“What I’m Watching” is a monthly column where I digest art worth seeing, writing worth consuming, and other treats I encounter in my quest to absorb the contemporary cultural moment. Below are assorted thoughts from April 2023.
More Pombo, please!
This month’s most unexpected find was at Barro NYC, a Buenos Aires art gallery with space in the bizarre New England fishing village-themed mall that is the South Street Seaport. The current show, “Artisanal Conceptualism: Starting Point(until May 21) features a small selection of wildly interesting works by Argentinian artist Marcelo Pombo (b. 1959).
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the series “Dibujos de San Pablo” which he produced during a formative trip to Brazil in 1982, a series of black and white drawings featuring intertwined duck-billed lovers and other queer beach life fantasies stretched through a “dirty Disney” kind of look. There’s some other great stuff, too, including a trio of delightfully quirky contemporary abstracts and dense graphics he created for Sodoma magazine published by a 1980s gay rights collective of which Pombo was a part.
My only complaint: not enough Pombo! “Artisanal Conceptualism” is too small to paint a full portrait of this artist, but it’s just enough to suggest that I would as a complete portrait of this artist.
Drawing taken from “Dibujos de San Pablo” by Marcelo Pombo (1982). Photo: Ben Davis.
Marcelo Pombo, Untitled [Untitled] (2023). Photo: Ben Davis.
Display of graphics and leaflets by Marcelo Pombo. Photo: Ben Davis.
Catch “Lost” if you can
I caught Second exhibition of Ficre Ghebreyesus at Galerie Lelong just in time (it’s open until May 6), and I’m glad I did. The Eritrean-born artist ran a cafe in New Haven and died in 2012 without showing much of his work. Posthumously, his fame widened and he won a plum spot at the Venice Biennale last year. Even if the works may seem to flirt with the clichés of popular art (skeletons, dancers), they give off a particular atmosphere, both direct and dreamy, sophisticated and rather dashing.
I believe we are lost (2002) gives its name to the show, a large, banner-like work done on unstretched canvas, featuring an uneasy trio of jagged monsters framed in a deep blue sea. But I really like the quilt style of something like Five horse-headed figures (1999), by the richness of its colors and the specificity of its details.
Ficre Ghebreyesus, I believe we are lost (2002). Photo: Ben Davis.
Ficre Ghebreyesus, Five horse-headed figures (1999). Photo: Ben Davis.
Rite-on
The back of the Printed Matter bookshop in Chelsea is worth a visit right now for the jam-packed windows dedicated to “From the Margins: The Creation of Art-Rite(on view until June 21). Founded in 1973 by the later Edit DeAk (the stuff here is from his collection), Walter Robinson and Joshua Cohn, Art-Rite was a free-spirited alternative art publication with a rambling programmatic style (the title was a play on the low-budget store Shop-Rite).
Art-Rite was the vector of many intense and inventive reflections on the great problems of his time. Here, however, the editors’ behind-the-scenes photos, shown with their printed layouts stitched together and Art-Rite posters and covers, really radiate the excitement of an art magazine that was itself a creative project. The show reminds you that covering the arts scene should be fun first and a professional obligation second.
“From the margin: the making of art-rite” to the printed matter. Photo: Ben Davis.
Viewing material related to Art-Rite. Photo: Ben Davis.
Layout of an article in Art-Rite. Photo: Ben Davis.
Compensation returns
The Clearing Gallery has moved out of Bushwick and is now a stone’s throw from the New Museum in Manhattan. The new space doesn’t quite have the same gaping industrial charm as Bushwick’s. But “Inaugural Trip,“its opening collective exhibition (until May 21), constitutes a rather convincing argument for the gallery with a selection of artists of which it can be proud. It’s all killer, no filler, down to delicious seating options as art.
Hugh Hayden, Shadow (2023) and Calvin Marcus, dead soldier (2018) in “Maiden Voyage” at CLEARING. Photo by Ben Davis.
Javier Barrios, Counter attack (2022). Photo; Ben Davis.
Daniel Dewar and Gregory Gicquel, Oak bench with cinnabar butterflies, opium poppy flowers and snails (2021) at Clearing. Photo: Ben Davis.
Have fun with dots
Of the things I read this month, the one that comes to mind is actually by John Elderfield in two parts opus on the history of dots in Euro-American art in—it’s true—Gagosian magazine. It’s kind of a fun article: an in-depth and informed walk through art history, of how dots were long frowned upon in textiles because they reminded people of the diseases of the skin to a theorization of “film mode” versus “surface mode” of stippling.
Georges-Pierre Seurat, Seascape (Gravelines) (1890). Photo: Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images.
Buy It Now!
There’s a Jenny Holzer themed condom for sale on Ebay. It’s $119.99. The condition says “Used”, but don’t worry, I think they just mean it’s been used like art.
Screenshot of the Jenny Holzer condom, for sale on Ebay.
A few words about NFT.NYC…
Finally, earlier this month, I returned to NFT.NYC, the big crypto-art/crypto-business/crypto-whatever conference now being held at the Javits Center.
THE first time I went to NFT.NYC, in the heady days of 2021, I felt like everyone was stoned. It was just when the drugs were hitting hardest and people were yelling at each other, “We should buy a boat together!!!” Now it feels like everyone’s gotten down and people are kind of looking at each other and saying, “So…are we still serious about this boat?”
I have to say that I only went there on Friday, the last day of the conference. I can’t speak for everything. Maybe people were disappointed with the awesome stuff they saw in the previous days. But most of the art conferences I’ve attended have been attended by a handful of people.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve seen a lot of people still trying to get serious about it. Most memorable was that I attended the talk by curator Stacy Engman, whose actual title, as printed in the program, was: “The Most Expensive NFT Project in the History of the ‘NFT art Stacy Engman – $450 million in NFT indexed fine art market value’. The tone of Engman’s presentation was much less whack than this manic word salad. Still, it was hard to figure out what she was selling, and that’s kind of where things are at as a whole.
Register for NFT.NYC 2023 at the Javits Center. Photo: Ben Davis.
Curator Stacy Engman presents at NFT.NYC. Photo: Ben Davis.
A panel at NFT.NYC 2023. Photo: Ben Davis.
A vendor booth at NFT.NYC 2023. Photo: Ben Davis.
Bored Ape takes the stage, can’t hold the mic right
Some people will tell you that the parties are where the real action is at NFT.NYC. I’ll have to take their word for it. The one to which I was invited this time, presented by Nolcha Shows in the new immersive art venue known as the ArtDistrict in Williamsburg, billed as “a state-of-the-art 360-degree visual experience”. In practice, this meant that, as at many parties and concerts, there were large projections of light on all the walls, except these came from a coterie of NFT artists.
The air of praised decadence was given by the presence of a team of go-go dancers in metallic bikinis and capes with lights on them. Partygoers stood around talking about liquidity and split lending protocols. There were VIP cabins made up of what appeared to be park benches. Someone offered me an NFT that would allow me to access a whiskey subscription service.
The big draw here was Shilly’s debut performance, an act by Bored Ape enthusiast/content creator Chwaz which is built around a Bored Ape avatar. Shilly has released two songs so far, I am boring And Elizabeth Holmeswhich rise almost to the level of the creative vision and moving authenticity of Fall Out Boy’s ghost hunters blanket.
I found the atmosphere of this event exhausting and didn’t have the stamina to watch Shilly strap on her motion capture helmet to perform in character in Bored Ape #6722.
I saw the tape though, and I have no regrets. It’s linked below.
A dancer performing. Photo: Ben Davis.
A glamorous VIP table. Photo: Ben Davis.
More trending stories:
Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay one step ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive breaking news, revealing interviews and incisive reviews that move the conversation forward.
