Self-Portraits from James Turrell’s show at PaceWilderstein

Art Ravel’s 2009 Prize for Best Artwork to Take Self-Portraits With goes to…
James Turrell at PaceWildenstein


Remember holograms? They were big in the 80s. Anyhow, these seemingly 3D depictions of color by James Turrell make awesome backdrops for photographs. Awesome.

I actually saw quite a lot of abstract color when I went to Chelsea on Saturday, and this might be in a sense the purest form of it. Or it might be the transference of abstract Minamalist principles to a new medium (which seems not nearly as high-tech as it did in the 80s).

This jpeg on the left doesn’t really do the work justice either; the shifting work creates a experiential process of looking that is hard to capture. In case you are really into holograms, the show is up at Pace’s 25th St location through October 17th. It could potentially be a soul searching experience in which you touch the miraculous essence of color and exit a changed being, but most likely any reveries you have will be interrupted by inspired photographers like myself whipping out their camera phones. Maybe try to go when the gallery is less busy. : )

Quick Impressions: Kara Walker, Juergen Teller, Et. Al.


Last night was one of those great nights in New York city when the whole world seems to be trawling its blocks, wearing every conceivable item of clothing and heading every which way. The people watching was great, the art was much and varied, and the wine was scant. (Recession much?) I started at Sikkema Jenkins, where new work from Kara Walker (above) and Mark Bradford was up. Mark Bradford, who I wasn’t familiar with, has a stunning large piece just in the entrance.

The image above doesn’t really do it justice, I recommend checking it out. Magnus Plessen at Gladstone is also worth a look.

I wandered further up, to Juergen Teller at Lehman Maupin. Unfortunately, I don’t have an image of his crops of nude statues that coldly toy with sexuality and artificiality. I think I enjoyed some of those more than the juxtaposition of his muses in the galleries.


Maybe it was the show, or maybe it was the time of night–about 7:30, but the crowds really started to kick in. And a very good looking crowd it was. I had a slightly awkward moment when a middle-aged WASPy women, who had asked me what gallery we were in, got the mistaken impression that we were going off together in search of wine…but never mind that.


I lost her at the heads. This photo doesn’t quite do justice to Jaune Plensa’s massive illuminated sculptures at Galerie Lelong. I only wish he hadn’t taken to inscribing words accross them. “Anxiety,” “Wrath,” etc felt overly didactic, if didactic is ever a good thing in art. By this time things were kicking, I had lost the people I was with, and I headed down to Zwirner and the Kitchen on 19th St. Both had great, fun, crowded openings (perhaps because they had booze : ). As for the art…I’ll have to check it out under other circumstances.

I tried to squeeze another opening into my night by going down to SoHo, but there was a line halfway down the block to get into this exhibition! The people in front told me they had waited for an hour, and I decided to walk myself home. Somewhere along this walk I realized it was also Fashion’s Night Out , with lingerie stores offering cookies and boutiques with bands.

Was anybody else out last night? Any recommendations?

Melissa Meyer’s Dancing Paintings

Lang, 2008

Word on the street was that the Melissa Meyer show at Lennon, Wienberg Inc. was worth seeing, so I was lucky I made it down there this weekend before it closed. Canvases, like Lang above, are larger than you would expect and the oils in some places have the thinness of watercolors.

Meyer was in the gallery, and she described how she works with the canvases flat on the floor and paint them in layers. She thinks of the linear marks she makes as “dancing.”

Galvin, 2008

Her work is rooted in Abstract Expressionism, and in these large paintings she achieves an effect rather like watercolors with the play of light and space. I found I really enjoyed just looking at them and tracing the different layers and marks. The marks don’t come together to mean anything, but watching how they interact is beautiful.