Friday, June 18, 2010

Fahamu & Yun-Woo

I like to visit art galleries during my lunch. It gives me some time to see art and feed my creative soul before I finish my day like Mr. Cee (...and he finishes like the true champion he is...-Larry Merchant's voice). One of my favorite galleries is the Lyons Wier Gallery. It's located fairly close to my job so I can bring lunch, eat at my desk (yes, like a beast!) and be out with like 45 minutes to one hour for art viewing! I saw Fahamu Pecou's aspirational work at Lyons Wier before the opening because I strolled in during lunch while they were hanging the work. I like Fahamu because he did not wait for the artworld to "annoint" him. His campaign let everybody know he was "The Shit" from the beginning. You wanna talk cajones...start with Fahamu! His work is all about power, who has it, who gives it, and who wants it? I think it is very Warholian of him, in the way he questions the power and lure of fame in our society...I heard he even hires women to attend openings with him to further project his "myth" of fame and status. Fahamu Pecou is claiming his SHIT whether anyone smells it or not.




Another gallery I recently found is the newly opened Volume Black gallery in the Historic Flat-Iron Building. The gallery is in a great location and I look forward to attending many more shows during my lunch breaks. I went to the gallery a couple weeks ago because there were some sculptures I wanted to see for a second time. They were really organic looking, almost bee-hive like structures created with pages from magazines and a poxy, then arranged into different forms. Sometimes jettisoning directly out the gallery wall...sometimes hanging above head like some honeycombed chandelier. I asked the gallerist who created the work, she said "Yun-Woo Choi" and pointed me in the direction of the gentleman who held the door for his mother and me when I walked in the gallery that day. We spoke and he explained that the work was all about "dimensions" and "possibilities". I asked a few questions and he answered always very diliberate and carefully talking about his process and how he doesn't know before he starts what form will be produced. I knew that I was having a much needed conversation with an artist whose work I admired very much but I also knew I was stretching the limits of my hour "recess". So I had to split but it really felt like one of those "right-time, right-place" moments!



Volume Black artist series '10 - Yun-Woo Choi from Adam Berman on Vimeo.



Viva Los Treps!!!

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