STEVEN SHEARER AT NEW MUSEUM

Steven Shearer
silkscreen and acrylic on canvas, 1997
Collection: Barbara Balkin Cottle and Robert Cottle

DOUBLE ALBUM: DANIEL GUZMÁN AND STEVEN SHEARER
APRIL 23 THROUGH JULY 6
“Double Album: Daniel Guzmán and Steven Shearer” brings together two artists—Daniel Guzmán, born in Mexico in 1964, and Steven Shearer, born in Canada, in 1968—who use an array of visual media to explore the overwhelmingly male world of rock ‘n’ roll and popular subcultures as a way to look inward at themselves. With both artists creating works across a variety of mediums, including sculpture, painting, photography, and video, “Double Album” allows for Guzmán’s and Shearer’s bodies of work to be explored independently, as well as in relation to each other’s practices. The exhibition is curated by the New Museum’s Chief Curator, Richard Flood.

NEW MUSEUM
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

Neon by Tim Etchells

"A cage is a container for animals. A mirror is a defective window. A hall of mirrors is a room full of bad mirrors. Shift workers are people who work when other people are sleeping. The night shift is hard on your sleep patterns and on your relationships. Tired people get depressed. Stressed people say unexpected things. Rage is another word for anger. There is only one correct answer to a mathematical question. There is only one way out of a maze. A blood transfusion is way of moving blood from one body into another using pipes and a small pump. Clouds change shape in ways that are impossible to predict. Hate is hard to explain. Rats move in groups. Knives are things made of metal. Metal comes from out of the ground. Heavy Metal music has a strong beat and a lot of guitar. You cannot stop people from dancing if they want to dance. You cannot stop progress. An umbrella is no protection against a swarm of bees. Happy people are more productive than sad people. Change is not always a good thing. A cardiac arrest is nothing to do with the police."
Tim Etchells

GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo

Yan Pei-Ming
Selfportrait, 27/08/2007
oil on canvas
59 x 59 in. (150 x 150 cm)
Photo: André Morin


Yan Pei-Ming with Yan Pei-Ming
curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio
19 march - 27 JULY 2008

Twenty large format works, oils and watercolors, many of which, will be shown for the first time, will offer the public a chance to see Pei-Ming’s work in an exhibition created around a theme selected by the artist and the curator. The exhibition is organized into four sections: Self-portrait with Landscape, Self-portrait with Religion, Self-portrait with Relatives and Self-portrait with Life and Death. The title suggests the central subject of the exhibition, the self-portrait which is present in each room and is in continuous dialogue with the other subjects displayed. This choice follows from the consideration that every work is in some way a self-portrait of the artist even when it does not directly depict him.
The exhibition underlines the technique the artist uses: painting. In particular his painting makes heavy use of matter and it’s produced with violent brushwork, thus representing a bridge between the East, his origin and the West, his cultural homeland. These two areas are represented by the large oil canvases on the one hand and his watercolors on the other. However his painting never makes reference to a precise geographical setting but becomes synonymous with atemporality and non-place: East and West combined in a mixture of styles, elements and subjects. The use of watercolors is important to the artist, he uses it to paint the series of children the life in its early stages and the skulls and self-portrait as a hanged man, and therefore the end of existence.

Thomas Krens to step down at Guggenheim

Jerry Saltz on Thomas Krens: Our Long Cultural Nightmare Will Soon Be Over
“Thomas Krens Countdown Clocks.” That’s because on Wednesday evening news spread that Krens, the Guggenheim Museum’s controversial dictatorial head for almost twenty years — 7,300 days, for clock-watchers — will be stepping down from his post. Well, not quite stepping down; he’ll oversee the creation of the gargantuan 452,000-square-foot Frank Gehry–designed museum in Abu Dhabi. (According to the Times, he'll stay on in his current position until a successor is found.)

Over the last two decades Krens changed museum culture in the West. He made museums corporate and ran the Guggenheim like a business – even if that business often careened like an out-of-control savings and loan.

He branded the Guggenheim and kicked off the starchitect phase of museum culture, building and closing snazzy outlets around the world, most notably the grand shining building in Bilbao. Krens turned his museum into a spectacle and opened it up to the public, mounting crowd-pleasers and blockbusters like “The Art of the Motorcycle,” “China,” “Russia!,” “Brazil,” and other unfocused national smorgasbords that had less to do with the Guggenheim’s original mission than in doing deals in other countries. (He also oversaw excellent exhibitions of contemporary artists like Jenny Holzer and Matthew Barney.)

For all practical purposes the Krens clock began ticking last summer when Lisa Dennison stepped down from her position of museum director. It was widely understood that no real candidate for the job would appear unless Krens stepped away from any day-to-day operations, as just his presence muddied the waters around the museum. With Krens finally away trying to change museum culture in the Middle East, the Guggenheim could become a real force in the New York art world overnight. The building is unique; the capable staff is hungry; the art world is eager to welcome the Guggenheim back into the fold.

Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi, a quick check to numerous government Websites will confirm that Israeli passport holders and travelers whose passports bear Israeli stamps will be denied entry visas to the Emirates. Thus, Krens will continue to do what he does best: try to accessorize the museum while sullying the Guggenheim’s good name, recklessly removing the “heim” from Guggenheim. —Jerry Saltz