Jeff Koons's Studio [Photographs]

Jeff Koons's Studio, February 2, 2010. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

It's a little surprising that it took until 2010 for BMW to commission Jeff Koons to participate in its 'art car' series. The company picked Warhol to make the 1979 edition, 17 years after his high-art debut in New York. Koons, in contrast, has been producing inflatable sculptures for 31 years. (By the way, Warhol, the great assembly–line artist, made the charmingly perverse decision to paint his contribution by hand.)

Nevertheless, BMW has finally asked Koons to participate, and the artist opened his studio last week for a party to make the official announcement. Some of his assistants stayed after work to paint a bit and explain the studio process for the assembled masses. Discoveries: lunch-time soccer games (sans Koons) are frequent, more than 100 work there every day, and the starting wage is $19 an hour. Multiplying that number over a year for the full staff and then adding in other costs of running the workshop, his profit margin would seem to be less than one would expect.

The quality of the cars in BMW's series varies considerably, but the project at least invites a fun thought-experiment about how other artists might handle the commission. Robert Barry? All the doors would be locked. Damien Hirst? Formaldehyde–covered animals boxed in the trunk like massive subwoofers. James Turrell? One giant moon-roof. Yayoi Kusama? A giant, mobile, polka-dot-covered mushroom.

There are more photos and an article.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres at WIELS in Brussels, Belgium

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (America) [installation view], 1994/1995. Photos: 16 Miles [more]


Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (America) [installation view], 1994/1995.


Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (America) [installation view], 1994/1995.





Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Fortune Cookie Corner), 1990


Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (for Stockholm) [installation view], 1992


Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1988


Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Throat), 1991


Installation view of "Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form" at WIELS, Brussels, Belgium



Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Golden) [detail], 1995


Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Golden) [detail], 1995


WIELS, Brussels, Belgium

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Specific Objects without Specific Form"
WIELS
Av. Van Volxemlaan 354
Brussels, Belgium
Through April 25, 2010

Gelitin, Blind Sculpture [In Progress], at Greene Naftali

Gelitin, Blind Sculpture [in progress], January 30, 2010. Mixed media, dimensions variable. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

Gelitin — the art collective best known for producing art works that looks like they were made out of Play-Doh and organizing performances that often involve remarkable obscenity (peeing on each other) — has arrived in New York. Through February 6, the group is working in Greene Naftali on a Blind Sculpture. The men appear each day sporting high heels, lingerie, and blindfolds; sometimes they forgo the cross-dressing for more traditional, naked exhibitionism. They have recruited artists ranging from Cecily Brown to Liam Gillick to Urs Fischer to guide them as they attempt to produce the sculpture without the use of sight. (There is a full schedule of guest artists available.)


January 30, 2010

Both times I've visited there have been some worrisome moments: the blindfolded artists bravely climb ladders and confidently wield power drills and hacksaws as they complete the project. No one seemed to be injured so far. In the span from the first to the third day (this past Thursday and Saturday), they had added quite a bit of material. After they unveil the work (to themselves), it will stay on display through February 26. Until then, there are far worse ways to spend a gallery tour or Chelsea coffee break. Benches have been constructed around the sculpture area, letting viewers relax and watch, as if the makeshift studio was a gladiatorial area.

Of course, not much happens in that arena. Greg Allen pretty much nails it on Art Fag City:

As for the art stars, it’s basically like weekly episodes of Love Boat. Even though it’s incredibly formulaic, the special guest stars add enough novelty to keep people interested week after week. And so it’s the formula–and the main characters, Gopher et al/Gelitin–who come out ahead.

It's a funny conceit — "let's make a sculpture while blindfolded" — stretched to a silly extreme. The life of an artist is slow, mundane, and monotonous, viewers learn.

But while it's not a thrilling spectacle, as the piano player provides a running score to the show, the gallery becomes a nice place to hang out and chat; a warm safe-house above Chelsea's frigid streets with a good view.


January 28, 2010


January 28, 2010


January 28, 2010

On the first evening, a puppy was present, gnawing here on a piece of carrot.


January 28, 2010

The supplies available to the artists filled one side of the installation area on the first evening of construction.

Gelitin, Blind Sculpture
Greene Naftali Gallery
508 West 26th Street, 8th Floor
New York, New York
Through February 26, 2010
Construction through February 6, 2010

Richard Woods at Lever House

Richard Woods, Port Sunlight [details and installation views], 2009, at Lever House. Acrylic paint woodblock prints on medium-density fiberboard and aluminum, dimensions variable. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

It's hard to believe that its been two whole years since Damien Hirst filled collector and real estate maven Aby Rosen's Lever House office building with animal carcasses and pharmaceutical cabinets. For the current installation there, Richard Woods has taken a sparer, more understated approach, lining the office complex's columns, benches, and parts of its lobby with detailed block prints. There's a little bit of a Pottery Barn vibe here, but Woods work is at least more pleasant and livable than a lot of projects that have dominated the space.











Richard Woods, "Port Sunlight"
Lever House Art Collection
390 Park Avenue, btw. 53rd and 54th Streets
New York, New York
Through January 30, 2010

Santiago Calatrava's Liège-Guillemins TGV Railway Station

Santiago Calatrava's Liège-Guillemins TGV Railway Station in Liège, Belgium, 2009

Back from Brussels and back in business. I'll be writing gallery reviews, BRAFA fair coverage, and a Brussels guide appearing in the next few days. In the meantime, here are photographs of Santiago Calatrava's railway station in Liège, Belgium, which opened last year. A helpful press official explained that Calatrava decided to make the building mostly open-air because (1) visitors are likely to make only brief visits, since European high speed trains are rarely late and (2) because public, enclosed spaces tend to attract the wrong crowd. (On a marginally related note, I'd like to celebrate the fact that Wikipedia has entries for just about every stop on high speed European railways, which are navigable via a special table in each article.)

Sol LeWitt's No-Bid Contracts and the GSA's Art in Architecture Program

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #746, 1990s. Acrylic on prepared wall, 71 ft. 6 in. x 19 ft. in current installation. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

Walking down Broadway to a friend's Wall Street apartment last night, I happened to pass the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, once home to Richard Serra's Tilted Arc (1979-81). The plaza behind the building's Broadway entrance, where the sculpture sat until it was removed and destroyed in 1989, has been filled with benches, but the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) installed a large LeWitt wall drawing last year in its lobby. (For the record, I guessed at the date of the work: SFMOMA has a "working drawing" for Wall Drawing #746, which is dated 1999, though works numbered in the 700s seem to have been made around 1993-94, based on MASS MoCA's site. I'll update this when PaceWildenstein is open.)

While searching around, I learned about the fabulously comprehensive OnBid, which tracks open fulfillment contracts around the word. The proposal to create the LeWitt drawing was posted there on April 8, 2009. In it, the GSA explains that it is "considering the award of a sole source contract [otherwise known as a no-bid contract] to The Estate of Sol LeWitt." It says:

"The Estate's authorized painting crew is the only team approved by the Estate to create the work because they have a unique ability to create the work that is not possessed by any other source."

That's certainly not a bad deal for LeWitt's estate. Is that the case with every public LeWitt project? Could a renegade team of skilled draftsmen and -women file a bid and try to undercut the estate's "authorized painting crew" on the project? It sounds like that's not an option.

On a related note, I heartily recommend the GSA publication "Art in Architecture: Selected Artworks 1997 to 2008." It contains an informative essay on the program, which was started by President Kennedy in 1963, and gorgeous photos of works commissioned from artists such as Ed Ruscha, Ellsworth Kelly, and Maya Lin. Best of all, it appears that you can request a copy for free, since it is a government publication. I just requested a copy via e-mail. We'll see.

Ten U.S. Museum Exhibitions to See in 2010

John Baldessari, Exhibiting Paintings, 1967-68. Acrylic on canvas, 67 3/4 x 56 1/2 in., at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Photo: 16 Miles

As you may have heard, museums are going to be filled with great ideas this year: James Ensor and Georg Baselitz at the Seattle Art Museum, Yves Klein at the Hirshhorn and the Walker, and Marina Abramović dominating the Museum of Modern Art's atrium for 600 hours, to name just three examples. Artinfo's executive editor, Kris Wilton, and I decided to write about 10 of the exciting exhibitions opening in the United States over the next 12 months. There's also a fun slideshow, courtesy of the museums' press offices. Here's one entry I wrote, which previews the traveling Baldessari retrospective:

“John Baldessari: Pure Beauty” at LACMA, Los Angeles, June 27–Sept. 12, 2010
Last year, the British were spoiled with this massive retrospective; in June it will finally travel to Baldessari’s native California. None of his early paintings will be on display — he had them cremated — but just about every other period of his idiosyncratic career will be covered. His text-heavy early work looks like conceptual art, though it’s more waggish than that genre’s stereotype: One 1971 lithograph reads, “I will not make any more boring art.” We'd argue he’s fulfilled that promise since, mining found photographs (and eventually returning to painting) to create an inimitably bizarre vision of contemporary culture: America, as seen through the eyes of aliens

— "Ten U.S. Museum Exhibitions to See in 2010" at Artinfo

Robert Barry at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Robert Barry, Marcuse Piece, 1970-present. Vinyl text dimensions variable. Photo: 16 Miles

"Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970" at David Zwirner

Robert Irwin, Untitled, 1969. Acrylic lacquer on formed acrylic plastic, 53 in. diameter. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

The Hirshhorn Museum's acquisition and display of works from the collection of Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo was one of the better ideas a museum has had in recent years, picking up a disc, dot painting, and column from Robert Irwin, a radiant light environment from the painfully underrated Doug Wheeler, and some nice, early On Kawara date paintings, among other choice pieces.

It didn't seem likely we'd see that cross-section of 1960s and '70s art again any time soon, but David Zwirner, continuing his ongoing campaign in minimalism, has unveiled "Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970," which could almost be viewed as a sequel to the Hirshhorn's show. Irwin, Wheeler, and Bell are back, complemented by a handy mix of West Coast greats, many of whom will be familiar to viewers of the remarkable Cool School.


Doug Wheeler, Untitled, 1969. Acrylic, neon tubing, and wood, 91 1/2 x 91 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.

Irwin gets a well-deserved room with — you guessed it — a disc, a column, and a dot painting. Did art ever get purer than this? (Question: How does it look without knowing about Irwin's unceasing experiments detailed in Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees?) Savor those three Craig Kauffmans along one wall — the largest, most alluring cough lozenges ever made. But don't forget to thank collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, who lent one to the show, and certainly don't miss the strange, plastic Kauffman slung over a steel cord fastened from the ceiling.

Other delights include two fine, fine Turrells, a handful of Larry Bells, and two John McCracken planks from 1967: one red, the other light, hazy pink. McCracken's titled the latter "Think Pink," which is a charming command that doubles as a welcome reminder: The history of American minimalism is far weirder and more wonderful than some would have us believe.


James Turrell, Gard, 1968. Light projection, dimensions variable.


James Turrell, Juke Green, 1968. Light projection, dimensions variable.


Robert Irwin, Untitled (Acrylic Column), 1970-71. Acrylic, 144 x 9 x 5 1/2 in.

"Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970"
David Zwirner Gallery
519, 525, & 533 West 19th Street
New York, New York
Through February 6, 2010

A Mysterious Orange Tribute at MoMA

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962. Synthetic polymer paint on 32 canvases, each 20 x 16 in. Photos: 16 Miles.

Do you notice anything strange about this installation at the Museum of Modern Art (other than the terrible color, which is a result of my poor job correcting the photograph)? Look really closely. What about in this one below?


Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl [detail], 1963. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 67 5/8 x 66 3/4 in.

Yeah! There are peculiar, bright orange boxes floating on the walls of one of MoMA's postwar permanent collection galleries, hiding in plain sight near the Warhol, the Lichtenstein, a Vija Celmins, a Michelangelo Pistoletto, and a few other works. So what are they? Let's take a closer look!






All three photos above: George Brecht, various cards from Water Yam, 1963, distributed around the gallery.

It turns out that the scattered orange boxes are instructional cards for visitors to George Brecht's 1963 Water Yam show and part of the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift that was donated to the museum in 2008. Brecht also died that year, so the installation is something of a fittingly quiet, charming tribute to him.

I wonder if Gabriel Orozco ever saw Brecht's cards hung like this. There's a definite Yogurt Caps vibe about the way the way they sit nonchalantly and unassumingly next to some of MoMA's most prized treasures. (The curatorial team has also provided only one wall label for the eight or so pieces — right next to the Soup Cans — meaning that people who spot the boxes have to hunt to find out what they are, which is fun.)

Does anyone know when the Brechts first went up? It's terrifying to realize that I probably walked past them at least two or three times recently without noticing them in the room.