Amy Vogel
Larissa Goldston Gallery - 530 W. 25th St, New York NY
29 February - 29 March 2008

On initial viewing of Amy Vogel's “World Go One Way, People Another,” currently on view at Larissa Goldston Gallery, I was greeted with that sense of tranquility that comes from a storied Sunday drive down a meandering country road. Majestically tall old growth trees reach to the heavens; highly saturated harmonizing colors proliferate in multiple cross-hatched water-laden strokes, showcasing a breadth of naturalist access to a jaded urbane existence. But these are not back roads leading to a vacation home for mid-summer. They are inroads to a realm entirely foreign to the numbed city dweller, completely accustomed to the erosion of privacy in daily life.

Throughout Vogel's work, sweeping brushstrokes reveal multi-layered saturations of acrylic color, looking almost watercolor-like in nature. But a pile of logs is not necessarily all that it appears to be. Take Untitled 2008. In this piece, layers of contrasting green give a luminescent glow to a collection of lumber, bringing forth a sheen not unlike the dermis of our Martian counterparts. The logs lie in a disjointed heap, bracing against each other for support. The craggy branches reach out like spindly tentacles, looking for their next victim. It seemed a bit Blair Witch to me: will anyone hear you scream in the woods? I looked closer. Sure enough unseen on a first glance, there, tied to the base of the structure, is a rope knotted into a perfect noose. Gothic sensibility at its finest. Next time one encounters such a trail marker, they may think twice before resting their weary bodies upon its sturdy timber.

Another fascinating object of reference that appears throughout Vogel's craftsmanship is her insertion of mobile homes lying amidst depictions of the rural blue collar of Upstate Michigan. There's certainly no Matthew McConnaugheys (read: celebrities) vacationing in Airstreams here. These are homes of residents that are a recluse's dream come true. A trailer lies at the bottom of a lavender and leafy crimson ravine, a single door leading to open air. A spare tire lies long abandoned next to the aluminum doorway; a protective barbed wire fence lies at the edge of the property. But is this truly a protection from the dangers of nature, or that of outsiders?

Vogel's work aims to romanticize the simplistic, but looking at these images I didn't feel that these were “bucolic settings” by any means. There's an extremely sad, lonesome quality at play here. Somewhere along the way, a connection, has been severed. The residents use the rural setting as an attempt to provide a stable refuge in an increasingly unstable world. But the trees, on several second looks, no longer appear to be majestic pines reaching to the heavens, but perhaps victims of forest fires. They appear singed by leaping flames, their remains standing as skeletal remnants of the dry season.

Throughout Vogel's works the viewer must constantly look downhill towards the focal point of reference. In several of the pieces a curved rail from the highway looks from above at a journey below. The pictures evoke the feeling of being at a zoo, looking at the trapped animals beneath us. The subject is continually at a safe distance — never too close, but yet far enough to succeed in its isolation. The trees continually provide what seems to be protection, but not from the elements, but intruders. Vogel has gifted us with our own VIP invitation inside a world not necessarily interested in otherwise letting us in. An intimately intriguing show, Amy Vogel, “World Go One Way, People Another” is on view through March 29th.

Carl Ostendarp, 1987 - 2007
Elizabeth Dee Gallery - 545 W. 20 St, New York NY
1 December 2007 - 12 January 2007

I walked into Elizabeth Dee transfixed not only by the works hanging on the walls, but the transformation of the space itself. With the top edges of the walls oozing pastel-hued candy pink paint drips I was transported back to a limited recollection of the pre-school phenomena — mud pies in the backyard, cooking apple sauce for the first time, little boys running to the bathroom with pants down, leaking all the way onto milk-vomit covered floors.

Childhood is all about an inundation of bodily fluids, and as we grow older we attempt to immerse ourselves in forgetting about them, or perhaps more or less acknowledge they're there, but not letting them dominate our memories.

In Carl Ostendarp's work, the artist quietly references the body's makeup and its processes through pop culture abstraction; body-like fluids take on a cartoonish quality with the flatness of his paint application. This retrospective of the artist's work currently on display offers a unique look at the his development in this regard since the late 80s.

The Public Unconscious
Tom Otterness
Marlborough Gallery - 545 West 25th Street, New York, NY
4 October - 3 November 2007

"He killed a dog, you know."

These words eerily echo through the cavernous chambers of my mind as I start this review. Can you separate the person from the artist? Is it possible to take work for face value without considering the artist?

Early on in the career of sculptor Tom Otterness, he was just another struggling young artist here in Manhattan trying to make it. In the era of the ever-escalating shock value and competitive one-upsmanship of his time — Christopher Burden’s getting shot on camera certainly comes to mind — one of Otterness‘ early pieces involved the adoption of an innocent little mutt, which he then took home and shot dead with a rifle, filming it as it took its last breaths. The video's title? “Shot Dog Piece”.

Art? I ask myself. More like playing God and serial killer at the same time. Fast forward three decades — the Otterness of later years takes center stage at a new Chelsea exhibition, The Public Unconscious.

The show's title touches on how soon we forget the genuinely disturbing actions of the young artist producing abject performance, how that young artist became the Otterness of the mainstream, and perhaps a more general comment on the current disarray in American politics. As an awkwardly coinciding penance, perhaps, this past Friday saw Mr. Otterness go from a former Alphabet City dog murderer to a children's playground sculptor at a dedication ceremony in Manhattan's Lower East Side. His commission was a whimsical frog creature for the kids of the neighborhood to play on.

Can Otterness' current record of public sculpture coerce us into forgiving him, or is his current success a play-by-play book of "Karma Restoration 101?" So now the Gandalf-tressed intellectual of Gowanus has been made accessible to all, via an explosion of the public art commissions that have helped increase his profile and created the Otterness public art brand. He’s even designed a Humpty Dumpty balloon (fashionable stovepipe hat included) for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. One really can’t get any more connected to the general public than that.