Month: July 2015

Contemporary

Congenitally opposed to the macho tone

Leah Garrett / July 21, 2015
Congenitally opposed to the macho tone of so many avant-garde polemics, suspicion of the manifesto comes naturally to feminism. And yet, as the credibility of the manifesto declined over the past 40 years, feminist skepticism informed numerous landmark appropriations of the genre: Valerie Solanas’ “SCUM Manifesto (1968), Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” (1969) and Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg…

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Exhibitions

Dolphin Gallery, Glasgow

Leah Garrett / July 20, 2015
The life of a submariner is very much a hidden one; manifestations of their curious crafts are more like UFO sightings. Rarely do we get the movie image of the inquisitive periscope turning this way and that. In the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine the Mersey mariners have a winking eyeball residing in the aperture of the periscope’s body: the sub as…

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Contemporary

The trope of woman as nature

Leah Garrett / July 19, 2015
Though the trope of woman as nature (or vice versa) had been a conventional one long before the various Interwar artists took it up, Brassai’s use of this trope is unique. He presents us with an eerie landscape that, within the historical context of World War I, seems at once precise and vague. He offers us a body of water…

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Contemporary

Male and female homosexuality were not always viewed in the same manner

Leah Garrett / July 19, 2015
Male and female homosexuality were not always viewed in the same manner. Female homosexuality, while reviled by the general populace, was generally acceptable for the artistic purposes of the Surrealists. For them, lesbianism was sometimes parallel to idealized heterosexuality (l’amour fou). The representation of lesbian lovers in their art, I would suggest, often becomes heterosexualized. It often assumes a male…

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Contemporary

The sense of depaysement

Leah Garrett / July 17, 2015
The sense of depaysement implies an overtly political project as much as it does an aesthetic one; the Surrealists of the 1930s conceived of aesthetics and politics as closely allied. As Brassai’s work was an important addition to Breton’s Surrealist journal Minotaure, it seems logical to consider the political philosophies espoused within the journal as well as the photographs themselves,…

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Contemporary

Taylor Savvy’s 2002 recording Ladies and Gentlemen

Leah Garrett / July 17, 2015
Taylor Savvy’s 2002 recording Ladies and Gentlemen is among the greatest musical accomplishments in the history of mankind. To say that it is also unique is an understatement. Having noticed that the chorus is the catchiest part of the song, Savvy decided to compose songs consisting exclusively of choruses, which he calls slogans (sample lyric: “Big dicks are all I…

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Exhibitions

DOWNES POINT

Leah Garrett / July 16, 2015
Throughout her work, Judy Radul has articulated an interest in the idea of theatricality as a sort of repressed unconscious of the visual arts–banished by Michael Fried in his seminal text “Art and Objecthood” (1967) in favour of a transcendental ideal of “presentness” that excludes the corporeal materiality of the viewing subject. This reference is useful in describing two recent…

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Music

Music performances

Leah Garrett / July 16, 2015
In 1960, a then-struggling Yoko Ono invited minimalist composer La Monte Young to curate a series of music performances at the Chambers Street loft she shared with her husband Toshi Ichiyanagi. Powered by a line from next door, and warmed by a gas stove, these pre-Fluxus events included performances by Richard Maxfield, Jackson Mac Low, Ben Patterson, Robert Morris and…

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Contemporary

I REALY SHOULD

Leah Garrett / July 15, 2015
Kelly Mark’s sound installation I Really Should … (2002) is mounted discreetly in the long entry corridor at Paint My Photos Gallery. Entering the space, visitors hear Mark’s quiet monologue: “I really should try to absorb all I can, I really should take a walk on the beach, I really should focus on my career, I really should have cropped…

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Contemporary

Art by Wicks, PARIS, FRANCE

Leah Garrett / July 13, 2015
One of the few Parisian contemporary galleries open in early August is called Art by Wicks, found in the old Marais quarter. By chance, I stumble upon this exhibition while trying to find the Marian Goodman Gallery in a maze of tiny streets. Being lost has paid off. I find L’Autre Amerique: Art contemporain du Bresil, a show put together…

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