Gizmogs

A couple days ago, Eyebeam in New York City opened what by some has been called their best show so far. It is titled Untethered, and was curated by visiting fellow Sarah Cook to be "a sculpture garden of everyday objects deprogrammed of their original function, embedded with new intelligence and transformed into surrealist and surprising readymades". Many pieces are from Eyebeam's fellows, residents or affiliated artists while a few external people were invited to participate as well.

Dead Star

Seen in New York this week and the one before:

Tina Kim Gallery is showing the delightful and eerie Kyung Jeon: a story, 13 works on traditional Korean rice paper that trace the story of a boy and a girl as they descend together into a symbolic world of dark forces and mythic transformation.

Chapter 11: Rest, and a vision, 2008,

Today in Italy, car manufacturers promise you that half naked ladies will throw themselves languorously over your car hood if you buy one of their models. Back in the 50s in the US, you would get a supply of Kleenex if you purchased a Pontiac. Photograph by Bill Wood - a commercial photographer in Fort Worth, Texas, whose negatives were bought by Diane Keaton and exhibited at the International Center of Photography.

I made it just on time to see the last day of Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video From Japan, an exhibition that closed a few days ago at the International center of photography in Manhattan.

The work of the 13 Japanese artists on show visits three main themes. The one i found most fascinating and probably also most Japanese investigates the tension between individual expression and collective identity in contemporary Japan.

The New York edition of Pictoplasma was as successful as possible: great programme, fantastic speakers and performances and audience getting jaw-ache from constant grinning.

Performance by Friends With You

Peter Thaler & Lars Denicke started to get interested in characters ten years ago. They were fascinated by the very anti-Pixar essence of these characters: they have no background, no purpose nor story to tell. Yet, they have a soul and a clear personality, they manage to communicate no matter the country where they are shown.

Maurizio Cattelan's taxidermic horse which i saw yesterday at the New Museum as part of the After Nature exhibition is the photo pretext i'll use to tell readers and friends that this year, for the first time, i won't be at ars electronica. I asked my friend Jan to post a couple of stories about the festival if he ever feels like it but that should be something very light.

About time to finish off my reviews of New York art shows. Only two left. One is over -but god was it good, the other one runs until June 21.

Quality, 2008

The one exhibition i could not miss was Tom Sachs' lineup of new works at the Sperone Westwater. The show is called Animals so there's a fair amount of pieces which explore the presence of the animalistic in our everyday lives but there's also some quirky machines and installations.

I'm back from New York for more than a week and getting ready for new adventures in little Europe. Time to turn a page on the transcontinental trip by throwing in a couple of posts the best exhibitions i saw while i was in Manhattan. Some of them are still up till the end of the month, others have already closed their doors. Here we go...

It's not everyday that Dick Cheney gives its title to an art exhibition.

There's a mix pop art, cartoon aesthetics and ukiyo-e prints in the exhibition currently running at the Flomenhaft Gallery. But there's also some dark pages from American history.

American Infamy #3

Although i tend to spend most of my time inside every single branch of Sephora when i'm in New York, i got to see some pretty interesting exhibitions while i was there. Daneyal Mahmood Gallery is hosting until June 14 an arresting installation and series of photographies by Justine Cooper.

Sally, 2008

727, 1996. Courtesy of Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles. ©1996 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Is there anyone left in this room who doesn't know how much i like Takashi Murakami (and his Kiki character)? Is there anyone who doesn't like his work? Or doesn't like to loathe its shallowness?

White Nightmare (Sedan Chair), 2008

First of all a little present. I've got one free pass for a reader interested in attending Mediabistro Circus which takes place in New York on May 20 and 21. The two-day conference focuses on the digital platforms and trends that are changing media today. Just send me an email (reg at this domain's address) explaining why you'd like to go and i'll forward the details of the most charming/desperate/convincing reader to the organizers of the event.