him I said hi – he’s very nice). More on Sean (scroll down a bit for some text I wrote about his last solo in Joburg).

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.

We had a nice time in Florida (Sarasota with my aunt/uncle, sister/bro-in-law) – some pix with my family are up on flickr, and more are forthcoming. We’ll be spending New Year’s with Sid’s Godmother and her boyfriend, as well as Sean Slemon and Amy Kaufman in Brooklyn – a quiet evening with friends.

I did have one day to zoot about; didn’t get to see much art, but learned that – if you can believe it – Paddy Johnson of AFC is even cooler in person than her web site lets on. PJ: I’m down for some of the potential colab stuff we talked about, and hope you had a good time with your bro…  I also had a nice chat with Kate at David Krut’s NYC gallery – am hoping we work together some time, cuz she’s a super cool but down to earth art persona… Thanks for boosting my AND Paddy’s egos while we were in your gallery, Kate.

The next few weeks, I’m hoping to dive right in and work my ass off on research for the dissertation, maybe look for some potential conferences or festivals to be on for ’07 and ’08. So, you may not be hearing from me too much… If you are reading this in Joburg, please oh please join me for my opening at Art on Paper Gallery @ 44 Stanley on 27 January, 3PM. I’ve put a lot of work into this series, which has been highlighted on various sites and in several magazines despite its not really being seen, so please come out and see; it’s my first solo catalogue, and I am oh so happy with it.

Alright, enough self promo.

I’m not really a top ten list kind of guy, but please enjoy Edward Winkleman’s Top Ten List of Top Ten Lists as much as I did. Cheers!

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.

OK I’m a lazy shit who is mostly cutting and pasting a press release; but am crazy with finishing up ‘stuff’ cuz we leave in 8 weeks(!), and I can’t believe how little press there has been on New Signatures! Who is this Cillie Malan, and why have I heard no opinions on the work? Admittedly, I found the line to view it a bit too long at the opening (lots of VIDEO, but at least these guys, as opposed to the L’Atelier, provide -albeit extremely minimal- equipment for the artists), so will have to go back to see it before it comes down. Anyone? Anyone? My longtime crush (and a judge) Jo Ractliffe says, "‘I like that the work is both diagrammatic and educationalist, but still has a comic undertone." Good for him. (Sean Slemon is pissed they doubled the prize money this, instead of last, year.)

Tidbits from the press release:

The judging panel voted to award two runner-up prizes. Gina Kraft and Rat Western, both from Johannesburg, received R15 000 each.  The judges were struck by the haunting and emotional beauty of Kraft’s performance art piece, Untitled, which has a relevance to the relationship between East and West today. Western’s video installation, Untitled, was praised for the sophisticated manner in which it explored themes of urban living.

Kraft is a Wits student, and Rat is an alum (she studied in the first year of the Digital Arts MA where, pity for her, I was still getting my teaching chops. She says I wasn’t too bad, but I’m not so sure). Congrats! More:

Two merit awards of R5 000 each were awarded to Angeline-Ann Le Roux for her work titled A place called home and Olaf Bisschoff with Jean Marais for their work titled CONTAIN.

Their new "Acknowledgement Awards" also went to some familiar names. Musha Neluheni won a small prize last year and had a recent show at ArtSpace, Bronwyn Lace was a YAP participant, and founding co-editor at SAartsEmerging, Ismail Farouk is Rat (merit winner’s) partner that had a great show I wrote about recently as well as being a merit winner in New Sig last year, I don’t know Elmarie Pretorius and Franya Botha but really liked the former’s work (didn’t see the latter’s), Nomthunzi Mashalaba (aka ‘Toonsie’) is a great young p-town artist I know through Abrie -and you can look for a feature on her work on SAarts soon- and Thabang Richard Lehobye just made some funky @$$ s#!t….

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.

Also currently on in Gauteng:
Dorothee Kreutzfeldt @ Outlet, and (oh shit, nathaniel just realized he deleted the shows he had intended on blogging from his inbox), and some other stuff at some other galleries, I am sure. Maybe look at m&g or art.co.za  or Artthrob listings or something. I’m tired.

Oh yeh, and my opening at Parking Gallery went live last night (up for three days by appointment). Here’s a great photo by Christo Doherty (followed by a few others on my crap phone). Doherty says, "the image of woody allen came out rather like a francis bacon portrait – i quite liked that. he was also an artist challenged by the problems of communication and the corporal body…."

^{vincent @ parking gallery, a photo by Christo Doherty}

^{simon gush (parking gallery curator) and clive kellner (johannesburg art museum curator). the latter says the former is a great gallerist, and that i could quote him on that. after he said i should not blog about him spilling coca-cola everywhere, that is….}

^{rat western and her bright nose in my terrible photos say, "it’s nice to see your crap"}

PS – my daughter has a new site, if interested
PPS – about to post my first guest blog at Art Heat

So, more than a year and a half after the fact (and thanks to Sean Slemon, who insisted on lo-res versions of all my prints before deciding on a trade for his sculpture), I finally uploaded a photoset of my first major solo show to flickr. Check out images of the space, peops and work in the storytellers photoset (with thanks to Christo Doherty, Abrie Fourie and Franci Cronje for the pics. Also a thanks to the late and great Andrew Meintjes, for all his help and support). You can also read about the exhibition via my site here, or from a review in Art South Africa here.

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.