I just got back from visiting the New Museum which reopened this past week. They currently have a show up entitled Unmonumental. The exhibition actually is in four parts that will be exhibited until Feb 2008. The first part is The Object in the 21st Century. “Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century is the first exhibition in the Unmonumental cycle, and explores the reinvention of sculptural assemblage. Using found, fragmented, and discarded materials, the works of the artists on view make a case for modesty, informality, and improvisation."
For a museum the space is actually rather small but I did really enjoy myself. There were two pieces that particularly stuck my fancy. One being a work by Urs Fischer and the other being from Claire Fontaine.
Urs Fischer, Untitled
I've noticed that there have been a surplus of swords being shown right now and I fall for them every time. This piece by Urs Fischer which is untitled is pretty much the sword in the stone set in a pristine gallery space of the NM. I'm not that crazy about most of Fischer's work, there are several of his works in Unmonumental, but this and You, which I blogged about last week, have hit a soft spot in my heart.
Claire Fontaine, Passe-partout, (Paris 10e), 2006
Passe-partout was the very last thing I saw in the museum and stood out mainly because it had a guard that stationed next to it who stuck up a conversation with me. He told me all about the piece which consists of three key rings that have lock picking tools on them. Two from New York on e from Paris. We began to talk about the piece and I soon learned that the museum had hired extra security and someone had to be next to this piece no matter what. After chatting I parted ways and wished him luck in Miami where he was planning on moving. But it got me thinking. What is the New Museum afraid of? As part of the text on the wall Claire Fontaine has a list of several websites to visit. All of which are tools and instructions on how to pick locks. I would make the assumption that they would not want someone in the museum who could have access to any room if they wanted. But what are the chances of someone walking in to a gallery, picking up the work and then stealing even more? Wouldn't a person have to already know how to pick locks in the first place? And lets say someone knew how to pick locks, they could just carry the same equipment with them already. The only thing I could think of was that it might be illegal to be in possession of lock picking tools in New York. I don't know. Food for thought. Here is some info on Claire Fontaine: "Claire Fontaine is a Paris-based collective, founded in 2004. After lifting her name from a popular brand of school notebooks, Claire Fontaine declared herself a 'readymade artist' and began to elaborate a version of neo-conceptual art that often looks like other people's work. Working in neon, video, sculpture, painting and text, her practice can be described as an ongoing interrogation of the political impotence and the crisis of singularity that seem to define contemporary art today."
