Chryssa's Sizzling Tribute to Times Square, MyPillow Guy's Office Paintings, and Other Things Bordering on Art

“What I Watch” is a monthly column where I digest art worth seeing, writing worth consuming, and other goodies. Below are thoughts from the first weeks of July 2023.

Chryssa gets her day

I really only knew the name of the sculptor of Greek origin Chryssa (1933-2013) before this big show devoted to its New York production, currently at the Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea (co-created with the Menil Collection in Houston, and on view until July 22, 2023). What a pleasure to get a complete idea of her! In the 1950s and 1960s, Chryssa infused the energy of New York and expired it as art. She was inspired by materials evoking the swirling urban environment dense with information: newspapers, typography, neon signs. Then she stripped down their function of transmitting information, distilling and abstracting their forms into reliefs and sculptures that become mysterious, austere, piercing.

Her act of using the mononym ‘Chryssa’ itself reflects her procedure of subtraction and abstraction: adding to the evocative power of a signifier by stripping it down and making it mysterious. It also suggests a certain bluster. The sculpture that probably best embodies this appetite is his magnum opus, on tour here from the collection of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum: a 10-by-10 carcass called Times Square Gates (1964–66). It’s a beautiful abstract “A” in a sizzling blue neon. It wants to stun you as a distilled version of New York City’s mall grandeur, while conveying the mystery of an altar of secret texts held just out of reach.

Chryssa, Five variations on the ampersand, 1966 to "Chryssa and New York" at Dia

Chryss, Five variations on the ampersand (1966) in “Chryssa and New York” at Dia. Photo by Ben Davis.

Chryss, Classified (1960). Photo by Ben Davis.

Chryssa, Cycladic Movement (nd) and Letter "J" (1959)

Chryss, Cycladic movement (nd) and Letter “T” (1959). Photo by Ben Davis.

The Berlin scene

The tightly jam-packed one-room show dedicated to Warhol superstar Brigid Berlin contains things you would call art, ranging from noisy Berlin “tit prints” (made by dipping her breasts in paint and smoothing them on paper) to tapestries New York Post covers of his last days. But “The heaviestat Vito Schnabel (until August 18), curated by Alison M. Gingeras, is more like immersing yourself in a comprehensive “Brigid Berlin” exhibit at a downtown history museum.

Along with the art, you get letters and photos from her childhood as a rebellious heiress (her father was CEO of Hearst Corp.); newspaper articles about her as the flamboyant character she still was in her post-factory life; a video made with Warhol and Larry Poons documenting his breast-based art practice accompanied by his own gregarious and self-deprecating commentary.

It’s actually fitting that the show brings Berlin’s art and material together on her as a character, in a way. Berlin didn’t really seem to make the distinction between making art and living an interesting life. This is probably best represented by his copious Polaroids of figures lurking around the factory, and in his recordings – which you can listen to at the gallery – of his constant phone calls with intimates and associates.

The show is a fascinating look at a life. As for art as art, I have two opinions, I suppose. On the one hand, I feel like Berlin’s output mostly hinges on your interest in some form of micro-celebrity. But then this kind of self-mythologizing character feels very contemporary, with its indulgent eclecticism, defensive bravado, and melancholic undertones.

Material by Brigid Berlin in "The heaviest"

Material by Brigid Berlin in “The Heavyest”. Photo by Ben Davis.

Four by Brigid Berlin "Breast prints" In "The heaviest."

Four of Brigid Berlin’s “Tit Prints” in “The Heaviest”. Photo by Ben Davis.

A Polaroid Brigid Berlin by Dennis Hopper in "The heaviest"

A Polaroid Brigid Berlin of Dennis Hopper in “The Heavyest”. Photo by Ben Davis.

Sampler by Brigid Berlin in "The heaviest"

Sampler of Brigid Berlin in “The Heavyest”. Photo by Ben Davis.

Fun with shirts

I wandered, mostly randomly, through the Fierman Gallery to find a weekend-only display of Nora Griffin’s Vintage Tee Painting Art Show. Griffin, a creator of wacky abstract paintings, unfolds her groovy, swirling colors on various vintage New York-themed t-shirts, all from the pre-9/11 era, bringing a sense of a bygone era of the city in alignment with an accessible a kind of thrift store creativity. The effect was to make you feel like you’d momentarily traveled back in time to a simpler, sunnier, more pleasant scene, and a scene that you could walk away with a piece of.

You missed the show, but the shirts have their own Instagram– so join the 1999 NYC Tee club while you can.

Installation view of Nora Griffin’s ‘1999 NYC TEE’ exhibit at Fierman. Photo by Ben Davis.

A Nora Griffin t-shirt. Photo by Ben Davis.

Grated

As for things to read… I guess the art world is embracing Threads, according to Annie Armstrong’s article on whitney’s spouting foray in the new social media network. So we have to take care of Threads. And I will say that Kate Lindsay’s article on the Threads experience for the Embedded Internet Culture newsletter is the best thing I’ve read about it.

Spicy title”Threads is the mecca of millennial brain rot,“That sums up my experience with Meta’s new social media platform, and social media as a whole right now – it all feels like different flavors of desperation:

When I first opened the app, I expected to see an old Twitter copycat. Instead, I encountered a stream of users parroting robotic, emoji-laden prompts, the same four jokes about being “lopsided,” and, of course, a car giveaway from Mr. Beast. . Given the opportunity to build the social media culture we were missing, we immediately resorted to posting today’s worst internet snaps. Is this message from a person or a brand? Because they both use the same hokey syntax to post empty pledge baits.

This behavior says a lot about how we view social media today. It’s not for connection, but performance. It seems many of the people who rushed to download this app did so to quickly rush to potential new subscribers and in the process adopted digital personas that look nothing like the way a single human talk in real life. After years of being subliminally nudged into this behavior through algorithm changes on other platforms, when we were given the opportunity to do something different on Threads, we reverted to bland platitudes and the fruits at hand on which we have been conditioned to commit ourselves. .

I think it would be better to just admit that this form of communication has failed rather than try to revert to some imagined “good” version of it. But that’s me, and that probably won’t happen.

Screenshot of an article from Threads from the Whitney Museum

Screenshot of a Whitney Museum Threads post using Allen Frame, Cady Noland, Phone Booth, NYC (1981) as a meme.

The Art of MyPillow Guy

Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, Inc., known on the web as “MyPillow Guy”, is selling his company’s stuff on K-Bid online auctions to raise funds, have wasted real and reputational capital of his empire to try to overturn the 2020 election. So of course I went to check if there was any art. And there are, sort of.

That’s a lot of framed pictures of plants And green landscapes and other such things. If you have a suburban bathroom to decorate, you have one week to place your bids.

I love this still life, below, presented without any information about what you’re looking at but with the accompanying signature detail to show the authenticity of what it is. I’ve always wanted to own a… « ufiloojp[??]”

It really is like owning a piece of history: offering random, fuzzy details to prove something is real is kind of what Lindell is known for now.