Tony Oursler, “Castouts,” mixed media, 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
TONY OURSLER: PEAK
Lehmann Maupin, 201 Chrystie St. between Stanton & Rivingston Sts.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 4, 212-254-0054
www.lehmannmaupin.com
BRUCE NAUMAN: FOR CHILDREN / FOR BEGINNERS
Sperone Westwater, 257 Bowery at Stanton St.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 18, 212-999-7337
www.speronewestwater.com
Two longtime stars of the multimedia installation currently have exceptional exhibits right around the corner from each other on the Lower East Side. For decades, New York native Tony Oursler has been projecting faces and other images onto a multitude of objects, creating what appear to be living, breathing sculptures. His current show at Lehmann Maupin’s space on Chrystie St., “Peak,” consists of seven technologically virtuosic miniature dioramas in which theatrical scenes and performance art takes place, delving into obsession, festishism, and the human psyche. In “Artificial Hazard,” a man is trapped in a glass cage, an infantile face screaming behind him, a finger pointing upward in the corner. Numerous minuscule projections cover “Via Regia,” “Valley (Flowchart),” and “Castouts,” so be sure to scan every inch of the pieces, while a naked woman delivers a monologue in “Black Box” and a shirtless man seen in multiple sections of a chunk of disintegrating metal gets serious in “Mirror Return.” Meanwhile, Oursler’s companion to “Peak,” “Valley,” is currently on view at the online Adobe Museum of Digital Media.
Bruce Nauman, “For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers),” HD video installation (color, stereo sound), continuous play, 2010
Following the success of his multimedia “Topological Gardens” installation at the 2009 Venice Biennale, which earned him the Golden Lion, Indiana-born artist Bruce Nauman has put together the captivating “For Children / For Beginners” at Sperone Westwater on Bowery, just around the corner from Lehmann Maupin. The central piece of the show is the two-story-high HD video projection “For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers),” with two large hands at the top, and two more at the bottom, closing fingers as an unseen voice calls out “thumb,” “first finger,” “second finger,” etc. However, what is said and what is seen do not necessarily match; in addition, the hands occasionally flip upside down while the background changes from white to black and Terry Allen’s piano soundscape echoes throughout the gallery (emerging from the far elevator). The work is supplemented with a pair of graphite drawings and a smaller monitor showing one pair of hands responding to instructions. As with his recent “Days” exhibit at MoMA (also part of the Venice Biennale), in which different voices came out of fourteen speakers all calling out the days of the week in varying order, “For Children / For Beginners” is both exhilarating and confounding, a trademark of Nauman’s work. But don’t bother trying to figure it all out; just let the meditative sound and images take you away. It’s fascinating to see how well the two shows work together, as Oursler and Nauman each uses very different sizes in their installations — with fingers playing a role in both exhibits.