LOOK INTO MY OWL

Rachel Whiteread is enjoying a well deserved solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show opened to a sold out lecture by the artist.

The highlight of the exhibit is the installation above, “Place (Village)”. The piece is a collection of approximately two hundred vintage doll houses assembled on a mock hillside. Whiteread has been collecting these miniature dwellings for the past twenty years. Each house is empty and lit from within making for an eerie scene in the darkened gallery. It’s the first time that this work has been seen in the United States. “Place (Village)” ties in well with the holiday season and offers an excellent opportunity to introduce children to the delights of an art museum.

Sixteen drawings and six sculptures are also on view in an adjacent room. This portion of the show is a good counterpoint to the primary installation. Through the drawings the viewer can experience the formation of ideas that eventually evolve into three dimensions. The sculptural elements are a tribute to the obsession Whiteread has with negative space.

Rachel Whiteread
15 October 2008 – 25 January 2009
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The upstairs gallery at Fifty24SF is hosting a solo show from Jeremy Fish. “Ghosts of the Barbary Coast” is a collection of more than 35 recent works including large scale woodworks from Indonesia.

Jeremy Fish researched the history of the city that he calls home in order to complete these designs. The theme of the exhibit is centered on the adventurous spirit of the pioneers that laid the foundation for San Francisco and the residue of their efforts that can still be seen today. On the dawn of the west coast Fish states, “Young men and women were finding millions in gold, just as fast as they lost it at the gambling table, or to a thief.”

Through this work the artist leads you on a virtual tour of the historic bars of the area including “The Fierce Grizzly” where a live bear was chained to the wall and “The Boars Head” that featured unsavory acts with swine.

Jeremy Fish
Ghosts of the Barbary Coast
4-30 December 2008
Fifty24SF
San Francisco

Yes, that really is the title of the current show from Aleksandra Mir at the Mary Boone Gallery. The works displayed in this post are all large scale marker drawings on paper.

The gallery has kept the press release simple. The sum total is this hilarious quote from Waldemar Januszczak’s review of the 2006 exhibition “USA Today” at the Royal Academy in the London Sunday Times.

“… Aleksandra Mir, from Lubin, in Poland, is another maker of new maps of the USA, across which she declares the Cold War to be Hot Stuff, in the style of a mustard advert in a hamburger outlet…Young America is a bottomless source of the stuff. This entire display stinks of stupidity and an absent education. Has anyone here read a book or studied history or looked at a Botticelli or questioned a technique or patiently thought their way through an artistic conundrum? Not a chance. This is a generation of paint-happy knownothings brought up on hamburgers and porn, a talentless bloom of post-pop trailer trash that makes our own Brit Artists look like a parade of Einsteins by comparison.”

Aleksandra Mir
WHITE HOUSE PURPLE HEART WHITE HOUSE IVORY TOWER WHITE HOUSE RED NECK WHITE HOUSE BLUE DEVILS WHITE HOUSE YELLOW SUBMARINE WHITE HOUSE AGENT ORANGE WHITE HOUSE BLACK POWER WHITE HOUSE GREEN THUMB WHITE HOUSE PINK DOLLARS WHITE HOUSE DUMB BLOND WHITE HOUSE GOLDEN SHOWERS WHITE HOUSE SILVER LININGS
30 October – 20 December 2008
Mary Boone Gallery
NYC

Caitlin Wheeler has a new exhibit at the Bluebottle Art Gallery in Seattle. The mixed media works are drawings and serigraphs on handmade paper and found materials. The substance of the show demonstrates the similarities between human and animal behavior. In the guise of the mask we are little removed from the kingdom.

Caitlin Wheeler
Ardor/Armor
1 – 31 October 2008
Bluebottle Art Gallery
Seattle

Packard Jennings produced this amazing pamphlet. There are eight pages depicting the imagined downfall of a shopping mall. I first became enchanted with his “Business Reply” illustrations via orphaned images on a discussion board a couple of years back. After an exhaustive search I still could not find the identity of the artist… until now. Packard Jennings, see his site, enjoy the anarchy.

Jennings spent a day at the mall leaving his pamphlets in odd places for the unsuspecting shopper. His actions led to a 24 hour banishment from the mall. Here’s the video.

Last night Jermaine Rogers stopped by NOWhere Limited for a meet and greet with his fans. A good time was had by all. Thanks to everyone that came to the gallery for “The Detailed Mechanics of the Monkey Hustle”. The show continues through the 28th of September so there is still time to get hustled.

More photos after the break. (more…)

Here are some teaser images of the current show at NOWhere Limited. Jermaine Rogers will be at the gallery for a visit this Saturday, September 6th at 4pm. Head up the mountain for some good times. I’m bad about remembering to take pictures during events but I’ll do my best this weekend.

Jermaine Rogers
The Detailed Mechanics of the Monkey Hustle
30 August – 28 September 2008
NOWhere Limited
Nederland, Colorado