Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
It's a gorgeous day!
And is bound to be an incredible night! Hope all of y'all get to come visit us for the opening tonight.
Anthony Pontius
why on earth?
April 24 - May 24, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday April 24, 7-9pm
image: a successful hunt, 24x24 inches, oil and ink on panel, 2008
31GRAND, 143 Ludlow St. New York, NY 10002 t: .228.0901
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
1 Giant Leap
I follwed a link to this from a Myspace message from Faithless today. This looks like a really amazing series.
What About Me by 1 Giant Leap
Following the success of their first double Grammy nominated film & album, What About Me? is the latest offering from 1 Giant Leap. This visionary project took Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman to over 50 locations as they explore through music, the complexities of human nature on a global scale, and aims to reveal how we are all connected through our creativity and beliefs, but most of all through our madness.
Covering universal topics such as God, Sex, Death and Money, What About Me? features an incredibly diverse collection of collaborators from Noam Chomsky to Will Young, Maxi Jazz to Tim Robbins, Billy Connolly to Michael Stipe, Eckhart Tolle to Baaba Mal, among many others.
Encompassing a TV series, film and album, this is a poignant, emotional and entertaining time capsule of humanity at its most inspirational.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Coming up before we know it....
...is the next show!
Anthony Pontius
“why on earth?”
at 31GRAND
April 24 - May 24, 2008
opening: Thursday, April 24, 7-9pm
31GRAND is pleased to announce, “why on earth?”, Anthony Pontius’ first solo show with the gallery. Pontius' paintings (exhibited along side the drawing studies for each) examine the importance of the human connection to history and nature. By recontextualizing historical imagery, stories and concepts in the world of now , he presents a new narrative that is familiar yet the full meaning is not immediately accessible. Employing a mix of past and present techniques, he forms these new arrangements; using classical clarity to define a specific part of a story and at the same time abstraction to complete or destroy the formation of the work. The finished painting is a proclamation of something new and not easily defined, realizing that history and memory are not clear or concise, but the consequences of interpretation.
Within Pontius’ varied and elegant imagery, he often plays with anthropomorphism, which can be seen in his St. Sebastian-like panda bear figure in “there is an end in flight” and in “the soothsayers greatest game ever”, in which an 80s style freestanding video game grows beside a lake in a beatific landscape, the image then covered with a graffiti tag and splatters of paint. He also offsets recognizable historical figures, such as Abe Lincoln, which can be seen in “the doe-eyed killer” but then twists them in his own semi-surreal style to take on his new narrative.
image: there is an end in flight, 2008, oil on wood,32 x 36 inches
Friday, April 18, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Opening tonight
Tamara Kostianovsky
The Proper Animal, Part II - Actus Reus
at Black & White Gallery
April 17 - May 24, 2008
reception: April 17, 6-8pm
image: Back To The Front, 2007
Towels and various articles of clothing belonging to the artist, embroidery floss, batting, metal chain
91 x 29 x 33 inches
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Potato Gun
As promised here's one of the sculpture's and the video from Adam Stennett's new show. I would love to get a chance to try it out.
Potato Gun with Video Demo, 56 x 12 inches, pvc plastic, krylon fusion paint, bbq igniter with 58 second video loop, 2008
Potato Gun: Engineered, built and tested by Matthew Creighton Stennett in Baxter, Tennessee.
Potato Gun with Video Demo, 56 x 12 inches, pvc plastic, krylon fusion paint, bbq igniter with 58 second video loop, 2008
Potato Gun: Engineered, built and tested by Matthew Creighton Stennett in Baxter, Tennessee.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Just got back...
Have to say Adam Stennett's show out in East Hampton is really awesome. Don't have photos of the sculpture/installation works but will post when I do.
image: Morning Glory Flying Saucers (Ipomoea tricolor). 2008.
Acrylic on paper, 30 x 44 inches
Off the Grid
April 12 to May 27, 2008
at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937
Opening reception: Sat. April 12, 6-8pm
Oh, and I am so excited! I am finally getting to see Peter Murphy perform solo!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Having a Weill day
Teresa Stratas ... Anna I
Nora Kimball ... Anna II
Kent Nagano conducts the Orchestra of the Lyon Opera. Peter Sellars directs. 1993
the nine parts of the ballet/opera, and the US city each takes place in:
1--Prologue
2--Faulheit / Sloth (city not mentioned)
3--Stolz / Pride (Memphis)
4--Zorn / Wrath (Los Angeles)
5--Völlerei / Gluttony (Philadelphia)
6--Unzucht / Lust (Boston)
7--Habsucht / Greed (Tennessee, in posthumous versions Baltimore)
8--Neid / Envy (San Francisco)
9--Epilogue (home, in the new little house)
Nick Cave - Mack the Knife
Ute Lemper - Je ne t'aime pas
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Adam Stennett
Whipped Cream with Hypnotism Handbook. 2008.
Acrylic on paper, 30 x 30"
Another little peek at Adam's upcoming show: Off the Grid
April 12 to May 27, 2008
at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937
Opening reception: Sat. April 12, 6-8pm
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Jason Clay Lewis
Poison Heart Box, 2000
Rat poison, wood, wood burning, paper, balsa
1 1/8" x 6 3/4" x 6 3/4"
Had a wonderful conversation with Jason last night, and looking forward to a studio visit soon. I love this piece. It just says so much.
Friday, April 4, 2008
I want a set of these
Stumbled upon this pretty thing at the Met website. Oh, how I would fancy a pair of these.
Rowel Spur, ca. 1400
French or Spanish (Catalonia)
Copper, gold, enamel; L. 7 1/4 in. (18.42 cm)
Gift of William H. Riggs, 1913 (14.25.1737)
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Delphine Boël
10,000 Ear-plugs and I can STILL hear you LIE
135 cm x 100 cm x 86 cm, ear-plugs in Plexiglas
Delphine is an interesting artist, but I think this is one of her best. Her work is driven by her abandonment by her father, Belgium's King Albert II. Her mother carried on an 18 year affair with him before he was king. Here's a good article on the matter at the TimesOnline. As a child she grew up sad and alone, but upon turning 18, she found out who her real dad was and carried on a secret yet distant relationship with him. Later though the King abandoned her once again and rejected that she was his daughter after a book had made the fact common knowledge. It's amazing how some people can just turn their back on and throw away others.
Man o' my dreams!
Jan Fabre, Sanguis sum, 2001
Jan Fabre is having an exhibit at the Louvre, and I just got my invite in the mail! I fell in love with his work years ago during a trip to Belgium, and later had the good fortune to interview him for my old website (studio-visit which is now long one) which was later published in ad!dict magazine . He is one of the most versatile artists jumping between theater, dance, visual, and video. If you're in Paris while the show is up, it's a must see. He's a genius. I would love to show him!
Contemporary artists at the Louvre
For the fourth edition of Counterpoint, the Louvre’s annual series offering a contemporary perspective on its permanent collections, the museum’s invited guest artist is Jan Fabre, who presents an itinerary of works on the theme of metamorphosis and the passage of time.
From April 10 to July 7, 2008, the Dutch, Flemish and German painting galleries will be home to an exhibition of works by this often provocative exponent of the Flemish new wave, strongly influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, the visionary painter of fantasy and madness. Jan Fabre will also participate in a pair of events at the Auditorium du Louvre in April, exploring the various facets of his work as a dancer, choreographer, man of the theater and performance artist, through discussions, debates and screenings. On April 22, the Daru Gallery and Cour Napoleon will serve as the venue for a special performance by Jan Fabre, in the form of an evening’s meditation on the relationship between living artists and the museum.
On April 11, for the opening of the exhibition, France Culture will be at the Louvre for programs about Jan Fabre.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Moods for Moderns
Check out Barnaby Whitfield's work on the west coast! He's included in: Brad Benedict's Sideshow - Moods for Moderns
A group exhibition curated by Brad Benedict April 5- 26, 2008. Opening Reception: Saturday, April 5, 2008, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY At Bergamot Station Arts Center 2525 michigan avenue, Suite C2/D5 Santa Monica, California 90404
image: Ode to D-I-V-O-R-C-E, 2006, pastel on paper, 30 x 22”
Preview!
Adam Stennett. Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans). 2008.
Acrylic on paper, 30 x 44 inches
Adam has a new show coming up!
Adam Stennett: Off the Grid
April 12 to May 27, 2008 at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937
Glenn Horowitz Bookseller is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Brooklyn-based artist Adam Stennett. This show consists of new works on paper, sculpture and video, all thematically organized around the idea that the way we look at the world determines what we see. This exhibition, entitled Off the Grid, is anchored by a series of still-lifes which re-imagine the possibilities of a stuffy and traditional genre while the video and sculptural works invoke secret government projects, psychedelic drugs, and the culture wars of the 1960s.
The paintings are elegantly composed and beautifully drawn but their outwardly staid appearance is a misdirection. Stennett’s real program is to reinvent the tropes of still-life and retrofit the genre for renewed contemporary relevance. To do so he returned to still-life’s earliest origins and the Netherlandish masters who gave weight and meaning to each piece of fruit, shank of meat, flower, bowl or bottle they painted, thereby making still life the study of character and narrative by other means. Likewise, Stennett presents objects as if they are to be read as evidence. He paints opium poppies, nutmeg kernels, or hallucinogenic morning glories, with teapots, grinders, strainers, bottles of solvent or grain alcohol. These are materials and tools for the extraction of specific euphoric agents that reside within common plants, seeds and tins of spice. These works are not so much still-lifes as painted recipes, precise visual demonstrations by which the observant may be initiated into all sorts of covert activities.
Traditional still-lifes often aimed to calm by suggesting comfort and domestic tranquility but Stennett makes work that undermines calm. This series encourages the imagination to conjure a monster: part vigilante, part amateur pharmacologist, someone knowledgeable and resourceful, but solitary, secretive, at odds with society and given to violence, self-medication and paranoia. In the end the work defies precise interpretation but it is clear that there is an unseen presence at the conceptual center of the exhibition. Collectively these works form a composite portrait of a contemporary anti-hero, as erratic and volatile as the images themselves are composed and contained. That we are never shown a face, only allowed to sense an elusive presence, makes the experience all the more unnerving.
Accompanying the works on paper are video and sculptural works that take a mischievous look at those who have made research into altered consciousness. The sculptural pieces display team jerseys in orderly upright ranks, as if squared off for a competition. The “teams,” MK-Ultra and Millbrook, make reference to groups that did early LSD testing; the first is a classified government program and the second a community founded by Timothy Leary in a wealthy town of upstate New York. Such research has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists while generally revealing more about the ideologies of those who formulated the studies than about altered consciousness itself. The notion that methods inevitably color conclusions subtly informs every piece in the exhibition. Pinned to a wall of Stennett’s studio is an excerpt from the report of another study--it dryly notes how substances that ordinarily provoke nothing more than dizziness can, when aligned with the ideology and expectations of a particular individual, just as well lead to states of profound euphoria. To Stennett this is a metaphor for the peculiar alchemy by which art transforms images and objects into devices for the expansion of consciousness.
Adam Stennett was born in Kotzebue, Alaska in 1972, grew up in Oregon, and now lives in Brooklyn. His work is in numerous public and private collections and has been widely exhibited in the U.S. and internationally. He is represented by 31GRAND in New York City. For more information about the artist or this exhibition please contact Heather Stephens at 31GRAND, 212.228.0901 and gallery31grand@earthlink.net; or Glenn Horowitz Bookseller via email: info@GHbookseller.com, or by telephone: 631-324-5511.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ode To The Artist's Conception
Barnaby Whitfield
End! Game! (Ode To The Artist's Conception), 2008
Pastel On Paper, 40 by 40"
I love all of these birds. Not sure if everyone can tell from the jpg but the detailing in this piece is absolutely phenomenal. If you want to see it in person, it's at the gallery (31GRAND) through April 19th.
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