Postmodern Videos

Get another hit of mom and summer in this knock-em-down-drag-em-out episode! ... funny "office comedy" "white screen" greenscreen postmodern "generation x" "generation y" "baby boomer" millennial hippie "reality show" mother daughter drinking texting "text message" family adolescence ..

James Kalm is performing urban recon when he discovers New World an exhibition by one of the outspoken advocates of the Pictures Generation , Thomas Lawson. These recent paintings demonstrate the distance Lawson s practice has progressed from the norms of the early 1980s. Depicting figures in modern dress, and presenting an image referring to contemporary Youth Culture, this series was nevertheless inspired by the 18th Century fresco The New World by Tiepolo, and displays a strong foundation in art history, an ironic return full circle from the a-historical crisis of the Pictures Generation . Includes excerpts from a discussion with Gerard Hemsworth and Rachel Baum.

James Kalm has been watching the progress of this extensive installation for weeks. Black Acid Co-Op is the collaboration of Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman, and this piece explores the dark manic recesses of meth-lab culture and its analogues relationship to middle America, and the glamorous New York art world. Entering through the basement, visitors ascend through a labyrinth of burned out trailers meth-labs and art galleries in a journey through an hellatious environment of cultural debris.

James Kalm visits the latest offerings from a well known proponent of the Pictures Generation Robert Longo. Coming on the New York scene like gangbusters in the late 70s, the cool kids of the Pictures Generation were seen as fashionable radicals melding deadpan representation appropriated from photos and the mass media with a hermetic post conceptual theory. With this body of drawings, the artists has moved away from his large figures and is instead focused on the effects of atmosphere in landscapes and large interior spaces, presenting a Post-Modern Romanticism.

James Kalm goes west, to bring viewers an exhibition double bill. Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida have created a stir that reverberates throughout the New York art scene. Though working with unique individual means, their excruciating examinations of art world norms reveals the faults and foibles of our materialistic and celebrity obsessed view of current artistic success. Dalton s installation questions the basic notions of value, while Powhida probes the structures of power assigned by the media. Both present a poignant and comic depiction of Institutional Critique .

James Kalm ventures into the depths of a new art district in Brooklyn, the Gowanus, to bring viewers along for a studio visit with Mike Cockrill. With a exhibition record going back nearly thirty years in New York, Cockrill has been involved in many of the significant happenings and scenes that flourished here since the early eighties. Although well known within the artist s community, his precedent setting figurative work is now being recognized as a pioneering effort in what has recently become the New Figuration . In an extended interview Cockrill discusses Kitsch, the East Village and his current sculptural work.

James Kalm endures broken spokes and crowds of fitness freaks following a boom-bike to capture a glance of Bruce Pearson s Encyclopedia Paintings . Pearson has established a unique place in current abstract painting combining a facture employing bas-relief and coloristic notes varying from near monochrome to orchestral complexity. Fragments of found text are intermingled using computer programs like Photoshop to splice and dice, and are hidden in swirling psychedelic patterns.

James Kalm drops in for an exhibition of recent paintings by one of the last stalwarts of New York School Abstract Expressionism, Thornton Willis. With Lattice Willis is re-investigating a compositional format he explored in the 1960s. After developing a signature image, that both drew attention and limited progression in the late seventies the wedge series was superseded by the crystal series. Lattice is a return to purely horizontal/vertical elements, reducing painterly forms to their most essential simplicity. Featuring an extended interview with Thornton Willis.

James Kalm slides through the night to the Chelsea opening of Spring in Park Lane recent paintings by cult favorite Thomas Trosch. With an exhibition resume stretching back years, Trosch is still an acquired taste. Combining the unlikely elements of fashionable high society damsels, narratives that might be borrowed from British soap operas, and a sumptuous technique, the artist produces works redolent of history and oil paint. With an underground reputation among painters, Trosch s works nevertheless deserves a wider consideration.

James Kalm wraps up this year s round robin of art fair visits with Bridge 2009. As one of the youngest and rawest of the fairs, Bridge attracts an international group of likeminded galleries. Discoveries include Florence Putterman, an octogenarian who began painting at age forty, the dioramic multi media installations of Extremely Hungry and the evocative nudes of Jenny Morgan.

James Kalm, in his attempt to provide viewers with the most comprehensive art fair coverage available, ventures uptown to take in SCOPE New York. This fair features a broad cross section of young galleries with a Post-Modern tinge, many featuring conceptual objects in lieu of painting. A visit to the special project Cheap, Fast and Out of Control presents a version of Relational Aesthetics tuned for local hip slackers.

James Kalm returns with viewers to take a more concentrated look at Martin Kippenberger s estimable legacy as a painter. Receiving his first recognition in the late seventies as a painter and draftsman and despite the various projects and installations he engineered, Kippenberger maintained a consistent practice as a painter. This exhibition chronicles his graphic versatility as well as his masterful facility with the medium. These talents were incorporated in Kippengergers provocative challenge to the status quo and the art world establishment. Features an interview with Ann Goldstein, Senior Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

James Kalm ventures to Western Chelsea in an investigation of reported sightings of strange animal behavior. Monkey Brains is an artistic critique focusing on the juncture between Consumer Capitalism and corporate morality, as exemplified by Big Pharma . Hogin uses classical technique and a pastiche of historical naturalism and jazzy psychedelic color to focus viewers attention on the over prescription of psychoactive drugs. With humor and a satirical bite, her paintings deliver a sharp focus analogy that contrasts the cute with the pathetically intoxicated. Featuring an extended interview with Lauri Hogin

James Kalm visits the debut of the film JG Reads by Rirkrit Tiravanija. As a leading member of what has become known as Relational Aesthetics Tiravanija seeks an interaction with his audience, encouraging a precipitorial engagement that questions the standard artist/viewer classification. As the former husband of Elizabeth Peyton, Tiravanija shares her infatuation with the notion of celebrity and hyper-fandom. Jerry Salts has recently called the Relational Aesthetic artists the most influential stylistic strain to emerge in art since the early 1970s .

James Kalm brings viewers along for the much anticipated reappearance of Sandro Chia. As one of the driving forces who revitalized painting with his particular version of Neo-Expressionism, Chia has received worldwide acclaim. Promoted along with Enzo Cucchi, and Francesco Clemente as the Three Cs and the Italian Trans-Avantgarde, their return to a figurative based imagery hastened the demise of the moribund formalism and Minimalism that had strangled much of the painterly creativity in New York and spawned a reevaluation of it potentials. This exhibition features signature works that continue that legacy.

James Kalm slinks back to the Bowery to report on the first retrospective exhibition of Mary Heilmann. Presenting over forty years of work, this show gives viewers a chance to examine the themes, mediums and developments that Heilmann has consistently worked with. From her earliest pieces Heilmann s taken an insightful understanding of modern formalist conventions and tweaked them with a whimsical nonchalance that is nonetheless elegant and innovative. Richard Flood, Chief Curator organized this exhibitions presentation at the New Museum. Featuring comments by Julian Dashper