[These idiot puns I employ come from England. Just take a look at the banners running at the top of the Times (London) website. Three sample ads for the newspaper’s sections: “Money: Take interest in your finances." "Music: Looking for sound judgment?” Travel: Check in here for the best deals.”]
Anyway, here's a rundown of what happened in Chelsea this weekend.
Tom Wesselmann
At Robert Miller Gallery, Tom Wesselmann showed some derivative (heavily Man Rayed/Matissed) paintings in
a show called "Sunset Nudes," his last major compositions before his death in 2004, and his largest canvas works since the 1960s (Wesselmann's been exhibiting since he graduated from Cooper Union in the late '50s.) Much of the technical paintership seemed disconcertingly unfinished and flat (especially the face at right,) and not intentionally two-dimensional, but perhaps that's a matter of personal taste. My favorite is above, where, seemingly, Teddy Roosevelt is spying on a beautiful lady. Nice necklace.
In an essay on the exhibit, Judd Tully called the paintings “the final products, the long distilled nectar from four decades of virtually non-stop work.” Key word: nectar. There is something inescapably cloying—overstated and overstimulating—about the paintings.
But leave by way of the small prize room on the right, and you won’t feel sated. Here are housed a few of Wesselmann's sketches and drawings, off in a bright, north-facing room separate from the big guns:
Scott Peterman
Possibly my favorite photographer working today—and he’s only 38—Scott Peterman’s fuel is the sublime and the chaotic, and how these two are found in/organically in such disparate locales as Iceland and Sao Paolo. The photographs on show at Silverstein were shot in Death Valley, Iceland, Utah, Maine, Hawaii, Sao Paolo, and Mexico City.
The show built like a good book’s plotline, starting in the front room, with quiet depictions of taigas and volcanic rock; to the back room, housing a photograph of a South American subdivision—identical, uninhabited stucco buildings stretching as far as the eye could see; a haunting, endlessly fascinating bird’s eye view of Mexico City; and finally, the anti-climax: a tire-marked, sandy plain stretching back to distant mountains: a distinctly American landscape photographed in such a way that the setting is entirely forgotten. The only thing of importance is the forms, a statement that is echoed throughout the exhibit.
Daniel Johnston
At Clementine, nearly a hundred of the singer’s cartoons and drawings are on display, ranging in date from his childhood to last year. Each (mostly A4) piece of paper is framed in white and placed in one row along the wall, so they can all be observed quite easily in ten minutes. The order seems arbitrary, but then, so does the content.
But Johnston’s ruminations on war, sexuality, and art are hilarious and inspiring. His depiction of certain social problems and clichés are poignant, as are his notebook entries, which are nearly always accompanied by drawings. The drawings are as crucial as the words—not that they necessarily explain each other, but they are codependent, and each provides profound insight into the other. It's the kind of observations of the world that many people have, but only the best artists can articulate for us.
Click images for larger photos!
