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R.I.P. Richard Artschwager

Richard Artschwager, the internationally-reknowned artist who lived for many years in Columbia County, has died at 89.

Richard used to rent a place next to the church on Union Street, and also in my barn behind Curtiss House, mainly for spraypainting some of his deeply, appealingly weird wire figures.

As the link above notes, Artschwager works could not be fit into any neat category; his art was truly sui generis. I remember being both baffled and charmed when I first saw his drawings and sculpture in person (as opposed to reproductions) in Soho at Mary Boone in the early ’90s. The bafflement was part of the charm. He truly made art only for its own sake, following his own peculiar path.

I saw his wife Ann just a few days ago in T.J. Maxx of all places. She mentioned that Richard’s retrospective at the Whitney was just closing, and moving on to L.A. It’s at least wonderful that the retro happened in his lifetime. 

His immense talent aside, he was a witty but gentle guy, and will be much missed. The Times’ obituary is here.

Saturday Art: Wadsworth Athenaeum

Some 22 years ago, my first paid writing gig was for a British magazine, reviewing a Ralph Earl show at The Wadsworth Athenaeum, which was then celebrating its 100th Anniversary. A short business trip to the Hartford area brought me back to the Wadsworth for the first time since then. And I found its eclectic collections just as impressive as two decades ago.

Now, many regional museums have eclectic collections. It’s a function of availability and necessity—they take whatever they can get, by any reasonably-recognizable artis. But the Wadsworth is both eclectic and selective, with deep, well-chosen areas of expertise from early American furniture and painting to Minimalism (Sol Lewitt in particular).

There isn’t much else to see in Hartford, but if you’re ever in the area it’s absolutely worth a visit... Below is a gallery of some additional cameraphone shots of rooms and pieces there.

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Last days to see Laetitia’s installation

Thursday through Sunday are the last four days to see Laetitia Hussain’s three-story elevator shaft installation, Sycamophology, at John Davis Gallery in Hudson (362 1/2 Warren Street) before it comes down—along with the rest of the excellent group show of which it is a part. The gallery is open from 11 am to 5 pm.

High art in the hill country

Art openings in Columbia County in the past few weekends have included (click images to enlarge) ...

 

The “Vote for Me” group show at Art Omi in Ghent, including works by Warhol, Johns, et al.;

Brian Dewan’s performance at CR10 in Livingston;

Bill Stone’s installation at CR10 in Livingston;

Laetitia Hussain’s elevator shaft installation at John Davis Gallery in Hudson;

Georgia Elrod’s paintings at John Davis Gallery in Hudson; and

 

Kenny Polinskie paper works at Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson.

 

Puryear in Dutchess

Tspace, the private exhibition space in Rhinebeck created by architect Stephen Holl and curated by photographer Susan Wides, held an opening this weekend for National Medal of Arts recipient Martin Puryear.

The event, which featured an installation of Puryear’s work Vessel, also included a performance on a 300-year-old standup bass, a catalog essay by Carter Ratcliffe, and a separate gallery of paintings by Wides’ husband Jim Holl:

 

Art scenes

Scenes from this weekend’s art events in and around Hudson... First up, Abel Ramirez’s pop-up gallery of paintings in the 500 block:

 

Anton Ginzburg’s NADA installation, Flood, for Braverman Gallery at the Basilica Hudson:

 

Chair installation by Bill Stone at the inaugural exhibition of CR10 in Linlithgo:

 
Performance downstairs at CR10 by Rhys Tivey:

Site-specific building design (after Adolf Loos) by Polly Apfelbaum at A Native Hill in Hudson:

 

Laetitia Hussain’s open studio in Hudson’s 600 block:

Laetitia Hussain work at A Native Hill:

 

Performance at A Native Hill by Brian Dewan:

 

Monica Mechling sculpture opening at Henry Hudson Studios:

 

Back to the Sunday scene at Basilica Hudson:

Art installation, or furniture delivery?

Warren Street, Hudson (NY).

NYT Magazine interview with Abramovic

The New York Times Magazine has published a new interview wwith Marina Abramović, the subject of the new documentary The Artist is Present, and who of course is planning a major performance art (or rather, performing art) institute in Hudson.

The interview by Andrew Goldman is lively, but he seems a bit more intent on gathering gossip about the artist’s love life and appearance than having a substantive discussion of her art. Perhaps as a result, the comments so far on the article are pretty much of the know-nothing, dismissive variety that Abramović has endured for much of her career, and of which the documentary (shown recently at the Berkshire International Film Festival) makes mincemeat.

Performance vs. performing

During the Q&A after Saturday’s Berkshire Film Festival screening of the documentary The Artist is Present, Marina Abramović clarified an important point about her planned institute in Hudson.

The center will focus, she explained, on all of the performing arts—including for instance music and dance—not just on the specific type of performance art for which she herself is known... The kicker being that she intends to focus on “durational” performances of six hours or more, from many disciplines.

Visuals of the Hudson Marina...

… Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art (previously announced as The Center for the Preservation of Performance Art), can be found at Rem Koolhaas’ firm’s site.

The museum, as pretty much everyone has already heard, is slated for the former Community Tennis building on the corner of Columbia and 7th Streets in Hudson and will be designed by Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu. (Note: There’s no marina at the Waterfront because City leaders think that the River is only good for moving gravel.) Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture site includes exteriors and interior visualizations, along with proposed floor plans.

Many suspect it will take some time for the money to be raised to bring this to fruition. Certainly, many other big projects announced with great fanfare for Hudson have taken a long time to come to be, or never materialize at all. Still, Abramović is at the very pinnacle of her niche in the art world; and Koolhaas's firms involvement lends that much more credibility.

The museum is being branded as a mecca for “duration-based performance,” which sounds unfortunately a bit like some kind of phony male enhancement product for sale on the counter of the gas station up the street.

(Prediction for popular local Halloween costume this year: People in black slacks and white lab coats. Check out the Koolhaas site and you’ll see... Meanwhile, if OMA really wants to curry favor locally, they might consider adding a big sign announcing the availability in the museum cafeteria of Legendary Serbian BBQ.)

Abramovic bringing Koolhaas to Hudson

Koolhaas' design for the Seattle Public Library

UPDATE: According to a Hudson Supervisor, Koolhaas may handle the building's interior, while the exterior would be renovated by another architect.

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New York Magazine’s “Vulture” blog reports some truly earth-shaking news for Hudson: Rem Koolhaas has signed on to build Marina Abramovic’s long-awaited museum. The Center for the Preservation of Performance Art is slated for the old Community Tennis building on the north side of the 7th Street park.

Without exaggeration, Koolhaas is among the very most respected avant-garde architects in the world today. His involvement means that the building should become a destination not only for performance art afficianados, but also architecture buffs. 

According to the article, Abramovic—who also bought a Dennis Wedlick house here in Columbia County—is anticipating an $8 million budget. She also says that she’s advocating with the new Mayor to support a hotel which would accommodate the large number of anticipated visitors, some of whom might be looking for something other than a B&B experience or a motel. (Note: A friend reports that the nearby St. Charles Hotel, which had suffered from some neglect over the years, recently has begun renovating its rooms.)

Describing the area, Vulture columnist Alexandra peers writes:

Hudson, New York, and the surrounding region southeast of the Catskills, is already something of a serious art-world hangout, with several expat galleries in town. It was the site of a New Art Dealers Alliance art fair last summer (not to mention the headquarters of the last century’s “Hudson River School” of painters and painting). 

It will be fascinating, among other things, to see how Hudson’s Historic Preservation Commission approaches the project. I’ve long argued that preservation in Hudson should focus primarily on (A) preventing demolition of historic structures and (B) assisting homeowners with making—and finding funding for—historically accurate restorations. A question I remember raising with my friend Tony Thompson way back in 1998 or ’99, at a garden party held by Sarah Sterling: What would Hudson do if a truly famous architect wanted to build something cutting-edge here? Would we spurn a Richard Meier, or Zaha Hadid, or Frank Gehry building because it was not period? Hudson is, today, a catalog of period vernacular American styles precisely because its building stock evolved with the times.

(Obviously, there is a big difference between an ambitious modern project and someone negligently stripping important period details from a historic façade... But how does one distinguish between the two in a preservation code, without essentially saying “You can change it, so long the result is really cool”?)

This project may put such theoretical questions to the test. However it turns out, Koolhaas’ involvement is huge, positive news for Hudson, promising many direct and indirect economic and cultural benefits.

[h/t Warren Reiss]

Calling Hours

Added viewing hours for Laetitia Hussain’s installation at Basilica Hudson, which had several hundred people come through last weekend for the opening, have been set:

• 4-7 pm on Saturday the 18th;

• 4-7 pm on Sunday the 19th.

The show (which includes video, sound, paintings, and 1,000 plaster sculptures) comes down after that, so this is the last chance to see it. The program, which includes a detailed text by Patrick Terenchin, can be downloaded as a PDF, here; many photos have been posted at the Facebook event page, here. Above is a short interview with the artist by William Parker of CCScoop.