Pulse New York

This past week was all about the The Armory Show at the Piers in NYC. It’s a pretty famous show with lots of different offshoot exhibits all over town now, so I thought I’d find everyone some inspiration.

The only “offshoot” show I went to was downtown at Pulse NYC. I actually enjoyed it much more than main event, which I found kind of pretentious, but I always have lots of ambivalence about the art scene. The gallery  owners at Pulse were more open and welcoming and seemed truly excited by the artist’s works they were displaying.

The pulse show has more emerging artists in general. Overall, it was probably more uneven in quality than the Armory Show, but I liked the energy and genuine enthusiasm that I felt in the artwork I saw.

Here’s a few photos and thoughts below:

I thought this fur life preserver by Andy Yoder was an interesting political sendup about the economic downturn–especially in New York City, where the uber wealthy are more uber than other places:

I loved these woven rattan Buddha sculptures by Cambodia artist Sopheap Pich. Airy and open with a certain monumentality:

Megan Greene did some really lovely drawing/collages on top of pages of Audubon paintings from a book. Some people might think, “Oh, been there, done that” but I thought she really integrated her own skillful drawings wonderfully with the initial images, creating something fresh and well executed. She wasn’t really relying on the Audubon prints as much as carrying them somewhere else. My group picture doesn’t really do it justice. Check out her site for better photos.

I thought these mythic taxidermy creatures by Enrique Gomez de Molina were very cool, but some people around me were kind of grossed out. I guess I convinced myself he found the taxidermied pieces and then altered them with his own created bits, but really, I have no idea. They’re so imaginative and phantasmagorical to me and they have a lot of presence . Check out his site to see more and better images. (The walrus is covered in beetle wings!)

Laurent Craste had a wonderful piece that was a mix of video art and porcelain, but I couldn’t take a picture of it. He’s a porcelain artist, and most of his work (at this show anyway) is a commentary on decorative arts.

His piece that I really liked had a porcelain plate in a cabinet with a classic image of roses on it, but the image was digital, and he had the petals and leaves gradually fall off the decorative pattern to form a kind of heap at the bottom of the plate and then start over. Very witty, I thought–and well done video art, which I find kind of rare.

Here’s a few more of his porcelain commentaries:

Emil Lukas had a wrapped thread, piece that was positively luminous. Of course, my photo makes it look opaque and kind of awful, but it was really great and I wanted to include it here. I notice the other images of his work online don’t do much better either, so I think it’s kind of hard to photograph his work:

I liked these witty little paintings by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber–from The Royal Art Lodge:

I really enjoyed Megan Whitmarsh’s soft sculpture installation of her dream studio–it was very positive and actually kind of joyful. It really brought back memories of the soft sculpture rage in the 70’s:

So there was lots more that I liked, but I’m having a hard time deciphering my notes and my to-do list is a mile long this week! I’ll write about The Armory Show next with lots of pictures as well. Please share any thoughts you have about any of the art, I’d love to hear from you!