[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: October 19, 2009]
A few days are still left in which you may penetrate the doors of Hauser & Wirth on East 69th and plunge into the world of Allan Kaprow's "Yard."
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Be bold. The first time I tried to see this show, it was evident from a glance at the dusty sheet in the gallery window that it was still under installation. I passed on, resolved to return. Just as well; my assumption had been wrong. The appearance of a construction site is deliberately and you must buzz your way in.
Stepping off the street, you find no reception desk with catalogs and smart young things taking phone calls. Rather, you are immersed in the direct sensory assault of a dark environment, sporadically lit by flashing bulbs, wreathed in the queasy stink of old rubber. Then you trip over something. The ground floor of the gallery is strewn with heavy rubber tires; as you find your bearings and move further into the space you find the tires stacked high in a far corner. Your movements seem to trigger a vocal track. Ultimately, you make your way gingerly to a staircase and ascend to the second floor where a further exhibit explains the encounter.
"Yard" is fifty years old. A classic installation by Allan Kaprow, the artist who moved from abstract painting to the site-specific creation of "happenings," "Yard" invites visitors to arrange the countless tires as they please, throwing them, stacking them, shifting them around the floor (I didn't - they looked heavy). "Yard" was recreated by Kaprow in many environments, and following his death in 2006 is installed here by the performance artist William Pope L., also responsible for the light and sound effects.
The scattering of tires may seem a trivial exercise - in fact, in this enclosed space, they threaten and press and loom with every bit as much authority as a massive Serra torque - and a lot more smell. Many points are simultaneously made by this environment, perhaps most powerfully that telling sculptural effects can be produced by the random placement of objects in space, combined in this case with the objects' almost oppressive materiality. A tough show to view in some ways, thought-provoking, and the gallery hands out an excellent free, illustrated history of the piece. Worth catching.
Twombly at Gagosian
New sculptures by Cy Twombly at the Madison Avenue Gagosian breathe a completely air. They are well-spaced in a high, brightly lit room. Although bronze, white paint lightens the structures. For the first time, Twombly reminds of David Smith as he draws his material into tall, stepped totems. Giacometti came to mind too - these gawky poles seem to lurch tentatively towards you lie troubled thin men or very pale giraffes.
Viewing this show in the same week I saw "Yard" emphasized Twombly's idealization of ruins. The best approach I've found to understanding his paintings and works on paper is that he creates significant allusions to a classical past - usually, not always, Mediterranean - which can no longer be directly evoked by classical means. Twombly tries to give us the gods, muses, nymphs and satyrs without irony and without kitsch; a monumental undertaking. With these eight sculptures he continues the project of providing a setting - broken pillars, the absence of temples and altars, the bricolage of what remains.
Twombly's work whispers "bright gods and Tuscan," Kaprow's of Hunt's Point junkyards. There are different ways of skinning the aesthetic cat.
Kaprow is at Hauser & Wirth through October 24.
Twombly is at Gagosian through October 31.