Art

Eva Hesse: A Woman's Work Is in Perpetual Flux

Margaret Knowles  03/16/2010 02:48 PM


NO TITLE, 1969. COURTESY HAUSER AND WIRTH
AND THE ESTATE OF EVA HESSE

 

Known for its fragile materiality and fragmentation, the sculpture of Eva Hesse is so bodily in its resilient preciousness that it commands intimacy. It's also bound up in the ghost of Hesse, the woman who overcame the trauma of escaping the Nazis and a mother's suicide, and the competition of New York's boys club, to produce a remarkable body of work and a cult of personality in just the ten short years of her career before her untimely death.  That overlap of life and work are one reason why the current show of Eva Hesse's work at Hauser and Wirth in New York, an exhibition of 14 pieces described by critic Briony Fer as "studioworks"—prototypes or models for later works—reflects surprisingly well the character of her fuller works.  Presented on large platforms in unsystematic, casual, groupings that call to mind the artist's studio and constructed from such flimsy, delicate material as papier-machee and cheesecloth, these items are in a state of perpetual flux.  At once shadows, premonitions, and sculptures in their own right, their fragile existences allow them to weave in between states of being, constantly evading definition and defying standards of objecthood.


WORK BY EVA HESSE OPENS TONIGHT, 6–8 PM. HAUSER AND WIRTH IS LOCATED AT 32 EAST 69 STREET, NEW YORK.

MORE »

Tags: Eva Hesse, Margaret Knowles, Hauser and Wirth

Art

Out of the Woods, Into the Studio With Ryan McGinley

Christopher Bollen  03/16/2010 06:20 AM



PHOTOS BY JACK SIEGEL

 

Ryan McGinley works in a monograph-packed, L-shaped studio on the Lower East Side. As is well documented, he used to share the space with artist Dan Colen, but he now reserves the second room for the tacked-up black-and-white photographs that make up his latest series, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," which opens March 18 at Team Gallery in Soho.

One rarely thinks of a studio when picturing McGinley at work. It's easier to picture him on rooftops or New York streets, as was the set of his early work, or amidst the country roads, forests, and caves of his later, lysergic-colored productions. But his latest venture consists of 100 portraits of young men and women ranging in age from 18 to 29, completely nude and not swallowed up by their environments—as is typical of a McGinley photograph—but starkly defined against a white backdrop. It's a rather sweeping survey of color, sex, and sexuality, and of lean, ripening bodies, many of them decorated with homemade tattoos or scars.

With so many youths in the fold, it's no surprise that the subjects actually hail from all over the world—or at least those parts that have rock festivals, which is where they were picked by one of Ryan's assistants who spends her time attending global concerts on the lookout for someone he might want to capture. Each youth was then shot in the small second room of the Canal Street studio, still very animated even with the unremitting intimacy of the post-adolescent nudity on display. To get that kind of movement, Ryan relied on a "hype girl" who talked to the subject, asking him or her to sing a favorite song, jump on a mini-trampoline, or try acting exercises while he shot them on his digital camera. That kind of engagement is important to the artist. "I can work with shyness," he says, "but for the most part I want people to feel comfortable with me. It's really more about the photographer feeing comfortable right when they walk in that makes the subject feel comfortable."

MORE »

Tags: Dan Colen, Ryan McGinley, Team Gallery, Christopher Bollen, Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere

Art

Victor Demarchelier Pictures Himself as a Teddybear

Staff   03/15/2010 03:40 PM


SELF-PORTRAIT, NEW YORK, 2008 (STUDY #2).
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND CLIC


Tonight Victor Demarchelier, the talented, non-Oedipalizing progeny of Patrick Demarchelier, opens "Creating Images," a show of work from his last three years. The show is focused on personal, unpublished work. "It is a very intimate show: Each piece deals with something that is very familiar to me and something that I have struggled with." Which means portraits of the handsome photographer with his glamazon ex-girlfriend, model Caroline Trentini. It means "keeping to my look," a high-gloss black-and-white surface that can also get up-close and even personal without looking fetishistic. "I try to show things the way I want them to be seen," says of the work in this show, rather than the way things should be seen, as in a fashion photograph. The way Demarchelier himself wants to be seen is clear in a self-portrait featuring the teddybear, Nalla, given to him by his grandparents. With pieces of fur matted and lost, Nalla is an index of the photographer's attentions. "I think that in many ways this picture is a more accurate representation of myself then the actual self portrait [in the show]." Family means a lot in the Demarchelier clan.


CREATING IMAGES OPENS TONIGHT, 6–9 PM. CLIC GALLERY IS LOCATED AT 424 BROOME STREET, NEW YORK.

MORE »

Tags: Caroline Trentini, Victor Demarchelier, Photography, Patrick Demarchelier, clic gallery

Art

Art of Glass: Tobias Madison

Alex Gartenfeld  03/15/2010 12:10 PM


INSTALLATION VIEW, 2010. IMAGE COURTESY TOBIAS MADISON AND SWISS INSTITUTE.
PHOTO BY DANIEL PEREZ

 

It's a big moment for art that uses vitrines. Damien Hirst's show at Gagosian is called "End of an Era," whch sounds like economic-apocalyptic gravitas but actually refers to the last of his formaldehyde works. Jeff Koons' controversial show at the New Museum curated from the collection of Joannou includes just one work by the artist—that which touched off his collection, and is meant to stand as proof the Greek's connoisseurship—One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank, (1985), a basketball suspended behind glass.

As a method of displaying and containing work, what does it all mean? Is it about preservation, the way that when artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz famously installed a pond in a gallery he had to come by every day to feed his fish? Vitrines might indicate a different kind of immersion, like a fishbowl, a metaphor for living in a public where the prevailing effect is distortion.

MORE »

Tags: Tobias Madison, Swiss Institute, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Vitrines

Art

Was It 40 Years Since Tie Dye Was Big?

Kimberly Chou  03/12/2010 05:40 PM


MAYA ROMANOF AT BEGDORF GOODMAN. PHOTO BY KRIS TAMBURELLO

 

Maya Romanoff, the Chicago-based designer of tie-dyed wallpapers, glass-beaded overlays and other fantastical surfaces—celebrated 40 years of design with a preview of a new collection at New York's Museum of Arts and Design this week. The "anniversary collection" of tie-dyed wallpapers, in mineral colorways that recall tree barks, was created in collaboration with interior designer Amy Lau. Currently featured in an installation at Bergdorf Goodman, the new patterns were presented at MAD with a small exhibition of Romanoff's work over the years.

Curated by architect David Rockwell, Romanoff's friend and longtime collaborator, the collection includes clothing from Romanoff's origins as a hippie fashion designer; after what his daughter and vice president of sales Laura calls "an epiphany at Woodstock," he began creating tie-dyed caftans and leather vests, which he sold to the likes of Cheryl Tiegs and Roger Daltry. Over the next few decades, he became textile artist and materials designer who translated a love of hand-dying to leather upholstery, wall coverings and art installations like Bess' Sunrise (1988), a burst of loud citrus panels that rippled down the side of the old Chicago Sun-Times building. More recently, the Maya Romanoff design company has become known for its work with natural materials like gold leaf and dyed mica, and for the flexible sheaths of glass beading, usually arrayed over an image or pattern, that the company calls "Beadazzled." (Created in 2003, the product—which you've likely seen used for countless café and museum walls—is now part of the permanent collection at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.)

MORE »

Tags: Maya Romanoff, David Rockwell, Kimberly Chou, Bergdorf Goodman, tie dye, Museum of Arts and Design

ART POSTS FEED
VIEW ALL FEEDS
Subscribe today. 18 Issues, just $9.97