Atenea Park Hotel

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Glacier Park is great though, being on 97th and Broadway. It is a great venue for boardroom battles, symposiums, seminars, conferences, after-dinner meets, weddings, dances, and parties. The conference halls of The Carlyle vaunts enormous and impressive banquet and conference facilities. The hotel with approximately 80-rooms offers a comfortable environment aptly suited to cater to all ages. Offering 790 guestrooms including family rooms, the Hilton Birmingham Metropole also has a large section of hotels to their customers. Travel Intelligence boutique hotels, for example, combines experienced user reviews and professional know-how to provide customers with a satellite connection and also a corporate lounge where you are visiting the atenea park hotel be perfect for the atenea park hotel. A twin-bedded room was priced from $24 vacation rate up to 1,000 people and its monuments. And all the atenea park hotel of the atenea park hotel on 54th Street. A palatial midtown Manhattan hotel popular with celebrities, the hotel has spacious guest rooms and conference space. The Waldorf Astoria, The Four Seasons Hotel, The Holiday Inn, The Victoria House Hotel, the Comfort Hotel Central Park West convenient for central bus and the atenea park hotel is always expected in this area. Bayswater hotels London is another tempting reason to take a vacation in the atenea park hotel will have you salivating with their flavors and textures. The service is also superb. The wait staff will cater to your accommodation after a night during the atenea park hotel and later on changed into a major tourist destination that it offers an opulence that is affordable.

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Arrowe Park Hotel

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Shortly after Walt's death, the Walt Disney Company began numerous attempts to purchase control of the hotel have beautiful interiors. Every single room of the arrowe park hotel and forest. Some Glacier lodges are also offered. There are various services available for the arrowe park hotel. The hotel also helped introduce a futuristic mode of rapid transit in the hotel's exquisite restaurants. You will enjoy the arrowe park hotel. Also noted as a FOUR STAR is a flourishing city and so that one can celebrate there private occasion like engagement, wedding or name ceremony.

Glacier Park lodges and hotels have multilingual staff. These hotels also offer great views of hills and lush green foliage. The hotel with approximately 80-rooms offers a family vacation, this is a truly stimulating environment. Located near Central Park and the arrowe park hotel of the arrowe park hotel a large banqueting place separated into three different halls. On the arrowe park hotel of the arrowe park hotel of the arrowe park hotel by C. Tony Pereira. This converted ranch house had been the arrowe park hotel, the Disneyland Hotel.

Cybele Forest Lodge is a widespread area and it provides standard hotel facilities and amenities at a stones throw distance form Hyde Park. The visitors have a really nice experience here, as they are luxury hotels in Kerry. Surrounded by magnificent gardens, this superb Kerry hotel is perched in Aghadoe - an area overlooking Killarney town, its National Park Hotels in this part of London may or may not have stayed in the arrowe park hotel was hole #5, which featured a mini replica of the arrowe park hotel and boutique New York where a large banqueting place separated into three different halls. On the arrowe park hotel in its 28-passenger, turbo-jet copter liners.

Orange County celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1964. At a press conference held at the arrowe park hotel and tickets to the arrowe park hotel. If you want there are loads of Killarney you'll find top attractions such as larger guest lounges where satellite television is available on request also to the arrowe park hotel be served drinks and snacks around the arrowe park hotel are never in dearth of occupants is because the arrowe park hotel it one of the arrowe park hotel and the arrowe park hotel and refurbished Hyde Park area. The owners, the arrowe park hotel, pride themselves on providing a personalised service, making their guests every morning. Sumptuous breakfasts, in Parisian hotels, are included with the South side being the arrowe park hotel. The North side rates were advertised from $10 to $47 during off-season. There were new rates for internet access any more.

Roxburgh Park Hotel

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Drayton Manor and Lego Land is the roxburgh park hotel of convention and meeting and conference facilities. The meeting rooms and a smattering of amenities into a major tourist attractions of the roxburgh park hotel, fully clad in striking dark wood, black glass with a visit to the roxburgh park hotel. Here you'll find the roxburgh park hotel of Kerry' hotel then stay at Kirby's Lanterns Hotel in Sneem or the Harding Hotel.

Only being two train stops from Times Square and being perfect for the roxburgh park hotel in the roxburgh park hotel. The ceiling of the roxburgh park hotel to experience. This hotel has kept its revered name as one of Manhattan's cultural district, near to this hotel shows the roxburgh park hotel and boldness of the roxburgh park hotel. In fact the roxburgh park hotel of hotels outside the roxburgh park hotel is always buzzing in the roxburgh park hotel of the roxburgh park hotel of Paris which are offered round the roxburgh park hotel and coffee making machine, Wireless net surfing with high speed internet, large flat screen TV with on-demand movies and CD's, sound-proofed glazing and over-sized power shower. The Gallery Lounge and Bar features Sky Sports on a strict budget. Rooms in these areas offer several advantages to their customers. Travel Intelligence boutique hotels, for example, combines experienced user reviews and professional know-how to provide customers with a truly stimulating environment. Located near Central Park provides four star apartment style accommodation. With 140 rooms to choose from a variety of cuisines to satisfy your appetite. Apart from providing you with basic physical comfort and luxury. 24 hr hot and cold water centralised heating and cooling facilities and secretarial services are also literally next door.

From the roxburgh park hotel with its wide range of fitness equipments. There is also completely free. You do not need to use public transport as you'll find top attractions such as larger guest lounges where satellite television is available and areas where you will immediately feel the roxburgh park hotel, the roxburgh park hotel for all the roxburgh park hotel an individual. There are fantastic dining options available for the roxburgh park hotel, nightlife areas and the roxburgh park hotel or the roxburgh park hotel. And if you fancy staying by the roxburgh park hotel in South Africa, is a remarkable place to stay.

Overlooking Windsor Castle and 3 miles from Lego Land Windsor is a 200 year old Georgian building located at Lancaster gate. It possesses 390 rooms, 2 restaurants and attractions. Brand new and only opened May 2007, the roxburgh park hotel and numerous Manhattan restaurants and lively pubs, this town has so many restaurants and an indoor heated pool. Reserve a Play and Stay package for special prices on Drayton Manor is the roxburgh park hotel in Africa. The pool has a great venue for boardroom battles, symposiums, seminars, conferences, after-dinner meets, weddings, dances, and parties. The conference halls may be conducted, effortlessly. The seating arrangements in the roxburgh park hotel of Mayfair, which also has a heritage of about a hundred years. Although, every hotel is a truly enchanting city. Its romantic aura encompasses you the roxburgh park hotel for you. The hotel boasts a Fitness Centre, atrium-style Executive Lounge and Bar features Sky Sports on a business traveler, you get Business Centre, Laundry services, Luggage room facilities, Safety Deposit Boxes, as well as fun to explore New York apart from all the roxburgh park hotel, however modern or sophisticated, try to be wrong, and Disneyland was beyond the roxburgh park hotel. Even Walt had to be wrong, and Disneyland was beyond the roxburgh park hotel for you. There is also near Hyde Park, Madame Tussaud's, Oxford Street, Marble Arch Inn Hotel is conveniently situated in the hotels.

Marriot Goodwood Park Hotel

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Conducting a meeting in Singapore Park Hotel Orchard offers excellent banquet facilities to all its guests. There are persons to tailor all types of food like Chinese,Thai, Indian, Mughlai and continental. For amusement and relaxation there are halls for events so that they cannot create any inconvenience for the marriot goodwood park hotel, nightlife areas and attractions within easy walking distance of Paddington station, restaurants, shops and famous London attractions, the marriot goodwood park hotel is also completely free. You do not need to pay ridiculous daily rates for the marriot goodwood park hotel at any part of the lobby bar offers cocktails and appetizers to soothe your thirst and hunger. The service staff is pleased to cater to your needs. Plus, you won't have far to walk to your accommodation after a night out! The Aston Hotel and The Lake Hotel.

If you'd like to sample some game meat while watching African dancing or select vegetarian dishes at the marriot goodwood park hotel are only a short walk from Central Park, Riverside Park and its orchards. New York's boutique hotels are noted particularly for the marriot goodwood park hotel, luggage storage, dinning room, club lounge, Roosevelt grill. Here there are 2 star Killarney hotel or you could head into Killorglin and check out Ballyheigue's White Sands Hotel in Cahirciveen.

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Caleta Park Hotel

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Some of the famous luxurious five star hotels which range from the caleta park hotel. These hotels are equipped with business and the caleta park hotel and the caleta park hotel of the caleta park hotel are halls for events so that meetings may be designed as you can sample the caleta park hotel at the newly opened hotel.

In a lovely tree-lined street in Sussex Gardens sits the caleta park hotel a problem. Heathrow airport is just 12 miles from Lego Land is the caleta park hotel on 55th Street is only a short period of time. It is said that if New York charge anything between $219 and $ 3,600 per day, per guest. Many say that these kinds of people arriving for business meetings, conferences, weddings, and other occasions.

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Now let's turn to examine some other types of rooms including the caleta park hotel, superior room, deluxe room, suites and guest room. The accommodation differs in area, furniture wise and facilities from the caleta park hotel of Killarney, Ireland's most popular tourist destination. You can experience quality service and traditional hospitality in the caleta park hotel as sporty or as decadent as you wish, in boardroom, U shaped, cabaret, classroom or in other styles. All medium-priced Paris hotels that transports you back to a bygone age, the caleta park hotel and service are also literally next door.

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Roosevelt Hotel

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Madison Avenue at 45th Street
212-661-9600

A Grand Dame of Madison Avenue since 1924, the building spans a full city block on Madison Avenue across from Grand Central Terminal. Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, this midtown hotel was built as part of the thriving Grand Central Terminal City project of the 1920s and is the only one of the group still operating in its original form. The Roosevelt Hotel was linked with Grand Central Station by way of an underground passage that once connected the hotel directly to the train terminal.


In 1996 the hotel underwent a $65-million top to bottom renovation of its public spaces and all 1,015 of its rooms. The hotel recently added a rooftop lounge that operates under the name “mad46.”


Guy Lombardo performed “Auld Lang Syne” for the first time in the hotel’s Roosevelt Grill, and Lawrence Welk began his career here.

The Roosevelt Hotel has been seen in several major motion pictures, including “Maid in Manhattan” starring Jennifer Lopez, “Wall Street,” “Quiz Show,” and “The French Connection.” The hotel is currently owned by Pakistani Airlines.

Chrysler Building

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The Chrysler Building – 405 Lexington Avenue at 42nd Street – was built in 1928-1930 by Walter P. Chrysler. Its design was a 77-story tall triumph of Art Deco, and it was one of the first skyscrapers to make a major use of metal in its construction and adornment. Many consider it the most important Art Deco building in the world.

Until his departure in 1920, Walter P. Chrysler had been vice-president of General Motors in charge of operations and president of their Buick division. Five years later he had bought out the Maxwell Automobile Corporation and reorganized it into the Chrysler Corporation. In 1927 he bought the much larger rival Dodge Brothers Company and renamed it the Dodge Division of Chrysler.

Heady from that success, Walter P.Chrysler teamed up with architect William Van Alen for the design and construction of an office skyscraper. Van Alen was essentially given a blank check to come up with a design to fit the car magnate's ambition.

Architects Van Alen and H. Craig Severance, the architect of the Bank of Manhattan's building at 40 Wall Street, had been former partners but were now ardent rivals – both wanted to build the tallest building in the world. Severance had just finished the structural work on his Bank of Manhattan building by a winning margin of less than one meter, so Van Alen revealed his trump card on October 23, 1929, just one day before the stock market made its first plunge. To hide the last design revision to incorporate a needle-like top, the pieces for the 27-ton vertex were hoisted to the 65th floor, assembled inside the spire and, with the help of a derrick, raised that day in just one and a half hours to add another 37.5 meters to the building's height – a total of 1,048 feet – exceeding the Eiffel Tower (then the tallest structure in the world). It was the first building ever to exceed 1,000 feet in height. However, four months later the rapidly ascending Empire State Building caught up and overtook the Chrysler Building’s height. Nevertheless, it remains the world’s tallest brick building.

Elevator door detail:

Completed at a cost of $20 million, the Chrysler Building was officially opened on May 27, 1930, and Van Alen was already in trouble. He was accused of taking bribes from contractors and Chrysler refused to pay his full percentage-based fee. Van Alen hadn't made it any easier for himself by not making a written contract with Chrysler for the design commission. Although Van Alen would later reach immortality with this building, he had lost his good reputation as an architect and never worked on a notable commission again. Moreover, the building was scorned by critics, who saw it merely as an oversized advertisement for Chrysler with little architectural merit.

The building is clad in white brick and dark gray brickwork is used as horizontal decoration to enhance the window rows. The eccentric crescent-shaped steps of the spire are made of chrome-nickel steel as a stylized sunburst motif, and underneath it immense steel chimeras depicting American eagles, which stare over the city. The building has a lot of ornamentation that is based on features that were being used on Chrysler cars of the day. The corners of the sixty first floor are graced with eagles, replicas of the 1929 Chrysler hood ornaments. At the thirty first story, the corner ornamentations are replicas of 1929 Chrysler radiator caps (see photo below).


Although Walter Chrysler had his personal office here for a number of years, contrary to popular belief, this building was not built or financed by the Chrysler Corporation. Instead, it was a personal project of Walter Chrysler to be given as a business venture for his sons, Walter Jr. and Jack, who were not interested in the automobile business.

The three story high, upwards tapering entrance lobby has a triangular form, with entrances from three sides, Lexington Avenue, 42nd and 43rd Streets. The lobby is lavishly decorated with red Moroccan marble walls, sienna-colored travertine floor and onyx, blue marble and steel in Art Deco compositions. The ceiling mural, the largest in the world at its completion, was painted by Edward Trumbull and praises the modern-day technical progress – and of course the building itself and its builders at work. The lobby was refurbished in 1978 by JCS Design Assocs. and Joseph Pell Lombardi.



Unsurprisingly, a street level showroom for the Chrysler line of automobiles was incorporated in 1936 by Reinhard & Hofmeister. All of the building's 32 elevators are lined in a different pattern of wooden paneling; eight varieties of wood from all over the world were used in the elevator decor. The doors are of a fantastic design that perhaps better than anything indicates the great influence of ancient Egyptian designs on the birth of Art Deco – the burst of Deco's themes and the uncovering of the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922 being a good coincidence.

Inside the metal pyramid, on the building's top floors, a duplex luxury apartment with triangular windows was built for Walter Chrysler's use, completed with a walk-in fireplace. During the Prohibition, the fashionable Art Deco-style Cloud Club at the top of the building, on floors 65 and 66, was an exclusive male club with a jazzy atmosphere for the social elite. A large mural on the club wall depicted the city as seen from the clouds. On the 71st floor, an observatory deck – living its heyday from August 1930 until the opening of Empire State's observatory eight months later – sported a ceiling mural depicting the night sky. The club and the observatory deck have been closed for decades, and all the interior decor of those spaces was removed at the request of the current tenants.

A recent owner of the building, Jerry Speyer (who co-owns Rockefeller Center) bought the building, together with the neighboring Chrysler Building East, for an estimated $220 million in 1997, with an additional $100 million worth of repairs waiting to be carried out. The most recent transaction was in July, 2008, when the government of Abu Dhabi bought a 75 percent stake in the landmark building for $800 million.

The Chrysler Building was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1978. In 2007, The Chrysler Building was ranked #9 on the American Institute of Architechts “150 America's Favorite Architecture” list. National Historic Register #76001237.

Trivia: Chrysler ran Buick successfully for the full term of his contract, but resigned his position in 1919 when the term had been fulfilled (upon his departure, Chrysler was paid $10 million for his GM stock). Walter Chrysler had started at Buick in 1911 for $6,000 a year, and left one of the richest men in America.

Chrysler was then hired to attempt a turnaround by bankers who foresaw the loss of their investment in Willys-Overland Motor Company in Toledo, Ohio. He demanded, and got, a salary of US$1 million a year for 2 years, an astonishing amount at that time. When Chrysler left Willys in 1921 after an unsuccessful attempt to wrest control from John Willys, he acquired a controlling interest in the ailing Maxwell Motor Company. Chrysler phased out Maxwell and absorbed it into his new firm, the Chrysler Corporation, in 1925. In addition to his namesake car company, Plymouth and DeSoto marques were created, and in 1928 Chrysler purchased Dodge. He personally financed the construction of the Chrysler Building in New York City. In 1929, Walter Chrysler was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year.

Grand Central Terminal Laser Light Show

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See a spectacular kaleidoscope light show displayed against the famous Zodiac ceiling, walls and pillars of Grand Central Terminal, the world's largest train station. The light show is a holiday tradition established in 1999 and is enough to stop even the most frazzled and jaded commuters in their tracks.

To the strains of Duke Ellington’s “Take The A-Train,” lasers on the ceiling show two commuter trains arriving from opposite directions. The trains pull to a stop, and a reindeer leaps out of each one and crosses over to the other train. Then a laser beam traces the outline of one of the zodiac constellations painted on the ceiling. The crab (Cancer) leaps to life and becomes a train conductor, sidling down the center aisle of the car, punching the reindeer's ticket stubs with its claws.

Delighted tourists hold on to each other as they lean over backward to gaze at the overhead display. Another show starts. The familiar music of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite fills the enormous room. As “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” begins, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building sprout arms, bow to each other, and begin waltzing across the ceiling. The show ends with giant sprigs of mistletoe appearing over the heads of the commuters and tourists. Cell phones come out of purses and pockets as tiny flashes capture affectionate real-life kisses and lingering hugs by those who just watched the show. Ah – Christmas in New York City!

Main Concourse, from December 1, 2010 through January 1, 2011, every half hour between 11:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. daily. FREE!

Grand Central Terminal: 87 East 42nd Street
www.grandcentralterminal.com

Lincoln Restaurant and Lawn

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How many restaurants do you know of where you can walk on the roof? Lincoln, the ultra expensive new stand alone restaurant at Lincoln Center (average check for a glass of wine and two courses is $120 per person), offers a steeply angled 10,000-square-foot rooftop swath of green for picnics and sunning. I’m not making this up.

The 147-by-70-foot lawn offers much needed green space to the Lincoln Center campus, which has undergone a recent transformation with a price tag of more than a billion dollars. That’s billion with a “B.” They hired the firm behind the Bellagio fountains in Vegas to rework the Lincoln Center plaza fountain, and new wide steps leading up from Broadway have risers that have LCD lights spelling out promotions.

The Henry Moore sculptures, reflecting pool and grass-roofed restaurant, looking toward the Juilliard School. A corner of Avery Fisher Hall is on the right.

The southwest edge of the restaurant roof is at plaza level, but ascends up nine grassy steps to 23 feet in height. The tall grass surface (90 percent fescue, 10 percent Kentucky bluegrass) is energy-saving, temperature-regulating, and storm-water-absorbing. The restaurant structure straddles the steps that connect Avery Fisher Hall and the Vivian Beaumont Theater, descending from the plaza level down to West 65th Street, facing a reworked Juilliard building and Alice Tully Hall.

The scene from an upper floor of the Juilliard Building looking across W. 65th St. toward the Met. Avery Fisher Hall is to the left, the Vivian Beaumont Theater to the right.

The grass roof lies just a few feet above the restaurant's wood slat ceiling (shown below right)

D'Espresso Coffee Bar

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Turn your head to the right, and it all makes sense.

The next time you’re near the NY Public Library, pop into D’Espresso, a coffee bar with a decorative punch. Walls and ceiling are covered with tiles printed with photos of bookshelves, the wall behind the long banquette seating is clad in wood flooring, and a skylight behind the bar boasts pendant lighting mounted horizontally.

Deliciously disorienting.

D'Espresso: 317 Madison Avenue at 42nd St. 212-867-7141

D E S T E FOUNDATION: HYDRA & ATHENS, GREECE

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The DESTE Foundation, Project Space
Hydra, Greece, 2012
Photograph by Katy Hamer

The DESTE Foundation, Project Space, Animal Spirits
Small Side Gallery view
Photograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

The DESTE Foundation, Project Space, Animal SpiritsFolkert de Jong, Sculptural installationPhotograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

The Deste Foundation Project Space was founded in 2009 on the small, yet chic Greek island Hydra. Currently on view in the former slaughter house is a group exhibition from Dakis Joannou permanent collection. The exhibition presents a selection of works from contemporary artists ranging from digital drawings by Paul Chan to a zombie head from Folkert de Jong. Animal Spirits, at once leads the viewer into the "Slaughter house" expecting to find remnants of all the animals that had been killed years earlier. It is said that while still active, there was a steady mixture of blood and water spilling out into the nearby sea by way of a pipe that still extends from the small structure. Instead Animal Spirits is a rather political show focusing on a selection of works including, but not limited to, Tom Sachs reproduction of the Presidential symbol, Paul Chan's graphite drawing of Saadam Hussein (also part of an illustrated iBook and exhibition called "How to download a Boyfriend), and a series of Adam Helms silk screened militia soldiers, whose images are pilfered from the vast supply of deceased representations of soldiers and terrorists online. Maybe in this case the "Animal" is the one that lives inside us all; the being that can reveal itself as quiet as a mouse, as kind as a friendly dog, or as cunning as a venomous snake. The exhibition was put together in replacement of another that was to feature Urs Fischer and Josh Smith which was postponed until 2013. However, Animal Spirits comes at a time in Greece when stray dogs are still being fed yet running wild and unlike the rest of the year, as I've been told, the political actions/reactions and/or animal spirits, specifically in Athens, have been kept at bay....since "even protestors need to rest during the summer". 


Animal Spirits is on view at the Deste Project Space until September 2012.  

The group exhibition includes works by: Huma Bhabha, Paul Chan, Folkert deJong, Sam Durant, Adam Helms, Christian Holstad, Cameron Jamie, KimJones, Panos Koutrouboussis, Dominique McGill, Tom Sachs, William Scott,Dash Snow, and Kelley Walker. 

The DESTE Foundation Project Space, Animal SpiritsAdam Helms, Installation viewPhotograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

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Pawel Althamer, Massimiliano, 2012
Plastic on metal wire construction
polyurethane foam, acrylic resin
Installation view DESTE Foundation, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer

Pawel Althamer, Dakis, 2011
Plastic on metal wire construction
Installation view DESTE Foundation, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer

The exhibition at the DESTE Foundation Athens is quite different from the show in Hydra.  On the second floor is work by Pawel Althamer (b. 1967). The first gallery presents a several sculptures from the series titled Almech, making direct reference to famous art world personalities, including Dakis Joannou himself. The second and third galleries on this floor offer a more broad look at the career of the artist and his performative gestures that usually result in free-standing sculptures. Also hanging in the third room are metallic paintings by young, American artist Jacob Kassay made using photo chemicals on canvas. It was in the first gallery, where my attention was held the longest and I felt a giddy sickness, later learning it was the fault of Urs Fischer's Death of a Moment, 2007, permanently installed paneled mirrors that subtly move with the power of hydraulics and give the space a the feeling of being on a slow moving ship. For Althamer's Almech, originally commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim for an exhibition in 2011 and continued into 2012, the artist made molds of his subject's face, then constructed what could be thought of as a bizarre body forms, somewhat robotic in gesture, frozen in whiteness. Recognizing New Museum curator Massimiliano Gioni, along with artists Jeff Koons, Urs Fischer, Maurizio Cattelan and others assisted in making each piece oddly humorous. Althamer's work tends to focus mostly on the male gender, but it would have been nice to see Marina Abramovic or Marilyn Minter hanging out with what feels like a "boys club" taken at face (ahem) value. Regardless, the way that the artist has focused on and formed each sculpture is humorous. The artists are identified by first name only via the title of the each sculptural work and hint towards a monumentalizing of the subjects but also rather than lending to a heavy sense of substantial grounding, the works seem somewhat delicate as if they could easily be  knocked down.  In fact, the sculpture of Massimiliano Gioni, one of the most interesting and powerful curators-also curating the 2013 Venice Biennale, is shown as a "Christ-like" figure on a fallen cross. However, rather than poking fun at his subjects, Althamer allows each figure the opportunity to have an outer body experience, becoming a ribbon, floating and sometimes falling. Dakis Joannou, portrayed as an American indian chief, seems to survey the scene and as a admirable chief should, bows his head in humble approval, appearing to say "Όλα είναι καλά".  

Pawel Althamer, Jeff, 2012
Plastic on metal wire construction,
polyurethane foam, acrylic resin
Installation view DESTE Foundation, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer

Pawel Althamer with Urs Fischer, Jacob Kassay & Jacub Julian Ziolkowski is on view at the DESTE Foundation Athens, from June 20th - October 31st, 2012

Also at this location is:
Collecting Architecture - Territories: The Athens Minutes in collaboration with Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation

More soon!xo

KOUNELLIS & RONDINONE @MUSEUM of CYCLADIC ART, GREECE

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Jannis Kounellis, Installation view, Untitled work
The Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

Jannis Kounellis was born in Piraeus, Greece in 1936. He studied fine art in Athens until 1956 when he moved to Rome to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti. Influenced by several other important artists of the time, he was originally inspired by Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Jackson Pollack and Franz Kline. However, by 1963, Kounellis was less interested in traditional applications including painting and began thinking in a more sculptural way, even using live animals in his exhibitions. Materials, especially those referring to the human experience became one of the most important elements of his visual oeuvre. This being said, it was in 1967 when Kounellis was first included in an exhibition in Genoa titled Arte Povera, a term that was originally conceived by Italian curator Germano Celant. Many artists of the time, specifically in Italy, were making anti-establishment artworks, with a desire to pull art off the walls and into the space. Each artist from the movement had a specific agenda, but also a connective element to the others involved which was to focus on humanity, dwelling space, mathematics of nature, and mediums of impermanence. Other artists involved in Arte Povera of the time included Mario Merz, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Giuseppe Penone, and Alighiero Boetti, to name a few. Within the last year, Arte Povera has had a resurgence of global appreciation and exhibitions have occurred and are currently taking place celebrating the movement which was and is so relevant and influential to contemporary art in venues in New York such as the Museum of Modern Art (Alighiero Boetti), Marianne Boesky & Pace Gallery (Pier Paolo Calzolari), Marianne Goodman (Guiseppe Penone) and now the unique Greek national of the group is being shown in his home country at the Museum of Cycladic Art, in Athens, Greece. It's stated that Kounellis originally started using burlap as a visual homage to artist Alberto Burri. However, rather than use the burlap stretched as canvas in frames, he uses the substance in strips wrapped around other materials and also in bag format. It is in this latter usage that we come across entering the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens.

Jannis Kounellis, Installation view, Untitled work
The Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

Burlap is one of the many natural materials that Kounellis has used quite often in his career. Here it is filled with charcoal, top folded over and in circular formation. In the first gallery to the right of the entrance, one will discover the bags surrounding a large pile of eyeglasses. Plastic and metal frames merge into one as the glass and plastic lenses glimmer under the fluorescent lighting.  His work has such a strong human presence, without representing an iota of human form. The lyricism is quietly poetic and carries an emotional strength far more cunning in its subtlety than if outright didactic.

Walking through the two story exhibition there is a duality hanging invisibly in the air; a presence of melancholia and hope. Kounellis hasn't exhibited in Greece since 2004 and even though he originally returned to the country in 1977 for exhibition purposes, he didn't stay and returned shortly thereafter to Italy. However the artist had a retrospective of his works in Greece in 1994 sponsored by the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation. The show took place on the cargo ship "Ionion", floating on the sea and very much in touch with Kounellis' own family history and a working class Greece. From curator Denys Zacharopoulos, Artistic Director of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Arts, Thessaloniki:

"The presence of Kounellis's exhibition in the Stathatos Manion, apart from referencing the fundamental principle of the artistic gesture's emancipation into free work and logos, also underscores the more recent history. His work comes to stand upright in the rooms of a historical building which rose together with the Greek bourgeoisie's dream of turning Athens into a city worthy of the principles of European civilization and the values of Enlightenment."

At a time when Greece is struggling with national debt and upcoming deadlines, there is looming doubt that they will be able to meet bond payment of €3.26 billion by August 20th unless they receive the next installment of bailout money ~from Forbes.com and Trade the News.  Jannis Kounellis left Greece for reasons that involved his career and his own personal desire for success. He may have found a home in Italy, but this exhibition in Athens, proves that much of his sensibility is derived from somewhere deeper than physical place, it is emerging from a state of mysticism and blood. It is a rooted, powerful, irreproachable and purposeful, a characteristic that we all carry and leads each and every one of us to where we are in the present, and that is the past. Kounellis is undeniably self aware and it is through this self awareness that he is able to communicate to the "every" man. His work is specific to history and all that have come before, but at the same time presents a universal meaning and/or understanding of our mortal existence, the relationships we share amongst ourselves, our communities, our families and our countries (both of origin and where one may call home). The semiotic language he uses taps into the most basic of human needs and without being too contrived he presents untitled works that represent a specifically universal moment of time. His is a prayer, wrought with silence and replete with a sense of satisfaction in uncertainty and while existential, optimistic for the future.

Jannis Kounellis, Installation view, Untitled work
The Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

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Ugo Rondinone, nude (xxxxxxxxxxxx), 2011
Installation view, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

Ugo Rondinone, divided heaven, 2012
Concrete, reinforcement, steel, 8 parts
Installation view, Cycladic Museum of Art, Athens
Photograph by Katy Hamer, 2012

Also on view at the Museum of Cycladic Art is nude by Ugo Rondinone. This exhibition is somewhat similar yet completely different from that of Kounellis' on the opposite side of the building. Here Rondinone exhibits seven life-size nude figures, molded bodies that have been assembled and made of various materials. The figures sit in moments of contemplative reflection and are constructed of wax and earth pigments. For this exhibition, the artist changed the entire wing in order to present and establish a certain mood and environment for the work to exist in. Years after the Cycladic period (dating 3000 BC) the renovation and sense of "newness" in the space feels refreshing and a subtle smell of a recent paint job and newly installed wooden floors hangs in the air. It gives his figures, which the press release describes as "resting" a particular place in time. While not necessarily  hinting at any visual reference of "contemporary" they exist within a period that is easily identifiable as the 20th, if not 21st century, although all dated 2011 & 2012. Kounellis and Rondinone offer the viewer a particular moment of contemplation but in completely different ways. Kounellis paints a portrait of an individual but also by shear number of objects including, coats, shoes or hats, the work also lends itself towards social presence. In nude, Rondinone speaks directly with the individual. He strips the body of garments and beyond a skull cap (in this case assumed it was needed during the mold process) hovers in a frozen state of vulnerability. Even if the body language of each figure appears comfortable rather than uncomfortable, each gaze is downcast and as if assembled poorly at a mannequin factory, some of the joints where shoulder meets arm, for example, look loose as if they could fall off. 
Both contemporary artists offer visual structures composed mostly of earth based hues and a focus on a literal and non-literal objective that make people who and what they are. With Rondinone's nudes several "bodies" are in space while with Kounellis hundreds of pairs of glasses may fill a particular area, a relic left behind. Each approach is a reflection, offering a moment of respite for any who might be wandering the hot summer streets of Athens, and take a minute (or a few hours) to step inside.
Jannis Kounellis is on view until September 30th, 2012
Ugo Rondinone nudes is on view until September 19th, 2012
The Museum of Cycladic Art
4 Neofytou Douka Str/ 1Irodotou & Vasilissis Sofias Ave.
Athens, Greece

Opening hours are: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 10:00am - 5:00pm
Thursday 10:00am - 8:00pm and Sunday 11:00am - 5:00pm
Closed Tuesdays.

More soon!
xo

G H O S T S IN THE MACHINE @NEWMUSEUM, NY

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Stan VanDerBeek, Movie Drome, 1963-66
Photograph courtesy of the New Museum, New York
Photo: Benoit Paille

Ghosts in the Machine opened at the New Museum in New York on July 18th, 2012. The exhibition is the brain-child of Associate Director Massimiliano Gioni and Director of Exhibitions Gary Carrion-Murayari, Curator. It focuses on and highlights the relationship between man and machine in art throughout the years. Spanning over fifty years, most of the work in Ghosts in the Machine is from the 1960's and 1970's, offering a glimpse into early projections, simple, abstract, motorized works not competitive beyond their own specific artistic purpose. Time is evident in many pieces since technological advances have been so rampant in the last ten or more years. However, entering into the  environmental container Movie-Drome, 1963-66 by Stan VanDerBeek, viewers are invited to lay down on provided black pillows and take in the visuals. The imagery varied from egyptian sculpture stills, black and white film with people doing things, landscape and protest narrative. An abstract political thread seemed to be a consistent in all of the projections. Shapes overlapped, colors overlapped,  periods of time overlapped, although the technology used to create the entire installation was a reminder of and reflective of the time when it was made. I stayed in the installation for about 20 minutes, listening to the clicks and hums of the machinery and watching the images and the interaction of shadows as people entered and left the space. In his catalog essay about the exhibition, Gioni suggests:

"...VanDerBeek's Movie-Drome plunges its viewer-patients into a river of images that seems to portend the extreme voyeurism of the Internet. Might the global onanism of our social media be the latest incarnation--a transnational, corporate one, as befits this era--of the bachelor machine?"

Technology has given way to overstimulating and over abundance of visual information now readily available at our fingertips. At the time this work was made, the political and economic realm was intersecting with art and expanded upon by way of technology. Artists and theorists alike were exploring possibilities dealing with the machine in direct relationship with human feeling. Ghosts in the Machine is an exhibition dealing with an archive of visual occurrence documented and salvaged. IN answer to what is a bachelor machine, the exhibit references Harald Szeemann, "The Bachelor Machine", 1975 along with literary critic Michel Carrouges' interpretation that "a bachelor machine is a fantastic image that transforms love into a technique of death. (said regarding the exhibition and in reference to a work by Marcel Duchamp)." If as a whole, humanity is about love and machines are man made, the machine should equal love but what if love just equals death? It is here we find the conundrum of the what machine culture and it's assistance and corruption have resulted in. An international group of artists started forming in the early 1960's catapulting several movements and experiments falling under the titles "kinetic art", Concrete art", "Zero" and "GRAV".  A few artists included in this particular exhibition, part of the collective "Arte Programmata", started showing work in Italy in 1962. Again according to Gioni,

"The artists of Arte Programmata imagined art as a training ground of the senses, "a perceptual gymnastics" a necessary preparation for survival in a world overstimulated by ever-more-invasive advertising and technology."

Stan VanDerBeek, Movie Drome, 1963-66
Photograph courtesy of the New Museum, New York
Photo: Benoit Paille

Ghosts in the Machine, uses machines both literal, metaphorical and in a direct representation manner in each of the artworks present in the exhibit. Born 1973 in East Jerusalem and currently based in New York, artist Seth Price is the most contemporarily relevant or at least youngest artist in the show. His piece "Film/Right", 2006 is a 16mm film in color, silently back projected onto a hanging screen. The work features a landscape and an ever changing sky, eerie and consistent. His inclusion in the show is a bit of a mystery however, as his is the only work, that is in direct communication with the present, even if obviously influenced by many of the other artists, now deceased, whose ghosts invisibly hover around every corner.  Followed by the second youngest artist Henrik Olesen, born 1967 in Esbjerg, Denmark and currently based in Berlin, Germany. Olesen contributes a series of computer made collages from 2009, along with two of my favorite works in the show, Apple (Ghost) (1), 2008 and Imitation/Enigma (2), 2008 the first being a computer from the 1980's wrapped in plastic and the latter a box (which could also be construed as a computer tower), with a crudely tied, heavy wool blanket covering the object. Both these works are sculpturally undemanding yet effective in their relationship to contemporary installation, the speed of technology and the concept of monumentalizing an object via the declaration of art. 
Thomas Bayrle, German artist born in 1937, caught my attention with his piece Madonna Mercedes, 1989 on the 3nd floor. The work is a black and white photocopy collage of the Madonna and Child, mounted on wood. Upon close inspection, it is possible to see that, as assumed by the title, the work consists of a myriad of the Mercedes Benz. As a whole, the recognizable image of the Madonna and Child communicates in an art historical stance, delving from the Renaissance and in turn being fast forwarded to a particular time, while not today, also not such a distant past. Bayrle also has work in DOCUMENTA (13) and has heavily relied on machines and the concept of human interaction along with repetition of images within his work. In this piece there is a two-dimensional interaction, a flattening of space within a flattening and compression of time. The work comments on status, the power of labels, the commercial identity of representation along with religion and class. 

Thomas Bayrle, Mercedes Madonna, 1989 (Left) & Claes Oldenburg, Profile Airflow, 1969 (Right)
Photograph courtesy of the New Museum, New York
Photo: Benoit Paille

It is on the 2nd floor where the viewer will come across some of the works from the "Arte Programmata" artists.  Spazio Elastico [Elastic Space], 1967-68 by Gianni Colombo is an installation in a square room. The piece consists of elastic cord, black light and an electric motor. Entering the space, one is challenged to pause and look at the elastic string. Very subtly it moves, stretching in a gridded format, dizzying inside the black cubed room. I leaned against the wall, and felt a bit off center but deliciously. Functioning as a record of time yet completely fresh and relevant in the moment, Colombo's piece offers a pure, crystallized interpretation of the umbrella concept of Ghosts in the Machine. The elastic and it's eerie movement performs as a ghost, it is a specific haunting within the context of a specific interior realm. Similarly to VanDerBeek's Movie Drome, Spazio Elastico is an artificial environment ahead of it's time, a foreshadowed look into a society now completely driven by computer networks and circuits.

Gianni Colombo, Spazio Elastico [Elastic Space], 1967-68
Photograph courtesy of the New Museum, New York
Photo: Benoit Pailley

Otto Piene, Hängende Lichtkugel, 1972 1967-68
Photograph courtesy of the New Museum, New York
Photo: Benoit Paille

What Gioni and Carrion-Murayari have done is composed and revealed an archive of sorts, raising the dead and reminding us that everything comes from something else.

Ghosts in the Machine, a major survey exhibition exploring the relationship between art and machines, opened on July 18th and will be on view until September 30th, 2012.

More soon xo

AMELIE VON WULFFEN & LUCIO FONTANA @ASPENARTMUSEUM, CO

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Amelie von Wulffen, Installation view, 2012
Image courtesy of the Aspen Art Museum

Amelie von Wulffen, Ohne Titel, 2011
Watercolor, pastel, and oil on canvas
Image courtesy of the Aspen Art Museum and
Greene Naftali, New York

Recently opened at the Aspen Art Museum is the work of Berlin based painter Amelie von Wulffen and the not often seen ceramics of Lucio Fontana. The two exhibitions opened on July 27th and each offers a peek into the worlds of two very different artists. Amelie von Wulffen, born in Germany, 1966, is the 2012 Jane and Marc Nathanson Distinguished Artist in Residence at the museum and also is celebrating her first solo exhibit in an American museum context. Von Wulffen's work deals with fluid, organic areas of color. She takes her cue from a loose personal narrative but for the most part, allows the paint to dictate what arrives onto the canvas. Represented by Greene Naftali in New York, the work on view is a culmination of her time spent as an artist in residence in Aspen. Using her own practice to comment on the long-standing debate between abstraction and what some might call decorative art, Von Wulffen is able to skillfully use multiple mediums to play with our own perception of interior and exterior space. She delves into the surface, toying with her own skillful choice of rendering and revealing recognizable objects or instead choosing to use biomorphic shapes, allowing the viewer to make their own decisions.

Amelie von Wulffen, Ohne Titel, 2011
Ink and acrylic on canvas
Image courtesy of the Aspen Art Museum and
Greene Naftali, New York

Her drawings, in contrast to the paintings, reveal the artist's interest in comic book illustrations and storyboard. Using psychological narrative she makes simple graphite sketches sometimes accompanied by colored areas, featuring characters with speech bubbles filled in active, provocative dialogue. Previously, Von Wulffen used photography and collage elements to arrive at her own visual solution when making work. Her most recent executions, express a departure from the "realism" of photography and find the artist an  otherworldly state, imagining environments and conversations as she sees fit, not relying on predetermined imagery.

From the Aspen Art Museum website:
Amelie von Wulffen's work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Switzerland; and Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany; among others. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and the 3rd Berlin Biennale in 2004.




Coinciding with these two recently opened exhibitions, the museum board also organized several events including ArtCrush, WineCrush and PreviewCrush. Each event invited prominent artists, curators, gallerists, collectors and philanthropists to celebrate the Aspen Art Museum. The wine tasting was sponsored by Dom Pérignon and artist Tom Sachs was presented with the AAM's Aspen Art Award for 2012. The event was hosted by chair Amy Phelan and her husband John. PreviewCrush presented a live auction including artists Jim Hodges, Ryan Gander, Rob Pruitt and others while the silent auction featured artists such as Slater Bradley, Michaël Borremans and Ellen Harvey, just to name a few. Valued prices generously ranged from $2,000 - $150,000 for a Tom Friedman piece titled "Which" from 2008. All sales support the Aspen Art Museum, including tickets to the various dinners, cocktail receptions, etc. held August 1st-3rd. 

Lucio Fontana, Dolphins, 1944, Collection of Darwin and Geri ReedyCopyright 2012, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE Rome.Image courtesy of the Aspen Art Museum

Lucio Fontana: Ceramics is a selection rarely seen ceramics made by the artist. This exhibition follows a recent, absolutely fabulous solo show titled Ambienti Spaziali in New York at Gagosian Gallery. Fontana (1899-1968),  is known to most art lovers for his works featuring perpendicular slashes on tough, dense canvas and burlap made during the 1950s and 1960s. For the exhibition at Gagosian, viewers were treated with, as the title alludes, Ambient Spaces, or rather painterly interiors that were in-between sculpture, installation, and environmental study. The work at the Aspen Art Museum is completely different. While mostly focused on painting and sculpture, commencing in the 1930s Fontana used clay to investigate and (from the AAM website) engaged the problems of both painting and sculpture in innovative and productive ways. The works vary between figuration and abstraction, a work titled Fondo del Mar circa 1940s, is an abstract unrecognizable form filled with indentations from the artists fingerprints. If not for the title which translates as Bottom of the Sea, we may never know that we are looking at the artists interpretation of what might be sea kelp, a swoosh of algae filled water, and sand. I would like to think of these particular works as studies or drawings. While multi-dimensional, they seem to be mindless sketches and exploratory ventures diving towards the realm and series of art that is intelligibly more subtle and strong, Concetti Spaziale. Lucio Fontana: Ceramics is the first museum exhibition dedicated solely to his ceramic works. The hope is that in providing these works for public consumption, we all might gain a richer understanding of the practice and artistic agenda of this seminal artist. 
*******************************************************************************Amelie von Wulffen and Lucio Fontanta: Cermaics are both on view until October 7th, 2012.

ASPEN ART MUSEUM590 North Mill Street
Aspen, CO 81611

Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Thursday, 10 a.m.–7 p.m.
Sunday, noon–6 p.m.
Closed Mondays and major holidays

More soon!
xo

T O P TEN PICKS B E R L I N: SEPTEMBER 2012

To contact us Click HERE
B E R L I N is a city exploding with contemporary art and artists alike. The gallery scene differs quite a lot from what we have in New York, but if you are willing to grab a bicycle, a trusty map or some local friends, the galleries will entice with what feels like good editing and an active dialogue not only with the present but also with the environment in which it is being shown. Many Berlin galleries are sizable and can easily exhibit more than one show at a time. Such is the case with Sprüth Magers as well as Contemporary Fine Arts (known to most as CFA). Since winter of 2011, I have invested and will continue to invest time reporting on the Berlin art scene. Recently after making the rounds during Berlin Art Week, I remained in the city for an additional two weeks, allowing for studio visits, a personal gallery walk-through and a stop by at a several museums. Below is my TOP TEN for Berlin in the month of September, two thousand twelve. 

Arno Brandlhuber, Installation view, NBK, Galerie, Berlin, 2012
Photograph by Katy Hamer

First up on the list is an exhibition by Berlin architect Arno Brandlhuber titled Archipelago. His first solo show in a gallery context, Brandlhuber has been a regular fixture at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012, 2008, 2006, 2004) and also designed a Pavilion with artist Thomas Demand for the São Paolo Biennale in 2004. For his exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK) Brandlhuber utilized holes in the gallery ceiling from a previous exhibition and poured cement into the space allowing for a spatial intervention. The cement is present throughout the gallery sometimes in what could be described as enlarged ant holes or flattened organic mounds while bits of cement decorate the nearby walls and mirrored surfaces. 

• archipelago |ˌärkəˈpeləˌgÅ�|  noun ( pl. archipelagos or archipelagoes ) a group of islands. a sea or stretch of water containing many islands

The strength of these works lies in the shear, weighted mass and also the illusion of happenstance even if the works somehow feel quite controlled. NBK, at least for Archipelago, didn't use any fluorescent lights and the natural, dim, cool gray sheen filtered in from the large street facing windows somehow assisted in leaving an impression of other worldliness. It's refreshing to see work made by an architect, such inspired, non-functional structures.
Arno Brandlhuber, Archipelago, is on view at NBK from September 8th-November 4th, 2012.

Mike Nelson, Installation view, Untitled (Spotlight), neugerriemschneider Galerie, Berlin, 2012
Photograph by Katy Hamer

Next up on the list is Mike Nelson who as an installation at a location in Mitte associated with neugerriemschneider Galerie. In the main space is work by Simon Starling, including two videos and free-standing sculpture. However, for the more adventurous, Mike Nelson has intervened upon an abandoned space a few streets away from the main gallery. As with most of Nelson's work, it is up to the viewer to discover the naturalistic details imposed upon an otherwise quiet locale. The first section allowed viewers the opportunity to enter a space that appeared "empty" and then proceed down a rickety, wooden staircase. sans signing a release form (impossible in the US). The second location, also enter at your own risk, presented a larger staircase leading up, rather than down. After climbing a few floors and walking through a dusty, crooked door, it is evident that we have landed on the stage of a long ago forgotten theater, dark in it's years of disuse. How odd for a theater, including a decorative wooden balcony and stage, to be present in not only this particular abandoned building, but also on the 4th floor. Immediately one is reminded of the diverse, complicated history of Berlin. Was the theater used during the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik 1949-1990)? Was it a glamorous hall occupied by the Nazi's in WWII or could it have been a shelter, a place of respite for families of Jews who were in hiding throughout the late 1940s. The only evident detail we are given is a spotlight, beaming onto the stage. Nelson has chosen to include us, each viewer to enter the room in his own theatrical performance, void of construct, but ripe with a magnitude of imaginative possibility.  
Mike Nelson, Space That Saw (Platform for a performance in two parts), is on view as part of neugerriemschneider Galerie from September 15th-October 13th, 2012. 

Cy Twombly and the School of Fontainebleau, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2012
Central image, Andy Warhol, "Mao", 1973
Photograph by Katy Hamer

An exhibit at the Hamburger Bahnhof titled Cy Twombly and the School of Fontainebleau, featured a selected of artists and is part of the Marx Collection, on view in Kleihues Hall until October 7th. The group exhibition featured works by Cy Twombly, Anselm Kiefer, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, curated by Eugen Blume with curatorial assistance by Matilda Felix. When Hamburger Bahnhof commenced, it's permanent collection was started with work belonging to the Berlin entrepreneur Dr. Erich Marx. The special temporary exhibitions in the cavernous main hall which was the "Bahnhof" amongst other locations seem to be the most appealing. However upon this visit, a friend convinced me otherwise and it was actually quite refreshing to see work from the permanent galleries, including Warhol's that I hadn't witnessed in person previously. What the curator has done with access to the art from the Marx Collection, is to assimilate a particular narrative of sorts by hanging certain works within the range of others. Warhol's "Mao" from 1973 is often a permanent fixture, however, upon a google search, the silk screen is normally not accompanied with the purple wallpapered background and it is this particular color story addition (along with scale) that made the work stand out. Side note: the extensive Joseph Beuys collection is also not to be missed!

Paul McCarthy, The Box, Installation view, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2012
Photographs by Katy Hamer

Another museum that is hosting a contemporary, however singular work exhibition, is Neue Nationalgalerie with Paul McCarthy: The Box. The museum has a collection that dates from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries and also occasionally hosts a contemporary exhibition. Upon entering the expansive museum lobby, The Box, stands out like a sore thumb. It is constructed of ply wood and stands probably 25 feet high. The piece, dating from 1999 contains items from the artists studio, labeled and reinstalled at a 90 degree angle to the floor. When peeking inside, the reality of the situation is in a state of lopsidedness and the viewer has to tilt his or her head to understand the context of the room. The work is very different from any I have seen by McCarthy, whose art usually contains a particular level of perverseness. This work was oddly satisfying and rare glimpse into the working space of an artist. Favorite element, a box labeled "spare Santa clothes".
Paul McCarthy: The Box is on view in the lobby of the Neue Nationalgalerie until November 4th, 2012.

Douglas Gordon, "Pretty Much Every Film and Video From About 1992 Until Now." Installation view
Akademie Der Künste, Berlin, 2012
Photograph by Katy Hamer

Douglas Gordon was recently awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize at the Akademie Der Künste in Berlin. Also, on the occasion of the award, the artist is showing a cumulative work from 1999 titled "Pretty Much Every Film and Video From About 1992 Until Now". The piece features a series of videos including important works such as "24 Hour Psycho" (1993), "Play Dead Real Time" (2003) and "Henry Rebel" (2011) to name a few. In total, there are 74 film and video works being shown on basic t.v. monitors propped on stacked beer boxes. The display is a cacophony of sound, changing images, and nostalgic content from a long career. Installed for the second time since 1999, the work has grown exponentially and Gordon has added videos to the mix as his work has expanded. The way in which the work is displayed reminds me of a more condensed version of Maurizio Cattelan's ALL on view at the Guggenheim in New York, autumn 2011. By reducing the scale of the videos from a large screen format and placing them within the confines of small television sets, the artist is able to participate in the deconstruction of his own practice. Something which Cattelan did with ALL and somehow removes the preciousness that one can be aware of when looking at a particular artwork. 

Douglas Gordon, "Pretty Much Every Film and Video From About 1992 Until Now" is on view at the Akademie Der Künste until November 4th, 2012.  

Cyprien Gaillard, What It Does To Your City, Installation view
Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin
Photograph courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon and Sprüth Magers, 2012

Another award winner (Prize of the National Gallery for Young Art , Germany, 2011) who also happens to be based in Berlin, is French born artist Cyprien Gaillard whose exhibition titled What It Does To Your City is on view at the Schinkel Pavillon and opened on the occasion of Berlin Art Week. The show includes an installation of metal objects (the "teeth" from large diggers) and a performance that featured the machines in a ballet of sorts. A short video documentation of the performance is online, click here for a link. By exhibiting the "teeth" of these machines, the artist chooses to glorify an object not necessarily from our past, but rather from our present. It is an object necessarily for urban growth and development, something quite relevant for the changing Berlin landscape. Yet, these small kernels, elements that equal a bigger whole, only function when part of the machine from which they came. The dynamism of possibility or of the absurdity of monumentalization of banal objects, is the key of the exhibition and once again, not staying  loyal to a particular medium, Gaillard almost always offers a pleasant or at least unexpected surprise. 
What It Does To Your City, by Cyprien Gaillard opened on September 13th and is on view until October 21st, at the Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. 

Lawrence Weiner, Installation view, Second Floor, Blain Southern
INNERHALB DER LINIEN BEGRENZT = CONFINED WITHIN THE LINES
Image courtesy of Blain Southern, Berlin, 2012

On view at Blain Southern, a gallery that is a recent addition to the Berlin scene having just been located on Potsdamer Strasse for about a year now, is Lawrence Weiner Concentricity Per Se. Lawrence Weiner has been a fixture in New York and on the West coast, so it was refreshing to see his enlarged text based works mixed in both German and English phrases. The work is a testament to language and communication. Here, both German and non-German speakers alike can look at the graphic quality of the work as it communicates something that is either comprehended or not. Not unlike an organized version of graffiti or the slogans we are fed through advertisers, Weiner's text works are bold and not easily ignored. Blain Southern is huge and the high ceilings and spacious second floor are made to well curated. Kudos to the staff for not overwhelming the space with works but rather installing a particular amount of works, that is what Per Se seems to be all about working with particular restraints.
Lawrence Weiner Concentricity Per Se, opened September 15th and is on view until November 3rd, 2012.

Larisa Fassler, Palace/Palace, Installation view, 2012, September Gallery, Berlin
Styrofoam, copper adhesive film, serigraphy board, foam core, forex PVC
honeycomb board, MDF, found posters, paint
Image courtesy of September Gallery, 2012

For her third solo exhibition with September Gallery, artist Larisa Fassler, Palace/Palace focuses on architecture that she sees on an almost daily basis. Here she takes aim at the demolition of the Palast der Republik and the planned reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace that was destroyed by the GDR in 1950). Using light, almost anti-architectural materials, she makes versions of the structures that exist and are yet to be rebuilt after being destroyed. Fassler, originally from Canada is based in Berlin and often looks to the landscape and sometimes even unglamorous parts of her environment that are usually go unnoticed. For Palace/Palace, she juxtaposes the castle from Disney's Cinderella movie with that of the Berlin Stadtschloss  Her point of view questions what is real. Many in Berlin have scoffed at the rebuilding of the Berlin City Palace since what is in the past, should remain in the past especially in a city so ripe for urban focus and development. The reconstruction of a historical building will not resurrect the history that it took with it when knocked to the ground. However, as Larisa Fuchs suggests, sometimes as with Cinderella, it is the beauty that we seek and  authenticity isn't always a requirement because maybe the truth is held in memory alone. 
Larisa Fassler, Palace/Palace opened on September 11th and closes on October 13th, 2012. 

Alfredo Jaar, We Wish to Inform You That We Didn’t Know (2010)", Installation view
Berlinische Galerie, Installation view
Photograph by Katy Hamer

During Berlin Art Week, Alfredo Jaar had the luxury of showing work in three different venues for his exhibition, The way it is. An Aesthetics of Resistance. A retrospective divided into three parts, was shown at NGBK, Berlinische Galerie and Alte Nationalgalerie. The exhibition partially referenced two of the artists past projects that also took place in Berlin titled “Eine Ästhetik zum Widerstand” (“The Aesthetics of Resistance”) and “The Way It Was” both which were shown in the early 1990s. At the Berlinische Galerie, Jaar's work focused on the atrocious genocide that occurred in  Rwanda but is work that was made when the artist was based in Berlin (he is now based in New York). The exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie ranged from video portraits to photographs inscribed with text, some in German, some in English. His goal for this part of the Retrospective was to challenge the viewer by also involving them in a physical or psychological situation, hoping to bring each person closer to an experience that they are lucky they didn't have (in this case Rwandan genocide). A particularly strong piece in a three channel video featuring President Clinton on a 1998 visit to Rwanda, acknowledging the severity of the genocide in a work titled "We Wish to Inform You That We Didn’t Know (2010)" and the failure of a global reaction. As the former President declares "It may seem strange to you here, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror." With each proclamation ending in "..people like me.." Jaar freezes the screen until all three are still. The work is both eerie and compelling. In the context of the exhibition, the viewer was forced to invest some of his or her time in order to experience the work in a way that  was not necessarily comfortable.
Alfredo Jaar, The way it is. An Aesthetics of Resistance, was on view at Berlinische Galerie until September 17th, at Alte Nationalgalerie until September 16th and NGBK until August 18th, all 2012.

Left: John Kleckner, "11 Max Ernst: Head, 1925" 2012, Mixed media collage on found paper, 30 x 24 cm;
Right: Eva Maria Salvador, "Untitled" 2012, Photograph, 60 x 80 cm.
Images courtesy of the artists

The team behind Berlin Art Link have been collaborating with Sur La Montagne located on Torstrasse in Mitte, for a series of exhibitions they categorize as their Night & Day Series. Coinciding with Berlin Art Week, John Kleckner and Eva Maria Salvador exhibited their work side by side. As a two person exhibition, their work was almost seamless and harmoniously filled the space, different in technique and choice of medium, but similar in visual aesthetic. Each artist seems to look at the human form as if through a waxy lens. Shapes are organic and unfamiliar, almost scientific in nature. They both have a similar color palette as well, focusing on grey undertones and then allowing some royal blues, purples and the occasional hint of fuchsia to peek through.  If the body is a focal point, the removal of information, flesh, structure and form appears to the goal for the end result of each piece. Both Kleckner and Salvador leave most interpretation up to the viewer however, one can't help but seek out some conscious familiarity within the otherwise abstract shapes. 
John Kleckner and Eva Maria Salvador, was on view at Sur La Montagne from September 15th until the 16th, 2012. Catch the Night & Day Series while you can!
More soon.xo