Thursday, October 29, 2009

A Rare Richard Pettibone Moment [Updated]


Richard Pettibone, Katherine Dreier's Living Room, 1966. Photos: 16 Miles

Why hasn't Richard Pettibone received more attention? Roberta Smith asked that question in 2005, when he had been working for 40 years, and suggested that "redemption may be nigh" as a result of a retrospective at ICA. Now his career is approaching the half century mark.

Pettibone was doing appropriation — albeit of a more handmade, personal variety — quite a few years before Prince, Levine, and the other appropriationists. Sturtevant is one of his only peers there. Yet, when his name comes up in conversation, he's often mistaken for Raymond Pettibon (who, to be fair, hasn't helped matters).

MoMA owns quite a few of Pettibone's pieces from the 1960s but seems to have lost interest in later years. It's unfortunate because Pettibone has been producing a lot of smart, funny work since then. This weekend it was a strange pleasure to discover two shows showing pieces that I had never before seen.

Leo Castelli had up a show of Polaroids that included Pettibone's snapshots of works by Helmut Newton, Diane Arbus, and Guy Bourdin, as well some self-portraits that featured the artist being reflected back against the lens of his camera. Then, at Francis M. Naumann, the elegant little Pettibone silkscreen was part of the epic "Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess" show. It's not complete redemption, but it's nice to see that his art is at least still floating around the city.

Updated: Martin Bromirski sent over a link to notes on what sounds like a wonderful talk by Mr. Pettibone from a few years ago.


Richard Pettibone, Helmut Newton


Richard Pettibone, Diane Arbus, Woman with a Veil on 5th Ave N.Y.C., 1968, 1980

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

"Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess" at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art [Photographs] [Updated]


Salvador Dali, chess set designed in honor of Marcel Duchamp, 1971. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

Holland Cotter was on top of Francis M. Naumann's current show about Duchamp, chess, and contemporary art this weekend, but it's worth another note. This is one of the most fun shows in New York right now. It takes a ton of Duchamp ephemera (chess notations, a few letters, a few editions and pieces of art), adds a ton of chess sets (by Dali, Man Ray, Ono, and others), and includes other chess-related pieces of contemporary art. Here are a few of the chess sets. The show closes after Friday.

The pieces of the Dali chess set above were molded from his own fingers. (The rook is the pepper shaker from the St. Regis Hotel.) In a 1971 letter to Sidney Wallach of the American Chess Association, Dali explained the design he had completed in honor of his late friend Duchamp: "In chess, as in other expressions of the human alchemy, there is always the creator, above all, the Artist as Creator. It is this that I wanted to be represented: the hand of the Artist, the Eternal Creator. How better to express this vision than by sculpting my own hand, my own fingers?"

One wonders if Maurizio Cattelan knew about the piece. The edition he created donors to the X-Initiative (below) — which plays so nicely with some of Bruce Nauman's sculptures — is a perfect complement to Dali's set.

Updated: Writer Brian Sholis has written in to mention that Maurizio Cattelan has developed a choice chess set himself. The opposing kings take the form of Hitler and Martin Luther King, Jr. View an image and learn more.


Maurizio Cattelan's hand, edition of 80, available to X-Initiative donors, on display at X.


Yoko Ono, Play It By Trust, 2002


Charles Juhasz-Alvarado, Readymade Chess Set, 1995


Arman


Arman


Man Ray, Bronze Chess Set, 1966


Man Ray, Silver Chess Set, 1926/2008

"Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess"
Through October 31, 2009
Francis M. Naumann Fine Art
24 West 57th Street, Suite 305
New York, New York
[more photographs]

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Andy Warhol, Ladies and Gentlemen, at Skarstedt Gallery [Photographs]


Andy Warhol, Ladies and Gentlemen, 1975. Photos: 16 Miles [more]

Warhol, cross-dressers, and his Polaroid Big Shot camera. His assistant Vincent Fremont: “Bob Colacello found most of them at a club called the Gilded Grape. After the photo session, I would hand the subjects a model release and a check and send them over to the bank.” The paint is super thick on a lot of these, similar to the 1978-79 Shadow paintings at Dia, though Warhol or his assistants seem to be working with a smaller brush here.











Andy Warhol, "Ladies and Gentlemen"
Skarstedt Gallery
20 East 79th Street
New York, New York
Through October 24, 2009
[more photographs]

Monday, October 26, 2009

The In Sight From Way Out: Abe's Penny [Review]


Conelia Hediger, photograph for Abe's Penny Volume 1.8 (Issue 1 of 4)

The image above arrived in my mailbox as a postcard earlier this month with a message that begins as follows: "I told Chesikha before my last stunt that if I died, I'd come back a fish. Not thinking she'd remember I said that." A week later, another postcard arrived. Nine fish were flying through the air in this new photograph, as a woman — Chesikha? — looked on with great concern. The postcards are Abe's Penny, a "micro-magazine" that combines single images (New York-based photographer Cornelia Hediger here) with short texts (Adam Wade) in weekly supplements.

Part of the appeal here is the means of distribution. Some issues arrive with the U.S. Postal Service's faint orange bar code along the bottom of the cover photo, others are branded with a black code on the side with the message. There may be a little scrape along the front from a sorting machine or a creased corner from its long journey, but these tiny imperfections add to the fun. The scuffs — and the gorgeously hand written addresses — underscore the fugitive and personal nature of the notes. There is no web address, and no way to way to forward the message. On the magazine's Twitter page, the staffers document the mailing of each issue in a move that would have pleased On Kawara. An entry from Oct. 5 reads as follows: "1.8.1 mailed today at 4:40pm from Atlantic Street Station."

Ultimately, though, the quality of the material creates the lasting charm of the magazine. Abe's Penny is run by sisters Anna and Tess Knoebel out of Brooklyn, and they have recruited a list of contributors that have included formidable figures like Tod Seelie, Melanie Flood, and Skye Parrott to craft stories and photographs that range from the bizarre (the stunt man's monologue above) to the elegiac (the four issues of volume 1.7 were devoted to anonymous recollections of memories of parents). Given the cast and the quality involved, this seems likely to be one of those projects that will be spoken of reverentially and collected carefully in the future. It also may be one of the rare products that will deserve that treatment. (Subscribe now.)


On Kawara, Untitled, 1977. From the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: 16 Miles

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Chuck Close on Cheese Doodles: Artists' Intentions and Conservation


Robert Ryman,
A77, 1977. Photo: Kerry Ryan McFate, courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York

“The most ridiculous thing I ever heard was about a Haim Steinbach that had cheese doodles in it. The cheese doodles got maggots, and they were trying to decide whether to inject formaldehyde into the cheese doodles or replace it with new cheese doodles. That seems like an easy question, as long as cheese doodles exist.”
— Chuck Close

Robert Ryman, Chuck Close, Jim Hodges, and Tony Feher on conservation in "The Best of Intentions" at Artinfo.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

"A Tribute to Ron Warren" at Mary Boone Gallery [Photographs]


Barbara Kruger, Untitled (All seeing / All knowing), 2009. Photo: 16 Miles [more]


Installation view


Jack Pierson, Judy, Anywhere, 2009


Roni Horn, Key and Cue, No. 459 A TOOTH UPON OUR PEACE, 1994/2005


Terence Koh, Asthma Air [center], 2007


Sherrie Levine, False God, 2007


Marc Quinn, GGGTTTDDDAATTTGGGG, 2009


Aleksandra Mir, Let's Go Get 'Em!, 2007

"A Tribute to Ron Warren"
Mary Boone Gallery
541 West 24th Street
New York, New York
Through October 24, 2009
[more photographs]

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Abstract Abstract at Foxy Production [Photographs]


Xylor Jane, Tunnel, 2008. Photos: 16 Miles [more]


Left: Michael Bell-Smith, Composition Books: Red, Green, Blue, 2009; Right: Heather Cook, Untitled, 2008


Max Pitegoff and Travess Smalley, Untitled (Poster), 2009


Xylor Jane, Via Crucis VIII "D.O.J." 2009

"Abstract Abstract"
Featuring Michael Bell-Smith, Heather Cook, Hilary Harnischfeger, Gabriel Hartley, Xylor Jane, Ilia Ovechkin, Max Pitegoff and Travess Smalley
Foxy Production
623 West 27th Street
New York, New York
Through Oct. 10, 2009
[more photographs]

Monday, October 12, 2009

Brendan Fowler, James Hyde, Jacob Kassay at Nicole Klagsbrun


Left: Jacob Kassay, Untitled, 2009. Right: Jacob Kassay, Untitled, 2009. Photos: 16 Miles

“People are redoing and redoing figurative art,” Brice Marden said in the mid-’70s. “Why can’t they redo and redo monochromatic art?” Artists have tried over the intervening three decades, though rarely as successfully as Jacob Kassay, the most celebrated name in this three-person show devoted to pleasantly disheveled work.

Kassay primes his canvases, then runs them through a chemical bath, drying the silver paint to a crisp and burning it along the edges. He stops just before their destruction, before Warhol’s urine or Stingel’s boots might hit the canvas. They are charred, brittle relics: monochromes as survivors — quite a gambit on which to start a career.

Brendan Fowler, meanwhile, takes a framed concert promotion poster and launches it like a lightning bolt through two others. The three posters are intricately interwoven, and glass shards hang on the frames, threatening to drop to the ground. It is a curious act of mediated rage from the young artist/musician.

Strangely, the three-decade veteran, James Hyde, makes the most current-looking work, the show’s only misstep. His OK (2007) sculpture spells those letters in brown, painted foam. Resting on a series of bricks and strung haphazardly with an electrical cord, it looks self-consciously unmonumental and exhausted.

Rumor has it that Kassay’s solo show, at Eleven Rivington earlier this year, sold out. If he has a second act, he could become a lasting presence. Fowler, though, will get to prove his mettle first. His solo show opens Oct. 24 at Rental, a sixth-floor space in Chinatown.

- Originally published as part of "Art Above Ground" at Artinfo.com.


James Hyde, OK, 2007.


Brendan Fowler, Fall West Coast 2008 Tour Poster CANCELLED (2 + Flower), 2009.

Brendan Fowler, James Hyde, Jacob Kassay
Nicole Klagsbrun
526 West 26th Street
New York, New York
Through October 31, 2009