February 18 to March 3, 2016
132 West 21st Street, 10th floor (between 6th and 7th avenues)
New York, 212 592 2274

All white, all pure, all waste obscured: “Duplicates, Dummies & Dolls” is a show of textured casts, molds, and repurposed materials by Sara Mejia Kriendler, curated by Becky Nahom at CP Projects Space. The venue serves as a site for experimental programming by the School of Visual Arts’ Curatorial Practice students, and typically shows the work of SVA students, including Kriendler, an MFA alumna.

Mother of Pearl (2015) leads viewers into the space. Clumpy striations of plaster cross the surface of the square composition, which seems to incorporate found elements into a thick slab of Hydrocal mounted on the wall. The surface marks read simultaneously as circuitry, rail system, aerial view, and microscopic ground. As the eye traverses this expanse, it lingers at intersections where recognizable elements emerge — a sliver of corrugated cardboard creates an accordion fold there, a crusty circle morphs into a flower here, and a snaking shard of another unidentifiable found material breaks the circuitry there. At last, with enough looking, you see it: hovering somewhere above this ground is a small angel. Delicate and hovering, the figurine is also half-buried in the landscape, physically connected to the Styrofoam board by superficial plaster. With its visual complexity in a white expanse, the piece feels quiet and knowing, deserving of your eye, something you might return to each morning.

Nearby, a curved wall, called Defense Mechanism (2010), claims the floor. At a height of five feet, it feels anthropomorphic. Composed of 330 plaster-cast Mardi gras masks stacked like bricks, the wall seems to gaze outward with vacant eyes. One can peer through them, calling up the sensation of watching while being watched. At first imposing, the wall stands in front of the gallery wall with a gap of nearly a foot, allowing the viewer to access (or at least see) its verso. The masks aim to defend some face behind them, but given this gap they cannot protect what they shield, even en masse; this defense mechanism is a futile, fragile structure.

Turning to face what those 660 eyes would watch, one finds 2014 (2015) a floating white rectangle: a Styrofoam tray with raised segments arranged like beams radiating out from a Venus-like figure at the center.  A plate of glass hung before the relief establishes some protective distance between the sculpture and the viewer, but the work’s enticement draws the viewer in. The Venus is an empty space shaped like a small female body, apparently the packaging left over from a doll. Stamped with a code of letters and numbers, she appears mass-produced, but her gently molded curves and fragmented limbs speak the language of Neoclassical sculpture.

Plasticulture (2016), an L-shaped installation on the floor composed of domed humps in groups of four, each covered with plastic bags stamped “THANK YOU.” The plastic clings to the breast-like humps, amalgamated with heat. From the crowning nipple of each breast, rather violently, grows a single palm leaf. This is growth from waste. Plasticulture is a common set of agricultural practices, such as using polyethylene sheeting to protect against weeds. It is here rendered strangely corporeal, as a stifling and painful mechanism aiding technological reproduction.

How might contemporary secular art such as Kriendler’s contain the ritualistic and historical overtones of religion? Kriendler has recycled an answer: commodities are the new religion, stores our centers of worship. Yet here, in this room, we have no commodities, only their remains. The minor fetishes of this contemporary religion are objects receiving the excess of our worship, of our gaze, our attention. They pose as invisible and unnecessary, easily discarded, yet their omnipresent necessity is inescapable. Commodity packaging fills our dumpsters as perhaps the only item more pervasive than the commodities they swaddle. What to do with them?

Our waste haunts us, returning to inflict harm on air, oceans and wilderness. The polymers used in plasticulture can be reused, but of course no recycling eliminates the original negative impacts of production. Molded Venuses and plastered angels serve as a warning: we are defenseless from ourselves.

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Other artists speaking at the Greenwich Village independent art school this semester include an almost all-female line up of  Joan Waltemath, Judith Linhares, Melissa Meyer, Dana Frankfort, Josephine Halvorson and Sharon Horvath.  The token male is sculptor Charles Simonds (think clay villages in the Whitney Museum’s stairwell.)

And tomorrow, Wednesday October 5, Internationally-renowned Picasso biographer and scholar Marilyn McCully will speak at the Frick Collection in a talk that accompanies the major exhibition, Picasso Drawings: 1890-1921 which she co-curated with Susan Galassi.  McCully’s talk is titled “Picasso in Fontainebleau” and concerns the twelve weeks he spent in that town in 1921 and its impact on his neo-classical drawings of the period.

Various lecture series at the School of Visual Arts, including their Art in the First Person series with Carolee Schneemann, Rochelle Feinstein and others.  Next week, on Tuesday, October 11th, artcritical editor David Cohen presents “Artists Rights and Wrongs” with a panel response from philosopher Karen Gover and artist and Artnet editor Walter Robinson.  Cohen explores the problems of intention and authorization in such cases as Swiss installation artist Christoph Büchel’s fraught relationship with Mass MoCA some years ago.

Other season highlights on the New York lecture circuit are Enoc Perez and Gabriel Orozco at Hunter College, Liam Gillick at NYU, Julie Mehretu at the New School and Will Barnet at the National Academy.

For full details of times and venues visit the LECTURES/PANELS/EVENTS section of our listings

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The School of Visual Arts launches its Fall 2010 season of lectures with painter and critic Alexi Worth in a talk organized by the School’s BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department.  Worth, who shows his visually witty art-historically referential hybrids of Mannerist painting and cartoonery at DC Moore Gallery. speaks at the School’s 133/141 West 21st Street building, Rooom 101C at 6.30pm Tuesday September 14.  Also up this week at the same venue is a panel titled “Not Nature Poems” with Rackstraw Downes, Brenda Iijima, Joan Richardson and Jonathan Skinner, moderated by Vincent Katz and Tim Peterson, in the first in what is billed as a “quips and cranks” series on poetics in the arts. The panel takes place Thursday, September 16, same time and room as Worth.  Both events are free and open to all.

The National Academy Museum, host with artcritical magazine of The Review Panel, has announced the line-up for this popular series for 2010-11 which takes place despite the overhaul of their premises this season, where most else of their programming in on hold.  The season includes newcomers to the panel Barbara MacAdam, John Perreault, Alexandra Anderson Spivy, Elisabeth Kley, Hilarie Sheets, Eva Diaz, Marjorie Welish, Ariela Budick and Jeffrey Kastner along with returning favorites Stephanie Buhmann, Peter Plagens, Blake Gopnik, Robert Storr, Sarah Valdez, Joan Waltemath, David Carrier and Colleen Asper.  As ever, the series is moderated by articritical’s Publisher/Editor David Cohen.  The season launches September 24 when Lance Esplund, Faye Hirsch and Andrea K. Scott, all “repeat offenders” on the Review Panel, join Cohen to review Adam Fuss at Cheim & Read, Roman Signer at the Swiss Institute, Arlene Shechet at Jack Shainman and Joan Synder at Betty Cuningham.  At 1083 Fifth Avenue at 6.45pm.

The New York Studio School lecture series launches October 5 with painter Suzan Frecon, currently exhibiting at David Zwirner Gallery, talking about her work, and sculptor William Tucker addressing thoughts to Matisse Sculpture the next day.  Both talks at 6.30pm and free, but patrons will need to get there early to secure seats for some of the speakers this season who include Michael Taylor on Gorky, David Cohen on Sickert, Hayden Herrera on Frida Kahlo, Renaissance scholar Alexander Nagel on “Two Prophecies of Modern Art,” and of course artists on their own work, including Phong Bui, Karlis Rekevics, Shahzia Sikander, and, on Thursday, November 4, Belgian painter Luc Tuymans.

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Spring is in the air, and in New York that means MFA exhibitions. Institutions like Columbia University, the New York Studio School, SVA (School of the Visual Arts,) The New York Academy, Queens College, Brooklyn College, Rutgers, The New School, SUNY Purchase, Pratt, and NYU all present shows of eager new talents.  Hunter College is an exception as they held their exhibition in December and January.

Dale Klein, who is receiving her MFA in painting from Rutgers in New Jersey, is not the traditional eager young beaver: she decided to pursue her BFA and MFA after a career in social work.  “Following a life-long passion, one class just led to another, and then I thought I might want to teach,” she said. Klein plans to continue her studio practice in Boston while her husband gets his graduate degree, but then hopes to move back to New York.  In addition to the thesis show for its graduating class at the campus gallery at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutger’s partnered with White Box Gallery on the Lower East Side of New York for a show called “Off the Map.” Klein is thrilled about the opportunity for New York exposure in a well-respected venue.

Here is a list of MFA shows this season.

March 24 – April 4
Queens College Department of Art MFA Exhibition at Dorsky Gallery
11-03 45th Ave, Long Island City, 718 937 6317. www.dorsky.org
April 1 – May 2
Off the Map: Rutgers MFA Graduates
White Box Gallery
329 Broome Street. 212 714 2347. www.whiteboxny.org

April 5 – April 30
MFA Graduation Exhibition Series
SUNY Purchase College School of the Arts
Richard & Dolly Maass Gallery in the Visual Arts Building
735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase NY, 914 251 6753. www.purchase.edu

April 6 – May 17
MFA Thesis Exhibition 2010
New York University Steinhardt School Department of Art and Art Professions
80 Washington Square East, 212 998 5747. www.steinhardt.nyu.edu

April 29 – May 2
MFA Design + Technology
Parsons The New School for Design
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street. www.newschool.edu

April 30 – May 15
Selections from Thesis Projects in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department
School of the Visual Arts
601 West 26 Street, 15th Floor. 212 592 2145. www.schoolofvisualarts.edu

May 2 – May 23
Columbia University School of the Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Fisher Landau Center
38-37 30th Street. 718 937 0727. www.flcart.org

May 11 – May 23
2010 MFA Diploma Exhibition
New York Academy of Art
111 Franklin Street. 212 966 0300. www.nyaa.com

May 12 – May 26
MFA Thesis Exhibition
New York Studio School
8 West 8th Street. 212 673 6466. www.nyss.org

May 14 – 24
MFA Fine Arts at The Kitchen
Parsons The New School for Design
512 West 19th Street. 212 255 5793. www.thekitchen.org

May 14 – June 5
Pratt M.F.A. 2010
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor. 212 647 7778

May 7 – June 7
Brooklyn College MFA Thesis Exhibition at Williamsburg Art and Historical Center
135 Broadway at Bedford. 718 486 7372. www.wahcenter.net

August 21 – September 11
MFA Photography
Parsons The New School for Design
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street. www.newschool.edu

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