My dearest Emily Noelle Lambert recently had a solo show at Priska Juschka in Chelsea. You may remember my studio visit in April and the super awesome show at my house with a series of her new drawings. Here she fills the gallery with large paintings and totemic mixed media sculptures that are louder and more disturbing than ever, in a good way of course. Inspired by a visit to Rome and an isolated trip in the woods, Emily paints grids of busts, skulls, arm/legless creatures with eyeballs and mouths stuffed with wood and paint debris. Her paintings are quieter in color, the gray and yellow overtones in Busts (Moment to Moment) cast a ghostly and eery sheen to the lively and grotesque shelved busts, each grimacing, sulking, contemplating in a stage of sorrow.
Bed (Little Deaths) suggest exactly as the press release states: post-orgasmic bliss and the stillness of death. Little Deaths translates in Italian to orgasmic pleasures and here its tendency is combined with a subconscious fear of death or the near sublime experienced in both.
Abundance is a blow of clouds, or a cosmic breath let out by the gods, or the overwhelming stream of thoughts and feelings, overcrowded and multilateral, contained to a single canvas, or within a single individual, in this case, that of the artist. Having followed Emily’s work throughout the last few months I’ve learned that her practice is intuitive, personal, and culls from the deepest depths of an inner soul, whether her own or of the viewer. There’s passion and urgency that calls out from each work, an energy that hits with immediacy and sharpness, derived from the swift and bold strokes, the almost compulsive shredding and accumulating of paint and materials, and it drives you with quickness and makes you want to scream.
Her sculptures are messy, skinny, random, an accumulated mass of junk and detritus that materialize into figures that have been mutilated, violated, stuffed, frankensteined. Despite its initial disturbance I feel a sense of willing and peaceful defeat, a calmness residing within the voracious energy, the restless passions, the unending flow of relentless mindfucking. I’m actually getting turned on right now writing about Emily’s works, they’re provocative and addictive in their state of discombobulation. I find it rejuvenating, cleansing, and sexy.
About a month ago I visited Sikkema Jenkins to check out William Cordova’s first solo show at the gallery. I’ve followed his work since working for his German gallery rep and have always enjoyed the many times experiencing them in person. There are various cultural and material facets incorporated into his work and I am most drawn to the process and formal aspects than the stories that are told behind them.
The act of assemblage is prominent in each piece and the strongest work in this show is the 100 drawing suite Untitled (The Echo in Nicolas Guillen Landrians Bolex). I don’t quite even know what the words in the parenthesis means and don’t care to clarify honestly. I am however in love with this series, installed below eye level along 3 walls , a sea of small drawings with a few unifying elements found in many of his work: texts blacked out in tape, cut outs of speakers, records, microphones, and remnants of urban experience (tires, brooms, trucks).
Thinly cut strips of photos are composed in blasting rays surrounding an isolated speaker and a grid of stenciled geometric shapes are patterened throughout the plane, all composed with variety but within a singular vocabulary, that of being distributed on a neutral surface that also begets a character of its own. Worn, stained, used, and re-purposed papers host this play on appropriation, arrangement, collecting, building, layering, using, and reusing.
Perhaps thru reconfiguring and referencing objects of the everyday he is acting on a point of erasure, or simply resignifying. Their arrangement suggest interaction, a narrative that is somewhat human, an earnest and immediate energy that to me feels personal and warm. It’s possible I am completely misinterpreting his work. Other works in the show involve a labyrinth created by records that were apparently once banned from entering a university collection. Feathers, a paper bag and coin holders are layered atop each other and form some sort of alter object.
Gold leaf is an integral part of his work and there is a large one as the backdrop behind the labyrinth. There is also a tv stage made of wood that viewer must walk around to see a video of tupac. In the back room is a chandelier created by necklaces connected one after another to form a long massive chain link. Death, decay, history, the idolized, the everyday, music, the counterculture, all these are imbedded into each work and I react more immediately to their physical outcome as ingested and executed by the artist. I can feel their presence but find their physical form more attractive and endearing.
- Holland Cotter’s slightly depressing look back in art of the last decade. Recalls significant culturally diversified exhibitions focusing on African, Latin American, Asian, and Islamic artists. In the end art in the last decade was too plural, too commercial, unfocused and overtly multi-lateral, incohesive and difficult to hold in a singular grasp. “The New York art world is scrambling back to business as usual, which means business before all else. This kind of cautious and conservative thinking made 2000s art at best a thing of only minor excitements, more often simply expendable, and beside the point.”
- Then Roberta Smith goes on to say: “The years 2000 to 2009 saw the emergence of a tremendous number of really good, interesting, promising artists. They came from around the world and every demographic, working in every medium…The number of mediums has expanded, thanks to the continued development of aspects of postminimalism — especially video and performance — and the rise of digital technology and the Internet. So has the ingenuity with which artists fragment and mix these mediums. The ways of being an artist — from membership in an anonymous collective with satire, social improvement or both on its group mind, to entrepreneurial mega-stardom — have also multiplied…The lack of reassuring simplification means that we are experiencing the present in a fuller, less blinkered way. We can now see that most art begins in plurality, even if it is temporarily neatened into movements by artists, critics and art historians…More means more better.” This last sentence kind of kills me but I quote it here anyway.
- Art Bloggers @ panel was held at Miami in December speaking about what it’s like and what it takes to be an art blogger critic. I am yet to be at par with Hrag, Paddy, Sharon, Joanne, and the ladies at Artblog but soon, I swear, I hope.
- Art 21’s top 10 entertainers moonlight as artists includes Sylvester Stallone’s horrendous paintings, Kat Dennings’ paintings off MS Paint, Lady Gaga and MIA as feminist interlopers, and James Francos self-meta-performance-acting experiments.
- Bad at Sports on domestic art space. Pointers: apt shows are more fun and provocative when not imitating a white walled gallery, a successful show depends on a welcoming and socially apt host, and will go beyond networking in producing a legitimate exhibition. Apt galleries provide a sense of community, especially for underrecognized artists and art world vagabonds but does it work as a financially viable and sustainable venture? It is a cultural signifier in many ways, especially in the last year post-economic breakdown where artists took exhibiting in their own hands more than ever in NY, especially in Brooklyn but how can such events be put to a permanent and stable model? Another great article on apt shows: “If this type of space is rife with anxiety and power, then shouldn’t the apartment gallery be an antidote to this situation since the power within these spaces resides with individuals who have broader latitude and more autonomy—because the stakes are not as high as the commercial gallery or museum—to experiment with setup?…Instead of the domestic space striving to be more commercial and always falling short of the pristine effect and voice of authority that the museum or formal gallery embodies, the focus should be on finding inventive and innovative strategies of display that mingle art with living materials.”
- On my other hero, Hans Ulrich Obrist: “There’s a certain kind of curator who is really down with the artists, and Hans Ulrich is definitely down with the artists…In effect, Mr. Obrist functions as something like a neutral mediator–a listener who asks questions of others and provokes them to explain themselves while keeping his own beliefs to himself…”The ability to generate excitement, to focus attention and to stir things up in a positive way is a particular skill, you know, and it is not to be taken lightly. We need animators. We have too many of them who have no seriousness and no curiosity, who are just making events and spectacles. He’s an animator who actually creates interesting situations” (via c-monster)
- Roberta Smith considers time and how indulging in art, especially inside a museum such as the MET can be an experience of pure engagement or neglect with time and its marking of past, present, and future. Art has “remained intact long enough to be rediscovered, cherished once more, and studied, preserved and passed down through the generations for more of the same. A special condition of art encourages such treatment. Each piece of it is a concentration or distillation of ideas, inspiration, sensibility and craftsmanship into a frozen, obdurately physical moment that focuses our attention and then unfolds in the mind. Sometimes what unfolds is a chronological narrative conveyed by a single representative image or a series of them; sometimes it is an intense experience that seems to takes you out of time, yet persists and reverberates in the echo chamber of personal memory. Usually it is a combination of both.” One disconnect I always find with Roberta Smith’s articles is their incompleteness. Here she breaks up time to various categories; cosmic, material, mortal, real, and takes works from all movements, styles and cultures as exhibited at the Met and how each exemplifies said categorized time. I’ve always felt Smith’s writing never really hit the spot, never went deep enough, merely hinted at a great point. It’s sad to me that the last sentence in this article is: “That’s one of the things art does for us.” I feel this to be juvenile and superficial. I pray not to get ripped for saying potentially blasphemous things but Smith’s writing has little controversy, little spunk. It’s too tame and generalized. I think perhaps I just hate the last sentence of her articles.
- Peter Schjeldahl on Gabriel Orozco. I’m afraid of what I’ll think of this show when I see it. “the one artist of his ilk and time who stands up to really rigorous scrutiny—incidentally rejuvenating art history as a going concern—and justifies the effort by being delightful.His works aren’t invariably beautiful, but they all bespeak beauty as an operating principle: the catch in consciousness when mind and body merge in a state of praise for existence, just as it is.”
- On photographing the Unmonumental: ““The photographer,” wrote Susan Sontag, “is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world ‘picturesque.’” There’s a certain pleasure in opening oneself to the fleeting tweaks of vision that transfigure otherwise banal mélanges into aesthetic reveries. Each found sculpture marks the point of multiple convergences, where the trajectories of the city’s detritus cross the photographer’s path. It’s the moment just before the objects recede into the grayness of entropy. In an attempt to record such a heightened aesthetic state, Garnett’s photographs grasp at these moments, but they do not preserve them. The ongoing series continues as an open stream of images, with each new arrival trumping the last, and they end as collections that outline a particular exercise of seeing, one that transforms the everyday into the sublime—if only ironically and beneath a patina of satire.”
About a month ago two culinary students and I started a catering “company”. It blossomed out of a catering opportunity I came upon, to take place inside an art gallery in Chelsea. The event was in celebration to a new hedge fund company founded by a friend of a friend and majority of those attending were expected to be Asian, or as we like to say, AZN. So these two soon master chefs and I created a menu that was infused with an AZN touch and came up with the following menu:
Ratatouille: Chinese eggplant, crostini
Roasted Pork Spring Rolls: Juniper and star anise with peanut and tamarind sauce
Rice Pudding: Lemongrass, jellied lychee, fresh mint
Sounds good no? The menu planning was surprisingly the easy part, these two came up with so many great ideas that were not only delicious but were elegant and pristine in presentation. Coming up with a name for ourselves was pretty easy as well. Three Blind Catering is provocative enough to keep your curiosity afloat. We spent an entire day and a half preparing and blissfully toiling in the kitchen. We ran into only one disaster, that of burning the rice pudding which was easily resolved by making a whole new batch the day of the event. Overall there was great energy, sometimes chaotic, most of the time smooth sailing, and amazing camaraderie. There are no specific recipes to share here, as the chefs kind of spit it out of their heads, which was nervewrecking for me half the time seeing as how I can’t yet live or cook without them but it thankfully all turned out mouth-wateringly delicious. Now onwards with those pictures:
The flank steak skewers had great texture between the juicyness of the steak and crunchiness of asparagus and mushrooms. This is the first time cooking with and eating mushrooms and I loved their slimy yet chewy consistency.
We purchased a huge log of daikon from chinatown which we cookie cutted into crackers and though I fretted overpickling the whole item the sour factor was mild and was a beautiful dish to present. The doilies were the perfect element to brighten up crackers.
I had a grand time putting together these summer rolls, which I’ve made for another catering event in the past. The shredded pork was phenomenally slow cooked overnight in a blend of spices and beer and the peanut sauce was dappled with our favorite, sriracha, aka cock sauce.
The ratatouille was a hit in my books, especially the slightly blanched eggplant slices which I think would make a great snack on its own.
The rice pudding we made came out so beautiful I was so impressed with ourselves. The layer of lychee gelatin mixed with sliced almonds topped with a mint leaf complimented the base rice pudding so well. We successfully turned baby food into an exquisite dish. Hopefully we’ll have some more catering opportunities coming up, no rush though. The memories of this glorious event will live on for a long while.
In the fall I had the opportunity to drive up to Storm King, an outdoor sculpture museum. It was an amazing and humble walk thru with sculptures that ranged in size and style, some blending harmoniously with its surroundings, others clashing so bad my eyes threatened to run away. There was a Roy Lichtenstein mermaid boat floating atop a pond which I found to be quite hideous, a beautiful undulating field of grassy bumps by Maya Lin, way too many welded steel by David Smith and industrial I-beams by Mark di Suvero, bubbly and puppy shaped Alexander Calder sculptures, a quintessential Louis Nevelson hodge podge industrial playground, silent Richard Serras, and a gazebo for two anarchists. A long long stone wall by Andy Goldworthy zig zags throughout the entire center, creepy faces and a tv buddha alter by Nam Jun Paik buds from the ground and Louise Bourgeois’ bubble glass studs and cylinders are cramped together inside.
The best part yet: tiny creepy crawly creatures. So many of them. And, nature. I wasn’t as sublimated as expected but it was a goosebumpy experience nonetheless. More on flickr.
A few months back I went to see Fever Ray at Webster Hall. It was spontaneously mellow and pumped with energy. There was a laser light show, plenty absurd costumes, beats that shake the boots and a voice that makes me want to tear my clothes apart in blissful agony. I shot a video and it is officially the most artsy video I’ve ever made.
The pickle festival happened in October in a parking lot in the lower east side and I forgot to write about it. There were double if not more the number of vendors in comparison to the festival in 2008. It’s a sign and reflection of the exponentially growing interest in pickles that I think started in the last half year. I first notice with the oncoming of McClures, having tasted their pickles and mustard for the first time, which sent shivers down my throat. Then I learned of Ricks Picks, Brooklyn Brine and others in the pickling crew. Then comes all the kimchi extraordinaires such as Mama O’s, Arirang, Mother in Law, and so on. These fermenting and brining obsessed have been the talk of the town this year and this festival proudly hosted an overwhelming number of vendors selling anything from pickles on a stick and PB & Pickle sandwiches to chocolate covered pickles and oodles of uniquely flavored jars.
For dinner the other night I made the best chicken ever with some couscous. The recipe is from Bon Appetit with a few tweaks. I was skeptical at first of adding oranges to a savory dish, what with the juice squirting out and dominating over everything else. I’m also not the biggest fan of beans, and chickpeas unfortunately are part of that group. Despite that the recipe just sounded super interesting seeing as how I’ve been obsessed with anything dates related lately (both edible and not) so I made it. It was pretty damn good, not as masterful as couscous with fennel and pine nuts but a great mix of sour, wholesome, chewy and juicy. Perhaps next time though I will leave out the chickpeas to balance out the density.
Couscous with orange slices, chickpeas, olives and dates
6 servings
2 cups chicken broth
10z or 1 2/3 cups of couscous
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 big fat orange
1 15 oz can chickpeas
12 large green olives, pitted, quartered lengthwise
6 medjool dates, pitted diced
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
- Bring broth to boil in small saucepan. Mix couscous, 1 tsp salt, olive oil in medium bowl. Pour boiling broth over couscous mix, stir, cover with plastic wrap and let stand 15 minutes.
- Grate entire big fat orange, peel and chop flesh to 1/4 in pieces.
- Bring chickpeas with liquid to boil in saucepan. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until chickpeas are heated through, about 3 minutes. Drain. Gently fluff couscous and add chickpeas, olives, dates, mint, and oranges. Stir to incorporate and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Olaf Breuning’s recent solo exhibition at Metro Pictures were a step away from magnificent. I walked through the show on the last day, glad to have caught it before it was over and left feeling a few pounds lighter in the mind. Drawings and sketches were transferred and transformed to wall installations and wooden sculptures, all uniform in the ever ubiquitous black, allowing for a contemplative reflection that is part depressing part humorous, playful and non-serious. One-liner questions about the meaning of life are tainted with an ominous pessimism that if approached by any other artist, or individual, would risk a phone call to your nearby therapist. A philosophical ruse carelessly and unsuccessfully hides beneath these cartooned concoctions and their execution of paint direct on wall and small wooden blocks layered to form moved me with carefree ease. It made me envy the artist, his seeming effortlessness to not take life’s qualms too seriously, to take what you get and absorb what you see in the everyday and make fun of it, make fun out of it. Let’s mock pop culture and consume the overwhelming load of information we face everyday perusing the internet and living in this city and take a quiet moment to comically reflect what we’ve digested and how it plays within our deepest and darkest of souls. I responded this way to the show because it released my own wish to grapple with life’s quandaries by creating my own sanctuary of sorts. One that relishes in imagination and creativity, playfulness and presentness, all without losing grasp of what’s out there and leaving room for the distractions of the everyday to peek in and pester us with its unignorable presence. It’s a dreamy world, the one Breuning depicts, but not without its antagonist, the “what if” anxiety-stimulating monster that can coat our vision in black, it’s ability to oversimplify and upturn any aphorism with mocking and critical irony.
Shortly before Christmas Brooklyn Lyceum hosted a holiday craft market and I attended on Sunday (Saturday having been the day of the one and only Greenpoint Food Market). There were a few nifty things and I was happy to see some vendors I saw and bought from last year. A photo recap of a few covetous items ensue:
Anarchy in Jar stirs my heart with their plum and strawberry jam, neither of which they had so I settled for the blueberry which actually grew on me as the days progressed and I slathered gratuitously onto my deliciously baked scone.
Sugarbuilt was at GFM the day before and here she was again kicking ass with these amazingly decorated and gigantic snowflakes.
Get lick’d makes awesome organic doggy treats. I was very tempted to stick a sample in my mouth.
Kristiana Parn’s bunnies hanging off tress and foxes contemplating under the moon are homey, comforting, unobtrusive, and sweet.
Michelle Han’s woodcut prints were beautiful in their layering rich colors of brown, gold, red, blues. Images of birds and trees billowing in peace were a step away from the chaoticism that is our everyday. I enjoyed these very much.
I see these little creature pots from the Plane Jane Project in many of the craft markets that happen here. Their creepy but benign, sad but friendly.
I have a card from Fisk & Fern that’s been up on my wall since last year, I love the wispy line, the shiny and luscious colors of sea and plant creatures printed on notebooks and cards. She also had really cute aprons.
I didn’t note who this vendor was but I love this card, and any image that incorporates food.
This is what my doodles look like, in jewelry form. I love these necklaces by Victoria Strevens, especially the one all the way to the right, it’s EXACTLY how I doodle. Love it.
I was moved by Karen Lederer’s combination of familiar imagery and the various sources that were tapped into in making these cards and bags. Her website has even more impressive works.
The larger bowls by Yasha Butler reminded me of toilets from Korea. These bring fonder reactions, simple yet emphatic in shape and curvature.
These cases by Aster + Sage are sure cute in their geometric, robotic, futuristic design.
These diagrammatic images by girls can tell are amazing in its handcraftedness and detailed precision.
The vendors at Rubina Design told me the chuck taylor love affair were the most popular. I don’t blame them.
These magnetic spice jars by Gneiss Spice create pretty neat patterns and would accentuate quite nicely on the side of a bland and ugly refridgerator, and save space!
