~PERROTIN . . NYC DEBUT
PAOLA PIVI … THE NEW ‘ANTI-HIRST’ ?
PS: YEAH, ME & KATE .. HIT THE VIP PARTY at PERROTIN.
BIG PAR-TAY – LOTS OF PIX !!
GREAT PAR-TAY !!
HUGE AFTER-PARTY. ABSOLUTE, NON-ENDING FAB FAB – 5 STAR FOOD .. FOLLOWED BY LATE NITE CARNIVAL & DANCE PARTY – at the mighty opulent .. RUSSIAN TEA ROOM.
BUT BACK . . TO THE OPENING at the GALERIE & .. THE ART.
DAMN, THOSE FRENCH ARE SO FORMAL. SO ELEGANT. I FELT LIKE THE HARDCORE LIVE WIRE .. I AM !! in a CHINA SHOP !!
IT WAS .. ELECTRIC.
IT WAS GLAM. IT WAS FUN !! THAT FOR SURE !! THE NIGHT OF THE SEASON, or at least this month (!!) .. no doubt about it.
PHARRELL WILLIAMS made the scene. so did PUBLIC SCHOOL !!
and, we caught the very first sighting of our prodigal son returns to the fold .. JEFFREY DEITCH.
and yeah, he looked happy to be back, too.
GALERIE PERROTIN – DEBUT NYC OPENING – SEPT 17, 2013
PAOLA PIVI – “Ok, you are better than me, so what ?”
SEPT 18 – OCT 26, 2013
GALERIE PERROTIN – 909 MADISON AVE – NEW YORK
EMMANUEL PERROTIN . .
I think what threw me off balance when I first entered, was not the just the cutting edge celebrity wattage, and the big glam .. surge !!
but, the .. scale.
re: attack of the ‘giant’ galleries, this attack was large, only in the sense of a multi-branch international .. gallery. as opposed to simply a large ‘spatial’ viewing thing, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. big things bomb too, haha – no names today !!
I’m up to being elegant, when I want . . to.
it’s just I didn’t re-adjust my perceptional radar immediately ..
the fact that the work literally leapt out at you – from the above, and rolled around in the aisles .. contributed to this initial disorientation, and that was a good thing.
to be caught off balance, in a hi-end gallery .. what a riot. yes !!
well, that was all part of the serious .. fun. I started to pace my innate paparazzi hound dog instincts, to the actual floor space .. and things got better. everyone was tremendously gracious & in very good spirits. there was real excitement in the air.
yep, SWIZZ BEATZ and PHARREL WILLIAMS.
if you google either one, the first thing that pops up is: estimated net worth !!
haha, Swizz Beatz is worth an estimated $65 million, and Pharrel is worth an estimated $80 million. that’s a whole lot of star wattage !! just there.
but the best part of running into these guys, is the talent surge. off the grid. beyond the meter. making eye contact with Pharrel .. is like looking into the stairway to heaven. he loved Kate’s boots, they were both wearing similar white snakeskin-hued leather ankle boots, but this last sentence might have to self-destruct in 24 hrs, when Kate gets awind of it !!
he liked Kate, who doesn’t ?
he told her: “nice boots”. omg.
he knew a ‘local’ – born & raised on the Bowery back in the day .. of BASQUIAT & KEITH HARING, JACK GOLDSTEIN & even DAN ASHER !! when he saw it.
KAWS.
PETER MARINO ..
MAXWELL OSBORNE of PUBLIC SCHOOL ..
DAO-YI CHOW of PUBLIC SCHOOL ..
JEFFREY .. was definite into hanging out with Swizz and Pharrell, if nothing else .. Jeffrey is a huge talent sponge. and maybe .. that’s the best part of what can be .. a very complicated package.
in fact I don’t recall JEFFREY DEITCH ever being so happy.
does absence make the heart grow fonder, I guess so !!
PAULA COOPER ..
PAOLA PIVI, the Italian artist, born in Milan in 1971 – was the artist of the night. but strangely, or humbly, or by nature .. she was keeping a low profile. maybe her show’s title, “Ok, you are better than me, so what?’ was a clue ..?
at any rate she was right about one thing, everybody gets leveled back to day one .. when they enter this city !! Enter at your own risk, and out your hands up, while you are at it, too.
eat you up & spit you out. is us.
the expression: don’t come into the kitchen, if you can’t take the heat .. comes to mind.
and plus, there’s tons of super talented homies, ahead of you in the line .. so watch how you step on the home turf.. baby !!
PAOLA PIVI, ‘Sometimes I have to stand for my safety’ 2013, and ‘I never danced before’ 2013 .. Urethane foam, plastic, feathers. 88-1/4 x 37 x 38-1/4 in. / 84-1/4 x 35-1/2 x 41 in.
yep, watch how you step on the home turf, baby !!
PAOLA PIVI, ‘Who told you white men can jump?’, 2013.
Urethane foam, plastic, feathers. 32-1/4 x 96-1/2 x 52 in.
this piece – leapt out at ya, from above the entry doorway. yep, Paulo was letting her work, speak for her. a ‘conceptual’ artist, who seems to have a way with words, in her titles at least, she lives and works in Anchorage, ALASKA, but is currently in India (!!) .. so, I bet she doesn’t take to casual banter, or what !!
PAOLA PIVI, ‘Mama no more diapers, please’, 2013.
Urethane foam, plastic, feathers. 48 x 62 x 39 in.
well .. on first encounter, the bears and I were mutually .. quizzical. they were so .. ethereal, you felt you could walk right thru them. I was thinking, this is the anti-Damien Hirst .. ?
PAOLA PIVI, ‘Money machine (true blue, baby I love you)’, 2013. Stainless steel, mixed materials, money.
96 x 83 x 63-1/4 in.
this life-size piece was downstairs, and my first thought was: BORIS RASIN and KENNY KOMER .. eat your hearts out. had she seen .. their ‘money machine’ at Gavin Brown’s ?
what I did love about it, was how it had inclined proportions, and was built like a tank, or a fort, for real. the cobalt blue hue .. was just wild.
detail. it had somebody inside throwing out money, but you could put money in it, as well.. so then I was getting flashbacks to that Gelitin installation, where you put artifacts in, and got handmade, rather crude replicas .. back.
but don’t get me wrong.
if money machines are some kind of new subtext, genre – I’m down with that.
but the amount of money it was spewing, the money on the floor was disappointing. I mean if you, the gallery .. spend gobs & gobs of dough on the upper east side space, and the blow-out after party . . wtf ? you go cheap on the main attraction ?
all the machine seemed to spew was a couple of measly one dollar bills, and a handful of coins ? not even enough to have enticed the ghost of .. SIMON CERIGO !!
damn, it would have been so much more fun to have seen some real $$$ dough .. dispersed !!
and, then watch to see whether any of those fab chicks in their lbds / little black dresses, and 7 inch heels .. would have stooped down, and become .. ‘pickers’ !!
the last good-bye.
a MURAKAMI on the back wall – in the new downstairs inner office.
all in all .. a NIGHT TO REMEMBER !!
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH