Golden playing cards, 100 dollar bill design

Result #1

, the word glitter, a replica of T-shirt, a page from a magazine, a stack of wedding rings, a can of toothpicks, and other objects revealed that Bowery was seeking to identify, in a way, the essential nature of the relationship between subject and object. The fetishism of objects, the sensual act of rendering them beautiful, and the way in which they are used and decorated were all touched on in the composition.As one walked through the exhibition, I noticed that every time I went in a different direction, I was lost in a dream. What was it that was making me so emotional? Was it the way I saw the works I was viewing? No matter what I chose to do, the work always looked perfect, yet somehow I found myself wishing I could spend more time with it.Bowerys work has never been meant to be viewed as a mere display of visual power; rather, he has always challenged the idea of presentation as a simple function of the viewer. His approach is as intriguing as his method. The craftsmanlike, understated objects, usually made of metallic metal, were not displayed as artistic or literary artifacts. In fact, the works themselves were often quite unattractive, indicating that Bowery is an artist who sees art in terms of the human, not the mechanical. If his approach to the medium resembles the work of some of the best craftsmen in the world, then his work is little short of magical. The sculptures had the aura of well-crafted objects that conjured up powerful psychic states, and the works on paper were enveloping and inviting the viewer to feel what the artist felt. While there is a certain marketability to Bowerys work, this new work has a personal mystique and a timeless quality. As a result, it is difficult to look at without becoming lost in a world of illusions and alchemists.

Result #2

Golden playing cards, 100 dollar bill design, and coins are also on display. The juxtaposition highlights the mixed colors and dabs of adhesives that compose the triptych, and the juxtaposition between two of the more basic yet rarely used objects that give the works title: the coins are red and yellow, and the dollar bills are black. White in the context of the series is an important reference to the anti-white, anti-American strain of anti-Semitism that sprung up in the wake of the Holocaust. An electric lighter was added to the playing cards to make the whole triptych lighter and more colorful, as if to acknowledge that this blackness was also the result of a violent, anti-white, anti-Semitic assault. While this work may show the extent of the white supremacists' grip on the political class, the images oversize letters and sharp, point-in-time scrawlings in the triptych also recall the despair, cynicism, and oblivion of a black life.White skin is a direct and ubiquitous threat to those who attempt to undo or correct the racist society in which they live. Yellow lips, black skin, and white bodies, which were also shown here, are a direct threat to the right of blacks to regain full civil rights and to exercise their most fundamental democratic rights.In contrast to White Nation, 1977, White Nation, 1980, and Red Skin, 1980, all 1991, which focused on the social class differences in America, Blue Nation, 1989, presents the same group of elements, only here found in a less stereotypical form, as the subject of an indictment of racial hierarchy. This work charts the emotional and psychological fallout from the triumph of the white race over the black race in America, while portraying the damage done to the white skin of blacks as well as to the American culture by the racist society that enforces racial hierarchies.

Result #3

Golden playing cards, 100 dollar bill design, inner tubes, 80s action figures, funny dolls, antiques, and beer bottles make up an eclectic display. This playful mix of folk art and pop culture is startling and slightly twisted, not so much in the way it looks but in its implication. Beo­cially, this is an experience of fashioning the world as it is, as we fashion our world. Art as fashion, like fashion, is a pretension to ultimate truth. The most interesting thing about the show was not so much what it contained as what it caused us to think, to talk about it. The world in which Beo­cially artists were concerned was not exactly that of modernity.For a time, a number of Beo­cially artists sought to build a new world through the use of familiar materials, most especially concrete. And for a time, concrete art was the only art to call itself Beo­cially. This is true art for the benefit of the rest of us, not artists. But then a number of Beo­cially artists began to take on the title of fashion designers—in Beo­cially fashion, Beo­cially fashion—and began to create clothes that looked as good as those in the high fashion stores. And so we arrived at Beo­cially fashion as the art of the young. To this end, Beo­cially artists began to place advertisements in the Beo­cially magazines that the others were selling. The shows title, the latter, is a quotation from the 1972 Beo­cially fashion magazine that Beo­cially designers have chosen to use for their own collections: Glamour, Made in Glamour, Made in Glamour. These ads run like dreary ads in the Beo­cially magazine; not only are they cheesy, but they also have a lot of nostalgia in them.

Result #4

Golden playing cards, 100 dollar bill design cards, drawing, and graphite. So far his cards are large, contained, and meticulously finished with some brass plates. These, too, are white, pink, and a crisp and flawless white, each used in its original job: to establish and create the cards surface.Aww, look at these! Heres what the designer and collector look for in the cards: beauty, elegance, and balance. In this show I was reminded of R. H. Strauszs definition of balance in art, in the sense that balance is the strength of the work. For Strausz, the strength of art is not its balance, nor its object, but its visual qualities. Of course, Strausz would probably find in these two works a strong visual edge—the clear image that they establish and use as a basis for their balance—which has been stamped by them as they shape, plan, and finish their cards. This means that they create a balance by using, wrapping, or wrapping up the surface, as he did with the whole of his cards.The paintings on paper, on which look equally good and awful, were painted in acrylics. Theres a surprising quantity of color in all of the works, and they seemed to be painted without the help of a brush, or rather by drawing on an old sheet of paper. Theres an achy patter to the paint that seemed to be ejected from the paper—a little paint in it that was picked up, rubbed, and, in one case, transferred to the surface. There is a materiality to the surface, a play of surfaces and surfaces that couldnt help but raise questions about how a paper drawing is done. At least the paper really does have the impression of being stretched, but it has not been stretched, and it is not as though the paper were trying to hold the color of the paint.

Result #5

Golden playing cards, 100 dollar bill design and drawstring, are piled high on the table. The domed board is covered with three framed photographs of the artists face, one taken from a fashion magazine. The subjects are prominent: Sammy Davis, Warren Majore, Tony Bennett, and Robert Reed. Reed lives in New York and Bennett lives in Los Angeles, and their bodies have been painted blue and silver. The photographs show the artists face split open, exposing mostly, but not all, of their eyes and noses. These photos, like the drawings, are composed of overlapping grids of identical color, with only one black dot representing the middle eye socket. (Both drawings also include a family tree, based on data obtained from the Internet.) Finally, with only one black dot in each image, we are left with a composite of the artists head and torso. In the head photograph, two vertical verticals of blue and silver have been separated so that the left and right sides merge into a single image. This composite is then juxtaposed with a double image of the same individual, placed behind the heads. Bentsons upper body is also split open, as are Majores upper body. The very thick, square framed photograph is colored white, with a black dot at the bottom. We are now left with a very asymmetrical composite of the artist, who appears more or less translucent but who at the same time is black, as well as the drawings, which show the artist as opaque. But his body is not only perfectly transparent, but even more so, he appears not quite translucent at all.The drawings likewise function on the same principle as the photographs, with the exception that they also include a photo of the artists face, a black-and-white portrait from a magazine, a black-and-white drawing from the computer, and a white drawing from his answering machine.