Category Archives: contemporary art

Pat Steir’s Nearly Endless Line at Sue Scott Gallery

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Installation Shot–does not do it justice…

As I noted above, these photographs hardly due justice to the experience of walking through Steir’s installation at the Sue Scott Gallery. The Nearly Endless Line manages to create an energy that is hard to capture without being able to sense all the surfaces of the darkened rooms. There are just two rooms of average size but they seem expansive if not endless. It feels like walking through an Abstract Expressionist painting–a neat experience–and a much warmer one than works by some of her contemporaries like Sol LeWitt.

Another almost useless installation shot
Up close: thin red grid

While the dark lighting smacks a bit of stagecraft, this piece raised the bar for how I want installations to affect me. The precise red grid on the dark background shows off the choas and energy of the white line. Up at the Sue Scott Gallery through January 9th if you want a surprisingly trippy, simple yet immersible art experience.

Roll Call: Favorites of the Decade

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Untitled (Mylar), Tara Donovan, Installation Shot at Met

 So I was asked the big question: Who are my favorite 3 artists/artworks of past 10 years?

Clearly this is an impossible question, and perhaps for that reason my mind went utterly blank…especially as I mentally had to reject so many things made prior to 10 years ago. But it bothered me I couldn’t answer.

The next day, because I think better on paper, I made a list:

  • William Kentridge (and, by the way, check out the PBS documentary that just came out)
  • Tara Donovan
  • Doug Aitken
  • Julie Heffernan
  • Mark Bradford
  • Michelangelo Pistoletti

Not sure but strong maybes:

  • Murakami
  • Hernan Bas
  • Claire Twomey

Not sure due to 10-year time restriction:

  • Jeff Wall
  • Cy Twombley

 So let’s get quite contemporary, and you tell me, what would you pick? Can you pick? I can’t even choose a favorite color, so I understand not being able to. But a fun game if you want to drive yourself bonkers.

Kevin Bourgeois at Causey Contemporary

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The installation of this show is just such a fantastic, seamless background that really shows off the work of Kevin Bourgeois to great effect. I loved it the second I walked in. Here, however, is the rub: the works viewed on their own were something else.

I found it hard to distance my reaction to the (rather horrible) subject matter from the way it was depicted, too distracted by repulsion to judge it as a work of art. Does that mean it failed as a work of art, or conversely that it was successful?

How is one meant to appreciate work that tackles difficult, uncomfortable subjects or, in this case, rather wallows in dark tropes? It’s up at Causey Contemporary in Williamsburg through November 14 in case you want to judge for yourself.