the press release
May 6th - June 13th, 2010
Reception: Thursday, May 6th, 6-8 PM
FREIGHT AND VOLUME
542 West 24th Street
New York, NY
10011
PHONE: 212 691 7700
FAX: 212 989 8708
HOURS:
Tuesday - Saturday
11 AM - 6 PM or by appointment
freight + volume
Showing posts with label Pratt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pratt. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Trudy Benson @ Edward Thorp Gallery
Hello everyone,
I'm participating in a five person show at Edward Thorp Gallery here in Chelsea this fall; show dates are September 25 through October 31. Participating artists are: Trudy Benson, Simone Shubuck, Neil Farber, Mike Hein, Sebastian Dacey. Hope you will come down!
Edward Thorp Gallery
210 Eleventh Avenue, 6th Fl
New York, NY 10001
T.212.691.6565
Hours: Tues.-Sat., 11am to 6pm
edwardthorpgallery@gmail.com
Edward Thorp Gallery
Best Wishes,
Trudy Benson
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Trudy Benson's Review of Jeff Koons' "On the Roof" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
In his 1958 essay "Jackson Pollock", John Berger asks us "how far can talent exempt an artist if he does not think beyond or question the decadence of the cultural situation to which he belongs?". "Jeff Koons On the Roof" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art featured three pieces from his Celebration series installed in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Balloon Dog (Yellow), Coloring Book, and Sacred Heart (Red/Gold) were factory-made of high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and range in height from ten feet to almost nineteen feet. According to John Berger's problem of the Western artist in a disintegrating culture, Jeff Koons' recent rooftop exhibit, featuring pieces from his "Celebration" series, falls short of any kind of consideration beyond the decadence of today's culture.
"The constant problem for the Western artist is to find themes for his art which can connect him with his public,". According to Berger, an artist's theme is the emergent significance found in a subject. He went on to describe Pollock's desperation in finding his theme in our disintegrating culture where every artist's purpose is accepted, and criticism only consists of distinguishing between the gifted and those who are not gifted. The result of our disintegrating culture could be considered to be the inability to find a cultural significance within an artist's purpose. In Pollock's struggle to think beyond his cultural situation, he could only find significance in the impossibility of finding any cultural significance. In doing so, he has succeeded in thinking beyond his culture. And, "If a talented artist cannot see or think beyond the decadence of the culture to which he belongs, if the situation is as extreme as ours, his talent will only reveal negatively but unusually vividly the nature and extent of that decadence,".
Balloon Dog (Yellow) stands 121 inches tall: a highly reflective golden rendition of a balloon twisted into the shape of a dog. Coming out from the elevator onto the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this is the first piece we come across. The piece is truly sensational, enticing the viewer with its vast scale, its familiarity of form, and with its luster. The backdrop of our toy, aptly selected, no doubt, is a gorgeous Manhattan skyline. To the immediate right of Balloon Dog (Yellow) is the bar featuring three specialty drinks created in honor of each of the pieces on display. Standing over 140 inches tall and to the left of Balloon Dog is Sacred Heart (Red/Gold). A bright candy red, it is made to look like a heart-shaped chocolate wrapped in cellophane and topped off with a golden cellophane gift bow.
According to the pamphlet provided for the show, Koons is said to look for his inspiration in today's consumer world. It is also stated that he wishes his art to communicate with as broad an audience as possible. In these pieces, Koons' themes involve the appropriation of objects found within the world of consumerism. Any conceptual theme beyond fingering consumer decadence Koons admittedly owes to Marcel Duchamp's readymades. He has commented on this debauchery by achieving stardom personally and creating objects that call forth the seductive qualities of consumer media. He has demonstrated his sophisticated talent in his knowledge of his material and expressed an astute aesthetic sensibility. Still, he has failed to look beyond what our culture is dissolving into. It can be said that Koons' theme do indeed connect him to his culture; however, Koons has failed to make the theme of appropriation personally significant in "On the Roof".
Trudy Benson
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Trudy Benson's Review of "After Nature" at the New Museum
"After Nature": A Delirious Prank
"After Nature", the extensive group show at the New Museum, spans three floors and includes the work of twenty-six international artists. The show includes almost one hundred different works and was organized by the museum's director of special exhibitions Massimiliano Gioni. Thematically inspired by Werner Herzog, W. G. Sebald, and Cormac McCarthy, Gioni proposes a post-apocalyptic perspective in art. Gioni writes that the exhibition is meant to be "a cabinet of curiosities that pieces together a fragmented encyclopedia", and overall meant to portray a mood suggested by Herzog's "ecstatic truth". Herzog minces around what he means by "ecstatic truth", describing it as a poetic truth liberated from fact just as Gioni's selection of works tries to send the viewer on a wild goose chase for integral meaning.
Individual themes within artworks include loss, as in Artur Zmijewski's film Oko Za Oko (An Eye for an Eye) in which a cripple is helped by another man to perform mundane acts; death, as in Pawet Althamer's figurative sculptures; and environmental issues, as in Allora and Calzadilla's Growth (Survival), an installation of Jenny Holzer's running LED light sculpture as light source for a large, hanging staghorn fern.
Tree, Zoe Leonard's dismembered tree pieced back together, resonates with the jumbled mood of the rest of the show. Perhaps the most palpable of Gioni's elusive grapple with "truth", Tree is a documentation of a random act of nature. High up on the wall Maurizio Catelan's taxidermied full-sized horse (Untitled) dangles with its head seemingly stuck in the wall. Together the two pieces more than dominate the room. The scale of works in the comparatively sparsely-curated room infuse the room with an eery energy. Both pieces stand as kinds of perverse monuments to loss, in that after their demises, the tree and the horse were turned to an improper use.
The third floor "houses" a full-scale replica of the Unibomber's cabin by Robert Kusmirwski with is only slightly evocative once we've answered the question, "Why is this colossal home blocking my view of the rest of the room?" Also disappointing are the unexciting large scale photographs of holes dug by Diego Perrone. The two pieces together feel like a room in an underfunded natural history museum; the artworks seem more like artifacts and the mood is morbid.
Pieces in the show were often accompanied by impartial or found texts placed with the intention of misleading the viewer even further of the curatorial decision making. According to Gioni, these blurbs suggest "new possible keys for their misinterpretation", but to the viewer who hasn't been let in on Gioni's deceptions, they come off as unprofessional. In fact, the entire exhibition operates under the premise of a fictitious presentation: that of a documentation of the present by some future institution. Once we've completed all of the necessary research into Gioni's inspirations and are making Herzog's search for an "ecstatic truth", this deceptive approach seems heavy-handed. The fourth floor alone, because of its overall mood rather than literal fabrication, is definitely evocative and fulfills Gioni's intentions.
The exhibition seems to prey off of eccentricities assumed by Massimiliano Gioni. Surely Herzog's truth could be reached in a slightly more prosaic manner than the overly romantic "After Nature". Gioni actually expects us to stumble starry-eyed through his Hall of Curiosities!
Gioni's attempt to discuss the changing themes of young artists today is another ambitious proposition, perhaps upstaged by his "quest for truth". The incorporation of the nuclear finger paintings by outsider artists Eugene Von Bruenchenhein and quotes by Reverend Howard Finster are ecstatic exclamations of the kind of overly dramatic romanticism we find Massimiiliano Gioni guilty of.
Trudy Benson
"After Nature", the extensive group show at the New Museum, spans three floors and includes the work of twenty-six international artists. The show includes almost one hundred different works and was organized by the museum's director of special exhibitions Massimiliano Gioni. Thematically inspired by Werner Herzog, W. G. Sebald, and Cormac McCarthy, Gioni proposes a post-apocalyptic perspective in art. Gioni writes that the exhibition is meant to be "a cabinet of curiosities that pieces together a fragmented encyclopedia", and overall meant to portray a mood suggested by Herzog's "ecstatic truth". Herzog minces around what he means by "ecstatic truth", describing it as a poetic truth liberated from fact just as Gioni's selection of works tries to send the viewer on a wild goose chase for integral meaning.
Individual themes within artworks include loss, as in Artur Zmijewski's film Oko Za Oko (An Eye for an Eye) in which a cripple is helped by another man to perform mundane acts; death, as in Pawet Althamer's figurative sculptures; and environmental issues, as in Allora and Calzadilla's Growth (Survival), an installation of Jenny Holzer's running LED light sculpture as light source for a large, hanging staghorn fern.
Tree, Zoe Leonard's dismembered tree pieced back together, resonates with the jumbled mood of the rest of the show. Perhaps the most palpable of Gioni's elusive grapple with "truth", Tree is a documentation of a random act of nature. High up on the wall Maurizio Catelan's taxidermied full-sized horse (Untitled) dangles with its head seemingly stuck in the wall. Together the two pieces more than dominate the room. The scale of works in the comparatively sparsely-curated room infuse the room with an eery energy. Both pieces stand as kinds of perverse monuments to loss, in that after their demises, the tree and the horse were turned to an improper use.
The third floor "houses" a full-scale replica of the Unibomber's cabin by Robert Kusmirwski with is only slightly evocative once we've answered the question, "Why is this colossal home blocking my view of the rest of the room?" Also disappointing are the unexciting large scale photographs of holes dug by Diego Perrone. The two pieces together feel like a room in an underfunded natural history museum; the artworks seem more like artifacts and the mood is morbid.
Pieces in the show were often accompanied by impartial or found texts placed with the intention of misleading the viewer even further of the curatorial decision making. According to Gioni, these blurbs suggest "new possible keys for their misinterpretation", but to the viewer who hasn't been let in on Gioni's deceptions, they come off as unprofessional. In fact, the entire exhibition operates under the premise of a fictitious presentation: that of a documentation of the present by some future institution. Once we've completed all of the necessary research into Gioni's inspirations and are making Herzog's search for an "ecstatic truth", this deceptive approach seems heavy-handed. The fourth floor alone, because of its overall mood rather than literal fabrication, is definitely evocative and fulfills Gioni's intentions.
The exhibition seems to prey off of eccentricities assumed by Massimiliano Gioni. Surely Herzog's truth could be reached in a slightly more prosaic manner than the overly romantic "After Nature". Gioni actually expects us to stumble starry-eyed through his Hall of Curiosities!
Gioni's attempt to discuss the changing themes of young artists today is another ambitious proposition, perhaps upstaged by his "quest for truth". The incorporation of the nuclear finger paintings by outsider artists Eugene Von Bruenchenhein and quotes by Reverend Howard Finster are ecstatic exclamations of the kind of overly dramatic romanticism we find Massimiiliano Gioni guilty of.
Trudy Benson
Monday, September 29, 2008
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