Take Your Place in History

Another one of my favorite artists, On Kawara, currently has a show at David Zwirner Gallery in NYC. Kawara is famous for making paintings of the date and sending daily postcards to friends stating, "I am still alive." The show at Zwirner focuses on his 20-volume book series, One Million Years, in which he lists, year by year, one million years before 1969 (when the project was started) and one million years after 1969. I bought an hour-long recording of an excerpt of the book being read about 10 years ago (and S hates it so much that I am not allowed to play it at home). As part of the show, Zwirner is producing a CD recording of all of the books being read and you can sign up to be a reader. There are two recording booths in the gallery to immortalize your recitation of years for years to come. Information to do this is available on the gallery's website: www.davidzwirner.com.

Eastern Standard in Western Mass

Went to MASS MoCA this weekend for the first time (glad I finally made it there). If you have not been there yourself, it is definitely worth seeing if you can arrange a weekend in the Berkshires and get over to MoCA for 2-3 hours. Very cool gallery space (located in a complex of renovated 19th century factory buildings). Saw a number of interesting Burtynsky pieces in the exhibit "Eastern Standard: Western Artists in China." However, I think I still prefer more of the images from the Quarries series and Breaking Ground series.

Even Though You Aren't Into Posters

The magazine, Art on Paper, edited by the duo from Triple Candie in NYC, has commissioned a series of limited edition posters. Before you start associating to your Shawn Cassidy (or Farrah Fawcett) poster from childhood or those "fine art" posters that are reproductions of Impressionist paintings, STOP and think "small limited edition" and "established contemporary artists." The first in the series is by Polly Apfelbaum and is shown here. (When I think about Apfelbaum, I think of our friend E who not only owns one of her cheery multi-colored flower prints, but is the human equivalent of that work. We love you, E!) Although the posters can be ordered in one of 3 sizes for $200, $400, or $1,000, the total edition size is 50. If you can get past the idea of poster, these are amazing prices. Her prints go for ten times as much. The posters can be ordered by phone at (212) 675-1968.

Look at Me

Recently I have become interested in portraiture, especially photographic portraits. Two things have been contributing to this interest: having my portrait taken by Martin Parr last month and seeing the Karsh 100 show at the MFA, Boston. While a portrait presents information about the sitter, it also conveys information about the artist: technical skills, perspectives, and the editing of reality. There are two upcoming courses on portraiture in Boston. One is a one-week intensive course at the SMFA in March called, Identity: The Contemporary Portrait, taught by Sean Johnson. The other is a 4-week seminar at the Photographic Resource Center, Contemporary Trends in Photographic Portraiture, taught by Roswell Angier (2/17-3/10/09). If you can't do either, Roswell Angier has a book about taking photographic portraits, Train Your Gaze, available on Amazon.
I especially like portraits in which the artist inserts him/herself. Christine Rogers, a SMFA alum who is now on faculty there, did a series in which she had her photo taken with other families having their portraits taken at a commercial studio. Futoshi Miyagi did a series of photos of himself with gay men who were strangers, in their apartments (shown here). These photographers play with the ideas of insertable intimacy and the deconstruction of relationship images.

Bridge on the Verge

Yet another sign of the soft economy. I have received several emails in the past few weeks from Bridge Art Fair, extending their deadline for exhibiting in at their New York fair in March. The most recent mailing was promoting a new, lower cost option in their "Verge" section. These "booths" are 100 sq feet and cost $5,000 -- half the size and price of a regular booth. It was an interesting fair last year. Hopefully it will manage to fill the space by March.

Lalla Essaydi at MFA

Lalla Essaydi, a SMFA alum, will be giving a visiting artist lecture on Thursday, 1/22/09, at 12:30 PM in the Riley Seminar Room at the MFA. She also currently has work on view in the new Herb Ritts Gallery at the MFA. She is known for her staged photographs of Moroccan women covered with calligraphy. While they may seem to be simple images at first, they are actually quite radical. Supposedly in Islam, women are not allowed to write using this calligraphy. A few years ago we bought one of her photographs of 3 women writing on each other, a very defiant act. I especially liked the performance aspect. In Boston, she is represented by Howard Yeserski Gallery.

Road Trip: LaMontagne Gallery

There are even more reasons to check out the LaMontagne Gallery in South Boston. The one that I am most excited about is a new sound piece by Benjamin Chaffee that was created specifically for your ride to the gallery on the MBTA bus, from Copley Square to Fort Point Channel. You can download it and listen to it on your own personal audio equipment. It can be downloaded at www.musicforcircumstances.com, but it's not up yet. I am expecting it to be up by the opening of Andrew Witkin's new show at the gallery on Saturday, 1/10/09, from 6-8 PM.

According to the press release, Andrew Witkin's project is a companion presentation to the one he currently has on view at Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art as part of the ICA's Foster Prize Exhibition. For this exhibition, he will be showing a group of 144 t-shirts, each with a different text (by various people) on them, each hung on a hanger, ready to be read. There will also be a group of pieces surrounding the shirts, ranging from a stereo playing an ever-increasing number of versions of the American traditional song, "Stagolee", to an arrangement of mirrors, to a check-list as study guide as notebook, among other found, altered, designed and organized objects.

The gallery is also having a series of talks on Wednesdays in January and February.

Manuel de Santaren (Wednesday, Jan 28, 7pm) will present a talk on his current interests, as pertaining to engaging a hypothetical space.

Daniel Scholnick (Wednesday, Feb 4 7pm) bought a ramshackle building in Philadelphia four years ago and has, by hand, been renovating it with the goal of helping his local community, becoming a resident, creating a quality art creation space, all in a sustainable and affordable manner. Scholnick will talk about having a project that's simultaneously a performance, the building of one's home and an act of entrepreneurialism (a performed act of artistic applied political economy).

Andrew Witkin (Wednesday, Feb 10, 7pm) will give a walk through of "Others Among Others" and will discuss related projects, among other topics.