Monday, August 6, 2012

Young Curators, New Ideas IV @ Meulensteen


Word on the street is that Meulensteen may be on the way out, and I seem to be in the minority by saying I am going to miss them. Because I really liked the current, scrappy, over-packed Young Curators show. Featuring Adam Parker Smith’s Belmar-like bound sheets of styrofoam that look like female genitalia, with a video of a guy smothering his face with shaving cream. Or a plywood table with 4x5 prints of small, inconsequential details of day-to-day life sitting next to a hand made rock crystal fountain, a piece that would be embarrassing to even the most oblivious hipster. This might not be the most ringing endorsement, but in a climate where galleries are forced to keep up with the little museums of Zwirner and Gagosian, there does seem that very little risk is being taken, even by Chelsea’s standards. So when Young Curators devolves into an incomprehensible blur of mementos left over after art school, at least Meulensteen opened its doors to failure and with it provides an enjoyable jolt. Instead of the numerous shows of numbing displays of established people making familiar art that just exist only to get to the next show of forgettable exhibition. So if Meulensteen is going down, they at least had the good sense to put on intriguing shows by the likes of Siebren Versteeg, Mike Cloud, and Andrea Galvani.


Through Aug 24th

0 comments:

Post a Comment