#museumterm

A Look at Bushwick (Bogart St)

Memorial Day Weekend put a damper on my Bushwick gallery trek, as most places marked themselves “closed for the holiday”, but I managed catch up with some galleries I’d stepped in before. After trekking up and down Morgan Ave and Knickerbocker, trying to find an open gallery (there weren’t any, darn you Luhring Augustine), I headed back to Bogart for a second look at the galleries from my previous visit.

Momenta Art

Momenta had my favorite art pieces from the last visit and, after this visit, still holds that first spot on my favorite list with Justin Randolph Thompson’s Moldy Figs. Having studied music and art throughout my collection, I can’t not love sound installations, especially when one is so fantastically presented. Set up in a carnival style, Thompson’s red-curtained sculptural installation featured several different stations of instruments, boxes, record album covers, clothing, and even a hanging chandelier. Sounding throughout the room was a classical jazz piece that called-and-responded through several sections. Trust me: It was very cool.

Honey Ramka

Around the corner from Momenta is Honey Ramka which I can always count on for the oddest, but most memorable pieces that I’ve ever seen. Doll-like sculptures presented on pedestals dot the open space while large paintings, all done by different artists frame the walls around them. It was a little bizarre, a little disturbing, and the title Puppet Panic was completely apt. Well done Paul Bergeron, Katrina Fimmel, Jason Reyen, and Ana Wieder-Blank.

Beyond the gallerist’s desk is another small show, Abscissas and Ordinates featuring artists Lars van Dooren and John O’Connor, which though less bizarre, holds the same frenetic energy as the rest of the exhibition displayed. The chaos inspired “patterned complexes or hyper-mediated data sets” led to very interesting painting and print pieces.

Slag Contemporary

Across the hall, in another wood-paneled floor and open-spaced room is Slag. Today’s exhibition, RITES,  featured artists Tirtzah Bassel and Dumitru Gorzo. Slag is definitely right to showcase these two artists together. Together their art just fits without over-shadowing one or the other. If I had the money, I’d buy a piece from each artist and display them together. It works.

One of my favorite pieces from Bassel featured a giant painted rendition of a woman parsing through a rack of red dress (all the same). In the background stands the markings of a shopping mall. Another woman wearing a very similar outfit to the woman in the foreground makes her way down the stairs, presumably to toward the same rack of red dresses.

Another favorite, from Gorzo, displays two figures— female and male. They stand together, their hollowed out eyes staring at something beyond the frame. Above them broad multi-colored strokes rain dripping paint which smudges into puddles underneath their feet. It’s eery. It’s beautiful.

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A Look at Bennington (Eva Respini)

Last week we made our way back up to Vermont, to the quaint, picturesque hills of Bennington. It was a healthy break from New York. My lungs exchanged the scents of dog urine, car exhaust and city smog for lilacs, grass, and mountain air. Instead of New York architecture, my eye got to take in Vermont’s green mountainous nubs. It was good to be back for the day.

Before her VALS lecture, we sat down with Eva Respini on Tishman’s balcony, taking advantage of the good weather and the site of a nesting turtle. Respini recently ended 14 years at MOMA to take over as the chief curator of the ICA in Boston. The ICA is a big change from MOMA; smaller with less resources but more flexibility than MOMA.

Respini was really open with us. Coming from a non-artistic background, she studied art history and comparative literature in her university years. It was refreshing to talk with someone who never thought of herself as a practicing artist. She began her foray into the art world by working as a front desk girl at a gallery then moved on to become a junior curator at MOMA. Respini is of a generation of people who could work their way up the ladder rungs of promotion, and eventually found herself as curator in the Department of Photography. Most people consider MOMA to be the pinnacle of their careers, having succeeded in the best of the best. Respini, having gotten to the top and wanting something different, decided to make a different move: leaving for the ICA. Though she hasn’t been at the ICA long (about two months), Respini is looking forward to a fresh new look at the world she’s been in for the past two decades.