Art Fag City’s 2009 Fall Preview: Museum Edition

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON AND KAREN ARCHEY

Michael Smith, A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, film still. Image via: Sculpture Center

Looks like there’s plenty to see at New York museums this year. As such, we’re presenting a list of the shows we most anticipate. Much like last Friday’s gallery edition preview, the name of the author has been included beside each pick; the editors agreed upon all choices though some represent the unique taste of either author. Click through for our full preview!

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, “Chronotypes and Dioramas”, Dia at the Hispanic Society of America, September 23, 2009 — April 18, 2010 – Karen Archey

We’re not sure what Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s newest show will look like, but we foresee it being an awesome clusterfuck of taxidermy, literature and sculpture. Organized by Dia's Curator-at-Large Lynne Cook, the Hispanic Society of America will mount the French artist's installation “chronotypes and dioramas.” The exhibition pairs three natural history museum-style dioramas depicting various terrains—the desert, ocean and tropics—with the artist’s textual augmentations to the Hispanic Society's library. This includes well-known works by authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, JG Ballard and Samuel Delaney, as well as Gonzalez-Foerster’s own writing.

Michael Smith, A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, film still. Image via: Sculpture Center

Mike Kelley and Michael Smith, “A Voyage of Growth and Discovery,” Sculpture Center, September 13 – November 30, 2009,  – Paddy Johnson

This show promises strange video we're not sure we'll like, but want to see anyway. For his film “A Voyage of Growth and Discovery” Michael Smith plays the character Baby IKKI — a baby in adult form — who attends a festival in the Black Rock desert. In tandem with the piece, artist Mike Kelley produces a soundtrack aptly named, Beats for Baby. Although we've been told the baby work of Michael Smith is awkwardly amazing, we've yet to experience it first hand. As such, we're looking forward to finding out what all the hype is about.

Grand Openings. Image via: Sculpture Center

“Grand Openings”, Ei Arakawa, Jutta Koether, Jay Sanders, Emily Sundblad, and Stefan Tcherepnin, Sculpture Center, September 13 – November 30, 2009 – Karen Archey

We've yet to tire of the enigmatic artist collaborative associated with Chinatown gallery Reena Spaulings. In this vein, the collective Grand Openings — an assortment of artists attached to the gallery — launches a solo show at Sculpture Center, stringing together performance art, theatre and plastic art. Founded in 2005 by artists Ei Arakawa, Jutta Koether, Jay Sanders, Emily Sundblad, and Stefan Tcherepnin, the cooperative's exhibition provides archives of past performances, including posters and a limited edition publication. We're curious to see how it compares to Greene Naftali's simultaneous Bernadette Corporation show, a collective with many of the same members.

Image via: PS1

“100 years / Performa”, PS1 – November 1, 2009 – April 10, 2010 – Karen Archey

Here's the gist of Performa 09: it's a New York-based biennial showcasing performance art only. This year in its third edition, the event marks two other anniversaries: the 30th anniversary of the publishing of founder RoseLee Goldberg's seminal tome Performance Art: From Futurism to Present and the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, which notably influenced Goldberg. The three-week event will take over various locations including Elizabeth Dee's temporary non-profit X-initiative and the Guggenheim. Unfortunately, we can't tell you much more as their website has been down for a while. This is not good.

Urs Fischer, you, 2007. Mixed mediums, dimensions variable. Installation view: Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York. Courtesy Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich

Urs Fischer, “Urs Fischer,” New Museum, October 28, 2009 – January 24, 2010 – Paddy Johnson

Urs Fischer has a habit of making a splash. His crane tugging around a pack of cigarettes in a cleared Gavin Brown Art Basel booth was the talk of the town during the Miami fair in 2007, as was last year's Who's Afraid of Jasper Johns collaboration with Brown at Tony Shafrazi. There, he reproduced Shafrazi's Modernist exhibition Four Friends at full scale then placed a variety of modern and contemporary works around and on top of the wallpaper. Pictures for his show at the New Museum seem to involve a lot of dirt.

Rob Pruitt, “Rob Pruitt's First Annual Art Awards,” October 29th, 2009, The Guggenheim – Paddy Johnson

This looks nothing short of awesome. Who's going to win Rob Pruitt's Life Time Achievement Award? How about Curator of the Year or Show of the Year? The only prizewinner we think we've got a line on is Writer of the Year, which will likely go to Jerry Saltz. He mentioned being filmed for the Annual Art Awards on Facebook a while ago, so at the very least he's involved.

Walead Beshty, Three Color Curl (CMY: Irvine, California, August 19, 2008, Fuji Crystal Archive Type C). 2008. Color photographic paper, 97 5/8 x 51 1/8″ (248 x 129.9 cm). Image via: MoMA

“New Photography”, Walead Beshty, Daniel Gordon, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Sterling Ruby, and Sara VanDerBeek, MoMA, September 30, 2009—January 11, 2010 — Karen Archey

“New Photography” is a deceptive title for MoMA's Associate Curator Eva Respini's fall show in the museum's photography department. While the exhibition does showcase recently produced photography, artists included transcend ideas customary to current photographic practice, imploding distinctions between collage and sculpture — a feat for an era in which little seems new.

Screencapture from Edward Scissorhands. Via: Fanpop

Tim Burton, “Tim Burton, A Career Retrospective,” MoMA, November 22, 2009 — April 26 2010 – Paddy Johnson

If MoMA only displays two props from Edward Scissorhands I’ll be at this exhibition in a heartbeat.

New York Art Book Fair, 2007, Photo: AFC

New York Art Book Fair, October 2-4 2009 – Paddy Johnson

AA Bronson talks about the effort to reclaim New York as a center for books in a piece told by ArtForum's David Velasco, which marks the aim of The New York Art Book Fair. This year in its third season, favorite participants include Second Cannons in LA, Ed Sanders Fuck You Press in the Lower East Side, and Paper Tiger Television.

Kitty Kraus, Untitled, 2006, Lamp, ice, ink. Image via: VVork

Kitty Kraus, “Intervals,” The Guggenheim, October 9, 2009—January 6, 2010 – Karen Archey

Berlin-based artist Kitty Kraus' sources materials such as ice, mirror, light bulbs, fabric and glass to meditate on materiality, the structure of the cube, entropy and perceived fragility. Her work bears a strong semblance to that of Robert Smithson, Joseph Beuys, Frank Stella, and Paul Kos, though the hope is that Kraus' presentation will avoid simply excavating the aforementioned artists work. We believe she'll succeed—many of Kraus' untitled investigations into materiality come with uniquely poetic aestheticizations flirting with the historical and minimal.

William Blake (1757—1827), Behemoth and Leviathan, ca. 1805—10, [Book of Job, no. 15], Pen and black and gray ink, gray wash, and watercolor, over faint indications in pencil, on paper, 10 1/16 x 7 3/4 inches

William Blake, “William Blake's World,” The Morgan Library, September 11 2009 – January 3 2010 – Paddy Johnson

A visual artist and poet, William Blake's illustrations from the Book of Job, watercolors, and other ephemera, comprise a show not to miss. We’re pleased to be able to say we’re also looking forward to the wall labels. The New York Public Libraries are known for impeccable scholarship.