makeplay.org

Amy Granat, Peter Coffin, Nathan Hylden

There’s a good photo show going on right now at Chez Valentin and where I was pleased to discover a collection of photograms by Amy Granat. These abstract images created by exposing photo paper to light in various ways are at once ghostly and attractive – the paper is usually literally “ruined” in some way (ripped corners, etc,). The pieces play with intentionality; the physical works are not perfectly glossed up images but rather unsettling sketches, perhaps the photographic equivalent of displaying a painter’s palette as a work of art.

The Peter Coffin show at Emmanuel Perrotin is pretty lame; the neon abstract wall works are terribly unoriginal. The log with a disco ball inside is a funny juxtaposition of two elements that bear little relation to one another (is celebrity culture killing nature?), though the piece would have been better had it been hung from the ceiling (I realize it’s heavy, but it’s also Perrotin)… The one piece that really caught my eye was Untitled (Slow Motion Campfire), a video from 2009 documenting a campfire burning in black and white (not sure if it’s looped). Like a real campfire, it’s completely mesmerizing, and makes viewers reflect of the relationship between video and any “natural spectacle.”

Nath Hylden’s show Once I Get Started, at Art: Concept contains a series of great painted/silk screened abstract works on a variety of different supports (metal, canvas, etc.).  White overpaint obscures abstract planes of light and dark divided by purple haze borders. The haze and whily drops of paint remind me of universes in scientific images of space. This viewer thus alternates between a macro view of “planetary” content and a micro view that considers the materials and surfaces that Hylden embraces.

Jeff Cowen at Seine 51

Cowen presents a series of black and white photos. The grainy, slightly out of focus images depict women, abstract forms, a statues, and even a boat. The mood is somber; each photo reflects the wear and tear of time rather than the short instant in which light hits a negative. Each photo is slightly manually manipulated by the artist; his process is visible in stray marks and in the rings at the corners of each image (where each large sheet of paper was held down during the exposure process). The finished works do not aspire to classical precision.  In a piece such as Nathalia, 2009 (350 x 258 cm, tirage argentique), the corners may be ripped and the paper on which the images are printed is inexactly cut from a larger roll. Nevertheless this ripping gives the images a certain frailty that complements the content of the works. Certain photos in the show, including Nathalia, are printed twice, at slightly different exposures, and subsequently exhibited as diptychs. Cowen denies the authority of a singular “best” image that most “defines” his subject matter. For him, making images is as much a process of searching for the ineffable as it is a finished product.

Mimmo Jodice at Karsten Greve

I didn’t much care for the b&w images of dilapidated ruins, presented against starkly lit, ambiguously defined, backgrounds. The juxtaposition of the most static of art historical references with a partially blurred image that plays up the camera’s movement can be interesting, but it’s hard for any photos of ruins not to become cliché. On the other hand, the the last corner room full of photos of plants and vines was crackling with energy and had some fantastic pieces. Mimmo Jodice ‘Les Parcours de la Mémoire’ Nov 13 – Jan 3, 2009

James Casebere at Galerie Templon

What a great show! I’d never seen the artist’s large scale photos before and I was entranced by the subtle plays of light on surfaces of simple, unadorned, completely invented spaces. The scenes depicted are simple yet profoundly universal (the moment light illuminates a space in a particular way- think chiaroscuro where the subject is the space at hand). The fact that the places depicted aren’t technically “real” gives an underlying tension to the images and pushes the viewer to approach the works from multiple points of view (I began looking at the Flooded Cells series of “prison cell” images, thinking they were taken in sewers, with all of the connotations that that implies…). At Galerie Templon (30 r. Beaubourg, Paris 3e) untill December 31st.

Vernissages – October 11th

Liked:

Vincent Olinet, Sans titre (Outils) 2007-2008 (on the other hand, his other piece was much less interesting), at Galerie Laurent Godin

Hermine Bourgadier photos at Schirman & de Beaucé

Mathieu Mercier sculptures across from Galerie Chez Valentin (at least I assume they were M…)

Stéphane Couturier photo at Galerie les Filles du Calvaire

Didn’t Like:

The new 104 arts center opening. The crowd waited for hours to get into newly redone building, which was supposed to be open until 2 am. The gate was bolted at 8 p.m. and locked to visitors despite the fact that people kept exiting the building. Bad planning…