vernissages | NYC September 8: Gesamtkunstwerk

Chelsea and Hudson river view from the rooftop of the Maxwell Davidson Gallery.

Thursday marked the opening of the Chelsea fall season; a multitude of gallery presented major art exhibitions. The gesamtkunstwerk is present in the immersive installations, where the whole gallery space is involved, sometimes expanding then artwork from the walls to the ceiling and floor. The boundaries between object and space, gallery as container and contained art as objects are blurred. The art viewer becomes a participant in even a multi-sensorial experience, sometimes involving the sense of taste, like in After Pasteur, where samples are offered at a fermented milk-bar.

Ian Davenport at Paul Kasmin Gallery

George Grosz: Politics and Its Influence at David Nolan

NENDO at Friedman Benda

Sarah Cain "Dark Matter" at Galerie Lelong

Victor Vasarely "Analog" at Maxwell-Davidson

Lars Fisk "Mr. Softie" at Marlborough Gallery

The stairway at Paxis International Gallery

The Gesamtkunstwerk is highly present at Lehman Maupin, where the twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, known as OSGEMEOS. From the gallery statement the artists "transform multiple rooms into an immersive installation that combines drawing, painting, collage, mixed media sculpture, and kinetic and audio elements. These newest works represent an evolution of the style OSGEMEOS has honed over decades, while also returning to their early experimentation with diverse mediums, including new oil paintings. This exhibition will offer a heightened multi-sensory experience that embraces the power of human imagination and the vast possibilities in visually interpreting the subconscious." OSGEMEOS emerged in Brazil in the late 1980s as graffiti writers, influenced by  New York street art.

 

OSGEMEOS "Silence of the Music" at Lehman Maupin

Hamish Fulton "Walking Artist" exhibition is of a different nature, yet based on Gesamtkunstwerk. In Hamish Fulton's work, making art comes from experiential practice, walking—which is translated into objects displayed on the gallery walls. Such approach—ephemera from an experience becoming artwork—is almost opposite to the site specific installation, where a physical place is transformed into an experiential ephemeral environment.

Hamish Fulton "Walking Artist" at Josée Bienvenu Gallery

Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper Gallery

Slav and Tatars "After Pasteur" at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Rashid Johnson at Hauser & Wirth

vernissages, camminando, practice | NYC, June 24

The "Summer Group Exhibition" at Marian Goodman Gallery presents a cohesive mix of conceptualism and minimalism, blended in the gallery space. The works —ranging from geometry based murals of Sol Lewitt to subtle sculpture of Fred Sandback or large text wall writings of Lawrence Weiner— generated immersive spatial perceptions, where scale seemed to be the cohesive element.

:Summer Group Exhibition"

Niele Toroni

North Gallery hosted Maria Nordman’s FILMROOM EAT, 1967 – PRESENT and two Standing Pictures.  The press release also announced that "Nordman will also enact THE WHISPER in Central Park with ‘persons met by chance’, continuing a work that started several decades ago in different public spaces in cities all over the world." The work somehow reminded me of Michel de Certau "everyday practice" which is so close to my own heart —and practice. In these days of brutal attacks from my still legal husband and his lawyer, where greed overcomes any ethics and rationality, a rigorous art and movement practice has become an anchor to rationality and attempt to find meaning and beauty in urban places.

Maria Nordman’s FILMROOM EAT, 1967 – PRESENT

I ended my urban practice with a body prayer by the Hudson river waterfront while the sun was setting.

vernissages | NYC, First Week of 2015

The 2015 art season just opened this week in many of the over 500 Manhattan private galleries  in different neighborhoods, from Chelsea to Midtown and Lower East Side. And of course Brooklyn: Williamsburg, Dumbo and Bushwick...

Unfortunately I could not make it to Brooklyn, but in Manhattan I could not find many sensorially exciting or thought-provoking art shows, at least compared to the 2014 fall season. 

Below are a few snapshots in chronological order.

Susan Philipsz "Part File Score" Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Anya Gallaccio at Lehmann Maupin: minimalist sculptures reminiscent of Sol LeWitt

Devin Troy Strother "Space Jam" at Marlborough Gallery

"Dérive(s)"  at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

Relief portraits and wallpaper murals from John Miller's "Here in the Real World", Metro Pictures

Keith Harings in the back gallery at Martos gallery