One additional quick post – last week while I was down in Venice checking out the Jeremy Blake show, I stopped in to another gallery on Abbot Kinney that seems to call itself Raid FC and might be affiliated with the Raid Projects at the Brewery (sorry for the sketchy information).
The work presented, a group show, seemed to follow the theme of geography and mapping. Like all group shows, it was a bit of a mixed bag but there were a few works that really stood out. The first is Dimitiri Kozyrv. His painting, Europe, a multiplane painting dissects the traditional landscape and presents multiple lines of vision of different soil and different sky combining them into a strangely cohesive work. Less cubist, more Zaha Hadid, the painting works both from a distance drawing us closer and when viewed from an immediate distance gives us enough details to keep us there.
Porch by Kerry Skarbakka is the other standout work within the show. Skarbakka large C-print provides us with the moment right after the “decisive moment” that moment in which a future is inevitable but still full of tension. The image of a man falling/jumping from a balcony area, presumably to the hard ground below, insinuates a filmic narrative of what is outside of the frame and its multiple possibilities while still discussing the topics of form and weight more associated with sculpture.
Both works are sole pieces by the artist in a group show that left me strongly wanting to see greater collections by these two artists and hopefully more shows by the mysterious Raid FC.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Distributed Memory: Live Music and Projected Image at the Getty
This week Friday Nights at the Getty, their weekly lecture and performance series, became Friday and Saturday night at the Getty with the presentation of Distributed Memory: Live Music and Projected Image. Saturday night, the night I attended, featured the film work of Janie Geiser, and Brent Green, accompanied by Tom Recchion and Califone, respectively, playing live sets to the previously existing images. Though all the individual elements of film and sound were strong, somewhere in the middle of the evening I asked myself “Why is it important that the musicians be part of this live performance? Is it providing me anymore information than would have been understood on a prerecorded soundtrack.” Besides a little bit of additional verve in the auditorium setting the answer for me was no. There was nothing that required the musicians to be there – no additional on the spot improvisation, no use of the space as an instrument or playback device, no audience interaction that made the live musicians imperative. In fact the only reason that I could equate was an extension of the historical idea of the live musical score being played to silent films. But these films are not silent in their construction – from what I could tell they are never meant to be viewed without sound, so the evening seemed like an exaggerated presentation.
However the over work presented was an interesting combination of experimental animation and sound. The collaboration between Janie Geiser and Tom Recchion was ethereal, Geiser’s filmmaking pushing dreamlike landscapes of forlorn men and women, always utilizing imagery of film days gone by. Recchion sound work, which was only performed live to her newest video, full of contemporary pops and synth provided a nice counterpoint to general film-as-film presentations.
The collaboration between Brent Green and Califone is a little more hand worked and homespun, with saw instruments and acetate overlay edges. Both filmmaker and musicians have a folk-alt edge, reaching down to the dark edges of the universe. The complexities of life for an unknowable Santa and a bastard child provided the material for simple, unrefined animation and the almost preacher frenzy of narrative being sung. During it’s best moments, the combination of frenetic energy between the animation and music painted a dark picture that previously been envisioned, but often the works were a little long and shut me out soon after they invited me to the new landscape.
All of the works presented created a universe of fantasy just left of what you normally see. And for a casual Saturday night’s entertainment, that is not too bad.
However the over work presented was an interesting combination of experimental animation and sound. The collaboration between Janie Geiser and Tom Recchion was ethereal, Geiser’s filmmaking pushing dreamlike landscapes of forlorn men and women, always utilizing imagery of film days gone by. Recchion sound work, which was only performed live to her newest video, full of contemporary pops and synth provided a nice counterpoint to general film-as-film presentations.
The collaboration between Brent Green and Califone is a little more hand worked and homespun, with saw instruments and acetate overlay edges. Both filmmaker and musicians have a folk-alt edge, reaching down to the dark edges of the universe. The complexities of life for an unknowable Santa and a bastard child provided the material for simple, unrefined animation and the almost preacher frenzy of narrative being sung. During it’s best moments, the combination of frenetic energy between the animation and music painted a dark picture that previously been envisioned, but often the works were a little long and shut me out soon after they invited me to the new landscape.
All of the works presented created a universe of fantasy just left of what you normally see. And for a casual Saturday night’s entertainment, that is not too bad.
Natalie Jeremijenko at Materials and Architecture
Some where between artist, scientist and second grade teacher seems to lay Natalie Jeremijenko. Last Thursday amongst the large illuminated balloons of the Bubble project at Materials and Architecture she presented a lecture on some of her last works exhibited at Postmasters focusing on the line between natural and urban, giving a staring role to the pigeons of New York city. With all the verve of an elementary school teacher she presented her vision of, for lack of a better term, art/science, a popular trend in new media and where her work is strongly placed and she is kind of the Queen Bee. This area of artistic development takes arts usefulness out of the realm of visual pleasure and positions it in the world of science and experimentation. This analytical inquiry by way of quirky art projects seems to allow some type of “value” in a post-post modern vision of art.
Natalie’s entire presentation had the air of car salesman to it, trying hard to convince you of the ideas behind her unusual projects. Her ideas sounded interesting, but it was hard to judge how successful they are as individual/collected artworks, as the documentation requires considerable notation to know what is going on. Even Natalie herself seemed to indicate that the public at large has had a hard time knowing how to approach her work without further instruction. Her green roof work at Postmaster has an interesting premise, but a little too cutesy at times, using exaggerated concepts (How long will it take for a plastic toy to degrade? A wedding dress?) to make points that are rather easy.
Though my instinctual bias has been to be a bit dismissive of works like this, something in her presentation lightened my approach to art/science. So strongly tied to performance/conceptual art of the last century, perhaps it is still just the gesture of art/science that is the point of the work rather actual pieces themselves, with awareness and small interactions always at the forefront of meaning.
Natalie’s entire presentation had the air of car salesman to it, trying hard to convince you of the ideas behind her unusual projects. Her ideas sounded interesting, but it was hard to judge how successful they are as individual/collected artworks, as the documentation requires considerable notation to know what is going on. Even Natalie herself seemed to indicate that the public at large has had a hard time knowing how to approach her work without further instruction. Her green roof work at Postmaster has an interesting premise, but a little too cutesy at times, using exaggerated concepts (How long will it take for a plastic toy to degrade? A wedding dress?) to make points that are rather easy.
Though my instinctual bias has been to be a bit dismissive of works like this, something in her presentation lightened my approach to art/science. So strongly tied to performance/conceptual art of the last century, perhaps it is still just the gesture of art/science that is the point of the work rather actual pieces themselves, with awareness and small interactions always at the forefront of meaning.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Jeremy Blake at Honor Fraser Gallery
Jeremy Blake is no writer. After beginning to read his artist statement, I abandoned half way through, as nothing that I had gleaned was more interesting or informative than watching his new work which is on show down at the Honor Fraser Gallery in Venice. If familiar with Blake’s previous works, his signature techniques are still employed: still images becoming motion, dissolves that are transitions and subtlety provide focus of attention and meaning. However, unlike the previous work of Blake’s that I have seen, which are always on the edge of a nostalgia for a future yet to come, his new video Sodium Fox, feels like it occupies a time somewhere between years ago and now. The imagery evokes a 60's-70’s nostalgia: beaches, matchbooks, and half nude women with lazy flowing hair. However the visual motion is all today, knowingly living in the world of motion graphics sophistication. The audio chronicles the rambling of a poet, but quite unfortunately in the gallery, the audio is almost indiscernible because of the conflict with traffic noise and highly inadequate speakers. With this said, there is a captivating quality to the way he moves and manipulates attention around the frame, a fluidness not seen often in video art work. His video seems to appropriately occupy the “framed” flat panel that it displayed on, still feeling more akin to the history of painting than moving images, and something that you might need time to develop a relationship with over repeated viewings.
Unfortunately the stills that fill the rest of the show seem like extras, a way to fill the gallery walls of this very small gallery. The reduction of his work to the 2d realm, a realm without time, just reemphasizes their static quality, removes their context of before and after. This before and after is really where Jeremy Blake’s meaning seems to lie, not in any one image, but the transition between images, providing a journey that we take from a point close to nowhere to somewhere just past it.
Unfortunately the stills that fill the rest of the show seem like extras, a way to fill the gallery walls of this very small gallery. The reduction of his work to the 2d realm, a realm without time, just reemphasizes their static quality, removes their context of before and after. This before and after is really where Jeremy Blake’s meaning seems to lie, not in any one image, but the transition between images, providing a journey that we take from a point close to nowhere to somewhere just past it.
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