Hello World*

Thursday nights are free nights at New Museum.  I went there on Thursday but it was too crowded.  So I decided to visit again on Friday.  They were showing Ostalgia, a survey of the art produced in and about the former communist European states.  Sharing a similar but slightly different theme of new art from central and eastern Europe is the Power Plant's current exhibition Rearview Mirror in Toronto.  I visited PP just before coming to New York.  So inevitably I have to compare the two shows.  I must say that I have enjoyed the NM show much better than PP's.  There are a few artists showing at Ostalgia that I intrinsically like.  Too bad photography was not allowed.  So I cannot show you.

Friday nights are free nights at Whitney Museum.  I went to see one of their featured shows - Cory Arcangel's Pro Tools.  When I was in Berlin last month, I saw another Arcangel exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof.  In fact, the two shows carry Arcangel's works from the same series.  So it's just like seeing the same show again - this time at a larger scale.  Arcangel has been exploring the interplay of digital technologies, internet culture and art in various media.  All his exhibited works here have incorporated the use of technological tools - either newly innovated or obsolete.

Arcangel at Whitney, New York 2011:

*Hello World is the title of a series of Arcangel's pen-plotter drawings shown at both exhibitions.