NEW YORK CITY - October

Sunday – Long Island City - P.S.1 MoMa – Contemporary Art Center – openings. Seen in the courtyard, P.S.1 director, Alanna Heiss greets Italian author, Alain Elkann and his wife Rosy to the full slate of fall exhibition openings. Alanna Heiss Established PS1 in 1976, it is an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art. P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is one of the largest and oldest organizations in the United States solely devoted to contemporary art.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico exhibiton. The exhibition, through January 7^th, presents a selection of Italian artists who have maintained a prominent presence in the international contemporary art world over the past decade. Senso Unico takes an intimate look at the work of eight influential figures: Vanessa Beecroft, Paolo Canevari, Angelo Filomeno, Ra di Martino, Adrian Paci, Paola Pivi, Pietro Roccasalva and Francesco Vezzoli.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico – Francesco Vezzoli. A still from the short film by Francesco Vezzoli's, Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story, 2006. Francesco Vezzoli, is a person New York Magazine recently said “exists at the center of the art-celebrity-fashion nexus that is, controversially, defining the art world today.”

P.S.1 – Senso Unico – Francesco Vezzoli. “I hate, I hate appearing in my films.” Vezzoli stated “I appear because I think it gives my work more meaning.” A still of Vezzoli as a young teenager from his short film Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story, 2006, a phony account of his life.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico - Vanessa Beecroft. A scene of the DVD of the performance that Vanessa Beecroft did at the 52^nd Venice Biennale, entitled VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? ,2007. You can see Vanessa, in the foreground, throwing red paint on the canvas near the bodies of thirty Sudanese women. Her aim is artistic and political. The performance serves as a graphic representation of the massacres and the genocides happening in the Darfur region of Sudan.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico - Vanessa Beecroft. Detail of Vanessa Beecroft’s the DVD VB 61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? ,2007. Thirty Sudanese women lie face-down on a white canvas, stimulating dead bodies. Beecroft covers the canvas and the bodies with strokes of red paint.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico - Angelo Filomeno. Angelo Filomeno’s Shitting Baroque (White Death Moth), embroidery on silk shantung over linen with onyx, crystals and diamonds in white gold settings, 2005. Angelo is also exhibiting two spectacular feathered helmet sculptures.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico - Angelo Filomeno. Angelo Filomeno really does all the embroidery himself, free-hand. He does not have a computerized sewing machine. He was taught to sew first by his mother and then as an apprentice to a local tailor when he was a child in Italy.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico – Paola Pivi. One of the central works of art in the P.S.1, Senso Unico exhibition is Paola Pivi’s , Life is Great, 2007 sculpture of a grizzly bear which instead of fur has yellow feathers. Could she have been inspired because she lives in Anchorage, Alaska?

P.S.1 – Senso Unico – Paola Pivi. Seen roaming the Senso Unico exhibition Italian artist, Paola Pivi.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico – Paolo Canevari. “My video work “Continents”, 2005 that I’m showing at P.S.1 is about the prejudices and fears we have towards “others” and the political division that the “Democracy” and the so called “Modern Society” brought upon the world. This division mainly happened during the colonialism of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, without any control by the natives and without taking into any account the natural geographical borders.” He explained.

P.S.1 – Senso Unico – Paolo Canevari. The elegant Italian artist, Paolo Canevari lives and works in New York, he is wearing one of his 1940s vintage suits from his vintage suit collection.

P.S.1 – Seen in the courtyard. New York based Italian artist, Nicola Verlato. It is a pity that Nicola’s work is not included in the Senso Unico show at P.S.1, because he is a very talented artist. Asked about the show, Nicola commented that “It throws light on what is going on in Italy today.”

P.S.1 – Lovett/Codagnone Exhibition. Interruptions of a Course of Action, through January 7^th, is the first U.S. museum exhibition for the artist duo Lovett/Codagnone. Best known for their performances, videos and photographs that combine elements of S & M gay subculture and everyday domestic scenes, the artist team will further their ongoing exploration of relations of power with works that investigate politics and identity in more oblique ways. These new works depart from self-reflexive strategies to issues of collective identity and address the absorption of underground tactics of resistance. Shown above, Love Vigilantes, mirror, 2007.

P.S.1 – seen in the lobby. Sur Rodney Sur and Willoughby Sharp. Sur used to have an art gallery, now he works as an archivist and is friendly with most of the artists exhibiting. Willoughby Sharp was the founder and publisher of the seminal art magazine Avalanche, over the past decades he has gained international recognition as an artist, author, curator and teacher.

P.S.1 – seen in the courtyard. Tim Goossens and Kenny Scharf. Tim is an assistant to P.S.1 founder and director Alanna Heiss. Pop artist, Kenny Scharf needs no introduction. He has a show on, right now, at The Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea called, New! New Paintings and Crazy Roy-Al. “The end of the world is fun” summarizes the spirit of Kenny’s new works. He pairs classic symbols of American consumerism with an underlying subversive edge.

P.S.1 – Kris Martin Exhibition. This is the first solo New York exhibition, through January 7th, by Kris Martin. The Belgium artist brings together sculpture, drawing, photography and works on paper that examine the themes of morbidity, beauty, destruction and time. Whether working on the scale of monumental sculpture or de-materialized gesture martin’s practice positions itself at the extreme brink of cognition – how knowledge and wisdom is gained at the close of experience or how life is recognized only at the edge of death. Shown above; Mandi VIII, plaster, 2006.

P.S.1 – Kris Martin Exhibition. Mandi III, mixed media, 2003, is like an airport signboard whose ever changing face announces only its futility, as there are no numbers, letters or writing on it, from which the very source of struggle has been removed. It marks the passage from experience to abstraction. Martin’s art draws from the space in between, an image of the world in which all activity, monumental or insignificant, may be just killing time.

P.S.1 – Seen in the courtyard. Desiree la Valette is a freelance editor for guide books in New York; she is also a collector of art. One of her favorite pieces was the Kris Martin signboard called Mandi III shown above. “I like the fact that it is all black. I like the randomness of the idea. You could run a shopping list on it, or what’s for dinner menu. Life writes the best stories.” She concludes.

P.S.1 - Irrational Profusions. Irrational Profusions, through January 14th, is an exhibition of an intergenerational group of artists who work in clay. Ranging from rigorous investigations of form to seemingly irreverent compositions, the show presents the myriad possibilities and potential of the medium. Shown above a range of Peter Schlesinger’s stoneware columns and vessels. The other artists in the exhibition are Nicole Cherubini, Marc Leuthold and Joyce Robins.

P.S.1 - Irrational Profusions – Peter Schlesinger. The stoneware columns and vessels of Peter Schlesinger present a textured geometry. They vary in scale, from diminutive to monumental. His background as a painter influences his selection of abstract shapes, patterns and manipulation of the material’s consistency. “I got bored with painting and needed to do something more three-dimensional, I just stopped painting and just love working with clay.” He told me.

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