MEANDERING THROUGH RICHARD SERRA

 

At its 21st Street location, the Gagosian Gallery is filled up completely by this single new piece by Richard Serra.

It shows the artist’s familiar style of undulating steel plates, like the permanent collection at the Guggenheim in Bilbao and Dia:Beacon in New York.

The curves of the plates allow them to stand freely. The first approach is to walk around it. The impact is of massive substance.

Like in all his monumental work, Serra is inviting the visitor to enter his sculptures. Two narrow corridors between two plates lead to three circular inner chambers. The changing angles of the walls seem to play tricks with one’s balance. The passageways alternately open up towards the sky or narrow down to a cavernous trap.

Walking around and through this sculpture, it feels like a never-ending journey, a loop of light and shadow. The continuum of Richard Serra’s exploration of space.

 

 

INSIDE OUT – Richard Serra at the Gagosian Gallery

522 West 21st Street, New York City, through January 25, 2014

WALKING THROUGH RICHARD SERRA

 

The Gagosian Gallery is not known for low-scale exhibitions. And seeing Richard Serra’s work inside a gallery makes you think how in the world they have managed to bring his huge sculptural works into the galleries.

These new works occupy the whole space and transform it into labyrinths. They are all centrally staged and define the space in different ways.

INTERVALS is composed of slabs of steel of different sizes, forming corridors to walk through. The variable height ensures an infinity of views and approaches.

GRIEF AND REASON stand in the middle of a room and are imposing masses. You walk around them like a grave, like a monument, like a rite.

7 PLATES, 6 ANGLES is a zigzagging line of again weatherproof steel. It dictates the way you walk through the hall. Every angle seems to hold a promise, around the corner.

The tall plates form sharp angles that draw the eye to an infinite point. They are inviting as a road that leads forward. But instead of leading somewhere, after a few steps, one finds himself trapped in a sharp corner. As enveloping the sculpture can be, at some point you have to turn back and take the road in the opposite direction, the only road that leads somewhere.

Richard Serra’s monumental work takes on a whole different perspective on the scale of the human body and the environment. Serra likes to engage the viewer/visitor and make him move and interact with the sculptures. As minimal his work can be, as deep the impression it makes.

 

Richard Serra at the Gagosian Gallery

555 west 24th street, New York City, through January 25, 2014

 

 

RICHARD AVEDON, against black&white walls

He put his subjects against a white background and shot them. It’s one of the aspects that made Avedon what we know him from.

He started as art director for Harper’s Bazaar in 1945. He soon took on fashion photography for VOGUE. He had his models pose with elephants.

He shifted his attention to portraiture in more personal work. The list is long. Andy Warhol, Isabella Rossellini, The Beatles, Brigitte Bardot, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Björk, Brooke Shields, even the Dalai Lama, they all stood in front of his lens. In the 1950 and 60’ies Audrey Hepburn was his undisputable muse.
But his attention did not only go out to celebrity. Miners, oil field workers, patients of mental hospitals and drifters were also his subjects. This fact earned him a lot of criticism: he showed a not very good image of the USA…

Set on an austere white backdrop his portraiture captures the soul of its subject. Avedon’s most personal style was minimalistic and sharp.
During shoots he would ask questions, not rarely of the most psychological kind. Thus he tried to dig deeper into his models’ personality. The result is that many a model, beit a celebrity or an every day person, shows an expression he or she was normally not known for, revealing an underlying aspect of their being.

The Gagosian Gallery, who represents Richard Avedon since 2011, exhibits four huge scale photographs, also called his murals, and related smaller size images.

The images represent four themes: 1/ Andy Warhol and The Factory, his work studio, and his Superstars, the people of his direct entourage. 2/ the beat poet Allen Ginsberg and his family. 3/ the Mission Council, Vietnam War officials and military. 4/ the Chicago Seven, political radicals accused of inciting riots at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

A special mention goes to David Adjaye (Adjaye Associates) for the set-up of this exhibition. A narrow tunnel leads to the middle point of the gallery. From this position, the eye is led in four directions to the large size murals on white, allowing a spectacular view on each without any kind of obstruction or distraction.
V-shaped partitions make it feel like looking through a giant funnel. These partitions, opening up to the four corners of the hall, contain the related smaller portraits on the inside. Here the photographs are mounted on a black backdrop. Where the murals jump blatently and unwavering in your face, the black corners allow a more intimate, yes, maybe even voyeuristic view.

Gagosian Gallery
522 w 21st, New York City
Till July 6
http://www.gagosian.com

The dotted line

The Gagosian Gallery is running an impressive exhibition on Damien Hirst ‘s Dot Paintings. They are on view at their three Manhattan locations, one in the Upper East Side, two in Chelsea. But it’s not an all exclusive NY thing. You can go and admire Hirst’s dots also in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Athens and Hong Kong. At the same time!
The question why the Gagosian is organizing this worldwide event has come up. Some say they do it merely because they can. Whatever the reason, it has become the talk of this town (and maybe others too).
I bravely started my excursion in the Upper East Side gallery. Three floors filled with the well known colored dots in household gloss on white canvas. The canvases ánd the dots range from tiny to large. Where the larger ones make you step back to take them in, the tinier ones draw you up close. But the experience can be completely different. Let’s say the smallest ones are the most intimate.
Regardless of the size, one tries to step into “the world according to Hirst”. And I guess that all the guests there were asking themselves the same question? Is this art? Or is Hirst more a graphical designer? I couldn’t stop thinking of his works as being some of Ikea’s fabric designs. Wait a second! I immediately have to add that Ikea brings good design too! In the same spirit as Hirst’s dots: clean, fresh and happy. That could be their biggest asset. They are not at all depressing. Not like his skulls, as some may think.
Hirst is a very prolific artist. That’s why it’s possible to fill up all these galleries with his paintings, and only his dot paintings! The reason for this extensive oeuvre might be the fact that Hirst works with assistants. I am sure he directs and guides the works, but the dots are painted on the canvases by all different persons. It’s not a unique practice. Rubens has done it before him. But it makes you wonder, and maybe raise an eyebrow.
The Chelsea galleries bring the bigger canvases together. As the canvases get bigger, the dots can go bigger too. But the more the dots go big, the less you can call them dots.
In one of the rooms I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between someone of the gallery and what I think was a potential buyer. The Gagosian guy was leading a fur coated lady through the rooms in an a-gallery tempo. The lady was looking for a canvas, a decent size, but “houseable”. So I learned a new word today. Also interesting to hear was the explanation of the price. There’s logic in the fact that a huge painting may cost more than a similar small one. But then he said that the smaller the dots, the costlier the painting was. Oh sure, the lady said, that’s more labor intensive. They nodded in understanding. I walked on.
I decided to continue my quest on my own. To see and feel for myself.
Yes, there was something to it. The pristine white rooms dotted with hundreds of colored…dots. I can’t say that the sight was overwhelming, but at some moments it did make my head turn. No, that was not an unpleasant feeling at all!
Standing up close to a huge canvas, things started to move! In an optical illusion, the painting began to turn into a globe, giving the whole thing a tridimensional appearance.
Also, while fixing your eyes on one particular dot in the middle, all the dots of the same color seem to stand out, in this way making different lines and patterns visible.
Like I said, walking in a room full of dots and only dots is quite an experience. The guards in black, friendly as they were, sometimes got me distracted!
And by the time I got used to, and even started to like, the repetitiveness of the square canvases and the round patches, all of a sudden there was a triangular canvas and some circular ones. It was as if Hirst at one point got bored doing the same thing and tried to give everything a twist by experimenting with the shape of the canvas. Good thing he didn’t try that out on his dots! (with the exception of a couple of half dots, which were really disappointing)
I did all three galleries in one big afternoon effort, tired, but glad I did it.
If you happen to be in one of the above mentioned cities, you should check it out. Who knows, the dots might inspire you…

DOT : this world wide event precedes the first major museum retrospective of Hirst’s work opening at Tate Modern in London in April 2012
DOT : see the free Gagosian App for Ipad
DOT : for some dots on your screen go to http://www.gagosian.com