Best of 2005: 11 critics and curators look at the year in art.Robert Rosenblum [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR OF ARTFORUM, ROBERT ROSENBLUM IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON AN EXHIBITION PROVISIONALLY TITLED "CITIZENS AND KINGS: PORTRAITURE IN THE AGE OF DAVID David, in the Bible David, d. c.970 B.C., king of ancient Israel (c.1010–970 B.C.), successor of Saul. The Book of First Samuel introduces him as the youngest of eight sons who is anointed king by Samuel to replace Saul, who had been deemed a failure. AND GOYA," OPENING OCTOBER 2006 AT THE GRAND PALAIS IN PARIS Paris, in Greek mythology Paris or Alexander, in Greek mythology, son of Priam and Hecuba and brother of Hector. Because it was prophesied that he would cause the destruction of Troy, Paris was abandoned on Mt. . 1 "MATISSE: THE FABRIC OF DREAMS--HIS ART AND HIS TEXTILES" (ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS Royal Academy of Arts, London, the national academy of art of England, founded in 1768 by George III at the instigation of Sir William Chambers and Benjamin West. Sir Joshua Reynolds was the Academy's first president, holding the office until his death in 1792. , LONDON; METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK) Instead of kneeling again at Matisse's shrine, curator Ann Dumas thoroughly resurrected him. The master's "working library"--a half century's ragbag rag·bag n. 1. A bag for storing rags. 2. A motley collection; a hodgepodge. ragbag Noun a confused mixture: the traditional ragbag of art traders accumulation of flea-market cotton prints, couture gowns, Romanian blouses. North African hangings, and more--was excavated from family trunks and displayed beside the works that incorporated their patterns and textures into landscapes for a new vision of Paradise. Seeing the alchemy that turned rags into riches was to rediscover Matisse's genius. 2 "JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID: EMPIRE TO EXILE" (J. PAUL GETTY Jean Paul Getty (December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American industrialist and founder of the Getty Oil Company. Biography Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, into a family already in the petroleum business, he was one of the first people in the world with a MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES; CLARK ART INSTITUTE The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, usually referred to simply as "The Clark," is an art museum with a large and varied collection located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. , WILLIAMSTOWN, MA) In another show that offered a fresh take on a familiar deity, we were finally treated to a full-scale display of David's late work, which, like that of Picasso's final decades, has traditionally been relegated to the "decline and fall" category. Philippe Bordes, curator and author of the magisterial catalogue, followed the artist's path from chief propagandist for Napoleon's imperial glory to his last inglorious in·glo·ri·ous adj. 1. Ignominious; disgraceful: Napoleon's inglorious end. 2. Not famous; obscure: an inglorious young writer. years as an exiled regicide REGICIDE. The killing of a king, and, by extension, of a queen. Theorie des Lois Criminelles, vol. 1, p. 300. in Brussels, where he continued to paint portraits and grand themes from antiquity, but with a twist. His deadpan, truthful rendering of the faces and clothing of the bourgeoisie announces a new language of realism that fore-shadows a lineage running from Daguerre to Chuck Close. 3 FRANK STELLA (PAUL KASMIN GALLERY, NEW YORK) Kingpin of '60s painting, Stella apparently lives on his own distant planet today, so often is he overlooked by younger generations who think of him merely as history. But his latest work may shock (just as those long-ago black stripes once did) with its extreme, three-dimensional chaos. Like thunderbolts hurled by Jupiter, these tangles of twisted metal armature armature, in art: see sculpture. Armature That part of an electric rotating machine which includes the main current-carrying winding. hit the walls and floors with a speed and a fury that at first defy comprehension. But, as always, Stella's iron fist controls this apparent madness. 4 "ANDY WARHOL: PORTRAITS" (TONY SHAFRAZI GALLERY, NEW YORK) This stunningly installed 1970s' who's who was a trip down memory lane, a vast anthology of legendary faces including those of Leo Castelli and Joseph Beuys. But apart from the nostalgic pleasures of thumbing through a vintage yearbook, there was the tonic confirmation of Warhol's genius not only in his infinite variations of color versus noncolor, oil paint versus silk screen, but in his plumbing the psychological depths (and skimming the shallows) of his celebrity sitters. 5 "EAST VILLAGE USA" (NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEM-PORARY ART, NEW YORK) Another rewarding voyage to the New York art-world equivalent of an archaeological site, "East Village USA" was an energetic blast from the past, combining '80s video, graffiti, photography, and pigment. Curated by Dan Cameron, who himself was part of this brew, the selection rushed us back to the feisty birth pangs of Youthquake galleries (open on Sundays for art-world strollers) that nurtured a fresh generation of then-unknown artists who would later become household names. Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Laurie Simmons--the list kept (and keeps) going. 6 "SURREALISM USA" (NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM, NEW YORK) For any museum that wants to do more than intone in·tone v. in·toned, in·ton·ing, in·tones v.tr. 1. To recite in a singing tone. 2. To utter in a monotone. v.intr. 1. the catechism of twentieth-century art, curator Isabelle Dervaux's show should be the model of adventurous research. American Surrealism was often deemed a quaint and embarrassing digression from modern art's main highways, useful only as an academic segue to the AbEx generation. But here was a full-scale reincarnation of a long-buried, midcentury world where artists would paint dreamscapes in photographic detail that unveiled all sorts of social and sexual anxieties. What a pleasure to see work by unfamiliar artists such as Alexandre Hogue and Kay Sage. We should check our storerooms more often. 7 "RICHARD PETTIBONE: A RETROSPECTIVE" (INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, PHILADELPHIA The Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA is a contemporary art museum located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The museum is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, and is located on its campus. ) Having started some forty years ago and still going full-speed ahead, Pettibone has finally been given the career-spanning overview he deserves. Elegantly presented by curators Ian Berry and Michael Duncan, he emerged as an indispensable artist who, along with his contemporary Sturtevant, launched the obsession for replicating works by the hottest art stars: Warhol, Mondrian, even Ingres. Pettibone's riffs on these classics are uniquely his, reduced as they are to a Lilliputian scale with such exquisite craftsmanship and carpentry that they might all be packed up in a Duchampian valise to be opened later by younger copycats such as Sherrie Levine and Mike Bidlo. 8 MARC QUINN, ALISON LAPPER PREGNANT (TRAFALQAR SQUARE, LONDON) Asked to place a temporary sculpture on Trafalgar Square's empty Fourth Plinth, Quinn chose to counter Britain's military heroes with a nearly-twelve-foot-tall naked woman carved from white marble--a portrait of Alison Lapper, herself an artist. She is not only eight months pregnant, but deformed due to a chromosomal defect that robbed her of arms and stunted her legs. A startling transgression for public sculpture, she presides here, seated, with grave dignity as a new kind of earth mother forcing us to rethink our ingrained prejudices about human beings who don't measure up to the macho standards of Lord Nelson, who, standing, still reigns aloft on a megacolumn. (Incidentally, he, too, was missing an arm.) 9 THE L-WORD This ultrahip Showtime soap--now in its third season--immerses us in a Sapphic community of LA professionals whose problems with adultery, sperm banks, divorce, and commitment are compounded by their obsessions with torrid sex, gorgeous bodies, trendy hairdos, and stylish clothes. Catherine Opie's Garden of Eden Garden of Eden n. See Eden. Noun 1. Garden of Eden - a beautiful garden where Adam and Eve were placed at the Creation; when they disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil they were this is not, but these melodramas are becoming so seductive and glamorous that a mainstream audience might finally prefer them to the heterosexual ardors of Desperate Housewives. 10 ZANDRA RHODES Originating with the San Diego Opera The San Diego Opera (SDO) is an opera company located in the city of San Diego, California. It was founded in 1950 to present productions by San Francisco Opera in the San Diego area. SDO began to stage its own productions in 1965, with its first staging of La bohème. , Rhodes's sets and costumes for Les Pecheurs de Perles (Pearl Fishers, 1863) recently landed on the New York City Opera The New York City Opera (NYCO) is based in Philip Johnson's New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. The company was founded in 1944 with the aim of an opera company that would be financially accessible to a wide audience, innovative in its choice of repertory, and a home stage, where they reinvigorated Georges Bizet's classic with a wacky and dazzling interpretation of outdated Orientalism. Rhodes brought the opera's mythical vision of Ceylon to life with a fresh mixture of old and new. The saffron, turquoise, and scarlet Indian-style costumes played well against flat, cartoonlike bobbing waves, palm trees, and a shorthand design for Hindu architecture that might have been attributed to Keith Haring. A total delight. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Isabelle Graw [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BERLIN-BASED CRITIC ISABELLE GRAW IS THE PUBLISHER OF TEXTE ZUR KUNST AND A PROFESSOR OF ART THEORY AND ART HISTORY AT THE KUNSTHOCHSCHULE STADELSCHULE IN FRANKFURT. SHE IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON A BOOK ABOUT THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ART, FASHION, AND THE MARKET. 1 JAN TIMME (GALERIE CHRISTIAN NAGEL, BERLIN) At first glance, this was a not-so-spectacular show in the tradition of the empty gallery, a la Yves Klein. But on closer inspection it packed quite a punch. A tile placed high on the wall bore the ambiguous inscription "Carrer qui no passa"--a phrase taken from a street sign on the island of Minorca that can be understood to mean "dead end" but could also be translated as "There's no moving on here." With this apparent acknowledgment of the dubious viability of simply "moving on" in one's art career, Timme rejected the rampant careerism ca·reer·ism n. Pursuit of professional advancement as one's chief or sole aim: "Rampant careerism, which makes many a work place a joyless site, was in check" Mary McGrory. abounding in the art world. But at the same time he produced a limited edition (four bar stools with the definition of the word fall etched on brass plaques under their seats), as if to admit that there's no escape from the logic of the market after all. 2 DAMIEN HIRST (GAGOSIAN GALLERY, NEW YORK) This show, too, seemed to want to disappoint. But it is precisely the artist's up-front declaration of bankruptcy that I think holds potential. Hirst's Photorealist paintings illustrated the subject of illness--pills, syringes, hospital hallways--but exuded heartlessness rather than pathos. These pictures don't believe in themselves, and furthermore, they show an utter lack of orientation--a refusal to align themselves with any intelligible conceptual or aesthetic program--that seems appropriate in the face of questionable current models like the provo artist or corporate artist. 3 RETORT, AFFLICTED POWERS: CAPITAL AND SPECTACLE IN A NEW AGE OF WAR (VERSO) An impressive initiative undertaken by four members of the Bay Area collective Retort who refuse to resign themselves to the rule of what they call "military neoliberalism ne·o·lib·er·al·ism n. A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth. ne ," Afflicted Powers provides historical context and conceptual tools in an effort to help us understand political realities post-9/11. The authors--lain Boal, T. J. Clark T.J. Clark is the name of:
Albion Napoleon’s epithet for England, “perfide Albion.” [Fr. Hist.: Misc.] See : Treachery collaborations of spectacle culture, capital, and "permanent war"; their book is essential reading for anyone who insists on holding on to the notion of social engagement. 4 DANIEL BUREN (SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: see Guggenheim Museum. , NEW YORK) Daniel Buren's gigantic mirrored installation, Around the Corner, 2000-2005, stirred up some controversy. Had he committed himself to the decorative once and for all? And if so, could his work still claim to be critical? If you take critique to mean "the articulation of objections," then the answer to the latter question is no; but if being critical means challenging conditions by literally holding up a mirror to them, then what we have here is indeed critique. Buren's mirrors, like those in a department store, carried out a performative per·for·ma·tive adj. Relating to or being an utterance that peforms an act or creates a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered under appropriate or conventional circumstances, as a justice of the peace uttering function: They allowed visitors to see and, more importantly, to be seen. By emphasizing the boutiquelike character of the museum and pushing the analogy between shopping and art-viewing, Buren's monumental gesture provocatively took up the ramifications ramifications npl → Auswirkungen pl of the transformation of public space into corporate space. 5 GWEN GWEN Guild Wars: Eye of the North (computer game) GWEN Ground Wave Emergency Network (USAF) STEFANI, LOVE. ANGEL. MUSIC. BABY. (INTERSCOPE RECORDS) In tune with Stefani's platinum blond-diva persona, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. has an over-the-top, operetta-like quality, by turns hysterical, opulent, and grotesque. Signal aspects of consumer culture--hypochondria, preoccupation with beauty and celebrity, the fixation on romance as a weapon against anxiety and anomie--are condensed and integrated within it. You can't escape capitalism's spectacular phase--at best, you can only relate to it. Stefani's music makes this an almost appealing proposition. 6 "JOSHUA REYNOLDS: THE CREATION OF CELEBRITY" (TATE BRITAIN, LONDON) Joshua Reynolds was a celebrity painter avant la lettre. While edifying in its historicization The principle of 'historicizaton' is a fundamental part of the aesthetic developed by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. In his poem "Speech to Danish working-class actors on the art of observation", Brecht offers a vivid portrait of the attitude he of a modern phenomenon, this exhibition was most instructive in its recapitulation recapitulation, theory, stated as the biogenetic law by E. H. Haeckel, that the embryological development of the individual repeats the stages in the evolutionary development of the species. of a decidedly contemporary phenomenon. Foregrounding the identities of Reynolds's society sitters, the wall texts and catalogue put the focus squarely on personalities, with hardly a thought for painting as such. This reductiveness is itself illuminating, symptomatic as it is of a situation in which art is becoming more and more like a subject, and artists more and more like objects. 7 GEORGE MICHAEL: A DIFFERENT STORY (AEGEAN FILMS) Whereas pop stars who document their own lives usually seem bent on mythologizing themselves, Michael tells his story without glossing anything over--his sexuality, his politics, or his contractual battles with Sony. I would go so far as to say that the film qualifies him as a practitioner of institutional critique, one who examines the constraints and possibilities that confront artists in the music business in an entertainingly self-reflexive way. 8 ROSEMARIE TROCKEL (MUSEUM LUDWIG, COLOGNE) The title of this midcareer retrospective--"Post-Menopause"--suggested a return to biological essentialism essentialism In ontology, the view that some properties of objects are essential to them. The “essence” of a thing is conceived as the totality of its essential properties. , but what viewers found was a combination of self-criticism and self-empowerment. Discernment was the key word: The judicious selection and intelligent non-chronological arrangement made the work look fresh. Most impressive was a large room usually reserved for the art world's alpha males, a Hall of Heroes that Trockel took over with her famous knitted paintings. It was Trockel who established knitting as a valid painterly practice and arguably paved the way for the rehabilitation of the crafty and feminine, but here we finally got to enjoy her whole textile repertoire, installed so as to produce surprising diachronic di·a·chron·ic adj. Of or concerned with phenomena as they change through time. constellations. 9 MICHAEL KREBBER (WIENER SECESSION) This exhibition did justice to Krebber's reputation as a master of delay, postponement, and deprivation, in that the artist seemed to have put most of his energy into designing the pictures' frames, as if to remind a public interested in neo-formalist immanence that context is still everything. Krebber continues to display a knack for ruthlessly if wittily quashing viewers' hopes for sensitive painterly gestures, and even for gestures of negation, which he shows to be just another established aesthetic routine. 10 JORG JORG Junior Officer Requiring Guidance (US Navy slang; aka George) IMMENDORFF (NEUE NATIONALGALERIE, BERLIN) At a moment when Germany's parliamentary coalition of socialists and environmentalists had to face the prospect of Mrs. Merkel becoming chancellor, Immendorff let everyone know which side he was on. His entire retrospective was steeped in red--the red not only of the Social Democrats but of Mao's Red Book and the Soviet flag. The ambitious installation design featured lots of little red hutlike structures connected by red carpet pathways, while the paintings themselves demonstrated their continuing topicality--especially those from the 1972-73 series "Das zu tun, was zu tun ist" (To Do What Needs to Be Done), which suggest the internal struggles of an artist trying to reconcile political engagement with a naked desire for fame. Art and politics can be brought together after all. Translated from German by Brian Currid and Wilhelm Werthern. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Matthew Higgs [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO ARTFORUM, MATTHEW HIGGS IS THE DIRECTOR AND CHIEF CURATOR AT WHITE COLUMNS, NEW YORK. 1 "ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: HOARFROSTS" (GUILD HALL, EAST HAMPTON, NY) The saddest summer show ever? Given that institutions tend to roll out holiday favorites or crowd pleasers for the summer season, the Guild Hall's decision to exhibit Rauschenberg's little known, rarely seen, and profoundly melancholic mel·an·chol·ic adj. 1. Affected with or being subject to melancholy. 2. Of or relating to melancholia. "Hoarfrost hoarfrost: see frost. " series was a bold gesture. Hanging like "ghosts" in the air-conditioned chill of the museum's elegant rooms, the 1974-75 "Hoarfrosts"--unstretched fabric "paintings" constructed from layers of transparent, translucent, and opaque materials--were so aesthetically subdued that they barely registered on the eye, but somehow, miraculously, they left a nagging, indefinable impression that persists to this day. 2 ROBERT BECHTLE (SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a major modern art museum and San Francisco landmark. It opened in 1935 under founding director Dr. Grace Morley (Grace L. ) This retrospective, brilliantly organized by SF MOMA's Janet Bishop, was, at least to my non-American eyes, a complete revelation. Almost Proustian in its downbeatness, Bechtle's work seems to have been devoted to recording his personal discomfort with the world around him. From the emotionally strained paintings of the 1960s and '70s (often derived from family snapshots) to the deserted streets depicted in recent paintings of his San Francisco neighborhood, Bechtle's reclusive art describes a psychogeography profoundly at odds with the socially progressive, utopian narratives typically associated with his northern Californian home. 3 LUCAS SAMARAS: PHOTOFLICKS (IMOVIES) AND PHOTOFICTIONS (A TO Z) (PACEWILDENSTEIN, NEW YORK) Like Bechtle, Lucas Samaras focuses on issues close to home: namely, himself. PhotoFlicks (iMovies), 2004-2005--sixty short, digitally generated "movies," each "starring" Samaras--was his first engagement with the moving image since his appositely titled 1969 film Self (made with Kim Levin). The installation itself was, like Samaras's entire project, a radical gesture. The movies, and an additional four thousand digital photographic images--PhotoFictions (A to Z), 2004-2005--were displayed on thirty-five Apple workstations, which allowed the viewer to independently navigate the works on screen and transformed the vast gallery space into a surrogate "classroom" dedicated to the study of its sole subject: Lucas Samaras. 4 RITA ACKERMANN, "COLLAGE 1993-2005" (ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY Andrea Rosen Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Chelsea, New York. The gallery opened in January 1990 with an exhibition of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Since then it has shown many of the most important modern and contemporary artists such as: , NEW YORK) Overheard on West Twenty-fourth Street outside Rita RITA Cardiology A clinical trial–Randomized Intervention Treatment of Angina–comparing the outcome of PCTA vs CABG in Pts with angina. See Angina, Angioplasty, CABG, Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. Ackermann's exhibition: WOMAN: "What's in there?" MAN: "Junky collages." "Junky" aesthetics or not, this wonderfully focused exhibition barely scratched the surface, only hinting at the larger ambition of this mercurial artist's kaleidoscopic output (which embraces art, music, writing, fashion, and curatorial projects). Ackermann remains defiantly against the grain and ahead of the curve. A thorough survey of her work would allow us all an opportunity to catch up. 5 ISA GENZKEN (DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK) It is hard not to imagine Isa (1) (Instruction Set Architecture) See instruction set. (2) (Interactive Services Association) See Internet Alliance. (3) (Internet Security and Acceleration) See .NET. Genzken's recent works--precariously assembled from just about anything: action figures, furniture, plastic flowers, sections of an aircraft fuselage, umbrellas, adhesive tape, paint--literally falling apart. This built-in sense of imminent collapse lends the work a genuine sense of foreboding, and, with the "one-armed bandit" that sat mysteriously on the gallery's floor, Genzken seems to suggest that art, like life, is ultimately a gamble. 6 PETER HUJAR, "NIGHT" (MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY, NEW YORK) American audiences appear to have an insatiable appetite for looking at photographs of other Americans. This past year, New York alone saw substantial shows from noted "people watchers" such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston, Larry Clark, and Bill Owens. More provocative, though, was an exhibition of mostly never-before-seen nocturnal photographs by Peter Hujar (1934-1987). Invariably in·var·i·a·ble adj. Not changing or subject to change; constant. in·var  i·a·bil positioned somewhere between Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe, Hujar is, for me, the more compelling (and ultimately more complicated) artist. A perfectionist per·fec·tion·ism n. 1. A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards. 2. who trained his lens on an imperfect world, Hujar deserves greater acknowledgment for his extraordinary vision. (I'm sure that curator Bob Nickas's current Hujar survey at New York's P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center The P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is one of the largest and oldest institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. It is located in the neighborhood of Long Island City, Queens in New York City. will go some distance in rectifying this situation.) 7 KAY ROSEN (GRAY KAPERNEKAS GALLERY, NEW YORK) Though she has been showing for nearly thirty years Kay Rosen is constantly pegged as one of the art world's "best kept secrets" (a sobriquet I'm not sure she would necessarily appreciate). Someday I hope to see a space the size of Dia:Beacon filled with her sly, brainy, poetic works, but in the meantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified" meantime, meanwhile I'll have to make do with her recent exquisite exhibition at this small and highly promising new gallery in Chelsea. 8 ROBERT BARDO Bardo blind antiquarian wrapped up in his scholarly annotations of the classics. [Br. Lit.: George Eliot Romola] See : Scholarliness , "ANOTHER DAY" (ALEXANDER AND BONIN, NEW YORK) Seemingly effortless, as if conjured from almost nothing--a smear of paint here, a blob of paint there--Robert Bardo's deceptively ambitious recent paintings, like all great art, encouraged me to think of other artists: such as Rene Daniels, Thomas Nozkowski, Raoul de Keyser Raoul De Keyser is a Belgian painter, born in 1930, who lives and works in Deinze (Belgium). Since 1964, the Belgian painter Raoul De Keyser has been building a highly personal body of work that is difficult to categorize. , and Mary Heilmann (whose own solo show at New York's 303 Gallery was another 2005 gem). 9 "LOG CABIN" (ARTISTS SPACE, NEW YORK) "Log Cabin" was a wildly ambitious if occasionally unfocused group show that stood out primarily as a brave attempt, by curator Jeffrey Uslip, to stake out some original (curatorial) territory, seeking as it did--according to the press release--to "examine the impact of neoconservatism neoconservatism U.S. political movement. It originated in the 1960s among conservatives and some liberals who were repelled by or disillusioned with what they viewed as the political and cultural trends of the time, including leftist political radicalism, lack of respect for on queer representations in America." The fact that "Log Cabin" wasn't entirely successful in articulating this condition might be a cause for concern, but I'm convinced that as a provocation, the exhibition--which I've already heard colloquially referred to as the "Gay Show" and which featured contributions from more than thirty artists including Cass Bird, AA Bronson, K8 Hardy, Jonathan Horowitz, Monica Majoli, Dean Sameshima, Scott Treleaven, and Kelley Walker--might, with the advantage of hindsight, be considered a landmark event in years to come. 10 JONATHAN HOROWITZ, "THE NEW COMMUNISM" (GAVIN BROWN'S ENTERPRISE, NEW YORK) Horowitz's "New Communism" succeeded in its stated aim of spreading "a light dusting of style" on the tired arena of American party politics. A new design for the Stars and Stripes Stars and Stripes nickname for the U.S. flag. [Am. Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 8567] See : America ; a memorial sculpture of the World Trade Center created from stacks of recycled newspapers; the artist's ecofriendly Prius placed on a pedestal On a Pedestal is an EP by the Swedish band Adhesive, released in 1998. Track listing
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Daniel Birnbaum [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR OF ARTFORUM, DANIEL BIRNBAUM IS RECTOR OF FRANKFURT'S STADELSCHULE AND DIRECTOR OF ITS PORTIKUS GALLERY. HE IS ALSO A COCURATOR OF "UNCERTAIN STATES OF AMERICA," CURRENTLY ON VIEW AT ASTRUP FEARNLEY MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN OSLO, NORWAY. 1 RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA With a traveling retrospective hosted by three major institutions in Europe--the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is the main art museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Its collection ranges from medieval European art to modern art. Works exhibited The following works are exhibiited at the museum: 2 ALBRECHT DURER'S MELENCOLIA I, 1514 As long as we're on the subject: In his seminal essay "Mourning and Melancholia," Sigmund Freud writes that the melancholic suffers from an oral fixation. Appropriately enough, curator Jean Clair's massive exhibition at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris, "Melancholy," seems to suffer from hyperphagia hyperphagia /hy·per·pha·gia/ (-fa´jah) polyphagia.hyperpha´gic hy·per·pha·gia n. Abnormally increased appetite for and consumption of food, thought to be associated with a lesion or injury in in its attempt to devour the entire history of Western creativity in one huge, sad bite. But who could ever complain about such luxurious overabundance? Among the myriad contemporary works is Ron Mueck's famous depressed giant, who lurks in the very last comer of the show. But it is Durer's tiny print on the theme that makes a visit worthwhile and which raises more questions (about art, time, bodily fluids, and the occult) than an entire volume of any art magazine could cover. 3 THE LAND, 1998 If one is to praise Tiravanija, then one must praise his collaborators. Kamin Lertchaiprasert's decidedly nonmelancholic agriculture/art/architecture project in the small village of Sanpatong in northern Thailand, created with Tiravanija, expanded this year with the completion of Swedish composer Carl Michael von Hausswolff's curious-looking building. Shaped like a star, the wooden structure is an homage to esoteric scientist Friedrich Jurgensen (who claimed to communicate with the dead via radio). Von Hausswolff plans to stage concerts in this strange auditorium with other electronic musicians, both dead and alive. 4 "MOMENTUM 5: PAUL CHAN CHAN Channel " (BOSTON INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART) The Hong Kong-born artist's continuing cycle 1st [begin strikethrough]Light[end strikethrough] [sic] promises to be one of the major art projects of this decade. In spite of its theological overtones (the typographically playful title refers to the Rapture), there is nothing pretentious about the black silhouettes projected onto the gallery floor. All kinds of objects tumble through space: eyeglasses eyeglasses or spectacles, instrument or device for aiding and correcting defective sight. Eyeglasses usually consist of a pair of lenses mounted in a frame to hold them in position before the eyes. , human beings, even a train. Everything is falling, but where it will all end up, no one knows. 5 TRISHA TRISHA Tick-Related Illnesses Self-Help Alliance DONNELLY (KOLNISCHER KUNSTVEREIN) The ponderous illusions of solidity and the nonexistence non·ex·is·tence n. 1. The condition of not existing. 2. Something that does not exist. non of things are this artist's materials, someone once said to me. And I agree. 6 "BERLIN BEAUTIES" (GAGOSIAN GALLERY, BERLIN; BERLIN BIENNALE). With its titillating tit·il·late v. tit·il·lat·ed, tit·il·lat·ing, tit·il·lates v.tr. 1. To stimulate by touching lightly; tickle. 2. To excite (another) pleasurably, superficially or erotically. drawings by Dorothy Iannone, the amusing invitation to this show (which I initially considered a hoax) by itself would have warranted a spot on this list. But the exhibition being announced turned out to be a carefully organized display of works by the late Dieter Roth and two of his oldest friends--Iannone and Emmet Williams--and an auspicious beginning for the Berlin Biennale, taking place six months prior to its official opening in an uncharacteristically modest (and therefore clearly fake) "Gagosian" gallery. The legal status of this already infamous action by Maurizio & Co. is still uncertain. 7 ECHOES OF SZEEMANN I happened upon Harald Szeemann's "Visionary Belgium" at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels just a few weeks after the legendary curator's demise. All the great Belgian artists were there--Rene Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers, James Ensor, and Panamarenko--to say nothing of all kinds of other mystifying mys·ti·fy tr.v. mys·ti·fied, mys·ti·fy·ing, mys·ti·fies 1. To confuse or puzzle mentally. See Synonyms at puzzle. 2. To make obscure or mysterious. things I've never heard of. The eminence's American counterpart, Walter Hopps, who also passed away this year, no doubt would have called this Szeemann's post-humous "One More Once" (after Count Basie's cueing phrase for his band to replay a passage when closing a concert). But recently, in Berlin, I stumbled on a One More Twice--another show initiated by Szeemann celebrating soccer and art in the Martin-Gropius-Bau: "Rundlederwelten," ("Round Leather Worlds"). Romanian artist Serge Spitzer, one of Szeemann's favorites, has a masterpiece here: A soccer ball rolls back and forth on a moving table, but somehow never falls off. It's like a Brancusi for the robotic age. 8 TOMAS TOMAS Tool for Operations Modeling and Analysis in Space TOMAS Testbed of Mobile Applications for Satellite Communications SARACENO Recent interest in obsolescent ob·so·les·cent adj. 1. Being in the process of passing out of use or usefulness; becoming obsolete. 2. Biology Gradually disappearing; imperfectly or only slightly developed. media has made art using new technology less fashionable, but Saraceno's work in Paris and elsewhere in Europe provides proof that it is possible to express an original, utopian spirit if one takes advantage of technological breakthroughs. For example, the artist uses the incredibly buoyant Aerogel aerogel, any of a group of extremely light and porous solid materials; the lightest is less than four times as dense as dry air. Aerogels are produced from certain gels (see colloid) by heating the gel under pressure, which causes the liquid in the gel to become for his "lighter-than-air technology" that can theoretically take us beyond the clouds. Saraceno dreams of taking people--even buildings--airborne, and who can argue with that? You never know, he might just show us how to fly. 9 I'VE HEARD ABOUT ... (A FLAT, FAT, GROWING URBAN EXPERIMENT) Published by Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Ville de Paris may refer to:
10 MATTHEW BRANNON His posters are the wittiest and most elegant things I've come across this year. My favorite: The Disappointed Critic, 2004. I take it very personally. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jack Bankowsky [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JACK BANKOWSKY IS A CRITIC AND EDITOR AT LARGE OF ARTFORUM. 1 RICHARD PRINCE Healthy contrariness all but dictates that the self-respecting critic pass over Prince this year--save for a higher call to rescue a bumper crop of cross-pollinating projects from a distracting (if overdue) spike in the artist's market. Consider the sublime sellout at Gagosian Beverly Hills (scratch the surface of these Rothkoesque ciphers and discover the customized--and cashed!--checks below the oil and angst). Consider, too, the self-anthologizing miniretrospective at Barbara Gladstone in New York concurrent with the artist's reprise of his near-mythical 1983 Spiritual America, featuring a very grown-up grown-up adj. 1. Of, characteristic of, or intended for adults: grown-up movies; a grown-up discussion. 2. Ms. Shields shot by trashmeister Sauto D'Orazio. Consider a practice in which muscle cars are impossibly elegant post-Minimal sculptures; a tract-style house "up behind the Catskills" enters the collection of the Guggenheim; and the rumor of a library in a town house in sleepy Rensselaerville becomes a chef d'oeuvre. Now, and at peril of blowing the shape-shifter's cover, connect the dots: A year of infrathin feints and ice-cool understatement begins to look a lot like the gesamtkunstwerk of our period. 2 JEFF WALL (SCHAULAGER, MUNCHENSTEIN/BASEL; TATE MODERN, LONDON) Proclaiming Jeff Wall one of the greats of our time is a bit like nominating French food as a world-class cuisine. Still, as I boarded a plane to celebrate the opening of his two-stop retrospective. I wondered if the reputation of this longtime favorite artist would survive the full-dress occasion. The answer, on viewing the superabundant su·per·a·bun·dant adj. Abundant to excess. su per·a·bun dance n. Basel hang and, a few months later, Sheena Wagstaff's taut and temperate London view, was an unqualified yes. So what's new? To start, the mysterious masterwork mas·ter·work n. See masterpiece. Tran Duc Van, 1988. Unless my memory was playing tricks on me, two male figures at the picture's periphery had turned into a blond woman. And what about An Eviction, 1988/2004, formerly Eviction Struggle, 1988? This early icon was literally teeming teem 1 v. teemed, teem·ing, teems v.intr. 1. To be full of things; abound or swarm: A drop of water teems with microorganisms. 2. with fresh life. Pardon the hyperbole, but you have to love a guy who would work back into the Mona Lisa to get the smile right! 3 THE NEW WALKER When the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis named Herzog & de Meuron the architects of its recently completed expansion, I worried that the flavor-of-the-month stars would leave the museum with crumbs. But instead of overextended overextended, adj 1. the situation occurring when a prosthetic appliance is inadvertently constructed in such a way that part of the oral mucosa is injured by the appliance. adj 2. , a surfeit of big-deal projects found the hugely in-demand architects not only limber but confident enough to do just--and only--what the occasion demanded. From the fancy fretwork covering the air returns to the dark brick floors nodding to Edward Larabee Barnes's original exterior, so much of the building is genuinely witty, if not inspired--and the opening installation was a gem to match the setting. With minimonographs for key contemporaries and a drop-dead gallery of Minimalist masterworks, the dynamic duo of director Kathy Halbreich and chief curator Richard Flood hit a collaboration-capping home run. 4 SETH Seth, in the Bible Seth, in the Bible, son of Adam and Eve, father of Enosh. In the chronology in the Gospel of St. Luke, Seth is an ancestor of Jesus. The Nag Hammadi codices preserve revelatory discourses ascribed to or allegedly emanating from Seth. PRICE ("GREATER NEW YORK 2005," P.S. 1 CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) is a pioneering contemporary art museum located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The CAC is a non-collecting museum that focuses on new developments in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, performance art and new media. , NEW YORK) You've got to hand it to those bellwether brave hearts behind "Greater New York" who dragged their butts to every loft in Williamsburg so we didn't have to. I owe more news to their wornout soles than I'd care to admit. The news, alas, was not always good, but one belated discovery was: Seth Price. After twenty rooms of trying to find something to love, I turned the corner on a suite of golden bomber jackets that needed no excuses. What can I say? Better late than leather. 5 BOB DYLAN, CHRONICLES VOLUME ONE (SIMON & SCHUSTER Simon & Schuster U.S. publishing company. It was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon (1899–1960) and M. Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970), whose initial project, the original crossword-puzzle book, was a best-seller. ) Speaking of better. Advance page proofs squeaked this title onto pop professionals' 2004 best-of lists, but 2005 was the year the bard's distinctive diction and inspired malapropisms became a staple of art-party chatter and studio-visit confession. The artist as self-mythologizer is hardly new, but at a moment when the elaborated persona can seem the only adequate artistic response to our celebrity culture, the folkways folkways, term coined by William Graham Sumner in his treatise Folkways (1906) to denote those group habits that are common to a society or culture and are usually called customs. of the authentically inauthentic vagabond VAGABOND. One who wanders about idly, who has no certain dwelling. The ordinances of the French define a vagabond almost in the same terms. Dalloz, Dict. Vagabondage. See Vattel, liv. 1, Sec. 219, n. are both muse and tonic. 6 ART FAIR ART (GALERIE KLOSTERFELDE, FRIEZE ART FAIR Frieze is an annual international contemporary art fair held in October in London's Regent's Park. The fair is staged by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, the publishers of frieze magazine. , LONDON) As the self-appointed apologist of the last big thing, I feel it my duty to keep the record up to date. This fall at the Frieze Art Fair, the artist duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset staged a pair of adjacent, identically stocked booths for Berlin dealer Martin Klosterfelde, complete with twin towheads--one, by necessity, a doppelganger doppelgänger Psychiatry A delusion that a double of a person or place exists elsewhere; it is related to other defects in recognition and suggests organic disease in the nondominant parietal lobe. See Depersonalization disorder, Schizophrenia. . The telltale giveaway? Klosterfelde the imposter had plenty of time to chat with the critics; a sidelong side·long adj. 1. Directed to one side; sideways: a sidelong glance. 2. So as to slant; sloping. adv. 1. On or toward the side; sideways. 2. glance at a passing checkbook would have made the illusion seamless. What do artists know about commerce anyway? 7 SPIRITUAL AMERICAN (WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It was an outgrowth of the Whitney Studio (1914–18), the Whitney Studio Club (1918–28), and the Whitney Studio Galleries (1928–30). , NEW YORK) Does it require a rocket scientist to visit the vaults of our most august institutions and offer up a hang that beats a day-sale preview at Philips? Recent data suggest as much. Whatever the case, curator Donna de Salvo's second-floor installation of the Whitney's permanent collection did the museum proud. De Salvo pulled it off with a couple of inspired moves--bridging two galleries with a Carl Andre floor piece; bathing Richard Prince's rephotographed prepubescent prepubescent /pre·pu·bes·cent/ (pre?pu-bes´ent) prepubertal. pre·pu·bes·cent adj. Of or characteristic of prepuberty. n. A prepubescent child. Brooke Shields in the Times Square glow of a 1977 Dan Flavin--and a disciplined instinct for how much is just enough. Bonus points: sneaking in a nifty Ad Reinhardt diagram spoofing anxiety and influence in the age of American artistic triumphalism--and this in the curator's first show in her new post at the Whitney Museum of American Art. 8 ANTHONY BURDIN (MACCARONE INC., NEW YORK) I know, I know. I've been thumping the pulpit for this artist all year, but, at the risk of suffocating suf·fo·cate v. suf·fo·cat·ed, suf·fo·cat·ing, suf·fo·cates v.tr. 1. To kill or destroy by preventing access of air or oxygen. 2. To impair the respiration of; asphyxiate. 3. the demonic demiurge demiurge (dĕm`ēûrj') [Gr.,=workman, craftsman], name given by Plato in a mythological passage in the Timaeus to the creator God. with my critical affections, I have to say that Burdin's brand new video, Dual Vision Dope Mix/Restoration Editing Project, 2005, quite simply--pun intended--rocked. For this piece, Burdin brought his squalid road show to a Whole Foods parking lot. Note to Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss: Charge up your PCs: the last--and best--chapter of the Informe remains to be written. 9 PAUL MCCARTHY (HAUS DER KUNST The Haus der Kunst (literally House of Art) is an art museum in Munich, Germany. It is located at Prinzregentenstrasse 1 at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, Munich's largest park. , MUNICH; WHITECHAPEL ART GALLERY, LONDON) My dad's creepier than your dad, but no one's dad tops Anthony Burdin's. I am talking, of course, about Paul McCarthy, Burdin's artistic precursor and one-time mentor, whose fetid fetid /fet·id/ (fe´tid) (fet´id) having a rank, disagreeable smell. fet·id adj. Having an offensive odor. fetid having a rank, disagreeable smell. patrimony was honored this year in a maniacally unhinged two-stop survey. The exhibition debuted a three-ring swashbuckler, "Caribbean Pirates," improbably made with McCarthy's real-life son Damon (yikes yikes interj. Used to express mild fear or surprise. [Origin unknown.] !); but then nervous laughter has always been the fitting response to this artist's paean Paean (pē`ən), Paean was an epithet for Apollo, the healer. The paean, a hymn of praise to Apollo and often to other gods, was sung as a prayer for safety or deliverance at battles and other important occasions. to derelict daddies from the White House to the North Pole. "Santa Claus is coming to town ..." 10 REENA SPAULINGS Move over, Marian; bag it, Babs. As the new first lady of the gallery world, Reena rules! And "she" writes pretty good too. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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