A home can mean many things. Some people see it as a refuge that offers protection from the elements, others feel it's a place to enjoy a meal with family and friends, and even others use it as a space to express themselves and their personalities. For Chuck Connelly, it is what and where he paints.
For East Oak Lane, his recent show at DFN Gallery in New York City, Connelly exhibited canvases of the interior of his North Philadelphia house and the exteriors of neighboring residences. Rendered in thick brush strokes and richly colored oils, the paintings document his decor and his singular obsession—his art. In his house and in his work, his canvases are everywhere: stacked against the walls, leaning on the fireplace, and even framing the edge of the bathroom door.
Connelly complains his home has too many windows and not enough wall space. He moved to the 115-year-old, three-story dwelling to get away from the distractions of New York City so he could concentrate on his work; he says he appreciates that he has more time to paint, but finds himself missing the sense of community and the liveliness of his former locale. For Connelly, his home is “a cozy cave, a work place, a crash pad, an entertainment unit, my jail, and my freedom.” —Susan Weiman, assistant to the editor-in-chief
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Visitors view Adam Cvijanovic’s Suspension of Disbelief 2007, an 18-by-18-foot canvas being shown at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. |
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A detail of the work. |
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Flying homes are a central motif in Suspension of Disbelief 2007. |
When I first saw Suspension of Disbelief 2007, Adam Cvijanovic’s frescolike canvas currently on view at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA), I was taken by its explosion of color and its content: a home, bedsheets, tires, flip flops, a container of Ajax, and other household objects whirling in a blue sky. I immediately thought of the coastal hurricanes and The Wizard of Oz.
The 18-foot-square work is part of the artist’s ongoing statement about the changing meaning of home in America. No longer are our homes safe havens, shielding us from harm and providing us with a sense of security. Rather, as Hurricane Katrina showed, they’re physically vulnerable structures, easily destroyed by an act of nature. But more insidious, our houses no longer root us to a specific place or community—at least not in these transient times, when everything is in flux, and it’s common practice to live somewhere for a few years and then move on, spurred by want or financial necessity.
Ironically, Cvijanovic paints his murals on Tyvek, a flexible, protective wrapping used in home construction. But there are also practical reasons for his choice. “It’s cheap and transportable,” he says of the material. Since you can’t move a wall from place to place, making traditional frescoes isn’t an option; instead “the only plausible way to work is to have something you can put up and take down,” he says. As for materials, the artist uses a mixture of water-based and highly pigmented vinyl paints.
Suspension of Disbelief 2007 is on display at North Adams, Massachusetts–based MassMOCA through April 27. The piece is part of “Unhinged,” a two-person show that also features the work of photographer Peter Garfield. Cvijanovic has another exhibit, “Project Room: Studies for the Fall of Babylon,” on view through April 14 at New York City’s Bellwether Gallery. —Susan Weiman, assistant to the editor-in-chief
When you mention the word "tile" to most people, ceramic tiles, Italian porcelains, or Moorish mosaics come to mind. For Katja Gruijters, a Dutch food designer, tiles are works of art that have flavor, smell, sound, and color.
For "Tasting Lace: An Edible Lace High Tea," an event held January 29 at New York City's Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), Gruijters baked 60 of her colorful, delicious squares with lace designs, which she calls Ander Kant, for a group of guests. Presented together as a patchwork installation, the roughly 17 cm pieces came in a variety of types, including chocolate, genoise, sugar, and shortbread, and in a host of flavors, such as kiwi, lemon, cinnamon, apple, and raspberry.
The process of making, breaking, and then consuming the tiles is "a new ritual," says Gruijters. People are afraid to interact with art, let alone destroy something that is beautiful, she explains. She loves to watch the range of facial expressions of the participants as they splinter the tiles with sculpture tools, or cut off sections with a knife. Once you take part in this experience, she says, you'll "never look at lace in the same way." Nor will I ever look at tiles in the same way, either.
Gruijters' Ander Kant are featured in the exhibit "Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting," on view at MAD through June 17. Chocolate and sugar tiles are also for sale at the museum gift shop for $15 to $28 each. - Susan Weiman, Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief
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Floodwall is an exhibit of drawers found in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. |
Part art exhibit and part memorial, Floodwall comprises 350 furniture drawers that New Orleans native Jana Napoli salvaged from the debris of Hurricane Katrina. Over 225 feet in length, the wall currently stretches along the Liberty Street Bridge in New York City, which overlooks the scene of another tragedy—the World Trade Center site. Among the pieces, scrolling LED signs display some of the memories and messages of the drawers' owners, who were interviewed by Napoli after they identified their property. (When collecting the drawers, the artist assigned a location or a zip code to each, with the hope that one day they would be claimed.)
The artist says she chose the drawers to represent the residents' loss because “they were a symbol everyone could understand.” For months, she drove around the devastated city collecting them, ending up with more than 600. “All the physical evidence [of the people who lived in the city], including photographs, paintings, and letters, was gone,” she says, “so all the things we found in these drawers were sacred.”
Continue reading "An Exhibit About Drawers, Memories, and New Orleans" »
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