Tara Donovan's Straight Pin Drawings, D. Judd + TV Dinner

ART - Now Showing:

  Tara Donovan - Drawing (Pins) detail below

Artist Tara Donovan makes large-scale sculptures and beautiful wall objects from drinking straws, buttons, pins, No. 2 pencils, etc. She allows the shape of the object to determine the form, transcending the commonplace usage of their intended purpose. 

Donovan, age 42, earned a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant when she was 38. This allows her a fairly normal family life; home / studio ownership in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the luxury of a second 7,000-square-foot studio a few blocks from her house; all of the millions of everyday objects she needs to create her art; and a staff of ten full time assistants to help piece together her visions. Her art is made-up of things like dressmaker's straight pins, pushed into Gatorboard. This straight pin series titled: ‘‘Drawings (Pins),’’ is being shown this month at The Pace Gallery in the Chelsea arts district of New York City.

Artist Tara Donovan

‘‘It’s all about perceiving this material from a distance and close up and how the light interacts with it,’’ Donovan says, like how Scotch tape, stuck to itself creating swirls, takes on color in sunlight. 

‘‘I think a lot of people get caught up when they ask me about the labor,’’ she says, ‘‘and I always think the labor is sort of the reward: I’ve already figured this thing out. All I have to do now is do this thing. It’s very freeing. I can think about what I want to cook for dinner!"
Drawing "Pins" is up at Pace from Feb. 12 until March 19, 2011

Also at Pace Gallery Chelsea 

Donald Judd: Works in Granite, Cor-ten, Plywood, and Enamel on Aluminum, featuring thirteen wall and floor pieces from 1978 through 1992. He  considered material one of the three “main aspects of visual art.”  This exhibition focuses on some of the “lesser known materials” Judd worked with in the later years of his life.   

Donald Judd 

Donald Judd (1928–1994) attended, among other schools, Columbia University, where he graduated cum laude with a B.S. in philosophy and pursued graduate studies in art history from 1957 to 1962.  Beginning in the 60s, Judd exhibited regularly in the United States, Europe, and Japan. He was also a critic for Artnews, Arts Magazine and Art International producing many important theoretical writings on art and exhibition practices, which remain central to his legacy.  Judd taught Art at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Dartmouth College, Yale University and Oberlin College.   

In 1972 Judd and his family moved to Marfa, Texas where he created the Chinati Foundation, an independent, non-profit, publicly funded institution which preserves and presents permanent installations by Judd and a limited number of artists, including John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.  The remote site attracts over 10,000 visitors annually.  Today, Judd’s legacy also survives through the Judd Foundation, established in 1996.  The artist’s former studio and residence at 101 Spring Street (built in 1870), was given the distinction by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as the only intact single-use cast iron building remaining in SoHo.  

Judd’s work is in the collection of nearly every major public art institution in the United States and abroad. Important examples of Judd’s work in plywood can be found permanently installed at Dia: Beacon.

The exhibition will be on view from February 18 through March 26, 2011 at 534 West 25th Street.

For purchase availability regarding: Tara Donovan: Drawing (Pins), and Donald Judd:  Works in Granite, Cor-ten, Plywood, and Enamel on Aluminum, please contact The Pace Gallery,NYC. All information and quotes came from Pace Gallery press releases and from the New York Times blog about these new Pace exhibitions.

NEWS:

Egypt's Museum looted during protests for democracy.

Important archeological sites in Egypt and The Egyptian Museum were looted during the antigovernment protests, Egypt’s antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, recently said. The announcement contradicted earlier statements that Egypt’s archeological sites and treasures were safe. Mr. Hawass said that tombs at Saqqara and Abusir and storage buildings at Saqqara and at Cairo University, among other sites, had been looted. 

Sotheby's auction prices up - Contemporary Art Evening in London realized $71,051,252 with strong multiple bidding on many of the lots. This sum brings the total for Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Auction, London Series this season to $138,728,359, well above combined pre-sale expectations and representing the second-highest total by February ever and the highest total for a Contemporary Art Sales Series in London since July 2008. 

Source, Sotheby's press release.

Juan Muñoz's  "Conversation Piece"
in polyester resin, sold for $1.5 million

[Note: According to the Wall Street Journal, midway through this Feb. 15 contemporary sale in London, demonstrators interrupted bidding by spreading out a red banner that read, "Orgy of the Rich,” and throwing counterfeit £50 notes into the air before being escorted out. The demonstrators belonged to a group of artists and students protesting plans by the government to cut arts programs in the wake of the current recession.]

Beautiful Cars

125 years ago, in 1886, Carl Benz filed a patent for "vehicle with gas engine drive". To celebrate the anniversary of this event, Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz flew four cars - two classic and two concept - to a Hong Kong auto show at Ocean Terminal. Unfortunately the show ends today. If you missed it the Wall Street Journal has some pictures to share of the cars at this link: http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2011/02/19/mercedes-benz-classics-and-concepts/?blog_id=169&post_id=6934

FOOD:

The downfall of the American diet didn't start with fast food restaurants, but with the frozen "TV Dinner". This "progress" first came to us in the 1950s and usually consists of a cut of meat, a vegetable, mashed potato or rice, and a cobbler or cooked fruit. Most processed food has added salt, added trans fats and "chemical additives".

What are our alternatives?

Here is my healthy and delicious microwave, TV Dinner for two:

FIRST: Buy FRESH salad greens in bags, plastic boxes or by the head in produce.

SECOND: Pick up an ear of fresh sweet corn, a baking potato, sweet potato or yam, an apple or orange, a small package of fresh skinless chicken breasts, and your favorite salad dressing. 

• Rinse one potato, poke a few fork holes here and there in the skin and cook on high for 10 minutes. Remember its HOT, remove, divide into two halves, splay open and dress as you like on two plates.

• Rinse a skinless chicken breast, blot dry, sprinkle with salt & pepper and wrap in microwavable plastic wrap - cook on high for 2 1/2 to 4* minutes. Unwrap (careful it is hot) and set chicken aside to rest. (*Cooking chicken is a little tricky because the thickness varies so much, so cook based on the size of the breast. For very thin breasts cut time back to 1 1/2 minutes, if there is still a raw center patch, cook in 10 seconds increments until done, but still juicy.)

• Corn-on-the-Cob - Wet a paper towel, place the shucked ear of corn in the towel and roll-up. Cook on high for 3 minutes, turn and cook for 2-3 minutes more. (For unshucked corn you just peel some leaves slightly back and put under the faucet to wet inside, fold the leaves back over corn and cook.) Remember its HOT, halve the corn and place next to potato on serving plate.

• Open some salad greens.

• Cut Apple or Orange into wedges.

To Serve:

On the plate with the potato and corn halves place a bed of greens. Slice the chicken breast, place on top of the greens. Drizzle your favorite salad dressing over both the chicken and greens. On a separate plate, present the wedges of apple or orange for dessert.

The chicken can also be purchased preseasoned, in individual pouches - remove and microwaved for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes covered by a dry paper towel. Check for doneness, if there is still a raw center patch, cook in 10 seconds increments until done, but still juicy. 

This is fast food with nothing to clean up except a plate or two, and you can catch your favorite TV show while you're eating. No plastic food, no Styrofoam, less wasteful packaging + delicious and healthy food!

Until later,

Jack 

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