Thoughts on this past year:
In terms of art, AD Projects’ “Piles”, wins my award for most noteworthy exhibition of 2009/2010. AD Projects is an organization founded by Jillian Murphy, Abigail Merrick, and Katherine Cohen – three young women who work/worked at Gagosian Gallery. The name AD Projects stands for after dark, because all of the work that goes into producing an AD Projects show is done after regular business hours. Essentially Jill, Abby, and Kat find unused spaces around NYC (and soon beyond), get permission from the landlords to fill the spots with art, and open them to the public under the name AD Projects. They create win/win situations for all parties involved – they get experience curating exhibitions and selling art, the public get to see art for free, the up and coming artists they show get exposure, and landlords get to foster creativity through neighborhood shaping ventures.
There are a number of works from the exhibition that stick out in my mind. For example, there was a large carpet-esque spread of black alphabet noodles, which looked like letters fallen from the page of a book. At first glance, it’s hard to notice that the black void is made of tiny letters, thus referencing minimalist works by artists like Ad Reinhart, with his entirely black paintings, and Karl Andre’s copper squares that lay on the floors of institutions like the MoMA. But given that that connection is rather esoteric, I was glad creator Adam Bateman was there to shed light on the piece. Bateman said that the piece is supposed to make you question the meaning of words, letters, and symbols. When taken out of context or removed from their supposed order, they become arbitrary, or if nothing else their meaning changes entirely. More broadly, Bateman said, “My work has questioned the relationship between language and objects, especially art objects…”
A more personal/emotional work that I found interesting was a series of three pieces by artist Andy Monk. The works were floor plans of his former apartments made of matches that are stuck into plaster. After Monk moves out of an apartment, he creates a new work for the series and then burns the matches as a sort of "happening". It reminded me a lot of a pre-Passover custom to symbolically burn your sins, as a way to move forward. Clearly Monk’s old apartments aren’t sins, but the point is still the same, about closure and moving completely into the next phase, or stage. What remains of Monks works after the burning is plaster adorned with used matches, which deteriorate over time - just like the memories from those spaces fade as time passes... The work is sad, and perhaps a little bit harsh, (particularly in the case of his family home, which he moved out of after his parents' divorce,) but it’d so well thought out and filled with so many layers of meaning that I couldn't help but be drawn to it.
On that note, I try and live by the motto that I will always learn something new from, and see something new in, a work of art no matter how many times I look at it, but I must say, sometimes it’s just nice to stumble upon some fresh, young talent—to see art that truly embodies an innovative way of viewing the world…
