Tonight! Boyce Cummings @ Winkleman / Plus Ultra
Boyce Cummings Versus November 30, 2006 to January 6, 2007 Opening: Tonight! Nov. 30, 6-8 pm Winkleman / Plus Ultra Gallery is very pleased to present "Versus," the first New York solo exhibition by Boyce Cummings. In seven new paintings and a large mixed-media wall installation, Cummings explores the workings of conflict in both visual art and human endeavors. Whether "high vs. low," "abstraction vs. realism," or "formalism vs. narrative," themes and constructs of visual art parallel personal conflicts in our day-to-day lives---such as "man vs. nature," nature vs. machine," "winning vs. losing," etc. Cummings blends these parallel arenas, resolving elements that we expect not to work together through an exquisite sense of composition. Representational and abstract elements within Cummings' paintings demand to be connected on an experiential human level. But they consistently defy any sensible narrative, eventually leading the viewer to the realization that it's the very fact that the elements are at odds with one another that serves as the glue that holds the compositions together. On one wall of the gallery, Cummings has also collaged drawings with knickknacks and other found objects, forming an extensive installation that serves as a legend to the vocabulary of his paintings as well as its own expressionistic composition. With a broad range of styles and subjects, his drawings are mixed to reflect his personal choices but---like his paintings---the juxtapositions eventually lead the viewer along just so far before some compositional roadblock places their growing narrative in limbo, highlighting the experiential impact of conflict itself. Boyce Cummings received his BFA and MFA from the School of Visual Arts. As a 2005/2006 Rome Prize Winner, he spent a year in Italy, but now lives and works in New York. For more information, please call 212-643-6152 or email info@winkleman.com. Boyce CummingsVersus November 30, 2006 to January 6, 2007 Opening Reception: Thursday, November 30, 6-8 pm Winkleman / Plus Ultra Gallery 637 West 27th Street (Ground Floor) New York, NY 10001 T: 212.643.3152 F: 212.643.2040 info@winkleman.com www.winkleman.com Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday, 11am to 6pm or by appointment. Directions: C or E train to 23rd Street. Walk North to 27th Street. Plus Ultra is between 11th and 12th Avenues. |
38 Comments:
Wow. This looks exciting. Would that I were in NYC tonight.
I admire your energy level -- an opening the same week you're packing for Miami!
I love these paintings! Looks like a great show.
Yes, I agree, looks like a great show
looks like a crappy show. keep up the consistent programming ed
the press release seems to blend art and life together pretty well. neither escapist nor social political nor indulgent on false consciousness.
looks like a crappy show. keep up the consistent programming ed
Bold feedback from an anonymous commenter. You want to put your name on that, get back to me. Until then, though, you'll understand why I'm not all that interested in the opinions of cowards.
I enjoyed speaking with Edward and Boyce tonight and I think the show was pretty good (as was the Red Wine).
I'm posting a review in ArtNewYorkCity.com
He's really interesting. Not over the top, but strange enough to hook you.
you seem interested, or else why bother replying, and even quoting me?
like i said, looks crappy
best,
eberhard havekost
I said everywhere and on every blogs that painting is not my favorite medium (though I can be madly in love with a great painter).
I dare ask you, Edward, what I would ask to any other chelsea gallerist if they opened up a blog:
is painting really a medium you personally prefer, or are you looking into presenting a large portion of your programmation as painting because as a medium it sells better?
Please artist don't take offense, I haven't seen your show, and I never judge a show unless I've been there in person, this question is general,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
best,
eberhard havekost
Edward, for some reason I suspect you're making up these contentious comments just to liven things up. I give you a gold star for using such a funny name.
another anon, not eberhard,
but horace you should google
"havekost"
or better yet look him up on artnet...
funny still...
anon, I did already do that. Thanks for suggesting. Still, I think Edward made up a funny name, and it just happens to belong to someone.
Besides, would someone act like such a jerk and actually use his own name? I mean someone other than an actor or a comedian...
I've never been to Winkleman and merely have seen its name mentioned in magazine quite recently, much after I knew
about the blog (which I adore).
So I can't say if it's crap or not, but I would certainly reproach him if, like Mary Boone, he would start to focus mostly on one medium.
Incidentally, Winkleman have been presenting installations recently, and most importantly, artists which are non-american, so that to me is always a good sign, and if he continues in that vein he has the best chances that his gallery simply becomes too interesting to be referred as crappy.
...or at least for what can afford a Chelsea gallery. ;-)
So future will tell, this gallery is relatively new. This blog is its best promotion.
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
Or maybe the next Chelsea trend should be specialized galleries, like Yossi Milo? Would that be good or bad? Is that too superficial?
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
Okay, I agree that whoever made that rude comment is a jerk, whether it was really that Eberhard person or not. But I don't understand what's so funny about his name.
I think you're all being a little unfair to Everhard. So what if he was being petty and vicious. That doesn't mean it's okay to make fun of his name.
Congratulations on the show, Boyce. The work looks wonderful.
i think that if edward is so offended by anonymous comments, he should simply disable the option to make them. but obviously if the option is there, people will take it. and most often to make negative comments. i can't use my real name, i have a career to maintain.
i have said before that i think edward does his artists a disservice with this blog. my dealers put in 10 - 12 hours a day at the gallery, they don't have time for a personal life. if my dealer had this much time on their hands, i'd start looking for a new one. and i mean, do we need a blog with whining about george bush, crying about gay marriage, positing inane and naive hypotheticals about some idyllic artworld that has never existed as if in front of some regional art school first year class? and occasionally discussing mediocre art? don't we already have james wagner for that?
i still maintain the work is bad, like most of the work shown in the gallery. i can look at boyce's paintings and name five painters whose work can be put in a mixmaster and result in something looking like these paintings.
but calling me a coward? that's petty. do you just want people to fawn over you edward? because you get a lot of that already.
i suggest you spend more time on art and less on indulging your mediocre writing skills.
and cedric, has anyone ever told you you communicate like someone with asperger's syndrome, or like some disgraced prussian diplomat trapped in the space time continuum?
best wishes,
eberhard haveskost
Uber Hard:
>>>and cedric, has anyone ever >>>>told you you communicate like >>>someone with asperger's ><>>>syndrome, or like some >>>>>disgraced prussian diplomat >>>>>trapped in the space time >>>>continuum?
Hahahahahahaha, LMAO you are right on both accounts !!!
I was indeed born with asperger syndrome, and though I'm not prussian there's blue blood running somewhere in my veins =).
I got sent by parents very early in theatre classes, so I'm supposed to have learned to "control" the asperger thing, but.. not entirely successful I guess. ;-P
And once we did a casting exercise in a film class where we had to decide for each student, following a videotaped interview, what was the role that suited themselves the best. I will always remember what the others dug up for me: "king of Patagonia". Lol !
Or the dying king in Ionesco, apparently I was perfect for that role.
Hmm...if you've been that perspicace about me, would it mean that for Edward....?
Nah honestly they are not that many blogs which daily discussion about art, and though Edward may propose surprising assumptions, or repeat subjects as though we haven't yet discussed it, I think some participants here are able to bring them under interesting new lights.
And Edward is writting quite well, you're way too harsh on yourself there mate. Or do you mean to compare with October and other academic journals? This is merely blogging.
>>>>i have a career to maintain.
What career? You're asking for 12 hours a day devotion by your dealer? Lol, what a sadist !
You know, for the top 20 big Chelsea galleries they are dozens that nobody much care for (unless your fave new artist is showing there), and by doing what he does, Edward is making that difference that might influence his to become the next gallery after the top 10 that people are likely to notice.
Wrether Edward is doing disservice or service to the art he presents will much depend on the art itself, but if a show is doing good it is likely to get much more discussed and promoted thanks to his voice on the websphere. They are not that many gallerists who are stars themselves (Gago, Mary Boone, Deitch), but these gallerists are not handicapped by their strong public presence, and I don't see how Edward would be less interesting for daring to be different: name me another Chelsea gallerist who blogs?? And with that amount of passion?
>>>>name five painters
that you like. Give me your portrait in 5 artists you admire.
I like severe people's tastes. ;-)
Cheers,
Cedric That Crazy Loon
centiment@hotmail.com
PS: puhlease don't forget my english is ruuuhhallly bad. If you merely judge by it you'll think I'm trisomic.
Cedrics
Saatchi empowers me to reduce all intelligent discussion to petty personal attacks.
i can't use my real name, i have a career to maintain.
Thank you for amusing us all. It's a riot trying to imagine what that might be.
Well, it turns out I was half right. It wasn't Edward having fun after all, but it was some jerk making nasty comments and trying to pin the blame on poor Eberhard.
Ahhh you're a painter, Mr. Uber Hard. Somehow I bypassed your work
(probably because I'm very selective with painting and had never heard your name). But you've got talent, for sure.
Your paintings look like 90's video art (it's a big topic of recent video art (film art) to exploit the incongruities, invisibilities, or logics of urbanscape). I feel exactly the same way you do, I can see it in your work, but you're sort of giving it up, you're decrying or affirming the harshness or absurdities of your everyday visual experience. But are you going to continue accept it, even embrace it, or are you interested in actually altering that reality?
That's where I situate your work next to an artist, like say, Anish Kapoor.
Do you want to do an art that speaks about its times, a testament of some sort, or are you willing to look forward and imagine an aftereffect, or propose solutions, or any random ideas, that can attempt to contravene with what has truly been affecting you?
Good work nonetheless. I'm just trying to snob painting for a sec (lol, Saatchi dserves it).
And when are Saatchi and Hauser & Wirth going to have galleries in New York, goddammit??
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
Ah, come on, bitches are fun. Let they come !! They actually care, you know?
While Edward, where is he now? Somewhere over the rainbow in some secret art fair-y-land, so totally derelicting us and his blog, naked feets caressing the hot water pool, absolutely clouded into the temporal bliss of glitters and papercut pomp offered by his resort?? Now: that's cruel. ;-)
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
Ahhh you're a painter, Mr. Uber Hard. Somehow I bypassed your work
(probably because I'm very selective with painting and had never heard your name). But you've got talent, for sure.
Cedric, the person you're addressing, whom I assume is the self-absorbed one with the "career to maintain", isn't the real Eberhard, but someone hiding behind him. The real Eberhard Havecost is an actual artist, who lives in Germany. The person who made the rude comments above works at Starbucks in Chelsea, and goes to a lot of art openings.
I'll have a grande, please.
Ahhhhh....Starbucks!
I visited Starbucks Chelsea only once. That was when I needed a toilet badly. I remember I bought a large Chai Latte just to use it.
Since then I bring with me a very detailed map of chelsea gallersts that offer toilets, lol !
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
(Chelsea, how inhuman. Uber should
go down and paint every of its toilets. That's a big classic of art that's missing.)
To me, the painting looks like a Neo Rausch painting in the middle of the pro cess. Certainly not bad. Interesting colors
anonymous...
Telling that Ed should work harder on the gallery instead of blogging, made me feel bad for you. Let me tell you - YOU WEREN’T THERE and YOU ARE NOT THERE. So you don’t know how hard he works.
Second of all. You prefer to stay anonymous. Cause you have some career to maintain. (Wonder what career)
But I do respect that, and I would expect respect from you same on Ed's blog, since you are ANONYMOUS GUEST.
And if your dealers work very hard for you, why aren't you famous and can use your real name?
Also about personal life, it's clear that you do not have a personal life. And have time to post a comment on Ed's blog.
If you think you don't need another blog, you simply don’t have to come and read, and especially comment.
Saying "i still maintain the work is bad, like most of the work shown in the gallery." I believe you can say it because you are anonymous, right? I believe if you are an artist, you can't say something like that about other artist in public. It's disrespectful.
But hey what do I know about you, since you are anonymous.
Here here Bambino!
You know this line of postings remind me of one a while back on Artblog.net where a guy was using different names and anons creating a faux conversation-very annoying. Franklin handled it well if i recall.
I am not sure if that is the case here but I would imagine Ed is not really bothered by this stuff and shouldnt be. Art is communication, this blog is a part of that. Its a novel way of generating discussion, meeting people and generally having fun. And gee, thats what art is about also so any attempt to disparage this as a waste of time or whatever falls on deaf ears my friend/s.
It is totally valid to critique work shown here, I would recommend doing it intelligently tho. ya think IMHO was invented fer nuthin'?
Okay, I'm going to fess up and admit that Elsie Havecow is not my real name. But I do think that the person originally posing as Eberhard is pretty rude for anonymously trashing Edward and his gallery here on the blog. Spineless too.
I love this blog, EW, including the comments. Hope you keep it going,
Thanks for the support folks. Much appreciated. Cedric and onesock are right, of course, that snarky comments are certainly valid and to be expected in the context of a blog. I tend to be overly defensive when someone criticizes the artists I work with (something I need to work on).
The blog and its open comments are not going anywhere. In addition to being one way of putting my efforts where my mouth is about wanting the gallery to foster an open dialogue, it also serves as a very effective marketing tool. I've discussed this with my artists, and if any of them feel it's a disservice, they've yet to tell me that.
Psuedo-Eberhard's tone and methods do indeed ring a bell, though. I'll request that tolerance for snark directed at me and the opinions I offer not be misunderstood as tolerance for boorish behavior toward other guests here though. Please be respectful toward other commenters or leave.
Finally, Psuedo-Eberhard, I hope you realize that how well you seem to know the blog is more flattering than your dismissive comments are insulting to me. If that's your intent, then, well, thank you.
anon-
reminds me of a simple child, whom has little or no vocabulary to express a dislike for............
vegtables.
icky-
one day, maybee we will grow, and know the benifits of vegtables and,
learn to respond inteligently.
Most of us could use more veggies.
Please be respectful toward other commenters or leave.
Edward, I hope you don't think I was overly harsh in my comments to pseudo-Eberhard. Maybe I did say he was acting like a jerk, but I only meant it as constructive criticism.
Well, the fellow pinpointingly accuse me of being autist but then choose to present the art of an artist that looks very autist to me: go figure. Haha, is that part of the joke?
I wish I'd be there when the Saatchi personel google this up for their archives. Hahah, poor Eberhard, sorry for having a big mouth.
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
To Eberhard Anonymous:
Thanks so much, you are just absolutely brilliant.
You hit the nail on the head. Edward just sucks because he blogs on politics or better yet blogs at all. How dare he take valuable time away from his gallery to do something else, even if it's art or civic related. A gallerist should only be able to do one thing and Edward has made the sin of being a citizen, a gallerist and also has the audacity to have a relationship with a human being that isn't art-related, namely the time-consuming personal relationship with Bambino. His sin appears to be loving something other than his artists.
I assume your criteria also surely includes artists like yourself. But then why are you trolling the blogs instead of maintaining that career as an artist? Surely your own creative time was better spent than surfing the net (but i'm sure it's research for your next installation, no?).
Hmmm, methinks the pot is calling the kettle black.
Eberhard, my guess is that not only are you an 'anonymous' fraud on the net but that you are also one as an artist because your logic is so fatally flawed. You reek of Salieri but think you are Mozart.
Why do you need anonymity to maintain a career as an artist? If you have a brain, wit and talent surely you can stand up in public and have an opinion. It certainly didn't stop Oscar Wilde, Picasso or Shakespeare etc. from having public lives with public opinions. So much fear, so much bile. Grow up and stop blaming others for what are surely just your own inadequacies.
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