Roxy Paine's First Dendroid

The artist Roxy Paine in the midst of working on Maelstrom, his latest Dendroid sculpture on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum. Photo by Jeremy Liebman

Artist, Roxy Paine has become known for his Dendroids, tree-like sculptures that have been placed in many public spaces around the world. I once encountered one of his Dendroids while taking a walk through Central Park. It was a striking juxtaposition between the natural environment and an artificial tree shimmering with a silver patina.

Dendroids are exemplary of Paine’s approach to his artwork, where he mirrors natural processes, drawing on the tension between organic and man-made environments. Paine has said: "I've processed the idea of a tree and created a system for its form. I take this organic majestic being and break it down into components and rules. The branches are translated into pipe and rod."

Paine’s first Dendroid was Imposter from 1999 and it was planted deep within the Swedish forest. This work is now at the Wanas Foundation, in Knislinge, Sweden.

Paine has created more than fifteen of these tree-like sculptures at places such as Madison Square Park, New York; Central Park, New York; Art Basel 39, Basel; and Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle.

Opening on April 28, 2009 Paine’s most recent Dendroid will be presented on the rooftop sculpture garden of the The Metropolitan Museum, in New York.

David Musgrave's New York Solo Premiere

David Musgrave at Luhring Augustine
531 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

March 21 - April 18, 2009
Opening Friday, March 20th, 6-8 pm

This week power house gallery Luhring Augustine hosts David Musgrave's first solo exhibition in New York. The show features drawings and sculptures created over the past two years, which explore his ongoing preoccupation with the abstraction inherent in representation and the transformative capacity of materials.

Musgrave's work examines the relation between thoughts and things, ideas and objects. He produces images and forms that unsettle distinctions between inner and outer realms. The apparent accessibility of the simple human or animal schema that underpins much of his imagery forms a counterpoint to Musgrave's many-layered approach. His drawings often resemble documents of artifacts that hint at the primitive or the paranormal. Close viewing reveals a highly detailed evocation of fictive but perfectly plausible surfaces created with graphite.

Artist, William Delvoye's Cloaca

William Delvoye was the first artist to create a machine that imitates a human digestive system to produce excrement. This artwork, called Cloaca, has become the most famous artwork by the artist.

Cloaca was first exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Belgium, in the fall of 2000. The end products were suspended in resin inside large glass jars, which were displayed on stainless steel shelves, with menus hanging beside them documenting what Cloaca had been fed. The jars and their accompanying menus sold well at $1,000 apiece.

Marina Abramović's First Performance Artwork

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 10, Part 2 | Photograph: Dezan Poznanovic, © Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović is one of the most prominent performance artists of our time. Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1946, she began her career in the early 1970s and has continued to be active over three decades. She has described herself as the “grandmother of performance art”.

Abramović’s work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Her first performance, entitled Rhythm 10, was in 1973 and performed at a festival in Edinburgh. Like many of her performances, it explored elements of ritual and gesture.

As stated by the artist:

Preparation
I lay a sheet of white paper on the floor. I lay twenty knives of different shapes and sizes on the floor. I place two cassette recorders with microphones on the floor.

Performance
I switch on the first cassette recorder. I take the knife and plunge it, as fast as I can, into the flesh between the outstretched fingers of my left hand. After each cut, I change to a different knife. Once all the knives (all the rhythms) have been used, I rewind the tape. I listen to the recording of the first performance. I concentrate. I repeat the first part of the performance. I pick up the knives in the same sequence, adhere to the same rhythm and cut myself in the same places. In this performance, the mistakes of the past and those of the present are synchronous. I rewind the same tape and listen to the dual rhythm of the knives. I leave.