Result #1
�es (wellness) is a term that one would expect to be more than just a window dressing for a comfortable type of modernity. That impression can be dispelled if we examine the work of someone like Michael Asher, who, in his very early work, gestures toward the fractured edges of modernity with equal pleasure and disdain. At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Asher presented a series of astonishingly detailed new works made from found material. These beautiful machines, crudely made out of painted plastic, fuse a utilitarian charm with a rigid, industrial mindset. The majority of these works, created specifically for this exhibition, are small pieces of flexible metal. The basic material, cast polyester resin, is sprayed on with an applied paint and then dyed to match the color of the resin. Each work is inspired by a specific type of textile, and the result is a curious assortment of mottled textures. Asher uses material to explore texture and material, but he does so in a spirit of serendipity and a sense of humor. A great deal of his work is made up of the kind of absurd, off-kilter assemblages found in antiques shops, and he uses the same approach in his new works. These work can be thought of as sketches for works that would be assembled from found objects. However, the materials themselves are not involved in the creation of these objects; the plastic and resin work are, in fact, complete works, finished by hand. In Ashers sculptures, simple processes are turned into complex systems that one couldnt know before. One could easily mistake Ashers works for the work of a creative genius, and to a large extent they are, and as such their existence is a testament to their versatility. These works are as simple as anything else one might find in the show. They are elegant and charming, simply objects that make you want to have them.
Result #2
elmado (embrace), 1970, a wide-brimmed hat that resembles a palm frond. The muted green and red accents echo those of a panoramic view of the nearby seascape of Manhattans Hudson River. (There is another version, too, but apparently we cant wear one.) The hat, with its long, flat design, resembles a string, and its white-topped hat with golden chain, in place of a crown, is reminiscent of a pair of sunglasses. Sianniewicz is a former student of the legendary painter and designer John McCracken, and the installation reeks of the same kind of self-consciously rebelliousness that characterizes much of the work of the genre. The center of the gallery is like a palace, the bottom half a royal box, and the top floor a cell. One works on the floor, playing with toys, while another looks through an opaque glass door to see a distant view of the building. The pensive Sianniewicz is a timeless classic, fully played out.The show is a mix of minuscule architectural details: a tapestry with a piggy bank; a velvet-lined ceiling; a large painting by Blaise Pascal; and a carpeted floor. The rooms are filled with a play of pastels, with a selection of brightly colored childrens books on the floor, the most impressive of which are the list of the names of New York Citys boroughs, like Manhattan, Manhattan Beach, Queens, and so on. The most revealing of these was the sparsely titled Plumbing, the most recent, LIJ, de facto, and so on. The title is derived from a 1957 essay by the architects of New Yorks Manhattan borough, Francis Fukuyama. But what fascinates about Fukuyamas essay is the way it plays out on the hard-edged surfaces of the buildings it surveys.
Result #3
displac- m to be, an absurd desire, and in some instances, one can see a touch of wit. In the catalogue for a British artist exhibition in London in 1960, R. J. Walker wrote that the inexhaustible nature of the sensibility which appeals to a contemporary artist can be traced to the aesthetics of men who seek power. It seems to me that the qualities of a man in the early twenties can be traced to the qualities of a man in the mid-thirties. This could be one reason for the present exhibitions sharp, fiery interest in Philip Guston. The early paintings, which Guston made at first with an almost monochromatic palette of black and white, are full of delightfully hectic patterns and fractious fragments. His 1960s paintings, which consist of even more hectic patterns of black, red, and white in semi-fluid colors, are most impressive in their technical and formal excellence. An admirer of Guston, one is tempted to say that he is the only one of his generation to whom I could give an adequate retrospective. Although Guston has had a more than adequate share of the attention, and perhaps more than any other artist in the late 60s, he is not well known. The following brief essay is a superficial survey of his work, which is in fact more elaborate than any one of his contemporaries, but is not only more enigmatic. Almost all the works Guston has made since 1966, which consists of not only a series of intricate geometric patterns but also painted and painted-in figurations, are remarkable for their profusion of paint applications and for their combination of a very fragile, almost fragile, texture. Guston has always struggled to make his paint more substantial.
Result #4
Architectural perfectionism: The myth of Bauhaus perfection (architectural perfection), which was reinforced by the workers actual unmentionable lack of mastery of the materials and craftsmanship necessary to make it. The myth is so often told that the term is an urban shorthand for the mythological practice of perfection. Architectural perfectionism is a modern, post-Modern, avant-garde invention. It represents the impossible perfection of modern artifice. It cannot be accepted as actual perfection unless one accepts the impossible perfection of modern life. Bauhaus perfectionism, which as the model for modernism meant the ideal perfection of the object, meant that the object was ideal; that it could be fully humanized. Bauhaus perfectionism means that the human condition could be fully artificial. It gave rise to a new artificial reality.Modernity is a utopian program of perfection. The modern is a robot in the mode of Bauhaus perfection. The human is an artificial robot. Bauhaus perfectionism is a utopian, anti-humanism. It seems to call into question our relationship to the artificial, our faith in it as a perfect species of life. The modern is a better species than the natural. In the modern, as in the modernist myth, beauty is an illusion; beauty and beauty can never be happiness. The modern is a perfect species. It is a humanism inversion of the old. The modern is the idealization of an ideal. Bauhaus perfectionism does not produce beauty. It is a myth. The modern is the modern myth. The modern myth is an optimistic, anti-ideological modernity. The modern myth is an ideal.Modernity is the future of painting. Bauhaus perfectionism represents the ideal perfection of painting. It is a myth of the future of painting. The modern is an ideal. The modern myth is an optimistic, anti-ideological modernity.
Result #5
Marginal, 1987, is a polyester-on-canvas sculpture made of raffia-colored fiberboard and resin-polyester. These two pieces are framed by a nylon-plastic base; the entire work is a ceiling sculpture. Burlap-lined curtains create a projection screen for the ceiling, which is covered with flexible membranes (assembled of painted threads) that break up the fabric. The form is an ironic one that carries with it much of its utility. The most beautiful work in the show is a series of sculptural installations that involve both fabrics and fabric-covered metal, including two complete headdresses and a decorative wallpaper piece.The colorful-decorated, if comical-looking, sculptures at the Whitney constitute an interesting succession of materials that can be, even accidentally, interpreted as suggestive of the human body. The various works that have been assembled from various fabrics—as disparate as silk, cotton, and plastic—create a tactile and tactile-as-melancholy effect. Some of the more successful pieces in the show were silk fashions and carpeted silk surfaces with mirrors. A few of the more conventional pieces here were rug pieces and finished linen surfaces with glass-plated linoleum-covered tops. All the textile works were highly polished and seemed to have been subjected to some sort of controlled inspection. In addition, the overall effect was one of extreme playfulness, an atmosphere that also evokes the natural environment. The installation Bed of Desires, 1985, for example, consists of a rag rug that has been hand-dyed into the pattern of the fabric (a practice that is practiced by many artists) in order to emphasize the texture of the fabric over the weave of the rag. To enhance this effect, the rug is painted red and beaded and then covered with fiberglass in a top coat of acrylic.
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