Landscape vs. Manscape

This month, Good Children Gallery brings the visitor on a journey of a sort with The Horizon Tries, the latest exhibition curated by Lala Raščić. The multimedia show includes Raščić's works, a video from the Croatian collective Fokus Grupa, and a piece from Lana Čmajčanin. The theme, a reflection on landscapes, ultimately becomes an attempt to answer the question: "When we look at landscape do we see culture or nature?".
Going back in time, the visit can start in the far room, where a few items related to Elysée Reclus, the nineteenth century French geographer, anarchist, writer, are displayed in a glass case, including a facsimile of his obituary, books and a bottle of wine from the Cuvée bearing his name. This is a great introduction to the video No Country Other Than Liberty, 2013, from Raščić, featuring the artist on the right side of the screen, reading excerpts from Reclus's writings while images of industrial landscapes shot along the Mississippi River go by on the left. In a sobering note, the ominous comments made by Reclus in the 1850's are more than ever relevant to today's world. A gouache rendition of a Google earth view of the plantation where Reclus stayed during his trip in Louisiana completes the display.
In the front room, The Horizon Tries, 2014, gouache, glass and gold paint, also the title to the exhibition, is hung next to Into the Dusk Charged Air, 2014, a reverse painting on glass featuring a white web made of all the rivers mentioned in a poem from John Ashbery.
Across these two works, gouache paintings inspired by views from Google maps evoke abstract landscapes. For  Geometry of Time, 2014, Čmajčanin superimposes maps of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Roman time till the Dayton Agreement (1995). The black fuzzy contours represent a picture of old countries redesigned over the centuries at the whim of bureaucracies following wars. The resulting scribble summarizes centuries of history in one shot.  Next on a table, a series of five works from Raščić, gold painted words on layered pieces of glass, can be viewed as one installation under the glare of a single spotlight, the powerful association of words echoing in space and time: "Geometry of Exploitation", "Perseverance of Landscape", "Nature, Culture, Landscape, Manscape", ... Through a succession of views from natural parks, the fifteen minutes video There Aren`t Words for What We Do or How We Feel so We Have to Make Them Up, 2012, from Fokus Grupa, is an invitation to think about the relationship between landscape and culture, "exploring the notion of the ‘national essence’".  Looking at the succession of mountains, valleys, rivers becomes an aesthetic experience on its own.
The stunning landscapes could conclude the visit, but the well curated exhibition brings up lingering  thoughts. The dichotomy between "Old Europe" and "New World" could weaken the impact of some works when presented to the audience in New Orleans, however the bigger debate brought up by the exhibition is related to our relationship with nature, a subject binding continents and countries regardless of their history. As stated by the narrator in the video No Country Other Than Liberty "injuries to the natural world are injuries to humanity itself".

photographs by the author

From Duchamp to Duchampian

At first look, Duchamp, A Biography, written by Calvin Tomkins is intimidating with its five hundred plus pages of dense text and black cover illustrated by Poster after Self-Portrait in Profile, 1959, from Marcel Duchamp. First published in 1996, twenty five years after the artist's death, the revised edition was printed under the auspices of the Museum of Modern Art.
A detailed description of  a major work from Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-1923, is followed by a chronological history of the artist's life in thirty chapters, each preceded by a quote from Duchamp or one of his close friends under the title.
The maturation of the complex character unfolds through the description of his life stories, on a background of wars and a fast changing art world. In his biography, Tomkins  not only provides solid facts, but also in-depth analysis of Duchamp's writings, interactions, interests and works. The illustrations accompanying the text include all the major pieces, family photographs and portraits of the artist and his friends.
Tomkins's easy style of writing makes the reading riveting with its succession of great stories. The material for the book was gathered during a thirty years period of research, and several hours of recorded conversations between the author and the artist in 1959 making it not only a biography but an insider's history of art. To quote Tomkins, the interview with Duchamp led to his "first interest in modern art". Following his personal interaction with the artist, Tomkins helps us evaluate the breath of his legacy.
As a testimony of his influence on the art world, Duchamp, who stated that "life is more important than art",
was posthumously awarded an adjective in the dictionnary, Duchampian.




photographs public domain
Marcel Duchamp, Library of Congress
"Rose Sélavy", 1921, Man Ray

The Birth of a Photographer, Emmet Gowin

Thesis are the culmination of years of education, and often hold the key to a future career. Through the portfolio presented for his undergraduate senior thesis at the Richmond Professional Institute (Virginia Commonwealth University) in 1965, Emmet Gowin provides clues to his early influences and sources of inspiration. The display of a rare unbound version belonging to the New Orleans Museum of Art's permanent collection is the occasion to discover Concerning America and Alfred Stieglitz, and Myself, a compilation of texts chosen from the book written about Stieglitz, America and Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait, published in 1934, and fourteen photographs made by Gowin when he lived in Virginia.

The black and white photographs are displayed in glass cases along the walls of a narrow passage between Joseph Cornell's works and the Modern and Contemporary Art gallery on the second floor of the museum. The text is available on printed copies or through a smartphone app, found next to Gower's drawing for the publication's cover. The scenes caught on camera in 1963 and 1964 describe people in their surroundings, using trees, rows of benches, buildings, … as props to frame the moment. Technically flawless in their compositions, the photographs are telling stories, suggesting sometimes action, sometimes reflection.

Reading the text is the next step. The selected writings imply the direct influence of the photographer/gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz and give an insight into Gowin's aspirations which are to meet the goals set by Stieglitz, among them: "The translation of experience through photography, the storing up of energy, feeling, memory, impulse, will, ..." or " fixing the intricate Idea through the momentary forms which actually reveal it".

A second look at the photographs underlines the influence of Alfred Stieglitz who introduced European art to America and promoted the idea of photography as art and Robert Frank, in particular his photographs with the text from Jack Kerouac published in the book The Americans, in 1958. The subject, discovery of the soul of America through its people, the construction of the images with vertical and horizontal lines, the setting of the human figures, all relate to the famous photographers' works.    

The small exhibition which at first appears to have been set up to fill an anonymous space, deserves attention and time. Not only does it provide a piece of the history of photography , it also represents the birth of a photographer and an artist. 

photographs from  the exhibition by the author

Danville, Virginia, 1963
Shilo Baptist Church, Shilo, N.C., 1963
Route 360, Virginia, 1964

Not so Random

For Random Precision in the Metric of Time, his first exhibition at the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, the Austrian-born sculptor Erwin Redl presents a new body of work consisting of kinetic sculptures, wall pieces and prints. Best known for his LED light installations, the artist utilizes different media in his practice, including glass, laser, drawings, videos, computer installations... Through his diverse background, Redl acquired various skills, from carpentry, a family tradition, to music and Computer art  while attending the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
The swooshing sound of fans guides the visitor to two suspended sculptures, Ascension Circle-24, 2015, and Ascension X-17, 2015, hanging respectively from a metal circle attached to the ceiling and from four massive wood poles. Clear-glass pipes arranged in geometric shapes (a circle and a cross) compose the main body of the pieces, while white LED lights reproduce the figures on the floor intermittently, in sync with Ping-Pong balls rising and falling in the long tubes, propelled by small fans. The technical aspect of the works can distract from the visual experience which requires some time to be fully appreciated. Four small sculptures built with the same technology surround the riveting works. One or two Ping-Pong balls blown by fans move across a suspended piece of carved Masonite. The size, depth and shape of the carving determine the path of the spheres. The repetitive motion results in a mesmerizing sight. Four giant palimpsest prints covering one of the walls evoke the cartography of ancient ruins seen from space. The complex geometrical patterns are generated through a computer in the course of the kinetic sculptures' design. Layers of red, blue, black oil based ink, provide texture and mood. The prints are a clue to Redl's reverse engineering process for which he "assembles the material according to a narrow set of self-imposed rules which often incorporate complex algorithms, controlled randomness and other methods inspired by computer codes." The last group of works is a series of carved Masonite wall pieces, variations on designs and shades.
While Redl's light installations have been affiliated with the Light and Space movement, this new body of work reaches far beyond "retinal" art to art for the mind, a Duchampian quest. Exploring new dimensions like space and time, the artist aims through his art to control randomness "transferring an idea of randomness through precise calculations."
With its minimalist flavor, the show activates the spacious gallery's space, allowing the visitor to discover the artist through a variety of his compelling works.

Erwin Redl investigates the process of “reverse engineering” by (re-)translating the abstract aesthetic language of virtual reality and 3 D computer modeling back into architectural environments by means of large scale light installations. In this body of work, space is experienced as a second skin, our social skin, which is transformed through the artistic intervention. Due to the very nature of its architectural dimension, participating by simply being “present” is an integral part of the installations. Visual perception works in conjunction with corporeal motion, and the subsequent passage of ti - See more at: http://arthurrogergallery.com/artists/erwin-redl/#sthash.4CWkjkZO.dpuf

photographs by the author

Random Precision in the Metric of Time presents a new body of work that reveals unexpected variances through time-based media and processes. Manifestations of rhythmic arrangements are explored using various media, either through movement or layers of materials accumulated over time. The works in the exhibition are divided into four groups: kinetic sculptures made up of arrangements of vertically suspended glass pipes equipped with Ping-Pong balls, fans and LED lighting; suspended sculptures which utilize different variations of intricately shaped planes; large-scale CNC palimpsest prints and reliefs carved out of laminated layers of thin Masonite. Redl explains that the meticulously engineered works are exposed to uncontrollable parameters, which introduce random errors and distort the unvarying precision of the metric of time, thus allowing time to be experienced as an imperfect system. - See more at: http://arthurrogergallery.com/exhibition/erwin-redl/#sthash.RAdHf8we.dpuf

Random Precision in the Metric of Time presents a new body of work that reveals unexpected variances through time-based media and processes. Manifestations of rhythmic arrangements are explored using various media, either through movement or layers of materials accumulated over time. The works in the exhibition are divided into four groups: kinetic sculptures made up of arrangements of vertically suspended glass pipes equipped with Ping-Pong balls, fans and LED lighting; suspended sculptures which utilize different variations of intricately shaped planes; large-scale CNC palimpsest prints and reliefs carved out of laminated layers of thin Masonite. Redl explains that the meticulously engineered works are exposed to uncontrollable parameters, which introduce random errors and distort the unvarying precision of the metric of time, thus allowing time to be experienced as an imperfect system. - See more at: http://arthurrogergallery.com/exhibition/erwin-redl/#sthash.RAdHf8we.dpuf