EUTOPIA

Archives for February 2015

Diane Durant & Devyn Gaudet

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Diane Durant & Devyn Gaudet
I tried to follow Eleanor Antin. I only got halfway.
500X Gallery, Dallas [link]

Durant and Gaudet’s photographic installation pays homage to Eleanor Antin’s seminal 1970’s work entitled 100 Boots. Engaging in a performative journey, the artists documented their collaborative week long Texas/New Mexico road trip by photographing 50 black rubber boots in various settings. The anthropomorphized boots’ adventures include being questioned by the police near a border crossing, illegally crossing into Mexico, being stranded in a blizzard, and a visit to the Cadillac Ranch amongst other exploits. Employing humor and irony, the work examines the timely subject of immigration as well as questions the notion of photograph as evidence or travel archive.

Colette Copeland
images courtesy of Esther Huynh and the artists 

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Markus Schinwald

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Markus Schinwald
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco
jointly organized with SFMOMA [link]
September 09 – December 13, 2014

Like an endoscope moving around a membrane, viewers in Markus Shwinwald’s amusing site-specific installation must proceed around walls, bars and other physical barriers to view a network of objects and images that address interconnected themes of the body. Altered 19th century paintings, adapted table legs, and other bits and pieces morph in and out of each other like muscles, bones and limbs. The objects mystify; the journey through the exhibition can feel aimless, but it rewards those who like to dwell in the imagination creating connections between things that (like disparate body parts) do not stand as strong alone.

Janeil Englestad
Images courtesy of Wattis Institute, San Francisco.
Photos by Johnna Arnold. [Read more…]

Tom Sachs

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IMAGE: Tom Sachs, Model One, 1999. Mixed media. 32 x 41 x 14 inches. Collection of Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip Aarons, New York. Image courtesy Tom Sachs Studio.

Tom Sachs, Model One, 1999. Mixed media. 32 x 41 x 14 inches. Collection of Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip Aarons, New York. Image courtesy Tom Sachs Studio.

Tom Sachs
Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective 1999–2015 [link]
The Contemporary, Austin, TX [link]

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~RJHarrington
Image courtesy Tom Sachs Studio.

Claudia Comte

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Claudia Comte
No Melon No Lemon
Gladstone Gallery, Chelsea, NY [link]
January 29-March 21, 2015

No Melon No Lemon proposes a comedic intersection of rigid geometry and playful biomorphism.  Dominant to the space is a rhythmic system of stark, yellow and white-striped mural paintings accompanied by the organic textures of carved reliefs—repeating lines run down the length of the plywood walls’ burnt, black surface.  Murphy bed-like plinths seem to “fold-down” from these partitions, each supporting a highly polished, wooden object. The sculptures, nodding to chunky loops and noodles, pumpernickel bagels, and Brancusi-totems, appear soft to the touch as much as they present a material hardness. The installation’s formal players reinforce a holistic optical vibrancy to its tactile nature.

~ Amie Cunat
images courtesy of Gladstone Gallery

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Haegue Yang

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Haegue Yang
Mountains of Encounter (2008) [link]
Double Life, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas [link]
Through March 15, 2015

Haegue Yang’s large-scale, kinetic, sculptural installation resembles a meditative moving Carlotta Capron photograph. Red Venetian blinds suspended from the ceiling project shifting formalist shadows, as roving spotlights illuminate their form. Referencing secret meetings between Korea and China that took place in the mountains of Northern China in the 1930’s, the conceptual undertones contrast this peaceful, abstract, visual specter. The blinds and spotlights acquire sinister connotations, alluding to surveillance, and covert military intelligence. Following the light, the viewer is led through the mysterious labyrinth, never fully able to capture the fleeting apparition or remain furtively hidden in the shadows.

 ~ Colette Copeland
images courtesy of Colette Copeland

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