Schiavo Mazzonis Gallery

MICOL ASSAËL, NINA BEIER + MARIA LUND, MONICA BONVICINI, PAVEL BÜCHLER, NINA CANELL, JIMMIE DURHAM, ALEX HUBBARD, ALEXANDER GUTKE, MARTIN KERSELS, MICHAEL LANDY, LIZ LARNER, CHRISTIAN MARCLAY, KRIS MARTIN, ARIEL OROZCO, MICHAEL SAILSTORFER, ARCANGELO SASSOLINO, JONATHAN SCHIPPER, ARIEL SCHLESINGER, ROMAN SIGNER, JOHANNES VOGL

Under Destruction is a group exhibition curated by Chris Sharp and Gianni Jetzer that examines the use and role of destruction in contemporary art through the work of more than 20 international artists. Taking place on the 50th anniversary of Jean Tinguely's historic Homage to New York (1960), this exhibition proposes a series of alternatives to the stark, protest-dominated role accorded to destruction in the '50s and '60s, as seen in the work of Tinguely, Gustav Metzger and others. Rather, this survey will show destruction under a more favorable, if nuanced light, presenting it as everything from a generative force to environmental memento mori to consumer fallout to a mode of transformation.

True to the spirit of Tinguely's Homage to New York, the exhibition will be predominantly kinetic.

This necessarily entails an evolving, quasi self-destroying exhibition itself, in which the largely temporal nature of the works will yield, in the end, a show much changed from its beginnings.

"If nothing can be created, something must be destroyed," is how Rosalind Krauss succintly summerized Georges Bataille's The Accursed Share. While this phrase can begin to describe the ethos of this exhibition, Under Destruction raises the stakes by collapsing creation into destruction. Through such a process, this exhibition intends to create a variegated vision of destruction. To the more predictable instances of sudden spectacle will be added a less expected sense of subtlety, the combination of which will both immediately and gradually disclose the heterogenity of destruction in contemporary art.

Under Destruction can be divided up into a series of overlapping themes and categories, which are anything but hard and fast, and which inevitably blur in and out of one another. The issue of transformation is engaged by the contributions of Nina Canell and Pavel Buchler. In Canell's waterbased works, in which water is made to disperse via rapid sonic vibrations and transformed into a mist, destruction is broken down to some of its finest, molecular components, while in Pavel Buchler's series Modern Paintings (1997-2004), which consist of flea-market bought paintings, which are un-stretched, inserted in a washer, the result of which is reconstituted by the artist on a stretcher, such that they resemble Art Brut abstractions, destruction is a visibly transformative process.

Modes and effects of consumption are addressed in the contributions of Ariel Orozco, Johannes Vogl and Monica Bonvicini. Johannes Vogl's absurd, homemade contraption Untitled (Machine to produce jam breads), 2007, which senselessly produces pieces of bread with jam on them, engages questions of overproduction and consequently waste. Comprised of a fragile plaster veneer precariously placed above a real floor and which gradually fills up with holes made by visitors, Monica Bonvicini's installation Plastered, 1998, testifies to the consumption and deterioration of architecture by those who use it. Meanwhile, Ariel Orozco's Doble Desgaste (Double Consumption) 2005, takes a more metaphysical approach toward consumption, speaking to the concentrated and deliberate dissipation of effort. In this photographic documentation of an "action," Orozco systematically draws a portrait of a cube shaped eraser in graphite, photographing the portrait, erasing it with the same eraser, redrawing the eraser on the same piece of paper, photographing it, erasing it, and so on until the eraser and the portrait are gone.

The consequences of consumption inevitably filter into the environment and technology. Arcangelo Sassolino's Untitled, 2008, perceives technology as a brute, destructive force intimately linked to environmental consumption. Activated by the viewer through a motion detection sensor, Untitled is a hydraulic arm that gradually pushes into and destroys a large block of wood every time an unsuspecting viewer comes within its orbit, thus rendering them complicit in an inane act of dark and brooding annihilation. Liz Larner's Corner Basher, 1998, likewise depends upon a viewer participation, but to an arguably more senseless degree. This piece consists of a drive shaft mechanism, the activation and speed of which is controlled by the viewer, that swings a chain into and destroys the nearby corner wall. Jonathan Schipper's The Slow Inevitable Death of American Muscle, 2007-09, pits technology against itself in an allegory of consumption and destruction. This piece is comprised of two cars that slowly enact a head-on collision over the course of several days. If Schipper's work is of the order of allegory, Michael Sailstorfer's Zeit ist Keine Autobahn (2007) explicitly brings time and the memento mori into the mix. A single car wheel connected to an electric motor that grinds itself down against a wall, this work deploys a form of attrition to symbolically represent destruction.

A close kinsman of destruction, the memento mori ineluctably dominates the mood of several works in this exhibition. Roman Signer's Schweden in einer Kiste, 1999, is an unexpectedly poignant and diosyncratic vanitas. This piece is a video of a remote control helicopter, which takes off in a large, enclosed wooden box, hovers, runs into a wall, falters and then proceeds to doggedly and thoroughly decimate itself in a technological tantrum at the uncomprehending expense of its own mortality. Nina Beier and Maria Lund's History makes a Young Man Old 2009, departs from the theme of technology and uses performance to facilitate a sense of attrition wrought by time and use. For this piece, the artists' take turns rolling a crystal ball from wherever it is purchased in the city of an exhibition venue to the exhibition site itself. This powerful but economic work implies a loss of clarity, brought on through an attrition that is determined by forces beyond its control. Meanwhile, Kris Martin's 100 years, 2004, which consists of a bomb set to go off in 2104, dislocates the moment of destruction into a distant temporal elsewhere, and in doing so, incorporates that elsewhere and the destruction it is destined to undergo into the present, thus extending the domain of destruction well beyond the parameters of the exhibition itself.

Where Martin's bomb trades on the future of destruction, other works in the exhibition deal in its specter, introducing destruction into this equation as pure potential. Works by Micol Assaël, Fernando Ortega and Ariel Schlesigner variously portend it while indefinitely deferring it. The menace of destruction almost always plays an essential part in the galvanizing installations and environments of Micol Assaël; for Under Destruction, the artist will create a new production. No exhibition on this theme would be complete without the element of fire, which Ariel Schlesinger's Bubble Machine fitfully, if ridiculously provides. True to the spirit of Tinguely's quasi unhinged tinkering aesthetic, Schlesinger's madcap machine consists of a mechanism placed on top of a wooden ladder, which periodically drops bubbles of soap onto a small, electrified series of coils, which make the bubble burst into flames. Here destruction becomes a more controlled and evocative force. Last in this mode is Fernando Ortega's Untitled, 2005. A controlled leak that falls onto a metal box of water color paints and gradually disfigures the container, this work builds in suspense throughout the exhibition, inviting one to wonder whether or not a kind of creation, via destruction, will ever really take place, or if the box will resist the leak, and as such, thwart the insistent, would-be accident of creation.

If the melancholy frustration of this work is not without a certain humor, a few other works in this exhibition unequivocally venture off the deep end of a kind of slapstick destruction. Alex Hubbard's video's for example, such as Cineopolis is a humble masterpiece of antic decimation. Replete with a foley soundtrack created by the artist, this video portrays the Hubbard carrying out a series of deleterious actions upon a small movie screen from a bird's eye point of view, such as torching a group of metallic balloons and then finally tarring and feathering the screen. Martin Kersels Tumble Room, 2001, takes humor to more spectacular, if acrobatic level. For this piece, Kersels had a room constructed, replete with all the accoutrements of a little girl, and placed it on a mechanism, which rotated the entire room end over end, until it gradually turned the tumbling contents into dust. The kinetic sculpture is also accompanied by a video of a dancer, dancing in the tumbling room, negotiating its topples and turns with a dazzling fleet-footed grace. Here destruction is deployed as bravura, as a kind of slapstick, and dandified testimony to being beyond its reach, or its effects.

Humor has always been a key component to Jimmie Durham's work, and can certainly be found in his sculpture and attendant video, Stoning the Refrigerator, 1996. The result of waking every day for approximately ten days and throwing cobble stones at a refrigerator for an hour a day, this piece speaks to destruction as a daily ritual. By dint of this repetitive and iconoclastic act, Durham was able to assert a destructive tendency as a form of affirmation. Repetition likewise informs Alexander Gutke's White Light of the Void, 2002. This 16 mm film installation, which is an animation transferred to 16 mm, simulates the meltdown of blank film stock, as if the film jammed in the projector, whereupon the bulb promptly burns through the celluloid, producing an amoeba-like form that expands outward from the center of the frame, swallowing it up and returning the film to its opening white frame, intact, and the loop resumes. As such, this work, which symbolically deals with issues of death, the afterlife and renewal, could be seen as a metaphor for this exhibition in which destruction itself is often a force of renewal.

The exhibition “Manimal,” a project by Andrea Sala in Kaleidoscope's project space from June 24 to July 20, can be seen as a parody of trivially themed group shows and especially so-called summer shows, often informed by the holiday-like atmosphere of the season.

“Manimal” explores the formal potential of the classic subject of the animal world and its developments, not only in the visual arts but also in auteur and anonymous design, cinema and television. The exhibition is titled after the eponymous American TV series from the 1980s, which concerned the adventures of a man capable of transforming himself into any kind of animal, suggesting that the true object of interest of the artist's research is not so much the animal world for its own sake (which is in fact a neutral field, almost a pretext) but rather its representation in collective imagery and cultural production: the animal as seen by a humankind at once bewitched and domineering, becomes the symbol of the man's need to absorb, represent and in so doing transform everything that he experiences in his daily life.

Modifying the exhibition space by means of a sequence of sculpture-displays in enameled iron, chalk and polystyrene, which suggest caves and are inspired by the scenography of zoos and natural science museums, the Italian artist Andrea Sala (born in Como near Milan in 1976, lives and works between Milan and Montreal) has created a dreamlike habitat populated by camels, lions, dogs, cats, wolves, chameleons, dolphins, butterflies, snakes and birds, featuring the works of artists Allora&Calzadilla, Thomas Bayrle, Marco Belfiore, Riccardo Beretta, Matthew Brannon, Alex Cecchetti, Christian Frosi, Fischli&Weiss, Roni Horn, Marcello Maloberti, Ariel Orozco and Shirana Shahbazi and the designers Michele De Lucchi, Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and Isao Hosoe, along with everyday objects and a work by Sala himself, Cicognino, inspired by the table by Franco Albini.

By choosing the animal world as the subject of its themed selection, “Manimal” radicalizes the parodic approach and transforms the exhibition space into a zoo. Perhaps it is in reference to the zoo that Milan has lacked after the shutdown of the zoo located in the Porta Venezia public garden, which left only ghostly cages and abandoned pools. Or perhaps it rather evokes the zoo as an emblem of the non-place, the alien and alienating urban landscape where everything can be seen and consumed but only in the attenuated form of things that have been removed from their own context; or again, the zoo as a magic, fantastic place, the realm of possibility where the rational, logical order can be altered...

The exhibition was made possible by the kind support of the exhibited artists and Collezione Enea Righi, Bologna; Cardi Black Box, Milan; Galleria Giò Marconi, Milan; Le Case d'Arte, Milan; Federica Schiavo Gallery, Rome; Galleria Franco Soffantino, Turin; Galleria Zero..., Milan; Fondazione Ordine degli Architetti di Milano; Valenti Luce, Milan.

Exhibition produced in collaboration with P+P Studio.

Greater New York

On view May 23, 2010 - October 18, 2010

Greater New York, the third iteration of the quintennial exhibition organized by MoMA PS1 and The Museum of Modern Art, showcasing some 68 artists and collectives living and working in the metropolitan New York area, will open at MoMA PS1 on May 23 and run through October 18, 2010. The 2010 exhibition will not only present recent work made within the past five years, but also will foster a productive workshop where artists will be invited to experiment with new ideas within MoMA PS1's building for the duration of the exhibition. Greater New York is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art; Connie Butler, The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art; and Neville Wakefield, MoMA PS1 Senior Curatorial Advisor.

Covering a full range of practices and mediums, the artists in Greater New York are inspired by living in one of the most diverse and provocative centers of cultural activity in the world. The exhibition centers largely on the process of creation and the generative nature of the artist's studio and practice.  A number of artists are being commissioned to work in residence in MoMA PS1's gallery space to shoot photographs and video, rehearse and realize performances, and stretch the notions of sculpture, painting, photography, film, and video-making.

The Greater New York 2010 curators selected artists through studio visits, review of recommendations, mailed submissions, and through Studio Visit, a new initiative on www.MoMAPS1.org that invites artists to present their artwork and studios online. Over 750 Studio Visit submissions were reviewed by the curatorial team.

LIST OF ARTISTS

Michele Abeles, David Adamo, Ei Arakawa, An Atlas of Radical Cartography, Tauba Auerbach, Darren Bader, Kerstin Brätsch, Da vid Brooks, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Leidy Churchman, Deville Cohen, Brody Condon, Caleb Considine, William Cordova, Delusional Downtown Divas (Joana Avillez, Lena Dunham, Isabel Halley), DETEXT, Debo Eilers, Franklin Evans, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Zipora Fried, Daniel Gordon, Tamar Halpern, K8, Hardy, Tommy Hartung, Sharon Hayes, Vlatka Horvat, Matt Hoyt, Alex Hubbard, Alisha Kerlin, Liz Magic Laser, Deana Lawson, Leigh Ledare, Dani Leventhal, Kalup Linzy, Tala Madani, Nick Mauss, Ryan McNamara, Dave Miko, Amir Mogharabi, Sam Moyer, Nico Muhly, Rashaad Newsome, Dominic Nurre, Brian O’Connell, Alice O’Malley, Virginia Overton, Adam Pendleton, Maria Petschnig, Zak Prekop, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Gilad Ratman, Lucy Raven, robbinschilds, Mariah, Robertson, Adele Röder, Emily Roysdon, Aki Sasamoto, David Benjamin Sherry, Erin Shirreff, Xaviera Simmons, A.L. Steiner, Elisabeth Subrin, Hank Willis Thomas, Naama Tsabar, Guido van der Werve, Conrad Ventur, Amy Yao, Pinar Yolacan

'GREATER' VISION OF CONTEMPORARY ART

by Pia Catton

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559004575256393420879712.html?mod=WSJ_NY_Culture_LEFTTopStories#

A BASIC HUMAN IMPULSEat the GC. AC - Contemporary Art Gallery of Monfalcone

curated by Andrea Bruciati

Works by:

David Adamo, Pierre Bismuth, Davide Cascio, Christian Eisenberger, Anna Galtarossa, Kate Gilmore, Daniel González, Jay Heikes, Jorge Pardo, Tobias Rehberger, Andrea Sala, Francesco Simeti, Sissi, Luca Trevisani, Oscar Tuazon, Atelier Van Lieshout, Nico Vascellari

La rassegna prende spunto dalle riflessioni di Richard Sennett (L’uomo artigiano, 2008) e vuole criticamente attestare, evidenziandolo, un diverso approccio, una sensibilità differente nei confronti dell’atto creativo che coinvolge l’estetica contemporanea in ogni sua forma. Passando dall’arte al design, dall’architettura alla musica, la mostra in oggetto vuole raccogliere la sfida, dimostrando che il fare sia ormai parte integrante della sfera creativa. L’ipotesi da comprovare è come possa ancora risiedere nella vecchia figura dell’homo faber, colui che sa fare con le proprie mani vantando perizia e conoscenza non comuni, la risposta / salvezza contro la mediocrità del ‘basta che sia fatto’, contro la vigente vulgata per cui nelle accademie e nelle scuole d’arte non si deve insegnare la perizia tecnica ma solo la speculazione pura, disgiunta dall’oggetto finito. Anche il design vive d’altronde un paradosso perchè nell’epoca della fretta e dell’immateriale riscopre il tempo lento del lavorare con le mani e la materia è di nuovo protagonista. In realtà è il recupero dell’atto creativo, inteso soprattutto come gesto antropologico, ad essere osservato nuovamente dalla stessa ricerca e produzione artistica più attuale.

In questa prospettiva le opere possiedono nuovamente una competenza esecutiva sedimentata, in cui la stessa routine è soggetta ad una riflessione esplicita sul gesto appreso. Il processo è circolare, cioè si acquisisce un repertorio di competenze che riflette sulle possibili variabili dello stesso gesto. È fondamentale anche per il fruitore apprendere con lentezza questi elaborati, dare il tempo necessario perché lo stesso risultato possa essere raggiunto in molti modi alternativi. In questa sorta di passaggio fra i due linguaggi, va interiorizzata una corrispondenza tra pensiero e azione che ci consente un ritmo variato. Vi è infatti un carattere esplorativo nella metodologia costitutiva e processuale del fare e ogni competenza tecniche racchiude una struttura narrativa aperta. L’artista e il designer connotano così l’oggetto e il suo linguaggio denotativo, accedendo ad un piano simbolico e metaforico in cui la forma si impreziosisca di un valore emotivo, altrimenti irraggiungibile.

Al di là dei segni espressivi che contraddistinguono l’osmosi continua fra due codici apparentemente dicotomici, gli autori invitati alla rassegna A Basic Human Impulse esprimono un’acuta sensibilità nella realizzazione dei loro elaborati, una passione nell’acuire la parte sensoriale, memore di un profondo cambiamento in atto, estromettendo di fatto lasciti tardo-postmoderni a favore di una fenomenologia emotiva rinnovata. In questo senso, oggetti di design si affiancheranno ad opere precedentemente realizzate, mentre prototipi progettuali daranno spunto ad installazioni ed azioni nello spazio, ideate per l’occasione e realizzate con materiali e know how MOROSO.