“Crumple” at VIN VIN

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A sort of paganism that pervades. In this exhibition and elsewhere, we smear paint, assemble objects, to arrange something like "meaning." A like-meaning, or an affect of it. A yule pole for every occasion. 

See too: Aaron Angell at Koppe Astner, Solange Pessoa at Mendes Wood DM

“Splendor Solis” at The Approach

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There's a sort of funny documentation choice, Bosmans' paintings in one photo are in the next photoshop erased to leave the wall behind them, the light doesn't change. It's a small decision mildly touching on the artificiality of our cartoon conditions, reality able to be distressed, bent, stretched. The slow feeling of vertigo and stretch, a malleability we all permanently live under and probably why cartoons blitz across art as the world begins to feel more like them, and we look for things representative of it. Even if the paintings were actually physically moved, it would have taken less time to have been done in "post," after, do things to a moment after it has taken place.

AR: Lin May Saeed at Lulu

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Making art that expresses care for animals by carving it out of material that if left uncared for would quickly degrade and release poisons to harm those animals depicted is sort like selling artworks as pulled-pin grenades in a puppy shelter, "here, would you mind holding this?" Sort of expressing the suicide games pretty much everyone believes we're playing now in the anthropocene's foot-to-the-pedal towards brick walls type of time period. Why not take a grenade home, why not bring back some of this asbestos to protect the earth if not your home, these animals need you.


See too: Cooper Jacoby at Freedman Fitzpatrick, Piero Gilardi at Frankfurt Am Main, “May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way” at STANDARD, Nancy Lupo at Antenna Space, 3 Shows: Julia Scher Lin May Saeed, Fernando Palma Rodriguez

3 Shows, Julia Scher at DREI, Lin May Saeed at Studio Voltaire, Fernando Palma Rodriguez at House of Gaga

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The security camera, early exemplar of the our proprioception lost to digital realms as your body could be distended in mirrors sent through ethers appearing before you, behind you, and Magritte's Not to be Reproduced no longer surreal but our reality, walking into department stores. On facebook you reach out to poke, instagram click to like, your body a ghost appearing in other's mirrors. You appear everywhere. Like deafferented monkeys in lab experiments we lose control of limbs at the researcher doing studies on our psyche attempting to maximize engagement, a word which now means clicks, their hands in our gloves. Animals living with open brains.

Animals in environments degraded by plastics, EPS, Styrofoam. We with some idea rolling around in our heads about how long these foams last, largely abstract, largely uncertain, a million or a mere ten thousand, years, the foam will persist longer than paintings. In the presence of light it very quickly experiences photodegradation breaking down into a powdery substance that will chemically persist in the lungs and bloodstream of animals moving up the food chain. A fragile body, naive, that requires our protection. Sculptures which if improperly cared for become time bombs of their environmental toxicity, careful with them, leaching chemical into the fish they depict carefully, a preciousness we must protect.

The deranged mechanicals. Robots acting stupidly, uncaringly. A world we've designed as such. See the video here. Motors are dangerous, they are inhuman, lose track of where your body is, get your hand caught, its inability to discern the softness of flesh air you experience a rapid what is called degloving.

AR: Lin May Saeed at Jacky Strenz

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Originally Posted: April 4th, 2016

Note: This entry is part of August Review, our annual look back at this season’s key exhibitions. For more information, see the announcement here.

Lin May Saeed at Jacky Strenz

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Lin May Saeed likes animals, and communicates that by making art depicting animals. Its forthrightness would seem naive if it wasn't so endearing, handing it right to you to care for its fragility. The leafy sea-dragon is actually well protected by its iconic status, symbol of south Australia, but the ocean it survives in bleaches rapidly. Like James Lee Byars or Felix Gonzalez-Torres, the unassuming sign is intertwined with its loss.


See too James Lee Byars at VeneKlasen/Werner, Alejandro Cesarco at Midway Contemporary Art