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It was a blast attending the inaugural for Fusion Arts Museum on Stanton Street on the Lower East Side last month. Inaugural is almost a misnomer, because the place has been there since the early eighties, “back in the day. ” But now it’s going to be open to the public regular hours, if you can figure out what they are, that is. You’ve probably noticed it, near Forsythe Street, the place with all the crazy metal work caging the front window? There was a brilliant sculptural thing in that window, about dead artists, by the noted eccentric Hoop (you know, that guy who attaches fuzzy psychedelic stuff to cars and vans and parks them around arty neighborhoods.)
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Steve Mumford Night Patrol, 2003 watercolor and ink on paper 11 x 14 inches.
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Inside was a group show of about twenty
artists, and a few giant techno robots with 1980s style painting emblazoned on
them. In between sets of the unbelievably corny stage show that was going on, I
managed to talk Shalom– the owner and progenitor of said artworks– into
flipping the switch, which was located in penile position, and we got to watch
the enormous contraptions jiggle and dance for a second or two. If you do
make it down to the old neighborhood, try to stop in and visit Tony Zito’s
studio/gallery/portrait shop on Ludlow Street. I really admire Zito for
effectively telling the artworld to shove it, “I’ve got to make a living,” by
opening his own art store where he does quite well proffering his own goods.
Also on the subject of the East Village scene in its heyday, Rick Proll was the
archetypal East Village artist with his punk rock style of anti-painting. This
fall, he inaugurated the Maya Stendhall Gallery in Chelsea. There was no
mistaking his trademark scarecrow character brandishing broken bottles and
jagged knives, but he has reworked the surfaces and lent them more texture than
I remember from the 80s. In the project room he showed a sculpture and
preliminary sketches that almost seemed like the work of a different artist.
The show holds the handsome new space well and will, hopefully, launch
something of a comeback for Mr. Proll.
I’ve never
particularly cared for Steve Mumford’s work. I mean, the sinking car surrounded
by sharks was amusing, but I dunno, it didn’t really make me want to dance. And
that last New York show was, I thought, frankly, pretty bad. So when
Postmistress Magda told me that he was in Iraq carrying out art sorties I
didn’t exactly rush to artnet to check out his online journal. Well, I have
viewed the work on display at Postmasters gallery this month and it is as good
as any art I have ever seen. Some of the pieces are flawless. Perfect.
Mumford
has taken his sketchpad and a press pass to the post-invasion nation in duress
and drawn and painted from life, old school traditional. His technique is a bit
like Rembrandt’s pen and ink landscape work. He certainly makes no attempt to
be forward thinking conceptually, and his approach isn’t flashy, but he sure
plays the shit out of that guitar, if you get my analogy. There’s a line from a
poem by Dylan Thomas, “Where there is no wax, the candle bares its wick.” There
is no wax here. Just pure burning wick. Mumford had to work quickly, squatting
in the sand, or perched on a cot in army barracks, leaving no room for errors
and corrections, forcing his hand to be sure and loose. The renderings are
honest and unaffected. Although his subject is journalistic, the paintings
don’t read as illustrations. An intense, palpable vibe jumps right off the
pages. The word is “verve,” I believe. The epic proportions of his journey are
plainly evident, and what at first seemed a bit like profiteering to me, now
sounds more like stories I’ve heard about Charley Parker rolling in garbage in
an alley before going on or locking himself in a closet with nothing but his saxophone
for three days. Inspiration is where you find it. Sometimes you have to look
pretty hard, other times it just won’t leave you alone. Steve Mumford has
captured the essence of existence, a very dangerous one– now, then, or later.
His results are triumphant, regardless.
A few
words about the ChanSchatz show at Massimo Audiello: This exhibition has
everything in terms of contemporary picture making that Mumford hasn’t, but
then it lacks exactly what he has achieved with his anachronistic approach. Although
the work of this professorial team is glitzy, crass, and generally annoying in
its attempts to homogenize with the “new,” their approach is intellectually
compelling. They combine a plethora of painterly and graphic techniques in
fuschia and puce to achieve a semblance of the new world order in acrylic and
ink, comprising new age emblems, background haze, and gestural microcosms. It
is very intelligently composed, effectively addressing the painters’ dilemma
of, “what next.” What I’m trying to say is that I don’t like it, but it’s very
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