Metro Art Access NYC

Can you tell I like yellow?

-Beaudry Allen

At MoMA PS1 there was an incredible exhibit by Egyptian artist, Wael Shawky titled Cabaret Crusades. The exhibit included a movie trilogy that was all a marionette show detailing the crusades inspired by Lebanese historian Amin Maalouf’s text The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, as well as a display case showing all of the marionettes that were featured in the films. The first film used 200 year old wooden marionettes, the second used hand made ceramic marionettes, and the third used glass marionettes made by master Venetian glass blowers. They were all very nicely detailed and had working mouths and eyelids and were really beautiful and also a little bit creepy.

I loved these movies but they were each over 30 minutes and the last one was two hours long, so there was no way to be able to see it all, which always frustrates me about seeing video work in a museum. It also isn’t available to view online which sucks because I was extremely interested in watching the whole series. It was cool to see such a playful medium be used to describe such a horrible event in world history, which sort of relates to the idea of the 9/11 flipbook I posted about earlier. The visible strings of the marionettes is a nice symbol for the people being moved to these actions by their belief in god or a creator (the artist) that they were trying to serve during the crusades. The films were all in Arabic, which I think is a beautiful language, and I loved the singing. It was a very cool take on the crusades and I’m glad that artists are still exploring this part of our history and telling the story from other perspectives, which is important especially to western cultures that usually only hear about it from a christian perspective and it isn’t talked about extensively in schools or anything, at least not for me. I want to pay this guy to watch the movies. I might email him about it since I couldn’t find the movies on the internet.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7U-pqjdHIY]

-Beaudry Allen

  Thanks Internet!

  

  

We went to the New Museum yesterday and saw some incredible work. I bet that is how most of these posts are sounding. But for real, we saw work from Albert Oehlen’s Home and Garden. I’m not usually a fan of abstract painting but there was some of this work that I kind of liked! I don’t know if I was just in a good mood that day or what, but I liked it more than I thought I was going to. The real star at the museum though was photographer Sarah Charlesworth. Her work was moving and a good example of what I think good photography is and should be. I have been getting bored recently with photo and 2-D work and it was very refreshing to see someone use the medium so well and it restored a little bit of faith for me in the medium. I needed that. I loved this photo the best.

The Lower East galleries were pretty cool too. I liked being in that area of town because there was a lot of cool fashion stores that I wanted to go into and look at the clothes. Not enough time to shop but I want to try and go back. What wasn’t cool was China town. I am usually stoked to go to China Town in different cities but this one was absolutely rancid. Disgusting smells could not be avoided and people kept hitting me with their umbrellas. Not to mention the toxic waste that I found in the street.

I’ll leave it at that.

The drawing center was also pretty chill. I liked the series by Natalie Frank called The Brothers Grimm. Some cool reinterpretations of old fairytales that were both playful and horrifying at the same time. I really liked the drawings that were downstairs too by Rachel Goodyear called Restless Guests. They were small beautifully rendered drawings with some kind of scary subject matter that I couldn’t really tell what was going on in most of them, but they were beautiful to look at and I can always appreciate that.

The last place that we visited that day was the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Definitely appropriate with  the passing of Equal Marriage and the Pride Parade being this weekend. There was some great art there including some more nice photos. I had to laugh at this painting titled Totem Pole by Japanese artist Naruki Kukita. NSFW.

-Beaudry Allen

6/25

My sister would be very excited for this day; her name is Chelsea, and that’s precisely where we adventured to. After attending a museum, Metro Pictures, we wandered around Chelsea and went to a few museums/ galleries along the way. There were a ton of galleries we all wanted to experience, so we broke into smaller groups and began our excursions. There was one particular gallery that Melissa, Julie and I wandered into that caught my eye: Gallery Henoch. This two floor gallery invited passerbys into its dwellings with not just extremely versatile pieces, but with the layout of the space itself.

This gallery had works on display that made me fall in love with painting all over again. The artists were all painters, but the ways in which they were able to manipulate their canvasses, techniques, and paint was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The particular piece that intrigued and fascinated me was a piece entitled Eureka by the painter Steve Smulka. Smulka’s ability to recreate a still life image in a hyper-realistic method of glass truly speaks volumes to his expertise.

I haven’t found myself that paralyzed and awestruck by a painting in quite a long time.

Although I’m only referring to Smulka’s work, the entire show is fantastic and it’s also posted on their website. That being said however, the images don’t do the works any justice.

-Rebekkah James

For your dancing and listening pleasure, feel free to search their current exhibitions at http://www.galleryhenoch.com/index.html Smulka’s work is included in detail as well as other numerous talented artists.

I bought a cool flipbook at a bookstore called Printed Matter. They had a small section of flipbooks I was exploring and they were pretty fun, then I picked up a small, black one that didn’t have any marking on the outside. I flipped it and was shocked. It was a recreation of United Airlines Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Having such a horrific image in a flipbook, a medium that is normally associated with playful kid toys or animation was really powerful. I researched it a bit and it was created by an artist named Scott Blake who makes lots of different and interesting flipbooks. He said that his intention with the book was to comment on the media coverage of the event and how often news outlets played the images of the planes crashing. The book came with an essay on the book and a media study showing how many times each major new source played the video per hour. He thinks that by playing it so many times that they let the group responsible for the attacks achieve what they wanted to do and put fear in the hearts of the citizens. I think that if they didn’t show the images though, that people would have reacted even more negatively that our media didn’t give the attention it deserved for being one of the largest attack on US citizens. No matter how the situation was handeld, it highlights the trust issue between citizens and news sources. In any case, I think it is a powerful piece and I had to buy it, I still get chills every time I flip through it. I like that such a small thing can have such an impact on me and prompt me to write a longer post than anyone will want to read. All of the profits from the book go to the 9/11 Orphans fund, FDNY, and the Red Cross. Here is a short video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BEmcv6BZKY]

-Beaudry Allen

Before I entered the exhibit titled “Fine Art” at PS1, I was stopped by Celeste who warned me that it was a let down. I walked in with Minerva and Ella anyhow without reading the artist statement and was immediately in concurrence with Celeste. From first glimps the tall thin “sculptures” and simple paintings looked like garbage. As we continued to look through the show, the titles of the pieces increased the displeasure of the work and at times even appeared offensive. As the three of us became more and more displeased with the whole affair, we over heard a couple talking about the show and explaining that it was meant to be a joke, that the artist wanted you to laugh at it, and while some of the pieces were still unimpressive we began to laugh while witnessing “four dogs and a cat on a bike” and “a beautifull horse”. By the time we reached “man holding a human animal” we were nearly in tears. It the dawned on me that this piece was a parody intended to call attention to flaws and romanticization of historical art, the portraits of native Americans and slaves being shot of boats weren’t there to be offensive, but to call attention to the offenses of “fine art”. Its easy to get wrapped up in the I do and don’t like such and such while viewing art, but it is essential to take a moment and truly consider the purpose of art, and the artists intent. This artist used humor to lure the viewers in and ever 4th or 5th piece hit us with the real message, forcing us to become aware of real issues. I think that PS1 had the most confrontational art that we have seen so far and I really appreciate that. I hope this institution continues to make that statement.

-Kam