Clowns Art Us

In a recent edition of my art column Wicked Artsy for The L Magazine, I wrote about two exhibitions that use clown-like figures to elicit sympathy and a kind of melancholic pity from viewers, rather than banking on their potential for creepiness. For Marnie Weber at Marc Jancou Contemporary, her ghost clowns are part of a feminist narrative about body politics and performance. With Nigel Cooke's exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery, we peer into an uneasy vision of the future where, after an apocalypse of sorts, the only remaining humans are gnomish clowns (as seen at right) who offer their artifacts in a nearly direct address to viewers. Read the whole article here.

The Merchant of Venice

Recently I reviewed Propeller's production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice at the Brooklyn Institute of Music. Re-cast in a prison at an indeterminate historical moment, the production hit all the right notes with the difficult play's uneasy comedy, fostering a terrific ensemble dynamic tinged with dance, singing, fight choreography and a touch of burlesque. Still, there was something lacking in Propeller's handling of the play's weighty dramatic plot – about the Jew Shylock demanding the return on his bond with Antonio, one pound of the Venetian's flesh. The production seemed literally trapped by the prison setting it had created. Read the whole review here.

Filmscene: Star Trek

In the latest installation of Henry Stewart and I's discussions of the latest multiplex spectacles for The L Magazine we tackle J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. In it, we discover a film supremely concerned with origin stories and father figures, yet relatively devoid of mothers. It also approaches what we'd imagine an Obama-era blockbuster might look like, but really has more to do with Clinton- and Reagan-era politics. Still, its epic, entertaining and visually exquisite narrative of displacement, refugees, extermination and time travel is a welcome update for the tired Star Trek franchise. Read the whole discussion here.

Offices

I reviewed the new play Offices (written by Ethan Coen) for The L Magazine's theater section this week, a disappointing workplace comedy in three parts that sticks to tired Coenesque conventions without even attempting something more substantial. The result, though buoyed by clever set design and some outstanding performances, can't compete in the currently saturated office comedy genre. Read the whole review here. (Image courtesy Doug Hamilton)

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

This week I reviewed the new Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy-bromance-wedding movie Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which has rare funny moments – most of which involve Michael Douglas channeling Jack Nicholson – but for the most part it's silly, senseless and in the end offensive. The story of a slutty photographer giving up his serial-dating ways could be handled much more intelligently or creatively, but here we get a strange mix of My Best Friend's Wedding and It's A Wonderful Life that's not nearly as good as either. Read the whole review here.

Filmscene: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

In the latest installment of Filmscene, Henry Stewart and I discuss the various problems and covert political conceits at work in the newest addition to the X-Men franchise, Wolverine's war-loving origin story. Gavin Hood's X-Men Origins: Wolverine skips around from the Northwest Territories to Lagos (via the beaches of Normandy and jungles of Vietnam) to Three Mile Island, turning so many moments of modern history into aestheticized tableaux. The coming of age story also invites comparisons to Star Wars and Lost, and – predictably – an incredibly sad showing for female characters. Read the whole conversation here.

Puppet Kafka

In my review of Drama of Works' production of the new work, Puppet Kafka, I discuss the inherent strengths and problems with the idea of adapting Franz Kafka's stories with a cast of puppets. Mixing narratives from The Penal Colony, The Trial, Metamorphosis and the author's life, Puppet Kafka has some inspired characters and scenes, but on the whole never manages to recover the momentum lost every time actors and puppets must move awkwardly through the play's precious (though beautiful) stage and set. Read the whole review here.

More or Less Distorted Realities

In my review of three exhibitions in Chelsea I discuss the intersections between contemporary art and the visual and rhetorical strategies of information and news media. In Wolfgang Staehle's monumental real-time live feed projections, Adel Abdessemed's sculptures, installations, videos and photographs and Masato Seto's photoportraits (at right), each artist undertakes a different dialog with the imagery of mass media. Staehle collapses the codes of 24-hour news networks, webcams, landscape photography and 18th century landscape paintings. Seto offers unsettling documentary views into the booths of betel nut beauties in their glass boxes in Taiwanese cityscapes. And, at his best, Abdessemed undertakes a clever and unsettling critique of our indoctrinated media sensibilities. Read the whole review here.

Giving Old Spaces New Paint Jobs

In my review of Kinke Kooi's exhibition Let Me Comfort You at Feature Inc. and William Swanson's show Architectonic (seen above) at DCKT Contemporary, I address how each artist takes a different approach to revising and reappropriating generic architectures. Kooi's meticulous collage, drawing and painting imagines enveloping, textured spaces of sexual, psychological and sensual intimacy. Swanson, meanwhile, envisions brilliantly kaleidoscopic acid trips through abandoned interiors and blighted lots. While his neon paintings are more visually engaging and spectacular, Kooi offers a kind of personal optimism against Swanson's popular pessimism. Read the whole review here.

Wicked Artsy: Chelsea’s Multiplying Robot Armies

In the latest edition of my art column I discuss two exhibitions in Chelsea that feature robotic or cybernetic figures. Nathaniel Mellor at Lombard-Freid Projects and Nicolas Darrot (work seen at right) at Cueto Project both deploy uncanny mechanical characters as objects of humor and horror. Where Mellor enacts a surreal tragedy of mythic proportions, Darrot addresses more contemporary scenarios and dialogs. Read the whole article here.

Eldorado

The new L Magazine website launched this week, and accordingly there is a wealth of new material available. In my review of Belgian director Bouli Lanners' Eldorado I discuss the film's recurring odes to Americana and Hollywood genres (buddy and road trip movies especially). Thankfully, though, Lanners avoids the simple psychological portraits of most American festival fare in favor of characters – a vintage car salesman and the recovering addict he catches robbing him – whose uneasy friendship slowly reveals the contours of injured personalities and disappointing lives. Read the whole review here.