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The War Chest of Otto Dix
In the exhibition of work by Otto Dix that opened this week at Neue Galerie, themes of war and sexuality literally fill the air. Memory of the Halls of Mirrors in Brussels (1920), a Dadaist painting of a leering officer and a prostitute, is suffused with Guerlain perfume and soundtracked to 1920s jazz. In the room containing Dix's etchings inspired by the first World War, there's a faint, loamy smell; for this, Neue's scent specialist sniffed out a special combination of grass and earth. Crickets chirp in the background.Read More
New York's Satellite Fairs: Bling, String, and Subversive Things
Bling, string and subversive things were among the highlights at Pulse Contemporary and Scope International, just two of the at least seven satellite art fairs that set up shop in New York the same time as the Armory Show.
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Fact Sheet: Jay DeFeo
Jay DeFeo (1929–1989) is best known for the her obsessively reworked, giant abstract painting, The Rose, which she completed between the years of 1958 and 1966 until it had to be removed from her home with a crane. It's a striking, sublime amount of labor—it's also a strange monument to a woman artist spending extreme amounts of time isolated in her home. DeFeo is one of the few women associated with the California Beat Generation of the 1950s and 1960s: It's rumored that she changed her name to Jay so that people in the art world would mistake her for a man. As The Rose might suggest, DeFeo was a prolific producer—but in a surprising variety of media, including photography and drawing. Her work was often abstract and emotional, but show evidence of DeFeo's meticulous and compulsive process. Here are the facts on DeFeo:
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Five From the Whitney Biennial: Martin Kersels
"This is a funny guy" was the this unsolicited comment offered to me by a visitor to the Whitney Biennial as he contemplated 5 Songs, the sculpture-cum-performance set by Martin Kersels, installed in the museum's lobby. A miniature stage composed of five orange, black and white movable modules, the piece emanates a sense of hedonist pleasure realized through glam-on-a-budget fantasy. The modules include a Laugh-In worthy dance cage replete with a few hanging beads, and a performance platform with a built in prop room, stocked with all manner of rock accoutrements, including fright wigs and (should the need arise) a lint roller. The overall effect is Minimalist sculpture hijacked by a 1980s heavy metal cover band—artistic paternity in the hands of someone who can take a joke.
Top Ten From the Armory Show Modern
1. FAURSCHOU (COPENHAGEN, BEIJING)
What more can you ask of the Armory Show Modern than to provide a few transcendent moments with some art-historical significance and a bit of emotional depth? This booth's display graciously fulfilled the request with a large, sumptuous 1964 Picasso painting from his "Artist and Model" series, hanging near an evidently precious but rather abject sculpture, a heap of sunflower seeds piled neatly on the carpet (Ai Weiwei's 2009 Sunflower Seeds). On the wall just above the seed mound was another surprise, a lush and brooding 1895 seascape by Edvard Munch. Completing the scene was a splashy Georg Baselitz canvas and a monumental Robert Rauschenberg painting that covered the entire back wall. Rigorous and austere yet generous in its invitation for viewers to free-associate among wildly diverse, century-spanning visual languages, the presentation offered the kind of unique art experience that makes the circuitous and sometimes arduous trek to the Armory Show worthwhile.
PICTURED: AI WEIWEI, SUNFLOWER SEEDS, 2009. COURTESY FAURSCHOU GALLERY.
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Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
Currently at Anton Kern Gallery, Brian Calvin exhibits new portraits of young, sl
