Matter & Memory at Wood Street Galleries -- through 12/31

Matter and Memory the US debut of French installation artist Julien Marie at Wood Street Galleries through 12/31/09



Both images of LES INSTANTENES [1998] in the 3d floor gallery.

This piece resonates with the Gregory Barsamian works seen at Wood St. in 2003 (my response to that show can be read here). Slides of actual glass objects are projected on the gallery wall, animating because they cross the threshold of motion in the mind's eye. The work in this show dances elegantly around the issue of re-presenting reality.

Why do we trust this media we have made?

Exploding Camera [2007] uses a historical event (a Taliban assassination of a northern Afghan warlord using a video camera that was ostensibly present to interview him) as a starting point for a complex installation evocative of too many things to describe here. Signals of violence, control, memory, communication, authority, authorship, and the power of story, all emanate from the work.

Model for the Apocalypse [2008] is a confounding, sensual, participatory piece that reminds us of Eliot's admonition, "The world ends not with a bang but a whimper." I'm not going to physically describe this because I want you to go see it and play with it - it does some very strange things.

Take a break from your holiday shopping, spend some time in the Wood St. Gallery with this remarkable body of work. You won't stop thinking about it for quite some time.

Sixteen Birds & Inflatable Architectural Body @ Wood Street (to April 4)

immediate impressions :
- kinetic sculpture
- robotics
- zen mechanics
- alienation
- pseudo-industrial & regulatory translation of natural processes
- computer - aided (mac minis in the cieling)
- white on white on white with silver accents, pseudo-surgical tubing, touches of lubricating gel
- oh! where's my patience. so i can really experience this.

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Gallery 3

Inflatable Architectural Body

Gallery white-out, white covers the windows. White box with mechanical apparatus hanging from the ceiling at center. The puffs and grinds of this sculpture having an internal dialogue in front of the viewer. Hangs like -- fruit? squid? vines? many organic analogies for a clearly inorganic object.

Movement triggered by inflation and deflation of the white tubes tugging on the closed system. Hisses, noises, clicks whirs and breathing.

The gallery attendant lets me in on a secret: the argument its having with itself is tearing the thing apart.

I have a self-other clinical relationship with it. Then I ask if it is permissible to lie down under the thing and, in fact, do so. Only now am I vulnerable to it. Intellect knows its not going to hit me. Instinct tells me this is dangerous. I have a heightened awareness response. I think of some of the self-destructive delusions I have watched people bog themselves down with (including myself).

I have been reading a tibetan buddhist tract about the discursive mind, our ability to get into closed loops of thought, immediately before viewing this piece. Of course I project that notion onto this work. I find that idea fits in a satisfying way. I decide I understand this work.

Gallery 4

Sixteen Birds

The windows are uncovered.

Sixteen flying Vs. A flock. Oh the birds of appetite. White sculpture, white walls. They are flaccid, wings dangling down. My presences figures into, triggers inflation. Up. Cascade from front to back. They fly out the window.

Did the artists make the mechanical birds because they could. Don't we all make art because we can. Well its less destructive than any other way of existing, even in its uselessness. And it is beautiful.

Fourth floor of Wood Street. Birds fly past the windows. This is such a clean image, there are so many resonances in art history - Van Gogh's fields with black crows scudding across the sky, Saint-Exupery's Little Prince flying, his flock of wild birds carrying him. Intuitive, clean, immediately get it, sit, rest, watch the birds breathe, their wings inflate and deflate in some musical sequence scored to a rhythm I don't know.

Wood St. Galleries

A Taste Of The Gallery Crawl : Crowds

This post is to here to prove that there was good art -- I mean good crowds at the crawl downtown.

A Taste Of The Gallery Crawl : Wood Street

The Saturday gallery crawl was pretty overwhelming both in the quality of work and the crowd chaos so I am just posting little views of the main shows I saw. This is the group show at Wood

Street Gallery. The common theme seemed to be the intersection of craft and technology.

Miguel Chevalier : Ultra Nature @ Wood Street

Here are some still shots I took of the Miguel Chevalier instalation on Wood Street's second floor. Ther is also an amazing piece on the floor above called RGB Land that I will post on later. Here's the press release from Wood Street's website. Both of these works have to be experienced in person.

"Ultra-Nature is a lush virtual garden that was created for Sejul Gallery, Korea. The garden’s flora is made up of eight varieties of luminescent, scalar plants, ranging from herbaceous vegetation and bright yellow flowers with turquoise stems, through to cacti in shades of red and violet. Each plant evolves according to a unique cycle that is defined by its morphogenetic characteristics. Motion sensors allow visitors to influence the growth of the garden’s plants. As viewers interact with the artwork, the plants incline to the left or right, creating a scene that alternates between baroque strapwork and stylized organic ballet. In this way, they mirror Monet's cosmic sensibility, his evocation of light and time as well as his taste for series (as in Nymphéas water lily)."

Wood Street Galleries is located in Pittsburgh's Cultural District.
601 Wood StreetPittsburgh, PA 15222

Some More Thoughts About Isolation

This is sort of a follow up to my "gestures have meaning", post.

Since I have been here, I have been trying to explain the level of cultural isolation and the circular dead end nature of most art careers here. What happens in Pittsburgh stays in Pittsburgh. First, I want to acknowledge that the only other place I know well, first hand is NY and that is a tough comparison. But, from what I can see, when compared to most mid sized cities, and certainly to cities with as many major cultural and educational institutions- the level of isolation disturbing. I don’t think that this is something that can be explained by lack of exhibition spaces or lack of funding because, for a city of it’s size, there is a lot of money spent. I also don’t think that a general lack of nice exhibition spaces is a major factor. In fact on a relative basis, getting into some type of show here is much easier than in most places for local artists.

The spread out and inconvenient nature of things explains a lot, as does the basic lack of marketing to people out of town ( look at how few institutions list themselves in the Mid Atlantic Gallery guide and how few images and info is on most cultural websites and the lack of web links or any kind of city wide guide. ) But, I think the “separate but equal” situation in which there are relatively few spaces that regularly mix, Pittsburgh and non Pittsburgh artists is one of the biggest factors. When, you look at exhibition spaces in most cities ( and I have looked at a lot online as well visited some ) what you see is a lot of shows – some of which are touring- that mix local and non local artists. This creates links with other cities – artist’s come to see and install their shows, and critics, writers, collectors and other artists who follow those artists pay attention to what’s going on. This interaction often leads to press attention and the chance that local artists will be invited into shows in other cities and all kinds of “buzz”. If I ask people in the art world in other cities, which places they have heard of here- they almost always know the ones that regularly show out of town artists. Quite a few NY dealers seem to know Wood Street Gallery, but few know about Space or the Center For the Arts ( though they are kind of better exhibitions spaces and bigger )

Artist’s here have to question whether this “separate but equal” system is really in their interest and what it’s full effects are. There is no doubt that on some level it may mean more exhibition space available to local artists than there might be otherwise. But, it also undermines the whole purpose of showing ones work and having it taken seriously on more than a local level.

Gestures Have Meaning

I am pretty apprehensive about making this post but I feel strongly that I should. I have a fairly marginal gallery in a small town that I have only been in for a little more than two years so, for a long time I felt afraid to rock the boat here. But, much more importantly I thought I was too uninformed and too much of a newcomer to start making snap judgments and throwing stones. I now think that I can't afford not to. This post is not at all directed specifically at the Mattress Factory, which has likely the best record of respecting and supporting Pittsburgh artists and taking their work seriously. The statement made by the latest Gestures show in the context of Pittsburgh's cultural history is something that should be examined closely for the message it sends.

The Gestures shows are an ongoing series of exhibits featuring site specific installations by a variety of artists and also people not generally known as artists, with most exhibits using the Mattress Factory's annex space. People considered for the shows are contacted usually not more than a month before and given limited time to install with the goal of informal, out of the box shows. In theory and to a large extent in practice, the idea is absolutely great. Who wouldn't want to see, famous artists that we see all the time and other people forced to adapt and create within tight constraints? To take people who often have a year or more to work towards shows into this kind of situation is likely to be fascinating.

The problem I have with these shows has to be set into context. One thing that stands out in Pittsburgh’s scene is it’s segmentation; everyone and everything has it’s proper place and it doesn’t take long to see where they are. Wood Street Gallery shows national acts, while Space gallery shows local artists. In institutions like the Society for Contemporary Craft, the bulk of local artist’s are consigned to the craft shop while the Center for the Arts, overwhelmingly shows local artist members of various guilds. For institutions like the Warhol or the Carnegie, the annual AAP show constitutes the bulk of their commitment to local artists or at least living local artists.

To a great extent, The Mattress Factory was the exception to that rule. They seem to work hard at being both at having a place that can be both respected on an international level for the quality of it’s shows while at the same time giving important consideration to local artists. The recent Gestures show demonstrates a scary trend. The list of artist’s in this show is full of people who have paid their dues and are fully deserving of a full Mattress Factory show. The idea of these shows as very low key experimental labs is understood as is the fact that a show scheduled on short notice is most easily done with a local artist but, the degrading and dark history of Pittsburgh’s art history cannot be forgotten and these shows cannot be removed from their context. The real risk is emerging that these shows are evolving into the backdoor ghetto for local artists.