Dan Flavin at David Zwirmer Gallery

I recently took a trip to the David Zwirmer Gallery in Chelsea and saw the work of Dan Flavin. I remembered seeing his work from freshman year in my Seminar in Contemporary Art class and finding his work to be simple, yet exciting and different. The whole concept of using light as art was a really fascinating idea with almost limitless possibilities. But Flavin often keeps his work simple and I appreciate that fact. It seems that in this case that a little goes a long way.

In the first few rooms that you walk into, Flavin only places a few light bulbs stacked in the corner. The first room has lights in the colors of yellow and red, the second is lit with red and blue and the third room is lit with green and red. As I headed towards the other side of the gallery, there was a room with windows in the ceiling letting sunlight in, but pure white fluorescent bulbs also illuminated it. I was curious why Flavin chose this room to set up the pure white lights because it didn’t have much of an effect against the daylight coming through. Perhaps that was his plan all along.

When I went into the next room I found blue and red lights lined up along the wall with some jutting out like prongs off of them. There were three set up in a row and one on an adjacent wall. The prongs sticking out were offset at different heights. Something about it made me want to be able to fly and just travel through those outward sticking prongs like a football through a field goal post.

My favorite thing in the installation was a bright blue railing of fluorescent bulbs that completely divided a room in half. When I first saw it from a distance I thought the railing was next to a dropped lower level and was preventing people from going down, but then I realized the light from the railing was creating this effect. The light shining on one side was illuminating the side of the room where observers could stand, but the other side was dark, giving it the illusion that the ground was actually lower.

Flavin’s work has a very interesting way of creating a special atmosphere. The fluorescent lights transform each room into its own special dimension of color. I definitely sensed a lot of energy when first stepping into the installation and it seemed to change with each room. It was especially obvious how unique each set of lights made a room when you would stand in one room and look at the glow created by the other adjoining rooms. I feel very fortunate to have gotten to see such a unique art form from such a legendary artist.

The New Museum

When i finally got a chance to make it to the New Museum I was actually quite disappointed. It was like meeting your hero and then finding out they are a phony. I had seen advertisements for the museum in the paper years earlier and had always wanted to go and have a look at it, but hadn't ever gone until recently. I was pretty excited to finally be going and even as I saw the tall offset box stack structure in the distance I was dreaming of what i might ind inside.

But when i finally got to about across the street from the building itself i was kind of shocked. To me it looked like some kind of New York City store front rather than a museum. I walked in and was even more surprised to see that it basically was a store front with a book/gift store right up front and a cafe towards the back.

I didn't think much of it because i was more interested in seeing what art there was to look at. Unfortunately i was disappointed there too. The lady at the desk informed us that they were setting up installations and that we would only be able to see work on the fourth and fifth floor. We decided that we would do it since we had come all this way and wanted to see something.

So we trudged our way up the small staircase passing signs on doors that said, FLOOR CLOSED. When we got to the fourth floor i opened the door and saw white, turned the corner and saw the fascinating sculptures of Urs Fischer, which reminded me of giant metallic looking pieces of coral. I walked around them imagining myself as a fish and even hiding under one of the pieces nooks. It was really interesting how they fit into the space of the floor, it had such presence and encouraged you to look at it from all angles, but i didn't quite understand the other parts of the sculpture which looked like a bus seat with a duffel bag and a cake or something. I really don't understand how they tied together to be honest.

On the fifth floor there was the exhibit on Museum as a Hub: In and Out of Context, which is exactly what the installation was about, the museum as a hub for experimental ideas in creating and displaying art from around the world to New York City. There were a few speakers on the wall where you first come in. it was titled INTERROGATIONS 1-5 When they ask me I'll introduce them to you from 2008-09 and it was created by Rana Hamadeh It was from Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City. The way it was set up was interesting being right by the stair entrance it kind of takes you by surprise but it's a little confusing to look at and listen to.

Around the corner was a wooden bench area for viewing movies. On the left was the Cairo Residency Symposium March 25-27, 2009 which was from the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo. On the right was John bock's PARA-SCHIZO, ensnarfed, 2008 which was a two-channel video, color and sound and was 40 minutes long. This was from Arko Art Center and Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea. I just remember seeing this man and woman battle with this string contraptions made from everyday household items turned into some strange useless machine. I don't even know if they were really battling to be honest but the whole idea was really interesting and comical to me.

The third thing i saw in the installation was a small model made of cardboard and wood set on interesting tables with chairs that appeared to be custom made. This piece was by Young Whan Bae and it was titled Tomorow. The models were to propose ideas for a public library design and were from the Collection at the Gyeonngi Museum of Modern Art. in my opinion they were pretty interesting and colofrul conceptually and it would be neat to see something like that actually be built. unfortunately I think some people thought it was ok to touch the models because they looked a little damaged and torn up.

Overall the museum was slightly disappointing and a little pricey for what they have to offer in my opinion, but i did get a free pass to go in again before some time in February because i got there while they were setting up installations and got gypped, so hopefully my next visit will be a better experience.

Bucket of Blood Video

The Bucket of Blood Video definitely brings to mind questions about what qualifies as art, what it means to be an artist and what people will do or how they will act to fit in. There have been some pretty crazy trends and eras in art that involve some pretty extreme things, but Walter takes it to a new level. He's obviously not all there, as you can tell from how he acts, but it adds to the humor. His beatnik friends seemed very self absorbed and in their own little world, which was also pretty funny, but also brings up a good point, to not get too serious with yourself and become submerged in your own little world and instead stay open and realize that art is just one aspect of life, not its entirety. I really enjoyed this video, because i feel it was a satirical lesson that was easy to laugh at.

Alex Bag Video

Although the Alex Bag video depicts the cliche art student of the 90s, the struggles and changes she goes through are pretty relevant. As I watched the video I tried to relate her experience as a student to my own and to the experiences of my peers and found that often it wasn't much different. It was an interesting way to put things into perspective. Watching this video of a scatterbrained art student with an attitude ramble on about her experience about art school and life in general is a reminder that this could very well be me, or you!

It is an eye opener to the snobby ignorance that her and many other art students often display when they feel that they are above it all or want to do their "own thing". This video seems to me to satirically give relevance to the struggle and learning processes necessary in becoming a truly educated and well-founded artist. What i mean is that i think through all of the acting and joking and references as to how useless or hard some classes were, was really a way of showing how we mature and find that all of the things we felt were not important or did not want to do, really do matter.

The set pieces in between her little talks are relevant too,because they do act kind of like the ridiculous background noise in our heads, popping in at times when you least expect it. I feel like we all probably have silly scenarios in the back of our minds somewhere and they were kind of entertaining.

Overall the video was actually quite annoying, especially when she would use the word like, and drag on forever about nothing and use that stupid voice. I do realize it was done on purpose, but it did get really annoying. The set pieces were a relief for me because it was kind of a break from her monotonous droning voice and they were kind of funny, but the video did bug me a little. Especially since it was nearly an HOUR LONG!