Alex Da Corte, I Attach Myself to You

Stonefox Artspace, December 11th 2007-february 12th 2008.


Just Give me a Fucking Chance

The bit of printed paper matter provided as a didactic (read the entire PR on artcal) for Alex Da Corte's one-man show at Stonefox Artspace (and only the second exhibition hosted at the architectural firm) informs me that Alex's photographs and related sculptures "explore the nature of intimacy in a digital world where online dating, chat rooms, Mspace.com, blogs, etc. increasingly supplant real human interaction." but I don't really agree with that at all. To my mind I Attach Myself to You is a rather dark exploration of the desperation involved in upward mobility and the struggle to be noticed by the world at large ("Just Give Me A Fucking Chance"). This struggle might be aided by more recent technological innovations via the internet, it might be easier today to achieve a taste of fame, but the struggle is an old game.

Alex Da Corte's work has always been a little bit difficult for me to understand, it is easy to write it off as surface-oriented and shallow, but there's always this little tint of darkness behind the glitter that puts you in mind of waking up with a really bad hangover after too-much party and remembering that you aren't immortal ("Forever and Ever"). Da Corte's "Activities" (the photographs) illustrate this by causing seemingly innocuous materials associated with having a good time; glitter, jam, etc. to become sources of pain. There is evidence ("The Lights go on") that Alex has tapped into the stress of the, probably imagined, "digital eye"--a force of cell phones, networking sights, and internet connection that leaves you feeling like you are always on stage, forever watched, never off.


Activity #31 (Black Eye)

There is no doubt that Alex is a product of a generation involved with the trappings of youth, energy, and vitality (one thinks of Dash Snow, or Aaron Young) who are beginning to see communication, fame, and memory in a different way. I believe I Attach Myself to You is Mr. Da Corte's most honest work to date.


The Lights go on


Shoop Shoop A Doop A Doo


Forever and Ever (Gold Edition)

Ghost Bike

I've been calling these monuments to dead bikers "ghost bikes" on my own time and I was of the (stupid) opinion that I invented the term until I googled it today:

ghostbike.org

ghostcycle.org

visualresistance.org

And. The very interesting Wikipedia Page:

"The first ghost bike memorial project was in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in October, 2003. After observing a motorist strike a bicyclist on Holly Hills Boulevard, Patrick Van Der Tuin placed a white-painted bicycle on the spot with a hand-painted sign "Cyclist Struck Here". Noticing the effect this had on motorists in the area, Patrick then enlisted the help of friends to place 15 more "ghost bikes" in prominent spots in the St. Louis area where cyclists had recently been hit by automobiles[2]."

Hany Armanious Year of the Pig Sty

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on Earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this Earth.

-Jean Paul Sartre

Foxy Productions
Extended through Dec. 15th.



Hany Armanious, the egyptian artist who brings us Year of the Pig Sty(up through December 15th) has been making mysterious installation-thingies for sometime if I am to believe the two essays I picked up from the silent and comparatively sterile back room of Foxy Productions in Chelsea. I found that Sarte quote in my least favorite essay of the two, by Jason Markou, and it really helped me put Armanious's mess into perspective. You have to love writing, communication in general really, for speeding up what would no doubt be a long and arduous journey of becoming acquainted with Hany Armanious's oeuvre only to find that the real meat of the matter is that he's looking for an answer himself.

Looking hard from the look of it. The Year of the Pig Sty has brought so much mud into the gallery that you are able to imagine you are both inside and outside at once. The lighting is low (Literally. One light is actually hung only about a foot from the floor.), you get the immediate feeling you are witnessing a mess you should not witness. Perhaps you are in the lair of some super-demon, an artist who has gone completely mad, or a pig who has become obsessed with casting his own crocs, a shoe described admiringly by Mr Markou as "the lightweight one-piece foam shoe that replaced the Birkenstock as the last word in functional therapeutic footwear." The absence of any pig was felt more dearly then the absence of anything else. The mud had all dried out and I had to wonder if it was wet during the first week of the show.



I was in the mood to witness the display of Mr. Armanious's mess, so I won't blame you for turning up your nose and going on your own quest for more concrete answers. You won't find them in Year of the Pig Sty, but you will find chaos and confusion and someone who is searching, and you might find relief, as I did, that you are not the only one in the world leaving behind a mess of unanswerable questions.




Originally posted on artblog.

He Yunchang The Rock Touring Around Great Britain

Chambers Fine Art, Chelsea, November 8th-December 22nd.



He Yunchang has done some really rotten things to himself over the years. Recently he has embedded himself in a concrete block for 24 hours, and stared into 10,000 watts of electric light for sixty minutes. Not so recently he has suspended himself upside-down over a river, "trying" to divide it with a knife. Once he "tried" to move a mountain by pulling on a string he had tied around it. So it was nice to see an exhibit from an artist who usually sets himself up for pain and failure doing something somewhat manageable.

The exhibit at Chambers Fine Art, The Rock Touring Around Great Britain, is surprisingly a series of oil paintings. Each painting depicts He Yunchang, rock in hand, as he walks, sometimes running, over the English countryside from September 23, 2006 to June 14th, 2007. The myth that I like to believe is that He Yunchang picked up his rock in Boulmer and then carried it counterclockwise until he was able to return the rock to the exact location he picked it up in.

The effect the oil paintings have on the viewer is pretty magical because they aren't anything special. These paintings, they could have been created by Bob Ross, but there is a life in them because they record an event. Perhaps somewhat dorkily I am reminded of the childlike empress in the movie The Neverending Story telling Atreyu that the child from the real world has traveled with him the whole time. In a similar way,so have I, travelled with He Yunchang, as he picked up a rock and felt the sun in his face, or the wind, or the rain, I was there.

Emilie Clark: The Weeklies

Morgan Lehman October 25-December 22, 2007



I have many things that aren't very nice to say about The Weeklies so I'll start with the one thing I really liked; The idea. I know you're snorting right now because there isn't anything all that original about the idea of creating one painting a week since 1995 and planning to continue making one painting a week for the rest of your life. Still, I like the thought of having a life-process and actually going through with the idea is something other then a late night at the bar.

The effect of all the paintings, hung in graph formation under a year's heading, all the same size, was a bit under-whelming. There was quantity certainly, but not quality in in quantity. Although I like the idea I began to wish that Emilie had edited her weeklies, as there were at least five really good ones. Many of the good ones were towards the end. (All the ones in the beginning resembled the types of screen-printed collages high-schoolers and indie-rockers are so fond of.) This is actually an excellent sign for Ms. Clark because she must be getting better. The good paintings all resemble blurry monster-like animals in "horrible" colors. I wished they were bigger. They look remarkably well reproduced on the internet.

Though I have said many things that aren't very nice about Emilie Clark and I take none of them back I am afraid that the exhibit leaves me with the feeling that I have read her diary and now I am in danger of having a little nerdy art crush on her. Perhaps this was her sinister scheme all along? I know her too well to really dislike her.