William Kentridge “Seeing Double”opens @ Marion Goodman

24 W. 57th St. New York, NY

This is a must see exhibition! One of the best I have seen ever. If I had the time to go back up to New York and see it again, I would. Kentridge’s fascination with sight and how we construct images in our brain have led to the synthesis of this exhibition. Most of the works involve looking at them in two ways: looking with the naked eye and then seeing it with a optical device. Stereoscopes and mirrors are used to look at two drawings that become one 3D image in your brain. Anamorphic drawings (remember Art History 101’s anamorphic memento mori?) are displayed on a round table with a mirror cylinder in the center so that you can see it properly. The exhibition centers on an 8 minute animation on a round table with mirror cylinder titled, “What Will Come.” It’s a glorious piece with beautiful corresponding opera music.

What I love about the exhibition is that Kentridge still is able to keep-it-old-school but still fascinates the viewer by adding a new element to twist it up: the optical illusions. With the current art world flooded with virtual reality, bright colors, diamond studded skulls, and the color gold seems to be in every Chelsea gallery… Kentridge continues to make his black and white drawing animations that he is so well known for. Keep in mind, he is not being a cookie cutter artist by doing the same stuff over and over again. He has found interest in something new: optics, and uses it to challenge himself as an artist and his personal style.

The exhibition also displayed recent works that didn’t involve”seeing double” such as sculptures, equestrian tapestry, and collage prints.

Anna Pinks looks into a double sided mirror

Personal Rant:

I love the Marion Goodman Gallery and what she has done in the past 30 years. Back in the 70s when women weren’t curators and when the New York/American art world didn’t have strong dialog with the European art world, Goodman opened up this gallery in New York and began exhibiting non-American artists such as Laurence Weiner, Jeff Wall, Marcel Broodthaers, Gerhard Richter, the list goes on and on… (today, she does include Americans) If the art world had a royal court, Marion Goodman would be the queen. All that being said, at the opening on Friday night, in passing, I congratulated Goodman on a fantastic show. She coldly muttered under her breath a “thank you” back to me without even looking my way. I am so fed up with being treated like this in New York by the art world A-listers. By “A-listers” I mean anyone who makes it into Art Review’s Power 100 list or into your history books. This is one of the many reasons why the DC scene is so great. Ours is small- we know we need every galleriest, collector, artist, and yes the meager art students to comprise of our social circles. I am never down graded in DC because I am just another art student. So if any of you reading this, “make it” in New York don’t act like the Marion Goodmans out there.

William Kentridge’s “Seeing Double” will be up at the Marion Goodman Gallery until February 16th.

-laser

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