Wednesday 3/12/08

We met as a class to explore galleries in the Lower East Side. Some of the galleries seen were Feature Incorporated, DCKT Contemporary, Lehmann Maupin, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Canada and Participant Inc. I liked Joe Bradley’s Schmagoo Paintings which were at the Canada Gallery. They were drawings on white canvas, where Bradley used his own version of children’s art, like stick figures and simplistic doodling. I found them simple to look at and take in, but complicated to try to work out the meanings of the pieces, of which I could guess/gather were about power or religion. The DCKT Contemporary gallery had an exhibition by Timothy Tompkins, which had paintings where the visual had been distorted in photo-shop then painted in layers of which were distinguishable. I found these pieces unusual and different and can’t really make up my mind on whether I liked them or not. Another gallery I liked was Lehmann Maupin with artist Mr.’s exhibition Nobody Dies, which included photos and a video installation about male fetishes like cuteness and power mixed with violence. Mr. uses teenage Japanese girls in his photographs and video, as the subjects who participate in war-like survival games. It was really bizarre but interesting seeing the way he portrays the girls with a sense of power but still vulnerable by their age.

After lunch we went to the New Museum of Contemporary Art which had two exhibitions Live Forever by Elizabeth Peyton and To Be Someone by Mary Heilmann. I really enjoyed the Elizabeth Peyton exhibition, the paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints were amazing. All her art pieces were portraits of historical figures, artistic contemporaries, self portraits and of friends. My favourite was probably a picture using coloured pencil on paper called Green Nick. The Mary Heilmann exhibition were paintings based on American culture; Heilmann used paint like it was clay and her paintings were rough and raw revealing the process of the paintings. My favourites in this exhibition were The Third Man and Neo Noir which hung next to each other and were very similar. In both you could see there were layers of different colours with black being the top in both, making you think of the paintings as real paintings and not of the subjects paintings often portray. After a long day in the Lower East Side we went back to the Hostel for free pizza for dinner and to watch the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting on tv.