Thursday, January 08, 2009

AJ Fosik & Andrew Schoultz at Space 1026

New Ancient Structures is opening tomorrow, Friday, January 9th at Philadelphia's Space 1026.


AJ Fosik hails from Philadelphia and makes fantastic animal sculptures that look like they were made for a hallucinogenic forest.

San Francisco's Andrew Schoultz creates obsessively detailed drawings and paintings depicting natural disasters as well as signs of human conflict in medieval looking settings.


The picture at the bottom is a sneak preview of Andrew's contribution from Space 1026's site.

























New Ancient Structures
AJ Fosik and Andrew Schoultz
January 9th-30th, 2009.
Opening Reception: January 9th, 7-10pm
Space 1026
1026 Arch St
Philadelphia, PA

Life on Mars


These are the final days for the Carnegie Museum of Art's 55th Carnegie International entitled Life on Mars. Located in Pittsburgh, the Carnegie currently presents the International every three years. Bringing together contemporary art from around the world, this edition of the International explored themes of both outer space as well as the place of humans in this world.

I specifically went to see Barry McGee's (TWIST) huge installation but also enjoyed work by David Shrigley, Daniel Guzman, and Rivane Neuenschwander who presented a wall full of stated wishes printed on ribbons. Visitors were asked to pick out of one the ribbons to wear on their wrists until it wore down and fell off. At that point the wish is supposed to come true. They were also asked to write a wish of their own and insert it into the hole in the wall where the ribbons were hanging from.


Daniel Guzman had large scale black and white drawings on paper that were mounted on wood. These were part of a series called "La Búsqueda del Ombligo (The search for the navel)


David Shrigley took over the museum's Treasure Room and inserted his own brand of wry humor into the cases. There was his version of a ceramic Darth Vader and a taxidermied cat standing on its hind legs holding a sign that stated, "I'm Dead", giving a new voice to the cat.
















Life on Mars runs through this Sunday, January 11, 2009 at
The Carnegie Museum of Art
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Clouds!



Jesse LeDoux created these prints for his Masters of Balance installation at the University of Maryland last year. I'm always super happy to see his work. These and other prints are available through his site www.ledouxville.com.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Lee Godie @Intuit, Chicago


Photograph by Steve Kagan

Today is the final day for Finding Beauty: The Art of Lee Godie at Chicago's INTUIT, the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. I can't emphasize how great this show is. For over 20 years Lee sold her art on the streets of downtown Chicago as a self-proclaimed Impressionist artist. This show brings together over 100 pieces of her art.

This trove also includes many black and white photobooth/Polaroid self-portraits she did at the old Trailways bus station in the Loop. I actually found the pictures more interesting than her paintings because of the way she'd draw on both herself and on the surface of the photographs. A couple hilarious ones depict her in a fur coat showing off the money she'd earned selling her work.




This Gibbson Girl is from Carl Hammer Gallery's site

















The show is up through today,
Saturday January 3rd, 2009 from 11am to 5pm at
Intuit
756 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL (1/2 block south of the Chicago Ave Blue LIne station)

Admission is free.