On February 16, CATM chelsea opened Desde la Tierra al Cielo, “From Earth To Heaven,” a critical solo exhibition for Spanish-born multimedia artist Nuria Román who has continued to confront the innate reciprocality between human and nature. CATM’s Desde la Tierra al Cielo is comprised of various mixed-media works combining paint, ceramic, stone, metal, woodprint, site-specific installation and photography.
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by Kris Scheifele
October 28 – December 11, 2011
Image courtesy of LMAKprojects.
Nava Lubelski’s last show at LMAKProjects was a blood bath, or so it seemed. Along one wall, a row of white canvases appeared to have fallen victim to a drive-by. However, the red splatter turned out to be Lubelski’s signature embroidery. Combining the mid-20th century maneuvers of Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, and Alberto Burri with what was once considered strictly ‘women’s work,’ she elevates the flaw to stylistic form by highlighting and solidifying drips, stains, and holes with her meticulous stitching. In her latest show, an eviscerated electric blanket replaces the cartoon carnage of two years prior. As if it were used to cover an oozing corpse caught in the same crossfire, the blanket’s ripped-out wiring evokes the IV and the failing body; the bright pink color makes it all the more disturbing.
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Samantha West captures intimacy with her camera. The context of her photograph alludes to West’s intention and influences the viewer’s interpretation of the piece. In Underwater Part 1, West presents a face of a woman submerged underwater framed with, as well as hidden behind, frail and suspended strands of blonde hairs. The dichotomy of the two uses of hair intensifies an inherent tension found in the photograph. The subject acclimates to an unnatural environment, yet her lips pout and mouth remains slightly open implying that she remains either content or even aroused. The viewer catches West’s model the instant that she embraces water and notices how different it feels from land or gravity. Furthermore, West’s photograph reveals a repressed pleasure that is undeniable once photographed and well-hung on a gallery wall. West exposes human’s innate acceptance of weightlessness, in turn human’s enchantment by freedom.
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Jordan Seiler runs Public Ad Campaign, an organization that promotes the public’s interaction with public spaces. Public Ad Campaign aims at filling outdoor advertisement spaces with art to lessen the impact that privately owned companies or corporations have on people and their environment—making public property public again. Armed with acts of civil disobedience in accords with Henry David Thoreau’s theory, the organization intends to increase citizens’ interactions and generate a stronger “general will.” When Seiler isn’t advocating people’s rights, he spends time creating art. Odessa Giving Up the Gun depicts a faceless woman encompassed by waves of dark hair, rendered with bold, thick black lines and contours. Pages of used books color her skin while acting as the background of the work too. Interestingly, Seiler’s minimalistic formal style, concentration of graphic shapes, and reliance on flatten pictorial space mimic the advertisements to which he objects.
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Andrew Poneros grew up in Queens; therefore he was introduced to the city’s graffiti at an early age. He renamed himself PORK, his tag, as a verbal poke at the subculture’s tendency to canonize misspelled words as tag names. To amend his street style, Poneros began to carve stencils out of cardboard removing his artistic stroke from graffiti. Stencils concentrate on textual design, not simply a name. Moreover, he utilized the visibility a public surface provided and incorporated phrases and iconography to comment on social issues. Poneros literally contrived public installations disregarding the fact that they weren’t commissioned. Alas, this bad boy gained quite a reputation globally as well as in the art world. According to his biography, Poneros creates his “own mythology” with symbols. Hence, No Prey No Pay pays homage to his history including his heritage. Poneros prepares his box of symbolism with layers of tight graphic imagery on glass and wood.
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**titled Spazz 18
Yes, Mint&Serf of Well Hung got THE Alfredo Martinez who assisted Donald Baechler, was imprisoned after he had forged Basquiat drawings, mimicked Ghandi’s cool and collective approach to social reform, and went on a hunger strike to protest New York State Prison Laws prohibiting art in jail. Martinez has always had a penchant for big bangs, not just in the press. In 2006 Mint&Serf featured Martinez in a solo show entitled Arsenal for Democracy: War Corporatism at The Canal Chapter where several artillery-sized nonfunctioning guns along with a collection of small ink drawings were on display. In Spazz 18, Martinez constructs his collaged paper by hand and depicts a large, boldly-colored gun. His minimal color palette and flatten subject matter nearly form an engineer plan, boldly informing the viewer that Martinez knows what he is doing. There is no intentional marking on the drawing to suggest Martinez has a conceptual seed planted somewhere in the pistol. His precise rendering of a gun separates him from the work, therefore opening up a dialogue between viewer and drawing. Echoing Warhol’s Crash series, Spazz 18 merely forces the viewer to fixate on an image that confronts Americans daily and to consider it art.
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