art days...first year mfa show.

a.k.a. the [m]other[f]ucking[a]rtist show.

the current exhibition in the mason gross galleries is comprised of the first year mfa students. it's interesting to think about this show because it is a spot i could be in in a year or two. i was eager to see the concepts in perspective of those who are on the next step of a similar journey...

before even entering the show there were a small series of pieces in the corridor by bfa student jian chen. i really liked these pieces because he found solutions to problems i had in my work in a different manner than i would have. when my work reduced to a minimal state of a few pieces of canvas on a frame, the frame became a distraction. jian rendered the frame in the composition of a traditional painting around a traditional subject. it was a simple solution to a problem i was having but in a different kind of work.

upon entering the gallery, i was abruptly greeted by two new suspended walls in the main space of the gallery. i hate them. i don't understand why they exist in the spots they do. i was always a huge fan of that main open room for its lack of clutter. now its cluttered in my opinion. i was upset.

overall i did not like the show too much. i expected much more from a graduate student show in an institution like mason gross. i found a lot of the work to be simply aesthetic and not thought provoking. however this has always been a flaw of shows in the mason gross galleries. it seems as if they want anybody to be able to walk off the street and just have something "nice" to look at without the question of its conception or its dialogue with art. i didn't find myself having any valid conversations with the work that was in front of me. i didn't like the curation of the show either. the show seemed to be a cluttered collection of over-saturated, straight out of the tube colors that was hard to digest. i don't understand why the artists weren't allowed to curate it themselves...i assume they all know each other...its their work in their school's gallery. let them work it out. a lot of the pieces hung on adjacent walls didn't create any interesting relationships. i found it illogical that some of the smallest pieces of the show existed on the biggest walls in the gallery space while big pieces didn't have room to breath in the smaller rooms. i suppose they did there best but the show as a whole just didn't make too much sense...not to mention the fact that the show is open for viewing and seemingly incomplete.

there were some bright spots in the show however. i like the large abstract pieces in the back of the main room [artist not yet identified]. i liked the use of the gesture to evoke emotion. there was a lot of color but it was not muddy. you could see a lot of the artist's though processes. the works were on raw canvas which is something i am experimenting with in my own work. i feel bad that kristin melkin's work was hanging on that suspended wall. i wish it seemed more permanent in the gallery space. she created interesting sculptures out of old barn wood. even more interesting were the shadows they casted on the wall. i liked the overlay large work in the james hyde project space. it made me wonder how the hell they were done. i have no idea how to go about making a digital print that big. it also created a conversation with my work through the linear elements and the contrasting textures. i also enjoyed the progressive digital photography that was in the main room immediately to the right when you enter. i found myself wondering about the technicality of the photography and the intended message. i like megan flaherty's protography. i'm not trying to kiss ass because she's my t.a., but i definitely wanted to see her work since we've had an on-going dialogue about art through out thesis. the lanscape compositions were well considered and i could see the relation from one photo to the next. i liked the sizing of the photos because they scaled down the landscape and made it intimate. i do wish some areas were a little sharper though...however i think this was a conscious decision and the way the prints culminated in a video was nice. i felt it was properly installed in the space.

aside from these works i was indifferent about or didn't like the rest of the work in the show. i couldn't really stand to look at the installation in the back room. if i was one of the other artists in that room i would have been pissed to have my work in there. it became a totally incorrect forum to view the surrounding art. not to meantion that the installation itself was just annoying. the painted, sculptural, paper mache and chicken wire things weren't very good either. they looked like severd body parts that had been tie-dyed. i didn't understand why some were suspended, some were wall mounted and some were on canvas. i saw no unifying factor or relationship between them. the works on canvas were much more interesting than the rest of them. in fact i wish there was just the canvas works. they became hidden in the midst of the clutter. luckily for megan her work was on the opposite side of the other work in her room. i didn't know how to read that work at all...it was all over the place and was a mess of crayola lookin tempra colors and pop logos. i also didn't care for the series of small glossy paintings in the first back room on the right. they reminded me of the work by raoul de keyser i saw in chelsea earlier this month. his work did nothing for me and neither did these.

all i hope is that our thesis shows run smoother and turn out better than this...