I visited several shows in New York this past week, but I have decided to focus on only two as they share similar themes with my own work.
My first stop in Chelsea was Templon Gallery where I walked straight into Chiharu Shiota’s Human Rhizome (2023), an installation of webbed thread with book pages scattered and suspended. The press release describes the installation as a “living organism”, but I found it more akin to a still tornado with its characteristic chaos and destruction. As an artist and aspiring curator working in the book arts, I enjoy books as subject matter. In this case, however, its exclusivity comes up short in the context of the 2020s. If this “living organism” is meant to resemble repercussions of the “web”, hyper-connectivity, and the “structures that make up the universe”, so much more should be included beyond the bedside book.
Chiharu Shiota, Human Rhizome, 2023.
Below the main floor, I found Shiota’s smaller sculptural works as well as her works on paper. Thread still plays a role in these works but to a lesser extent. With watercolor, Shiota paints a sea of red patterns resembling blood cells. Occasionally a thread offers connection—and tension—between the small figure and the imposing mass of alternating reds. I found these works, while smaller and less “impressive”, more prescient. The human condition and the microscopic bodily components that make it possible are expressed to a greater degree than the hyper-connected tangled mess that we now find ourselves in upstairs.
Chiharu Shiota, Connected to the Universe Series, 2022.
Chiharu Shiota, Connected to the Universe, 2022.
At Alexander Gray Associates, I engaged with Luis Camnitzer’s work for the first time. I came across the ongoing exhibition “Luis Camnitzer: Arbitrary Order” in several “must-see” guides. Initially I concluded a visit was unnecessary due to the show’s highly conceptual nature (“I can just read about it”). It sounded fairly straightforward—dictionary pages with Google Map points paired periodically with words alphabetically. However, when I read that the body of work was a “form of virtual travel amid the isolation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic”, I decided it was too pertinent to rely on pictures and words… which feels ironic to write as that is what both the show and this post do. In any case, space plays a significant factor, and I had the opportunity to experience it, so I did.
Luis Camnitzer, Shoes, 1998-1999.
Before traveling upstairs to the main gallery, I stopped to view three of Camnitzer’s older works including Shoes (1998-1999). Shoes not surprisingly is a pair of worn shoes. One shoe is on its side so that the sole is visible. The sole features a map creating a simple connection between the land as mapped and how we move through it. While 20 years past, the work shares themes of travel and language with the work upstairs.
View of Luis Camnitzer’s Arbitrary Order (2023) at Alexander Gray Associates with visitor’s purse.
Camnitzer’s new Arbitrary Order is the in the upstairs main gallery. Pages from a modified 1972 Webster’s English dictionary are organized across the walls in a long grid. Like his previous work, he is exploring language and travel; here, however, he is also presenting the Net and its associated personalized algorithms.
Combing through the dictionary and searching words on Google Maps from his home in New Jersey, Camnitzer “travels” to places generated by Google and then grabs screenshots for the modified dictionary. The installation, while bare, is immersive. Camnitzer’s search results take up space and feel endless. The results also feel bizarre at times and leave the viewer disoriented despite the specificity.
Chiharu Shiota: Signs of Life is on view through March 9 at Templon Gallery. Luis Camnitzer: Arbitrary Order is on view through February 25 at Alexander Gray Associates.