Posts from the “Crave” Category

Rashid Johnson: Stranger

Posted on June 7, 2017

Artwork: Rashid Johnson. Untitled Beach Collage, 2017, Vinyl, spray enamel, oil stick, black soap, and wax. 183 x 244 x 5 cm / 72 x 96 1/8 x 2 in.

In 1953, James Baldwin published the essay “Stranger in the Village” in Harper’s magazine in which he recounted the culture shock of life as a young African-American man in a small village in Switzerland. The people he encountered were distinctly provincial to the point that manners and etiquette were the least of their concerns. They did not welcome Baldwin so much as the openly gawked, so caught up as they were in the physicality of race.

“…it must be conceded there was the charm of genuine wonder and in which there were certainly no element of intentional unkindness, there was yet no suggestion that I was human: I was simply a living wonder,” Baldwin writes, perfectly summarizing the power that cognitive dissonance has over the mind that has lost self-control.

Grace is more than a virtue, it is an act of dignity; to be able to perceive the experience of the other is to understand the role one has to play. To disregard this, whether out of lack of care or awareness, creates a visceral sense of alienation, codifying the outsider as strange: a stranger.

Most people are conscientious of their otherness when they step outside their comfort zones; it is only those who are extremely extroverted or self-involved who escape the feeling of not belonging to that which is not theirs by birthright.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Elaine Mayes: Summer of Love

Posted on June 7, 2017

Photo: Elaine Mayes, Rebel, 25, Golden Gate Park, 1968, vintage gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches.

In the summer of 1967, some 100,000 people descended upon the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco to come together as one. Inspired by the Beat Generation of the 1950s who had taken to North Beach, a new wave of nonconformists embraced the counterculture vibes of the times, embracing the ethos of the hippie movement, first espoused by Timothy Leary earlier that year at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park with the words, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

The Summer of Love, as it came to be known, as a natural extension of the Human Be-In, which embraced the principle of “sex, drug, and rock and roll.” In the face of violence and destruction that raged overseas in the Vietnam War and here at home with the Civil Rights Movement, the hippies sought to take a stand against the system through the message of peace and love.

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Categories: 1960s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

The Biggest Art Rivalries

Posted on June 4, 2017

Artwork: The biggest art rivals were once the best of friends. Paul Cezanne, Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888. Oil on jute (detail). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The best kinds of rivalries are civil competitions that push each side ahead, using the contest as a springboard for advancing one’s ideas and sharpening one’s skills. To maintain such a rivalry requires deep, profound respect not just for the other person but for the medium itself.

But most people are not cut from this cloth; they are emotional, petty creatures despite the heights they may climb in their respective careers. Crave looks back at some of the most notorious art rivalries in history, reflecting on the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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Categories: Art, Crave

Inbox: Charles Atlas: The Illusion of Democracy

Posted on June 3, 2017

Artwork: Inbox: Charles Atlas, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Groundbreaking filmmaker and video artist Charles Atlas (American, b.1949) has established himself at the forefront of the avant-garde over the past 40 years by collaborating with luminaries across the disciplines of visual art, dance, music, theater, and television.

He arrived in New York via St. Louis, MI, in 1970 at the age of 20, with dreams of becoming a filmmaker working during a period that gave birth to some of the cinema’s greatest revolutionaries. He got a job working with the legendary Merce Cunningham Dance Company, first as assistant stage manager and then becoming a lighting designer.

By 1974, he was the company’s filmmaker-in-residence, acquiring a Super 8 movie camera and setting out to create unedited filmic works. Soon Atlas and Cunningham began to create “media-dance,” a partnership between the camera and the performer where they move together for a series of dance performances designed specifically for film—absorbing many of the lessons that Marcel Duchamp introduced earlier in the century.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Best Street Photography of the Last 20 Years

Posted on May 26, 2017

Photo: © Sean Maung

A great street photographer lives in the here and now. Their eyes are always attuned to the nuances of life, their awareness is heightened to suprasensory levels, their reflexes as quick as an athlete. They do more than see: they look, ever vigilant to the cast of light and shadow to create a mood, or the movement of people through the cityscape, careful to capture a fraction of a second forevermore. In celebration of the best street photography of the last 20 years, Crave showcases some of the best contemporary masters of the form.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Photography

Art/Africa: A Nouvel Atelier

Posted on May 25, 2017

Artwork: Kudzanai Chiurai. Revelations V. 145 x 200 cm. 2011. © Kudzanai Chiurai © Courtesy de l’artiste et Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris et Marian Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.

In recent years, the arts of Africa have taken the world stage by storm as the diverse peoples and cultures of the continent offer a distinctive vantage point and approach to creativity that is as singular as it is breathtaking. In celebration of the diverse arts of the land, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, presents Art/Africa, le nouvel atelier, a series of three exhibitions currently on view now through August 28, 2017.

Art/Africa looks at the response of artists to the movements of the past fifty years, as independence from imperialist powers restored self-determination and freedom to the peoples whose homelands had been occupied by foreign invaders for centuries. The works look at the responses to colonialism, apartheid, issues of gender, family, and identity, and activism.

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Artwork: Moké. Skol Primus. 177 x 131 cm. 1991. © Moké © Courtesy CAAC – The Pigozzi Collection.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Africa, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography

Jeanette Lee: Private Image

Posted on May 24, 2017

Photo © Jeannette Lee, courtesy of IDEA.

In January 1978, the Sex Pistols finally imploded on stage, with Johnny Rotten calling out the words that would speak to the world for decades: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Then he dropped the mic and walked away. Later that same year, Rotten reinvented himself, resuming use of his government name (John Lydon) and creating a new band, Public Image Limited (PiL), with childhood friend Jah Wobble on bass, former Clash guitarist Keith Levene, and drummer Jim Walker.

Lydon, knowing the nature of the game, approached Jeanette Lee to become the non-musical member of the group—to play the media, as it were. Lee, who went on to become the co-director of independent music label Rough Trade Records, took over the publicity, promotion, and general administration for the band. She also purchased a Polaroid SX-70 camera and took a series of behind-the-scenes pictures that have just been published in Private Image, a limited edition from IDEA.

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Categories: 1980s, Art, Crave, Music, Photography

Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends

Posted on May 17, 2017

Artwork: Robert Rauschenberg. Poster for ROCI Cuba (Museo Nacional site), 1988. All offset lithograph, ranging from 34 1/2 in. (87.6 cm) to 38 3/8 in. (97.5 cm) high and from 23 3/4 (60.3 cm) to 24 1/4 in. (61.6 cm) wide), ROCI Cuba: silk-screen and offset lithograph on foil paper. Printer: Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York. Edition: unnumbered. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. © 2017 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1925, Rauschenberg adopted the name “Bob.” But word has it that the art world, so enamored with his revolutionary approach and groundbreaking aesthetic, refused to address him so casually and simply re-named him “Robert.”

This anecdote perfectly encapsulates the chasm between Rauschenberg’s work and how it was received. The artist, sometimes called a “Neo Dadaist,” was inherently subversive. He observed, “Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in the gap between the two.)”

This gap was one first illuminated in the work of Marcel Duchamp, who introduced a urinal to the art world and called it “Fountain,” literally taking the piss out of the self-important bourgeois notions of art. In 1961, Rauschenberg made his move when he was invited to submit a portrait of Iris Clert, that was to be included in an exhibition at her Paris gallery. In a truly unbothered move, he sent a telegram stating, “This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so.”

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Artwork: Robert Rauschenberg. Overdrive. 1963. Oil and silkscreen ink on canvas. 84 x 60 inches. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Promised gift of Glenn and Eva Dubin © 2017 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Artwork: Rauschenberg in his Pearl Street studio, New York, March 1958. Works, left to right: Charlene (1954), Untitled (c. 1954), and a partial rear view of the second state of Monogram (1955–59, second state 1956–58). Photographer: Dan Budnik. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. © Dan Budnik, all rights reserved

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Stephen Shore: Selected Works, 1973-1981

Posted on May 17, 2017

Photo: Stephen Shore, Ginger Shore, West Palm Beach, Florida, November 14, 1977. © Stephen Shore, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York.

In 1982, Aperture published Uncommon Places by Stephen Shore, a collection of large-format color photographs exploring the American vernacular landscape from an entirely new point of view—one that embraced the ethos of mid-century populism. It offered a fresh take on modernism, embracing the spectacle of the mundane, the glorious humdrum of the nation under soaring blue skies and wide open terrain. It enlivened the eye and the mind to a sense of the sheer magnificence of that which we see everyday though we may never really look.

Uncommon Places, which has since been expanded and reissued several times over the past 35 years, has influenced a generation of photographers to look at the landscape where they are. In the past five years Shore has returned to his archive to delve more deeply within the works that he produced during the period from 1973 to 1981. He then brought the unseen works to Aperture, who invited an international group of 15 photographers, curators, authors, and cultural figures including Wes Anderson, Francine Prose, Ed Ruscha, Taryn Simon, and Lynne Tillman to select ten images each to create a series of portfolios collected in the new book Stephen Shore: Selected Works, 1971-1981.

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Photo: Stephen Shore, East Fifth Street and Main Street, Fort Worth, Texas, June 17, 1976. © Stephen Shore, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Alice Neel: Uptown

Posted on May 16, 2017

Artwork: Building in Harlem, c. 1945. Oil on canvas. © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy David Zwirner Books and Victoria Miro.

Artwork: The Black Boys, 1967. Oil on canvas. The Tia Collection. © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy David Zwirner Books and Victoria Miro.

Alice Neel’s New York is disappearing—but it is not yet gone. It lives in the spirit and the souls of those who persevere against all odds. Like the artist herself, the New York she once loved was made up of people who triumphed over tragedy, trauma, and loss. Perhaps her personal struggles imbued her with a profound empathy to those she painted with exquisite sensitivity and feeling, capturing the depths of their humanity.

This month, Alice Neel, Uptown (David Zwirner Books/Victoria Miro), a new book authored by Pulitzer Prize winning critic Hilton Als, looks at the portraits the artist made while living in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side throughout the twentieth century. The book is published in conjunction with an exhibition of the work opening at Victoria Miro Gallery, London, on May 18 after debuting earlier this year to critical acclaim at David Zwirner in New York.

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Artwork: The Spanish Family, 1943. Oil on canvas. © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy David Zwirner Books and Victoria Miro.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Painting

Robin Schartz: Like Us

Posted on May 12, 2017

Photo: Robin Schwartz, Charlie, 1988, Chimpanzee, female, 5 years old, Copyright Robin Schwartz.

Last month, The New Indian Express recently reported the capture of a young girl who had been living with a troop of monkeys in the jungles of Katrraniyaghat, India. The world press went wild for the story of a feral child, with visions of Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli dancing in their prose.

“She behaves like an ape and screams loudly if doctors try to reach out to her,” says Dr. DK Singh, chief medical superintendent, Bahraich District Hospital, told the newspaper, adding that she walks, eats, and sits like monkeys.

But the fantastical tale was short-lived as The Washington Post soon reported that the girl had been abandoned a mere hours or days before being recovered. It has been suggested her parents left her near an outpost, forsaking an unwanted daughter in a society that prized sons.

Invariably, what occurred speaks to a distinctly human trait: a complete lack of interest in viable offspring, discarded and left for death because the gender has been so degraded by the society in which it exists. What’s telling is that this aspect of the story was disregarded in favor of playing up unfounded rumors of interspecies relationships.

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Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography