"Vernissage" a fancy word for "Opening"

I have a small gripe: the word "vernissage." I'm not exactly sure when this word started to replace the more adequate and appropriate "opening" but armory week was filled with vernissages. "Oh, it's the preview!" a friend of mine said. "Ah! The Pre-View." Now that's a word that makes sense--the first view or view before the view...well, it kind of makes sense. What's the etymology of "vernissage"? It's French of course (which makes it fancier), from 1912, and it refers to the day before an exhibition's official opening when artists were able to put the finishing touches on their paintings and then varnish them (vernissage comes from varnish). There's not much varnishing going on at these private previews, just plain old beer and sometimes $12 glasses of wine. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a good vernissage now and then, I'd just prefer to call it the preview...and I will. 

Also, a weird thing I MUST comment on is VernissageTV. I would love for someone to explain to me this blog's merits, but honestly, it's truly ridiculous! I cannot imagine anyone watching this stuff. Boredom is an understatement. If only VernissageTV were an artwork on the ennui of the art world, then it would be high satire and awesomely funny, but as is, it's an exercise in patience. Check it out right before you get into bed.

A few quick thoughts

So I said I'd say a few words on the two other works on view at the Boiler Room: Yoon Lee's JFK and Jonathan Schipper's 215 Points of View, and since I like to do what I say I'm going to do, here goes.

Lee's painting is dramatic, with its skeins of looping paint artfully choreographed across the surface of the 20-ft length of PVC paneling. The sense of energy and dynamism is impressive, and I appreciate the gesture toward the narrative through the title, the word "JFK" conjuring momentous unplanned disaster and violence. Yet, in this particular work the gray geometrical architecture that contrasts with the colorful curved lines evokes anonymous corporate architecture or, given the context in which this work was shown, as-yet-unfinished luxury Williamsburg condos. Is it that such architecture itself is the perpetrator of violence or the recipient? For though both title and composition might indicate disaster, they might just as well suggest youthful hope and promise, unbounded energy and joy. Although I actually quite like Yoon's painting and the way in which it draws on a video-game aesthetic, I worry that it's too close to mainstream graphic tee-shirts sold at Urban Outfitters.

Schipper's work is quite an attraction, and despite an awkward conversation with the artist in which he asked me repeatedly which way I would twirl the globe to uncoil the cord, which was twisted (not knowing he was the artist, I kept insisting that I was fine with the cord the way it was and that it needed no untwisting [see cord at left]), I was generally intrigued. The 215 surveillance cameras on the globe shot footage, feeding it back through the monitors, and viewers spent some time trying to locate which camera corresponded with which screen, and not a few enjoyed spinning the entire work in one direction or another (leading to the cord troubles alluded to above). The interactive element, whether actually condoned by the artist or not, was one of the best aspects of the work and heightened its ability to incite inquisitiveness. The sense of totalizing surveillance was underlined by the perhaps a-tad-too-obvious symbolism of the globe, but this heavy-handedness was softened by the object's beauty and its ability to encourage interest in how surveillance technologies work, and how insidious they can become. On its own, the work is a strong one. If the artist hadn't snipped "did you take physics? did you go to college? then tell me how to uncoil the cord?" I might have liked it more. alas.

Addendum. Apparently I did not speak to the artist....and hence I'm quite glad that I can now safely say I liked the work, as no personal affront was incurred.

Boiler @ Pierogi

The gallery with the bar-none tastiest name (Pierogi) opened an annex, the Boiler, on March 7. Located on 191 North 14th Street in Williamsburg, Boiler is part of that genre of art spaces that have the smell of cement, earth, and hardwater that people are most familiar with from their basements, or, if they live in New York, where they (might) do their laundry. Other fine examples include the most recent Whitney Biennial's use of the Armory Building's nooks and crannies, and PS1's moist bottom floor. If it's leaking and smells like mold, it's a hot place to display and promote art.
Boiler's location is particularly wonderful for its adjacency to Gutter. Who doesn't want to view some art and bowl a few? Boiler showcased three works: Tavares Strachan's The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project), Yoon Lee's JFK, and Jonathan Schipper's 215 Points of View.

Strachan, who is soon to show at the ICA in Philadelphia, transported a 4.5 ton ice block from the Arctic, storing and displaying it in a glass-walled freezer. The project obviously invokes thoughts about global warming and ice-shelf melting, and it not without a touch of irony that the freezer is solar-powered. Though here the sun keeps cold that which elsewhere it melts, and thus a balance between freezing and melting appears to be maintained, the containment is still a futile process, with the situation being somewhat analogous to the misguided attempt to cool an apartment by leaving open a fridge door.

Formally, the ice block seems quiet and dare I say it, mysterious, with various cracks and colors ranging from blue-black to cerulean. It entrances and beckons like the ocean. Possessing an obvious unattainable beauty (the two so often being intertwined), it rests safe in its container.

But the project is more than just a conceptual gesture visualizing both distance and the loss such a displacement symbolizes, for flying above the freezer are Strachan's self-referential flags modeled on those flown by Arctic explorer Robert Peary. This is a signal to issues of authorship and identity. It is no coincidence that Strachan's piece is reminiscent of Marc Quinn's series of Self sculptures (begun in 1991). In Quinn's work the artist's visage, molded out of his own frozen blood, is contained in a freezer. The self for Quinn is contingent and momentary; it holds together only due to its surroundings and circumstance. Pull the plug...and the self disintegrates or rather, it melts like ice.

Tavares's references to the negotiation of self are more oblique, although on one level, pull the plug on the Arctic and we're all gone. To tease out the nuances of Strachan's work one must engage in the pursuit of history and the telling of stories (Strachan's titles themselves are nearly tomes): Peary claimed to be the discoverer of the North Pole, but whether or not he was remains an issue for debate. Another man, Frederick Cook, was most likely the actual discoverer; his overshadowing a story all its own. This claim to authorship and how certain people or places are overlooked in history is what makes the ice block a signifier of the social. Strachan, from the Bahamas, transported the ice block there and displayed it for children (overlooked art appreciators). The Bahamas, an island often overlooked for being anything other than a beach spot becomes in this movement the prime recipient of Strachan's art. His movement draws attention there instead of immediately to the New York art world. Subsequently, the block was further displaced to New York for the Boiler display. Here, a screen next to the freezer gives weather measurements in the Bahamas, quietly inserting this alterior narrative of an other place, another environment into Brooklyn, reminding us to not just look into the ice but outward to the world.

Strachan's cold heraldic block (with its literal heraldic flags) signals the entanglement of self, nation, and environment.

Soon...thoughts on the two other works at the Boiler, those by Lee and Schipper.

Top image: Boiler 

Middle: Detail of Strachan's work with Yoon's reflected in the glass.

Bottom: Michael Hall, Stamatina Gregory, Tavares Strachan