GAYLETTER

GAYLETTER

Monday 03.11.13

ZACHARI LOGAN’s PASSAGES & METAMORPHOSIS

Images from the opening at Daniel Cooney Fine Art.

Friday 03.08.13

Winston Chmielinski chats to us from a bus

We had a chance to chat with artist Winston Chmielinski about his latest showing at VOLTA NYC while he was on a bus from Boston to New York. Winston is one of our favorite artists at the moment. His work is vibrant and beautiful but at the same time a little sinister. We’re biting at the chomp to see what he does next.

 
Where are you now? I’m on a bus. I was actually scared it would be a shit show since Fung Wah Transportation is now finally defunct.

 


Do you live in Boston?
What were you doing there? I’ve been painting out of Boston and going back and forth between New York all winter. My room (in my family’s house in Boston) is squared off by garment racks. You step through and it’s dreamy. Mom can’t see in—I’ve been saving up money for a move to Berlin.

 


How old are you?
24

 


So what was your major in school?
Creative writing mostly, with a zig-zag through philosophy. My most memorable course at NYU was Body Awareness for Performers as a sophomore.

 

 

I heard you are a self-taught painter, can you tell me a little bit about that? I’m self-taught in the sense that I developed a technique based off of paintings twice removed — I looked at photos of canvases glowing out from computer screens. Paint taught me. And I say that unromantically, because it was simply trial and error.

 

 

When did you start painting? …

Thursday 03.07.13

Boo-Hooray’s Larry Clark Stuff at Milk Gallery

Kids was made 18 years ago and Larry Clark is 70—aghh we feel so old. Pics from last night's opening. The retrospective of Larry's posters, skateboards, stickers and photographs runs thru March 10th.

Zachari Logan: Passages & Metamorphosis

The artist discusses his latest NYC shows at Daniel Cooney Fine Art

32-year-old Canadian artist Zachari Logan is back in NYC with two art shows: one is a group show, Passages, that he curated and the other is a solo exhibition of his drawings titled Metamorphosis. I caught up with the artist via Facebook chat to talk about them, how modern right?



How did this group show ‘Passages’ come about? 
Daniel Cooney (the owner of the gallery) invited me to curate a project, along with a smaller solo exhibition in the second space. Daniel Cooney Fine Art recently moved to a slightly expanded exhibition space. I developed the theme for an exhibition with a focus on artists whose work makes reference to literature. This is a tendency in my own work that I wanted to explore further in the work of others… it was great I was able to select artists whose work I really admire and have an affinity for!

 


Why is it called Passages?
Most of the work I chose for the show has a visual component relating to nature or landscape, a sort of secondary theme… but primarily these works explore allusions to literature, so I was thinking a “Passage” from a book, but also a literal passage.

 


How did you choose the group of artists for Passages?
Basically its artists I admire, or felt I wanted to work with… whose visual sensibilities I have an intellectual connection with. The work and styles of each artist is quite varied, but as the work has been coming into the gallery (much of it I have only seen through images) there is a strange visual melding that is happening, so its very interesting, and exciting! …

Art: Paul Solberg – Service

I know it’s a gay cliche—like jerking off in a steam room, or wearing fairy wings at a gay pride parade—but I love fleet week. There’s just something hot about young men in crisp, clean uniforms. In Paul Solberg’s new photo exhibition, Service, the photographer used a Polaroid SX-70 camera and rare film stock to document service men, and some women, during the annual fleet week in NYC. “Solberg’s intention of putting together a large body of such works was interrupted when in just days most of the faces abruptly vanished from the developed film. The chemical instability of the film left a blank space where the faces had existed.”  Of the men, and women, he photographed the 20 images on display are what’s left. The faded photos are haunting and beautiful giving off an ephemeral vibe that almost compels you to snap your own pic in case these too disappear. I’d love to hang one in my apartment. The show’s opening reception at Casa de Costa will feature the usual highlights: free drinks, arty boys, and if we’re lucky a couple of those servicemen. ;)

FREE, 6pm, casa de costa, 11 stone st. NY, NY.

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Wednesday 03.06.13

PAUL SOLBERG’S ‘SERVICE’

The artist discusses his latest show with us.

When did you come out? I was never in or out, I was always more on. On for anyone and anything peculiar and interesting. Starved for a circus. And if you use enough big hand gestures, you never really have to come out.

 

When did your attraction to Marines start? I have lived near the Intrepid forever, and year after year, spring came, another batch of buds on the trees, and lines of Soldiers in May for Fleet Week. This time I wanted to get involved.

 

How did you come up with the name for your show ‘Service’? It was simple and to the point, and this is the first part of a voluntary life sentence on the subject of ‘Service.’

 

What is it that intrigues you most about men in uniform? A uniform can be a miracle, although I never had a weakness for them particularly.

 

How did you find all these services members? During Fleet Week the service men outnumber cars, so it is not difficult.

 

Why did you choose to use a vintage Polaroid SX 70 camera to take these photos? To come up to a stranger with a big professional camera is more intimidating than coming up with a camera you wind up, that everyone sort of remembers their Dad had in the basement. It’s nonthreatening and intimate.

 

How do you choose your subjects? Everyone has one good side. It was democratic photography. Everyone participated. It wasn’t enough to find merely handsome soldiers on the street. …

Saturday 03.02.13

Art: I Killed My Father, I Ate Human Flesh, I Quiver With Joy

The new exhibition at Allegra LaViola Gallery, I Killed My Father, I Ate Human Flesh, I Quiver With Joy: An Obsession with Pier Paolo Pasolini, (organized by Invisible Exports) is a tribute of sorts to the enormous impact of Pasolini’s work and life on a group of 38 contemporary artists. The controversial filmmaker exerts an influence visible in the selection of works dealing with the human body, sexuality, decay, and spirituality. Carlton DeWoody’s queer reinterpretation of a high school varsity jacket stuns as you walk in the door, and the exhibition continues to arouse as you encounter a sculpture by Walt Cassidy and a drawing by Michael Bilsborough across the floor of the gallery; culminating with a sculpture and video installations by Brian Kenny and others in the basement. Breyer P-Orridge’s kaleidoscopic work confronts you with expanses of bright red, peach, and flowing gray-white light that suggest an abstracted yet yonic sexual scene. We also loved Aaron Krach’s performance that featured a naked man dipping a frog in paint then placing it on paper to create a watercolor — a fitting tribute to Pasolini’s idea of “natural sacredness” and love of male sexuality.

FREE, 12pm-6pm, Allegra LaViola GALLERY, 179 EAST BROADWAY NY, NY.

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Sunday 02.24.13

‘I Killed My Father, I Ate Human Flesh, I Quiver With Joy’

An obsession with Pier Paolo Pasolini curated by INVISIBLE-EXPORTS at Allegra LaViola Gallery — 2.22.13

Tuesday 02.19.13

7 images of Narcissister

Photographer Daniel Moss gets 5 minutes with the artist

Narcissister ain’t called Narcissister for nothing…

 

I had a very interesting photoshoot with the New York based performance artist, let me see if I can break it down for you. It’s the first time in 26 years of taking portraits that I didn’t manage to make it through an entire roll of film—there are 12 frames on a roll. Narcissister and I nailed 7 in under five minutes.

 

She walked on set and leaned against the wall and pulled her hood up. I asked her to look in the camera but she was wearing a mask so it was hard to determine where the mask eyes were looking when she moved her head, it was bizarre. After a few frames Narcissister stood still and said “You’re the photographer, direct me” so I asked her to turn to the light, I took 2 more frames. I stepped back and asked her to take her hands out of her pockets, she refused, they weren’t “done,” she protested, so she left them in and I moved on taking another 2 frames. Then I looked up and saw those vacant mask eyes looking back at me and realized we were done.

 

Ultimately I think Narcissister was very generous to allow me to photograph her as she herself is also the subject of her own work as a studio photograph. I was thankful for the experience — I am very pleased with the outcome.

  …

NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star

Last Wednesday I went to see the New Museum‘s latest show: “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star.” This phenomenal exhibition sprawls across all five floors, as well as the museum’s Studio 231 space next door. It takes art created and exhibited in New York City in 1993 as a lens through which to view larger cultural themes of difference, globalization, and multiculturalism. This is most strongly evidenced by the many works surrounding sexual identity, ethnicity, and AIDS by artists such as Nan GoldinCoco Fusco, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and many more.

 

NYC 1993 is a time capsule of a particular historical moment that has great relevance for today. Our current obsession with 90’s fashion comes through in series of photographs chronicling the work of Art Club 2000. This collective of art students was famous for fucking with consumer brands, especially the Gap,  by buying matching outfits from the retailer, then posing for photos around NYC in them. The group would then take advantage of the Gap’s lenient returns policy and avoid paying for any of it. Also essential viewing is Cheryl Donegan‘s video “Head,” a riff on cliched, MTV-style, super-sexualized 80’s and 90’s music videos in which the artist sucks and spits a milky fluid from a bright green bottle against a pink background accompanied by the song “A Good Idea” by Sugar. Another stand out piece is Glenn Ligon‘s “Red Portfolio,” in which he reproduces Reverend Pat Robertson‘s descriptions of Robert Mapplethorpe‘s “too vulgar to print” photographs, which Robertson was attempting to use as an excuse to pull funding from the National Endowment for the Arts because of their support for queer and other controversial art. …

Saturday 02.16.13

Benny Ninja Voguing

The legendary Benny Ninja teaches us how to vogue

Art: Marco Brambilla – Creation (Megaplex)

Any artist who incorporates a super saturated 3D color image of Maria Von Trapp spinning and twirling into infinity in their artwork has me at hello. This and much more is precisely what Marco Brambilla delivers in his new piece: Creation, a 3D video installation now showing at Nicole Klagsbrun gallery. Borrowing footage from a vast array of iconic Hollywood films, Creation tells just that, a very progressive visual tale of the creation myth. “Set within the form of a giant DNA helix, he takes the viewer on a spiraling trajectory that begins with a big bang and continues through embryonic inception, idyllic Eden like bliss and decadence.” The hallucinogenic spiral of images is almost too overwhelming, yet when you get to the end of the cycle you find yourself sitting still for another go round. Also check out the piece Atlantis, featuring the space shuttle of the same name the day before it was decommissioned—beautifully quiet and haunting. Well done Marco, a man to watch in more ways than one.

FREE, 10pm-6pm, Nicole Klagsbrun, 532 West 24th St. NY, NY.

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