NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Donald Judd Foundation to Auction 35 Works

L: 101 Spring Street; New York Architecture Images
R: 101 Spring Street, int. © 1995-2003 Paul W.H. Kan [more images]

via NYTimes:
Inside Art
Donald Judd Sculptures to Be Auctioned
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: February 24, 2006

In an effort to create a $20 million endowment for the support of its permanent installations in New York and Texas, the Donald Judd Foundation has decided to sell about 35 Judd sculptures at Christie's in New York on May 9.

"Between New York and Marfa, we have 16 permanently installed buildings," said Barbara Hunt McLanahan, director of the 10-year-old foundation, formed after the 1994 death of Mr. Judd to preserve his living and working spaces in New York and Marfa, Tex. "This was not a decision taken lightly. We considered all our options, and this is the best option."

Not everyone agrees. Marianne Stockebrand, whom Mr. Judd appointed as director and lifetime trustee of the foundation, recently resigned, largely over the sale. "I have a different view," said Ms. Stockebrand, director of the Chinati Foundation, the Marfa-based institution founded by Mr. Judd with help from the Dia Art Foundation in 1979 to house large-scale installations by him and a few other artists. "I was in favor of a slower approach, to sell things one at a time and place them in collections carefully, which would have been better for Judd's legacy. With auctions, you have no control over where things go."

Ms. Hunt McLanahan said the sale was very much in keeping with Mr. Judd's belief in permanent installations; he considered the environment in which art is placed as important as the art itself. In his will, Mr. Judd stated, such "works of art which I own at the time of my death as are installed at 101 Spring Street in New York City, or in Marfa, Tex., will be preserved where they are installed."

His home and studio on Spring Street, which he bought in 1968, was a laboratory for his ideas and includes works by Mr. Judd, Dan Flavin, Frank Stella, John Chamberlain, Carl Andre and Claes Oldenburg. At present it is open to the public by appointment only, but after the sale, Ms. Hunt McLanahan said, she expects to make it more accessible.

In the sale are primarily late works, from the late 1980's and early 90's. Prices range from $30,000 to $40,000 for a small wood block from the 1960's to $1.5 million to $2 million for a stack plywood sculpture from 1993.

Christie's is treating the sale as an event to attract art lovers as well as potential buyers. From April 1 through May 9, the works will be on view on the 20th floor of 1230 Avenue of the Americas, at 49th Street, where Christie's has rented 16,000 square feet. Flavin Judd, the artist's son, will collaborate on the installation with Christie's experts, and a special catalog will include unpublished essays by Mr. Judd.

"This will be the largest grouping of Judd's work on view in this country since the last major retrospective, which was at the Whitney in 1988," said Brett Gorvy, a co-head of postwar and contemporary art for Christie's worldwide. "Many of the works for sale were also in the Tate's exhibition last year."

Asked if Christie's was worried about flooding the market by offering too many works by Mr. Judd at once, Mr. Gorvy said: "We've been very selective, choosing a spread of works that covers the gamut of our collecting base. As we did with de Kooning last year, we believe that by creating excitement around an artist, you can get phenomenal prices."

Winning the collection was competitive. Both Christie's and its archrival, Sotheby's, offered the foundation a guarantee, an undisclosed minimum sum regardless of the outcome of the sale. While neither auction house will say how much it offered, experts familiar with the negotiations say both were prepared to promise the foundation about $20 million. Ms. Hunt McLanahan said it chose Christie's because it "came forward with the best proposal and organization."

Eric Deis: Yesterday's Sunset

Eric Deis, /Yesterday's Sunset/, 6:26pm, February 14, 2006

 part of
Until Then Then
Eric Deis, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Holly Ward, and Elizabeth Zvonar
Curated by Candice Hopkins and Jonathan Middleton

February 24 - April 1, 2006
Opening Reception Friday, February 24, 2006 at 8pm

Western Front Society
303 East 8th Avenue
Vancouver, BC, V5T 1S1

via [Press Machine] 2/23/06:

Yesterday's Sunset Starts Tomorrow
Commuters heading home across the Burrard Street Bridge may catch a
glimpse of Vancouver artist Eric Deis braving the elements to
photograph the sunset. He is taking over seven hundred exposures each
day, as part of a new work entitled Yesterday's Sunset, on display at
Western Front as part of the group exhibition Until Then Then running
from February 24 until April 1, 2006. [...]

Over the course of eight hours, the images from Yesterday's Sunset
play on a high definition monitor inside the gallery space. The
harried hustle and bustle of city life is transformed into a subtly
moving, nearly imperceptible, and highly evocative image.

Until Then Then looks "critically at nostalgia and future utopias,"
explains Jonathan Middleton, Curator at Western Front. "On one hand
overtly nostalgic, Deis' work employs the familiar motif of a sunset
in order to point to... issues such as urban development."

Eric Deis is an emerging artist from Vancouver, Canada. His artwork
explores how the urban environment and the construction of cities
influence the lives of its inhabitants, and vice versa. Through
large-scale photography, sculpture, and video, Deis reconfigures our
perception of the world by exposing the subtle peculiarities of our
everyday environment. 

Friends of Fulbright India Benefit Art Auction @ Bose Pacia

FRIENDS OF FULBRIGHT INDIA (FFI) is pleased to announce our first BENEFIT ART AUCTION to promote educational exchange between India and the US, and create travel and research opportunities for Indian artists and scholars. 

WORKS BY ESTABLISHED AND EMERGING ARTISTS from both the US and India including  Chitra Ganesh, Prema Murthy, John Newman, Kiki Smith, Chrysanne Stathacos, The Singh Twins, Dannielle Tegeder, and over 40 others…

SATURDAY, MARCH 4TH,  2006

 

BOSE PACIA [25]
  514 West 25th St. 4th fl.
  Chelsea, NYC

Cocktail Reception  and Silent Auction – 6:30-8:30 PM

TICKETS: $35 in advance, $45 at the door

To purchase tickets please contact FFI at ffi2005@gmail.com or send check to

  FFI
  c/o Evans
  236 West 26th St. #501
  NY NY 10001

For FURTHER INFORMATION and list of participating artists please visit:
www.fulbrightindiaalumni.org

Stefanie Nagorka + Bethany Bristow on Public Spaces

      

L: Stefanie Nagorka, The Aisle Studio Tour, Baltimore, MD. Listen to NPR interview.

R: Bethany Bristow, Kuala Lumpur, digital c-print mounted on aluminum, 30 x 30" edition of 5 installed November 2005, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Jersey City Museum presents artists & the art scene

Introducing: Mary Birmingham
in Conversation with Stefanie Nagorka and Bethany Bristow
on Public Spaces

Thursday, February 23, 6pm

Both Stefanie Nagorka and Bethany Bristow create temporary installations in public spaces, with work that incorporates elements of performance, sculpture and photography. Bristow makes small sculptures from melted glass, feathers and corn syrup, which she installs in “unexpected” places; Nagorka builds large monolithic structures from paving blocks in the aisles of home building supply stores. Both artists photograph their installations, documenting the interventions, and adding another layer of temporality to their projects. Independent curator, Mary Birmingham discusses the ephemeral nature of these two artist’s work: their use of public spaces, interactive art practices and changing ideas about the display and viewing of art. Free

Mass transit from Manhattan
Take the Newark or Journal Square PATH train to the Grove Street station in Jersey City. Exit the station and make a left (walk southwest) on Grove Street. Walk three blocks to Montgomery Street and turn right. Walk four blocks to the corner of Monmouth Street.
Mass transit from New Jersey
Take the NJ Transit train to Newark, New Jersey. Transfer to the PATH train at Newark and travel to the Grove Street station in Jersey City. Exit the station and make a left (walk southwest) on Grove Street. Walk three blocks to Montgomery Street and turn right. Walk four blocks to the corner of Monmouth Street.

 Driving from Manhattan
Travel to New Jersey using the Holland Tunnel. Continue two blocks past the tunnel exit, and turn left onto Manila Avenue (Manila Avenue becomes Grove Street). Follow Grove Street about 1/4 mile to Montgomery Street and turn right. Follow Montgomery four blocks to corner of Monmouth Street.

 Driving in New Jersey from the Turnpike
Take the New Jersey Turnpike Extension (exits 14 through 14C). Continue to the end of Turnpike and go through main tollbooths. Take the Columbus Drive exit (2nd exit after the tolls, after the Liberty State Park exit). Go down the exit ramp and turn right at the traffic light onto Montgomery Street. Travel two blocks and the museum is on your left, at the corner of Monmouth and Montgomery Streets.

 Parking
There is street parking available. Please be aware of posted parking regulations.

Ghada Amer: Breathe Into Me

GHADA AMER
The Big Black Kansas City Painting, 2005
Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas
108 x 144 inches (274.3 x 365.8 cm)

In a ca. 2000 review of Ghada Amer's last New York solo show 5 years ago at Deitch Projects, I wrote a send-up review in what was then my Artnet column "Into Africa":

In a recent essay on feminist art in the '90's, the art critic Libby Lumpkin writes, "Nowhere … do we discover what a woman might want; only what she does not." Ghada Amer's work refuses to bow to the puritanical elements of both our general culture and what could be called "institutionalized feminism," with its persistent myth of feminine virtue. The dance of revolving stereotypes, of desire and virtue, lust and denial, exposure and veiled elusiveness, are teased-out on the surfaces of these canvases, and left unraveled in all their complexity. Unresolved, sexed up and as yet unconsummated.

Amer's recent solo at Gagosian is tantalizing, amazing; here's another take on it via NY Blade:
Lesbian Sex Unveiled
Egyptian Artist Ghada Amer Bares All in ‘Breathe Into Me’
By Rafael Risemberg
Friday, February 10, 2006

Cotton threads cascade down a delicately hued canvas in lyrical patterns that at first glance seem abstract. But closer inspection reveals a woman’s   head sewn in one corner, long-nailed hands in another, and … is that a   nipple or two in the center? As your eyes accustom, you realize you are surrounded in the gallery by an embroidered sea of overlapping women, all nude and in sexually provocative positions, as many as several dozen to a canvas. Welcome to the most gorgeous new art show in town.

This veritable lesbian orgy is the handiwork of artist Ghada Amer, making   her first solo New York appearance in five years, and her very first at Chelsea’s   toniest gallery, the Gagosian. Born in Egypt but having spent her adolescence   in Paris, Amer currently lives in New York. As seductively beautiful as her   artwork is, Amer, a self-proclaimed feminist, is known for exploring heavy-hitting   themes involving female sexuality, Islam and the male gaze. In her current exhibit, she has expanded her oeuvre to touch upon fairy tale fantasy.

But it is her embroideries of women that are the most arresting, and here   she has constructed some of the largest and most enchanting works of her career. Though I do not know Amer’s sexual orientation, in this exhibit lesbian sex scenes abound, as with two women kissing in the works on paper, "Undercover" and "Double Kiss,' and in the tit-sucking action in the larger painting "Trini." The women seem to dissolve into each other in sensual reverie.

What may disturb a bit is to find out that all of these images are appropriated from hetero porn magazines such as "Hustler." You know the style: raunchy and numbingly explicit, leaving nothing to the imagination; feminists and others often decry it as degrading and exploitative toward women.

Which is what makes Amer's work such a triumph — she has improbably   transformed the very same vulgar scenes into visions of grace and sweetness. In particular, it is the pastel colors and the loose, silky threads running across the canvases that soften the harsh, graphic images and give them an air of splendor. Even the piece "The Other Woman RFGA," which consists of 40 duplicate embroidered women thrusting dildos into themselves from behind (into which orifice is not clear), comes off as — dare I say it — delicate and lovely! You have to see it to believe it.

But the most thought-provoking aspect of Amer’s work is its relationship   to her religious upbringing. The sexually explicit nature of her work would   result in its being banned from any Islamic state, where her life would be in   danger (consider the recent violent reactions to caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad). Ironically and pointedly, Amer's creation is a variation on what would traditionally be called "women’s work" — sewing. To my eye, the cascading threads that dominate her work can be understood as veils, akin to the ones religious Muslim women wear. The veils cover up the sexual images in a gentle evocation of censorship and at the same time lend the figures an air of tantalizing mystery. Conjointly, the threads can be seen as abstracted pubic hair.

Another interesting element is Amer's inclusion of fairy tale images   of the milky pure Snow White and her seven dwarves. For instance, in one of   her largest pieces, "Knotty but Nice," three Disney-fied dwarves   outlined in fluorescent paint cavort among the four life-size embroidered nude   women. Indeed, dwarves are the only male figures to appear anywhere in the show.   Is the artist winking at us by having the women tower over the men? Come to   think of it, the Snow White story is a reversal of the traditional harem; here, a bevy of men are ready to do the one woman's bidding. In a world where   women are under attack from so many quarters, Ghada Amer counters with extraordinary beauty and wit.

"Breathe Into Me," 10am–6pm, Tue–Sat, until Feb.   25, at Gagosian Gallery, 555 W 24th St, gagosian.com, 212-741-1111. Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D., leads gay & lesbian art gallery tours through New York Gallery Tours: nygallerytours.com, 212-946-1548