Window Shopping

ABOVE: DAVID COLMAN’S OLD BOXING SPEED BAG, 2013. PHOTO: JONATHAN GRASSI

Amid NoHo’s grand apartment buildings and boutiques, Ugo Rondinone’s 39 Great Jones gallery is an unexpected window into the world of art—literally. The whole of the show space takes up a single window. Here, Rondinone has, since 2010, been putting on bimonthly shows with work from the likes of John Giorno, Sam Falls, and Josh Smith. This month, an installation by culture writer and emerging artist David Colman fills the micro-space. Colman dabbled in art years ago, but it wasn’t until a home-improvement project in 2010 that he rediscovered his inner visual artist. After painting his apartment, he decided to affix his belongings in creative arrangements over a fabric wall hanging. The concept stuck, and he soon found himself perusing sites like eBay for curios to mix and match as wall assemblages. Colman has since shown in several gallery shows and is expanding his oeuvre with performance: at 2013’s Miami Art Basel, he dressed up as Santa Claus and took the “confessions” of art-goers. While the final ingredients for the window are still up in the air, he has been trying to acquire a taxidermic bald eagle. “I always fetishize visual things,” says Colman. “I like to say that my work is so totally shallow it’s perfect for a window.”