Amy Stein & Brian Ulrich at Caption Gallery, and 'Wendy and Lucy' Film

I finally had the opportunity to see 'Instruments of Empire' at Caption Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn, featuring the work of Amy Stein and Brian Ulrich. First, as one who has curated, I have to commend the extremely catchy name of the show. It just sounds impressive. Secondly, I was fortunate to catch Amy giving an artist talk with Lyle Rexer in conjunction with the screening of the indy film Wendy and Lucy.



© Brian Ulrich



©Amy Stein


First, the photographs: in light of the current economic situation, Stein and Ulrich's photos---of stranded motorists along the highway and abandoned and shut down big-box stores, respectively---were very timely, and printed at a modest scale.


At Amy's talk, she described the increase in break-downs she has witnessed during this recession, the desperate nature of many people along the highways.


Secondly, the film in conjunction with Stein's photographs.


The film was extremely intimate, closed in, nearly claustrophobic in its portrayal of the main character, Wendy, played by Michelle Williams. In contrast, Stein's photographs are quick glimpses of people in incredibly vulnerable states. In the film, we become completely immersed in Wendy's highly concentrated, stressful existence, mostly as a result of her car breaking down. In the photographs, the viewer is not given any clues beyond the visual as to the circumstances surrounding the pictorial protagonist. For me, the contrast worked, and I recommend both the exhibit and the movie.

Finally, I get to Chelsea

Saw some good work in Chelsea this past week.
The big, beautiful pictures-lover in me loved these shows:




Amy Stein at Clamp Art - Amy's Domesticated series, employing both stuffed and real animals, plays with our skewed relationship with the natural world in a lyrical and effective way.



© Amy Stein










Justine Kurland at Mitchell-Innes & Nash:
Justine's photos taken alongside a drive across the country to the west are romantic, ethereal, and a throwback to the current early 20th century - zeitgeist currently taking over our city.




© Justine Kurland










Ed Burtynsky at Hasted Hunt Kreutner
Burtynsky uses large format to perfect effect, capturing crystalline reflections in big, oily puddles.




© Edward Burtynsky











Simen Johan at Yossi Milo:
A lot of people around me are 'over' big pictures, like little, cute, badly done pictures as a refreshing alternative. I'm not on that over-big-stuff bandwagon; I like art to surround me, to allow me to lose myself in this other thing or place. Such was my feeling with Johan's show at Yossi Milo, gigantic, fantastical animal pictures covering entire gallery walls. I fell in love with his Bison; the creature mythical, mysterious, and huge, it alluded to our primordial and unknown past on this planet.




© Simen Johan











at Claire Oliver, Beth Cavener Stichter's ceramic huge, eroticized animals were disturbing, beautiful, and provocative:



© Beth Cavener Stichter











And finally, Jaume Plensa's In the Midst of Dreams at Gallery Lelong was spectacular. In the main gallery, giant, luminous fiberglass white heads rose out of a sea of rocks. The other sculptures consisted of slightly warped heads that had been then carved out of white alabaster. The faces appeared somewhat distorted, ghostly, and dreamlike, as if trying to remember a passing glimmer in a vision.




© Jaume Plensa

GALLERY HOP: WHAT'S GOING ON IN CHELSEA

On my rounds in Chelsea this week, I saw work which ran the gamut from thought-provoking to dreamy to mediocre. I'll start with the good stuff first.

Zhang Xiaogang's large cool-toned paintings at Pace Wildenstein were great.

As peculiar and off-putting as a novel by Haruki Murakami, the paintings put me in a space that can best be described as a hazy dream-world in a German interrogation building (such as the video piece 'Stasi City' by Jane & Louise Wilson) The painting style was somewhat cartoonish and washy, with large blackish and greenish fields of color. Certain elements appeared repeatedly, such as bare lightbulbs with carefully---albeit not perfectly---drawn cords draping across the canvas.



The artist explains his work as indicative of the elusiveness of memory; 'memory isn't a thing that can actually present the past', but something which undergoes 'continuous revisions.'

Next up: the truly not inspiring work of Andreas Gursky at Matthew Marks Gallery on 24th Street.

I have great respect for Gursky in the entire scheme of things as a fine art photographer. Who else can lay claim to selling PHOTOGRAPHS, of all things, for such huge prices? Who else has made such work that is just really really big? Not many. And I appreciate his large photographs about large-scale consumerism, I really do.

But this show proved that perhaps Mr.Gursky needs to take a break. Or, maybe, work really really small. Or buy a new sports car. The really really big photographs of a club which looks like a giant hive and that was designed by a DJ friend of his just didn't say anything about anything. There's a big picture of the club with kids in it, and a big picture of it empty except for the artist and his son. Sigh.



Next....the Humble Arts Foundation show at New Century Artists 'Things Are Strange.'

I'm going to give a little shout-out to all of my SVA colleagues who were in the show; it's a great opportunity to see the work of Alison Malone, Matthew Baum, and Amy Stein if you haven't already.
'Things Are Strange' was a fun and exciting visual take on 'strange,' be that a psychadelic spider or a one-eyed cat.

(Spider photograph by Hannah Whitaker)