Irwin at the Guggenheim

It's Art Week in New York – a bit like Fashion Week, only bitchier. The Whitney Biennial's just opened, the Armory Show is upon us, and -scope is setting up shop on 9th Avenue. The upshot is that there's more new art on show this weekend than any human being could hope to comprehend: the only rational response, and one which is certainly going to be adopted by most of the international art-world types who are arriving in Gotham by the 747-load on an hourly basis, is to get exceedingly drunk.

If they have a little bit of spare time, however, I would actually recommend that they go to yet another art show. It's called Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated), and it's on at the Guggenheim. My friend Geoff went to see it a few days ago, and immediately sent me a disgusted email: the words "quite an abomination" stood out among his grudging props for the Turrell.

I can see why he says that. The wall texts are dreadful: dull artspeak at its most banal. I gave up reading them halfway through the first one, when I reached the phrase "this exhibition posits". And the actual art is of highly variable quality, mainly because the cash-strapped Guggenheim basically cobbled the entire show out of its permanent collection. As a result, Frank Stella, one of the godfathers of minimalism, is represented by a rather incoherent early black painting, rather than by one of the great stripe paintings which more or less formed the historical basis for this entire show.

Neither novices nor experts, then, are likely to learn much from this exhibition, and it certainly won't change anybody's mind about minimalist and conceptualist art. And yet, I still reckon this show is well worth seeing, for a handful of individual pieces.

Firstly, there are some familiar artists who are interestingly tweaked in the context of the Frank Lloyd Wright spiral. Dan Flavin has a small sausage-chain of fluorescent lights running out and down along the floor, which looks fantastic. And a big Carl Andre floor piece is probably the best I've ever seen. All his floor works make you hyperaware of your own physicality and weight while you're standing on them: that's what makes them great. But when the floor is tilted and curved in the way the Guggenheim's is, that feeling is only enhanced. It's almost impossible to describe without resorting to hyperbole: you feel almost as if you're taking off, defying gravity, peforming twisting and looping stunts in space. Just by standing still. Or, to put it another way, stepping off the piece feels much the same as stepping off a fast-moving people-mover in an airport – which is quite impressive considering that the Andre isn't moving at all.

More importantly, however, the Guggenheim is showing some major works by major artists who don't get exhibited nearly enough in the normal course of events at contemporary art museums. The first is Brice Marden, who's represented by a series of his signature encaustic monochromes. These are lusciously gorgeous pieces, in deep and subtle colours, which put the lie to anybody who says minimalism is soulless. All the contemporary art experts I know revere Marden, but for some reason I rarely see his work exhibited in museums, and these are a real treat.

Best of all is a mind-blowing installation by Robert Irwin. It's called Soft Wall, and it was originally installed at the Pace Gallery in 1974, but I doubt it could have looked better then than it does here. Irwin's had an amazing career, and I would highly recommend anybody who likes either art or biographies to buy Lawrence Weschler's masterful book-length study of him, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. That book was written in 1983, however, and since then Irwin has gone downhills rather, doing things like designing the car park for Dia:Beacon.

The piece in the Guggenheim dates to when Irwin was doing his very best work, with light and scrims and exquisite subtlety. Irwin has done something which seems very simple: he's taken one of the Guggenheim's rectangular galleries, painted it white, put a white scrim in front of one of the walls, and added a white line running horizontally around the top of the gallery near the ceiling. That's it, really. But just walking into that room changes the whole nature of the way you perceive your surroundings, and the way you perceive yourself perceiving your surroundings. Not only that, but you're also filled with the utter certainty that this is one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen. I really can't recommend it highly enough.

I should also note that Irwin's work is just about the most unphotographable art there is: no photo of any of his gallery pieces can possibly do it justice. But just to add insult to injury, the photo on the Guggenheim website is of a different scrim piece entirely. Don't judge by that: go and see for yourself!

If you want to saunter past the Sol LeWitts, then, feel free: his wall pieces really don't work all that well in the rotunda's niches. If you don't want to walk all the way to the top of the spiral to admire thousands of Damien Hirst's dead houseflies, that's fine too. I would simply urge anybody who's in town for some serious Art this week to make sure they check out the Robert Irwin piece at the Guggenheim. I can't imagine that anything at the Whitney, the Armory Show or Scope is even going to come close – although I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Posted by Felix at 19:58 EST

Comments

yes there were a couple of good pieces there... actually somewhere between 3 and 5 of them- and it was really nice to see them.

but if you are a purported world class museum in the middle of nyc, i think it is completely fair to expect more for your entry fee.

if i wanted to see one or two really stellar pieces of work, i would have gone to the turrell exhibit in chelsea or the serra at the gagosian... oh wait, i did. both of which were far more enjoyable as i didn't have to filter through the dross to enjoy them.

3-5 great works or not, the guggenheim has once again proven that it is the provider of the corn meal filler in dog food of the art world.

Posted by: geoff at 10:18 EST, March 11, 2004