~LUKE TODD & BOBBY VITERI . . ‘MEDITATIONS’ / PRAY 4 THIS GALLERY, CHINATOWN POP-UP, NYC
YOUR PLANET – IS NEXT !!
& COMING TO . . MIAMI – TOMORROW !!
PROB . . the best hardcore / indie pop-up show of the season.
‘MEDIATATIONS: A STUDY on INNER PEACE’ . . LUKE TODD & BOBBY VITERI
shook up – a lot of artistic pre-conceptions !!
taking place over just one recent weekend, deep in the bowels of old school Chinatown, a creaky elevator ride up to a gritty loft,
that turns out to be . . PETER SUTHERLAND’S raw & working studio / loft . . !!
the rumble of rock & roll gritty industrial, meets far-reaching / thought-out visionary !!
and . . nails it. cold, but way . . imaginary.
cold hard steel, ‘bio-fluids’ squirming through narrow plastic tubing, the plaintive criss-cross of wood ‘tire’ tracks, kinetic white plaster, wireless programming, and drop dead silent steel (and concrete) monoliths, spoke eloquently, making the small space feel like . . an eternity. no beginning. no end.
and, not one expressive slick of pigment . . no paint, in sight !!
nary a brushstroke.
think on that . . for a moment.
esp coming on the heels of that recent, mad crazy, whack as crack, thick with paint / thin with reality, hyper expressive, symbolist . . ANDY CAHILL, ‘HOME’ exhibit of paintings,
at SAFE GALLERY in Brooklyn. !!
it all made for a great head-on rush to contradiction !!
a great ballastic, ahead-of-the-curve ending, to a super dynamic year . .
esp for those who like to walk – on the freshly bleeding cutting edge !!
far, far from . . the ever maddening, main-stream art venues.
and, they are showing in MIAMI – this week, opening tomorrow WED DEC 6, 2017
in a 5 artist group show, which also includes PETER SUTHERLAND . . !!
BARBARA FEINMAN PRESENTS: ‘AURA & AUTHORITY’ – OPENING WED DEC 6, 2017 / 6-9 PM / 7611 NW 7TH AVE, MIAMI, FL 33150
BE THERE.
BUT, BACK TO THE . . . ‘FUTURE’ !!
OPENING NIGHT PIX – FRI NOV 17, 2017 . . . !!
BARBARA FEINMAN PRESENTS: ‘Meditations: A Study in Inner Peace’
LUKE TODD & BOBBY VITERI
PRAY 4 THIS GALLERY – 83 CANAL ST, BUZZER 200, CHINATOWN, NYC
OPENING FRI NOV 17 / OPEN SAT & SUN / NOV 18 & 19, 2017.
PETER SUTHERLAND, LUKE TODD & BOBBY VITERI – at the ‘MEDITATIONS’, P4TG / PRAY 4 THIS GALLERY,CHINATOWN, NYC opening.
that’s a very much ‘there/not there’ all-steel ‘painting’ by BOBBY VITERI – on the wall.
BOBBY VITERI, ‘Inner’, 2017.
copper electroplate on etched steel panel. 48.5 x 40 in.
in a word: Rothko . . for the new age.
BOBBY VITERI, ‘Outer’, 2017.
copper electrolate on etched steel panel. 48.5 x 40 in.
in a word: brooding Basquiat, without the imagery.
catch me – if you . . can !!
BOBBY VITERI, the King of YIN YANG.
meditate on . . that, my stunned gallery-goer !!
YAYOI KUSAMA, not !!
but if, you need a way in . . look for the shifting steel ‘hues’, reach inside / to address the steel patina, and vibe with the surroundings. look inward / look outward.
line the piece up / with the venue’s ‘reality’ . . to begin: ‘navigation’ !!
no beginning. no end. entropy.
it was easy to add-on . . the ‘layers’ !!
at the P4TG opening.
something about . . hand-painted denim & the contrast of hand-worked raw steel – that really plays well together.
lotus eaters . . unite !!
‘YOUR PLANET – IS NEXT’ . . !!
speaking of which . . .
LUKE TODD, ‘Blood Rug’, 2017.
silicone tubing, dye, peristaltic pump, 22.5 x 22.5 in.
meditation. no beginning. no end.
the moment I saw this ‘kinetic floor sculpture’ – with a dull blood-like fluid coursing in slow motion ‘spurts’ through it’s vinyl tube / ancient Celtic knot singularity / intertwined plasticity, I swear !!
the first thing . .
that came to me mind was: wow, they’ve got futuristic ‘deep’ inter-galactic space travel – all wrong !!
people aren’t going to be frozen asleep to endure the millennia of deep space travel, they re going to have their DNA re-ducted !! to a ‘BIO-FLUID’ running in ‘Celtic knots’ . . stacked up in huge piles, to be re-constituted at the long journey’s end.
by the AI command.
detail, LUKE TODD.
’23 & ME’ . . !!
the book of code / the cycle of genes. the Bio fluid.
maybe they will be thrown at random planets, the way we throw newspapers . . at porch steps.
this piece by LUKE TODD, was a little more complicated . .
and harder to contemplate. to process. well, it did have a wireless digital component !!
and it was esp impossible to capture . . with a still image.
LUKE TODD, ‘Untitled (Rose Extruder V.2.0)’, 2017.
tile, grout, plexiglass, plywood, 12v motors.
assembled over a sink, it was a plaster ‘grid’ upon which roses . . bloomed.
meditation: no beginning. no end.
it was malleable. changeable. but still, a matrix.
it was . . fascinating, (early) JEFF KOONS, move over.
it held particular interest, in the NYC moment, vis-a-vie the current . . ‘WHITE PLASTER’ moment.
that is, to my way of thinking:
1) the stable, but awesome giant Domino Sugar ‘Nanny’ / Sphinx . . by KARA WALKER
2) the huge, but instable, pliable Katy Perry ‘head’ . . by URS FISCHER
and … now
3) on a smaller scale, but !! Programmed !! the Rose Extruder on a Matrix over a sink, lol . . by LUKE TODD !!
& just . . splitting hairs:
1) was that absolute super awesome Kara Walker sculpture, really made of sugar, does it dissolve over time ?
because I hope not. because I would love for it to prevail, while the rest of our civilization turns to dust.
except for the real Sphinx and ALL the pyramids they are finding everywhere.
2) so much for ‘democracy’ – in art. art takes skills.
luckily Urs can go back in there, and restore his beauty to its pristine elegance, after the daily pawing it gets. but nice ‘interactive’ experiment.
3) now, Luke Todd’s ‘Rose Extruder’. this is also a ‘white plaster’ !! but a . . matrix. a grid. not a portrait.
upon which, with proddings from a remote device, roses . . bloom.
it’s interactive, but it’s controlled. it’s a finite cycle, but an open one.
it is destroy by handheld ‘wiper’ / birth by programmed, though also handheld (AI!!) device.
it seems to hold a great lesson.
it could be . . universal ?
birth / death. you know what the Buddha says / don’t attach to the red dust.
mediate on the infinite . . bloom of life. perfection. & then gone with the whim of a common sink & a glass ‘wiper’.
life vs death.
construction vs destruction.
wood vs steel. meditations on inner peace.
somehow they drove me – into the . . future.
LUKE TODD ‘Pine Grid’ on the left, BOBBY VITERI ‘Steel Panel, on the right.
detail, LUKE TODD, ‘Grid (pine)’, 2017.
solid pine. 23.5 x 7.5 in.
Luke told me his work is about . . “kinetic sculpture”.
then where do you do with piece . . ‘captured’ Kinetic ??
as it seems to be a tire pattern ? maybe.
well anyway, it was this wooden piece, that made me realize: they wasn’t, nary a single brushstroke in the show, and, the only pigment might be . . the wood varnish, the steel patina, or the brownish-red dye in the Celtic blood !!
BOBBY VITERI, ‘American Steel’, 2017.
electroplate silver negative on domestic steel in artist’s frame. 13 x 9.5 in.
culture wars.
BOBBY VITERI . . ‘American Steel’.
though curiously,
there was just this one play on ‘imagery’ / where the silver negative area, appears as if . . to be ink, or pigment.
but it seemed an anomaly. which was of interest in & of itself.
a ‘postcard’ . . home.
a nod to the history of art, illustration. the ‘conflict’ eternal to mankind’s nature, though here it’s very lighthearted / meditate on that.
y’all know, if it was just one of us left standing, our right side would fight . . the left.
to the death.
BOBBY VITERI, ‘Cinderblock’, 2017.
cinderblock, epoxy putty, enamel. 16 x 8 x 5.5 in.
why do I hear the iconic music of a sci fi thriller, when I gaze upon this ?
the common enough . . cinderblock – as ‘crystal’ / as: mystery.
the dawn of a new age.
the runaway . . rebel AI / running like a vein, or a vine . . ?
through the concrete and simple enough building . . ‘block’.
programmed, or is that . . beyond programmed ?
Beware the monolith.
Stanley Ku-brick.
the entrance to P4TG / PRAY 4 THIS GALLERY is gritty enough.
but, knock, knock . . . . knock.
is that you, Stanley ?
Stanley Kubrick / ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
& digging: that classic fighting red-clawed crustacean, too. so odd. it comes across, so well.
maybe its that scruffy, ‘stamped’ quality. maybe it is a real . . stencil ?
maybe it’s a spontaneous brushwork ink drawing ?
so B-I-O, for a cutting edge joint, lol. a kind of short-hand punk logo / it seems so nonchalant, too.
random, not overly considered. must be the Chinatown ambiance.
but, then again. just eating one of those things, sends fighter signals through your own system.
enter at your risk / interloper thoughts might affect you !!
somehow it signals: hardcore science, art & life – at work.
funny how an image can come across so differently, in different hands.
the spectrum.
hardcore vs mainstream.
electric vs mundane.
Red Lobster vs Pray 4 This / it’s an infinite world. yin yang.
same . . with the ‘rose’ in the plaster matrix, or the dull glow of a worn patina in cold etched steel.
some people just knock it out of the ballpark.
a rose is a rose is a . . rose.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH