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Published 02/12/02
Letter from Long Island
There have been some carping comments in British
art magazines, such as 'The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) isn't what
it used to be'. But the fact is, a major transformation is in place,
and activity at MoMA Queens is a viable, temporary contemporary-like
substitute until 53rd St is back — in 2005. MoMA QNS is situated
in a restored Swingline Stapler factory in Long Island City, Queens,
close to the contemporary art centre P.S.1., and designed by architect
Michael Maltzan. There is some replication of the spatial problems
of Tate Modern, writ small.
In the summer, Peter Reed, a Curator with a very safe pair of hands,
organised 'Autobodies: speed, sport, transport' through 16 September.
Here a World War II pristine Jeep rubbed front wings with such masterpieces
from the permanent collection as a 1963 Jaguar E-type, a 1959 VW
Beetle, and a 1990 Ferrari Formula 1 Racing Model. 'A Walk through
Astoria: Other Places in Queens: Photographs by Rudy Burckhardt'
ran through 4 November, and gave an essential perspective overview
for first visitors to Queens (of whom there are many). Glenn Lowry,
MoMA's current Director, is interested in deploying MoMA Queens
in continuing the 'mission' of present-day positioning and repositioning
art and artists - of the past and of today - in their mutual relationships.
This is an intellectually viable and honourable standpoint, but
also somewhat 'high-risk'. How successfully this can be done remains
to be seen, but only by posterity, and after current curators have
usually moved on to the great art gallery in the skies - or wherever.
There is a strong representation of video art in the current December
P.S.1 line-up. 'Video Acts: Single Channel works from the Collections
of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and New Art Trust' runs through January
2003. British artist Steve McQueen's cool, soundless projected film
entitled 'Just Above My Head' is exemplary, as is the environmentally
more raucous 'Phat Free ' (1988) by David Hammons and the transformation
of Linda Carter into Wonder Woman in 'Technology /Transfer' (l978-79)
by Dara Birnbaum.
Also currently running is 'Building Structures'. An architectural
presentation by international artists whose names are becoming better
known - such figures as Francis Cape, Nathan Carter, Wade Guyton,
Rachel Harrison, Chris Hanson, Hendrika Sonnenberg, Ian Kiaer, Ross
Knight, Rita McBride, Patrick Meagher, Manfred Pernice, John Powers,
Karlis Rekevics, Lara Schnitger and Shirley Tse. It will be interesting
to see, in two decades if not one, how many of these aspirants can
be re-rated by the museum then, and how many fall by the wayside.
This tension of survival is ever present in the more rhetorical
project presentations. The artists use techniques available to architects
and the process in some respects parodies the common usage of contemporary
architects themselves in a subtle double take. The range of work
exhibited is remarkable, from Francis Cape's quotations in wood
of memory, history and surface materiality: the sculptures replicate
cabinets and closets being finely finished with numerous coats of
monochromatic paint. There is an illusion here of function too,
when hinges are fastened to the cabinets, which are then sealed
closed.
Nathan Carter's work 'Crash Bang Boom, We Land Direct at the Barbican'
(2002), by contrast seems to mock the arrogance of postwar modernism
where imminent dynamic movement gets frozen tragically in time,
incorporating the nostalgia of children's toys.
Rachel Harrison's mixed media constructions engage both photographic
and digital imagery within sculptured frameworks. She uses impoverished
building materials to achieve this, such as Styrofoam and plywood.
New York-based artist Patrick Meagher's installation is entitled
'that other modern world' (2000): this cross references architecture
and modern social structures, by means of a whole series of individual
sculptures which are made from expanded bead-Styrofoam. Iconographic
components of varying scale purvey a feeling of shifting space.
There is some reminiscence of the felts of Joseph Beuys, and the
artist presents EPS aggregate foam as being the quintessential modern
material.
In his 'personal decade (2002), Meagher provides a triptych of
drawn work, referencing past bodies of the work by means of a series
of imaginary annual icons. Fellow New York artist John Powers focuses
on modernism's tendency to self-replicate endlessly by constructing
sculptures with a single repeated module: wooden blocks are cut
to various sizes yet maintaining always the basic underlying proportion
of one by two by three. The work entitled 'Key' (2000) has three
blocks balanced on point, while all the blocks meet at right angles.
He articulates the volumes, but never actually subverts what remains
a compositional whole.
The Berlin-based artist Manfred Pernice draws upon the seemingly
banal architectural structures that proliferate across our contemporary
landscape. He transfers basic architectural forms as such into sculpture,
using inexpensive building materials such as untreated wood, while
also attaching such ephemera as cuttings from journals and photo
reproductions to the actual surfaces of the works.
The American painter Al Held's monumental paintings are composed
of lozenges, rectangles, squares and stripes, which through tiled
checkerboards and sliding scales, seem to leave the surface of every
form virtually engaged. Obviously Held has suffered from the previous
lack of space large enough to reveal the true impact of his work.
Such a space as P.S.1 can offer helps to resolve the problem. The
paintings also appear digital, but the process of work begins traditionally
with drawing, signs of which process are then finally erased.
Paintings by Al Held and Arnold Mesches take advantage of the substantial
spaces on offer in the Galleries. Mesches has one large painting
in his FBI Files exhibition, otherwise made up of collages which
are taken to represent oppression and even criminal activity that
masqueraded as legitimacy in the Depression, or in World War II,
the Cold War, and most especially perhaps in the McCarthy era. All
of Mesches' works appear as colourful tapestries from a distance
but when you take a closer look, you find yourself hit and frozen
in horror that freedom itself was snatched from innocent individuals
and groups, by America's own 'crusaders' in their form of patriotism.
Mesches' exhibition was organised by P.S.1's Associate Curator Daniel
Marzona.
The admixture of works in various media already shown at MoMA QNS
and P.S.1. as above, combined with a valid questioning of modernism's
sacred cows, characterises throughout the building this kind of
deliberate, yet effectively provocative work. Of its internationalism
there can be little doubt. But how insulated still is the selection,
and the preoccupation of the majority of artists shown, from the
cybernetic revolution which is sweeping through all forms of visual
media today. Anyone for a cyborg?
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