It was like gallery night all over again in Greenpoint, with five art shows opening last Friday. Instead of reviewing each show individually, I decided to play a little game. I asked at least one artist from each show the same question: “What does your work have to do with the title of the show?” They answered in one sentence or phrase.
Here is what they said – in order of my art stroll:
Gallery: Java Studios Gallery (252 Java St #308)
Show Title: “The Shape of Control”
Artist: Robby Rose
Answer: “Death and how we remember people.”
What pictures would you pick of yourself for a “now and then” slideshow? Would the choices accurately depict progression or would they represent a cultivated presentation of how you’d like to be thought of?
Calico Brooklyn’s “Throwback Thursday” is an art show that compares old and new works from a kind of high school yearbook haircut stance (the title comes from the urban dictionary definition to this effect). Pairings by ten artists are hung with a newer piece on the right and an older piece to the left. Continue reading →
Charles Wilkin "Untitled (fawn)" (pigment stain on postcard, C-Print) 18" x 24"
When I previewed Calico Brooklyn’s show titled Born Again, featuring the works of Thomas Buildmore, Allison Maletz, and Charles Wilkin, it was easy to find the theme of reuse and reinvention in collage artist Wilkin’s enlarged pigment stained postcard prints and Buildmore’s drippy spraypaint floral still lifes, but Maletz’s sound installation called Utility Purgatory, outfitted with a telephone and surrounded by her watercolor mold paintings was harder to discern. That is, unless we consider the post-Mayan apocalyptic experience referenced by Curator Scott Chasse, which he described as “very similar to the pre-Mayan apocalypse, only we are able to celebrate the afterlife in real-time.”
When I asked Chasse what inspired Born Again he said, “I understand that appropriation and reuse of images, ideas, materials, etc is nothing new, but I think that looking at the works by these three artists as a form of “rebirth” gives a fresh, slightly different way of experiencing what is being presented.”
Sitting on a rotary phone on hold with the telephone company for so long that mold grows on the walls would leave anyone dreaming of the apocalypse, or at least the reinvention of customer service tactics.
Maletz explained that, “these services exist in theory to improve our lives, yet are rendered useless as all the various “please hold” messages loop endlessly, leaving the audience completely impotent.” But Maletz doesn’t take “hold” for an answer and presents this experience in a new way with “a new meaning, so that we might all step back as outsiders looking in, to observe and perhaps even enjoy this well known and frustrating experience.” She went on to say that she made “the Mold Paintings specifically to go with Utility Purgatory. At their core, both works are about what can grow out of neglect.” Continue reading →
Yes, there is a stupid blizzard, but a walk in the snow if fun, and so is a walk in the snow to an art show with amazing work, friends and drinks to warm you up!
I recommend this show for tonight, Friday February 8, 2013:
Born Again is opening tonight at Calico Brooklyn (67 West St) from 7-9pm and features the artwork of Thomas Buildmore, Allison Maletz & Charles Wilkin. The show follows the theme of reuse and recontextualization in the work itself but also in the new techniques and styles presented by artists.
It will be so moving that you might begin trembling and speaking in tongues.
Gallery: Java Studios Gallery (252 Java St #308)
