Lun*na Menoh: '''Wearable Room - Black Veil, 1995

 

Lun*na Menoh, "Wearable Room-Black Veil, 1995. Part of the "Lyrical Cool: A Tribute to Shirley Berman exhibition at Kohn Gallery.

Wallace Berman in Manhattan in September 2021

 

We'll take Manhattan again. Wallace Berman exhibition in NYC this coming September. More details later. Self-portrait of Wallace up above.

Wallace Berman Exhibition at the Kohn Gallery this Summer 2019

This Summer, The Kohn Gallery has a small exhibition of Wallace Berman's artwork up for the viewer's pleasure. And ironically enough, one can also purchase my book TOSH at the gallery as well. Do go!

Review of Mike Kelley: Kandors 1999-2011 at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

Art © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All Rights Reserved / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen

MIKE KELLEY: Kandors 1999-2011

Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

The exhibition is on view through January 21, 2018

As a child, I have always fantasized about having my own secret headquarters where I can be free from the outside world. All of this was fueled by my reading of comic books such as Batman (The Bat-Cave) and Superman (The Fortress of Solitude). The Bat-Cave seemed to fit, if not my budget, at least my aesthetic of living in a cave full of computers and lab equipment, plus a large garage to house my Bat-Mobile. Still, Superman's pad of choice, The Fortress of Solitude, appealed to my minimalist nature, and since Superman can't feel the cold, this is the only location for him to meditate and think about the world that he has been placed in. Mike Kelley's "Kandors 1999-2011" immediately brought up my childhood feelings for a secret, but a secure place that will separate me from the cruel outside world.

Kandor is the imaginary city of Superman's birth on the planet Krypton. The villain Brainiac, who first appeared in "Action Comics" (#242) in July of 1958, shrunk and bottled the entire city of Kandor, until Superman rescued the bottles and had them placed within his sanctuary The Fortress of Solitude. When we enter the gallery spaces, we approached rock formations or borders that look very much like they came from outer space. The rooms are almost pitch dark, except for lighting focusing on the rock sculptures and a projection of a video by Kelly in the next room. I spent a lot of time in this room, not only watching the video, but also to get the feel of my childhood as I walked around the sculptures and placing myself back in time.

The other gallery is the actual representation of Kandor in various bottles, with mock-up architectural models of the city as well as two or more workers doing design work for the preservation of the city Kandor. At this point, one wonders if Kelley planned to build his version of Kandor, which in fact, he did, and that is what is being exhibited in this current show at Hauser and Wirth Los Angeles. Again, my childhood love for the Superman comic makes me feel very comfortable with the exhibition space. I relate to the oxygen tanks that are pumping air into these bottles, and also they are figures of great beauty, especially with the lighting and the reflection of these giant jars with the cities in them.

Kelley was rebuilding Kandor but also making his version of the narrative that is Kandor on the planet Krypton. There is a strong sense of placement or home in this work, and it is both a joyful and sad experience to walk through these ruins. Superman, although I never took him seriously, I now think of him as an immigrant who had lost his home. Of course, due to the modern world's making, we see this issue come up again and again. There is the political/natural disaster of such an existence, and then to focus all of that on Superman is also a portrait of a figure who has no real home. The secret headquarters, which houses his culture, away from the prying eyes of the earthlings. It's a sad and profound statement on a world that is both imagined as well as being real. Mike Kelley's "Kandors" is a fascinating exhibition and one of the best shows I have seen in a long time.

- Tosh Berman

Paul McCarthy: "WS Spinoffs, Wood Statues, Brown Rothkos" July 1 - Sept 17, 2017 at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

Paul McCarthy
WS, Bookends
2013
Black walnut
Bookends (Horizontal) (12'): 365.8 x 304 x 444 cm / 144 x 119 5/8 x 174 3/4 inches (overall dimensions)
Bookends (Vertical) (14'): 444 x 303.7 x 365.8 cm / 174 3/4 x 119 5/8 x 144 inches (overall dimensions)

Paul McCarthy “WS Spinoffs, Wood Statues, Brown Rothkos” July 1 - September 17, 2017, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

Like many of my generation, Walt Disney’s “Snow White” has a strong presence in my life. The year I was born, so was Disneyland. So I feel very much like the child of Disney, and keep in mind, that I never actually saw the Disney "Snow White and the Seven Drawfs" film, but just the byproducts of the movie that is very much part of my childhood culture. Paul McCarthy and I are only nine years apart, so I feel that him being an American and McCarthy exposed to Disney’s world around the same time as I, there is a common understanding of that culture. Beyond that, I rarely think of Disney as an adult, even though where I live (Silver Lake / Los Feliz) there are traces of this man’s work and his world. Again, hard to avoid. Paul McCarthy jumps into the Disney world with both feet, hands, and head. 

His current exhibition at the Hauser Wirth in Los Angeles is a fascinating show on many levels. When I walked into the gallery and confronted with these massive sculptures, I’m struck by not only the size of the works, but also the Black Walnut wood textures that convey the image of Snow White, The Prince, the horse, and the Seven Drawfs. I tend to draw myself to art exhibitions that take me from the outside world into another world of the artist’s making. McCarthy’s work does that in the extreme. My childhood memories came back to me that instant when I entered the show. I see the work as a re-mix version of my take on Disney’s Snow White.

Snow White came into existence courtesy of the Brothers Grimm, which they published in their first edition of “Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” In German, it’s title is “Schneewittchen. The final version of the Grimms’ version of Snow White appeared in 1854, the birth year of Oscar Wilde and 100 years away from my birth date as well. Disney, like McCarthy, totally did a re-write of the folk tale to serve his aesthetic and perhaps pleasure. I think the exhibition is not a commentary on the Grimms take of the story, but involved and obsessed with the Disney version. 

The sculptures are so grand that I also thought of various portraits of Napoleon done when he was alive. Heroic, on a grand scale, with emotions on the skin level. The fact that these sculptures made out of wood have an organic feeling of nature being contained to make a human’s vision. There is also kitsch added to the mixture, which reminds me of going to my Grandma’s house and she too, with his "WS, Bookends," had fairy tale figures as bookends. Disney became not only a thought but also a product. If we have to think about Cambell Soup through the eyes of Warhol, then clearly we have to think of Walt under the telescope of McCarthy. 

Snow White here (and always in my opinion) is very sexual. The boundaries between The Prince and Snow White are explicitly joined where there is no space between the figures. The same goes for the Seven Drawfs. It’s a combination of an orgy, pleasure, and perhaps pain. On the walls are McCarthy’s “Brown Rothkos” which gives the entire exhibition a sense of balance and placement. For me, it is like putting a period after the sentence. What I’ve read of the Brown Rothkos is that they are carpeting laid out in McCarthy’s designed forest in his exhibition that took place at Park Avenue Armory in 2013, and this is the drippings and residue of the individual trees that are painted on these carpets. Placed on the wall gives the work an importance, but also a connection perhaps the sculptures in this show and the exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. In other words, these pieces can stand alone but are also connected theme-wise with other artworks by McCarthy. Like Disney’s world, it’s “a small world.”

Lucky me, I can go back to the exhibition again and again. It is both a journey into my childhood obsessions with the Disney motif, but also McCarthy’s take on a landscape that most in my (our) generation can relate to. (Un)happy Trails!