Posts from the “Exhibitions” Category

Larry Clark: White Trash

Posted on May 10, 2017

Artwork: Christopher Wool, “Untitled”, 1987 enamel on paper 18 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches – framed. © Christopher Wool; courtesy of the artist, and Luhring Augustine, New York.

“People are boring unless they’re extremists,” Jenny Holzer exhorts from a laundry list of aphorisms she made in 1978. Her words perfectly describe the spirit of artist, filmmaker, and writer Larry Clark – and his obsessive passion for collecting. Since his first girlfriend gave him a portrait she made of him in 1961, Clark has amassed a vast panoply of art, objects, and artifacts that he keeps piled up in his Tribeca loft, creating a warren of glorious stuff.

“You should enjoy yourself because you can’t change anything anyway,” Holzer notes on that same list, which is one of the many works in White Trash, an exhibition culled from Clark’s collection, now on view at Luhring Augustine, Brooklyn, through June 18. As you stroll through the show, you feel the pleasure, the pain, and the poignancy of the works that have called to Clark over the years.

From a high corner, Alberto Korda’s portrait of Che Guevara hangs, gazing above the scene, which includes an impressive array of paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, film and music posters, skateboards, furniture, books, vintage pieces, and neon signs like a Jack Pierson sculpture that flashes the word “APPLAUSE.”

“Learn to trust your own eyes,” Holzer advises as you proceed through the show, taking in works by Helmut Newton, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Raymond Pettibon, Jack Pierson, Jeff Koons, Mark Gonzales, Max Blagg, and Ralph Gibson, to name just a few. White Trash becomes a visual memoir of Clark’s travels on earth – but it is the presence of his studio door, which stands perpendicular to the wall, feels the most intimate and sacred object in the entire show.

“Slipping into madness is valuable for the sake of passion,” Holzer concludes, and you can’t really argue that sentiment while standing in this room. There’s much to be said for letting desire lead the way. Clark speaks with Dazed about his unconditional love for collecting, and the power of living with art.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Bottom Artwork: Christy Rupp, “The Rat Patrol”, 1979. offset print 10 5/8 x 22 7/16 inches (framed). © Christy Rupp, courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York

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

More Than a Picture

Posted on May 8, 2017

Photograph by: James H. Karales Printed by: Rick Rhodes Photography & Imaging, LLC Subject of: Lewis “Big June” Marshall. Lewis “Big June” Marshall Carrying the U.S. Flag, Selma to Montgomery. March, March 21, 1965 (detail). H x W: 3356pixels × 4200pixels (3356pixels × 4200pixels). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Monica Karales and the Estate of James Karales © Estate of James Karales.

Photograph: Created by: Roderick Terry. Subject of: Unidentified Man or Men. Printed by: Penn Camera Positive. Reflections, October 16, 1995, silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper. H x W (Image): 10 5/8 x 13 11/16 in. (27 x 34.8 cm). H x W (Image and Sheet): 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Roderick Terry © Roderick Terry.

A photograph is more than a picture—far more than mere art. Photography bears witness to an event as it unfolds, creating a document of the moment that becomes part of the historical record. It is equal parts memory and evidence. In many cases it is proof, as in the new standard bearer: “Pics or it didn’t happen.” In this way, the photograph can transform our understanding of life by speaking in all languages at the same time without ever saying a word.

Photography radically democratized the act of representation. Once the provenance of the wealthy elite and the power structure, the photograph liberated the picture plane from those who used it to support highly biased histories, mythologies, and narratives. Art in the age of mechanical reproduction enabled the image to be created at a much lower cost, be duplicated en masse, and distributed widely. It put the power of picture making in more people’s hands, and once freed from the strictures of the academy, the discipline flourished.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Photograph by: John Johnson Subject of: George W. Butcher. Subject of: Unidentified Man or Men Created by: Douglas R. Keister. Scan of George W. Butcher and friend wearing suits and leaning on canes 1919-1925; scanned 2012. H x W: 8112 pixels x 5772 pixels. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture © Douglas Keister.

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

Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal

Posted on May 4, 2017

Fountain by R. Mutt, 1917, Alfred Stieglitz, Published in The Blind Man (No. 2), Edited by Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roché, and Beatrice Wood, May 1917, Philadelphia Museum of Art, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

In the spring of 1917, Marcel Duchamp went where no artist had gone before, transgressing the mores of polite society an upending the art world with the display of a single piece of work—creating one of the most scandalous art shows of all time.

The work, titled Fountain was a white porcelain urinal rotated 90 degrees and placed on a pedestal, with the signature “R. Mutt” and the year scribbled along the front. Rendered inoperable, it simply was a reminder of something few were inclined to discuss in public—if at all.

Lest we forget, indoor plumbing was a revolution unto itself—on par with the transformation that the Digital Age has on our own time. It changed lives in ways that most of us hope to never know any other way. At the same time, it was something kept quiet, hidden behind closed doors.

In one fell swoop, Duchamp upended this. He purchased the urinal from a store that sold plumbing fixtures and submitted it to an unjuried exhibition held by the Society of Independent Artists in New York, describing the piece as a “readymade.” In an effort to preserve the integrity of the artist and their work, the show had no jury making selections—a fact Duchamp took advantage of with aplomb. It was all very Dada for your nerves.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Most Influential Artists of the Last 20 Years

Posted on May 2, 2017

Photo: Kusama’s Peep Show or Endless Love Show, 1966. Hexagonal mirrored room and electric lights. Installed at Castellane Gallery, New York, 1966. No longer extant. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

“This idea of art for art’s sake is a hoax,” no less than Pablo Picasso observed, recognizing the bourgeois mentality that drove narcissistic self-indulgence into the creative process was merely fraud.

Indeed, art does not exist for itself; the greatest works are those that transform understanding into wisdom while revealing the truth of the times as not only a matter of the moment but of the underlying human condition. The best art is always one step ahead of where we find ourselves, predicting the future by bringing it to our attention today In celebration of the most influential artists of the last 20 years, Crave has compiled a list of men and women from all walks of life who work in a wide array of mediums, speaking truth to power.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: Art, Books, Brooklyn, Crave, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Japan, Painting, Photography

Basquiat Before Basquiat: East 12th Street, 1979-1980

Posted on April 28, 2017

Photo: Basquiat in the apartment, 1981. Photograph by Alexis Adler.

Before Jean-Michel Basquiat was known by name, his work had already hit the streets of New York. Writing under the name SAMO©, Basquiat and partner Al Diaz co-opted the means of graffiti to build street cred and fame but they took it a step further by adding tongue-in-cheek turns of phrase in bold block letters. By avoiding the highly stylistic letterforms of graffiti writers, SAMO© made it clear: they wanted to be read, known, and understood. Theirs was a message to the people of New York.

SAMO© was a name that Diaz and Basquiat came up with one day while smoking they called “the same old shit.” They shortened it to “Same old,” then “SAMO” came through. At the time, Basquiat had been working in the art department of Unique Clothing Warehouse, perfectly situated at the intersection of Broadway and West Eighth Street. At night, they’d go out bombing, leaving messages behind, letting the city know what was on their mind.

“SAMO©… THE SO-CALLED AVANT GARDE”
“SAMO©… 4 MASS MEDIA MINDWASH”
“SAMO as an alternative 2 playing art with the ‘radical chic’ sect of Daddy’s$funds’

While art critic Jeffrey Deitch described the messages as “disjointed street poetry” in a 1982 issue of Flash Art, Basquiat admitted in a video interview that first ran on ART in 1998 it was, “Teenage stuff. We’d just drink Ballantine Ale all the time and write stuff and throw bottles…”—because, in fact, he was just 18 and 19 years of age.

But then, in 1979, things changed. Basquiat and his friend Alexis Adler got a small apartment in the East Village together. The Brooklyn-native was on his own, free to explore life on his terms. Although his work as SAMO© continued through 1980, it was slowly getting phased out as Basquiat began to develop his work as a fine artist.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Photo: Basquiat in the apartment, 1981. Photograph by Alexis Adler.

Photo: Basquiat practicing clarinet in the bathroom of the apartment, c. 1980. Photograph by Alexis Adler.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography

Most Scandalous Art Shows of All Time

Posted on April 27, 2017

Gran Fury for ACT UP

The best art upends expectations and social mores, challenging the status quo by transgressing the boundaries of polite society. Because, let’s face it, truth isn’t kind to those who lie to themselves. But like the sun and the moon, the truth will always out.

Great art is a vessel for truth, allowing artists to speak freely without ever uttering a word. The immediacy of sight and the way it work on the brain allows it to change the way we perceive the world by upending the power of words to articulate and explain. “Seeing is believing” as the old proverb goes, and with that in mind, artists can change your mind without giving you a chance to argue. In celebration of the power of art, Crave has compiled a list of the most scandalous art shows of all time.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

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

Jamel Shabazz: Crossing 125th

Posted on April 26, 2017

Photo: Style and Finesse, 2010. Digital chromogenic print, 16 × 20 in. Courtesy the artist. © Jamel Shabazz

Harlem is the heart and soul of New York, the epicenter of African-American life, culture, history, and hustle. At the turn of the twentieth-century, this vast tract of land in upper Manhattan quickly became the destination for black folks leaving the South en masse during the Great Migration. Here, folks created a town within a city entirely its own, dominating the wide boulevards and stately homes with a style and approach to life that combined the very best of the North and the South.

It was during this first wave that the Harlem Renaissance was born, giving rise to a flourishing movement of a wide array of arts from literature, poetry, and drama to music, dance, and theater. Visual artists also took root, creating images that bespoke not just the times but also the rich and textured history of African-American life as seen through the eyes of the people.

Among the great artists of the era was James Van DerZee, one of the premier photographers of the twentieth century. During the 1920 and ‘30s, he crafted a compelling pictures of Harlem’s emerging middle class that employed the elements of traditional Victorian portraiture—but took them to new heights but connecting with the spirit of his subjects and bringing out their glamorous inner light. Van DerZee’s photographs came to define Harlem in a way that few other photographers ever could, and in doing so, he influenced generations to come—including the great Jamel Shabazz.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Photo: Double Exposure, 1990. Digital chromogenic print, 16 × 20 in. Courtesy the artist. © Jamel Shabazz.

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

Ryan McGinley: The Kids Were Alright

Posted on April 24, 2017

Photo: “Red Mirror”, 1999. Courtesy Ryan McGinley and team (gallery, inc.) © Ryan McGinley.

On a chilly night back in February 2003, Ryan McGinley: The Kids Are Alright opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ryan McGinley, then just 25-years-old, was the youngest artist to have a solo show in the museum’s seven decades on Madison Avenue.

I’m not entirely sure the Whitney knew what to expect, as the denizens of downtown piled into the tiny gallery. I overheard a security guard say, “Excuse me, ma’am. Do not lean against the art,” to blonde in a faux-fur coat with slurry eyes. Moments later a security guard said, The blonde shoved on, disappearing into the throngs that jostled their way in and out of the exhibition. The lurid, glamorous and grizzled characters in McGinley’s photographs were there in the flesh, celebrating the artist’s quicksilver rise to the top. In a period of just five years, McGinley documented the luminous tail of the bohemian comet that swept New York throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

McGinley hung with a squadron of graffiti writers, artists, and personalities that made their own rules – and what remains of those days and nights are the photos. Some 1,600 pictures made between 1998 and 2003, most never-before-seen, have just been released in the new book, The Kids Were Alright, (Rizzoli) to time with an exhibition of the same name now at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver through August 17, 2017.

The documentary-style photographs and Polaroids are raw, sexy images of intense intimacy. Whether partying, having sex, or just hanging out, McGinley’s photos present a portrait of his generation at their most uninhibited peak. McGinley spoke with Dazed about coming of age in True York.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Dazed, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Photography

Enter the Fantastical Realm of Photographer Karen Knorr

Posted on April 17, 2017

On Saturday, as April the Giraffe gave birth to a male giraffe at Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, New York. An estimated 1.25 million people watched the miracle of life unfold on livestream, Tweeting up a storm, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this poor creature will be separated from April once he is weaned. Unable to live in the wild, the baby giraffe is destined to live his entire life in captivity and kept on display as fodder for the insatiable human appetite to consume the natural world.

The birth comes at a time when the Giraffe Conservation Foundation has warned that the giraffe population has plummeted more than 40% over the past three decades, placing it on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “Red List,” with the threat of extinction looming on the horizon.

Giraffes are but one of the countless creatures being brought to the brink of death, whether hunted down by poachers or dealing with the tragic loss of natural habitats. At the same time, animals are continuously kidnapped and forced into captivity, forced to live in unnatural conditions until the day they die, their only purpose to serve as sources of “entertainment” for an unempathetic populace.

The disjunction between nature and culture is so vast that people take pleasure and pride in casting animals in manmade scenarios taken to narcissistic heights. German photographer Karen Knorr understands this, and has created a body of work that both critiques this perversion, while simultaneously playing it up.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

“Black Mirror” Explores Our Dystopian World

Posted on April 17, 2017

Artwork: Claudia Parducci WHERE TO RUN, 2007, Pencil, watercolor on paper 22×30 inches

We have reached a time when science fiction appears as fact, as prescient warning of the perils of human nature and its love for technology. “Just because we can does not mean we should” is the underlying moral of this realm of fantastical thought.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge,” Albert Einstein hypothesized. “For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” But, of course, this was the man who signed his name to shore up political support for the Manhattan Project.

Einstein’s belief is tellingly flawed. Evolution happens naturally; it does not need imagination to occur. “Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters,” the painter Francisco Goya understood. Perhaps what is missing from the conversation is a discussion of reason itself.

One can logically proceed from an irrational premise—as so much technology does. The idea that technology is an “improvement” is presumptuous at best, and stems from acute cognitive dissonance. The underlying ethos of science fiction is to see into the future with the knowledge that the more things change, they more they remain the same.

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Artwork: Cole M. James, Manchego, Compiled visual experiences captured between 2011-2016 2min 36 sec 2016

Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Hiba Schahbaz: Self Portraits

Posted on April 13, 2017

Hiba Schahbaz, Self Portrait as Grand Odalisque (after Ingres), 2016. Tea, watercolor, and ink on indian paper 60 x 83 in.

Growing up in a family of artists in modern Pakistan, Hiba Schahbaz intuitively picked up a brush and began to paint. As she entered her pre-teen years, she became interested in painting the female nude, as her art began to explore more mature themes that reflected her own physical, emotional, and spiritual growth from child to adolescent.

But in the conservative Muslim country, it was impossible to find a woman willing to pose so Schahbaz did what any enterprising visionary would do: she used herself as the subject of her work. At the same time, Schahbaz was well aware of the prohibitions against her work. “There was a stigma attached to painting myself nude,” she told Crave. So to avoid being identified, she painted her body, but not her face.

“It was bad enough that all there were all these nudes. I’m sure people were aware that it was a self-portrait but if I put in my face, it would be very troublesome to my family,” she recalls. “It was a survival tactic. You paint what you need to paint but not get into too much trouble and make sure everyone is safe.”

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Hiba Schahbaz, Self-Portrait as Eve (after Dürer), 2016. Tea, watercolor, ink, poster paint on twinrocker 88 x 39 in

Hiba Schahbaz, Self Portrait as Sleeping Venus (after Giorgione) , 2017. Tea, watercolour, ink and poster paint on Twinrocker 48 x 99 in

Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Women