Originally published on: May 28th, 2009

Luis Gispert recently debuted an exhibition at Otero Plassart gallery in Los Angeles. Gispert’s work is inspired by the idiosyncrasies of pop culture, urban life, cinematic technique, car culture, the uncanny and the poetics of transformation. In his latest show, Gispert explores these conceptual frameworks through the media of three large chromogenic prints and a a stunning, 26 minute short film entitled Smother.

The three large format photographs included in the show surrealistically examine panoramic landscape views and historic landmarks through the cockpits of Veteran-restored military bomber aircrafts and custom freight-liners. This mechanism — of framing and drawing parallels between seemingly disconnected visages through an unlikely, fabricated meta-frame of sorts — is an exploration that continues from Gispert’s last series of photographs. In his 2008 exhibition at Zach Feuer gallery, Gispert selected surreal Latin-American themed imagery and architectural tableaux, from a bizarrely Escalade populated suburban sleepy sprawl, to a processional litter in progress. When these vignettes are seen through the smooth lined, white leather pleated, faux-wood adorned aesthetics of wealth and luxury liners–the question of their relation to poverty, religion and oppression is raised.

In the newest series of works, Gispert instead examines sweeping views of perhaps one of the most amateur-photographed icons — nature at sunset. Gispert notes, “Sometimes I like to start with a problem and work my way out. Sunset landscape photography is one of the most cliched tropes in photography. So I decided to make landscape images that are interesting to me.” Interestingly though, by trying to unpack and revitalize an overexposed genre, Gispert notes that part of the inherent process has been chasing sunsets, trying to capture the sublime moment at a grand scale. In a move that is at once humorous and surreal, Gispert offsets Amsel Adams’ style purist/spiritualist “straight” photography that evokes the grandeur of the natural world with the implication of human presence. In this case, the masculine, psychologically-loaded customized spaces of souped up bombers, RVs and vans both mocks and renders foreign the romanticism of the sunset vistas.

The 26 minute short film, Smother, was a seductive semi-autobiographical narrative following a young boy’s “rite of passage through an Oedipal relationship with his mother.” The film was enchanting and violent, and revealed a penchant for the subliminal and horrific in the way that older, Brothers Grimm fairy tales encompass the nightmarish and fantastical. The film fluidly straddled the cinematic languages of science fiction and neo-noir to create a story that was at once powerful and unsettling.

Overarchingly, there is a certain dreaminess that pervades Gispert’s work: at once irrational, beautiful, slow and unexpected turns between the transcendent and the dark, with a languid sense of observing the in-congruencies in the images presented. “I tend to work slowly; several months usually elapse between idea and execution. When a new idea arrives I like to play with it in my head for a long time….I rarely make drawings, if something is too clearly illustrated on paper it’s finished for me, there’s no discovery left….I like to leave myself some room for improvising….I like the tension of not completely knowing what’s going to happen,” says Gispert. This modus operandi of holding, molding and shaping an image in his mind’s eye, rather than on the fatalistic and concrete media of paper, which locks in development seems to play a role in his works general aesthetic. “I don’t consider myself a ‘photographer’ as the camera is just another tool to illustrate an idea….I’ve always liked artists whose works resemble a group show….I don’t like when things are clearly defined or understood. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I jump around from medium to medium.” Perhaps it is this seemingly psychic induced conception process and fluid movement between genres & media that casts such a strangely hallucinatory light on his work- which unfold, as dreams do, nonsensically, but somehow with a divinely inspired sense of purpose.

Luis Gispert was born in 1972, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, South America and the Middle East including MOCA North Miami, FL; Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Studio Museum of Harlem, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; His work has also been included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; Private collections include Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

Massimo Guerrera (2009) Meeting, Ink, pencil and acrylic on paper, 54" x 44"

After six years of operation, the artist-run Crawl Space Gallery in Seattle has decided to close its doors and end their impressive programming of exhibitions, residencies, public forums, publications, and experimental projects. The gallery is currently presenting Stranger Circumstances as their final exhibition. The show features Crawl Space artist in residency, Massimo Guerrera as well as artists Alana Riley, Ron Tran with performances during the opening by the Seattle-based artist collective PDL, featuring Jason Puccinelli, Jed Dunkerley and Greg Lundgren.

Alana Riley (2004) Stephan from the series Support System, C-print

As the press release mentions, “Stranger Circumstances, brings together artists who devise strategies to connect with people they would otherwise never encounter.” Resident artist Massimo Guerrera explores the methods in which people communicate using language, meditation, exertion and sharing by collaborating with strangers to create artworks through a variety of media. During his time at Crawl Space, the artist collaborated with a dozen participates to create what he calls “a living installation.”  Alana Riley documents short performative interactions with strangers. Her exhibited works involve the artist asking participants to either lie on top of her, placing their full body weight as they see fit, or allow her to carry them piggie-back throughout their workspace. Ron Tran documents strangers within close range to observe particular gestures and interactions. Whether through collaboration, perforative acts or documentation, each artist is using the uncontrolled actions of strangers as a cornerstone of their conceptual practice.

Stranger Circumstances is curated by Jennifer Campbell and will be on view through November 29th.

Acclaimed and often contested artist Eric Fischl is currently exhibiting a new series of eight large paintings titled Corrida in Ronda, featuring images of bullfighters engaging in the Corrida Goyesca. Held in the Andalusian town of Ronda, the fighters dress in eighteenth century attire that falls in the era of the classic Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Goya actually designed the distinctive costumes, which are still worn by the fighters today in this special event.

Like previous bodies of work, Fischl focuses on the particular customs of a community and builds a psychology within the paintings through formal considerations of light source, color palette, and viewpoint.  Corrida in Ronda has been exhibited this year at Jablonka Galerie in Berlin and will travel in 2010 to the Centro De Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in Málaga, Spain.

The exhibition will be on view at Mary Boone Gallery at 541 West 24th St. until the 19th of December.

Christopher Simmons & Timothy Belonax "Everything is OK," 2009 (998 Market Street)

Art in Storefronts is a pilot program initiated by the office of Mayor Gavin Newsom and implemented by the San Francisco Arts Commission and Triple Base Gallery to reclaim abandoned storefront spaces in the San Francisco neighborhoods of Mission, Bayview, Market and Tenderloin. Rounding up participating artists by sending out a call for proposals, those selected were then assigned an address where they were allowed to create large-scale installations implementing a variety of mediums. Not to miss in the Market Street section are Christopher Simmons & Tim Belonax’s Everything is OK (998 Market), a neon installation that comes at the viewer as both a reassuring mantra and a questioning of the status quo. Additionally, Paul Hayes’ breathtaking ethereal installation, Giant Ghosts (989 Market), astounds the viewer by presenting life-size floating sculptural figures out of crumpled, white paper and illuminated by bright blue light. The aspiration of the project is to try and help reinvigorate neighborhoods traditionally abandoned due to economic downturns, while simultaneously giving local artists a unique opportunity to showcase their artwork. What would be most interesting would be to see a local artist use the space to explore the artist’s role in gentrification.

Paul Hayes "Giant Ghosts," 2009 (989 Market Street)

The project runs from September 2009 – February 1, 2010 and includes the locations of Central Market and Tenderloin (opens October 23^rd), Third Street (opens October 30^th) and Lower 24^th Street (opens November 20^th). A pdf map of all installations can be downloaded at the San Francisco Arts Commission’s website.

Krzysztof Wodiczko, …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, 2009, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong, NYC

The Institute for Contemporary Art/ Boston (ICA) is currently showing artist Krzysztof Wodiczko’s latest work, …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project.  This installation is comprised of light projection and sound and runs on a 7 minute loop – occupying three gallery walls.  The work envelopes the viewer in darkness, which is only broken by the sequence of windows projected near the ceiling.

Sound is by far the most important element of the work as it transports the visitor to an unknown Iraqi interior and to an imagined instance of war’s devastation.  Initially, innocuous sounds of daily life fill the room while noises from a booming market and the chants of an imam can be heard from outdoors.  American Humvees then arrive outside and soldiers subsequently shout commands and communicate with base.  Tensions are raised further as a dog is hit and automatic gunfire sounds.  Exterior destruction is only partially visible as the window projections are broken by bullets and black smoke can be seen rising behind them.  After the Humvees drive off, Iraqi women are heard crying and wailing at an increasing volume until the loop concludes.

OUT OF HERE:  The Veterans Project evokes the uncertainty and devastation of war while allowing for an internal and imaginative viewing experience.  Content demands visual restraint in this work because the complexity and terror of war cannot be visually summarized in an adequate way.  The use of limited visuals and overwhelming sound is arguably a more effective reflection of the opacity and confusion of the war in Iraq for those that have not experienced it firsthand.  The visual spareness of the piece underscores our inability to fully understand the horrors that soldiers experience and subsequently internalize.

Krzysztof Wodiczko, …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, 2009, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong, NYC

Wodiczko’s depiction of wartime Iraq is the result of consultation with Iraq War veterans, medics and refugees as well as from the study of audio and visual recordings of his contacts’ wartime experiences.  It must be seen as an attempt to increase dialogue and acknowledgement for the human impact of current US wars, particularly on soldiers that have returned home.  Wodiczko – born in the midst of World War II and also a former soldier in the Polish army – has taken keen interest in the impact of the United States’ current wars and the proliferation of the oft-isolated veteran figure.  The artist has treated veterans prominently in recent work such as Veterans’  Flame (2009) on New York’s Governor’s Island and the Veteran Vehicle Project (2008).  Wodiczko states in a recent Boston Globe article by Sebastian Smee that he hopes such work ‘provide[s] an opportunity for veterans to open up and to hear what is happening to them’.

Krzysztof Wodiczko is an established contemporary artist well known for his many large-scale outdoor light projections onto buildings and monuments that articulate a variety of social problems.  In the artist’s own words, (quoted in Smee’s article) his work ‘is on the side of those that have less access to rights than others’.  Such relevant and socially-engaged work led to his being awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize in 1999 and the College Art Association Award for Distinguished Body of Work in 2004.

Krzysztof Wodiczko currently lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York City.  Past works include Homeless Vehicle (1988-1989), the ICA/Boston-commissioned Bunker Hill Monument Projection (1998) and the Hiroshima Projection (1999).  Wodiczko represented his native Poland at this summer’s 2009 Venice Biennale with Guests – a work that examined the existence of the economic migrant and non-citizen in Europe.  Wodiczko is also the Director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the head of the Interrogative Design Group.

…OUT OF HERE:  The Veterans Project was realized in part through the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and will remain at the ICA/Boston through 28 March 2010.

Dans La Lune 2007 photo by Nash Baker

Kirsten Hassenfeld’s ambitious paper sculptures far exceed what most would imagine could be created with the material at hand. A legion of delicate intricacies store like gems in the chest of treasure that is each piece she produces. The results of presumably painstaking hours spent folding, snipping, coiling and chaining, Hassenfeld’s sculptures are as elaborate as they are elegant. Recently, two of her bodies of work–Blueware and Dans la Lune–were on view at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery. The new series, Blueware, focuses on embodiments of nature, and both the Eastern and Western traditions of decorative arts. Meanwhile, Dans la Lune, which was a highly celebrated installation first exhibited at the Rice Art Gallery in Houston, Texas in 2007, thrills the senses with its ornate ceiling hung sculptures. The work glows with light from within and bathes in its own projection of baroque shadows.

Dans La Lune (detail) 2007 photo by Nash Baker

Kirsten Hassenfeld lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA from the University of Arizona, Tuscon and her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including at: Bellwether, New York, NY; The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; Phillips de Pury, New York, NY; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY and White Columns, New York, NY. She is a 2006 recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.

Courtesy of Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA

The Primitive Electric, Faris McReynolds’s fourth exhibition at Roberts & Tilton in Los Angeles, CA, spurs a compelling conversation between divergent painting styles and assorted perspectives. While he explores social commentaries, McReynolds’s paint application varies in thickness and sensitivity.  Overall, the exhibit attests to the difficulty involved in reconciling society’s ever expanding attitudes and perspectives on popular culture.

In paintings like Speedway, McReynolds uses broad, gestural strokes to describe figures in various throws of action.  He works with a sense of immediacy; his style reminiscent of artists Willem De Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn of the Abstract Expressionist and Bay Area Figurative movements.  Colors resonate, contrasting both in tonality and hue, aiding the flagrant figures’ substantial mass. In these paintings, McReynolds composes panoptic scenes–particularly crude stills from popular culture.  In The Leaving Party, a crowd is crammed onto the platform of a military type vehicle that flees a chaotic, burning backdrop.  One of the main subjects joyously waives a pink and purple striped necktie like a flag while another is victoriously thrusting up a human head.

Courtesy of Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA

Conversely, McReynolds’s mixed media pieces, such as It’s No Journey and A World of Reflections are more subtle and softened, lending to a contemplative mood.  The subjects of these cinematic portraits portray emotions that range from disappointment and depression to sheer psychosis.  One can imagine the characters are undergoing a complex set of reactions, perhaps shocked and dismayed by the vulgarities represented in his more expressionistic works.  In other portraits, such as Water Mirror, McReynolds slices up facial features, aggressively distorting the face with impasto, palette knife marks.  Viewers could deduct that the multiple portions of flesh, eyes, nose, and mouth are a metaphor for the complexities involved in seeing various viewpoints at once.

McReynolds was born in Dallas, Texas in 1977 and received his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2000.  He now lives in Los Angeles, showing his work both nationally and internationally at Goff & Rosenthal in Berlin, Gallery Min Min in Tokyo, and the Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp.   The Primitive Electric is on display at Roberts & Tilton until November 14th, 2009.