Chelsea is so hip that even the buildings have gradients applied to them. Chelsea? More like Chelsea 2.0.
Marcel Dzama
If I had the same first name as Ducamp I’d probably make some referential artwork as well. Though I might make it a little more in line with the other work I was showing in the same room. Dzama, who is clearly diorama crazy, went with a series of found objects over his typically fabricated ones to use behind his peepholed door. I thought this was a strange choice, and I have to wonder if it would have been stronger were it a re-interpretation of Duchamp’s piece using the language Dzama has already developed. Beyond this though I would have to say that I liked the piece. I’m not sure of the level of intention behind it, but the wood adjacent to the peephole was stained with what I assumed was disgusting face grease. Fearing acne this made me very careful not to put my eye right up against the door. The idea of this door being a shared experience, one where the imprint of the viewers leaves a physical imprint on the piece is... nice.
Installations
I was genuinely surprised by the amount of installation work in Chelsea. This being very much the opposite of what I would have expected inside of a gallery. Both of these pieces were clearly constructed for the site (or at the very least adapted for the site).
This one is hilarious.
Brian Jungen
I think what Jungen had on display in Chelsea, the football jerseys woven into Native American Blankets, was great conceptually. Unfortunately they were very similar to his well known masks made from appropriated Air Jordans. Even his whale skeleton constructed of plastic lawn chairs. I think the problem I’m having is that he has managed to make such visually arresting objects, which are, at the same time rock solid conceptually. Not really a problem, but when he makes something with the same concept, that he has used in previous work, but which is now stronger than the physical execution of a piece... is misleading? Maybe the pieces are strong in a different way, his understating of the physical in the work contributing to something. Or maybe I am just not a huge blanket fan.
DiVa Containers
The DiVa containers were a series of cargo containers that were supposed to be showcasing “new media art,” whatever the hell that is. Judging from most of the work shown it just means video on an LCD screen. Which I don’t have a problem with. It’s just that I’m not sure if I would classify this as “new media”. For that matter I would prefer not to classify anything as “new media”. I thought the whole categorizing fad had finally blown over.
There were of course exceptions... There is a pink Chinese lion in the middle of one of the DiVa containers in Chelsea. The head rotates 360 degrees projecting a mirrored video of a symphony orchestra from it’s eyes. Now the connections here wasn’t entirely clear to me at first. In fact the connection is still not clear to me. But, after thinking on it several times over a period of hours It might have something to do with reflection hiding the individual. The orchestra is obscured and distorted through the reflection, but the lion missing its partner is easy to examine as an individual object. Maybe this is a sort of cultural reflection where one culture views another as a continuously reflected entity. Like the reverse of one individual standing between two mirrors and being perceived as a crowd.
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