Pilger

What's up for a few more hours v. XIV

Two weeks ago I thought I had fixed my computer and reflected on the quaint, pastoral joys of having been offline, until I realized after a day that I hadn't fixed my computer, but the second phase has been even more full of usefulness and reverie, especially as I don't follow the minutiae of Killary Versus Don (Deport) Juan (as much).  It would however be uncharacteristic of Piri' Miri Muli' not to note the many shows ending this week or thereafter, here at the community library,

especially uncharacteristic not to note a room full of George Groszes ending today (David Nolan 527 29) including works from Gott Mit Uns and replete with a selection of more recent artists in a similar vein, like Martha Rosler's photocollage (above) of male models descending on an Iraqi village, a corrugated steel construction by Ian Hamilton Finlay ("The revolution is frozen, all principles are weakened.."), an Immendorff from the Café Deutschland series, two Nancy Speros from the 60s, Rivera, Rauchenberg, Abramovic, and two works by Sandra Vasquez de la Horra who shows there.

Two blocks south, it's the last day to see a retrospective of Carol Rama "censored as obscene by the Italian government in 1945" at 514 26.  Also on 26th, Walther's new group show of African photos includes three videos by Simon Gush on John Calvin and "by extension, the concept of 'work ethic' that spread from Protestant Europe to South Africa and became part of apartheid ideology" (526 26 suite 718).  On 25th, Lynda Benglis' paper and aluminum works are ending today (547 25).  Across from the Big Black Baselitzes up for another week (522 21) you can get free Turkish style yogurt after looking at carpets inspired by Mayakovsky drawings.

Between those at 547 27 til Oct 26 Alex Webb's color photos from Mexico culled from thirty years there take the ironic juxtaposition route, including one from 1979 Boquillas del Carmen with a boy jumping high enough against a rural, sun soaked building he looks like he's flying, with two silhouettes of birds nearby, a cross, the name of the building 'Juarez School,' a gate framing the picture, and the shadow of a tree.  That's just one of three (and counting) shows of Mexican photos in town - Throckmorton (145 57 3rd floor) has 60 works by Hector Garcia, including a portrait of Orozco with only his hand in focus, and last but not least a retrospective of Kati Horna at the Americas Society (680 Park), which despite the curators making tactical critiques and historically inaccurate statements about the CNT in Barcelona during the civil war to please the hosting organization, a caption to Leonora Carrington's wedding photo that does not identify Benjamin Peret standing squarely in the middle, is nonetheless with copies of the Catalan publications, documentation of a stage set by Alberto Gironella, and an essay of Carrington posing as a necrophiliac, not a gift horse to look in the mouth.

The recent black in abstraction show got me into Oscar Murillo's recent graphite works on paper and there's a wonderful example (above) in his show ending today (525-533 19th), plus a sculptural installation, a family scrapbook with drawings you can page through, and a room of his large scale oil on linen and canvas works taking up themes of globalization. Your humble correspondent stumbled into Oscar the day after the opening 'A few years ago when you were getting people angry, I liked it. We exist.'

If you're downtown you have through Sunday to see Alex Prager's La Grande Sortie about a dancer trying to please herself. At some point in the next two weeks a visit to Victor Burgin's UK76, (below) forty years after its creation but no less relevant, is highly recommended (99 Bowery 2nd floor).  Slought in Philly has a Burgin show ending the same time (4017 Walnut).

Julie Mehretu's two story show at 24 57th 4th floor is up til the 29th. The gallery notes "evidence of an evolved vocabulary of abstraction.. a gestural force unseen in her work before."  It seems a mishmash of Matta's layering, figurative elements that look like Guston, and Twombly - that is, she has for the moment traded her signature style for large, expensive apprentice works, which I find admirable in a way. The Damascus-themed photogravure and etching in the third floor project room is more in keeping with the old Julie and the strongest work in the show, as she has otherwise decided to get worse to get better which may lead to an unforeseen payoff.  Also down the hall on the 3rd floor is a Man Ray retrospective.  Gagosian uptown has in the book store Sally Mann photos of Twombly's studio in its last years, but if you stare straight ahead there's a Mark Strand poem.  Also near there it's the last day to screen Joseph Cornell's Rose Hobart without the soundtrack at Buchholz' Douglas Crimp tribute. (17 82nd).

What's up for three more days

A note that London's Lisson Gallery has opened an outpost on 24th St and in what I believe is their second show there at no. 504 through Saturday screens two of Ghanese documentarian John Akomfah's 2016 multiscreen projections, totaling a bit under two hours, about which he's confirmed the influence of Angelopoulis and Kubrick's photography of humans and beasts. The time image of both directors is compressed and scattered: in Kubrick's case, with 2001's primate and the astronaut in successive shots in the slightly longer three screen The Airport, filmed in an abandoned airport in Greece and on a pedestal overlooking the Parthenon over Athens, recalling Godard's visual citation of Greek theater in Film Socialisme.  Voice overs of episodes of Greek history chronicle the modern nation's interactions with colonizers by war and finance, but omits its turbulent internal politics in what appears to be in keeping with Akomfah's subject matter derived from his perch in the Brexit-era empire he emigrated to.  The soundtrack reminds me of Cage's Europera but with the obligatory mixing in of Arvo Pärt excerpts.  Acts of Faith on two screens intersperses the landscape of Barbados with actors dressed as religious migrants and freed slaves. Nearby Tina Kim's group show has a wonderful Anselm Kiefer in the back til the end of the month (525 West 21st Street), a Paul Outerbridge retrospective til Sept 17 at 535 24th, and Robert Mann at 525 West 26th has for sale a print of Cartier-Bresson's On the Banks of the Marne (below), various Harry Callahans and other summer beach fare til August 19.

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What's up for two more days

"The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.”
- Andrey Tarkovsky

Martha Rosler adorns the wall with Peter Marcuse's "Homelessness exists not because the housing system is not working but because of the way it works" in her update on the gentrification theme explored the world over by artists that she first took up at Dia in 1989, through Saturday at Michell-Innis & Nash 534 W 26th Street, across the street from the construction site of Zaha Hadid's "39 generous loft-like residences.. each with the artist’s signature mark woven into the design" from $4.9M to $50M (right).  The focus is on community struggles but it also brings clarity to some of the problems of how art is experienced nowadays, mapping the NYC Metro galleries and displaying photos of art communities in China, including townhouses surrounding a smaller Eiffel Tower and an island replicating Hallstatt.  A day can be spent there watching videos and making use of the library and computer programs.

"Bakasura, the Crane Demon, Disgorges Krishna," Bhagavata Purana, ca. 1680, in Met show

Previously noted, highly recommended: Terrence Koh extended til July 29 at 212 Bowery; Bruce Conner til July 15 at 521 W 21st Street, Sigmar Polke at Zwirner 20th St extended til July 22, Asger Jorn extended til July 29 at 35 E 67th Street, Unifinished at the Met Breuer til Sept 4.  Conner's show at MoMA is open as is a new Dada exhibition.  Also Michael Werner now has AR Penck's work before he first showed at Werner Cologne in 1969 (4 e 77th til Sept 3), Punjabi and Rajistani paintings at the Met til Sept 12, Louise Bourgeois, Marlene Dumas, and Ghada Amer headline 'Women Look at Men' at 547 w 25th til Sept 2, and Rabin Mondal, about whom the shorthand 'the Bengali Francis Bacon' inevitably and imperfectly comes to mind is at DAG Modern 41 e 57th 7th floor til Sept 3.

Rabin Mondal, King as Manipulator, 1976

Oscar Aguilar Ramírez, 25, Andrés Sanabria García, 23, Anselmo Cruz Aquino, 33, Yalit Jiménez Santiago, 28, Oscar Nicolás Santiago, Omar González Santiago, 22, Antonio Perez García, and Jesús Cadena Sánchez, 19

The 2006 protests in Oaxaca.. were precipitated by the misappropriation of 920 million US$ of the state's public funds and extremely underfunded schools..

..from Televisa, the people who brought you the Enrique Peña Nieto serial..

"By cozying up to this new face of reaction in the region, Obama sends a clear message.."