Meghan Dailey

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  print March 2002

  Christoph Büchel

  For his New York solo debut, Christoph Büchel created the kind of project that few artists could pull off, and few would want to take on. His large-scale architectural installation was born as much of circumstance as of his energetic imagination: The mischievous Swiss artist was invited to do whatever he wanted for this unrenovated two-story gallery’s inaugural show. He created a new set of spaces by hacking through floors and walls, hauling in bundles of newspaper and street detritus, desks, TVs, record players, and the most cigarette butts I’ve seen since Damien Hirst came to town. Büchel was

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  previews January 2002

  Black Romantic

  Curator Thelma Golden has taken risks in her career, most visibly with her 1994 “Black Male” exhibition at the Whitney, criticized by many for its propagation of “negative” images of African Americans.

  Curator Thelma Golden has taken risks in her career, most visibly with her 1994 “Black Male” exhibition at the Whitney, criticized by many for its propagation of “negative” images of African Americans. With “Black Romantic,” she’s going out on a different kind of limb. The show presents figurative painting and sculpture by little-known African American artists—little-known, at least, to most contemporary-art audiences. Widely collected by African Americans, the works, selected from an open call for submissions, are populist, celebratory, even nostalgic narratives whose

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  print January 2002

  Dike Blair

  Dike Blair has always been a careful observer of scenes. His paintings of hotel lobbies, full ashtrays, car interiors, and glistening glasses of champagne amount to a compendium of luxury-class still life. His installations tend to capture less rarefied atmospheres: In one early-’90s project, he transformed a gallery space into a corporate waiting room, focusing on the familiar bland decor (mauve carpeting, metal chairs, Muzak) that is meant to elicit a sense of comfort. The artist is also a writer and has been associated with the Paris-based fashion/culture magazine Purple since its inception.

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  print December 2001

  Gelatin

  The Austrian collective Gelatin was supposed to open its New York show on September 11. About two weeks later, after some hesitation over whether to proceed, it launched “Habitat Tour 2001” with the first of three Thursday evening lectures-cum-performances that accompanied a room-size installation. This “habitat” was outfitted with a large work table and four bunk beds; the walls were covered with images of the Gelatin boys naked, album covers, cartoons lampooning Michael Jackson, and clips from pornographic magazines collaged, Berlin Dada style, with other images, heads placed on different

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  print November 2001

  Jim Lambie

  Jim Lambie's work is governed by a kind of Pop alchemy, covering, wrapping, and adorning the ordinary with the ordinary, he creates contemporary totems, like Psychedelic Soul Stick (all works 2001), a bamboo cane thickly wrapped in thread and wire, and Phuture, a single glove covered with multicolored buttons. Such vaguely shamanistic, ephemeral transformations are often infused with a sentimental romanticism: The sweetly titled installation Frankie Teardrop comprised lengths of colored plastic beads stretching from floor to ceiling; Puma is a track jacket decorated with pearly beads hooked

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  previews May 2001

  Freestyle

  “Freestyle” is former Whitney curator Thelma Golden’s first major contemporary exhibition since she landed at the Studio Museum as deputy director early last year, and it promises to breathe new life into that venerable Harlem institution by looking back—that is, by reviving its old mandate to showcase the latest from African-American artists. This means you’ll see work by Laylah Ali, Kojo Griffin, Rico Gatson, Eric Wesley, Kira Lynn Harris, Dave McKenzie, and Julie Mehretu, among others, in an aptly titled show that cuts across media and reflects influences and concerns ranging from hip-hop to

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  previews May 2001

  Game Show

  The games we play! And if games—linguistic, chance-based, and skilled—can be adopted as artistic strategy, then why not as the theme for an exhibition? It sounds like a winning wager to bring together contemporary artists (eleven in all) who have structured their work around games, from the political sport of Uri Tzaig's Israeli/Arab soccer match to the highly personalized play-scenarios of Sophie Calle. And viewers too get their turn: Kay Rosen presents a huge interactive wall drawing—“a vast visual pun”—for museum-goers to decode. Two auxiliary shows focusing on Fluxus and Duchamp, respectively—plus

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  print May 2001

  Rob Pruitt

  On the heels of an edition of prints for the New Museum, an interview in Time Out New York, a page in the new magazine Gotham, and a glossy spread in a recent oversized issue of Visionaire, this glittery show, “Pandas and Bamboo,” completes Rob Pruitt’s comeback. To recap the well-known story: Back in 1992, Pruitt and his then-collaborator Jack Early earned accusations of racism with their exhibition at Leo Castelli, “Red Black Green Red White and Blue Project,” which included paintings and posters of well-known African Americans. The fallout was ugly, and effected Pruitt’s prompt dismissal from

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  print April 2001

  Jon Pylypchuk

  A few works by Jon Pylypchuk in a group show at this gallery back in September brought a whisper of hope that the coming New York season might promise something a little different. While his influences are readily apparent (from Dubuffet to Mike Kelley), Pylypchuk’s work is fresh and witty, and there is certainly nothing quite so folksy and disarming around at the moment—which seems to be marked by unfailingly good taste, low risk, and certain formal refinement. (I’m thinking about everything from Jorge Pardo’s floor at Dia to Ricci Albenda’s recent installation at Andrew Kreps.)

  Of course,

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  print April 2001

  Warren Isensee

  Warren Isensee’s paintings draw on his memories of domesticated modernism. Evoking the interior color schemes and the bright prints of ’60s and ’70s suburban TV rooms (with Marimekko-patterned draperies and kidney-shaped coffee tables) and kitchens (with their boomerang-motif Formica countertops), Isensee’s canvases are rendered in flat decorator hues: unsaturated blues and greens, apricot, chocolate brown, powdery pink Structured on a system of reversals, in which opaque solids abut outlined open forms and mingle with loopy ribbons of color, the works are conceived with the thoughtful, almost

• previews January 2001

  Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers

  Organized by a team of four led by BMA curator of photography Barbara Head Millstein, this selection of more than ninety photographers (from established figures like Carrie Mae Weems and Gordon Parks to newcomers Fern Logan and Accra Shepp), represented by two works apiece, should nicely map the terrain. Restricted to currently practicing photographers, “Committed to the Image” nonetheless promises a historical scope. To be included: iconic civil rights images and portraits of cultural figures, as well as recent work addressing the political and social struggles of today and the emergence of

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  print January 2001

  Lordy Rodriguez

  Imagine Texas situated on the eastern seaboard, New Mexico boasting the charms of Eau Claire, Little Rock, and New Haven, Oklahoma forming the southern border of Canada, and Kansas with many ports. This is the United States of America according to twenty-four-year-old artist Lordy Rodriguez, who for three years has been involved in an ongoing project to reconfigure the nation according to his own imagination. Submitting geography to a process of declassification, Rodriguez recently completed the overall map of his new country, whose outline no longer conforms to the nation’s real contours: Not