| An abundance of conceptually informed exhibitions opened in New York in the space of three days at the end of October 2008, buoying the spirits in the wake of collapsing world economies. Consider that art is a language, intentions and materials, techniques, historical referents, among its parameters. The relational aesthetics, demonstrated by a core group of the 90s at the Guggenheim, are not a new concept but an agreeable show of younger artists’ work. Recall Beuys’ Free International University, the Green Party, and Social Sculpture, an assertion of the individual’s social existence as a malleable form of potentially creative political structuring. | 
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L Brandon Krall on theanyspacewhatever, Guggenheim Museum; Lothar Baumgarten, Marian Goodman Gallery; Joseph Kosuth Early Works, Sean Kelly Gallery; Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Pulse Park, Madison Square Park
Courtesy of the Guggenheim.
An abundance of conceptually informed exhibitions opened in New York in the space of three days at the end of October 2008, buoying the spirits in the wake of collapsing world economies. Consider that art is a language, intentions and materials, techniques, historical referents, among its parameters. The relational aesthetics, demonstrated by a core group of the 90s at the Guggenheim, are not a new concept but an agreeable show of younger artists’ work. Recall Beuys’ Free International University, the Green Party, and Social Sculpture, an assertion of the individual’s social existence as a malleable form of potentially creative political structuring. The importance of applying this realization outside the institutions of art is also one of the parameters of Situationist practices. Of course there is Duchamp, and why he quit painting. His activities, especially that of respirateur speak volumes, without words. Take a deep breath and think about it. In these four shows one can savor the balance weighted toward grey matter while reading diverse meta-narratives.
Lothar Baumgarten at the Goodman Gallery is offering a sound environment, Matteawan / Fishkill Creek, completed last year about which he wrote, “It is the experience of the phonic drama in an urban landscape in which one becomes aware of the ongoing shift and coexistence of culture and nature.” His practice cross-references and informs, through structural works, the underlying concerns with nature and culture. In temporal-spacial compositions like Fragmento Brasil, which asks the viewer to dwell awhile among projections on seven machines. We see randomized sequences of paired and one single projection, combining three image types. Delightfully painted portraits of birds by Albert Eckhout are reminiscent in style to the work of American painter George Catlin, who captured many American Indians before their extinction. The bird characters are both full images with their names in the composition, and cropped to show details of the landscapes or the animal. These are mixed with black-and-white photographs of the Rio Caroni, Rio Uraricuera, and Rio Branco regions in Venezuela and Brazil taken by the artist in 1977 on a five-month walk. These photographs suggest that the locations may have been destroyed by natural or human forces. A third image type are cropped abstract pattern-based drawings made by Yãnomãmi tribespeople between 1978 and 1980. It would be interesting if the piece gave more information about the protocol and procedures involved in making the drawings. About it the artist has written:
The painted European vision of Brazilian birds opposes the exploring native hand. The configurations of both lines and concept overlay another. Through this binary stratum they talk back to us about the diversity of two multiple shaped worlds…. The abstract drawings and watercolors of the Yãnomãmi people represent the animistic cosmos of a non-writing society. In their abstraction they often match the plumage pattern of the birds. This species are also game and find regular use in the native kitchen. People adorn themselves with their feathers or use those patterns of the plumage for body painting or to adorn their goods. This exceptional and intriguing circumstance and stunning quality became the material source to develop this piece. The drawings of the Yãnomãmi, who hadn’t experienced a sheet of paper before they drew on it, are extraordinarily sensual through their spiritual truth and technical skills. These markings were animated and collected by my self during a time frame of eighteen months while I lived among the people of Kashorawë-theri in the Upper Orinoco region in 1978-1980.
Ten of the earliest works by Joseph Kosuth from 1965 to 1970, in pristine condition and elegantly installed, are on view at the Sean Kelly Gallery. A classic and original relational work, Information Room (Special Investigation) of 1970, can be installed in any space whatever. Here it involves a room painted a warm dark color, containing two simple tables bearing newspapers, periodicals, and books of all kinds, which treat art history, philosophy, language, scientific, and intellectual theory. Simple wooden chairs like those one might find in a school classroom of the 70s, are there for visitors to use while perusing and studying the materials. A voluptuous collection of printed matter, and while they may remind one of texts needing to be read or re-read, what is a book? It is the container of ideas, human thought transmitted through time by language on a printed page.
The Definitions series shown here Blue, Orange, Green, Purple, Red and Yellow are each an enlarged dictionary definition of the referenced color, large white silk-screened text on a black field. Glass Words Material Described, are four glass panels spaced along the floor, leaning against the wall, each bearing a referential word, “glass,” “words,” “material,” and “described.” A transparent bow to the inventor of readymades, One and Three Shovels, consisting of an actual shovel hanging from the wall, beside a full-sized photograph of the shovel, beside a photographic enlargement of the definition of “shovel.” Kosuth’s work was essential in the progression of modern art. The 60s and 70s, when this work occurred, was creatively explosive in America, Europe, South America, parts of Asia, and to artists around the world. Pop, minimal, photography, painting, dance, music, literature, poetry, the sciences, in every field of human endeavor, an expansive and ideal driven forward movement occurred. What is “art”—perhaps the most important question—was nakedly posed. Kosuth’s work is formally refined and beautifully demonstrates aesthetic mastery in putting art back in the service of the mind.
theanyspacewhatever exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum was organized by Nancy Specter, chief curator, and manager of the Hugo Boss Prize since its inception in 1996. Hugo Boss, the clothing company, is a principal sponsor of the show. Since 2004 regular meetings with the ten participants has resulted in an exhibition that is spry, and at times, beautiful. Simultaneously, three galleries off the rotunda show series of photographs by Catherine Opie, and one is a tribute to Robert Rauschenberg. The press release summarizes:
During the 1990s a number of artists claimed the exhibition as their medium. Working independently or in various collaborative constellations, they eschewed the individual object in favor of the exhibition environment as a dynamic arena, ever expanding its physical and temporal parameters. For these artists, an exhibition can comprise a film, a novel, a shared meal, a social space, a performance, or a journey. Using the museum as a springboard for work that reaches beyond the visual arts, their practices often commingle with other disciplines such as literature, architecture, design, and theater, engaging directly with the vicissitudes of everyday life to offer subtle moments of transformation.
Eight men and two women were chosen as exemplars of this creative impulse: Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. A number have been in exhibitions curated by Nicolas Bourriaud who coined the expression “relational aesthetics,” defining it as "a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space." The Guggenheim show seems a bit self-conscious and it includes contributions from satellite participants with the artists, The Wrong Gallery, a brainchild of Jeffrey Deitsch, is represented by a reprinted periodical giveaway, if you notice it in racks on the museum’s ground floor.
Douglas Gordon’s Prettymucheverywordwritten,spoke,heard,overheardfrom1989 . . ., uses wall texts in various fonts and sizes; they are encountered on ceilings, and around corners, in a jubilant and thoughtful kind of hide and seek with your internal monologue. Liberating the audience from the said expectations of museum installations. They are in the stairwells and the elevator, “someone is listening.” Liam Gillick’s signage system is amusing and détournes the usual expectation for museum signage, it is a lot heavier, suspended in the airspace they can be humorous and graphically interesting.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s, Promenade, on the third ramp of the museum is wonderfully minimal consisting of a divine white baffle of white scrim material and a sound composition resembling a rain storm, achieved through more than eight channels of sound. A light-sound installation commissioned for the Works & Process series, NY.2022 will regularly animate the Peter B. Lewis Theater, it was created in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers.
Angela Bulloch’s, Firmamental Night Sky: Oculus.12 and her “pixel box” sculptures, a series that use neon and musical sounds, meticulously crafted devices, are also quite appealing.
CINÉMA – VERITÉ, a coffee bar / lounge installation, which has evidently been installed in other countires since 1996, is attributed to Tiravanija and Gordon. The space is populated by large black cushions that easily accommodate 2 people, who can flop down and rest a while and watch a roster of films that were selected, we are informed, because they had been censored in America. It is an odd program and suggests a number of meta-narratives; a complete list is at the end of this article. The free coffee is an excellent option, and in this case “It has been made possible by the generous contribution of illy caffè.” People are hired to wear illy uniforms and serve coffees to all comers. I thought maybe Rikrit or Douglas would be there hanging out or serving coffees, but no luck. The expression, Cinéma en Liberté, invokes both the Cannes Film Festival, and the Paris ’68 riots which were triggered by censorship of the Cinémathèque. The films shown here and the environment in which they are screened is definitely early 21st century; it does not inspire revolutionary sentiments, more the opposite.
Catalan has made a provocative sculpture, drowned and floating face-down in the pool. It is Pinocchio, but at first I thought it might be Mickey. Recall that in the Disney version of the story Pinocchio finally emerges from the deep ocean, and eventually becomes a real person; I like to imagine this character getting out of the Guggenheim pool alive.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a Mexican-Canadian artist, showed Pulse Room in a Palazzo at the 2007 Venice Biennale to wide acclaim. Pulse Park is the culmination of that series, presented by The Madison Square Park Conservancy’s, Mad. Sq. Art. Encountering this piece after sunset made the impression of a waking dream; sort of like visiting Un dimanche à la Grande Jatte, at night. The Oval Lawn in the park is lined with 200 powerful lights which are triggered by visitors’ heart rates that are measured by sensors located at the north and south points of the lawn. Individual heart rates are projected across the central space; systolic and diastolic pulses run sequentially down rows of spotlights, as consecutive participants makes contact with the sensors. The experience inside the Oval Lawn is soothing, hypnotic and invigorating. Vital signs transform this public space into a universe of moving light which takes place every night for three weeks from dusk until 10:00 p.m. Lozano-Hemmer will be mounting a new series of inter-active works in London this November.
