Welcome 2011

After an extensive break from writing the blog 2011 is shaping up rather well. 2010 Summer shows were a great surprise. Normally the Summer season is one of safe bets, standard gallery collections or small works exhibitions so jam packed you could go blind. Not so for 2010, a glorious Summer indeed.

The year of the Rabbit is here at last brimming with promise as the global economic situation still reels. Getting back into the swing of things this will be more of a short note, not a full post. That will begin again next week.

Pic for Chelsea Thursday night were Pat Steir at Cheim & Read and Herb Jackson at Claire Oliver gallery's.

Stay tuned more on these shows and openings next week.

Looking back, Looking foward

The past year was most certainly a bomb shell shaking the world to the quick on all fronts. Looking back, what were your favorite or most interesting shows of 2009? How do you see the future of art making in 2010?

What artists, emerging or established do you hope to see this coming season?

Let me know your opinions.

Have a great 2010 !

Envoy Enterprises, Split; Catherine Tafur Solo Exhibition

(c) Catherine Tafur "Filter", image courtesy of the artist

Envoy Enterprises

131 Chrystie Street

NYC, NY

Split; One Night Only, Solo Exhibition

Catherine Tafur presents works on canvas, paper and a live performance at Envoy Enterprises.

“Cha- Cha- Cha Changes, turn and face the strange...” Catherine Tafur’s works explore ideas surrounding gender, sexuality and loss of innocence through images of androgynous figures painfully mutated and transformed.

These “changelings” bare their innocence, pain, sexual pervasiveness and mutations openly to the viewer. Both Beautiful and disturbing, some recall mythical combinations of human – beast not made from divine sources but rather painful interventions. “Bisters”, drawing on paper depicts the boy- girl figure with small horns, a snout and blisters forming on the small chest. The body language also ambiguous seems alarmed at s/he’s discovery reacting as if caught off guard poised to run for safety or making a defensive stand towards the unknown pursuer.

(c) Catherine Tafur, "Blisters" image courtesy of the artist

“Family” drawing on paper, depicts two larger pubescent figures with gas mask-like head gear holding the small child off it’s feet as they wrangle a tiger mask over it’s head. The suspended child hangs motionless with arms revealing more of a startled fear of an unknown result similar in feeling to stories of forced clitorectomies on young girls. Though the older figures clearly possess both gender physicality’s it is more the stance that suggests the more masculine of the two alluding to the offense of the mutation is from both genders.

(c) Catherine Tafur, "Family", image courtesy of the artist

Catherine Tafur’s performance, a minimal set up consisting of a drawing easel with a drawing of a window with a tree outside. On a small pedestal; charcoal, lipstick, hand mirror, eraser, knife and clear large lidded jar. Tafur plays a soundtrack comprised of therapy sessions, phone messages, readings from the SCUM manifesto by Valerie Solanas and sounds sampled from online pornography layered onto a guitar piece. She draws, erases, re-draws, cuts, and strikes out, the figure and structure of the work continually redefining through process. Her acts are synced with the recording. One memorable act in particular was watching her applying lipstick to her mouth as she kisses the figure’s groin area that is left blank. She then kisses the torso as if healing the wound in an act of love.

And so it begins...

The sound begins with Tafur saying, "Once upon a time, I lay naked, trembling and crying on a bed. I had nothing. I looked out the window and I saw a tree."

Tafur states, “the performance takes as it’s initial narrative, an autobiographical account of past sexual trauma. It then morphs into a hateful rage that becomes directed to the self. The piece is a metaphor about the creative process and the transformation of conflict in art. “

This was Catherine Tafur’s first performance piece. The audience gathered around sitting on the floor or standing. My knee cracked a bit getting up and well worth the effort. I’d gladly do it again to catch her next performance.

How it ends....? I’ll leave that surprise to see for your self.

You can find the performance in it’s entirety on You Tube or right here on the side bar.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTGVbPrIPFI

For more information on Catherine Tafur’s work check her website;

www.catherinetafur.com

Greene Contemporary: Welcome To My World

image courtesy of the Gallery
(c) Billy Maker, Platform-outpost-level-system, Installation view, right wall, view 1, 2008-2009

Welcome To My World; Group Exhibiton featuring Kevin Cyr, Andrew Junge, Billy Maker, Shawn Pettersen, Jean-Pierre Roy

Worlds great and small invite the imagination to wander through diverse environments and situations. Billy Maker's work immediately drew my attention. Maker's multi-dimensional dioramas made from delicate sticks of wood inserted directly into the wall with small platforms and miniature spots of grass at times no larger than your pinky nail kept my focus. Fragile connecting structures intersecting with the shadows cast were reminiscent of high dive platforms and ancient indigenous cave cities were transformed into a contemporary or future scape. Curiously, one large shadow cast underneath loosely formed a folding gate. Intentional or not, it presented another direction to explore. Though the process of construction is delicate, the structures issue an underlying presence of strength.

Greene Contemporary
9 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002
T (212) 228.8282
F (212) 228.7738
Th-Su 12 pm - 6 pm
info@greenecontemporary.com
www.greenecontemporary.com

Purgatory Pie Press, Postcard Exhibit

Purgatory Pie Press
Postcard Exhibit - Closing Party
Square One Gallery
1 Union Square West
NY NY

The Postcard show at Square One Gallery presented small works by artists and writers with readings by collaborators at the closing.

The concept peaked my interest, and rightly so. Unlike the usual small works or post card shows, it was not packed to the brim causing your eyes to flinch at the massive visual display. An array of themes and materials could be found including quite a few with a sense of humor.

The readings were a wonderful added bonus, in particular Bob Holman's reading "the box" piece. Jeff Wrights "plan b" which he let me read will be available soon. You'll have to wait to order through the site like me. Such is life, all good things are worth the wait.

Readings by collaborators include: Bob Holman, Holly Anderson, Bob Herman, Jeff Wright, Georgia Luna & others...

To purchase works including box sets of mixed works or for further information and schedule.
www.PurgatoryPiePress.com
19 Hudson Street #403
NY NY 10013
212-274-8228