Photos By Gail
This Sculpture / Installation, Untitled (Night Train) (1989) by African-American artist David Hammons had just been re-rotated into display from the permanent collection at MOMA when I visited earlier this month, and I think it’s really terrific.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Untitled (Night Train) By David Hammons
All Photos By Gail
James Cohan Gallery is currently hosting a diverse a group exhibition entitled By Proxy, which Geoffrey and I stumbled upon during our most recent art crawl.
Oliver Laric, Yuanmingyuan Columns
The exhibit title, By Proxy, referes to what Marcel Duchamp called “aesthetic osmosis” — the process by which an artist transfers responsibility to a viewer, empowering them to complete the work out in the world. This idea, of art as shared enterprise, is the theme of this exhibition. Here, the word proxy encompasses the tools and techniques that complete artworks away from the artist’s hand. This exhibition is concerned with those tools and techniques, the effects they can have, and the instances when an idea calls for more than just the artist to take form.
Xu Zhen, Eternity – Aphrodite of Knidos
By Proxy includes Duchamp’s assisted readymade With Hidden Noise, a ball of string with an unknown object rattling inside it; embroidery works by Alighiero Boetti; three drawings from John Cage’s 1990 series River Rocks and Smoke, in which chance operations are performed by smoke settling in the fibers of the paper; Oliver Laric’s Yuanmingyuan Columns, a new work created with 3D scans of Chinese cultural artifacts ensconced in Bergen, Norway; Yoko Ono’s seminal chess set and war allegory Play it By Trust; and a work from Xu Zhen’s recent Eternity series, which juxtaposes the East and West by mounting headless replicas of key Hellenistic and Buddhist sculptures neck to neck.
Play It By Trust, Chess Board Detail (above) and Sign (below), which appears on the backs of each chair.
Xu Zhen, Under Heaven
Detail from Above Painting
The exhibition incorporates work from the past century to the present day. Participating artists are Francis Alÿs, Alighiero Boetti, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Wade Guyton, Oliver Laric, Lee Mingwei, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, Jon Rafman, Mariah Robertson, Siebren Versteeg and Xu Zhen. Definitely worth checking out.
Wade Guyton, Untitled, 2007 (Left): Marcel Duchamp, With Hidden Noise (Right)
By Proxy will be on Exhibit Through January 17th, 2015 at James Cohan Gallery, Located at 533 West 26th Street, in the chelsea Gallery District. Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM.
Photo By Gail
Created in 1925, Marcel Duchamp’s Rotary Demisphere (Precision Optics) is a kinetic sculpture that turns itself on at random intervals. Back in Paris after World War I, Duchamp experimented with machines that produced optical effects — work he had begun in New York. When this machine is set in motion, the circles appear to pulsate toward the viewer. The copper ring around the dome’s circumference is engraved with French words chosen for the way their sounds echo one another: Rrose Selavy et moi esquivons les ecchymoses des esquimaux aux mots exquis (Rrose Selavy and I dodge the Eskimos’s bruises with exquisite words).
Rotary Demisphere is part of the Permanent Collection at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Find it in the Painting and Sculpture Galleries.
Photo By Gail
I first became acquainted with Marcel Duchamp’s very famous sculpture, Fresh Widow (1920), when I was studying art in college. Constructed by a carpenter in accordance with Duchamp’s instructions, Fresh Widow is a small version of the double doors commonly called a French window. Duchamp was fascinated by themes of sight and perception; here, the expectation of a view through windowpanes is thwarted by opaque black leather, which Duchamp insisted “be shined everyday like shoes.”
Fresh Widow is also reference to the recent abundance of widows of World War I fighters.
An inscription at the sculpture’s base reads COPYRIGHT ROSE SELAVY 1920, making it the first work to be signed by Duchamp’s female alter ego Rose Sélavy (later spelled Rrose). Duchamp derived the name from the French saying: “éros, c’est la vie,” which can be interpreted as “the sex drive is life.”
Fresh Widow is part of the permanent collection at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art.
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Artist Don Porcella currently has a Solo Exhibition of new and favorite works – featuring both his trademark pipe cleaner sculptures and his hand made encaustic paintings– at Spattered Columns Exhibition Space, a venue for NYC- based artists and curators without commercial gallery representation, which is run by Art Connects New York. You may have read about Don’s awesome art previously here at The Gig or elsewhere: his work is always thought provoking and a lot of fun. Continue reading Everything and Nothing at All: New Works by Don Porcella