A morning cappuccino at Via Quadronno to catch the US vs. Algeria match in the World Cup (Landon Donovan and goal keeper Tim Howard pictured above). We then headed to MoMA to see the newly installed Bruce Nauman exhibition Days, created for the 2009 Venice Biennale. A "sound sculpture" of voices reciting the days of week in random order, it is brutal and fascinating, we couldn't help but wonder at the sanity of the guards after hours on end of the relentless words. It is described on MoMA's website as a "sonic cocoon." More like day of the week clown torture. I love the way Roberta Smith described his work in her 2009 NYT review when it was in Philadelphia. They don’t “present” as art, yet they lodge in the mind and won’t let go, disorienting, irritating, inundating and exhilarating the senses. And with time, the best Naumans make clear their art-ness, laying bare life’s basic experiences, distilled and compressed. They do this profoundly yet, it seems, inadvertently, as if Mr. Nauman were simply providing raw material that we absorb and fashion into art in our heads. Exactly, Roberta.
0 Comments
The James Franco opening of The Dangerous Book Four Boys at Art on Air. An exhibition packed with New York's art and film scene - everyone from Marina Abramovic to Kirsten Dunst to Dennis Oppenheim. Franco's exhibition included short films, drawings, and photographs in addition to two wooden house-like structures and one wooden rocket-ship. Dangerous? There were a lot of films of him busting stuff, and a lot of videos of things burning. And a goat boy, Richard Prior, and a taxidermied house cat (not all in the same room). We haven't figured out the really dangerous part yet, but he was supposed to do a performance that was cancelled at the last minute. Maybe that was meant to be the dangerous part. Following the opening was a private dinner at Alanna Heiss' home a block away. There we had an opportunity to spend time with the evening's stars and hosts, including Alanna, Marina Abramovic, Dennis Oppenheim, and the artist. |
art in lifeThe world as I experience it - through people, exhibitions, books, talks, + random happenings that lead back to art. One way or another. Archives
April 2011
Categories |