Rob Wynne !!!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
I'm very pleased to present an interview of Rob Wynne, a good friend of mine and an amazing artist....

www.robwynne.net/

1 - Dear Rob, could you please introduce yourself and tell us what is your background? How did you become an artist?

As a young child I had dyslexia - which made it extremely difficult to READ. Oddly, I could read music very easily……but knew that I would not be able to excel as I wanted in that field. I could draw and when it came time to go to college, I went to Art School (Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn NY) After a long period of making abstract paintings - I took a long pause and redirected my work to TEXT, challenging my childhood issues, and began working with NARRATIVE . The ability to change my mind and point of view was for me a life changing experience.

2 - Words mean a lot to you. They are the main subject of your art, why?

See ABOVE!!!

3 - Why did you choose to use glass a main material?

I am NOT a classically trained "glass artist" about 15 years ago, I was making an exhibition for Holly Solomon, my dealer at that time. It was called "SLEEPWALKING" and was loosely based on an early 19th century Opera, "La sonnambula"  I had wallpapered the entire gallery and made large scale silkscreen paintings on fabric….I wanted to have a pair of GLASS FEET - to convey a sense of being and not being present. Not knowing anything about glass working , I was put in touch with a trained technician…and was able to make the FEET. After that I just started hanging around the glass studio and watching and picking up bits of technique. I was then invited to be a "visiting artist" at Pilchuck in Seattle, which is the mecca of the studio glass art movement in the USA. I started to just fool around with GLASS and tried to use it in unorthodox ways. That said, working with glass is collaborative, insofar as you cannot do it alone. I have worked with a crew of assistants since then…always trying to break rules and embrace the imperfection in glass making, which runs contrary to the typical techniques used.

4 - How do you position yourself compared to Jean-Michel Othoniel and Angelo Filomeno who also use glass in their works?

Vis a vis Othoniel and Filomeno, whom I admire very much…..I think the commonality that we share is that we are NOT "glass artist's" in the traditional sense. Interestingly the range of contemporary artists using glass as a material in their work is fairly substantial: ie: Kiki Smith, Beverly Sims, Robert Gober, Mary Carlson, Joan Jonas (in performance), etc. - some Modern Masters like Duchamp( The Bride Stripped Bare) and Pollack ( who mixed glass in his pigment) also used glass. For me, glass is another material to experiment with, albeit, one that does need a large amount of knowledge to handle.

5 - How do you place yourself in the contemporary art market? Do you feel any affiliation to one movement or another?

I don't place myself in the Art Market…I just try to make things that interest me.

6 - Could you please tell us about your collaboration with Dior?

The Architect Peter Marino ( a collector of my work) approached me through JGM.Galerie some years ago about doing a piece for the flagship DIOR boutique in Paris. Peter is in charge of the design of DIOR world wide. He has since then asked me for pieces for other DIOR venues. They typically tell me the perimeters and then I give them drawings  of various ideas in my Poured Glass work. Et Voila!

Thanks a lot my dear Rob. It's always a pleasure

Isa Genzken: Rose II - New Museum

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
Each time I walk by the New Museum, seeing the twenty-eigth feet tall rose that is standing in front of the facade reminds the roses made by Will Ryman. For those who may don't remember Will's roses were blooming on Park Avenue for four-six months in the beginning of 2011. At this time all the New Yorkers were living in the Wonderland!

Isa Genzken is a German-born artist who was born in 1948. She lives and works in Berlin. She studied fine arts and art history in Hamburg and was the subject of a major retrospective in 2009 in Cologne and then in London. She used to be married to Gerhard Richter who was her teacher. She is best know for her sculpture Rose (1993). It is a single long-stemmed rose made from enamelled stainless steel that towers eight metres above Leipzig's museum district. A second version Rose II (2007) is standing in front of the facade of the New Museum. 

Genzken is one of the crucial figure of the Post-war contemporary art scene. Her works, sculpture essentially, are made of many different materials and media such as video, photography, film, works on paper and canvas, collages and books. The replica of the first sculpture Rose is her first public artwork in the United States. She's trying to explore through her work the way in which each one perceive objects, images, nature... She integrates the notions of architecture, nature of mass culture by creating unique works has the enormous scale.

Looking back on that experience, she has commented, “To me, New York had a direct link with sculpture… (It) is a city of incredible stability and solidity.” The installation of Rose II can be seen as a tribute to a place Genzken continues to love.

"The Spirit Level" at the Gladstone gallery

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
The Gladstone gallery is one of my favorite gallery in NYC. For those who like Minimal and Conceptual art. They represent artists such like Sol Lewitt, Dan Flavin, Banks Violette, Donald Judd, Fausto Melotti, Robert Ryman, Damian Ortega, Mario Merz and many others.... Ugo Rondino, who is also represented by the gallery is the curator of the new exhibition. Ugo Rondino is a major Swiss artist who was born in 1962. His installations, which often include a performance by the artist himself and keep track video, depict a central character, alter ego of the artist, a clown, a figure of sadness and disappointment. Once he said: "I'm an artist first—but I like to have other people's art around me."

The Spirit Level is a group show featuring 19 artists curated by Ugo Rondino. The exhibition takes places in both galleries: the one on 24th street and the one on 21st street and is organized like an initiation. One advices you to start your visit at the 21st street space with Peter Buggenhout's three and leaning constructions, parrafin-coated crepe-paper leaves made by Martin Boyce, black printed-stars by 

Joe Bradley, two particolored, unstretched canvases by Sam Gillian...

In the other gallery one can see the three giant - four-foot-high - penises made by Sarah Lucas and made of bubblegum-pink,plaster and rubber. In another room Hans Josephson's small odalisques are grouped with Alan Shields's large triangular canvases. Works exposed balance each other even if they seem paradoxical at first. they are captivating, erotic, fun, innocent ...

Exhibition just opened a few weeks ago and will be on view until April 12!!

MoMA presents "Cindy Sherman"

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
To those who might have decided to go to NYC for Eastern, there is one exhibition you definitely have to see! At the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor. This exhibition is curated by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, and Lucy Gallun, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography. Cindy Sherman is an American-born artist who lives and works in New York. She's well known for her conceptual portraits in which ones she's the only model, always disguised and masked!

Throughout her career - more than 30 years - she has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. she was always interested in the role of women in society, human behavior, to society of consumption and its impact on human... She has created a myriad of characters using wigs, costumes, makeup or other accessories. To make her photographs she had to stage herself in enclosed places, in the middle of intersections, in public places... 

Bringing together more than 170 photographs, this retrospective survey traces the artist’s career from the mid 1970s to the present. The exhibition will explore famous themes such as artifice and fiction; cinema and performance; horror and the grotesque; myth, carnival, and fairy tale; and gender and class identity.

Sherman has selected films from MoMA’s collection, which will be screened in MoMA’s theaters during the course of the exhibition. Exhibition will be on view until June 11th!!

Guggenheim presents “Choices”, a major retrospective of John Chamberlain.

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
This exhibition is curated by Senior Curator Susan Davidson and supported by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Chamberlain was first celebrated at the Guggenheim in a 1971 retrospective. This show examines over than one hundred works made during his sixty-year carrer. One can see works from Chamberlain’s earliest monochromatic iron sculptures and experiments in foam, Plexiglas, and paper, to his final large-scale foil pieces, which have never been shown in the United States.

John Chamberlain is an American-born artist who was born in Indiana in 1927. He briefly studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the avant-garde Black Mountain College. He created energic, dynamic, and vibrant sculptures hewn from disused car parts that can remind us sculptures made by the French-born artist Cesar . They both brought the Abstract Expressionist style of painting into three dimensions. Chamberlain created originale and unique sculptures not only by the materials he used but also because he painted them ! There are examples of airbrushing from the 1960s, drips and pours from the 1970s, sandblasting from the 1980s, and freehand and stenciled patterns from the 1990s forward. The  sculptures range from the size of a fist to the girth of a generous hug to the height of a tree. Most recently he used vintage cars. The sculptures grew in scale and possess a new-found gravity. He was often inspired by small sculptures that served as models for larger ones.

He's an outsider. He's not related to any particular art movement and he's well-known as a standard-bearer of sculptural practice. Chamberlain's inherent creativity was enhanced by a passion for music and language, which gave way tot he noted color and movement in his works. His work is represented in many major public collections. He also made abstract colour paintings, films, and photographs. John Chamberlain: CHoices opened at the Guggenheim on February 24th and will remain on view through May 13th, after which it will travel to Bilbao, Spain. 
   

Pepe Smit !!!!!

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
here is the an interview of a young an wonderful artist Pepe Smit... I let you discover her work...

http://www.pepesmit.com/recent_work_video_picnic.html

1- Dear Pepe, tell us about yourself, what is your background and who inspired you when you were young?

I come from The Hague, my father was a filmmaker and my mother a set dresser. I have always seen my mother make all kind of things. I think this has helped me to believe you can make almost anything yourself. I always make my own film and photo sets and I like to make things look good with very little money and a lot of tricks...

2 - What is the impact of the Luncheon on the Grass made by Manet on you?

"Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe" by Edouard Manet made a real stir when it was first exhibited at the "Salon des Refusés" in Paris in 1863. The impertinence of the naked woman sitting between the two dressed men was of a totally different order than the aesthetic nudes known in the arts at that time. The woman stares provocatively at the viewer and in doing so she makes the viewer into a voyeur and accomplice.  In my video I reverse these roles: the man is naked and the women are having a picnic. Just like the work of Manet the video carries a provocative tone in which the viewer is challenged to form an opinion. Making the spectator an accomplice is something I that is very appealing to me and many times I have used this in my work.

3 - Why have you decided to make your own one?

The use of naked woman in art is something that interests me. Manet in a way questioned this role. The most degraded naked woman are perhaps naked woman used as furniture. In the seventies the artist Allen Jones made a coffee table out of a female doll, but also the Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orangeis full of women who serve as furniture. The masculine furniture in the my work can be understood as a hitherto missing counterweight in art history. I thought it would be a way humorous revenge these women.

4 - In yours, the man is naked and the girls are eating on his back like a dinning table. Is it just like a joke or did you want to convey a deeper message?

In the work we see two women and a naked man. The naked man is hardly a character, he is degraded to a "prop": a side table that provides the women with all kinds of decadent and luxury items. In spite of their unbridled lust for extravagant luxury such as lots of champagne, chocolates, cakes and fruit, they cannot suppress boredom. This is pure decadence but also something that could have taken place anywhere, anytime: women who can afford to look beautiful in expensive clothes, who can eat and drink whatever they want, spending all day gossiping and laughing with a friend. They are trophy wives who serve as a status symbol or, later in life, like the woman in this video, have ones been trophy wives and are now obliged to forfill this role forever. A state of being which inevitably leads to enormous boredom.

5 - What do you think of Feminist Art? do you feel any affiliation?

Growing up in the seventies I was raised between feminists. Being independent was a must. But nowadays I notice that a lot of women (especially the Nouveau Riche), to whom freedom and independence is totally normal, independence and freedom do not mean much anymore. They throw it all overboard to stay home and bake cookies with the kids in their expensive kitchen on their Gucci boots. And I myself like to do things like that to. Sometimes. I like my position to be on the sideline. I see what happens and I see the weirdness and the humor of it but I could be doing the seem thing myself. So I try not to be judgmental, I just want to reveal even to to fillet everyday things like gender roles, power relationships and stereotypes. In a humorous way and with sugar-sweet venom. I do feel affiliation with some feminist art. I like Dana Wyse for instance, Cindy Sherman and also the Guerrilla Girls girls. But in general I like art or I don’t, regardless if it was made by a man or a woman. Because my name is also a man’s name people often think that my work was made by a man. It can be quite a surprise when they find out I’m a woman!

Rafael Barrios takes Park Avenue!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
To all the Upper East Siders who walk everyday on Park, I think I can answer to a lot of questions you may have. From the Waldorf Astoria to the Park Avenue Armory, 10 sculptures made by Venezuelan artist Rafael Barrios, born in Louisiana in 1947 and grew up in Venezuela. He's now living between Paris, caracas and Miami. He's the second latin artist invited to participate to this event after Fernando Botero.

The inauguration of the sculptural display will be schedule on the night of the March 2, just before the opening of ADAA (the Art Dealers Association of America that takes place from March 8 through March 12). Characterized for its geometry and conceptual approach, the ludic work by Barrios is an exploration of fundamental principles of perception-such as dynamism, balance, and distortion-that stems from the reinterpretation of elemental abstract forms from everyday life. In this sense, the works that stand out are his well-known sculptural series of tables, chairs, and doors. Not lacking in humor, these works explore the sense of three-dimensionality. His works, made of stainless and acrylic lacquer are definitely made for being outside. 

Those monumental and geometric forms are a wonderful trompe l'oeil with a profound playful sense.

happy belated valentine's day

LOVE IS IN THE AIR!!!

Love is all around us, love is all we need and even if I’m not usually a romantic at heart I might be inspired by Valentine’s Day. It was originally a feast organized by the Catholic Church and destined to celebrate physical love. Father Valentinus, dead on February 14 (one doesn’t know what year exactly), gave his name to this event. During Renaissance and Classicism, artists painted lovers, love stories and their paintings were full of erotic and sexual symbols. In the modern and contemporary art scene it’s not uncommon that artists choose their mistresses to be their muses. Some of them also work together on one unique piece.

Jeff Koons (an American artist born in 1955) and Ilona Staller (the “Cicciolina”, a Hungarian-born porn star) were one of the most famous couple that worked together. Known for his giant reproductions of banal objects such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces, Koons also made a series of paintings, photographs and sculptures that showed the couple in various sexual acts: Made in Heaven, a series that aroused much controversy and critics, specially during the first exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1990. Most of the works were unveiled in 1991. These works of art describe Koons’ excursion into the world of glamour-porn and are the witness of their love and their passion. Many works from this series were destroyed by Koons himself as a result of these events and the exhibition at the Guggenheim has been questioned several times and finally canceled. This series is one of the most important of his work and according to him the most sincere, the most radical and the most risky.

Less risky but equally radical, work made by Sophie Calle (a French artist born in 1953) is like a diary, her diary. She is a visual artist, a writer, a photograph, a movie director…. She uses many different mediums to produce art pieces extremely provocative and subversive. No Sex Last Night, also known as Double Blind, is a personal and intimate movie that traces, like a diary, an escapade with her lover Gregg Shepard (an American photographer born in 1949) from the East coast to the West coast of the US. This road trip will ended up in a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. There are two versions of the videos: when Gregg films Sophie makes comments in French and the other way around. This picture was taken from a video made after reconciliation in bed! She invites the viewer to get into her universe that question relationship between human being. One no longer speaks of individual identity but of the identity of the couple…

One of Sophie’s video was exhibited in the same show (Emporte moi, Sweep me off my feet, Mac/Val, Vitry, France, 2009) than The Kiss made by Ange Leccia (a French artist born in 1952).  He’s best know for his photographs and videos. He’s also a painter, a movie director and has made a lot of installations. Through this installation, Leccia shows us his own interpretation of the feeling and the signification of love and kiss. A kiss is an act extremely intimate and decisive in a loving relationship, isn’t it? This installation is made with two big brutes that face each other, like two human mouths just about to kiss each other. They don’t touch each other, which intensifies excitement and arousal that precedes the first kiss. Pink color and brightness also give to this work his strength.

Rose remains essentially the symbol itself of love and passion. It’s a privileged gift given by all lovers all over the world. Will Ryman (an American artist born in 1969) knew how to do justice to this beautiful and mysterious flower. Well known for his huge and figurative sculptures that represent some kind of caricature of the human race, he brings us, with his roses, to a wonderland that might reminds us the one of Alice. In 2011, a public exhibition took place on Park Avenue. An exhibition in favor of the roses. They were gigantic, the height of a human being of average size. The colors are vibrant, bright and cover all the tonalities from pink to red. Furthermore it’s not uncommon to see ladybugs, dragonflies and other small beasts climb along the stems… About the exhibition he said: “With these roses I wanted to do something that was larger than life and site-specific. In my work I always try to combine fantasy with reality. In the case of The Roses, I tried to convey New York City’s larger than life qualities through scale; creating blossoms which are imposing, humorous, and hopefully beautiful »[1]

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!

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[1] http://willryman.com/pdf/the-roses.pdf

The Ten Commandments at the Discovery Time Square

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
The parchment was discovered with 900 other manuscripts in 1947 in Khirbet Qumran in Transjordan. Property of Israel, the parchment will be exhibited only two weeks at the Discovery Time Square until the January 2nd and will be a part of a new exhibition: “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times” curated by Risa Levitt Kohn.

This very small document (18 x 3 inches) is the oldest known text of the ten Commandments, the most complete and best preserved. Time after time, the parchment became darker and the ink was discolored. The scroll can’t be exposed under the light and is usually kept in a safe in Israel. Experts date it 51 BC but his author remain unknown. Many scholars believe that all the manuscripts, including the Ten Commandments one, were written by members of a sect who broke away from mainstream Judaism and lived in the desert.

The scroll was discovered by a young shepherd. He threw away a pebble in a cave and it broke a crock. When he came the day after he realized that he found an archeological siteThat’s how the parchments could have been showed to the world. 

Damien Hirst invades the world!!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
As you may know Damian Hirst is about to invade the eleven galleries that Gagosian owns all over the world. To those who thinks that he is way too exposed, well too bad for you because his Spot Paintings will be exhibited in January 2012 all in the same time in the galleries. 

Ten years ago, Hirst started thinking about how he could dominate the world. As the Tate Modern and Saatchi didn't want to be a part of his project, he asked his art dealer to be his sponsort. After like six months of intensive researchs, 300 paintings will be hung on the walls of the eleven galleries. if some of the paintings will be on sale, most of them are lended by private collectors. these will be exposed in the closest gallery to where they are. For example paintings that belong to European collections will be exhibited in the London gallery. Most of the circular ones are located in the East Coast of the US. They will be exposed in New York. 
The Spot Paintings series represent the battle between handmade and industrial work. By far one can say that these paintings were made by a machine. But the closest you are the more you realize they were handmade. One can see holes made by compasses, lines of pencil... 

Damien Hirst "The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011" will open simultaneously in Paris, New York, Beverly Hills, Romw, Athens, Geneva, Hong Kong and London on January 12th and will end in February/March, depends on locations.

Miami Art Basel 2011

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
As you may know, the 10th edition of Art Basel Miami will open next week. Let's what's gonna happen and what has to be seen...

To mark its 10th edition, Art Basel Miami Beach will inaugurate a new collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art on the Art Public sector, which will transform Collins Park with unique artworks and performances by renowned artists and emerging talents. For the first time, Art Video will be presented in SoundScape Park on the large-scale outdoor projection wall of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry. The free public viewings will be part of a number of special events and performances taking place across Miami Beach for the duration of the show to celebrate the 10th edition. 

A must seen: The Margulies Collection. Housed in a large, newly converted warehouse in the Wynwood Arts District near downtown Miami, the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse is an extensive collection of contemporary and vintage photography, video, sculpture and installation, from the holdings of prominent Miami collector Martin Z. Margulies. 1 st of December: Opening of the exhibition "Visions" at the Daniel Azoulay Gallery. "Thoughs, Mediations and Acts" by Xawery Wolski a the Diana Lowenstein Gallery. And of course the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Miami Art Museum...

Enjoy C u then...

"HEAVEN" by Philippe Perrin

Good morning contemporary art lovers! Philippe Perrin is a fantastic French artist, most known for his sculptures of monumental scale weapons, handcuffs, knifes, razorblades, American punches... Expanding everyday objects gives them a new meaning, another interpretation and it's even stronger when it comes to weapons. His references are provided by the gangsta aesthetic but also by the classic literature and romantic poetry. He perfectly knows how to be provocative, cynical, and manipulative while remaining charming and seductive.

"When an object or its image is made considerably larger, the primary message disappears leaving space to another message of identifical form and different contents." Heaven is an enormous and impressive sculpture that actually represents barbed wire made out of aluminium. By expanding barbed wires, guns, knifes... he gives to those weapons another dimension. Oversized and immobile, they appear deprived of their murderous potentiality. One forget their violent killer function and one focus on the beauty of the objet itself. Here he puts the emphasis on the relationship between religion and weapons. Religion wouldn't it be a weapon? It might be if one thinks about all the wars that started from a religious quarrel. Heaven wouldn't it be the exact representation of the Jesus Christ's crown-of-thorns? If not why would a church takes the responsability of showing a huge weapon such as this one?

Exhibition on view at the church of St Eustache in Paris until November 20th...

Retrospective of Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim's

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers! As you may know, Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian-born artist (1960) who lives and works in New York. Well-know as a provocateur and a prankster, he's also a tragic poet who creates some of the most disturbing, interesting, shocking and funiest sculptures of our times. His work is satirical, caustic, humourous, but deeply serious and intense in its scathing cultural critique. Through his sculptures he tries to reveal contradictions and problems of today's society.

One won't forget his performances (such as: Errotin, the rabbit , 2000. He persuaded his galerist Emmanuel Perrotin to be dressed like an enormous pink rabbit with a giant pink phallus for one entire month), his hyperrealistic sculptures (like The Ninth Hour, 1999, that represents the Pope Jean-Paul II hit by a meteorite and sold at Christies for $3 million.) or his obessional use of taxidermy that presents a state of apparent life premised on actual death (such as Novecento, 1997: a taxidermy horse with leather slings qnd lmetal frame that is supposed to be hanging from the ceiling.)...

Architecture of the museum lends itself perfectly to this exhibition. In the same vein as Duchamp his work is full of ready mades that he uses in his own special way. The main installation hung from the ceiling seems to be so light and fragile! Most of the works he produced since 1989 can be seen here. Exhibition runs until January 22nd...

"Uncursed"! Yoko Ono at the Lelong Gallery

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
Uncursed: a super cool exhibition that's actually an installation of of doors and figurative transparent sculptures. Very conceptual and incomprehensible for the most of the viewers this show however must be seen!

Once Yoko said: " when we were children, we learnt at our elementary school how the warrior, Shikanosuke Yamanaka, vowed to endure seven misfortunes and eight sufferings, thereby giving all the negative things to him that would have been given to the people of the city. I was so impressed with his selfless devotion to people, I wanted to be like him when I grew up. Then I realized that so many challenging situation were given to me in life. Much later, I wondered if it would not be better to ask for seven good fortunes and eight treasures... which I promptly did. It changed my life".

How do they stand on the floor of the gallery by themselves? What is it supposed to be behind each door? Why is there a transparent sculpture almost next to each door? Do they have their own signification? Are they supposed to figure the eight treasures Yoko talked about?? So many questions asked as soon as one gets into the gallery...

TRICK OR TREAT

Good night contemporary art lovers!
While everybody is looking for the perfect outfit, while children are only thinking about stealing candies from their neighbors, while storekeepers are asking themselves how to decorate their stores this year, don’t forget that humor, dressing-up, jokes and self-derision are also extremely present in contemporary art. How many of us have already faced Duane Hanson’s sculptures and laughed at their mistake? How many of us have been lost in Fabien Verschaere’s fantastical paintings? How many of us have been scared by Cindy Sherman’s clowns? How many of us have desired to play with Maurizio Cattelan’s mobiles? However behind these works that are funny, easily understandable at first, playful, darker preoccupations are often hide.

Duane Hanson, an American-born Sculptor (1925-1996), created hyper-realistic lifecast of people made out of resin, polyester, bronze, fiberglass and often textiles, clothes and everyday life items. Most often sculptures are the exact representation of ordinary people who don’t stand out of the crowd and are placed in everyday life situations. Who haven’t spoke to the sculptures at least once?! Who haven’t ever run into one of them in a museum or during an exhibition? And one laughed of itself when the mistake is realized. However Duane’s goal is to put the emphasis on social problems and preoccupations. His sculptures usually represent a girl next door, a neighbor or a co-worker such the character of some of his most well known pieces: Bowery Relicts (1969); Supermarket Lady (1969); Florida Shopper (1973); Cleaning Lady (1972). They are touching, fragile and give off sensibility and feelings. Subjects, who are from the American middle class, are represented respectfully, simply and realistically. Their hopes, doubts, needs are discernible as like their resignation.

The dreamlike, magical and fantastical world of Fabien Verschaere, a French-born artist (1975), has his mysterious part, his dark side too. One’s getting lost into the marvelous world of his paintings and through the fairy tales and symbols that inspire him. His black and white (for the most part) paintings are filled up with clowns, dwarfs, fairies, devils, ghosts, Chimeras half demoniac – half fantastical. Associated to playing cards or dices those figures are as many symbols that mean that life is nothing but gambling, a perpetual fight between the world of living and the world of dead. His work is sensitive, intimate and very personal. He brings the viewer into his own world where fairies, mermaids, devils, clowns, goblins, pixies… live all together, a world based on its own paradoxes. At first funny and readable, his paintings reveal a multitude of details and references that do their reading more complex such as: Video Games (2009), Fake Legend (2009) and Novel of Life (2009).

If Verschaere’s clowns can be disturbing, Cindy Sherman’s ones  are clearly frightening and scary!! She’s an American-born artist who is known for being the mother of the post-modern photography. Through her self-portraits, which have to be seen as conceptual pieces, she questions the role attributed to the women in our society and criticizes in an acerbic way the middle age housewife of the sixties and seventies. The Clowns (2003-2004) series can be read as an answer to the attacks of 2001. Therefore her point would be to keep smiling whatever happens and still thinking about what can be next. Sherman’s clowns don’t seem to be nice and joyful. They seem to wear a mask, a mask of a hypocritical and individualistic society. Viewers don’t know anymore if they should laugh, cry or question themselves. Should one appreciate her photographs just the way they are or should one try to read between the lines?

Satire is also very popular among contemporary artists and Maurizio Cattelan, an Italian-born artist (1960), is well known for his satirical, caustic and biting sculptures such as The Ninth Hour (1999) which depicting the Pope Jean-Paul II struck down by a meteorite. His sculptures are shocking, paradoxical, humorous and ironical and his work is made of performances, provocations and embezzlement. Untitled (2001) simply represents a whole on the ground from where a little man comes from. One doesn’t pay attention at the first sight however it questions the viewer who doesn’t know what to make of it. This sculpture actually represents the artist himself while he’s breaking the museum as a criminal making an assault on a private and historical institution.

These artists, in their own way, chose to express their doubts, their questions, their rants… through some funny and humorous works that are also ironic and caustic in the mean time.

Loft In The Red Zone: A Tribute To 9/11

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Curated by Marika Maiorva, aka known Marikama Dado (her artist name), this touring exhibition aims to honor the memories of the tragedy and to create a better understanding through art. Most the artists who were living downtown in Tribeca, Soho, Battery Park, Financial District, Little Italy and Chinatown found their homes, studios, artworks and lives destroyed. Works shown here reflects their feelings. Over 30 local and international NYC artists made over than 50 pieces for this incredible mix- media exhibition.

 Exhibition takes place in the historic house of JP Morgan, which became a condominium, on the corner of Broad street and Wall street.   Walls of the loft are in their natural state and rough. Once you get into the loft you immediately feel all the intensity of the works, the artists's pain and suffering. Felling and emotion bump into each other in our mind and overwhelm us. There is no words to describe atrocity of what happened but the artworks are a good testimony.

Tunji Dada created a beautiful installation, beautiful even through the horror of the subject. The sculpture is entitled Les Demoiselles de Nueva York and represents females bodies tied together by the neck. Bodies are made of cotton gauze, latex and make up. Figures really looked like rests of human bodies. Eyes are closed, mouths are shut and arms dangle along the bodies.  Also red stains make think of real blood...

This exhibition was made possible thanks to an artist's initiative, Marikama Dado, and fiscally sponsored by a non-profit art service organizationand is supported by many compassionate individuals and establishments. On view until the end of September.

Claude Cahun, Jeu de Paume, Paris... Last days!!

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Writer, actress, photographer, Claude Cahun, a French artist (1894-1954), left behind her a very intimate, poetic and autobiographic work which was focused on questioning mankind, sexuality, homosexuality, transvestism... Her self-portraits are probably the most interesting of her works. One cannot say at the first sight if it's a man or a woman!

A few connoisseurs know her work. She has been unknown for a long time as if her work, which is very intimate, was appreciated only by a few experts and art collectors in the vein as artists like Pierre Molinier, Victor Brauner, Unica Zurn... Claude Cahun, whose real name was Lucy Schwob, was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob and the great niece of writer Leon Cahun. She was a close to the Surrealists and involved in politics between the First and Second World Wars. Her girlfriend, Suzanne Malherbe (aka Marcel Moore), was a painter and an engraver. They were faithful to each other until the death of Claude.

If artists such Pierre Molinier or Man Ray used to represent themselves as a woman, Claude Cahun often photographed herself as a guy! She had at her disposal things like fabric, bedspreads, sheets and hangings to do the background and masks, gloves, capes, overgarment to reinvent herself. She definitely must have inspired artists such as Cindy Sherman who made herself as a clown, a man, a random girl and many other characters. At the beginning of the 20th Century, she was one of the first artists who explored questioning about identity and gender.

This amazing exhibition has to be seen! Beautiful, intimate, sensitive and disturbing. Runs til end of September.

Bernar Venet at the Chateau de Versailles

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
He's one of my favorite French contemporary artists. I remember the first time I met him a few years ago. I was invited in his house in South of France, a huge house full of works of art obviously. He succeed the French Xavier Veilhan, the American Jeff Koons and the Japanese Takashi Murakami as the artist who takes Versailles by storm!

Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who curated this exhibition, wished to focus on Bernar's work which questions the relation between art and nature, between art and architecture. His sculptures are enormous and heavy but they seem floating upon the surface. Arcs, whorls and lines appropriated Versailles and offer to the viewer an amazing and beautiful reflexion about classicism in parallel with modernity as well as a massive architecture and a minimalist design.

Like he said during an interview it was a challenge to create works that could be integrated in the landscape without being a blot on it! The best thing to do was to sculpt pieces especially for the site. According to him the best time of the day to see the show: at sunset, when light is reflected on the red-ocher steel...

One can call him the "French Richard Serra" because they both create monumental sculptures made out of steel. What do you think?? On view til November 2011

"Paris - Delhi - Bombay" Beaubourg - Centre Pompidou Paris

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
For the past few years, the Indian contemporary art scene gets itself talked about. I've been to Delhi and Bombay a long time ago and I was lucky to meet artists such Subodh Gupta and his wife Bharti Kher, Shilpa Gupta, Anita Dube, Thukral and Tagra... and many other artists, designers and curators. That was an incredible and intersting experience. A trip that brougth me into a spiritual and magic world recreated through this exhibition.

Curated by Alain Seban, president of the "Centre Pompidou" in Paris, this exhibition aims to provide a link between the French and Indian contemporaries art scenes. 30 Indian artists and 17 French artists have been invited to participate at the exhibition. 70% of the works were specially made for the show. As well as works of art like paintings, sculptures or installations, one can read historical and economical comments that can help us to understand the Indian history and its sociological aspects. Unfortunately for those who expected to see a funny and kitsh exhibition based on Bollywood pictures and movies, that's not the purpose of the show.

Welcomed by the enormous head of Tara, gilded with gold leaves and made by Ravinder Reddy, the viewer wanders into a circular area. Reddy is well-known for his huge sculptures based upon iconographical Pop pictures and indian traditions. He refers to the "Yakshis" deities. Anita Dube's works denounce the social conditions of the gay community. Subodh Gupta incorporates ubiquitous everyday objects in order to emphasis on the economic transformations of his country. Most of the time he creates huge sculpture made of kitchenware. Pierre & Gilles, a French duet, discovered Bollywood in 1978 and it's gonna be the beginning of a new era in their work. They were very influenced by all the colors, the kitsh, the traditions...of India....

Many other would deserve I write about their work but it's always better to see by itself! Exhibition runs until September 19th!

"Unpainted Paintings" at Luxembourg & Dayan

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Such as many galleries in the Upper East Side, Luxembourg & Dayan gallery isn't seen from the outside. For those who don't know that this is a gallery, they can walk by in the street and missing one of the most beautiful exhibition I've seen recently. Exhibition takes place in a cute little four-stories townhouse.

Curated by Alison Gingeras (chief curator at Palazzio Grassi), this exhibition is very unique and shows us some paintings that were never been seen before. Show features artists from 1950's to these days: Jean Dubuffet, Raymond Hains, Piero Manzoni, Robert Rauschenberg, Julian Schnabel, Lynda Benglis, Sheila Hicks... to name but a few! One can say that this exhibition has been held in a very sincere way, with no pretension at all and it's hard to believe that there are many masterpieces hidden behind that little house!!

Exhibition is on view at 64 east 77th st, Manhattan and runs until May 27th. An illustrated catalogue will be published in summer 2011.