X-Initiative closing event 2/3/10

After almost a year of exhibitions, performances, panels and screenings, the X Initiative, a nonprofit art consortium that took over the old Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea, will cease and desist on Friday, as planned. The farewell event is a 24-hour marathon titled “Bring Your Own Art (BYOA)” that starts Wednesday at 11 a.m. and ends 24 hours later, at 11 a.m. on Thursday. -See the full article by Roberta Smith. & nytimes link to more info on the show here.

In another article, published on Thursday February 4, I happened to be in the New York Times (print version of the Arts section, C-5). Here is the link.

Geometry & Gesture -opens Thursday

Geometry & Gesture is a group show of emerging artists curated by Kelsey Harrington and Elga Wimmer. The exhibition brings together work with a sense of underlying geometry in a wide range of subject matter. The artists share common processes of experimentation and free play, which result in inventive representations of the world. The works consist of contradictory elements - geometric order and chaos, figuration and abstraction, the garish and the restrained, while remaining focused on qualities of formal material integrity. The show creates an open framework for painting, drawing, and video to allow the potential for new unexpected connections and perspectives.
“In the unity of the chaos and the diagram is the discovery of rhythm as matter and material.” -Gilles Deleuze

Artists include -Jaqueline Cedar, Laura Greengold, Kelsey Harrington, John Monteith, Sobin Park, Devin Powers, Peggy Tan, Eduardo Terranova, Victoria Usle, and Brian Zegeer.

Clockwise from entrance:

Devin Powers’ drawings are dense networks of symmetric lines that create intricate geometric systems. They appear to have infinite depth and detail. His imagery is both timeless and innovative, and surprisingly is produced without the use computers.

Brian Zegeer’s digital video deals with experimental aspects of imagery, space, and consciousness. Kral Majales is an analogue to the magical practice of "scrying" (or mirror-gazing), as well as the cut-up techniques practiced by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. It was inspired by an extended stay in the derelict former apartment of Allen Ginsberg.

Laura Greengold’s Halfsleep series, paintings of infant sleep, offers exactly the type of renewal and authentic substance that the contemporary painted image needs. These subtle oil paintings play with gesture, as representation of layered space and time, giving the viewer an intimate experience of new life.

Jaqueline Cedar’s richly colorful painting Planetarium combines imagination and memory into inventive figural scenarios with a strong sense of form, space, and narrative.

John Monteith’s multi-dimensional watercolor pencil line drawing on drafting film -Criterion blurs the boundary between the figure and geometric space through fragmentation and environmental shifts.

Kelsey Harrington presents a continued exploration of light, pattern, color fields, and space, in the form of multi-media.

Peggy Tan’s Loose Association charcoal drawings depict everyday objects that are a hybrid of representation and abstraction through slight shifts in perspective views.

Victoria Usle’s painting Venasaltar is painted in association with her experience of rock climbing in Cantabria, Spain. It consists of ample gestures that are fluid and slip over a surface that is divided by fields of organic geometries and dark rotund blocks -fields of primeval character. Through her brushstrokes there is reference to natural patterns and activity, inviting us to join, saying: “ven a saltar conmigo”, "come jump with me".

Eduardo Terranova’s Light Boxes from his City Veil Series resulted from studies of architectural events and environments such as the NYC urban grid.

Sobin Park creates a strong calligraphic presence through dense patterning that suggests mythic figures and natural forces, using simple means of black pencil on paper.

My current freelance job with NY Projects

This 4-month project includes exhibition planning, space & display design, content coordinating, curating, production research, and catalog creation.

NY Projects conceptualized, commissioned, and produced a collection of new limited edition design and furniture pieces by Zaha Hadid, and has work in process with Daniel Libeskind, Ron Arad, Ross Lovegrove, and others for an exhibition in Zaha’s newly opened Dongdaemun Design Plaza during the World Design Capital Project -Seoul 2010.

Upcoming conference at Cooper Union

Looking forward to this on Sunday... a number of great speakers together (particularly Boris Groys and Thierry de Duve). & It will be good to see the inside of the new Morphosis designed CU building.

The Art School of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art will celebrate the publication of the new book Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century), edited by Steven Henry Madoff and published by MIT Press, with an extraordinary gathering of 17 of the book's contributors to discuss the future of art education and the global conditions under which it must be transformed.

Speakers and moderators include Dennis Adams, Thierry de Duve, Shirin Neshat, Hans Haacke, Boris Groys, Liam Gillick, Saskia Bos, Steven Henry Madoff, Ernesto Pujol, Ute Meta Bauer, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Jeffrey Schnapp, Anton Vidokle, Matthew Higgs, Charles Renfro, Dana Schutz, and Brian Sholis.

Three conversations will take place among the panelists, discussing the most pressing issues facing the transmission of cultural knowledge today and for the future. The broad areas of concentration for the conversations are: "Flows of Knowledge, Infections, Temporary States"; "The Usefulness of the Academy, Learning and Doing—or Nobody Asked You to Do Nothing"; and "Social Context and the Role of the Academy in the 21st Century."

1:00 p.m.
Flows of Knowledge, Infections, Temporary States
Steven Henry Madoff, moderator
Ute Meta Bauer
Thierry de Duve
Boris Groys
Jeffrey Schnapp
Anton Vidokle

2:15 p.m.
The Usefulness of the Academy, Learning and Doing—or Nobody Asked You to Do Nothing
Brian Sholis, moderator
Paul Ramirez Jonas
Matthew Higgs
Shirin Neshat
Dana Schutz

3:30 p.m.
Social Context and the Role of the Academy in the 21st Century
Saskia Bos, moderator
Dennis Adams
Liam Gillick
Hans Haacke
Ernesto Pujol
Charles Renfro

Frederick P. Rose Auditorium
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
41 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003

white charcoal on black paper 4'x4'

Objective Affection exhibition

Objective Affection curated by Faris Al-Shathir and Gregory Sparks is an exhibition concerned with the influence of objects in contemporary culture. With over 100 artists and designers, in a 14,000 sq. ft. former printing factory, this multi-media exhibition looks beyond the surface to explore our obsession with objects that surround us. On display September 18 - November 30, 2009.

It was a fun show... My glass work was seen by hundreds of visitors. I created another variation of pattern and colors. The lighting was angled differently focusing on shadows from each glass, and sharper hightlights, rather than color reflections.

An editor from Urban Glass Quarterly wrote on my installation, here's a link:
http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2009/09/24/seen-kelsey-harringtons-delicate-glass-color-field-at-brooklyn-art-expo/

BOFFO link:
http://www.boffo-ny.org/?p=544

"Molecules" -poured acrylic on linen

I'm interested in the abstract idea of molecules... making invisible formlessness become visible.

My painting at the Chelsea Art Museum opening reception