Less like Mayhem, more like mischief

A few weeks ago, Liz and I ventured over to MoMA during a lunch break to check out Rirkrit Tiravanija's piece.  We ate curry (well, Liz ate curry.  I wasn't particularly fond of it...) and talked with a few museum goers about relational aesthetics.

During Thanksgiving break I visited Hauser & Wirth Gallery to view the Paul McCarthy exhibition, The Dwarves, The Forests, 7 November – 17 December 2011.  Since the visit was for an exhibition review for one of my classes, I took several pictures of the exhibition.  I've only included a selection here:

Expecting to spend the holiday alone (or rather, with books and writing a paper), I was pleasantly surprised to join some friends for a Thanksgiving meal.  It was a great time, seeing a couple that I haven't seen in a long time, as well as meet new friends in the city.

Upon my return from eating good food and enjoying fabulous company, I had to buckle down and write a paper before my vacation ended.  This caught my eye at some point, and thought it was funny:

Last week, our class went to the Whitney Museum of American Art to discuss the Sherrie Levine exhibition, Mayhem.  We couldn't take photos inside the exhibition, so my proof is here:

Outside the Whitney

The end of November marked a tradition that I knew I had to be a part of since I skipped out on attending the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:  the Rockefeller tree lighting ceremony.

Attempts were made to get close to the tree, but I have learned a valuable New York lesson: Always get there early.  The pics below show the progression of my trek, and the snapshots that I could get:

Waiting in a mass of people, I was afraid this was all that I was going to see of 30Rock

After being pushed and pulled, we were able to get a little bit closer...

Ah! The tree!!

Taking a pic for the 2 minutes we were allowed to stand still

A panorama of the crowd from the corner of 47th and 5th Av.

Oh, hey Empire State Building

Chrysler building behind Grand Central.  Of course when I do something touristy, the bicycle taxi came up trying to get me to pay him for a tour.  I just kept saying "I live here, I live here!"

Last Friday I took some time away from studying to do a different kind of work: I went to see the Maurizio Cattelan exhibition at the Guggenheim.

empty gallery

Go HERE to check out a stop-action video of the hanging of the show.  It's really neat.

Just last night, I attended the lecture Hyperrealism at the Guggenheim and received more insight into Cattelan and his work.  We were invited to enjoy a wine reception and view the exhibition, so I made my way up the spiral again:

To end I had to share the recent Best Buy commercial I think is absolutely adorable.  Well, at least the puppy in it is super cute, and since I couldn't find a youtube video, I recorded it myself.  Complete with laughing by myself and my roomie at my ridiculousness:

The semester is flying by...

As some of you know, I went home a couple weeks ago.  It was a sad trip, but also a happy one.  Being with family was great, even if it was for only a moment.  And I got to see this guy:

The Dukester!

I woke up to this and it made me so happy!

 Last week, I attended a gallery opening at C24 Gallery

for All Systems Go!, a show curated by my friend Suzanne

For more photos and a press release, go here.

This week our class went to visit several galleries, including a performance which is part of Performa 11; Text from the Art 21 blog

The laboratory of "Seven." Performa commission by Mika Rottenberg and John Kessler. Image from www.thelmagazine.com

At Nicole Klagsbrun in Chelsea, visitors rotated in and out at half hour intervals to see Seven, the performance-installation by video artist Mika Rottenberg and sculptor/machine-maker John Kessler. Occupying an entirely different performance world than the above-mentioned solo performances, this piece was run by many performers who played lab technicians, bicyclists and sauna-sitters activating a “chakra-juicer” that in turn fueled a surreal color explosion in Botswana.

Sweating in the "chakra juicer" sauna. Image from www.artinamericamagazine.com

Viewers watched as a performer would go into the small, transparent sauna, choose a color from the ROYGBIV chakra lantern, and begin to sweat while another performer rode a stationary bicycle attached to the sauna. Sweat drops were collected through a tube and emptied into a glass vessel by a “technician” who converted it into a dye-colored “juice.” In one half-hour period, this cyclical routine occurred about four times, while simultaneously a video of Africans digging samples from the earth and bringing them to a machine that conveyed the samples to the gallery was played. What ensued was a fantastical activation of a brief-case sized chakra-light machine that electrified the juice. It was then spilled back into the earth, culminating in an animated eruption of streaming colors and birds.

The alchemical chakra machine. Image from Performa 11's website, http://11.performa-arts.org

So many parts of Seven were complete anomalies: a sauna in the middle of a gallery, scantily-clad performers who appeared pedestrian in nature, a virtual laboratory with intricate lighting and sound that gave the effect of something real happening, and the shared dream that we were experiencing the performance alongside those in a village in Botswana. The success of the piece lies in how it references the fitness-productivity and mechanized culture of Russian Constructivism, and Fluxus-inspired absurdity, within a contemporary context of relational art and global exchange.

I also saw a Richard Serra show at Gagosian

"I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct."
– Richard Serra

Read more here.

 

[Images from Gagosian site]

And another show at Gagosian: Andreas Gursky

In the Oceans (2009-10), Gursky relinquished his position behind the camera to work with satellite images of the world as raw material, resulting in contemporary mappe del mondo on a scale befitting the cosmic grandeur of the subject. Read more here.

[Images from Gagosian site]