“If I were a member, I’d be livid,” whispered one super fierce publishing figure last night at the National Arts Club, referring to the dinner jacket-clad grown-ups who weren’t there for the Terence Koh lecture, who might have felt uncomfortably bumrushed by the scores of the artist’s ab fab fans, friends, a-KOH-lytes, and KOH-konspirators.
Garrick Gott and event organizer Stacy Engman, NAC Chair of Contemporary Art
To appease the outnumbered, but patient and actually very welcoming real NAC members, and to satiate the hungry, anxious club visitors, refreshments were abundant, including exotic absinthe spritzers, chocolate covered ants, port wine cheese spread, and Campbell’s soup with straws.
Who was there? Who wasn’t?
NAC President Arlene S. Hamsun introduces Terence Koh
Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, Phil and Shelley Aarons, Jerry Saltz, Roberta Smith, Cecilia Dean, Adam McEwen, Jeffrey Deitch, Mary Boone (happy belated birthday, still sexy at 58), RoseLee Goldberg, Kathy Grayson, Sophia Lamar…
…and lots of fashion people I can identify only by their looks.
W.W.W.D.?
The patrician, oil-on-canvas dinner jacket set would have been pleased.
Armchair historians
At 45 minutes, with nearly 400 images handpicked from local libraries and the artist’s bookshelves, individually scanned to ensure the highest quality, Terence Koh’s Art History 1642-2009 was a whirlwind tour of Western and Eastern Art, mostly chronological from 1642 to the present, and admitting into the Koh canon a few book covers, party photos, vintage porn, and even some line graph charts to diagram art market confidence.
Autumnal Degas moment at the NAC
Who was in it? Who made the Terence Koh Canon?
KOHlympia
Marcel Duchamp, Vermeer, Velasquez, Warhol, Koons, Aurel Schmidt, Adam McEwen, Marina Abramovic, David Shrigley, Goya, Rembrandt, Judd, Bourgeois, Wojnarowicz, William Blake, Hockney, Rob Pruitt, Kelley Walker, Dash Snow, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Karen Black/Kembra Pfahler, Christian Holstad;
Maurizio Cattelan, Aaron Bondaroff, Muntean/Rosenblum, Yoko Ono, Bianca Jagger, Nauman, Robert Smithson, Yayoi Kusama, James Lee Byars, Girodet, Chardin, Flavin, Jenny Saville, Damien Hirst, Julian Schnabel, Murakami, Zhang Huan, General Idea, Dan Colen – not in that order (no McGinley? no AVAF?) – and that’s just a fraction of art history according to Terence Koh – which is more expansive than the Eurocentric humanities courses I took in college.
RIP Jeanne-Claude, Long live Bruce High Quality
Koh spoke his own private ida-Koh language, which sounds something like Proto-Indo-Cabbie, though I heard someone ask Terence if it was Swedish.
Tonight at NAC
He barely stopped to breathe, only taking breaks to sip from his glass of vodka. He frequently strided away from his lectern to gesticulate and indicate details of the projected images.
A few times, he ranted at a rapid-fire clip, sounded like a Sotheby’s auctioneer, notably while discussing the Jeff Koons chrome bunny, which at the scale of the projection, looked like a anthropomorphic Sputnik.
RIP Dash Snow
Terence shouted and waved his arms indignantly while covering pictures of Hitler looking at artwork, and in the more emotive moments, slowed and spoke solemnly, especially when Dash Snow appeared, and when he displayed AA Bronson’s heartbreaking AIDS revelation, Felix, which is, for me, one of the most moving images of contemporary art since I first saw it in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.
Long live AA Bronson
In these heavyhearted moments, Terence sounded plantive and morose, though somehow resisted tears. His lecture was politically charged, addressing, for example, 20th Century China and the Reagan administration’s delusional failure to intervene during the incipient AIDS epidemic.
Ups and Downs
And although nobody but Terence understood his words, he still said a lot, contextualizing himself and refreshingly reminding us that ultimately, art is remembered for being seen, and all that matters is how it looks!
Shrigley vs. Seymour (vs. Brant)
Is this the new Terence Koh, post market crash, post Snow? Still cheeky, but more substantial, orchestrated, polychrome, narrative, and profound? Let’s find out at his “secret” performance tomorrow evening at Tompkins Square Park.
Ike-Koh (gesundheit!)
Oh, and rumor reveals a potential Terence Koh/Lady Gaga collaboration! DisKOH Stick!
Of translucent and – have my and use, viagra generic know I a in ever really my yet dry?
The humid air provided remedy by helping me to sweat out all of the toxins from last night’s tour of open bars and nightclubs that still allow smoking indoors.
(l-r) Sterling Ruby @ Pace Wildenstein, Thomas Houseago @ Michael Werner
Supposedly, art is selling steadily, just not at the maniacal pace of years past. Many of the booths look conservative, peddling old reliables: Alex Katz, Warhol, Richter, Richard Prince, lots of pop. The oozy, polychrome Sterling Ruby monument at Pace Wildenstein was memorable, as was a towering Thomas Houseago sculpture. Actually, many other giant figures populated the fair, perhaps sired by Marc Quinn’s 500-kg orchid cast in bronze.
Marc Quinn @ Thaddaeus Ropac
Meanwhile, there’s a revolution of round supports:
Robert Mangold, Ring Image H, 2009
Marc Quinn, We Share Our Chemistry with the Stars, 2009
Ugo Rondinone, No. 92, 1997
Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2009
And myriad mirrors, stainless steel, and other reflective surfaces:
Tony Cragg, Inclination, 2009
David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen
More Altmejd, this guy rocks
Jonathan Monk, Deflated Sculpture, 2009
Relentlessly awesome Jim Lambie, at Anton Kern Gallery
Do collectors love to see themselves in their art? Is narcissism a component of conspicuous consumption? Let’s ask the pros. Overseeing this empire of objects are Art Basel Co-Directors Marc (with a C) Spiegler and Annette Schönholzer:
Art Basel Co-Directors Marc Spiegler and Annette Schönholzer
Super artist Ai Weiwei (r) and Camille X (l)
My favorite thing so far has been the Wade Guyton wall at Friedrich Petzel. EXCLUSIVE to the SVA blog, Andrea Teschke, Director of Friedrich Petzel Gallery, talks us through it. Thanks, Andrea!
My least favorite thing was the rhinestone-coated deer by Marc Swanson at Richard Gray Gallery. Deer art went extinct in 2004, followed soon by sasquatch art. It’s not better than Liza Lou, and def can’t beat Damien Hirst: you can’t top his diamond skull, which is the ultimate in Bedazzler Art. Shouldn’t I shell out my $60,000 for some real bling?
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