Summer Picks
Christopher Chambers
Gregory Colbert, from "Ashes and Snow."
As of this article, my top pick of the spring season in New York is Joe Fyfe’s tasteful exhibition of small to mid-size abstract paintings on burlap at J.G. Contemporary. The work stands out by whispering in the storm of brazen and blaring banalities that comprise the bulk of exhibitions around the neighborhood. Fyfe applies paint very thinly, patches of delicate color form small oblong and rectangular skeins over mottled white fields. It is strong and sure, but gentle. Call it minimalist theory with an art brut sensibility.
I have a bad head for names. But I already remember Gregory Colbert. P.T. Barnum-style, he has arrived in town and pitched his enormous "tent" on a Hudson River pier off Manhattan. Many of us noticed the shipping containers accumulating as the temporary traveling museum was being constructed. And you could not ignore the unprecedented advertising campaign around the city. The first round of teaser-billboards had no writing on them, so who could possibly connect the meditative photos to the commotion on the pier? But Colbert’s name and intentions were soon brandished in another wave of advertising. In Christo-fashion, he has made his name known across Gotham, and soon the world. Colbert has done it without the aid of the nepotistic and rarefied gallery/museum power structure. But he does have a good PR firm and a weighty sponsor to help him. Rolex is partially funding this gargantuan, peripatetic vanity gallery. And all for a good cause too: Here’s to nature!
Of course corporate sponsorship of museum shows is nothing new, and DJ Spooky has been getting excellent mileage from Infiniti car ads recently, but this is another animal. It is a one-man publicity coup. I always admire artists able to fly right over the heads of the artworld–selling directly to the public; not catering to the caprices of the fickle art biz while not selling out to commercial ends either. Call it buying in. But we’re not talking about co-op galleries here, or pet portrait shops. This is X-tra large.
As I approached Pier 54 on a rainy Sunday morning there was a line of about 50 people. I decided to come back another time. A few Sundays later, I took my young daughter out on a beautiful afternoon to see the art show about children and animals. There were about a thousand people on line outside. The people at the desk couldn’t find our tickets and doubted my credentials. Wouldn’t let us in. Strike two. Third try: Closed Mondays. Well, I should have known that. Fourth try: Finally gained entry amidst profuse apologies from PR staff. The work itself is likable enough. Sepia-toned photographs printed on Japanese paper of Asiatic kids with their eyes closed communing with wild animals; and a video of same. It’s sweet. A zen-like audio track adds a spiritual overtone.
Michael Zansky’s installation, "American Panopticon," is the first solo exhibition at the year-old Gigantic Art Space in Tribeca. It is the most successful display of his artistic practices to date. He makes masterful use of the quirky gallery space, with its ramps and off-shooting small rooms, to create a suite of visually stunning environments. In the back room the walls are painted black and a three-foot lens distorts the cavorting, quasi-scientific objects rollicking on flimsy kinetic devices. Lenses are used throughout the exhibition to manipulate video projections and a variety of hi and low tech objects. A stretched silhouette of the U.S. is silk-screened on one wall, encapsulating the exhibition’s theme of warped perceptions and obsessive surveillance.
