The Recap Returns (May and June)
Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally
Today’s newsletter is a (somewhat) brief summary of some of what’s been going on since last time and will cover the rest of May through the end of June. The next newsletter will cover the posts from July.
So- After leaving Ohio at the beginning of May, I returned to New York and attempted to see as many art shows as I possibly could, while still catching up with friends and family. Mission, mostly, accomplished. Then it was off to Palm Springs, California. It’s been a whirlwind.
There were so many great exhibitions from both familiar and new (to me) artists. Below are just a few selections. Head over to the website for details on all the individual shows.
Jack Shainman has a stunning new gallery space in the Clocktower Building in Tribeca. It was an incredible background for Diedrick Brackens’ latest weavings.
Stopping by at Court Street Collective in Brooklyn, I was happy to see new work by Keya Tama, whose work I had last seen in Los Angeles in 2019. This was a joint exhibition with his partner, fellow artist Isolina Minjeong.
Lubaina Himid added another dimension to her gorgeous portraits for Street Sellers at Greene Naftali by including cardboard signs with the inner thoughts of the sellers written on the other side.
Lucy Puls’ sculptures for Here, Everywhere, at Nicelle Beauchene, left me with questions about the objects in our current lives- what will continue on, what will be preserved, what will matter, what will be forgotten?
Kurimanzutto had an exhibition of paintings and sculptures from two bodies of work by Argentinian artist Marta Minujín created before 1965. I didn’t know that much about her and this was a good introduction. While doing a deeper dive though, I was really blown away by some of her past projects.
One of her most famous is El Partenón de Libros (The Parthenon of Books) created in Buenos Aires in 1983 to mark the fall of the Argentinian dictatorship. It was a replica of the Greek Parthenon made up of books the government had banned. The installation was recreated in 2017 (see below) for the documenta14 art festival in Germany, on the site of a 1933 Nazi book burning. This version was created using over 100,000 banned books donated by the public.
I also realized, sadly, that I had just missed the first US survey of her work at the Jewish Museum in NY! Minujín was friends with Andy Warhol and the museum, in partnership with Americas Society, recreated her 1985 performance with him- Payment of the Argentine Foreign Debt to Andy Warhol with Corn, The Latin American Gold.
From the Americas Society about the work-
“In the original staging, created on a visit by the artist to New York in 1985, Marta Minujin invited her friend Andy Warhol to participate in a photo-performance in which she paid the pop icon, a symbol of American culture, with the Argentine foreign debt represented in gold-sprayed corn, claiming that the region had already covered its debt to the first world with the “invention” of corn, a staple that today feeds millions worldwide. The witty but nonetheless quite serious proposal directly addresses the commercial colonialism that the Global South is subjected to by world powers such as the United States. By pairing herself on an equal footing with Warhol, the most famous artist at the time, Minujín also commented on the unequal trade of cultural capital in the art world. “Corn, the Latin American Gold” should balance these inequalities and put the world’s regions on the same level, she claims.”
I covered two of MoCA Cleveland’s exhibitions which closed at the end of May- Ohio-born / LA-based artist Andrea Bowers’ incredibly informative exhibition Exist, Flourish, Evolve- which combined environmental activism and beautiful artwork with a focus on the Great Lakes; and Manabu Ikeda’s truly amazing and highly detailed pen and ink drawings for Flowers from the Wreckage.
Sadly on June 25th, Japanese artist Kazuyuki Takezaki passed away at 48. I had just covered his show Before Spring at 47 Canal, at the beginning of the month.
For Music Mondays- I posted new stuff from Amen Dunes, Girl and Girl, Die Spitz, The Umbrellas, MSPAINT, Vampire Weekend, Tele Novella, and DIIV.
In music news- musician and producer Steve Albini passed away at the beginning of May. His unique production style helped create the sound of the 90s with many influential albums including- Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me and Nirvana’s In Utero, which the song below is from.
Things are slowing down, it’s summer and out here in the desert- it’s hot. But it’s also beautiful and calm-much like the paintings from Aaron Zulpo’s exhibition California Deserts at 1969 Gallery.
Until next time- Hope you are staying cool and enjoying the summer so far!