~2012 BRUCENNIAL – OPENING NITE PIX !!
PIX – FROM THE OPENING NITE – BRUCENNIAL 2012 – FEB 29, 2012
A LARGE GROUP SHOW – GOING HEAD-to-HEAD with the WHITNEY BIENNIAL – PRESENTED BY THE BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION & VITO SCHNABEL
in a pop-up space at 159 BLEECKER ST – in GREENWICH VILLAGE
the show runs thru APRIL 20, 2012 / HRS: WED-SUN 12-6 PM
key Bruce High Quality Foundation player, RHYS, with FRANCESCO CLEMTENTE.
co-curator / co-producer – VITO SCHNABEL.
DAVID SALLE.
DAVID SALLE’S painting in the show. and to my mind the most exquisitely beautiful and hard painted ‘realist’ piece in the whole show.
what is about ‘realism’ that always (!!) yells: mystery ?
JULIAN had a piece in the show, too – though I did not see him at the opening . . .
JULIAN SCHNABEL – ‘GOODBYE MIKE KELLEY’.
close-up, JULIAN SCHNABEL, ‘GOODBYE MIKE KELLEY. is that a ram ? if so, quelle fun – heading into the AIRES house of cards.
artist RAY SMITH, he of the reconstituted black & white Picassos !! and a member of the BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION – crew.
DUSTIN YELLIN, artist & one-man ‘Red Hook’ preservationist (!!).
DUSTIN YELLIN had one of his newest multiple glass ‘plate’ pieces in the show.
close-up, large scale multiple glass ‘plate’ – work by DUSTIN YELLIN. it looks like Chinese brush calligraphy and goes A-Z, on the ‘evolutionary’ smoke trail of mankind. (!!)
TERRENCE KOH.
TERRENCE KOH’s piece arrives. a ‘white’ birthday cake, candles and all – I guess for all the people born on a leap year, because this night was one !!
despite being white, classy, and yummy, bye the way !! – the Terrence Koh cake had a ‘stormy’ & short-lived – opening night story, all its own – maybe, O.K. yes !! – we’ll get around to that – next post . . .
all I will say for now is: where there is a ‘play’ for art – could Mr. H – be far behind ?
MIKE AVEDON and HESH aka HASH HALPER.
YVONNE FORCE VILLAREAL.
gallerist CHRISTOPHER HENRY.
RAINGER PINNEY of BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION with BRIAN MESENBOURG.
RAINGER PINNEY’s newest piece had people coming to the ‘basement’ and hanging around. it was a time-delayed on-site streaming camera – with the black & white image stream projected onto a semi-transparent scrim. it had an ambiance all its own.
ELLIOT ARKIN beside his small-scaled 4 artist inhabited – ‘backyard’. at the first Brucennial (2010) he exhibited Picasso with the lawn mower pretty much life-size.
ELLIOT ARKIN. Andy Warhol’s pool even had a tiny live goldfish swimming around in it . . .
while IVAN GOODMAN exhibited an LED lightbox – with a front of beeswax – harvested from his very own bee colony !!
HARIET, originally hailing from NEW ZEALAND – had work in the show.
HILDE COTTON stands beside surely one of the smallest pieces in the show, that digitally animated spinning prism of light, just to the right. you know, like the spinning icon when your computer starts to freeze. subtly placed as it is, at pretty much eye level, right into the wall, with no frame, no fuss – it’s certainly intriguing !! esp for it’s title, which I later found out was: ‘spinning beach ball of death’ !! the inset, animated ‘infinity’ piece, including its concept – is by REVEL WOODARD.
good question: do death and infinity – rhyme ? and what’s a ‘rainbow’ colored beach ball, got to do with it anyway. . . that’s the irony of it all. ain’t life a mystery, even on the smallest bio-sphere.
while RACHEL ROSSIN had a more traditional painting of a ‘rainbow’ hued woven blanket or shawl.
JENNY, you might remember her from the DANIEL REICH GALLERY days, where she worked, and DEREK WEISBERG.
DEREK has a show up of his cutting edge porcelain ‘portraits’, called ‘Porcelain Promises’ – that just opened at GREENWICH HOUSE POTTERY, and which is most def worth a stroll by.
plus you can also get an idea of how huge the event venue was, it was in fact multi-storied.
ERIN JONES, HEIDI HAHN, and JERRY BLACKMAN. Heidi has work in the show. JERRY BLACKMAN is in a small group show of abstract work – that just coincidently opened last night in the old DANIEL REICH gallery space – now: J. CACCIOLA GALLERY, on 23rd st.
in the show – hanging against a pillar – a trademark self-portrait by AUREL SCMIDT.
and yes, AUREL SCMIDT, center, . . . made the opening.
a steeley alphabet ‘DRUGS > JUDD’ by JONAH EMMERSON-BELL, a key BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION player – made an impression.
this reveler got a little too much into the spirit of the ‘revolution’ – he was bounced not too soon after.
a big lively crowd – celebrating the anti-institution – art mash-up !!
the place was huge . . .
in fact it had once been a theater, from the looks of it.. . in this way historic district of blues and jazz clubs. this was at the start of the night. half hour later the lines formed and squirreled down the block – and a lot of people who couldn’t do the 30 min plus wait left. but then, just like the night’s soft rain – things lightened up and entry was easy to gain, once again.
I guess the big question is: what about 2014 ?
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH, NYC. FEB 29, 2012