Don’t Stick a Fork in It
by Bradley Rubenstein

Ron Gorchov: Double Trouble
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave [@ 46th Ave], Long Island City, NY, 718.784.2084
http://www.ps1.org

Through September 18

Lure II, 1976, oil on canvas, 36" x 51" c 14"

“I respected him right up until I slit his throat.”
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Ron Gorchov is one of those really respected artists that only the Mid-West seems to produce. Respected, as in Jim Nutt respected or Leon Golub respected. Gorchov was born in Chicago in 1930, attended the University of Illinois (my alma mater), and began exhibiting in the late 1950s. Gorchov’s style paralleled that of artists like Frank Stella or Ellsworth Kelly. These three artists contended with the potential in the shape of a canvas to not only contain the painted image but also to give the painting itself form. Hybrids of Abstract Expressionism and 60’s Minimalism, his paintings were cool, interesting, and then largely forgotten. The art world is like that. Although his work has only been exhibited once before in New York, Gorchov has maintained a sort of following; artists like Guy Goodwin and Ellen Phalen owe him a huge debt.

The shaped canvases [generally two vertical parallel lines centered within rounded rectangles] have been compared to electric sockets, riding saddles and shields. I read that in the press release. I also read that he paints the floating shapes in the center of the canvases ambidextrously. The right one is the right handed side, the left etc…. I was oddly struck by these factoids. I was intrigued both by the ambidexterity, and, ironically, the lack of any discernable “hand” in his various marks. In a strange way Gorchov painted himself so much into the painting that he eventually painted himself out of the picture. Since the incredibly cloying work in the Elizabeth Murray retrospective, I don’t want to be told that a shaped canvas is supposed to look like, you know, “a shoe!” It struck me that until I read that these paintings were meant to look like something, I had never really noticed that they were shaped in any particular way. The pieces seemed bent to fit the space in the way that the paint bent to fit the canvas, the way he must have bent to make the mark. Really this is work to be looked at, felt and moved through.

If these paintings resemble shields (a favorite motif, it seems, among the Chicago guys; see Golub, Goodwin, et. al), maybe it is because this type of work ultimately needs defending; there is a delicacy to it that is belied by the size of the pieces. These paintings provide a private pleasure. Really good paintings don’t have to be seen by everyone to still be really good paintings.

Regardless of whether Gorchov faded from prominence by his choice or from critical and/or commercial neglect, the artist is brought back into the light by the current exhibition. Gorchov’s paintings prove to be both vintage and retro simultaneously which, considering that the focus of P.S.1 has been so much about newness lately, is sort of, well, cool.

Moma & Dada


Dada
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street [btwn. 5th & 6th Aves.], (212) 708-9400.
http://www.moma.org

Through September 11

Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Untitled (Dada Head). 1920. Oil on turned wood, h. 11 9/16" (29.4 cm).

I’m not terribly interested in this show, but I really wanted to write that title.

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What a Web We Weave…


Studio in the Park: A Public Art Project
Curated by Karin Bravin and produced by BravinLee Programs. Studio in the Park celebrates the 20th anniversary of Riverside Park Fund.

BravinLee Programs, 526 West 26th St. [betw. 10th & 11th Aves.], Ste. 211, 212.462.4404.
www.bravinlee.com

Through September16

Photo by Luis Gispert

Putting art in any large public park is a thankless undertaking. A lot of people get bizarrely angry at the art [unless it involves cows]. Furthermore, unless under the thumb of a mass totalitarian vision [see The Gates] it is hard for art to unify large outdoor public spaces—especially ones as long, varied and in parts bifurcated and trifurcated as Riverside Park. The answer then would seem to be not to try. Better to try to capture the spirit of the place quietly and artlessly but with grace and good humor.

Studio in the Park is not so much seen as encountered. The art weaves in and out of the park’s precincts much as the park weaves in and out of its surrounding terrain. The park intertwines spectacularly with the West Side Highway, Metro North, the Hudson River and the numerous neighborhoods that abut its impressive length. Similarly, whether by chance or by choice, much of the work in this summer-long show is about lacing, looping and layering.

One of the cool features of Riverside Park is the trains that run under most of it. You can see them rumble by beneath massive grates and through stone arches. Elana Herzog wove pink wires into the gratings by the flower gardens in the 80s. The wires are grouped somewhat in the pattern of the train tracks below them. Sadly, that’s it for this under-realized piece; it’s hard not to wish that the wires were able to puff into the air when the trains flew by, or form a grander pattern or do something. Like Steed Taylor’s Road Tattoos. Taylor’s tattoos are painted onto the path of a promenade up by 102nd St. They are painted with a hi-gloss black latex that will eventually fade away [as many a 90’s tattoo victims wish theirs would]. The tattoo itself forms a looping pattern of ribbony lines—the kind of Celtic thing Angelina Jolie has somewhere on her body.

Meanwhile, at the beginning [or end] of the park at 70th St., Orly Genger’s Puzzlejuice delights the eyes and the kids with a simple land sculpture made from colored climbing rope webbed together and draped over a climbing rock formation. The work, placed at one of the park’s most hectic intersections, is in itself a sublime intersection of art, audience and park.

Equally lovely are Gary Simmons’ backstop covers. These airy white fabrics adorned with stars and the words I Wish and Forever are looped to the chain link fences behind the home plates at the 108th St. ball fields. The pieces succeed in bringing to life the aesthetic possibilities of a thoroughly neglected zone and capturing the wonder felt by anyone who has ever stepped into a batter’s box. I hope these covers stay up for as long as they last and set a precedent for the decoration of backstops everywhere.

There are numerous other works that weave their way through the life of the park [except for McKendree Key’s 8,000 orange balls cast upon the Hudson—they bob]. Each piece works to better or worse effect, but all strive to do the park a solid.

Olmstead grasped better than anyone what each of his parks were meant to do for their respective communities and what they could do with the land upon which they were placed. For the challenging terrain of Riverside he chose to create a many stranded park which would stitch together the upper west coast of Manhattan. Studio in the Park manages to illuminate and celebrate the form and functions of the place. Not bad for public art.

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Rusted and Chilled


Richard Serra: Rolled and Forged

Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th St [betw. 10th & 11th Aves], 212.741.1111
http://www.gagosian

Through August 11

Elevations, Repetitions, Weatherproof steel, 60 x 366 x 6 inches, 2006.

These babies are big and beautiful. Huge delicious chunks that are exactly what they say they are. Gogo has constructed entire rooms to fit the pieces [to the centimeter]. Plus the whole vast space is air-conditioned! Go. Go.