Trockel, Scott and yarn bombing

What do Rosemarie Trockel, Judith Scott and yarn bombing have in common?  They do share a common thread ...

I walked into Trockel's exhibition A Cosmos at New York's New Museum the previous week, not expecting much.  The result was my fascination about the documentation of Trockel's whole spectrum of creative works over the decades.  One particular body of works that interested me was her knitted "paintings" in wool.  They were aptly supplemented by Scott's knitted sculptures.  Photography was not allowed at New Museum but I can show you Trockel's work I saw this summer.

Trockel at Museum Ludwig, Köln 2012:

Also seen this summer was some yarn bombing when I was travelling.  Yarn bombing is considered a form of graffiti using colourful yarn instead of paint or chalk.  A tree and some architectural elements shown here have been yarn bombed in Kassel:

We May Be Running Out Of A Past*

Mark Bradford at Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York 2012:

* We May Be Running Out Of A Past is the title of one of Bradford's mixed media collages.

RGB

Mark Barrow's mathematical compositions of red, green and blue on pixelated fabrics and paper from his solo exhibition RGB at Elizabeth Dee, New York 2012:

Spectral Colors

Ellsworth Kelly's prints of colour sequences from his solo exhibition Spectral Colors at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York 2012:

Ungers + LeWitt: a perfect match

O.M. Ungers's 1994 Amtsgericht Tempelhof-Kreuzberg with Sol LeWitt's sculpture, Berlin:

Present Imperfect

Ross Bell's large-scale sculptures at his Georgia Scherman Projects exhibition Present Imperfect - Way Of The Sculptor, Toronto 2012:

LeWitt + Andre Architektonika

Part of the group exhibition Architektonika 2 at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 2012 ...

Sol LeWitt:

Carl Andre:

LeWitt + Andre NYC

At Paula Cooper Gallery, New York 2012 ...

Sol LeWitt:

Carl Andre:

Sculptors @ Paula Cooper

From the group exhibition Eight Sculptors at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York 2012 ...

Liz Glynn:

Matias Faldbakken:

Rudolf Stingel:

Icelandic

Olafur Eliasson's shows never fail to impress me.  Inspired by the otherworldly landscapes of Iceland, his current solo exhibition Volcanoes And Shelters at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is a tribute to his homeland - a land of transcendent beauty.

Eliasson at Tanya Bonakdar, New York 2012:

Perhaps the most impressive works at the exhibition are his three Objects Defined By Activity, which are a trio of water fountains positioned under three individual strobe lights in a darkened room.  I could hear the sound of cascading water but the pulsating white lights seemed to have frozen the water in time.  The interplay of the ephemeral and the eternal is sheer beauty, Icelandic.

West of rest is sleep

Found on a fast moving NYC subway train was Jeffrey Yang's poem Untitled, currently featured in MTA's ongoing Poetry In Motion series.  The artwork's by Holly Sears.

west of rest is sleep

east, dream..........

where waters meet....

north, emptiness,....

south, wakefulness,..

and out, rising up...

to the stars, peace..

Preoccupied Waveforms + Nam June Paik

Back to Toronto ...

It's a real disappointment most art galleries were still recovering from flood damage and closed when I visited NYC this past weekend.  But what I did happen to see there was really worth the trip.  One of my favourite is Haroon Mirza's sound and light installation Preoccupied Waveforms at New Museum's Studio 231.  The texts Mirza used:

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Can't find a good video on youtube.  For a taste of Mirza's electronic sound and installation, check out this Digital Switchover video from his own website - simply brilliant.

Now on the unstoppable electronic superhighway, new media installations have gone a long way since Nam June Paik's pioneering waves in the 60s.  Paik at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2012:

Twenty One Twelve

Jennifer & Kevin McCoy's apocalyptic new media show depicting landscapes 100 years from today looks strikingly real in the aftermath of hurricane-ridden NYC.

The McCoys at Postmasters Gallery, New York 2012:

Lying on the floor right next to the exhibits, water-damaged objects from the gallery are a tangible testimony to a real disaster: