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Eva Pel's
Observations of a Celebration.
February 20th- March 28th,
2010
330 snapshot size photographs documenting several of the events Ms Pel visited in New York during the 2009 NY400 celebrations. Some are included in the book she published earlier this year with the same title.
I love seeing this LED sign when I'm waiting for a red light!
link to Eva Pel's website
On the occasion of the inauguration of the new exhibition venue ‘de Appel Boys’ School’ on the Eerste Jacob van Campenstraat 59 in Amsterdam, de Appel presents “For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there”.
This group exhibition celebrates the experience of curiosity and speculation as a form of knowledge. In that spirit, the contributing artists each pursue a better understanding of the world, but also insist that an artwork isn't an explanation and that art is not a code that has to be unlocked. In this exhibition, viewers stop being passive receivers of information and become active participants in a playful spirit of inquiry.
Curator Huberman speaking about this expo you tube link Just as when I was first residing in Amsterdam, attending exhibitions, I had the sense that everything was in code, and I was on the outside of some (obvious) pre-requisite knowledge needed to understand the work I was seeing. Thus I was excited about this intro for the show travelling to de Appel. Just as I was excited when reading Roberta Smith expressing I started to feel as if it were all part of a big-box chain featuring only one brand. Me too!! This NYtimes article was shared a great deal on the face book by many an artist.
I thought more about the show at De Appel in the next couple of days after I saw it. However immediately after viewing this show, it all felt a bit flat. I realized there was no painting. This premise- this not knowing- is essentially what many painters do- enter into completely unknown territory. I have a hard time believing in a lack of calculatedness whereas some of the artists in this particular show are concerned. Perhaps more of a painting envy?
btw- very much a PS1 vibe here at this former boys school. .
as a maker of rocks myself, my attention is of course peeked when other artists are making rock like objects. The thing that struck me the most with this Rachel Harrison installation was how now the fotos are orbiting around the sculptural object rather than sitting on it's surface. I realize in my mind, when I see Harrison's work, I always get a visual flash of an early work of her's.. acting as some kind of barometer of how I see all her (future) work. It was a structure of precariously leaning drywall, and an inserted video of termites or an ant-farm or something of that nature.
I liked Matt Mullican's room with lot's of stuff.
be nice to have a big (wall) space to drag out the archive and have a look at it.
The not knowing is easy, so sings stuart A. staples.
one of my 6 windows on view in the Zeeheldenbuurt etalages.
Kathleen Kucka: Fluidity, at Galerie Roger Katwijk.
Diana Cooper forwarded me Kathleen's announcement. A couple of other friends of friends in New York turned up too. Katwijk gallery artist Jim Harris, and Monica Perez Vega, who it turns out went to California College for the Arts and is now living in Amsterdam.
I was a guest at Virgil de Voldere's booth, showing my new painting and new paper pieces. Markus Hansen's fotos on right. Animal portraits, replacing his own eye for the creature's.
Abner Preis performance quite the hullaballoo. Dennis Hollingsworth painting up there on the right
Mika Rottenberg in the booth of Laurent Godin from Paris. Viewable from Virgil's booth, enjoyed seeing these photos again. Something comforting about the familiarity and proximity- I must have passed by her show a dozen times when when it was up at Nicole Klagsbrun, and I was installing my show at neighboring Bravin Lee.
Hey! there he is again. Hello. I really wanted to have this dog house sculpture by Freek Wambacq in my I love the Benelux show. Here at Elisa Platteau Galerie from Brussels. (left) And looky there: a Snoopy painting. by Paul Housley at Akinci (right)
Philip Akkerman sporting t-shirt showing support for local government party of the Hague, and the posters(left) he made for the occasion, at Torch gallery..his paintings on the right. Notice on Mr. Akkerman's t-shirt, the crane has a human eye, sharing the zeitgeist with Markus Hansen's fotos behind him
The recurring image at the Rotterdam fair was the mike stand. Amalia Pica's, with sensor activated spot light was one at Diana Stigter, Monica Ursina Jäger's was another at Christinger De Mayo from Zurich. There was a third by Pepo Salazar at Upstream.
Everybody is a star.
Art Rotterdam
Kevin J. Everson and friends after screening for Erie thursday evening.
