It’s good to be back
Stefano Pasquini
It’s been
almost two years since I’ve been in New York, and
last time I was here the city was still recovering from
9-11. Now we’re all back on track, and walking
around the city is now somewhat refreshing for me. I
forgot how many galleries there are, so much art around
makes it almost a paradise. I must confess, the first
couple of days I was here I was quite disappointed with
the shows I saw an
d had the feeling that nothing had changed
in the art scene in the last few years. In a way, this
can be true, and to foreign eyes New York can be seen
almost reactionary in comparison to what we have
witnessed in Europe in the last few years, like in Venice
or at the last Documenta, for example.Yet I loved
noticing that in New York things are still where they are
supposed to be. Great artwork in great galleries, crap
artwork in crap galleries, and work that is fruitionable,
understandable, well lit and not crammed against other
work, unless the artist intended to do so.
Williamsburg has grown to be more mature, and even the
newest galleries have a very professional aura to them
that gives you the feeling this is a place where serious
business is going on, and not just a freaky trendy spot
to play around with paint and a guitar. I was pleased to
see that some of the galleries I saw opening a few years
back have now a serious international reputation.
Yes, it’s good to be back.
I’m not sure this is still the center of the
contemporary art world, but if it isn’t, it’s
only because there can’t be one any longer.
I started my venture of the New York
fall season, of
all places, in SoHo, where an interesting show titled Flat
Out was showing at Deitch. Kristin Baker’s
vision of the future is as bright as the bright red of a
Ferrari racecar. These huge paintings, made altogether
with racecar color tape and paint, have a real sleek
feeling to them, and I walked out wondering what she
drives.
At Gallery 456 on Broadway there’s a really fun
group show titled “De-Clothing Society –
Artistic Imagination and Social Practices”. The
exhibition revolves around the paradoxical aspects of
clothing, with a huge installation by Chang-Jin Lee of a
sawing machine endlessly sawing toilet paper, ironical
photographs by Yu Zhang of a newly wedded couple in Tien
An Men Square wearing masks against a possible SARS
infection, and ON/Megumi Akiyoshi’s documenta
tion
of her ON Gallery performances in New York and
Japan. I loved the video of her wearing the traveling
gallery in small Japanese villages, with all these old
women wondering what the hell was going on.
Then I had the chance to catch the last day of Carla
Gannis’ solo show at Wax Gallery on West 21st
Street, titled Travelogue. I’ve been
following her work for a number of years now, and I was
pleased to see a stable growth in the quality of her
ironical drawings. Her main theme is still women’s
condition, and how this can turn into an advantage,
together with a filmic and surreal vision of everyday
situations that always bring out a smile. Her newest
digital work, a mixture of 3D graphic and Photoshop
technique, not only is extremely innovative, but
it’s used in such a subtle way that after looking at
the prints for a few seconds you completely forget about
how they’re made and concentrate on the
psychological depth of the message. I don’t get why
a commercial gallery hasn’t picked her yet.
Making my way to Williamsburg I saw three really good
shows: John Freyer at the Fish Tank Gallery, Peter Scott
at Schroeder Romero and Chris Doyle at Jessica Murray
Projects. I remember and loved Freyer’s allmylifeforsale.com,
and this new body of work follow his eclectically
conceptual style: a bunch of liquor bottles in paper bags
stuck on the stairs of the gallery, then you enter the
main space and there they are, beautifully photographed
on a white background. Very interesting was also the
video collage motion_pictures with many segments
coming from different sources in a strange New York karma
flux. I like this guy.
And I liked the watercolor of Chris Doyle’s show at
Jessica Murray. You probably remember him for his video
in Columbus Circle in 2000. These watercolors not only
are they craftily painted with extreme sensitivity, but
they also have a diaristic edge to it, and coming from a
conceptual artist, they obviously include some of the
processing of other of his works, together with a Bruce
Nauman remake of one of his performances. The
self-referentiality here becomes a homage to artmaking.
At Schroeder Romero Peter Scott showed a series of
photographs and some mirrors. Thanks to the photographs
– that show you what’s in the mirror – you
get to look closer through the mirror and find some
strange looking faces behind it, that you can only see
when you obscure the 
mirror with your body. Once again we see
that behind the clean façade of middle class morality
lays something obscure, incestuous or just plain weird.
Many more are the shows to mention, even though –
apart from In full view at Andrea Rosen –
Chelsea seemed to me the same as usual, and many more are
the shows I’m looking forward to seeing this fall.
And ok, maybe the quality is not any higher than any
other place in Europe, but there’s something in New
York art that I haven’t witnessed anywhere else so
far: its energy.
Images (top to bottom)
Chris Caccamise's show at *sixtyseven
Chang-Jin Lee, 24/7, 2001, courtesy Gallery 456
Installation view of Chris Doyle's show at Jessica Murray Projects
John Freyer, "Souvenirs", 2003, courtesy Fish Tank
Carla Gannis, Cowgirl, 2002-2003, courtesy Wax Gallery
David Krippendorff, Beyond the moon, DVD, 1999, courtesy White Columns
ON/Megumy Akiyoshi, ON Gallery, 2000-2003, courtesy Gallery 456
Alessandro Raho, Catherine, 2003, courtesy Cheim & Reed
Peter Scott, Bedroom II, 2003, courtesy Schroeder Romero
