Sure, just try to find parking in Chelsea on a weekday--and try to make sense of the parking rules on the signs. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and put it in a garage. After a half hour of driving around I parked and took advantage of the $5.07 1/2 Hr Special rather than the $18 for one hour. Now comes the unabashed self-plug...aaaaaand go: I had to drop off a painting at the RUSH Arts Gallery because it was 1 of 20-25 pieces selected for the NY stage of the Bombay Sapphire Gin Artisan Series. There are 8 other markets having shows, and each picks 1 winner, who is flown to Miami. Those 9 pieces will be in a show at Scope and on Dec 7 they will select the final winner.
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| "Entrevista #1.2," castiron |
So, I got it to RUSH quickly and had time to see 2 shows in 15 minutes. First was the
Tatiana Blass "Interview" show at
Johannes Vogt down the hall from RUSH. This Brazilian artist's show focused on the interview via paintings, sculpture and video. The piece here, "Entrevista #1.2," is cast iron and in this and the other 3D pieces, she shows figures and recording equipment melding into one form. Other pieces are made of wax and melt and wane throughout the exhibition.
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| "Entrevista #4" - 31x39 |
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| "Entrevista #2" - 31x39 |
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| "Interview 1" - 51x71 |
The paintings continue this blurring of interviewer, subject and equipment. She then merges these elements with the surroundings. These make for some interesting visuals compositionally and paint-wise, but do the subject matter and theme have enough meat on the bone to base a whole show on?
* * *
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| "New Bag" 24x24 |
Jocelyn Hobbie has new paintings at
Fredericks & Freiser. At first I thought they were works by Hilary Harkness, a confusion shared by others according to the gallery. Where Harkness' works are full of many (mostly female) figures over a wide area, Hobbie focuses in on one or two female figures up close and personal.
Using a vibrant palette mixed with patterns and tattoos, there's a strange silence to her works. Are these women lost in deep thought or banal day dreaming? Are they looking at the sky, or TV, or listening to music? sad? in love? lost love? are they contemplating something that happened or something they are planning to do?
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| "August & Johnny Jump Ups" - 14x28 |
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| "Forsythia" - 24x24 |
The viewer could go on and on with different scenarios. The paintings with more than one figure sometimes are a bit awkward, her strength is in the individual portraits. The power of suggestion is a primary strength in these paintings, she lives a few crumbs as to what COULD be happening here, but ultimately the viewer creates the tale.
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| "Crimson" - 14x14 |
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| "Party" - 30x40 |
Johannes Vogt Gallery, 526 W 26th St, NY - Tatiana Blass "Interview" • 10/17 - 11/16/13
Fredericks & Freiser, 536 W. 24th St, NY - Jocelyn Hobbie "New Paintings" • 10/10 - 11/9/13
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