May 142024
 

Kwakwaka’wakw artist and activist Chief Beau Dick’s (1955-2017) carved masks for the exhibition Walas Gwa’yam / Big, Great Whale at Andrew Kreps Gallery draw you in with their intriguing visages.

From the press release-

Our whole culture has been shattered. It’s up to the artists now to pick up the pieces and try and put them together, back where they belong. Yeah, it does become political. It becomes beyond political; it becomes very deep and emotional.” – Beau Dick speaking in the 2017 film ‘Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick.

Beau Dick’s works are deeply informed by the tradition of potlatch, a gift-giving ceremony practiced by Indigenous people of the coast of Pacific Northwest Canada, which focused on the redistribution of wealth as a tool for building solidarity. Outlawed by the Canadian Government for nearly seventy years as part of an ongoing history of forced assimilation, the seclusion of Dick’s birthplace on Kingcome Inlet (Gwa’yi) allowed his community to continue practicing customs relatively free from the gaze of colonial authorities. Trained in wood-carving by his father, grandfather, and other master carvers, and completing his education in Vancouver, Dick was acutely aware of inherent tensions between contemporary consumer culture and Kwakwaka’wakw teachings. Refuting his masks as static objects, his carvings reference supernatural figures, like Dzunuk’wa, the “wild woman of the woods,” and her counterpart, Bakwas, “wild man of the woods,” which are reanimated to combat what Dick saw as capitalism’s “ravenous” oppression. Frequently employing his works in dances and performances, in 2012 he took forty Atlakim (Forest) masks to his community in Alert Bay, where after one final ceremony, they were ritually burned, referencing the ongoing responsibility for rebirth, and recreation in the face of erased tradition.

Mar 212023
 

The images above are from Annette Kelm’s photography exhibition Present Past Perfect at Andrew Kreps Gallery.

From the press release-

In her work, Kelm moves freely between studio, and documentary photography to explore the function and history of objects, as well as the implications of their representation. A series of new photographs document ephemeral still lives built in her studio, combining colored paper and cardstock backdrops, with vegetation and found objects. Ultimately, these contemporary Vanitas-like compositions are left open-ended, as Kelm discloses their constructed nature, as seen in works like Sumach / Essigbaum, 2023, where the edge of a table and curve of the backdrop suggest the provisional process of the works’ making. Through this strategy, Kelm explores the implications of the framing and display of objects, as well as the value systems in which they exist.

A new series of photographs documenting vintage button pins continue Kelm’s ongoing exploration into the graphic manifestations of protest. Adorned with slogans such as “Keep Abortion Legal” and “If his home is his castle, let him clean it”, each button pin is affixed to a uniformly cropped jean jacket. Sharing an overhead view, and a serial format, the varying placement of each button suggests the individuality of an imagined wearer, culminating in a crowded, all-over composition.

Kelm’s interest in the socio-cultural history of objects is evoked in her 2019 series Recyclingpark Neckartal, presented here for the first time in the United States. The series documents 14 travertine columns originally commissioned by the National Socialists from Lauster quarry in Stuttgart in the 1930s, as part of an unrealized monument to Benito Mussolini planned for “Germania”, the planned reconstruction of Berlin overseen by Albert Speer. Kelm captures these in multiple angles in their current location, a recycling center. Seen through trees and brush, the columns stand overshadowed by a towering waste incinerator, surrounded by parked cars and traces of activity. Together, these views suggest the often uneasy approach society takes to addressing its dark past.

May 172020
 

Jamie Isenstein’s Onions (Mario to Clown Mouse), 2015, from her exhibition Para Drama at Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York in 2015.

From the press release

… And on the wall are a series of photographs of masks wearing masks. By putting on masks the support masks become anthropomorphized into faces so that these inanimate objects come alive. At the same time, the layering of these masks emphasizes their emptiness. Behind the illusions there is nothing. Absurdly, the more masks the masks wear, the deeper the layering of nothingness becomes. Onions, 2015, is a sculpture of many masks layered over the hollow head of a mascot costume. The title of the work refers to a monologue in the Henrik Ibsen play Peer Gynt in which Peer peels away the layers of an onion as he examines the various roles he has played in his life. Eventually he comes to realize there is nothing substantial at the core.

 

Dec 222016
 

To keep these posts a little shorter, I have split them up into two parts. The following continues the list of Chelsea exhibitions.

terrywintersatmatthewmarks

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Terry Winters’ vibrant paintings at Matthew Marks Gallery are made up of layers of marks in oil, resin, and wax.

From the press release-

“These recent paintings are a series of accumulations,” Winters says. “There’s a range of paint application in terms of both material and technique. Each color is a marker, a stage of development. I’m moving across the surface, modulating the material in different ways. That inflection produces an amplification of colors, both physical and chemical. But color is basically wild and full of surprises.”

padraigtimoneyatandrewkrepsgallery

Pádraig Timoney’s work in The Deedle Eye, at Andrew Kreps Gallery, is a diverse combination of painting, photography, and installation.

From the press release-

Despite the visually distinct results, at the work’s core is a focused inquiry into the mechanics of images. Timoney conversely works in both directions – creating new images from abstractions (the captivating results of processes achieved in the studio), or rebuilding them part-by-part from photographs or observation. In each, he acknowledges the inherent flaws of these constructions, from the faultiness of recognition, the errors of translation, and further, the subjectivity of both viewers and the artist.

These in turn become generative openings in Timoney’s work as they are distanced from their original context. The images exist within thrilling, new visual constellations, allowing for the introduction of artifice and illusion, and the question of not only what they depict, but why? Each work records an index of decisions that determine its final state, materially and cognitively, displaying a history that is intentionally left open-ended. Figuration appears to hover only a hair away from abstraction, as if the movement of a line would cause one to collapse into the other. The narrowing of this gap suggests that the works’ initial disparate appearance may lead to an alternate understanding of their connections; a net that widens only to close anew, though what’s caught within it is left for the viewer to decide.

Also make sure to go to the space next door to see Klaus Weber’s sculpture Emergency Blanket.

klausweberatandrewkreps

Ai Weiwei has four shows up in NYC right now. Two of which are in Chelsea, at Mary Boone Gallery and Lisson Gallery, one is at the Mary Boone Gallery uptown, and one is at Deitch Projects in SoHo. Mary Boone Gallery and Lisson are both showing Weiwei’s Roots and Branches work, which includes large scale sections of dead trees, sometimes like the one seen below in cast iron at Lisson, and a 25 foot sculpture made up of tree parts bolted together. The uptown gallery includes a circle made up of 40,000 spouts broken off from Chinese teapots. Deitch Projects gallery has Laundromat, in which Weiwei has arranged items of clothing left behind by Syrian refugees (after they were forced to leave camps near the border of Greece) that he collected and laundered.

 

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