Continuing Education Blog

Your Peace in the Show: artists Joe Flood (l) and Keith Mayerson (r)

Curated by artists’ artist Keith Mayerson, the neo-NeoIntegrity (or post-NeoIntegrity) migrates from Chelsea to SoHo, where, 15-20 years ago, it would have been in the capitol of the art world.  The first incarnation at Derek Eller Gallery in 2007 felt like the Justice League Satellite, a zero-gravity chamber of unimpeachable art that surely anticipated Reporta Smith’s recent summoning for “art that seems made by one person out of intense personal necessity, often by hand.”  And this show does, too.

Inside the gallery at MoCCA (the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art), the show seems as far from Chelsea as Narnia, Gotham City, or Krypton, despite the presence of the Chelsea canonized Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Ellen Berkenblitt, Carroll Dunham, and Peter Halley.  And has the Whitney been by to see the Ad Reinhardt collages?

Big balls in a square-paneled world: Keith Mayerson's shout-out

Visitors to NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition might recall recent “visitations” in Chelsea from this alien planet: Basil Wolverton at Gladstone Gallery (2009), R. Crumb at David Zwirner (now), Thomas Woodruff at P.P.O.W. (2008), David Shrigley at Anton Kern (2008) and many other shows of artists working in sequential imagery, grotesque countenance and figuration, and mostly pencil and ink.  Keith Mayerson’s own mini-retrospective and end-of-empire narrative Both Sides Now at Paul Kasmin Gallery (2009) shuttled back and forth between these worlds.

(l) MoCCA Chairwoman Ellen S. Abramowitz, youngsters, MoCCA Director Karl Erickson

Generously funded by School of Visual Arts, a longtime fount of cartooning and illustration talent, Keith’s massive project includes over 200 artists and four or five times as many drawings, paintings, sculptures, and videos.  Hot!  The tiny gallery is packed from floor to ceiling, and you really have to watch your step, too.

Krazy Kats: (l-r) Artists Michael Magnan and TM Davy, muse Liam O'Malley, and artist Scott Hug

The bifocals crowd might struggle with the abundance of 10-pt handwritten text extruded throughout the paneled pages, and there is enough black-and-white action to make any newspaper’s editorial page see red.  But that just means that it’s even more of a knockout to see full-color from chromo sapiens such as Dana Schutz, David Sandlin, and John Wesley.  An “Adults Only” section designed by artist TM Davy includes grown-up material ranging from suggestive homoeroticism and explicit T&A to downright  obscenity – more, please!  Here, you’ll find a really beautiful and moody package from James Siena and a multivalent Shel Silverstein that gazes inward, outward, and downward, all at once.

Gold-Medal winning illustrator Yuko Shimizu, SVA MFA '03

More pictures to come after the rain subsides, but the photos today are from the opening reception last week.

IMAGES: Michael Bilsborough

How did you celebrate National Art Hate Week? Spraypaint a Picasso? Slash a Newman? Steal a Munch? Audition for a Bravo reality show about artists? But non-violent protest would have been valid. Silent contempt would suffice. Never underestimate the potency of a cold shoulder.

Tracey Emin, Everyone I have Ever Slept With (1963–95) (1995)

I celebrated by visiting a few summer group shows. Summer group shows are terrific. They are like a sampler platter at a seafood restaurant, which might determine the entrée you order next time. You can share with friends, then each will vote his or her favorite. “I liked the mozzarella sticks.” At D’Amelio Terras, my artgoing comrades in hate each selected a different work. I actively hated Permanent Occupant, by Aiko Hachisuka. That work is included in Tables and Chairs, curated by Jedediah Caesar and Shana Lutker.

Permanent Occupant, 2007 by Aiko Hachisuka

I actively, or maybe passive-aggressively hated it, because it’s so enchanting. Wish I’d thought of it.

With a couch as its support/catalyst, Permanent Occupant is an assemblage amalgamation of bedding and clothing stitched, buttoned, and bound together. Dozens of phantom children are wrestling or snuggling, then building pillow effigies/frankensteins/voltrons under the sheets while they sneak out at night. Mirror Stage sleepover?

Closer

Generations of childhood imagery jumble together: Star Wars mingles with Mickey and Minnie, nestled next to Shrek, bunched up against Winnie the Pooh. Disney holds hands with Hanna Barbera.

Cozy Couch

Yet the generation gaps don’t impose expiration dates. Through apparent timelessness, every figure resists obsolescence, and rather than being replaced by its successors, all of the characters merge in an ever-widening parade of glee, enlivening Collective Memory Boulevard with balloons and cotton candy.

Despite the cotton candy and balloons in its genes, Permanent Occupant has the stuffed, severed, and segmented limbs of a re-inanimated Scarecrow, and seems to host sibling rivalry, growing pains, and filial emancipation. There’s the Mike Kelley thing. It also reminds me of Derrick Adams’ work at Greater New York 2005, Look What You Made Me Do, and sometimes I just don’t feel like myself at Momenta Art.

And while the characters are ageless, they are also genderless. Star Wars might have found more favor with boys, its phosphorescent light sabers leaving boys – and some men – glistening with phallocentric drool, but then couldn’t girls identify with Princess Leia? Most of the Permanent Occupant co-ed cast share a unisex, universal appeal that boys and girls can enjoy together. Everyone liked Snoopy. Everyone liked Scooby-Doo (and Scrappy, too!). Is that why they are timeless?

Yes, we can!