It’s good to be back
Stefano Pasquini
It’s been almost two years since I’ve
been in New York, and last time I was here the city was still recovering from
9-11. Now we’re all back on track, and walking around the city is somewhat
refreshing for me. I forgot how many galleries there are; so much art makes it
almost a paradise. Yet the first couple of days I was here I was quite disappointed
with the shows I saw and had the feeling that nothing had changed in the art
scene in the last few years. In a way, this can be true, and to foreign eyes
New York can be seen almost reactionary in comparison to what we have witnessed
in Europe in the last few years, like in Venice or at the last Documenta, for
example. Yet I loved noticing that in New York things are still where they are
supposed to be. Great artwork in great galleries, crap artwork in crap galleries,
and work that is fertile, understandable, well lit and not crammed against other
work, unless the artist intended to do so.
Williamsburg has grown to be more mature, and
even the newest galleries have a very professional aura to them that gives you
the feeling this is a place where serious business is going on, and not just
a freaky trendy spot to play around with paint and a guitar. I was pleased to
see that some of the galleries I saw opening a few years back have now a serious
international reputation.
Yes, it’s good to be back.
I’m not sure this is still the center
of the contemporary art world, but if it isn’t, it’s only because there
can’t be one any longer.
I started my venture of the New York fall
season, of all places, in SoHo, where an interesting show titled “Flat Out”
was showing at Deitch. Kristin Baker’s vision of the future is as bright
as the bright red of a Ferrari racecar. These huge paintings, made altogether
with racecar color tape and paint, have a real sleek feeling to them, and I walked
out wondering what she drives.
At Gallery 456 on Broadway there’s
a really fun group show titled “De-Clothing Society – Artistic Imagination
and Social Practices”. The exhibition revolves around the paradoxical aspects
of clothing, with a huge installation by Chang-Jin Lee of a sawing machine endlessly
sawing toilet paper, ironical photographs by Yu Zhang of a newly wedded couple
in Tienan Men Square wearing masks against a possible SARS infection, and ON/Megumi
Akiyoshi’s documentation of her ON Gallery performances in New York and
Japan. I loved the video of her wearing the traveling gallery in small Japanese
villages, with all these old women wondering what the hell was going on.
Then I had the chance to catch the last
day of Carla Gannis’ solo show at Wax Gallery on West 21st Street, titled
“Travelogue.” I’ve been following her work for a number of years
now, and I was pleased to see a stable growth in the quality of her ironical
drawings. Her main theme is still women’s condition, and how this can turn
into an advantage, together with a filmic and surreal vision of everyday situations
that always bring out a smile. Her newest digital work, a mixture of 3D graphic
and Photoshop technique, not only is extremely innovative, but it’s used
in such a subtle way that after looking at the prints for a few seconds you completely
forget about how they’re made and concentrate on the psychological depth
of the message. I don’t get why a commercial gallery hasn’t picked
her yet.
Making my way to Williamsburg I saw three
really good shows: John Freyer at the Fish Tank Gallery, Peter Scott at Schroeder
Romero and Chris Doyle at Jessica Murray Projects. I remember and loved Freyer’s
allmylifeforsale.com, and this new body of work follow his eclectically conceptual
style: a bunch of liquor bottles in paper bags stuck on the stairs of the gallery,
then you enter the main space and there they are, beautifully photographed on
a white background. Very interesting was also the video collage “motion_pictures”
with many segments coming from different sources in a strange New York karma
flux. I like this guy.
And I liked the watercolor of Chris Doyle’s
show at Jessica Murray. You probably remember him for his video in Columbus Circle
in 2000. These watercolors not only are they craftily painted with extreme sensitivity,
but they also have a diaristic edge to it, and coming from a conceptual artist,
they obviously include some of the processing of other of his works, together
with a Bruce Nauman remake of one of his performances. The self-reference here
becomes a homage to artmaking.
At Schroeder Romero Peter Scott showed
a series of photographs and some mirrors. Thanks to the photographs – that
show you what’s in the mirror – you get to look closer through the
mirror and find some strange looking faces behind it, that you can only see when
you obscure the mirror with your body. Once again we see that behind the clean
façade of middle class morality lays something obscure, incestuous or
just plain weird.
Many more are the shows to mention, even
though – apart from In full view at Andrea Rosen – Chelsea seemed to
me the same as usual, and many more are the shows I’m looking forward to
seeing this fall. And ok. maybe the quality is not any higher than any other
place in Europe, but there’s something in New York art that I haven’t
witnessed anywhere else so far: its energy.
