I curated an exhibit opening at Art45. Although it opens saturday, the closing party is where things will be at: October 3rd with Pop Montreal, the artists and the catalog launch. Here's the press release:
Curated by Chloé Roubert, this exhibition juxtaposes images from Jon Rafman's Google Street View series with photographic urban shots from the 1950s onwards by Gabor Szilasi. By comparing these artistic approaches to past and current public space, the exhibit touches upon ideas of urban visuality, privacy and authorship.
Rafman will be in the forthcoming exhibit Free at the New Museum in NYC, and Szilasi is a recipient of the Governor General award whose retrospective was held at the National Gallery of Canada in 2009.
The Closing Party with catalogue launch and artists present is organized in collaboration with Art Pop of Pop Montreal, on Sunday October 3rd from 3pm to 5pm.
Art45 is open Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 5pm, or on weekdays by appointment.
Art45 - Edifice Belgo Building
372 St Catherine W. #220
Montreal, Québec
art@art45.ca
Curious to compare the National Gallery's Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit to the one presented last October in the Tate Modern, I accidently ended up in Ottawa on Canada Day. Both in the UK and in Canada, Pop Life was, and remains, a blockbuster success.
If there are a few differences - particularly in Canada, the sad spacial absence marking the controversy around Richard Prince's photograph of young Brooke Shields' nude and the unnecessary addition of a room thought-out by so-called genius concept Reena Spaulings but based on a notion articulated better by others fifty years ago (see Nouveau Realist Daniel Spoerri in particular) - both exhibits are a shiny clutter of recognizable works, names, ideas, shows, things, accessories and humor by Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol's disciples (Haring, Basquiat, etc) and Andy Warhol's sons (Hirst, Koons, etc).
This success is obviously tied to the overt and cool 'contentious' issues that are embedded in the show's premise: Brillo Boxes (courtesy Warhol) and a calf in formaldehyde (courtesy Hirst) question art with an 'ironic' regard Mona Lisa incontestably can't. However how does this type of art get to be such a success when similar contentious questions have also been tackled by artists without the clunky use of their penis stuck in La Cicciolina waxed asshole (courtesy Koons)?
When I saw Pop Art at the Tate Modern, the neighboring temporary exhibition was a retrospective, John Baldessari Pure Beauty. After the bustling business and literal heat of the Pop Art rooms, John Baldessari's space was strikingly different - it was empty. Better to contemplate his thoughtful yet biting career of videos, words, canvases, collages and a final installation (see photo above) subtly questioning the nature of our contemporary human condition, the difference of public interest between both shows was a sad nod to what Pierre Bourdieu hoped for: the opening up of museums. Indeed in the 60s this French sociologist observed the exclusion of people lacking a cultural capital, and invited museums to democratize their spaces with better formulated labels, programs, visits, relaxed atmospheres, cheaper entrance fees, etc...
Ideally I'm all about this, I think art can be a powerful force to question our own assumptions on reality. Practically, though, exhibitions that are public successes seem to require the straightforward 'irony' and (at this point) boring 'controverse' of Warhol and this results in people like Jeff Koons and Cosey Fanni Tutti imposing their wet dreams to my face in the name of 'irony', 'mockery' and 'art.'
I believe in Baldessari. (the MET is opening his retrospective next October).
