Posts: Beyond

to the East Coast section.

- David Lawrence [Thursday, August 15th, 2002]

a long overdue update from one of the stretcher crew on the move, Amy Berk…

From London, Tate Modern: Elija-Liisa Ahtila- real characters, invented worlds April 30-July 28. Ahtila, a Finnish video artist, (who i hear was also a standout at documenta) displayed her fictional dark narratives in 10 multi-set room installations. Some rooms were over the top with supersized sets in often surprising arrangements competing with the compelling and commanding psychodramas onscreen. Photographs from an earlier woman in dog pose project were puerile and unfortunate. More info and images here.

- Ella Delaney [Thursday, August 15th, 2002]

has on view a “group video project for two channels.” Six artists, Fil Kuting, Terri Phillips, Jim Ovelmen, Alice Konitz, John Williams, and Sharon Ben-Joseph are presented. At the opening two screens were set up - one outside, the other inside - creating a split that would, I imagine, keep people moving back and forth in order to get the complete picture. I didn’t see it in this format. Instead, sitting comfortably (I can’t emphasize that enough) I watched a little monitor to my right and the big screen directly in front. It worked well. The program was enjoyable. Alice Konitz’s short video, Lifeguards at Rockaway Beach, features lifeguards and their stands - structures of curious design that look like source material for Konitz’s sculptural work. The two videos zero in on lifeguards getting ready for duty, basically preparing for a long day in the sun. In contrast to Konitz’s simple observance video, Jim Ovelmen’s Her Majestic Azimuth is highly structured and orchestrated with one video shot from a helicopter and the other from the ground. Three subjects - a helicopter, two sailors with a flag-like signal cloth, and the Queen Mary cruiser ship - form a contingency triangle that is grounded by the ship’s presence. Sitting on a comfortable easy chair watching one artist video after another is a great way to spend an hour or so on a hot afternoon.

—Julie Deamer

- Meredith Tromble [Friday, August 2nd, 2002]

Located deep in the heart of Uusikaupunki, Finland, the Bonk Museum chronicles the history of a company (Bonk Industries) that never existed. Among the inventions documented there are an electromagnetic air balloon, a system for turning bad feelings into charcoal briquettes, an electricity generator that runs on anchovies, and a local-area black hole generator. Highly recommended, runs indefinitely.

- Ed Osborn [Thursday, August 1st, 2002]

Frances Stark’s first solo museum exhibition, featuring The Unspeakable Compromise of the Portable Work of Art (1998 - 2002), is currently on view at the UCLA Hammer Museum. In the vault gallery, a special curvilinear room that seems to seal out all distraction the moment you walk in, a series of sixteen text and paper works hangs quietly. “Elegant” appropriately describes the work’s formal qualities. Repeated letters finally spell out a recognizable sentence (most often the same as the series’ title phrase). Stark’s phrases usually come from literary or cultural sources; in this series, Daniel Buren’s 1971 essay “The Function of the Studio” is referenced. The poetry of the work (Stark is also a frequently published writer) resonates when the content and the work’s formal qualities gel. Through August 25.

—Julie Deamer

- Meredith Tromble [Tuesday, July 30th, 2002]

Now posted at the Museum fuer Kommunikation, Hamburg: DIN ART 4: 560 Kuenster und 1 Formular (560 artists and 1 form). Over a twelve year period, private collector Klaus Hoemberg mailed 560 blank postcards to 560 artists, asking them to design something inside the outlines of a blank box on the front of the postcard, sign it, and mail it back. Responses ranged from Robert Longo’s “I hate the idea of mail art - thank you,” to a tangram-esque collage by British artist Tom Moseley, to “Klone Plan Misfits I-VII,” a psuedo-scientific diagram by German artist Thomas Gruenfeld (ever wondered what you get when you cross a rooster, a grouse, and a ferret?). Particularly noteworthy is Andy Goldsworthy’s contribution, a rubbing in graphite of a single leaf, its fragile veins embossed in the postcard’s blackened surface. It is both like and unlike Goldsworthy’s usual work; alike in that it underscores nature’s beauty through the artists’ intervention; unlike in that the evidence of his intervention is fixed in a medium other than photography. So go postal - the sheer volume of postcards begs two trips to the museum. Through August 18, 2002.

—Jessica Goodson

- Meredith Tromble [Tuesday, July 9th, 2002]

From the editors