My mom remembered to bring her camera this time so we have images to go along with our art review.
We started out going downtown on the subway. There was a great music group singing Motown songs at the subway stop. They were making lots of moola! I wonder what the subway riders would pay to see a dog on an accordion?
After not being too impressed by the galleries on 21st Street, we saw an ambitious installation of Thomas Hirshhorn's "Universal Gym". Let's just say, we now understand why Barbara Gladstone Gallery is hurting. It's not the kind of installation I would use to generate money into the gallery, but hey, what do I know? I'm just a dog.
We then stopped at the Pace Wildenstein Gallery to see the popular show Berlin2000 and here I am with Aunty Kim in front of Anselm Reyle's "Believe", 2002. BERLIN2000, organized by Pace Wildenstein Director Birte Kleemann, focuses on two generations of artists working in Berlin at the time of the Wall’s collapse in 1989. The exhibition highlights the artists’ work as it reached international influence in the year 2000. Central to BERLIN2000’s premise are the various themes employed by and shared among the artists on view, including their tendency to organize and promote their own exhibitions and to collaborate on collectives. In addition, the social networks, underground nightlife scene and alternative exhibition spaces they established will be considered as the key context around which they galvanized.
We then went down 23rd Street, walked into I-20 Gallery then right out. It stunk! We then walked to Leo Koenig Inc and checked out the Ridley Howard painting show. My mom went to the opening and the dinner the prior evening before and we liked the show. The paintings were very reminiscent of movie stills making the narrative even more cinematic. The paintings had a dream-like almost "flashback" kind of quality.
Then our favorite part of the day came when we went into Gagosian Gallery to see the Piero Manzoni Retrospective. It was a museum quality show and it also showed many pieces of his contemporaries to show what was happening in the art world at that time. We saw Manzoni's "Achrome" series which were so beautiful and minimal but yet has texture and a complexity I feel missing in the minimal movement in America at that time. But nothing made us happier than seeing Piero Manzoni's "Merda d'artista" which is a piece in which Manzoni cans his own poop and seals it as a product from the artist. As a dog I love this piece and can relate whole-heartily. I especially love how on the bottom of the can it says "Made in Italy" which ironically these days means crap.
Then we made our way down 24th Street to Andrea Rosen Gallery who was showing Andrea Zittel. Mom actually showed Andrea Zittel first in Soho back in the good old days of her art career and since then Andrea Zittel has become famous as an artist world wide. It wasn't her best work but I had a lot of fun running around the gallery as mom decided to let me out of our red bag (see image below):
Our last stop of the day (yeah we were too tired by then to make it pass 24th Street) was Metro Pictures to see one of our favorite contemporary artists Tony Oursler. It's always a fun visual experience to see a Oursler show as he likes to project video images onto objects to provide a spooky, psychedelic piece of video installation. It's always fun to see a Oursler show with children as they always freak out which give me a chuckle. There was a piece called the "Forrest of Cigarettes" which was a different take on his work but still effective (see above). There was also a funny video piece of lottery tickets spread out on the ground and a hand scratching them off which confused me as a dog as I wanted to attack the hand but couldn't really see where the hand was coming from. My mommy made sure I was safely squeezed into my bag as we didn't have an extra one hundred thousand dollars lying around to give away in case I destroyed the work.
After Metro Pictures we were exhausted and decided to call it a day. We then walked back to the subway, said goodbye to Aunty Kim and I proceeded to pass out in the subway ride in my toasty red bag.
I am now on my couch about to go into a doggy coma. My mom is actually staying in tonight to catch up on work as she was out late last night with her friends. So I hope all of you have a great weekend and go to see the shows I recommended to see. We saw many more shows than mentioned above but these were our favorite stops. Don't forget Sunday is the last day of The Armory Show. Well, Chow for now!
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