I can't imagine ever wanting to be sans serif

Say what you will, but it does look good on the shopping bags!

Keith is the son of a psychoanalyst, the husband of a professor, a mentor to countless students and artists, and a brilliant painter.  My American Dream is a prismatic album of warm memories, cool observations, inward exploration, and cosmic wonder.  Marriage is a touchstone of Keith’s worldview, as it was for Kierkegaard, who described it as an essential stage in the metamorphosis of a maturing person.  For Keith, it also open ups new social dimensions: the family, the state, the country.  Husband as citizen; citizen as husband.  It is like naturalization for the mind (and heart).

Keith Mayerson, Husbands (Andrew and I), 2012

Husbands (Andrew and I), 2012 is the best window into this show (though Family, 2013 is the best seat). Keith and his real-life husband, Andrew, pose for a #selfie at their home in California, where they married before California passed Prop 8; that is, before church-driven forces spent a fortune to mislead the public into denying Constitutional rights to an unpopular minority. Times are better now. Since the show opened, two more U.S. states have passed marriage equality and one embraced civil unions. But more central to the painting, which Keith has described as his own private Jewish Bride, is how its beatific religiosity overpowers the secular topic. Keith and Andrew look graceful and splendid in a bond that no zealot, storm, nor communist menace could tear asunder.  A light that never goes out falls centrally upon them, the spectrally striated sky behind them seems to roil with volcanic murmurs, colors shift and shimmer, and space appears to rush toward us as Keith-Andrew hurtle across the universe.

From Keith's previous show: Our Wedding, July 22, 2008, Meadbrook, CA, 2010

That cosmic awareness makes an experience that is almost out-of-body in View from our Chelsea Window, 2012. The only thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes, and in this painting, it’s like waking up really late or really early.  Historical uncertainty.  An American flag, clewed up, halfway, like a rising eyelid, reveals a golden street scene. One could pause to admire how the vertical buildings outside square off with the horizontal window frame and will, or one could move on and consider the purple and intimate private space inside sheltered from the brassy public space outside.  And then we learn that on July 4th, Keith and Andrew layed in bed to watch the Independence Day fireworks outside their window, which actually does have an American flag as a window dressing. Two joined souls are sharing a bed, contemplating the long history that made this moment possible; they share a bed and a consciousness, looking together through one eye.

Keith Mayerson, View from our Chelsea Window, 2012

A theme that precedes the topics listed above is commitment, which is an ethical choice.  Most of the paintings in this show depict behavior and activity that require commitment.  Marriage is an obvious example.  Family, too.  Surviving in NYC is a commitment.  Painting is definitely a commitment.  Insistently looking inward is a commitment.  Researching James Dean could be a commitment, but it strikes me as obsession, which is a relative of commitment, but possibly younger.

Keith Mayerson Family, 2013

How Things are Made, Alpha at Spot Welders

How Things Are Made examines “the processes artists use to make their work and how that may reflect meaning into the results,” according to Sam, whose recent work has combined layered fabrics, clothing remnants, and studio sweepings in abstract paintings.  The exhibition will unfold in three parts, a point that uncovers the “facture” of a curated show, alongside the entries in that show.

Guyton/Walker and Magic Flying Carpets of the Berber Kingdom of Morocco at Spot Welders

How Things Are Made, Alpha includes Katherine Bernhardt, Lucky DeBellevue, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Jake Ewert, Mariah Robertson, William Kentridge, Magic Flying Carpets of the Berber Kingdom of Morocco, Boro Textiles (courtesy of Sri Threads), Guyton/Walker (courtesy of Maharam Digital Projects), Stuart Sherman & Takeshi Murata (courtesy of EAI).

Magic Flying Carpets of the Berber Kingdom of Morocco

Jake Ewert’s painted pizzas are a highlight, as are Daphne Fitzpatrick’s photos and her 3D-printed pipe miniature.  Katherine Bernhardt’s paintings interact beautifully with the Moroccan carpets arranged throughout the studio.  And Stuart Sherman’s diagrammatic performances on video embody the theme of the show.  But everything in this show is terrific and I’m seeking an internship at Spot Welders so I can see Lucky DeBellevue’s dreamcatcher in daylight, every day.

Katherine Bernhardt at Spot Welders

Lucky DeBellevue and Jake Ewert at Spot Welders

A key precedent to the show is Peter Kubelka’s infamous beer commercial, described this way:

“In 1957, Peter Kubelka was hired to make a short commercial for Scwechater beer. The beer company undoubtedly thought they were commissioning a film that would help them sell their beers; Kubelka had other ideas. He shot his film with a camera that did not even have a viewer, simply pointing it in the general direction of the action. He then took many months to edit his footage, while the company fumed and demanded a finished product. Finally he submitted a film, 90 seconds long, that featured extremely rapid cutting between images of dimly visible people drinking beer and of the froth of beer seen in a fully abstract pattern.”

Daphne Fitzpatrick at Spot Welders

A Pop Up “Souk” and opportunity to tour the exhibition takes place Friday, May 10th, 3-6pm at Spot Welders, 44 East 32nd Street, 5th Floor.

All of the above images are by Steven Probert!

Keren Moscovitch in a conversation with Allen Frame about Me Into You and book signing!

Keren Moscovitch, "Last Night," 2010

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 7–9pm
SVA Amphitheater
209 East 23rd Street, 3rd floor
Free admission, please bring photo ID for building entry!

Keren Moscovitch, "Sucking," 2009

SVACE faculty member, summer residency director, and photographer extraordinaire Keren Moscovitch presents Me Into You, a self-published limited edition monograph contextualized within her experiences in an open relationship. The body of work investigates both the limits and infinite possibility of intimacy, and what happens when one’s intimate life starts to lack boundaries. She will be joined in conversation by essayist and photographer Allen Frame in a discussion about photography, intimacy and the intersection between the two.

The event will be followed by a Q&A session and book signing.

Keren Moscovitch, "My First Time Watching," 2009

Jane Kim Gallery

Hence, Swing State “looks at the middle state between two places, whether in presidential elections, or in the creative states where the middle ignites ideas that are sometimes vulnerable and full of doubt.” The show features some frequently exhibited “fixtures” among our artist peers, and while some connections between them seem established, others strike me as surprising.

(l-r) Lisa Beck, Steve diBenedetto, Fabian Marcaccio, Tamara Gonzalez in "Swing State" (IMAGE: Tom Powell)

For example, Steve diBenedetto and Fabian Marcaccio have chosen awesomely grotesque, dense images that evoke violence and isolation; Marcaccio “swings” between painting, printing, and sculpture.  They also exhibited together in a 2009 show that deBenedetto curated at David Nolan Gallery.  Nearby, Thomas Nozkowski and David Shaw, combined, open up new possibilities.  Here, Shaw exhibits a painting, instead of his sculptures built from natural wood forms, but this painting and those wood sculptures harmonize with Nozkowski’s floor sculpture, Untitled. Both combine natural, earth-derived materials with manufactured, recreational elements. And the Nozkowski sculpture here hasn’t been seen since he showed it in 1976 at the legendary Betty Parsons Gallery.

Thomas Nozkowski, "Untitled," 1976

Another surprise was the trio of sculptures by Joanne Greenbaum that look like viscera and entrails after the Phagwah Parade. The flexibly architectural abstractions I’ve seen of hers at D’Amelio Terras were always energizing, but I’d never seen her sculptures – a “swing” across media?  They strike me as more tightly wound and pent up than her paintings, layered and beaming palimpsests in which spaces are often open fields. Here, spaces are tightening channels.

Joanne Greenbaum sculptures (IMAGE: Tom Powell)

Jane Kim is no stranger to the Lower East Side. Her previous gallery, Thrust Projects, was based at 114 Bowery, before most of the LES stalwarts.  Thrust Projects exhibited artists who were increasingly in demand – R.H. Quaytman, Carrie Moyer, Ben Butler – and artists well established (Amy Sillman, David Humphrey, Lisa Yuskavage).

The gallery also features a “book hub” with printed material about the Swing State artists.