A short video snippet of a very disturbing exhibition by artist Jordan Wolfson at David Zwirner Gallery which ends June 25th. This exhibition focuses on a robot/puppet who is literally tossed and thrown around the room (as you see from the video.) What we are viewing is both aggressively frightening and incredibly sad. Pulled NOT by strings but by chains - alluding to historical repression and personal constraints. Crashing sounds are loud and abrasive. The occasional moments of silence pierce your being with its stillness - the puppet's eyes darting around reflecting eternal anguish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTvRfXAU5es&feature=share
PLEASE make this full screen to get a strong impact of the show. (click on square box - right hand side below video - and press ESC on keyboard to return to regular size.)
Anish Kapoor's exhibition at Barbara Gladstone Gallery on 24th Street is an almost 360 degree rotation from his earlier works. I first encountered his fragile, seductively gorgeous powdered pigment pieces in the 1980's spilled out on the floor; works so delicate that the slightest sigh of appreciation expelled from one's breath could scatter the particles into the air. Those artworks were not commercially viable, and Kapoor has spent the last 30 years working with granite, limestone, and marble, often creating biomorphic forms, using the light on reflective surfaces to explore what appears as a "void", but is actually an illusionistic tryst with nothingness.
"Internal Object In Three Parts" 2013-2015 refers to the Greek legend of the satyr Marsyas who challenged Apollo to a musical duel whcih Marsyas lost; upon defeat Apollo tied Marsayas to a tree and skinned him alive. These pieces are also about surfaces - but these surfaces evoke raw chunks of red and white gristled meat reminding me of Soutine's modest-sized paintings wrought large, coming off the canvas to attack you. Kapoor's artworks consist of three-panel reliefs in painted silicone and wax - depicting bloody drippings that have been chewed off ravaged animals, an open wound left to rot. The world is a violent mess and Kapoor is exposing its savagery.
No comments:
Post a Comment