NYC arts coverage by the HIGH 5 REVIEW Freelancer Corps and the Teen Reviewers and Critics Program
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If you could travel through time, which direction do you prefer, the past or the future? In the second triennial exhibition this past year, “The Ungovernables,” at the New Museum, the artists invent the time machine, inviting us to travel in a disoriented space where we could embrace the energy of a generation’s disobedience and urgencies or deliberate the unique experiences and memories of the generation. [click to continue….]
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Untitled (slide) by Carsten Höller. Photo Credit: Noah Kalina, Katie Sokoler/Gothamist.
“The point of this exhibition is to disprove your expectations,” New Museum employee Kimberley Mackenzie noted, referring to the museum’s current survey of works by German artist Carsten Höller. Part test site and part laboratory, the exhibition takes the concept of a “visitor experience” to the next level. The participation requires museum-goers to sign a legal waiver on the ground floor, after which they pass the fittingly placed mushroom sculptures and enter an adult playground of interactive art. Depending on how willing you are to suspend your belief (and body), the exhibition offers a wide-ranging selection of experiences, all far from any conventional idea of museum installations.
For the hesitant, the upper floors offer a room of flashing lights, a fish tank with a hole for your head, parakeets, a mirrored carousel, and a moving tunnel. For the more advantageous, a 102-foot slide penetrates the main gallery floors and takes a total of four seconds to ride (and is becoming progressively faster as riders further indent the steel), and the Experience Corridor offers a number of self-experiments. For the dauntless, there are Upside-Down Goggles, which give the user inverted vision and make you so prone to falling that use requires leaving a credit card at the desk, and the Giant Psycho Tank, a sensory deprivation pool filled with literally a ton of salt, set at the same temperature as the human body, meaning to emulate the Dead Sea. Participation in the tank requires either the removal of all clothing or only wearing a swimsuit.
While such a wild menu of experiences would naturally seem the product of an artist, Mr. Höller, 49, in fact began as a biologist. [click to continue….]
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This August, five groups of Teen Reviewers and Critics (TRaC) ventured out into New York City to take in some culture. After attending a Thursday performance, everyone wrote reviews, then reconvened the following Tuesday for a discussion and workshop. Our work is published here in the first of a five part series featuring writing from the Summer TRaC!
Summer TRaC Session 4 visited the New Museum to see exhibits featuring Rivane Neuenschwander, Brion Gysin and Amy Granat. Check out the excerpts and full reviews below….
“When you look at a bubble, you think it’s just a freaking bubble, but if you look at it long enough you begin to think of it as more, you give it a personality of some kind, it becomes a part of you.” – Cynthia Dunston
“Hanging from the ceiling were buckets filled with water that had a little small dropper on the bottom. It was called “Rain Rains.” […] If you stood in the middle of it, you could hear all the buckets dripping water at different times. […] like you were in a shed with holes on the roof. Each droplet would maybe fall into pans, bowls or whatever you could find to store the water.” – Joleyne Herrera
“[...] “Involuntary Sculptures,” displays of little “creations” made absentmindedly by people during conversations at restaurants. It was so simple—bent straws, cherry pits on a napkin—but it just went to show that art is sometimes totally unintentional.” – Rebecca Seidel
“Granat’s “Light 3 Ways” is a video projection showing different ways light can be perceived accompanied a sound piece. […] trying to watch the projections, listen to the sounds, and read the description of the artist and piece in a narrow corridor where people are passing by makes it difficult to focus on the piece for a long length of time.” – Hyesun Yi
“The title piece of the exhibit – the Dream Machine itself – is a cylinder of flashing light meant to be experienced by kneeling six to eight inches in front of it with closed eyes and listening to a song he selected through the iPod audio guide. It’s a rather psychedelic experience […] To me, though, it was very calming – I was ensconced in a moment of peacefulness that I had not anticipated.” – Lily Shoretz
“Blank canvases and barren sculpture populate much of the modern art circuit—it is refreshing to see a piece that is serious in execution, but does not take itself seriously. [...] While methodical and unequivocal, it lacks the constriction common in avant-garde, Dada works. This non-rigid approach, however, does not imply interactivity.” – Sharon Mizrahi
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Bryon Gysin with Dreamachine at Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, 1962. The first U.S. retrospective of Gysin's work is exhibited at the New Museum until October 3rd.
I have a complex relationship with contemporary art. Experiencing it is like falling in love with a complicated, tortured soul, the quintessential “artist” type. I love it, and I am fascinated by it –in fact, I’ve spent this past summer absorbed in it as a participant in the MoMA In the Making program– yet I am, to say the least, perplexed by it. Some of my friends find it pretentious and indulgent. It confuses me, and at times I wonder why I even bother with it. But sometimes I have experiences that remind me why I am drawn to it in the first place.
My visit to The New Museum was one such event. I must admit, entering Brion Gysin‘s Dream Machine exhibit was daunting. [click to continue….]
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Rivane Neuenschwander, A Day Like Any Other, 2008.
It’s a bubble. A freaking bubble. A circular vessel that is carried by the wind, and I think I love it. The idea that such a delicate being is able to have traveled farther then any other bubble is kind of mind boggling. I know it was edited, but the idea that something that could be so easily destroyed is most likely more daring and powerful then things stronger then it, is intriguing. I think it represents life’s end, and how spontaneous people get when they find out that they are about to die. They don’t know when, but they do know it will be soon. They conjure this inner energy from all of their wildest dreams and get the strength to do what they’ve always wanted to do their whole lives.
Rivane Neuenschwander‘s “The Tenant,” stimulated my mind in a way that some people wouldn’t be able to understand. I’m not sure that I understand completely, how such a simple thing can bring out different theories of love, death, and spontaneity. When you look at a bubble, you think it’s just a freaking bubble, but if you look at it long enough you begin to think of it as more, you give it a personality of some kind, it becomes a part of you. I think that is what Neuenschwander was going for in this video. You can discover “The Tenant” and many more interesting exhibits at the New Museum. You wont regret it.
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Rivane Neuenschwander, A Day Like Any Other, 2008.
I went to the New Museum for the first time ever with a thought that it would be like regular museums, filled with rare paintings from the past. However, as I stepped in this building, which reminded me of a decorative cake, a different mood entered my mind. It was a very open space with white walls. Up ahead, there was a room of different colored strands. It was amazing to see that. For a museum, my first impression was a good one. Even the elevator gave you a good vibe.
When you look at these pieces of art, you may say something like ‘No way, this is unbelievable!’ The response to that is on the front of the building. Hell, Yes! [click to continue….]
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Rivane Neuenschwander, A Day Like Any Other, 2008.
When I emerged from the New Museum on Thursday night, I had a wish around my wrist, pages of scribbled observations, and a moderate case of sensory overload.
I had just experienced vast collections of work by two artists: Rivane Neuenschwander and Bryon Gysin. Although the two exhibits are light-years apart in mindset and in subject matter, both really hit home.
Neuenschwander is a Brazilian artist whose work is all over the place. I learned right away that viewing her art is secondary to participating in it. The lobby exhibit, “I Wish Your Wish,” invites you to choose a ribbon from the thousands hanging on the wall—each with a different wish printed on it—and to replace it with your own written wish. [click to continue….]
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Bryon Gysin with Dreamachine at Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, 1962. The first U.S. retrospective of Gysin's work is exhibited at the New Museum until October 3rd.
In the New Museum there are two exhibitions — Brion Gysin: Dream Machine and Amy Granat: Light 3 Ways. Granat’s “Light 3 Ways” is a video projection showing different ways light can be perceived accompanied a sound piece. The pieces look like black strands dancing on a white background. However, trying to watch the projections, listen to the sounds, and read the description of the artist and piece in a narrow corridor where people are passing by makes it difficult to focus on the piece for a long length of time.
Gysin used dream-like effects. The “Dream Machine” is a suitable title for the exhibition. The machine is located in a small dark room with cushions around it. It is a spinning metal cylinder from which light flickers out of from cut-outs in the side. [click to continue….]
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