Swoon

 Swoon

Introduction by  Jeffrey Dietch

 Abrams, New York 2010

Meandering thoughts for a Monday, if I may...

Very sadly an acquaintance, David Prifti, passed away just before Thanksgiving, and I attended his memorial service last week in Concord, MA. It was a lovely service, and I felt so melancholy that this beautiful and witty artist, who had touched the lives of many, died so young at the age of 50 from pancreatic cancer. I first met Prifti when he gave a talk at the DeCordova Museum about three years ago, and I was struck by a comment he made... he said, "do something for your art every day... even if it's just for fifteen minutes. You'll be amazed at your productivity once you make that commitment."

There are days when I can't, but having heard those words, and knowing how much great work he managed to make in his life, I try. Some days are diamonds, and some days are rocks, but few go by without at least a little work toward my pictures. He did also add, that giving the talk at the museum counted toward making art for that day! So, with that in mind... I count the days I visit museums and galleries as days at working on art. It may not be my art, but it is sure to influence and inspire, and open my mind to new ideas.

I had read, where was it? In the Globe?? No matter, I had read month or so ago about an installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston by the artist known as Swoon, (whose personality seems similar to Prifti's) and had thought, "time to get to that museum." I've admired her work since first learning of it in the documentary film, Our City Dreams that I wrote briefly about here.  At any rate, the museum has been open at its current location since 2006, and the building looks so cool. What a slug that I haven't gone sooner!!

Swoon's Anthropocene Extinction did not disappoint. At times, I find it important to look at the work of artists who are not necessarily engaged in photography, and I realize that the work I respond to the most tends to be figurative and full of emotion. Swoon is a street artist making life size wood cut prints that recall the work of Schiele and Kirchner, Klimt, not to mention the poster and print activism of Daumier and Lautrec, and she wheat pastes them to the walls of decaying buildings in urban locations. They are gutsy and bold, but (and this is key) they are ephemeral... like the human body, they slowly decay, disappear, and die. Unfortunately, the only work I've seen of hers was the installation at the ICA, which feels rather more permanent than I suspect her street work must be. She's a graduate of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn... my old stomping grounds, and it sounds like she turned Myrtle Ave. into quite the art installation after organizing what she called the Toyshop Collective of artists. Wish I had seen that!!

Anyway... I bought a book (cover above) about her work at the museum, but it feels woefully inadequate, though  the essays, with the exception of one dripping in a little too much art speak, were full of insights into her life, ideas and work. Something tells me her art is best experienced in person, on the street (or floating down a river as she did with a flotilla of rafts a few years ago) and not necessarily through a book, museum or even the internet. She has little presence online, a testament I'd say, to demonstrating that life and art can be made off the grid.

More meandering thoughts from the museum... 

While there, I took in a Dance/Draw exhibit which is excellent, really interesting. I especially liked the work of Helena Almeida and Faith Wilding whose Womb Room was a comforting refuge from the jarring noise of too many video art installations, my one criticism of the museum... too much boring video art. Your mileage my vary of course, but video art is just yet more screens and noise I could do without. At any rate, I've always been interested in gestural drawing and it's relationship to movement is beautifully explored in this show.

Other work of note on view, Damián Ortega's Olympus, an anatomical look at the mechanics of a 35mm camera, though the wall label described the technology of the camera as obsolete, which I thought was total bullshit, and loved that the artist was interested in the physical nature of things, even at a molecular level. Lastly, I found myself interested in the work of Jessica Jackson Hutchins whose works on paper showing grammar shapes such as quotation marks, periods and exclamation points are full of gesture and expression, and  moved me. Her couch, however, well, I didn't love it, but responded to her use of every day items within the bulbous figures of the sculpture as elevated the mundane to art. And her work, well... somehow through it all, felt like sex. But maybe that's just me. Here's an interview.

What a satisfying day at the ICA, I was pleasantly surprised to be confronted with so much art that was so full of human emotion, and thanks to Prifti, I'm feeling inspired. He lives on in those he touched.