At the Workspace of the Blanton Museum, Lisi Raskin investigates these parallel and contradictory movements of the accomplishment of the American dream and the growing fear of an atomic war through an immersive environment, “Armada”.




This exhibition, curated by Risa Puleo, is a group of sculpture whose forms are based on military airplanes and aerospace crafts, surrounded by a landscape of abstracted painting with bright colors and simple geometrical shapes. Materials and forms are studied in order to embody both fears and dreams of the American society.

Indeed, for the past ten years, the heart of Lisi Raskin art is based on the complex emotion that went through the Americans during the Cold War. From 1947 to 1991, technologies and innovation were developing very fast, as the economy, which created this very idea of the American dream. At the same time, people were afraid of the possibility of an atomic attack, and the scientific researches were all turned into this direction.

Thus, many sites were created all around United States for military defense system, and her work focuses on these zones of power. During her investigation for the project “Mobile Observation (Transmitting and Receiving)”, Lisi Raskin visited an Air Force base at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration group (AMARG). It is a storage facility which has about 4000 decommissioned military airplanes and aerospace crafts. This huge amount of materials became for the artist an image of this mix of anxiety and aspiration.

“Armada” tends to recreate this cultural, psychological and political landscape of the United States. The universe she builds, by the use of simple materials and colors, appear like a childhood dream; they come to contrast with the warrior forms of the sculptures. We pervade a world both historical and actual. Indeed, despite of the end of the Cold War, anxiety is still very present in American minds; September 9.11 trauma shifted from the fear of U.S.S.R. to Islam… a interesting  parallel to put in perspective.

Lisi Raskin will speak about her WorkSpace installation on Thursday, May 21 at 7 PM at the Blanton Museum of Art. The exhibition will be displayed until June 21.

Born in Miami, Florida in 1974, Raskin received her M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2003. She has since exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Glasgow, Milan and Stockholm.


[Visual : Lisi Raskin, Installation view of Armada, Blanton Museum, 2009, Photo by Rick Hall]

No need to be a die-hard biker to know that. You only have to open your eyes and trust the famous “collective unconscious” (the “personal unconscious” is still hard to find…). Sit astride a Triumph 6T 1950 Thunderbird (Brando’s one on The Wild One) or a more commonly old Harley-Davidson, and take the road with a Suzuki Hayabusa GSX 1300R, a more sportive model, do not refer to the same imagery or feelings. It’s exactly the same concerning the simultaneous exhibitions of Oliver Millagou and Aaron Young. 

Well, both artists use motorcycle and its decadent environment to reinterpret, on their own way, codes and blazed signs of this “popular culture” (an other commonplace: low/high culture: what’s popular to know the characteristics of the 45 degree V-Twin engine of Harley?... or the high culture of Picasso and the Masters exhibition?). To be honest, and to sum up (so, you don’t have to read entirely this article), the difference between the French Millagou and the American Young is the same between the translation of the title of Jack Cardiff’s movie on 1967: Naked under leather became… The motorcycle. Nothing to add. 

More precisely, let’s say that Millagou seats down on the sidecar. A little bit passive, looking at the landscape. The exhibition Chapter 2 19 M.C. at Baumet Sultana Gallery, Paris, until May 14, 2009 plays the total look, from the burned door to orange walls. When you play too much with clichés, you fall into. Don’t be ambiguous: Millagou is a good (and still young) French artist, his Draw Pins, his carved and worked woods (Disco Rising), his subtle postcards, make a relevant and serious work, unusual and mastered. The fact remains that his last exhibition is not good. Painted vests (Road Painting) are clearly light (even on Spring), too much signs kill signs. The One Percent Paintings, embezzled materials (enamel and scotch tape) and bodily sculpted writings are almost successful even if Millagou, one more time, does not go into his concept in depth and stops too early, once he reached the aesthetical road. It’s the same for the slides… Millagou seems to have chosen to take the road, the wild one, without tanking up… Does he try the old fake “car’s broken down” routine?

It does not imply that the exhibition Introducing Aaron Young at Almine Rech Gallery, until May 20, works fine. Indeed, the smashed and 24-carat gold covered metallic fences, or the optical illusion stuff painting of the Christ, are totally dispensable: the first ones for their insufficiency (we’ll speak one day about the poor/noble materials changing and understand that it’s no more useful now…), the second one for its… insufficiency (the Internet joke style is not equivalent to painting as illusion). On the contrary, the Punchlines, the beautiful tag on the mirror, erased and efficient (Young perfectly uses the scriptural quotations), are two examples of the strength of the work of Aaron Young, mixing soberness and roaring power. Roaring are his two paintings, masterpieces of the exhibition, extracted from his last motorized Whitney Biennale performance (even if he already tried it). Young asked motorcycles to turn, making “burns” on beforehand paint priming wood panels discovered by tires burning. That’s true, playing to be Pollock is not really innovative but the result is, this time, convincing. Firstly because the visual result is impressive, mixing pictorial effects with materials and treatments changes on the surface of the “canvases”, the composition melts down steel, rubber and acrylic paint. Secondly and precisely because it cleverly questions the status of the work of art. What remains to sell? Are the paintings turning into specific works, acquiring a new dimension by their split or do they stay performance residues, near of conceptual art trophies? The segmentation post operated defines the artist intervention, his final gesture fracturing and annihilating the uniqueness of the piece. Between abstract expressionism, trace minimalism, concept and performance, Aaron Young elegantly redefines the way you look on artworks and joyfully breaks rules and frontiers… like a real biker, right?

So, if you choose the freeways (in a jam) of American Wild West, chocked behind Millagou or if you play outlaws (tuning version) side by side with Young, don’t forget to put a helmet on. Art is a dangerous time-killer for fragile heads…

[Picture : above, Olivier Millagou, One Percent Painting, 2009. Laque de moto sur gaffeur. 190 x 130 cm. Courtesy Olivier Millagou & galerie Baumet Sultana, Paris. Below : Aaron Young, Greeting Card 10a, 2007. Stained plywood, acrylic, burnt rubber. Courtesy : Aaron Young & galerie Baumet Sultana, Paris]

The Walker Art Center presents, until September 27, “The Quick and the Dead”, an exhibition which gathers 53 international artists in the lineage of conceptual art to show how art, since the late 60’s, tried to help in the evolution of time and space’s comprehension, and of what lies beyond our perception.

The title of the exhibition comes from a biblical phrase describing the judgement of the living and the dead at the end of time. This famous sentence has been used in many ways, for instance by the designer and scientist Richard Buckminster Fuller, who, in 1947 praised the ‘quick realities’ and condemned the ‘dead superstitions’. Indeed, from the fifties, science started to be able to answer to phenomenon’s that were part of mysteries. The birth of conceptual art in the sixties is significant of those progresses. Such artists as Joseph Kosuth had the aim of giving and answering to metaphysical questions whether religious, scientific or philosophical: to summarize, what lies, in Robert Barry’s words “totally outside of our perceptual limitation”.

The Walker Art Center displays a large rank of artists under the name of conceptual art, from the early sixties until nowadays. Some pieces were produced or realized for the occasion. At the edge of the discernable, artists wanted to make us consider ‘an art verging on the non existent, dissolving into other dimensions’ (George Brecht). “Timekeeper”, a work by Pierre Huyghe, is relevant of the actuality of those problematics: it is a circular abrasion to the wall revealing the successive layers of paint from the past exhibitions. Time becomes palpable. Other questions about time and space become tangible in this exhibition, like the foldable sculpture of Lygia Clark, which embodies space folding on itself. Oddities of things, of our perceptions, feelings of uncanny are featured. An occasion to rediscover conceptual art and ask what is today alive or dead within its legacy.

This exhibition will be also showcased outside of the center’s major galleries, in the parking ramp for instance, and there will be a weekly performance of a John Cage composition on the organ at the nearby Basilica of Saint Mary.
 
Artists presented :
Francis Alys, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Chan, Lygia Clark, Tony Conrad, Tacita Dean, Jason Dodge, Tisha Donnely, Marcel Duchamp, Harold Edgerton, Ceal Floyer, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Roger Hiorns, Douglas Huebler, Pierre Huyges, The Institute for Figuring, Stephen Kaletenbach, On Kawara, Christine Kozlov, David Lamelas, Louise Lawler, Paul Etienne Lincoln, Mark Manders, Kris Martin, Steve Mc Queen, Helen Mirra, Catherine Murphy, Bruce Nauman, Rivane Neuenschwander, Claes Oldenburg, Roman Ondik, Guiseppe Penone, Susan Philipsz, Anthony Phillips, Adran Pipper, Steven Pippin, Paul Ramirez Joans, Charles Ray, Tobias Rehberger, Hannah Rickards, Arthur Russels, Michael Sailstorfer, Roman Signer, Simon Starling, John Stezake, Malden Stilinovic, Sturtevant, Shomei Tomtasu.


[Visual : Stephen Kaltenbach, Time Capsule (OPEN AFTER MY DEATH STEPHEN KALTENBACH), 1970mild steel 3 x 6 x 3 in. Courtesy the artist and Another Year in LA, Los Angeles]

For his exhibition at the Magasin 3 until June 7 in Stockholm, the alterglobalist photograph and video director Santiago Sierra will continue to awaken us to exploitation of men by men, non application of the right of human, and other critical socials conditions.




Capitalism, labor and exploitation are the main topics Sierra is interested to work on, he truly believes in the social importance of the artist. His actions provokes sometimes controversy: when he paid drug-addicted prostitutes from Brazil in their drug of choice to let them have a line tattooed across their backs, or when he covered ten Iraqi immigrants in insulating polyurethane foam and waiting for it to harden. But the artist also believes in our power of reflection, of being able to see behind those performances his struggle for human rights.

The work exhibited is constituted by the traces and documentation of two new actions he made in relation with the location of the Magasin 3, next to the port. Videos are also displayed inside. With Santiago Sierra, no need of explanations, the title lead us to reflect on the significance of the content, beyond the form : "OBSTRUCTION OF A LINE OF CONTAINERS BY A PERSON", "BANANA COMPANY ILLUMINATED BY DIESEL GENERATOR" are two performances that deal with topics dear to the artist, transport, trade and truck. The catalog of the exhibition highlights all the process of the work.

Those two actions are accompanied, in the gallery entrance and on billboards all around the city, by “89 HUICHOLS” a series of black and white photographs. They are unusual portraits of the Huichols tribe, in not showing their face but for instance a neck, a scare, a back; the silence of the pictures are shouting the intolerance they undergo. About this work, Sierra said : “The interesting thing is also that when you have somebody… when you don’t see the face of somebody, their position becomes more active, you know, you have to think why does she not show me the face, you know. And in a world full of images, this image, which is an anti image in a way, becomes full of meaning, because the person has to create what the person doesn’t see.”. Furthermore, putting those photographs on billboard, pervading the everyday life of the citizens, create a contrast to the commercial portrait they usually have on. The effect is radical, a kind of ambiguous guilt emerge from us, even if we might not even know who the Huichols are…

The Huichols is one of the last tribe of North America who kept their pre-Columbian traditions. They are very religious and don’t use the concept of money, which word doesn’t even exist in their language (The Wixarikal). The community continues to do very ceremonies and sacrifices, necessary to their beliefs. They live and work in extremely bad conditions, and have to fight against the Government and the farmers around who don’t respect their land right and their traditions.




The Huichols are not the only group of people Sierra is interested in. “184 PERUVIAN WORKERS”, made in Santiago de Chile, 2007 and “100 BEGGARS” made in Mexico City, 2005 are examples of this same work which provoke in us an uneasyfealing. The curator Elisabeth Millqvist wrote in the catalog :  “The disturbing quality of Sierra’s works lies not in the gap between me and the Other but in the unbearable recognizing of another human being.”


Santiago Sierra was born in Spain in 1966. This exhibition is the first extensive presentation of the artist in Sweden. His work can be seen concurrently at Political/Minimal, Kunstwerke, Berlin, and The Living Currency, Tate Modern, London amongst others. In London he is also showing the new work Death Counter. Sierra has exhibited extensively at venues such as the Venice Biennale (2003, 2001); ARS 01, KIASMA, Helsinki (2001); KunstWerke, Berlin and PS1, New York (2000).


[Visuals : Above : Santiago Sierra, "OBSTRUCTION OF A LINE OF CONTAINERS BY A PERSON", Anillo Periférico Sur. Mexico City, Mexico. November 1998. Below : Santiago Sierra , view of a billboard in Stockholm, "89 HUICHOLES", San Andrés Jalisco. Jalisco, Mexico. January 2006. Collection Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall.]

As subversive than comic, works of the father of video art Nam June Paik (1932-2006) are now exhibited at the James Cohan Gallery, until May 30, in New York. The Gallery chose to present pieces made from 1972 until 1994, which gather the amazing Robot sculptures, live feed installations and other video sculpture from this period.

Against the seriousness of modern art, this Korean born artist was one of the major representative and active members of the neo Dada movement Fluxus. With John Cage, Charlotte Moorman, George Maciunas and others, they wanted to create an attitude and forms through new combinations of objects, sounds, images and texts, and were all very aware of the radical life’s change that would provoke the new technologies of their generations. Furthermore, instead of expressing theses ideas violently, one of the watchwords of Fluxus was the humor.

In this exhibition, we have the pleasure to dive into this atmosphere, in the same time light and deep: The robot sculptures for instance, are representations of different people how inspired Nam June Paik : one – we recognize him by the felt hat and the cage he hangs- is Joseph Beuys, who was also part of Fluxus; the second is the American feminist and writer Gertrude Stein, who gives the impression of a great energy by the position of her Victrola-horn arms – which actually are phonographs.  Those sculptures, that he started constructing in 1964, are built with televisions or other materials displaying videos. “Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence” said Nam June Paik. The subversive idea under those works was also to symbolize how far the society was pervaded by images.  He had a very accurate prescience of his future, and thus, even if his pieces were thought 40 years ago, they remain very actual.

Another ironic comment on the experience of television is “Enlightment Compressed” (1954), a bronze statue of a Buddha, sitting on aquarium stones, watching his own reflection on a television screen. It points out the lake of self-reflexivity of the  television experience, playing with the impossibility of a Buddha being able to reach a higher level of consciousness by watching television.
The live-feed works displayed in the gallery slightly change topic, but in the same field: a close circuit image displayed on a TV monitor is real time video captured on camera : in blurring the frontier between the real and the represented, Nam June Paik make us loose our marks in the reality.

This amazing body of works showcased in the gallery is very representative of Nam June Paik’s researches. Through it, we get to understand, with humor and subversion,  how the new technologies emerging in the sixties were considered by the artists. Reality shows didn’t existed yet, but we can see they were already present in their mind, as well as a consumption society based the flow of images.




Over the past 50 years Nam June Paik has exhibited in many major museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York (Projects: Nam June Paik, 1977), Whitney Museum of American Art (Nam June Paik, 1982), Centre Georges Pompidou (Nam June Paik, 1982), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Nam June Paik, 1989), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (Nam June Paik Retrospective: Videotime, 1992), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (The Worlds of Nam June Paik, 2000). He represented Germany at Venice Biennale in 1993. Paik has received numerous grants and awards from, among many others, the Guggenheim Museum, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Film Institute; Will Grohmann Award, Goslar Emperor's Ring and UNESCO's Picasso Medal.

Paik's works are in the collection of a number of institutions, such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), amongst others.


[Visuals. Above : NAM JUNE PAIK, Gertrude Stein, 1990, antique television monitors, mixed media with two channels of video, 98 X 77 1/8 X 37 inches, courtesy James Cohan Gallery. Below : NAM JUNE PAIK, Enlightenment Compressed, 1994, 5" color LCD TV, video camera, wood TV cabinet, plastic TV case, bronze Buddha, aquarium stones, and paint, 13 X 19 X 17 1/2 inches, courtesy James Cohan Gallery]