Ugo Rondinone’s spirit level

Sprawling over 2 gallery spaces and featuring the works of 19 artists, artist Ugo Rondinone curated “the spirit level,” a beautiful show that ended April 21st. Lots and lots of pictures of the installation below. This show exemplified great curation to me. The works keyed off each other beautifully, and the environment itself became a work of art, as it were. There’s a nice review of it in the New York Times here.

Above and below is the entrance to the 24th Street Gladstone gallery, with Ann Craven’s large, dark paintings on the wall and Latifa Echakhch’s “Frames”, rectangular rugs with the centers cut out, on the floor. 

Andrew Lord’s ceramic vessels

Saul Fletcher’s tiny quiet Polaroids

Jay DeFeo’s charcoal drawings

 

Sarah Lucas’s penises

Bronze reclining nudes by Hans Josephsohn, canvas pyramids by Alan Shields, and a mural-sized suite of Amy Granat’s photograms of flowers.

In the 21st street gallery, the lower room held Peter Buggenhout’s enormous, dust-covered sculptures.

Sam Gilliam’s “Wall Cascade” and “Close to Trees,” two equally huge swaths of fabric hung from the walls.

Joe Bradley’s star canvases.

Hans Schärer. Love the teeth so much.

Upstairs room at the 21st St. gallery was filled with Vienna actionist Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s tortured photograghs alongside Al Hansen’s cigarette-butt Venus torsos on panels.
 

Victory

Rocky statue, steps of Philadelphia Museum of Art

At least of the personal sort.

I’ve been awarded a Fulbright grant to research contemporary Hungarian art. Things are still up in the air (and contingent on getting medical clearance and visas and such) but it looks like I will be in Hungary September through May. I still can’t quite believe the good news, but I feel sure once it sinks in I will be incredibly excited  thrilled over the moon.

If you have any contacts or suggestions for Budapest, or Hungary in general, send me a message! I’d love to know.

But now, back to trying to learn Hungarian…(an almost Quixotic pursuit).

Terracotta Warriors

Terracotta Warriors: Defenders of China’s First Emperor opens today at Discovery Times Square. A collection of terracotta sculptures was buried with Qin Shi Huang, Emperor of China in 210–209 BC, and found again in 1974 when a farmer chanced upon the first of what archaeologists estimate are 8,000 warriors and other figures. Its’s a small exhibit, tiny in comparison to the actual, only partially excavated site in China, but it might be your only chance to see these incredibly preserved terracotta warriors stateside.