Rachel Zoe, 32" x 24" , oil on linen. Courtesy Kimberly Brooks and Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles.

The art world. It’s way more serious and important than every other industry! This thinking at least seems to persist even though the field of contemporary art has maintained an open flirtation with its sassy sister, the fashion industry, since long before even Andy Warhol trotted his wacky wigs around Studio 54 with the likes of Diane von Fürstenberg. There is a mutual fascination between the two fields, and yet it seems that the art world would prefer to keep its consorting with the fashion industry confined strictly to social events, rather than consider fashion (so low-brow!) as a worthy subject matter for actual works of art.

Los Angeles-based artist, Kimberly Brooks‘, current solo show at Taylor De Cordoba gallery in Culver City breaks with this norm to explore the intrigue of the fashion industry’s most iconic stylemakers—without the precept of farce or condemnation. The Stylist Project (on view through April 3rd) presents Brooks’ latest body of work—a series of oil painted portraits of fashion industry insiders, including stylist to the starts and Bravo TV fixture, Rachel Zoe, and award winning costume designer and Madonnaʼs personal stylist Arianne Phillips, among others.

The work on view blends the fields of art and fashion astutely, presenting the fashionable set as they have styled themselves, while at the same time drawing upon the ages-old artistic tradition of portraiture. The regal positions of some of the sitters recall Renaissance royals, and the sprawled poses of others touch on the early Modern depiction of courtesans, such as Edouard Manet’s Olympia.

Arianne Phillips, 30" x 24", oil on linen. Courtesy Kimberly Brooks and Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles.

The Stylist Project is the third solo show for Brooks at Taylor De Cordoba. The first two, Mom’s Friends (2007) and Technicolor Summer (2008), explored much more personal subject matter than the present show. Brooks’ outward shift to now document the fashion industry with this latest series has garnered a lot of attention from media and publications that wouldn’t normally publish gushing articles about fine artists. At the Taylor De Cordoba gallery, they’ve laid out a stack of glossies with Brooks’ name inked onto them. When I asked Heather Taylor, Director of Taylor De Cordoba, to discuss the widespread reception that this exhibition has received, she told me, “The bottom line is that people are hungry for this dialogue and Kimberly is pulling the curtain back on the fashion world, which up until the past year—with the popularity of [the film] ‘The September Issue’ and [the TV show] ‘The Rachel Zoe Project’—had been fairly mysterious.”

New York born, Los Angeles based, Kimberly Brooks maintains her studio in Venice, CA. She earned her BA from UC Berkeley and trained in fine arts at Otis College of Art and Design and UCLA. Her work has been included in numerous juried exhibitions, including at Pleiades Gallery of Contemporary Art, New York; Risk Press Gallery, Los Angeles; and Phillips de Pury Auction House, Los Angeles.

A Macrocosmic Zero is the title of Tivon Rice’s second solo exhibition at Lawrimore Project in Seattle, on view through March 27.  Rice is a new media artist whose tactile approach seeks to present video as an object of use, and to integrate the observer as participant.  The current exhibition fills the front room of the gallery, a windowless space with concrete floors.  It is lit by two bright plasma screens and fluorescent bulbs suspended vertically from  wooden scaffolding. The bulbs sweep on and off in patterned surges of blue-white with a series of clicks and gentle hums.  A motor turns on and a central camera pans the room.  As the camera goes over a screen and films an image produced a few moments ago, a slow feedback happens, layering and obscuring the present space where the viewer stands, and also the viewer if he has caught a glance at the camera lens.  Rice’s video system is performing it’s routine.

The whole set is programmed for a unique experience for each viewer—a lighting display that doesn’t repeat for 18 days, a delay between the live feed and playback, a robotic camera that responds to motion, and sound feedback that swells, but never explodes.  A “finished” or composite image runs at the back of the exhibition.  This view allows spectators to see who enters the gallery and how others interact with the work.

The use of lights is at least a pragmatic choice, a basic component in office buildings and modern living.  Their stark whiteness casts no “cinematic” shadow on its subjects, and in video perfection, imperfections of the subject are clearly and initially displayed.  Through layering “real” images, subjects become formal elements of flat light. The macroscopic view of this work is what is observable to the human eye, and as the title suggests, this view is fleeting. As the art progresses, it periodically interrupts what has been displayed to return to “zero.”  The art is the mechanical and sensory performance, rather than what is recorded.

Rice also presents four video portraits that act as sketches or versions of the installation.  A face is seen in each one that the viewer continues to look for and find through swirling frames of mutation.  A final piece, the smallest in the exhibit, is a CRT monitor taken out of television presenting a static image of the artist.  For the amount of time in its title Self Portrait (3 days, 2 months, 10 days), an image of the artist’s face was lit on a small monitor.  The result is a “pixel burn,” an image made by exploiting the weakness of the display.  As it stays lit all over to show its ghost, it is undergoing its own decay as long as it is displayed.

Exerpt from 3 Studies for a Portrait of Bronwyn Lewis, 2010

Tivon Rice lives and works in Seattle, WA where is pursuing a doctoral degree at University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS).  He obtained his master’s degree from UW in 2006 and has been a Graduate Instructor there since 2007.  For his bachelor’s studies, he attended University of Colorado, graduating in 2000 with two degrees in Electronic Media and Sculpture.  He has had numerous solo exhibitions at galleries in the Pacific Northwest. His work is in private collections and his collaborative video of abstracted shaving cream with Jeffry Mitchell entitled Panda was acquired by the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle.  He has been in group exhibitions across the nation including the CUE Art Foundation in New York, and the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa.  His work was included in 1000 Days at the Scion Installation Space in Los Angeles, curated by DailyServing.

New York City’s Armory Arts Week, a highlight on the city’s annual cultural calendar, offered an array of arts-related events to the public last week (Mar. 2-7, 2010), drawing visitors from around the world to the city where art never sleeps. The Armory Show 2010 at Piers 92 and 94 featured 267 galleries from 31 countries. A large number of exhibitors showcased the works of a single artist, a divergence from the practice of displaying several artists at one fair. Patrons enjoyed the opportunity to absorb the work of the individual artist and develop a deeper understanding of the artist’s ideas and processes. Notable solo exhibits: Nicole Klagsbrun and David Zwirner (New York), Museum 52 (London | New York), and The Breeder (Athens, Greece).

Adam McEwen’s project, I Am Curious Yellow, radiated from Nicole Klagsbrun’s booth due to the artist’s boundless, but contemplative, use of the color yellow. McEwen chose to work with yellow because of the color’s ability to be vile and unpleasant, but also soothing and cheerful. His solo installation at Armory consisted of carefully selected objects placed alongside loaded imagery; jerry cans, a large yellow swastika, and several over-sized obituaries beneath glass, written for world champion runner Caster Semenya, were on display. Everything, even the carpet in the booth, was saturated in lemon yellow, with some white areas, and beaming in the bright lights of the fair.

McEwen has written pre-need obituaries for living celebrities before, employing traditional newspaper format with impressive impact (the artist used to write actual obituaries for London’s Daily Telegraph). Other past projects include his pencil on graph paper text message series. For these pieces, he copied the content and screen appearance of texts from his Nokia phone onto paper and presented the paper replicas of the digital missives in graphite frames.

Also in New York, The New Museum opened an exhibition curated by Jeff Koons on March 3rd, Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection, which will remain on view until June 6, 2010. The New Museum, and others, offered discounts to visitors during Armory Arts Week.

Among several concurrent art fairs taking place throughout the city last week, Independent generated a great amount of intrigue. Founded by New York gallerist Elizabeth Dee and Dareen Flook of Hotel in London, and held at X Initiative in Chelsea, Independent presented 40 galleries and was less regimented than the Armory Show.  Independent’s website declares “Hybrid Forum Comes to New York for Art Fair Week.”

Artists Space (New York), Michael Werner Gallery (Berlin | New York), and mitterrand+sanz (Zurich), were among the participants whose collaboration and presence were requested via personal invitation from the founders. This not only differed from the exhibitor application process at the Armory Show, it suggested a re-evaluation of the art fair mode. Elizabeth Dee also had a booth at Armory for her gallery.

Sanford Biggers, Seen, 2009, Video still, Digital C-print, 30 x 40 in. Courtesy the Artist and Michael Klein Arts, New York

Currently on view at Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum is a solo presentation of new work by internationally renowned, New York-based artist, Sanford Biggers. The work on view in the exhibition, entitled Moon Medicine, encompasses the breadth of Biggers’ practice. As he tells the SBCAF, “It is a thematic, multi-disciplinary exploration of past themes and new themes meant to broaden and complicate our read on American history.” In a recent video-recorded conversation between Biggers and CAF executive director, Miki Garcia, Biggers discusses his avoidance of artistic labels, such as “post black.” These labels are not rejected by the artist for the sake of radicalism but, rather, because he says that no matter how you mean it to sound, a label is always “predicated on there being an other.” Biggers further explains that he rejects labels even in his discussion of artistic medium, saying he’s “not interested in being a sculptor [or] a performance artist…I just make things.” Of his process, he says, “The more confused I am while making a piece now, the more successful it is to me regardless of what it ends up looking like.”

The recurring imagery of mandalas in Biggers’ work reflects a strong interest in Buddhism, the exploration of which is found in his past and current work. Biggers gained interest in the Buddhist tradition while living in Japan and traveling all over Asia years ago. Of the work he made upon returning to the US from Asia, Biggers says it became autobiographical in part—in the sense that he “fused some of what [he] had been studying and researching in terms of Buddhism, but also bringing in some things from my childhood, growing up in Los Angeles, and being a B-boy.”

Sanford Biggers, Constellation, 2009, Steel, Plexiglas, LED’s, Zoopoxy, cotton quilt, original printed cotton tile. Dimensions variable, Installation at Harvard University. Courtesy the Artist and Michael Klein Arts, New York, NY.

Biggers is a master of alluding labels, as we’ve learned, and the “elliptical” nature of his work (as Garcia refers to it), creates an open-ended dialog that spans a range of subjects from religious practices, to themes of racial tensions in the American South, to pop culture iconography. Moon Medicine will be on view through May 2, 2010.

Sanford Biggers lives and works in new York. He earned his BA at Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA and his MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL. He has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including at Mary Goldman Gallery, Los Angeles; Tate Modern, London; Okinawa Museum, Okinawa, Japan; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

The self-proclaimed “most important survey of contemporary art in the world ever” opened this week in at 350 West Broadway in SoHo, New York.  The Brucennial 2010 edition, titled “Miseducation,” is presented in a 5,000 square foot space temporarily donated by the real-estate mogul and art collector Aby Rosen and supposedly “brings together 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 discrete disciplines.”  But who’s counting?  The creative art collective behind what is seen as a parody version of the Whitney Biennial is made up of five mysterious guys known as the Bruce High Quality Foundation.  Although the Foundation participated in the recent “1969″ exhibit at P.S.1, Brucennial remains the collective’s signature celebrated program since the founding of the event in 2008.

Focused on reshaping the art world via a more democratic and DIY approach, the Foundation places some of its more visible functions, like PR and the organization of exhibtions, into the artists hands.  Perhaps the result can best be described as a visual cacaphony.  The Brucennial’s rather lax entry standards (an email asked prospective participants to “either dredge something up or create something new…As fast and as loose as you like”) is a refreshing juxtaposition to the supposed stringent selection criteria of the Whiteny’s Biennial.  With a “sharing is caring” attitude and limited wall space artists move their pieces around in order to make room for new arrivals.  Neither first-come basis nor celebrity secures an artist a better spot, and emerging artists as well as blue chip artists (like Julian Schnabel) display their pieces side by side.  The title “Miseducation” and its press release offer insight into the Foundation’s desire to question the politics and institutional protectionism that seem to run the art world. However, one has to wonder how “lax”  and rebellious the event can remain with heavy-hitter curators Francesco Bonami and Vito Schnabel involved with curating the event.

The Brucenial 2010: Miseducation runs through April 4 at 350 West Broadway, SoHo, with projects also on view at Recess at 41 Grand Street.  The event also includes performances and a literary supplement.

Marilyn Minter, Crystal Swallow (2006), Promised gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein to The Blanton Museum at the University of Texas at Austin

Now showing through April 25^th at The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin is the group exhibition Desire. Curated by Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Blanton curator of American and contemporary art and director of curatorial affairs, Desire features fifty works from an international grouping of contemporary artists working in a variety of media. The concept of the exhibition is to present the many ways artists have explored the notion of desire and its many facets within their work. The thought of this concept being visually displayed is tantalizing, yet, it is only with the multiple video works that the exhibition’s guard comes down. Isaac Julien’s Long Road to Mazatlán (1999), a video collaboration with the choreographer Javier de Frutos, is a stunning visualization of the yearning of two cowboys “dancing” around their mutual attraction and the stigma that often comes along with it.  Cauleen Smith’s Elsewhere, is a sensual film of a woman standing absolutely still while another person slowly unravels her sweater by a single thread.

Amy Globus, Electric Sheep (2001 - 2002), Blanton Museum of Art, Purchase through the generosity of the 2004 Blanton Contemporary Circle

However, it is Amy Globus’s video installation Electric Sheep (2001-2002) that will make the viewer blush. Set to Emmy Lou Harris’ rendition of Neil Young’s, Wrecking Ball, a large octopus is filmed in slow motion as it makes its way from one confined space to another. While watching the piece the viewer is likely to feel all the accoutrements of desire simultaneously: longing, lust, sensuality, fantasy, rejection, sexual identity, passion, intimacy etc. Also not to be missed is Mads Lynnerup’s Untying a Shoe with an Erection (2003), a tongue-in-cheek performance of presumably a man untying his shoe with his penis. The exhibition is able to transcend being merely an exercise of artists implementing the theme of desire, perhaps a bit unwittingly, with the dominance of these video works. The question that lingers long after leaving the museum is exactly how much of a continued role visual media plays in defining our collective idea of desire.

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin, housed in a recently completed two building complex, is one of the foremost university art museums in the country. The museum’s collection is the largest and most comprehensive in Central Texas and comprises more than 18,000 works. It is recognized for its European paintings, modern and contemporary American and Latin American art, and an encyclopedic collection of prints and drawings.