Displaying Vito Acconci's 'Seedbed' today

In a recent blog post, Lindsay Pollock talks about the new show going up at MoMA that draws exclusively from their permanent collection. It also includes 66 works that MoMA owns but has never displayed before, one of which is Vito Acconci's 'Seedbed'.

'Seedbed' was a performance piece Acconci did in the early 70s at Sonnabend Gallery in which he lived under a slanted platform and masturbated for the duration of the show. He would then fantasize about the people walking above him and his words were broadcast throughout the gallery. I was trying to figure out how MoMA was going to recreate this piece - was Vito himself going to revisit this piece, were they going to construct a ramp and hire someone to pleasure themself a la Acconci? The answer it turns out is simple - I emailed Lindsay Pollock and they said they are showing the video. Lame.

Local news

Two pieces of news from the Indianapolis Business Journal worth pointing out:

First, Lou Harry in his A&E blog draws attention to the Phister Hotel in Milwaukee that now provides an artist-in-residence program. They provide studio space, a monthly stipend as well the opportunity to show the artist's work. On the surface it seems like a great idea, the danger I have seen in similar situations is that work is often safe and not very exciting. I think there is real potential here if the artist chosen is relevant in a contemporary art sense and someone who will actually add something to the local art scene and discourse.

Second, the Indianapolis Cultural Trail gets $20.5 million in federal stimulus funds. This puts the Trail $7.5 million above it's original goal of $55 million. Congrats to all involved on raising the funds - NOW LET'S FINISH THE EAST END OF MASS AVE! I feel really bad for the merchants down there that have been cut off from the rest of the Avenue.

Museum Superbowl Madness

Jean-Valentin Morel, image via IMA website

For those of you not following Tyler Green via facebook, twitter or his blog, you'll probably be interested to know he has challenged the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art to place a bet on the upcoming Superbowl.

IMA Director Max Anderson was the first to respond, offering to loan a contemporary painting by Ingrid Calame to the New Orleans museum for three months should the Saints somehow beat the Colts. NOMA Director quickly responded by offering a "three month loan of its $4 million Renoir painting, Seamstress at Window, circa 1908, which is currently in the big Renoir exhibition in Paris."

How has Max responded? "We'll see the sentimental blancmange by that 'China Painter' and raise you a proper trophy: a Jean-Valentine Morel jeweled cup (pictured above), which won the Grand Medal at the 1855 Paris World Fair."

Stay tuned.

Updates

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. I've got a fab new website in the works as well as an amazing exhibition schedule I'm lining up to kick off 2009. In the meantime, I thought I'd give you a little peak as to what's available at the gallery as well as our new design space in Dean Johnson Gallery. That's right, all of your contemporary art and contemporary design needs and wants at one address. Here's just a smidgen:

Morgen Bosler's amazing ceramic urns (above). Should I ever get married, and should said wife happen to pass before me, her final resting place will be in one of Morgen's urns. And I'm already picking one out for my four year old dog even though she will live forever! The urns start around $275.


Ted Ross will soon complete his MFA in Furniture Design at Herron School of Art. He's good. Really good. Above is his Dogleg Bench. It's hand made with birch and acrylic, fabulous, and yours for $1100. Below is the latest piece from his Prosthesis series. Ummm, yeah. And only $750.


There is also an amazing array of lamps by Ben Langebartels made from pages of phone books, vases by the unstoppable Lauren Zoll, 3 installations by Nick Allman that will knock your socks off, as well as new drawings from Danielle Riede. And I haven't even mentioned Jeff Geesa's rockin' show in the gallery yet! I'll post more pics and info as I photograph new items.

Mystery solved

For those that read my last post, you know that I wondered what in the world Culture Grrl was doing in Indianapolis last week. Turns out she was speaking Max Anderson, director of the IMA about the Fairbanks Art and Nature Park. You can watch the interview here. Turns out there really was no scandal. Darn.

And should anyone want to hear me talk about art and Craig Doty's current show, check out Charles Fox's new blog, Outposts From the Material World. He's got like 47 times more readers than Culture Grrl, so you've probably already seen it.

CultureGrrl slip of the tongue?!?!

Certainly art blog readers around the world are familiar with CultureGrrl (aka Lee Rosenbaum). Lee is best known for her investigative reporting - from sketchy museum deaccessions to unethical practices, Lee is certainly one of the top in her field.

That why I was completely surprised to find out, via her own blog none the less, that CULTUREGRRL WAS IN INDIANAPOLIS LAST NIGHT! You can read the article here and scroll down about half way and see where she openly admits to spending the night in an undisclosed Indianapolis hotel room.

Now I want a few questions answered darn it!

- How was this trip funded? Were you influenced by someone purchasing ad space (which starts at a hefty $20/week) on your blog?
- Did a wealthy collector or famous artist curate your travels?
- Did you dine in one of our wonderful downtown restaurants or bistros OR DID YOU GO TO A CHAIN RESTAURANT BY THE MALL???

The public really wants to know (and PLEASE don't send out another press release that no additional information is available at this time). Geesh.

(disclaimer: for those readers who don't follow art world news/gossip on a daily basis like I do, this is satire. With all of the media attention on the New Museum, I thought I'd try and stir up some contraversy for Indy!)

Backlash against the conceptual

Damien Hirst with White Roses and Butterflies, 2008, The Wallace Collection. Photograph: Katie Collins/PA

I don't care whether or not Damian Hirst can paint. His dozens of studio assistants churning out spin painting after medicine cabinet after taxidermied animal doesn't bother me at all. I like the concepts, I like the aesthetics (ok the millionth dot painting was silly) but I don't care if the final product came via his hand or his direction. If you keep up with all the contemporary art news you might think I am the only one that feels this way.

Hirst's most recent exhibition, which just opened at the Wallace Collection in London, is comprised only of paintings in which the artist got rid of all assistants and created everything with his own hand. By all accounts the paintings are awful. I have not seen the show in person but the fact that BBC has a page on their website dedicated to linking all of the bad reviews is a pretty strong indication. My guess is the show is not as bad as all the naysayers are putting in print. Hirst has for years been the critics favorite person to hate, but I think it's a pretty strong assumption that painting is not his forte.

Enter Denis Dutton. This weekend his article Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank? was published in the New York Times. Basically he is equating contemporary conceptual art to the cartoons in the New Yorker. He asserts that Hirst's inability to paint will cause future art historians to consider him irrelevant and that those who have purchased his work (along with his contemporary Jeff Koons) must be baffoons (my words).

What I don't understand is why the public (or at least the critics) need to draw this imaginary line in the sand where on one side is everything beautiful and created by an artist and is labeled 'art' and on the other side is everything else that we label 'junk'. In my lifetime art has been about blurring boundaries, mixing the aesthetic with the conceptual, and the functional with the beautiful. Do I care if my favorite photographer can't draw? No. Do I think any less of my favorite sculptor if they can't do an interesting piece with the medium of video? No. And would it bother me at all if my favorite conceptual artist can't paint? I bet you can guess the answer.

Damien Hirst, Pharmacy, 1992, installation view at Cohen Gallery, NY.

The pendulum continues to swing

Two recent stories have got me thinking about the state of contemporary art in this time we live in. The first is the recent announcement of the winner of the ArtPrize contest - the competition in Grand Rapids in which the winner of the $250,000 top prize was determined by public vote. The second is about the Biennial of the America's to be held in Denver next summer. Though (I hope) well intentioned, this contemporary art biennial is shaping up to be about everything but contemporary art.

It's caused me to wonder if this is actually a shift in the way the contemporary art world will run or just a pendulum that continues to swing in one direction during these times of American Idol. My guess and hope is that it is the latter and that as the novelty of new technologies like text-voting fades the focus will return to the art itself.

As an aside, I didn't hate the piece that won ArtPrize and was surprised to find out it was the only traditional painting in the top ten. I also imagine there were some very interesting conversations about art around dinner tables all across Grand Rapids, and that's not a bad thing.

Drunk emails

This came to my inbox last night via my website. I guess we should all just give up...

How bad is you attempt at contemporary art.
a 300 sq.ft space.... You actually think you will make a difference??? I have been in the art scene in Indianapolis for over 15 years.. you nor IMOCA will ever put Indiana on the Comtemp. Map...The IMOCA is bad enough.. The half ass Homoerotic approach to what they thought in the beginning was contemporary art. The IMA can't even get their shit together. they have 4 brand new galleries they have never used yet.... Indiana is full of Pompous individuals, whom really get off on being in publications ( metromix ) That's the Art for you, the art of being Noticed..... It's not really about the art now is it?????

And he left his actual email address which I easily looked up on facebook (but I won't publicize that). Just wanted to let people like Primary Colours, Bootleg Exhibitions, the fine people at On the Cusp, and all the other artists trying to make it in town to go ahead and give up. This one guy couldn't make it for 15 years so the rest of us should just call it curtains!

On a side note, I have been amazed by the quality and quantity of Ed Winkleman's posts on his blog for years. Now that I have a small space to call my own I am even more impressed with how he continues to do it day after day, month after month, year after year. What's the secret Ed???

Traces: New Installations and Objects by Danielle Felice Riede

christopher west presents is pleased to announce a new installation by Colorado born, Indianapolis based artist Danielle Riede. Opening reception for the artist will take place on Thursday, October 1 from 5 pm until 8 pm. The exhibition will run through October 31.

Riede's enigmatic constructions of found and made pieces of paint, resin, and detritus are here exhibited as both miniature sculpture and a site specific installation. While paint (and color) is a primary intellectual and physical material for Riede, a deeper connection can be found in the idea of a collective body of objects, the traces of other artists’ explorations. Danielle Riede received her MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwelath University and also studied under Daniel Buren at the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf. She is currently a professor at the Herron School of art and Design. She has exhibited internationally in Mexico City, Athens, Cologne, Paris and many others. This is her first exhibition at the gallery.

christopher west presents
646 Massachusetts Ave
Indianapolis, IN 46204
www.ChristopherWestPresents.com

Hours:
Wednesday 11 to 5
Thursday 11 to 7
Friday 11 to 5
Saturday Noon to 4

Dallas makes me jealous... again.

Perot Museum of Nature & Science

Plans were released this weekend for the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science designed by Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis. Groundbreaking scheduled for this fall. I bring this up only to remind us all of what's possible even in these economic times. Congrats Dallas on once again solidifying yourself as a major art and design hub in the United States. Great museums, lackluster museums that are improving by leaps and bounds, amazing collectors and an ever increasing roster of impressive architecture.

Museums and local artists

Leon Golub, Reclining Youth, 1959. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Gift of the Susan and Lewis Manilow Collection of Chicago Artists.

A friend and I traveled to Chicago this past weekend to see Olafur Eliason's show at the MCA before it closed and take in some openings in the West Loop. Olafur was, well amazingly Olafur, but what struck me most was the exhibition of paintings from the collection on the top floor of the MCA.

Paul Klein, whose Art Letter is a must read for anyone even remotely interested in the Chicago art scene, took note too. Klein counted 18 Chicago artists (I'm taking his word for it, I didn't personally count) hanging along side paintings from an international roster of past and present painting superstars. It was certainly a refreshing change from all the 'cookie cutter' (as Klein calls them) exhibitions across the country that often present the same roster of artists. Klein goes on to say "Watch Grynsztejn (MCA Director) uniquely size up the landscape and set the MCA on a course that will attract an international following - all stemming from an understanding of how a museum can tap into the local pulse and tweak the dialog to a new and different level."

The exhibition runs through Ocotober 18th. If you happen to be in the Chicagoland area, I give it the big thumbs up.

Status quo

The IBJ is reporting that arts funding will be maintained in 2010 at $1 million, down from $1.5 million from last year but the same as this year.

A paltry sum to say the least. I'll leave it at that for now.