Something Special

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me...

...than a frontal lobotomy.

Grimes (aka Claire Boucher) Dan Rocca, Alexandra Mackenzie, Lux Xzymhr - 'Visuals' AVA Gallery

Work by Claire Boucher, aka Grimes.

Lux Xzymhr

Dan Rocca

Alexandra Mackenzie

Lux Xzymhr  (w/ work by Alexandra Mackenzie)

For three days only Audio Visual Arts hosted a show of drawings and paintings curated / including work by Claire Boucher, better known to the world as Grimes. I admit that I went expecting to see a vanity exhibition fueled by the sudden, blinding stardom of Grimes and little more. It was cynical of me, and as soon as I walked in I knew I was wrong. 

'If I make it, we all make it' rhetoric is common when everyone is struggling but seldom manifests once someone actually succeeds.This wasn't a vanity project at all, it was Boucher using her cachet to help shine a (deserved) light on the work of her friends.

Alexandra Mackenzie's drawings are mind-boggling and you could seriously spend hours just checking out all the details and insane imagery. It' so much to take in at once that you'll wish your brain could open a little extra window just to process everything in your field of vision.

Dan Rocca allowed me to flip through his incredible sketchbook and many of the smaller booklets that he'd made. It felt super intimate and personal but also nerve-wracking because I was convinced I would somehow end up soiling the pages with my filthy, awful hands; as if Dorito dust and Cheeto powder would spontaneously ooze from my fingertips.

Boucher's work anchored the show, with a large collection of drawings and paintings that I was really stoked on. Her pieces felt like illustrations for short stories I'd love to read and/or haunting hallucinations from a nightmare trip you wish you could forget. My pictures do them no justice, they were crisp and clean and beautiful.

Everyone lived up to Canadian stereotype by being the nicest people on earth. The work is touring a few cities so there will be other opportunities to check it out, which you should do, obviously, and say hello to these nice people while you do.

Update - Related Post: Grimes at the Bowery Ballroom 

Sculpture

Crazy Band, Wiki, et al. - Santos Party House

Lil Wiki

Rat King

Nathanael Luke Walton (aka Gaper) ZMFTW

Cold Ones

Bubbles

Anthony from Mikki & the Mauses

Jenna Thornhill DeWitt and Jesse Spears, two of the best people.

Crazy Band, one of the best bands.

Doug, incognito.

I wish there was a pneumatic tube that could take me to LA in like an hour and I could hang with all the amazings out there because there are a whole ton of them. It was awesome to see the Zen Mafia crew in the rotten apple, even if just for a weekend.

Olek

 Gallerist Benjamin Krause

 David Peterson

Walking around New York City you may happen upon a strange object, a shopping cart, bicycle, or even a car that is completely covered in crocheted yarn. Abstracted and rendered sculpture by the covering, it’s always delighted me to discover one of these items, and I always wondered about how they came to be. A couple of years ago I walked by a gallery in NoLita and inside I saw an entire room covered in the same material, every object wrapped with a snug crocheted cozy all its own, and I was blown away. It’s where I first learned the identity of the mad knitter, Agata Olek.

After a while I discovered she had a facebook page, a rarity for ‘street artists’ due to the outlaw nature of the work. I followed her just to know of any work she was making, and soon I was delighted to see posts showing her working like a rogue ‘Christo’ to cover the Wall Street Bull and the Astor Place Cube.

Last week when she posted a facebook message asking for help with a project, I was too tantalized to resist. I told her I’d be happy to do whatever I could. As I was walking around the next day, I randomly happened to run into her on the street (she is easily recognizable in her homespun clothing) and said hello. She invited me to come to the gallery the day before the opening and help install the show. I said I’d be there, not knowing exactly what was in store but trusting it would be interesting.

On my lunch hour I made my way to the Krause Gallery on the LES. When I first arrived and saw a small group of people inflating balloons, I was a little disappointed. I was excited to see her yarn work and had no idea what the balloons were bound to become. Olek asked me to sit and begin tying inflated balloons together like a chain of sausages and stuffing them into garbage bags. She was milling around running the show, talking with the gallery owner Ben about how everything would work. She would knit the balloons into a structure like a cave, and the walls would have small windows to view the photographs hung outside of the cave, and people would have to duck through the door and kneel to view the work. An it would be ready for the opening the next evening, just 20 hours away.

It sounded crazy and amazing and impossible. But soon Olek went to work crocheting the first segment of balloon-wall and I was entranced. He hands move automatically and so quickly that it’s mesmerizing. Within 30 minutes she’d finished the first wall panel, hung it, and was moving on. Even with the panel in place I had a difficult time imagining how the project would look when complete, if it ever was complete.  I asked how long the balloons would hold air and she excitedly described how the structure would deflate overtime, shrinking and withering and contorting. The unpredictable and continuous change inherent to the materials was one of the most exciting parts to her. After about 90 minutes I left with a promise to come back after work.

Upon my return around 10pm the walls had been almost completely covered. Again I set about the sausage making. Some new help had arrived, and it was a fun and friendly group. People were stopping into the space to see what we were making. At one point a passerby traded a bottle of vodka for a balloon crown, and spirits were raised. In addition to the sausages I made long strings of tied flaccid balloons, not knowing what they were for. They would eventually be used in the frames and the body suits. I watched as Olek steadily churned out the walls and ceiling of the structure, stitching panels together with balloons like yarn. Olek was a great task master, keeping everything fun but making sure everyone was always busy. Just when people started to seem a little punchy or sleepy or too drunk to capably tie rubber nubs together, it was done. It was 3 am and I was standing in a cave made of crocheted balloons with a bunch of strangers who were drinking vodka and grinning like children.

The next night I stopped by the opening briefly just to see people’s reactions. It was a thrill to feel a part of something that people were enjoying so much. The bodysuits she had crocheted out of balloons were being warn and looked insane. I was still suprised to see all the she had done. Particularlly enjoyable for me was the way children marveled at the work. Olek seemed to be enjoying herself too, but was already talking about the next thing she wants to do. It was strange to see her standing still, her hands at rest. I imagine it doesn’t happen often.