Sculpture Roundup in Chelsea

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There was a lot of good sculpture in Chelsea this month, more that I can write about in individual posts, so this is a collection of exhibitions that I saw, liked and photographed. This post is more show than tell, but I have slipped in some info from press releases and, quelle surprise, a few opinions.
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Jaume Plensa

In the Midst of Dreams, Galerie Lelong, through October 24

Working with true subjects, Plensa then altered their faces for these illuminated cast-resin heads so that race and/or gender are indeterminate

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Below: Serenity in proportionally altered, laser-cut stone
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Rebecca Warren

Feelings, Matthew Marks Gallery (22nd St.), through October 24

Warren presents the female form--in plaster, unfired clay, painted bronze or welded steel--in a range of expression from figuration to abstraction, and with an attitude that swings from humorous to aggressive. She's in thorough control of her metier, but to be honest, with all those materials and points of view, this feels more like a group show. And is it me, or does this piece seem to channel R. Crumb?

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Linda Stein

Women of Valor, Flomenhaft Gallery, through October 24

Stein focused on armor and superheroes in this two-artist show (with painter Jaune Quick-To-See Smith). You probably can't see it without a detail, but the surface is swathed in laser-print copies of Wonder Woman cartoons--a totemic expression of power and protection

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David Kennedy Cutler
No More Right Now Forever, Derek Eller Gallery, Through October 24

Views above and below, with sculptures barely visible: Clear plexiglass sheets heat-molded with the impression of the artist's body



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Vincent Fecteau
New Sculpture, Matthew Marks Gallery (24th St.), through October 24
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For these fluid forms I thought felt, but no. They're painted papier mache. What's more, they all began over the armature of a semi-inflated beach ball. I'm reading from the press release now: "The works have similar looking curves because of their shared beginnings, however each piece has been worked into an entirely new form."
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Nancy Graves
Nancy Graves, Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe, through October 24



The late sculptor, known for large-scale welded forms that referenced animal life (her famous camels) and a jungle of botanical life, is here represented by an installation of small polychromed bronze sculptures from the 1980s
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From the press release: "During these years, Graves used bronze casting to create elements from a variety of organic and manufactured items, which she then arranged, welded together, and painted with rich and colorful patinas."

My favorite, below: Wax Works VII, 1987, bronze with baked enamel, 10 x 17.5 x 14.5 inches



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Andy Yoder
Man Cave, Winkleman Gallery, through October 24



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From the guy who brought you the 10-foot licorice wingtip shoe comes a show that subverts the idea of masculinity, of what makes guy things guy things. I'm not sure the fur life preserver and gilded bowling pin make the point as much as his rose-covered garage door or lead crystal hubcaps, but in the process he also forces one to question what makes flowers and lead crystal girl things).

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Type A
Ruled, Goff + Rosenthal, through October 17
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Type A is Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin. The piece you're seeing is a gallery installation of 2000 plumb bobs, which occupy so much of the space that you have to flatten yourself against the wall to get past it. I'm not sure I would have been so drawn to the work if it hadn't been for the collaboration of the sun.

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The strong afternoon light created a staccato rhythym via shadows that hit the floor in sharp perpendicular to the plumbs, below. I'll have to revisit the installation on a cloudy day and let you know

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Anselm Reyle

Monochrome Age, Gagosian, through October 24

I didn't respond to most of the work in this show. I found it too big, too shiny, too full of itself. But I did like the work above, a modular relief (possibly of pressed or cast steel) modulated from behind with changing lights. I managed to get two shots before the guards rushed over to say "No pictures."

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Marketing Mondays: The Art of the Trade

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The recession has done wonders for my personal art collection. I've been trading a lot lately with my artist friends. When the market was going great guns, it was hard to give up work that I knew would sell; this is how I support myself, after all. But after the market crashed and sales slowed to a crawl, trading has allowed me to make the very best of a bad economy.

Steven Alexander, with whom I recently traded a painting, thoughtfully puts the process in perspective: "Those of us who devote our lives to making art objects place a particularly high value on aesthetic experience -- and it is little bits of that experience that we trade among ourselves. It is distinctly different from buying a work, which very few artists are able to do, or from the notion of "building" a collection in any commercial sense. It is more connected to life experience, personal relationships, and shared affinities. The whole process is based on a deep and fundamental understanding of mutual respect and appreciation."

Based on my personal experience here are some observations about the art of the trade. Feel free to add your own comments to the discourse.
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Trade with your Peers
Some years ago I saw a fabulous show of work on paper by an artist with a more advanced career than mine (I'm being purposely vague). I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I proposed a trade. She looked at me as if I had six heads, all of them empty. I felt like an idiot, as well I should have. My enthusiasm got the better of my good sense.
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Offer Work in an Equal Price Range
Your quid pro quo need not be painting for painting, or sculpture for sculpture, but it needs to have a reasonably equal "street value." Surely there's some leeway with friends--but not too much.

Offer Your Best Work
This is not a yard sale, it's a trade. You want good? Give good.

If You Can't Show the Work in Person, Make a Good CD
Sounds like a no-brainer, but if you or your trading partner want to be satisfied, the J-pegs need to accurately reflect the work. Recently I selected a painting from a CD whose images were not all that great, but I knew the artist's work and palette, so I felt secure in my choice. The artist included a recent catalog of his work, so not only did it clarify any issues I might have had with the less-than-perfect Jpegs, I was delighted to have the catalog for my library.
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Create Your Own Parameters
Maybe you want to trade just work on paper? Maybe there's just one series you’re willing to trade? Maybe you want to keep things small? Then that's what you should do. Trading is fun. If you feel pressured into trading something you're prefer to keep, that's not satisfying and you shouldn’t do it.

It's OK To Say No
I have a friend whom I like, and whose work I like, but there were just a few pieces for which I was willing to give up one of my paintings. When it turned out that the ones I wanted were unavailable, that trade lost its appeal. I kind of weaseled out by not following up. I'm a forthright person, as is my friend. I should have been able to say, " I really liked paintings X, Y and Z, but without them as a choice, I'd like to postone the trade for a while."
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How Will the Work Be Exchanged?
If you're in the same studio building, no problem. If you don't live nearby and cannot arrange for a mutual dropoff, send it via a carrier of your choosing. You pay for sending yours; she pays for sending hers.

Where's the Dealer in All of This?
To be honest, I haven't brought up the subject with the dealers I work with. I'm not hiding anything. No money has changed hands. As Alexander notes, this is a personal connection between two people with shared affinities, not about making money.
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Do You Need Paperwork?
I know everyone I've traded with, so paperwork has seemed unnecessary. If you feel the need for it, bring up the subject with your trading partner. If the two of you agree to provide an invoice of exchange, or whatever, you should probably be the one to initiate any paperwork since it's your idea.
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Bartering for Professional Services
This is a different ballgame. Instead of trading for fun, you’re bartering for need. I bartered for legal help once, and it was a wonderful experience. The attorney had a wall full of good art, and he understood the quid pro quo. I also know artists who have traded for dental work. Regular bartering for professional services will probably plunge you into IRS waters. This may be where paperwork is worth doing. Who has experience and advice here?

Related: Painter Antonio Puri has created an exhibition project called Art 4 Barter. No money changes hands. The exhibiting artists list the items or services they'd like to receive in exchange for their work. Indeed, Puri often trades his artwork for the gallery space in which to hold the exhibition.

Over to You
Have you traded work? Do you have any stories, comments, advice?.
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Maya Lin: Three Ways of Looking at the Earth

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My intention is not to take you on a tour of the elements, but in the new exhibition of work of Maya Lin we move from the water of previous posts water to earth here.

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Banner for Lin on 22nd Street, not far from the gallery

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Once again Lin shows herself to be one of our best sculptors. In Three Ways of Looking at the Earth at Pace Wildenstein's 22nd Street gallery, Lin uses three topographic systems to depict specific environments, producing them in different materials on a scale that allows the viewer to navigate around and through them.

When I was there recently, two pre-teen girls scampered up a 10-foot hill of 2x4s. At first I thought it was a performance, but they were too young and they kept looking back toward Lin. Her children? This kind of joyous freedom seemed so antithetical to the gallery's attitude, but you can see them for yourself. (Normally Pace maintains a rigorous no-photography policy but when the kids started climbing, the cameras came out. )

It's tempting to think of Lin as the anti-Serra, working with the earth, or with the idea of earth, rather than imposing her will on it. But of course that's not true. Lin's work is every bit as assertive and dramatic (and her permanently installed Wave Field at Storm King shows you just how imposing she can be), just in a kinder, gentler way. The installation at Pace is up through October 24.

2x4 Landscape, composed of 50,000 vertical 2x4s, suggests a hill

The press release says the 10-foor-high installation occupies 1900 square feet of floor space. The climbers had someone's approval. Judging by the way Lin was watching them, and the way they surrounded her afterward, I'm guessing they were her kids. Certainly no one else attempted the same climb

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Walking the perimeter of the work, I shot it at its far end, taking in a bit of each of the other two works in the space

Blue Lake Pass, 20 units composed of contoured particle board

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Let me quote the press release here: "Based on terrain from the Rocky Mountains, Blue Lake Pass explores a specific region of Southwestern Colorado that is personally familiar to Lin, whose family vacations there each summer. Lin imposed a three-by-three-foot grid on the topography, which was then scaled down and sectioned into 20 individual units that form narrow passageways through the mountain pass."


Water Line, aluminum-wire , 19' x 34' 8" x 29' 2"

The contoured grid of this work suggests a mapped section of ocean in the Antarctic. The experience of walking on the ground through an airy grid meant to depict water is viscerally thrilling



The sculptor in conversation while the young climbers scaled the wooden hill just beyond her right shoulder .

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Update 10.6.09:

View Loren Munk's three-minute video of the installation

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Water, Water Everywhere

The L'eau Down:

. Slippery When Wet Installation Shots

. Paparazzi pics from the show

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At SoHo 20: Darla Bjork, Water #2, 2008, encaustic and oil, 16 x 32 inches

Maybe it's because an aqueous sensibility has permeated my own artmaking recently, but I'm more attuned to painting in which water is reference or theme.
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Paintings from Darla Bjork's Water Series had the main gallery at SoHo 20 Gallery. With a cool palette and a fluid gesture, Bjork creates an environment in which water seems to roil, wave, break and flow. Using encaustic, she takes full advantage of the medium's fluid qualities, allowing paint drips to develop the compositions and enhance the sensation of liquid. The show ran through September 26, but you can see more on Bjork's website.

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At Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, Kylie Heidenheimer shows eight paintings that reference the elements. Two stand out as particularly topical. The show has been extended to October 17.

Port, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 38 x 38 inches



Installation showing Port and Raceway
Below: Raceway, 2008, acrylic on panel, 46 x 46 inches

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Marketing Mondays: Open Studios

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Back in late May, Nancy Natale suggested I do a post on the topic of Open Studios. I decided to wait until fall, when many of these artist-run events coincide with the new art season. For unrepresented artists, Open Studios are an opportunity to show work and build a collector base. Even for represented artists, they're an opportunity to participate in a community event.

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Logo and map for the TOAST Art Walk (Tribeca Open Artists Studios) in lower Manhattan. Not a current notice; images from the Internet

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I have done exactly one open studio in my life (hated it; too much set up, too many boring questions, too few sales to make the experience financially worthwhile), but I have occasionally attended them and enjoyed the experience. .
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What I Like About Open Studios
Speaking as a visitor, then, I can say that the Open Studios I've found most enjoyable are the ones in which at least one wall is set up to show the work in a gallery-like setting, which means a white wall and good lighting. Mind you, I like seeing the studios--the tools and materials of each artist, how the setups differ from artist to artist, medium to medium, and whether the studio is a work space or a live/work space--but in terms of viewing the work, the experience is best for me when the work is easily viewable. This might mean, for instance, repainting your painting wall, since that's usually the best vertical surface in the studio.

I also appreciate when the artist acknowledges my entry. I don't necessarily want to engage in conversation with every artist in every studio (and from my one Open Studio experience, I know she doesn't necessarily want to chat with me), but when the artist is totally involved with her friends or reading a book and doesn't look up, it feels like a closed studio. I see a ton of art every month in galleries and museums. What makes an Open Studio unique for me is the peek into the inner sanctum and the opportunity to talk with the artist about her work if I am drawn to it. The artist who can speak clearly and succinctly about her work is the one who will make an impression. And it has happened that hearing an artist speak about her work, to me or to others, has sent me back for a second look even if I was not bowled over initially.

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I personally know one New York artist who ended up with a solo show and gallery representation in Berlin as a result of the exposure, and a Boston artist who's now with a Boston gallery, which then resulted in a commission for a major New England museum, so sometimes the dots do connect. And I know or know of many artists who do well enough saleswise to keep doing Open Studios on a regular basis. (Many dealers won't tell you this, but they do pop into the occasional event to see who/what looks new.)

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Business basics

. Provide information: a price list for the work on view, an artist's statement, a resume
. Give your visitors something to take away with them: a postcard, business card or (best of all) a sheet with a few images along with a statement and contact information. They may decide in a couple of weeks that they want to come back to re-view a work, and you want them to be able to contact you easily. In that same vein, have some printed images of specific works to give to someone who shows serious interest in the work during the event--4x6" photo paper is inexpensive yet provides a sufficiently large image for a collector to ponder
. Accept credit cards. Considering how many people pay with plastic, it's to your advantage to set yourself up to take them

. If you're taking cash, a sales slip is a sufficient receipt for the collector, but follow up with a PDF or a hard-copy receipt so that you have data for your mailing list

. Promote the event. Don't depend on the Open Studio promoters do it all. Put the information on your website, your blog. Send an e-mail to your list. Send a postcard. Include all the pertinent information: who, what, where, when (sounds like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at what gets left off the announcements). Include a phone number and e-mail address, and directions or a map if you think it would be helpful

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Pricing

. Price the work reasonably. While you don't want to give the work away, one of the draws for collectors--and artists also collect--is that the prices are lower than at a commercial gallery because there is no commission to share

. If your work is large and your prices aren't low, consider special projects at a lower price: works on paper, a print edition

. Factor in the discount. You're going to be asked, so set your prices accordingly

. Have a raffle. Hey, why not? Open Studios are a fun event. Make it fun! Make the raffle part of your advertising strategy

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Follow Up
. Consider a newsletter to stay in touch with your Open Studio visitors. Let them know when you have new work, let them know of a professional success. People who follow an artist like to know that artist's progress

. Definitely consider a wine and cheese event for collectors when you have new work to show

. Or invite your best collectors to a private studio visit when you have that new work. This is harder work for you-- it's the kind of thing a gallery does all the time: inviting collectors to the gallery to see new work--but as long as you are unrepresented, you want to represent yourself in the best possible, most professional way. When you do find representation, you want your collectors to follow you to the gallery

Over to You

. Who has had good results with the Open Studio, whether in terms of sales or attention from dealers or curators?
. Any advice, trade secrets, caveats?
. If you've got an Open Studio coming up, please post it in the Comments section

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The L'eau Down: Paparazzi Pictures

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Click here for installation shots or scroll down

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Entering the gallery early in the evening. That's Nancy Manter's photograph in the window. Note the second-floor space in the gallery; the next shot is taken from there

Remember the scene in La Dolce Vita when Marcello Mastroianni, the jaded journalist, is cruising the Via Veneto for action and Paparazzo, the photographer, jumps into his convertible? Well, a multi-lingual noun was born.

I got to play paparazza at the opening of Slippery When Wet, shooting most of these pics at the beginning and the end of the three-hour evening, when the gallery was less crowded and I could take time out from conversation. Look out, Page 6! (Installation pics are here.)

Looking down from the second level, above, and from the spiral stairs, below

That's Metaphor's Julian Jackson standing in front of Andrew Mockler's banded canvas. Mockler is standing in front of Peter Schroth's paintings. Schroth, partially hidden, is standing between Jackson and Mockler

Sculptor Richard Bottwin standing in front of my paintings. I love the color coordination, though he assures me it was a coincidence

Below: Matthew Deleget, painter and Minus Space director, flanked by painter Karen Schifano and Richard Bottwin. Both artists are represented on the Minus Space site. (Related news: Minus Space now has a bricks-and-mortar exhibition space in Brooklyn. Bottwin, who shows at Metaphor, is participating in the Dumbo Arts Festival this weekend. I just made a studio visit with Schifano and will be posting the story soon; stay tuned.)

The photogenic owner/directors of Metaphor: Rene Lynch and Julian Jackson. (Lynch has a show of her own opening at Jenkins Johnson next month; Jackson opens 2010 with a solo at Kathryn Markel.)



Jackson, center, is talking with painter Sonita Singwi, who has a studio in Brooklyn
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Below: The handsome bearded gent in the very center of the photo is photographer Don Muchow




Painter Julie Gross talking with Laura and Steven Alexander, the painter

Below: Muchow, an artist named Charles, painter Kylie Heidenheimer chatting with Edward Shalala
(Related news: Heidenheimer has a show up at Gallery Thomas Jaekel ; I wrote about Shalala's work recently, here and here.)

Shooting the shooter

Kylie Heidenheimer, right, in conversation with painter Cecile Chong and her husband Ryan Behroozi

Below: painters Margaret Neill and Peter Schroth

Jackson, Alexander, Alexander, Gross

Below: Chong, Alexander, Alexander and me

Mary Judge and Julian Jackson with a soupcon of Julie Gross and Rene Lynch

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Below: Art to represent the artists. Suzan Batu, left, was home in Turkey, and for some reason all the pictures I had of Susan Homer showed her obscured by someone else

The Man on the Bike, aka James Kalm and Loren Munk

Below: Night falls

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The L'eau Down: Installation Shots from "Slippery When Wet"

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I'll have paparazzi pics on Friday, but I wanted to show you installation shots of Slippery When Wet at Metaphor Contemporary Art, in which I have work. Obviously I can't review the show, but I can describe and discuss it--a diverse thematic show in which water asserts itself abstractly and representationally, in color and in black and white.

View from the front door: Foreground, Andrew Mockler, Untitled, 72 x 49 inches; three paintings from the Ocean series by Peter Schroth, each oil on paper mounted on canvas, 28 x 28 inches; two framed photographs from the Water Studies series by Don Muchow, archival inkjet prints; a grid of 18 of my Silk Road paintings, most 2009, all encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

The images, courtesy of the gallery, begin at the front entrance and sweep around clockwise. Let me say that I love Andrew Mockler's paintings, beautiful canvases that compress a thousand sunrises and sunsets into coolly formal compositions of horizontal stripes. You can see a large one, above, which is just to your left as you enter the gallery. (The gallery itself, a beautiful white cube with an enormous glass-front overhead door, must have started life as a garage. It would be completely at home on 24th Street next door to Gagosian or Mary Boone.)

Continuing around: Schroth, Muchow, Mattera

Peter Schroth and Don Muchow-- painter and photographer, above--have much in common with their water studies. Each captures the movement of the ocean. Schroth, working in oil on paper en plein air, depicts its turbulence, while Muchow, working in black and white photography, finds the moment between ebb and flow--like the still point after an exhalation.

My grid of Silk Road paintings, each 12x12, encaustic on panel

When Julian Jackson and Rene Lynch, the owner/directors of Metaphor, invited me to participate with an installation of Silk Road paintings, I allowed the aqueous theme to flow into my consciousness. The result are the paintings you see above, which are more atmospheric, more referential to the ocean than I would normally have done. I loved having the opportunity to stretch in this way. There are ridges suggestive of waves, and graduated color suggestive of horizons. I haven't become a seascape painter, of course. I retain my minimalist sensibility. But let's call it "minimalist with benefits." (You can see some individual works here.)

Suzan Batu, Slurpee, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches; Susan Homer, Rainy Day Painting, oil on canvas, 55 x 48 inches. Batu's work is all about the flow, while Homer's have a quiet lyricism inspired by the garden on a rainy day


Andrew Mockler's four gouache-on-paper studies are shown over the desk, above, and on their own, below

Climb the winding staircase in the back corner of the gallery and you reach a narrow second level. Normally it's a project space, but for this show it holds a continuation of the show. I have a larger work up here. Muchow and Mockler also have work. Nancy Manter has photographs as well. Manter's work is in the street-level window of the gallery, and that will be the first image you see in the paparazzi post on Friday, but for here, take a peek at this loge-like space. Below it is a closer view of one of Manter's works.

My Vicolo 53, 2008, carved encaustic on panel, 36 x 36 inches; two by Don Muchow; two by Nancy Manter; Andrew Mockler painting on far wall

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Below, Nancy Manter, Windowpane #2, digital photograph

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