Cutlog is the first of the Frieze Week Art Fairs to open their doors to the press and VIP’s.  It’s hard to turn down an opportunity to check out the work before anyone else while being treated to a free gourmet brunch.  I can’t stress enough how much fun the perks of art writing can be, and recommend it to any artist who has a knack for words.

This morning the NY edition of the renowned Parisian art fair treated the press to a small talk with it’s founders Bruno Hadjad and NY Director, Guy Reziciner orchestrated by Lainya Magana in a small second floor theater.  It was followed by a brunch of Crepes and Champagne.

Cutlog NY Director, Guy Reziciner.

Cutlog Founding Director and visual aritst, Bruno Hadjadj

After brunch we were given full access to wander around Cutlog, to the 40+ exhibits featuring many first time galleries and curators, 80% of which are international.  Of all the booths 80% were only 80% hung.  This was truly a definition of a first look.

I found parking right out front, but the meter was only good for an hour, so after an hour I had to go out and feed it for another hour.  I felt a bit rushed in looking at the art, also knowing that they weren’t fully set up I didn’t want to get in the way of some booths, so in this article I  really have only documented about half the work in the fair.  If you hate spoilers, this article won’t ruin the show for you.

There are three theaters in the building which during the fair will have lots of scheduled live performances and presentations.

The building, The Clemente, is an old school house in the lower east side that has been converted into a community center, but unlike the schoolhouse that houses Spring/Break, this place is laid out in a weird way.  If you don’t pay attention to the map, you might get lost.

Look, there are some mirrors, how novel.

Artist Matthew Denton Burrows who is a recent SVA Masters grad, I recognized his work from the MFA senior thesis show last year.

Folioleaf founder Todd Masters.

Photographer Serge Sellem.

Above are some photos by Serge.

Installation artist and photographer Arnaud Cohen.

A Bowl Of Mixed Art curator Frankie Velez in front of the Folioleaf booth.

PG Artventure has a great booth of Swoon‘s work.

There are many more Swoon pieces, you will have to come to see them yourself.

Artwork by Marjan Moghaddam.

Amsterdam’s Amstel Gallery owner Petra Leene in front of the work of artists Laura O’Reilly, Kathy Grayson, Gregory de la Haba, and Lee Wells.

Family Affairs, an incestuous avant-garde survey of art group show within a fair by IFAC.

Neon artwork by Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos.

These paintings when viewed through this screen have secret three dimensional elements jump out of them.

The artist behind the 3D paintings, G.H. Hovagimyan

More mirrors.

View of  the Fuman Art booth, a gallery from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. On the left: works by French artist Stephane Blanquet,  In the middle: works by Japanese artist: Aoi Fujimoto, On the right: works by Japanese artist: Minoru Sugiyama.

Works by Malaysian artist: Azizan Paiman.

Rafael Fuchs in front of a lot of his work in the Fuchs Projects booth.

Greg Haberny and Matt Kinney art at Ethan Cohen Fine Arts‘ booth.

Matt Kinney himself standing in front of a few of his tools which are sculptures carved from wood.

Artist David Henry Brown Jr.

  David Henry Brown Jr.’s artwork in the Bleeker Street Arts Club booth.

cutlog NY Dates and Times
May 7, 2014: Vernissage by Invite Only, 5 – 10pm
May 8, 9, 10, 2014: 12pm – 9pm
May 11, 2014: 12pm – 9pm

Location
107 Suffolk Street,
New York, NY 10002

Written and photographed by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post A First Look at Cutlog Art Fair 2014 appeared first on Artiholics.

New York – Saturday, March 8, 2014

This year the first of the Armory Arts Week press previews was for  Spring / Break Art Show in an old school house (called The Old School) in Little Italy. It’s a cool step away from the traditional art fair because it not only focuses on the curator as key, but also has a hard-on for “new media” art, which means you will be seeing either video or projection art in almost every room, and if no video there is usually some auditory component.

Sometimes it is fun to be surprised by art, going into a show without knowing any of the players is like going to a movie not just without any spoilers, but also having no knowledge of the plot or cast. That was my experience last year when I first attended Spring / Break 2013. I was a blank slate. Having never been to the fair previously I was green to the rundown elementary school layout. It seemed disjointed and reminded me of a cross between PS1 and the random dilapidated school buildings turned solo artist exhibitions you see at the Governors Island Art Fair.

This time I settled right in. I knew some of the artists and curators personally ahead of time and was able to more easily identify the work.  It was fun to see how each curator played with this year’s theme for the fair PUBLICPRIVATE.

Entering the building and checking in I wandered into the first room which had an eaten away pillar which reminded me of the box from Frieze except made out of garbage.

Passing through that room I encountered a hallway full of blood illuminations by Jordan Eagles I have been to several Jordan Eagles blood shows when he worked in solid form, but these 13 projectors really filled out the space with a hemo-glow. Curated by Tracy Causey-Jeffery.

Jordan walking through the corridor.

Jordan’s silhouette in blood.

Ducking out I spun around when I heard my name called. It was art writer / curator Benjamin Sutton. I had seen some of his install pics on Facebook and instantly recognized the room he curated by the unmistakable ceiling cats by artist Caroline Wells Chandler.

Benjamin getting interviewed by Samantha Katz from Whitewall Magazine.

Samantha Katz.

The piece that was his starting point for building the show was this grotesque sculpture “Selfie as a Chocolate Chip Cookie,” also by Caroline.

I climbed up on the radiator to get this shot.

“Rule 34; Charm” by Sigrid Sarda. Made with real maggots dipped in gold, wax, real human bones & hair.

This room was curated by Jessica Hodin, The director of the Bleeker Street Arts Club.

Jessica jumped behind this transparent piece.

Jessica Hodin.

Assistant Director of Bleeker Street Arts Club, Anita King.

They have a new show titled FEELING HUMAN, with an opening reception this Sunday, Mar 9, 2014 from 1-4pm featuring some artists from this exhibit. 305 Bleecker St., NY NY 10014

Artist Lucas Zallmann poses with his fridges.

You open them up to find metal dildos and books.

Curated by Wills Baker and Sarah Sulistio.  Sarah is seen here talking with Spring/Break Co-Founder Andrew Gori.

A few photos by Carl Gunhouse.

A piece by Jacob Rhodes from Field Projects.

Curated by Chris Bors seen here with an original piece of his own.

Lia Chavez performing Luminous Objects

Which is curated by Tali Wertheimer, seen here, who is opening a new gallery called TWO RAMS on March 16th.

Artist and curator Max Razdow standing in front of one of his drawings.  I met Max last year when he had his own booth at Volta NY.

Curator Kari Adelaide.

Artist Jesse Bransford and his drawing experiment based on rolling a RPG die titled “Dice Drawings Set Five.”

Singing Bruce Springsteen with a mask on, mask off, show is over.  Crystal Curtis

Group Show curated by David Alexander Flinn

Room with projectors by Rin Johnson audio by Michael Valinsky.

Iphone cases by Collin Munn

I asked three staircase docents if they knew who made these streamers and none of them had a clue.  One said the girl with the yellow purse who was just here.  One said the girl with the green purse who was just here.

It wasn’t until I found a map.  Coralina Meyer.

Founders of the Spring/Break Art Fair, Ambre
 Kelly and 
Andrew 
Gori.

Andrew Gori.

Art by Alex McQulkin which was a collaborative piece she did with her mom.  She commissioned her mom knit a pussy riot mask for her.  She then wore the mask, took pictures of it, and then drew the mask.  This drawing is the end result.

Art by Alex McQulkin & Michael St. John.

This is a piece made by hand cutting out individual diamonds from Sotheby’s catalogs and pasting them together.

Curator Marina T. Schindler

Pin-up style art by Walter Robinson, curated by Ambre Kelly & Andrew Gori

Wall of small pieces depicting Jerry Saltz doing things, by Ambre Kelly, curated by Andrew Gori.

The next room I photographed parts of Liminal Reclamations curated by Tracy Causey-Jeffery and Amy Kisch.
We Are Made To Endure, Portraits of the Donner Party by Robert Saywitz

A room playing all of Woody Allen’s Oscar Nominated films while a toy train goes in a circle referencing recent allegations.

As well as A Universe in My Throat, 2012 by Kevin Bourgeois

Golden Coin by Patrick Meagher

Nightfall by Devin Powers.

Photo and video pieces by Rachel Garrard

Private Drive-In.

By artists Fall On Your Sword and Sarah Bereza (pictured above).

Inside the bug.

I blew out the shot with a flash so you could see the paint work on the car by Sarah.

Sit in the bug and enjoy a superfast loop of scenes from movies that take place in the front seat of cars, including this scene from Grease, as well as that famous 1955 Back To The Future scene with Marty McFly and his teenage mom.

Spring / Break Art Show is located at Old School, 233 Mott Street, NYC and costs $5
All work from the show can be purchased online at SpringBreakArtFair.com

Thursday, March 6 –  Sunday, March 9
Noon – 8pm Daily

Written and Photographed by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post SPRING/BREAK Art Show Is Your Elementary School On Psilocybin appeared first on Artiholics.

If you are a street art fan, or even more accurately stated “a fan of graffiti” the tagging duo of Mint&Serf have shed their street vandalism tagging ways for one show to collaborate indoors, tagging canvases.  Because you can sell that.

The show titled Support, Therapy, and Instability just ended it’s run at Bleeker Street Arts Club.  If you are a Mint&Serf fanatic and missed their social media alerts that this show was on, enjoy these pictures.

If you aren’t a fan of graffiti, this show will take an open mind.  If you can blur your eyes beyond the words, abstract artwork might begin to form.  You know you are in for an interesting show when in their own press release they have to mention:

“Layered with paint, markers, and paper, the canvas is a never-ending sea of abstractly expressed thoughts and gestures. The dizzying result, described as anguished, dark, and criminal, can evoke conflicted reactions in the viewer.”

Multicolored tags on the traditional square / rectangle shape canvases, hanging in a gallery, in New York City.  That is how you know it’s art, not graffiti.

See, it’s fine art now.  Because, why not?

According to their press release:

“Working within the parameters of contemporary painting, the duo has used their history with street art and graffiti-writing to build a new portal of painting, a new surface, space and vision, that has not yet been explored,” says Laura Bloom, Director of Sandra Gering, Inc.”

It is mostly themselves getting wasted with their friends and tagging the words “Serf” and “Mint” in various colors, thicknesses, and mediums, and overlapping them, as well as some other words.

It is interesting to see how abstract words can become when they are overlapped to the point of illegibility.  It just becomes colors and shapes.

Which does make for an interesting thing to look at.  So who is to say this isn’t another way of making an abstract painting.  Words are just colored lines after all.

And now for the technical art-speak explanation of what they did:

For their show at Bleecker Street Arts Club, Mint&Serf have taken their graffiti practice inside the studio and applied the same gestural expression that they wildly employ out in the streets directly to canvases.  The result is a lush and crude composition, chaotic and thrilling.  Cat Marnell wrote, “What Mint&Serf … have accomplished with these pieces…so layered after months and months of tag upon tag upon tag…is to confine the unconfined: the spirit of vandalism, the energy and electricity of New York City graffiti.”

Mint&Serf have been featured in The New York Post, Interview Magazine, Huffington Post, Dossier Journal, Daily Mail, VICE, Paper, Gothamist and Blackbook.  Their book “Support, Therapy, and Instability” was published in 2013 with essays by Carlo McCormick and Cat Marnell.

Support, Therapy, and Instability by Mint&Serf ran from January 16 –  February 22, 2014 at Bleeker Street Arts Club 305 Bleecker St. NYC 10014

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Mint & Serf Indoor Graffiti @ Bleeker Street Arts Club appeared first on Artiholics.

New York – Monday, February 3, 2014

Throughout history there has always been a symbiotic relationship between the artist and their model.  A living muse is a thing of beauty which only remains in tact for a few short years, and it’s the artists ability recognize this beauty and to capture it in a still frame, or painting on canvas.  After all, what would the Mona Lisa be without a model but a drab greenish landscape with some scrubby bushes and a twisty dirt trail?

Thus said, it is always fascinating when a model transcends being a muse, takes on the artist mantle, and starts capturing muses themselves.

I was invited to attend a VIP opening of supermodel turned photographer Helena Christensen‘s photography exhibit in the West Village this past Thursday for a show titled VISUAL JOURNAL, PERU.

I attended the coffee and croissant preview at Bleeker Street Arts Club  the morning of big opening. This was a nice way to see the work in natural daylight, and without the room being jam-packed, as galleries tend to be during openings.

I was able to step back and see the compositions as a whole.  Helena not only photographed the work, but curated the hanging of it.

The new work is part of her role as the Global Explorer for the Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts.  They gave her a Leica Camera and sent her and her mother (who is Peruvian) to Peru, let them stay in three of their various luxury resorts around the country, and just set her off to take pictures with no agenda.

Unlike other corporately sponsored gallery events, there was no branding to be seen.  I wish more corporate patrons would  fund artist’s work in such a way,  underwriting artists to allow them explore and create without donning the Nascar jacket of ownership.

Mixed within the photos were pieces of actual handmade Peruvian clothing.  These outfits are not for sale, as they are part of Helena’s private wardrobe which she actually wears.  Tourists will often offer to buy clothes right off of Peruvian’s backs but they are reluctant to sell them because they are hand made, an the bright colors are hard to come by.

I love this photo of the Peruvian children.  Other than the boy on the right’s sneakers, the clothes seem to all be one of a kind custom outfits.  Its great to see that Walmart isn’t everywhere on earth yet.

Some cultures still have some authenticity in tact.

Unlike the casual tourist with the requisite Machu Picchu shot she ventured to the further off places, capturing the people, animals, and landscapes in all their unfiltered and candid beauty.  You can view the entire show’s gallery online.  The prints are available to bid on to purchase via Gavel&Grand Here>>

The opening itself was as you could imagine, packed.  Some of the A-List beautiful people, and some of the most talented people from world of music, acting, and fashion.  Both male and female supermodels galore.

There were also a slew of  photographers with giant camera rigs trying not to get any of the other photographers in their shots. When standing next to the world’s top models and supermodels, photographers look like unwashed neanderthals.  If you ever want to feel like an ogre, stand next to these people.

Supermodels Isabella Farrell & Gigi Paris.

I had actually considered wearing my Calvin Klein suit to this event.  Would have been a mistake, when THE Calvin Klein Model himself Garrett Neff showed up.  It would have been like…oh yeah, that’s how it’s… supposed to look.

Supermodel Anouck Lepère.

Did I mention there were a few supermodels at this event?

Model Josh Gray.

Hugo Boss model Alex Lundqvist.  I might as well go back under that bridge and paint, grumble, grumble…

Supermodel and photographer in her own right Helena Christensen, whose work we were all here to toast.  I asked her if she would pose in front of the photo with the children.  She led me across the room and happily obliged.

Breaking away to the acting world Norman Reedus, aka Daryl Dixon on my favorite basic cable TV show The Walking Dead.  Norman was married to Helena from 1998-2003 and have a son together.  He’s also a painter, sculptor, and photographer.

If you weren’t alive in the early 90s, you missed some very special TV moments, especially when it comes to photographers and filmmakers throwing their hand into the music video realm.

I was a teenager in the 90s, so MTV and the music video stars of the 90s are right in my adolescent sweet spot.  In the days of Columbia House Music Club, and cassette tapes.  Songs and videos of those peak teen years help define a moment in your development, and stick with you.

When fashion photographer Herb Ritts directed and shot the video for Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” with Issak and a topless Helena Christensen, I was sold.  He upped the game for what it means to be sexy in a music video.  It elevated the genre.

Before this video the only things you had to look to was Tawny Kitaen rolling around on cars like a slutty hood ornament.  It would have been very hard for an awkward teenager of the 90s not to have looked into Helena’s eyes and not be physically stirred.  I had never been on a beach that beautiful, and had never made out with a topless model covered with sand, but before this video I didn’t even have that as a mental possibility.  The video convinced me that if it were to ever happen, it would be hot as shit.

Another video at the same time that captured adolescent attention was the video for Aerosmith’s song Crazy.

This video starred a young Alicia Silverstone, and Liv Tyler.  We follow them on a Ferris Bueller esque school breakout & road trip which rather than going to a cubs game, an art museum, and singing danke schoen  in a parade, these two high school truants go shoplifting, pole dancing, skinny dipping, and have implied teen lesbian sex in a hotel.  What isn’t there to love about this video?

Just when this party couldn’t get any better…

In walked Liv Tyler.

I asked Liv if I could take her picture.  I told her I’ve met her sister, model and photographer Mia Tyler a few times and have written about her photography openings.  Liv seemed happy by that.  I have a hunch I am probably one of the few actual artist / art writers at this event not associated with a PR firm, so having someone who has actually written about other photography or art events in attendance was probably novel.

So, the icing on the cake of the 90s music video trifecta …

R.E.M. and Aerosmith were gods to me.  So meeting R.E.M. front man  Michael Stipe was pretty mind blowing.

I told him “You are my college years in one person.”  More like my high school years, but considering R.E.M. was known as a college band, I wanted him to connect.  He instantly stopped, put on his glasses and posed for me.  Total class.

In red is Georgina Chapman, fashion designer, actress, and wife of Harvey Weinstein.

Jewelry designer Zani Gugelmann.

Actor, producer and  designer,  Waris Ahluwali was last year’s Global Explorer, whom you might remember from the Wes Anderson films.

Daniel Benedict, brand ambassador for The Leading Hotels of the World.

Zani Gugelmann and casting director Natalie Joos.

Famed NYC Nightclub proprietor Amy Sacco.

PR girl Georgia Vickerson.

Luxury Collection’s Chrystal Thomas.

Ethan Maytum.

Nightlife guru Nur Khan & Lyman Carter creative director at BPCM.

Jessica Hodin, Director of the Bleeker Street Arts Club.

VISUAL JOURNAL, PERU will be on display from January 31 through February 17, 2014 at the Bleeker Street Arts Club 305 Bleecker St.,NYC 10014 – Open Tuesday – Saturday 11 am – 7 pm.  A portion of the proceeds to benefit Oxfam.  The prints are available to bid on to purchase via Gavel&Grand Here>>

Written and Photographed by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post The Star-Studded NYC Opening of Helena Christensen’s Photo Exhibit appeared first on Artiholics.