Tag Archives: Mary Boone Gallery

John Miller’s Here in the Real World at Mary Boone Gallery

Installation View
All Photos By Gail

My memories of watching daytime TV Game Shows mostly involve being a kid who was home sick from school, or on summer vacation, because when else was I going watch them? What that means is that these memories of The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal are many decades in the past as this point, and yet they are quite clear and bring on a huge wave of fond nostalgia. This is probably why John Miller’s Here in the Real World, up now at the Mary Boone Gallery’s Chelsea location, resonated with me so strongly.

Here in the Real World features Miller’s Game Show Paintings (which he started painting in 1995) and his more recent series of reality TV personalities (started 2012), in which Miller selects images of people in purportedly uncontrived poses and paints them in a realist manner. Mary Boone’s cavernous room provides a perfect space for this show, which features many large scale canvases. Before I post more photos of the paintings however, I want to show you this:

Potato

Yes, that is a potato that was hanging out on the gallery’s front lobby carpet. Everybody wanted to know why there was a potato on the floor, and was it part of the show. And the answer is: I don’t know, but it is on a red carpet, so it must be important in some way.

Installation View
A Funny Forum Happened on the Way to the Thing

Paintings like the one on the far right, above, made me feel five years old instantly.

The Price Is Right

How great is this? So great.

New Car

“A Brand New Car!”

682 5 13

This is like a still frame from a dream isn’t it?

Labyrinth I
Labyrinth I

$40

What’s Behind the Door? It is a question for the ages.

Infinitesimal Eternity
Infinitesimal Eternity

The Worleygig highly recommends this exhibit.

John Miller’s Here in the Real World will be on Exhibit Through February 28th, 2015 at Mary Boone Gallery, Located at 541 West 24 Street, in the Chelsea Gallery District.

John Miller Exhibit Signage

Modern Art Monday Presents: I Shop Therefore I Am By Barbara Kruger

I Shop Therefore I Am By Barbara Kruger
Photographed By Gail at the Mary Boone Gallery on 24th Street in the Chelsea Gallery District

Commentary Below is Excerpted from Smithsonian Magazine‘s Barbara Kruger’s Artwork Speaks Truth to Power:

Even if you don’t know the name Barbara Kruger, you’ve probably seen her work in art galleries, on magazine covers or in giant installations that cover walls, billboards, buildings, buses, trains and tram lines all over the world. Kruger takes images from the mass media and pastes words over them, big, bold extracts of text — aphorisms, questions, slogans. Short machine-gun bursts of words that when isolated, and framed by Kruger’s gaze, linger in your mind, forcing you to think twice, thrice about clichés and catchphrases, introducing ironies into cultural idioms and the conventional wisdom they embed in our brains.

I Shop Therefore I Am, (1987), one of Kruger’s most famous works, makes a pointed critique of our consumer culture. Read more about the life and work of Barbara Kruger at the link above.

Tuesday Humor: It’s All About Priorities

He Couldn't Swim Joke
Photographed By Gail at Mary Boone Gallery, 24th Street, Chelsea Gallery District)

“I understand your husband drowned and left you two million dollars. Can you imagine, two million dollars, and he couldn’t even read or write.”

“Yeah,” she said, “and he couldn’t swim, either.”

Richard Prince – Couldn’t Read, Couldn’t Write, Couldn’t Swim, 1989

Keith Sonnier: Elysian Plain and Early Works at PACE Gallery

Keith Sonnier Elysian Plain
All Photos By Gail

New Yorkers: Don’t let all of this snow trap you inside the house for too long, because you have just over week to see the latest exhibit by minimalist sculptor Keith Sonnier, up now at PACE Gallery on West 25th Street. Elysian Plain + Early Works presents 12 works in neon, featuring the first series that Sonnier created in his new studio in Bridgehampton over the past three years and others that go back to the late 60s and early 70s (in fact, a few of the neon and glass pieces in this show looked familiar from Sonnier’s exhibit, 68 – 70  at Mary Boone Gallery from early last year).
Continue reading Keith Sonnier: Elysian Plain and Early Works at PACE Gallery

Cool Video: KAWS Shows Off Newest Installation at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts



Street Artist turned fine artist and designer KAWS (Brian Donnelly) is the subject of the above video feature created by Mass Appeal (a digital content channel platform). Kaws is ‘caus-ing” a bit of a commotion just recently with his design for the MTV Awards stage and a concurrent exhibit at Mary Boone Gallery in Manhattan, but this video focuses on what is his largest installation to date, now on exhibit at the historic Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

This exhibit at PAFA says so much about the evolution of street art to fine art, as KAWS, speaks about hosting the biggest exhibit of his career in one of the oldest museums in the US. At PAFA, his modern sculptures, paintings, and designs are displayed in installations around other famous artworks from the 18th and 19th centuries – creating a distinct view of how far art culture has come. In this fun video, KAWS discusses his approach to the installation, how the project came to be, how he worked with the space and the materials he used.

KAWS-@-PAFA-Pennsylvania-Academy-of-Fine-Arts
KAWS Installation View at PAFA (Image Source)

KAWS at PAFA will be on Exhibit Through January 5th, 2014, while his Sculpture at the Building’s Facade will be on Display Into August of 2014. Find Out More About the Exhibit, and Get Museum Hours and Information, at This Link.