A trip to P.S.1

Inside of Leandro Erlich's Swimming Pool

In the NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith show :

-A swell of piano keys like plucked teeth growing out from a goddess figure in the corner with a black ship at its peak

-funeral barges (complete with caped taxidermy, and tiny boats for stacks of cigarettes) pulling away from a pair of shadows on the wall

-a circle like that of candles, except with fluorescent coils

-A room, I smelled it first: lavender, of "Curandera's Botanica" with tables and shelves of bottles and jars, and the floor swept with lavender and glitter into the corners. And incredibly cold. The guard, oddly repeating in a reedy voice to the spectators "very cold in there" I see the red beads of a rosary peeking out of his black security t-shirt. Is this offensive to the religious? Can religious practice stand alone as art? Maybe not.

Finally, on the third floor, Stealth Distortion (...must have seen it in some teenage wet dream). The last room I visit has a sign posted as it being potentially offensive. There are bright rows of LED lights that you must walk around to get into the first chamber. It is dark, and behind are a row of television tubes without box frames displaying a variety of startup/waiting animations from computer programs, the wall behind a three-dimensional pattern that led me to say to myself, "okay, I understand, I am reduced to bits and bytes." All this with a droning and grinding soundtrack. A smaller room to the left with rows of yellowed fluorescent bulbs and a wall tiled in black mirror. I look close and can not see my own reflection. The bulbs are giving off heat. A guard walks through a doorway on the opposite corner that I don't think I had even noticed despite it being a very small room. It has that clear vinyl stripping like from coolers hanging down. I feel separate from myself and this space. I walk through, into a large room, with high ceilings, and feels like a laboratory. I gasp - There is a giant reclining taxidermied unicorn in a large display box. Holy of holies! But if you walk in front of it the glass at the center the frosting renders it invisible. All the rooms are one work, one installation piece by a Norwegian artist, Borre Saethre, exhibiting in the US for the first time.

Treehouses in mid-town

"Tree Huts" Installation in Madison Square -
Tadashi Kawamata, artist

This was rather thrilling to come upon, the presence of treehouses in mid-town Manhattan being very unusual. Had the homeless people found alternative solutions? I recalled the book Missing Angel Juan by Francesca Lia Block where the young Juan lives in the trees of Central Park. I sat on a bench for a time, observing interactions with the work. There are about eight huts in all, indeed out of human reach, but likely not for the squirrels and birds.

"Seed Stage" at the Whitney.

This was a pleasant surprise. I was attending for the Calder exhibit, and came upon this installation/ performance piece on the first floor. The stapled brochure has photos of the artist, Corin Hewitt, foraging for squash and building structures, mixed with patterns and prints of various paper widths. Inside I first noticed flies, and a white wall directly in front of me as though I am heading the wrong direction. There are four walls in this lobby gallery containing the work, with gaps at each corner about the width of your eyes. Presented on the outer walls are photographs. I walk all around; at one corner compost collecting (hence the flies) and a shelf displaying canned vegetables. The next corner allows a view into the full space, where the artist can be seen. He briefly makes eye contact, and then continues working. At the third corner, the full front of the room is seen, a true stage. Hewitt has plates of food set up under cameras, with large color printers and a ledge that has other goods on display. Eye contact again, and this time the feel of a caged animal. At the fourth corner, all that can be seen are the technological devices being utilized. I ask the guard how often he is here, and he says only three days a week of the five that the museum is open. "That would be too much otherwise." he says, and we laugh. The show runs from October 3, 2008 through January 4, 2009.

Artist - Amy Cutler

I first connected Amy Cutler's name with her work at the American Folk Art Museum's "DARGERism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger" show last month. Her large and detailed paintings of women, often with long braids and dresses, in large like clusters stood out among the many Alice-inspired works. (I was reminded frequently of the photographer Anna Gaskill throughout the show.) I just checked out a book from the library, Ms. Hempel Chronicles - by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, probably only because a Cutler painting was on the cover. And today, the new issue of Cabinet arrives in the mail "Shame" with a spread of Amy Cutler works. Her work is so appealing as it chronicles female experience with fairytale themes and exquisite precision. Cutler live in Brooklyn.

Update - Ms. Hempel Chronicles is a very good book, I read it in one evening. It is a collection of corresponding short stories, one called "Yurt" that I actually read in the New Yorker a while back.