Review of "The Death of Affect" in Poool

Post-Internet Painting and the Death of Affect
http://pooool.info

Excerpt (Written by Sofia Leiby):

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Mike Cloud’s ‘Chicken with Two Stars of David’, from 2005. Chicken Limbo is a plastic toy from a children’s game with long orange legs and a dangling tail. Its feet are drilled to two square paintings of the Star of David. One struggles to identify the sociopolitical statement, if one exists; is it about the Jewish politics? Cloud appears to disregard any and all associations the objects might have. Like Albert Oehlen paintings from ’04-’06, he investigates the weight of the empty signifier. Unlike Oehlen, he resourcefully elicits a nostalgic response from a certain type of viewer, one of middle-class, mid-90s upbringing, now the young twenty something. This surge of nostalgic affection and resulting humor is immediately suppressed by the specificity of the Star of David, and its heavy symbolism. Mathews summarized, “for something so cloaked in symbolic meaning, it seems overly symbolic… almost cancelling its agenda.” The sculpture is like a tumblr feed (even though it was made pre-tumblr), or a Google image search, creating a bizarre juxtaposition. (What would the search term be?) Encumbered by its specificity, it collapses under its own symbolism.

For Holstrom, Cloud’s sculpture represents a reinvigoration of individual subjectivity. The structure supports itself by way of a figure; the paintings wouldn’t be visible without it. “It is about the necessity of a figural support[…] i think of the chicken as a comical stand-in for the potential viewer.” In doing so, Cloud restores the authority of a subjective viewer, while simultaneously waylaying the sociopolitical and affective connotations of the paintings and toy. “its like a struggle, which is more important, the figure (toy/us) or the images?…We are mutually dependent.”

See Fran's Photos on Camera Club Los Angeles

http://cameraclublosangeles.tumblr.com/

Opens Friday, October 14th, 6-9pm

ART BLOG ART BLOG is extremely pleased to announce the opening of "The Death ofAffect” curated by Fran Holstrom and Jeffrey Scott Mathews. This is the ninth in a series of exhibitions ART BLOG ART BLOG is presenting at a temporary location in Chelsea, NY on the 11th floor of 508 West 26th St. An opening reception will be held on Friday, October 14th from 6 - 9pm. The exhibition runs through Friday, October 28th. Open hours are Wednesday - Saturday, Noon - 6pm and by appointment.

The exhibition title, “The Death of Affect” stems from JG Ballard’s fictional writing, specifically his short story The Overloaded Man. In the story, the central protagonist is disaffected with everyday reality so he begins to disassociate meaning from objects in a meditative exercise, effectively abstracting the world around him. As the protagonist slips further and further into a world of floating shapes, he becomes alienated by the forms of the straight world. Central to this exhibition is work that exemplifies the complexityof solipsism and deterritorialization in contemporary visual practice. Each of the artists included share a conceptual rigor in exploring the spaces between abstraction and representation.

For more information please contact:beehive75@gmail.com

ART BLOG ART BLOG
artblogartblog.com
joshuaabelow.blogspot.com

Artwork from Improbable Self

St. Cecilia's (June 2011)

A Group Exhibiition Curated by Fran Holstrom

St. Cecilia’s Gallery (3^rd floor)   

Meghan Petras, Untitled, dyed and cut fabric with rope

36” x 32”, 2010

Improbable Self: Notes From the Void

Opening Reception: Friday, June 3^rd, 6-9pm

The Ice Machine + Swift, TBA

Brooklyn, NY. Improbable Self: Notes From the Void features artworks selected from 19 artists, and a musical duo, whose work suggests the dislocation of self, out-of-body experience, duplicity, reflection & distortion.

Conceived in two parts, the first group of artworks depict a centralized figure that is barely there, seemingly caught in the process of disappearing. Degradation of the singular, unique original epitomizes our fear of death, or worse, the slow slippage of selfhood into obscurity, the unknown--the void.  Almost as a cure for this, intermingled with the above, are artworks that present a solid twin, a replacement or stand-in; such redundancy insures protection and survival.

Although the outward appearances of works in the show are visibly different - and delivered by a range of motivations - there is a deep, playful and brooding force connecting the artists. Inna Babaeva’s tipped bucket oozes ectoplasm forever caught in stasis, and Meghan Petras’ coyly draped painting is freed from the skeleton of a stretcher. Meanwhile, Oliver Michaels’ digital dissections leave only clues to a photograph’s original content, and Jason Hoelscher mockingly takes the reigns by rewriting Guy Debord’s seminal text with a lisp. Materially and conceptually Notes from the Void puts a spotlight on the grim poetics of a generation. Artists include: Inna Babaeva, Martin Bromirski, Catherine Czacki, JJ Garfinkel, Nathan Gwynne, Jason Hoelscher, JR Larson, Frank Lentini, Christina Leung, David Malek, Jeffrey Scott Matthews, Japeth Mennes, Oliver Michaels, Matt Miller, John L. Moore, Meghan Petras, Sasha Rudensky, Carolyn Salas, David Scanavino.

The theme of this show was inspired by Bruce Nauman’s model for observing oneself as an impossible double, from a distance, once removed as if in a state of dislocation. Almost as if haunted by this vision, Nauman points to our continual quest for a secure, more fully-realized and understood self.

art book club presents is the first curatorial project tackled as a collective and features three floors of contemporary art, live performances plus a mixer and artists’ talks. Each project has a unique vision and therefore, a unique press release. For more information visit our website at: https://artbookclub.wordpress.com.

Artworks in Anti-Anti show

Non-Non Press Release

HAL BROMM      

PRESENTS A TWO PART GROUP EXHIBITION  

CURATED BY FRAN HOLSTROM 

             

Anti-Anti / Non-Non 

Jeffrey Scott Mathews, Untitled (bismuth005), Marker, acrylic & bi83 on linen, 11" x 14", 2010

April 30 – May 27 / June 3 – July 2 

New York, NY “Anti-Anti / Non-Non” is inspired by Ad Reinhardt’s playful poem “On Negation” which explores how one can define the inconceivable through a series of subtractions, ultimately reducing what [it] is through what [it] is NOT. Fifty-some years after Ad Reinhardt made the “last paintings” artists find themselves in an age of pluralism where anything goes. This two-part exhibition explores the work of contemporary artists who re- shape our vision of what art is and can become.  

“Non-Non” presents artists whose work appears carefree and exploratory, more concerned with material innovation than control. Inna Babaeva's movable sprayed foam constructions virtually ooze with life; JR Larson layers sinewy overlapping flesh into refined, ephemeral wall-mounted "stretchings"; and the bleed of marker and crystallization of gloppy bismuth defiles the purity of Jeffrey Scott Mathews linen paintings. The artists force us to contend with the material application and presentation of their work. Artists include Inna Babaeva, Ben Beaudoin, James Hyde, JR Larson, Jim Lee, Jeffrey Scott Mathews, Saira McLaren, Matt Miller and Tracy Thomason.

Bryan Osburn, Untitled (Landscape), Acrylic on paper on canvas, 2009

Part one of the exhibition, “Anti-Anti”, featured artists making work within a formalist framework based on grid, pattern or repetition. Whether they appear as visual traps, social critique or musings on the natural world, the works in this show reveal the ageless power of pattern. Douglas Melini’s mind-bending pattern paintings fold and expand in a kaleidoscope of bilateral symmetry; Stacy Fisher uses pattern to tame her amorphous, brightly colored sculptures, and Jack Featherly drizzles and blends ribbons of enamel into a loose, spontaneous grid. Works by Joshua Abelow, Gianna Commito, Jack Featherly, Stacy Fisher, Jaime Gecker, Matthew Lusk, Douglas Melini, Bryan Osburn, Sarah Shirley, Ellen Sayers and Keith J. Varadi are included. 

Although the outward appearances of works in each show are visibly different - and delivered by a range of motivations -  there is a binding force connecting the artists.  “Anti-Anti” and “Non-Non” present work that is anti-descriptive, anti-heroic, non-schematic, non-sense, anti-craft, non-abrasive and non-non-abrasive. 

For more information or to schedule a viewing or, please contact 

AANNshow@gmail.com or 917-370-5421. 

HAL BROMM 

90 West Broadway at Chambers Street   

Tribeca / New York 10007 

Ph 212 732 6196      Fax 212 406 1675  

Visit us Friday & Saturday 2 – 6 

or by appointment