Alex Paik at Gallery Joe

Alex Paik: Prelude and Fugue

Installation view of Alex Paik at Gallery Joe,
From Two Coats of Paint

Alex Paik's suite of works made with cut paper, gouache, and colored pencil, Prelude and Fugue, is currently on display at Gallery Joe.  Paik is one of the founders of the art space in Philadelphia Tiger Strikes Asteroid.  This is his first solo show at Gallery Joe and is entitled Recapitulation Bop.  It will be on display until November 10th.

Alex Paik, 2012, Prelude and Fugue (Airy)

Alex Paik, 2012, Prelude and Fugue (Bars)

According to Sharon Butler at Two Coats of Paint, Paik is also opening a new branch of Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Bushwick in November.

Richard Bottwin's Wall Sculptures

Richard Bottwin

Parallel #1, 2006, 14" x  8.5" x  9"
Macassar Ebony on Birch Plywood, Acrylic Paint
from richardbottwin.com

I recently read the article A few highlights from the 2012 DUMBO Arts Festival on Two Coats of Paint which introduced me to the art of Richard Bottwin.  His wall sculptures are fresh takes on motifs from modernist painting/reductive abstraction.  His works are strictly non-objective, emphasizing color and form but lacking the dogmatic Greenbergian trait of flatness which suspiciously speaks to the essence of the business aspect of art rather than the "essence of a painting" (A flat painting can be mass produced as a commodity).  Also, rather than the pieces being strictly autonomous and fixed from any vantage point, the perspective of the viewer plays a key role in experiencing the piece.

Profile #2, 2008 16" x 13.5" x 13"
Acrylic Color and Zebrawood Veneer on Birch Plywood
Vantage Point #1, from richardbottwin.com

"The surfaces, laminated with wood veneers or painted with acrylic colors, are configured to reveal surprising shapes and patterns with shifts in the viewer's perspective.  A sense of disorientation, implied weightlessness and the element of surprise are created by the reductive forms and subvert the modernist vocabulary of the simple constructions." - Richard Bottwin

Profile #2, 2008 16" x 13.5" x 13"
Acrylic Color and Zebrawood Veneer on Birch Plywood
Vantage Point #2, from richardbottwin.com

Wendy White: Pix Vää

Wendy White at Leo Koenig

Wendy White, 11 Oliver,  Acrylic on canvas PVC and vinyl over metal frame, 2012

The past few years have marked themselves as a major turning point in the career of Wendy White. Pix Vää is White's third solo show of 2012.  She is showing paintings from her "Fotobild" and "PVC" paintings.  Her Fotobild paintings consist of images printed from her cellphone and painted over attached to a section of illegible text.  Although seemingly non-objective paintings, White ties them to specific locations: 11 Oliver refers to a building in NYC.  The painting's size allows it to engulf the viewer, and the marks represent traces of human activity (probably from around the building).  

Wendy White, 15 Monroe, Acrylic on Canvas, PVC, 2012

Read more in the article On Top of the Rubble: Recent Work by Wendy White by John Yau.

Vince Hannemann: Cathedral of Junk

Austin's Cathedral of Junk

Photo by Blake Gordon of Wall Street Journal

thisiscolossal.com

Vince Hannemann's fingers read: JUNK KING, but his ongoing project "Cathedral of Junk" in Austin, TX is part of a much larger than autobiographical narrative: "Writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin," writies Roland Barthes in Death of the Author, claiming that the origin and creator of a text, or in this case cathedral remains secondary to the work itself.  This indelible backyard art project which started in 1988 in Austin has already made its mark and left impressions on thousands of visitors, and vice versa: the "junk" that comprises the cathedral is primarily composed of stuff brought from the outside world by its congregation.

freefuninaustin.com

Although 10,000+ visitors come to see his backyard attraction each year Hannemann's personal favorite visitors seem to be children, which is no surprise considering that he clearly emphasizes imaginative thinking and creativity:

[when asked] What made you want to do this?' Like it had some sort of profound meaning. I just did it because I liked it. And when I stop liking it I'll take it down...I just did it because it was kinda cool, It's my clubhouse. It's fun. Kids, when they come through, they know what it is.

Watch this short film by Evan Burns about the Junk Cathedral

The Junk King from Evan Burns on Vimeo.

Deconstructed Paintings: Dianna Molzan

Dianna Molzan

Dianna Molzan's deconstructed paintings probably take most viewers outside of their comfort zone, not bringing attention to either the surface of the work or the image being created, but even further back. The"surfaces" of her deconstructed paintings allow the viewer to simultaneously view the materials and the substrate.  It is hard to see them for anything that they are not, pushing the limits of process/craft oriented art.  The entropic forms created tend to negotiate with the materials used rather than dominating and sublimating them into the world of high art, and this is why the work is successful.

Artist Overview: Kaz Oshiro

Kaz Oshiro's Still Lifes

The emergence of Kaz Oshiro's stretched canvas works represents a paradigm shift in the world of still-life painting.  Like Robert Ryman before him, Oshiro's work focuses on the real experience of painting.  Unlike Ryman however, the real experience of painting begins with the construction of the canvas.  The problem is not worked out on the surface of the canvas, but in the three dimensional realm.  The piece below, Untitled Still Life, is exemplary of this approach.  The work is what it is, similar to the approach taken by Isa Genzken in relation to the still-life.

Source: Contempory Art Daily

"I thought that by making an object out of a canvas I’d be able to achieve what I want to do, which is practice making things physically. But at the same time, I wouldn’t have to explain much: it’s a still life sitting on the floor. It’s a painting." -Kaz Oshiro, Kaz Oshiro's "Painting Problem"

Simulacram

Source: Yvon Lambert

The majority Oshiro's work can be seen as simulacra of everyday objects.  His paintings remain humble; his goal is not to transform the found object into an art object.  Inversely, Oshiro takes the elevated status of Pollock's canvas and quietly places it back on the ground, so to speak.  He uses traditional objects from the realm of painting (stretchers, canvas, and paint) and transforms them into what reads at first glance as an everyday object.  After closer inspection though, the viewer realizes that it the object is a hyperrealistic three-dimensional representation of that object. 

Source:  http://artsceneseen.tumblr.com

The image that is painted on each two dimensional surface is exactly that: a duplication of the surface being represented (which could stand alone as an abstract painting). It is only in the greater context that the illusion is created: Oshiro's works are "real illusions."  If each canvas was placed alone on a wall all that would remain would be a weak attempt at capturing the sublime.  Gestalt: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Source: Galerie Perrotin

Artist Overview: Amanda Valdez

Amanda Valdez

Recently acquiring her MFA at Hunter College, Amanda Valdez is an artist based in New York City.  Valdez is primarily an abstract painter who employs fabric, sewing, and yarn in her process, along with occasional silkscreening.

Untitled (Temple One), 2010.
Fabric and Canvas
12" x 12"

Grid Paintings

Grid paintings come a dime a dozen, but Valdez's grids use a process that is unparalleled.  Sewing fabric to canvas, the forms created by the fabric are literally integral in the object itself, rather then buying a ready-made canvas.  This also exposes the objecthood, the reality of paint, as well as the object-hood of the canvas itself, rather than denying this element and rendering what is purely an image. This object/image dialogue is reoccurring throughout Valdez's paintings.

The painting Untitled (Temple One), is divided into five larger horizontal strips of canvas that are subdivided into messy rhomboids of disparate fabrics.  The lattice, which is made up by sewn stitches is an organic, quivering line which is clearly intentional.  These irregular lines, in addition to the alternation of light and dark colors give the viewer a sense of depth and three-dimensionality in.  However, some cells resist that by bringing the viewer back to the surface of the image.  The quivering line lattice and the balance of depth and flatness in this grid, as well as the few color anomalies seem to make the painting as a whole not necessarily read as a grid, but an image of stacked objects with a sense of gravity (which seems intentional considering the title).

Dwells Among Us,  2011.
Embroidery, Fabric, Gesso, and Canvas
48" x 36"

Abstract Paintings

Amanda Valdez's painting Dwells Among Us.  The forms seem to walk on the edge of color-field paintings and geometric abstraction.   As you can see in the detail (below), the two arcs in the upper portion of the canvas consist of multi-colored strands of yarn which are heavily affected by lighting when the viewer navigates around it.  This element as well as adding literal depth to canvas, creates a figure-ground play in which the yarn form and the organic red form seem to constantly remain in flux.  This is no small task considering the brilliance of the red form. 

Just as with her grid paintings, the abstract forms of her other paintings remain on the edge of abstraction and representation. The push and pull between bother pictorial depth and literal depth allow the viewer to switch between reading the paintings as objective and non-objective abstraction. However, after reading her studio blog: and there will be trouble, you will find that it more than likely is objective abstraction.  For your viewing pleasure I will leave you with this gift: Amanda Valdez's personal website

Dwells Among Us, 2011.
Detail

Olympics Throwback

From 1912 to 1952 art competitions were part of the olympics.  Of course it was only art that was inspired by sport, but this was something I found interesting.  Medals were awarded for works of architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture.

Rugby, drawing by Jean Jacoby that won his second gold medal for him.

Umbrella Sky

If you happen to find yourself on the streets of Agueda, Portugal this month, make sure to keep your eyes on the sky (or what's between your eyes and that sky).  Although you really couldn't possibly miss this installation of regularly utilitarian objects that have been transformed to a present a moment of sublime beauty:

Photos by Patricia Almeida

Megx's Lego Bridge

Street artist Megx recently transformed a bridge in Wuppertal, Germany into a lego bridge:

Check out his website for more art and installations

Brandalism Takes over UK in Time for Olympics

Taken from the Brandalism website:

The Brandalism project will be pushing the boundaries of appropriate acts of citizenship at a time of political, environmental and economic crises.

Brandalism is taking over billboards in and around the UK, reclaiming space "taken from us" as they put it.  Rather than trying to fulfill our existing needs, advertising tries to create new "needs" for us.  This creates a type of person who never feels that they have enough.  The brandalism project was a collaborative between 25 artists from 8 countries who just in time for the olympics set out to create the largest subvertising project in history: 33 billboards were reclaimed in 5 different UK cities

It is not the olympics themselves that offend the brandalism team, but the corporate involvement in the games.  You can see more from the brandalism project here.

Absolut Vodka Steals Design

Valentin Ruhry's untitled piece (Hello World) is made up completely of on and off switches.  Ruhry's piece gives outdated technology a breath of fresh air with his piece.  Shortly after making it's formal introduction to the world in the gallery of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the piece went viral. I'm sure Ruhry considered all of the press to be good news for him at first.  Until Pelonio heard about it. 

Pelonio is a well known design agency based in Madrid.  Apparently Pelonio saw Ruhry's piece as a lucrative business oppurtunity. Soon after becoming familiar with the work they hired artist Luis Alvarez to construct a very similar installation to be shown at Madrid Fashion Week (pictured below).

Inevitably, Ruhry is designating the installation which was an advertisement for Absolut Vodka a rip-off.  But did LITE-BRITE call Ruhry out for copyright infringement?  Regardless, there is not much Ruhry can do about it.  Art Fag City exchanged emails with Ruhry:

Over email, Ruhry told me his lawyer was not encouraging about how a lawsuit would fare in court. He had been told “it would be a very difficult case, due to the different rights situation in Austria/Spain.”

All that the artist received from his attempt to sue Pelonio was a bill, and after trying to contact Pelonio and Absolut he was ignored  However, he is trying to plead his case on social media sites by gaining public support.  All in all, this is not necessarily only bad news for Ruhry, considering that he gets more attention from the public.  The best way to show your support of the artist is probably to check out his other work!

The Billboard Art Project

The Billboard Art Project is a publicly funded non-profit organization that repurposes billboards usually used for advertising into a public art venue.  Here is a photo I found on Google+ giving you a visual example.

Past billboards have been located in Albany, NY, Detroit, MI, Salem, OR, Richmond, VA, San Bernadino, CA, New Orleans, LA, and more!  Upcoming billboards will be in Quincy, IL and Atlanta, GA (which will be used as a venue for almost an entire month).

Here is an interview with an artist that had work in Duluth, MN:

NYPD paints over political mural

On July 25th a plain clothes NYPD officer painted over a mural on the whole of a local business, New Edition Cleaners, owned by Marina Curet.  Curet gave the artists permission to paint the mural, as she has been doing for years.  One of the artists, Alan Ket says that he "decided to turn it into more of a protests walla and collaborate with friends to share a message that I feel is pertinent and that the community should think about."

The mural, entitled "Murderers," reads: We know the real MURDERERS and has NYPD grouped in with others including the war on drugs, poverty, Mcdonald's, Shell oil, FDA, Television, and Bank of America.  Ket says that he wanted to point out that "the war isn't always abroad, but that it's actually here."  Art blog Hyperallergic writes that "Curet was apparently intimidated by the officers" who told her the mural was "a bad idea".

Although the NYPD says they removed the mural because members of the community didn't like it's violent message, but local consensus shows that they are more concerned with the censorship than the "violent message".  Ket speaks on this issue:

I think that it’s good, actually, to know where the police stand in our community, that this is the type of people we’re dealing with that are civil servants in our neighborhoods. Something like this can help them show us their true colors.  On the other hand, it shows a lack of respect on their part towards art, towards freedom of expression, towards the community. And it shows their cowardice in dealing with tough issues.

Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union responds: "The police do not have the right to censor material they don't agree with.  This is a violation of the first amendment", and this is the heart of the matter.  The content of the mural is not as significant here as the implications.  The artist clearly provoked the NYPD, and got exactly what he wanted, a response showing that the police will just put an end to something that disagrees with them.

I guess the question to ask is whether or not the NYPD had a warrant or permission to paint over the mural that was done on private property.