#will I ever actually call melancholy kaleidoscope it’s actual name? no I will not

[spinningintheshadows]

Personally my favorite All Time Low song is Methamphetamine Teletubby

[abbeysnysemester-blog]

Week 15 Galleries

Walid Raad - Paula Cooper

Upon entering the gallery, I was immediately drawn to the large video piece that contains kaleidoscopic video of the city of Beirut, which coincidentally is where my mom was born, going through various changes. I think that seeing this without having a parent/extended family from Lebanon would be interesting on its own, but with my added familial connection to the place in the videos - it was a really interesting viewing experience. While there was some paintings in the show, I was not really interested in them overall as the very large video really had me enamored. The work is generally about how many changes Beirut has gone through during the violence and wars it has been put through. Watching the buildings being crushed and then the video reversing so the buildings are put back together left me with a really melancholy feeling. I have never been able to visit Lebanon because my mom says its too dangerous to go, so watching this video of the same area where my mom was born go through the destruction that it has but kind of from a voyeuristic standpoint was a really odd feeling. 

Vivian Suter - Gladstone

I really enjoyed seeing all of the various colors and shapes made by Vivian Suter’s exhibition at Gladstone Gallery. In it, there are innumerable flags and loose canvasses that are hung on the walls, from the ceiling, laid on the ground, and hung from a beam in a flag style. I think I was really interested in these because I made a piece about flags last year, in which I learned a lot about flag-making and the displaying of flags, so seeing this exhibition that had so many different forms of displaying the flags/fabric pieces was a really interesting time. When I made a piece with flags, I connected it to my family’s history of passing down rings from matriarch to matriarch, and sewed insignias of the rings onto the flags, in this instance, Vivian Suter seemed to use the abstract form of using specific colors to really indicate a sense of nostalgia and a sense of childlike wonder into the display of her works. A particular work I was really interested in was a quite large work in the middle of the room that had a few goldfish painted on it (or at least thats was what I interpreted them to be) but it kind of reminded me of a flag that a kid would hang atop their fort! Somewhat similar to the book ‘Where the Wild Things Are.” 

Josh Kline - 47 Canal

I have always heard about Josh Kline’s work, but never seen it in person! So I was interested to go an actually see them in person. I think my favorite piece of the entire exhibition was the chair and foot rest that were covered in clear vinyl and the vinyl had shredded financial documents inside of it. I knew that Josh Kline is pretty known for his extreme life-like figures (or at least that is what I had heard of him for) but I think after seeing one after the other all in the same show, the shock of seeing the first human being in a plastic bag like a goldfish kind of wears off a bit. Also back to the chair I was talking about, I think using things like newspaper clippings in art is kind of too heavy-handed for me - what can I say a little nuance goes a long way! I think I mainly liked the chair as I generally think it would be a piece of furniture I would want to own, vs. admiring it as a revolutionary piece of art. I did think that the titles of each of the pieces of the figures in the goldfish bags were really interesting though, how they included the implied names of each character/figure, and the occupation they held. I could understand the commentary that Josh Kline was trying to make, I just generally was interested by the forms moreso than the function!

David Shrigley - Anton Kern

Going to see this show POST meeting David Shrigley was a really interesting phenomenon for me to go through. Prior to meeting David Shrigley at his olive oil can signing at Printed Matter, I don't really think I had ever heard of him before; However, everyone at PM was basically kind of fan-girling over him and it was really interesting to watch the situation happen because I really had no idea who he was and was just supposed to make sure he wasn't bored and had water! We started talking about what else he was doing in town and he explained how he had an opening that was coming up for the next weekend, and said that we should all come, and that is why I decided to go check out some work by David Shrigley. Its really interesting to me to be able to see a show by an artists after you meet them, especially if their work is very humorous, like David Shrigley’s. His sense of humor in person is very sarcastic and dry and dark humory, so therefore seeing his work after experiencing that, basically made the work all make sense to me. I think that his drawings are interesting, but was also really intrigued by his sculptural piece in the show, which was a box that had basically some tufts of fluff being pushed around via air vents and the LED sign above them that read, “Fluff War,” which reminded me of a ‘Hungry Hungry Hippos,’ related game, which I personally think David would like the comparison - haha.  

Alex Israel - Greene Nafali

In the Alex Israel installation, “As It Lays 2,” there are a lot of pieces that are ‘self-portraits,’ that are things like signed photographs of celebrities in a collage, or a collection of golden tickets from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but the part of the exhibition that was the most exciting to me was the fake talk-show set that was built and christened ‘As It Lays,’ with a glowing neon light hanging above the two talk show chairs and veranda-esque set up. The set up looked kind of like a cross between a weird church from the 70′s and a outside patio somewhat because of the greenery behind the stage. I think I thought that this piece was so cool and interesting because for one thing, I had been thinking of making a video series where I had a weird talk show going on, and second, because It was seemingly so impeccably made and detailed! I think when carpet is added into a gallery setting or piece, it makes a set up look a lot more believable and homely to me - which I think I have said before but in this piece especially it was a really prominent factor, that carpet really comes along with a specific set of associations for me, and homeliness is a big part of that! 

Sunil Gupta - Hales

I was really interested in going to see this show because I had seen the book that pictures from this show were taken from at Printed Matter, and was really interested in it but it was really expensive! So being able to go and see the show in person was a really interesting experience to see. The exhibition was called, “Christopher Street,” which was the same title of the phonebook at printed matter. The book is a set of pictures of men on the actual Christopher Street in New York in 1976, of queer men going about their day. Its a really interesting series of images showing a community in a historic point in time! Everyone in the West Village is shown to be wearing beautiful and eclectic outfits, while also at that time in history facing having pretty recently been through the stonewall riots and being an active part in gay/queer liberation!