July 1, 2010 

STILL MORE SUMMER SHOWS IN NEW YORK
"What are we, chopped liver?" wrote a young artist who doubles as press officer for one of the many hip art galleries in Chelsea. Truth be told, though Artnet News is pretty much caught up with its regular mail (after letting the invite to the post-opening dinner of an A-list artist sit unopened at the bottom of a pile for several weeks), the same cannot be said of its email queue, which, according to Microsoft Outlook, of the 1,271 items in the inbox, 349 are unread.

Herewith, an effort to close the gap via still another list of still more smart group exhibitions at New York City galleries (for earlier stories, click here and here). Go take a look, it won’t be crowded. "Oh, collectors don’t come to the gallery anymore," a proprietor of one of those very galleries said at the Museum of Modern Art the other evening. "They go to art fairs." So the payoff, in other words, is purely esthetic.

* "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue," June 27-Aug. 1, 2010, at LMAKprojects (139 Eldridge Street), features works by Vuk Cosic & Matej Andraž Vogrincicc, Braco Dimitrijevic, IRWIN and Agnieszka Polska, in a show curated by Tevž Logar from Škuc Gallery, Slovenia.

* "Item," June 30-Aug. 13, at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in Chelsea, focuses on "lists, arrangements, collections and patterns" via works by Erica Baum, Mel Bochner, Carol Bove, Mathew Cerletty, Liz Deschenes, Wayne Gonzales, Rashid Johnson and six other artists.

* "The Pursuer," June 30-Aug. 13, 2010, at Greene Naftali Gallery, presents works by a Baker’s Dozen in a show inspired by a short story by Julio Cortazar about an aging jazz musician and his hallucinations about the elastic nature of time. Among the artists are Alex Bag, Ida Ekblad, Alex Hubbard, Paul Sharits and Cathy Wilkes.

* "Merry Christmas Mr. Ordover," July 1-Sept. 3, 2010, at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, celebrates the art-world’s favorite art lawyer, Jerald Ordover, who practiced in New York from the 1950s until his death at age 81 in 2008. The show presents works by more than 50 artists associated with Ordover, including Dan Flavin, George Maciunas, Salvatore Scarpitta, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner and H.C. Westermann.

* "The Pencil Show," July 1-Aug. 7, 2010, at Foxy Production, presents art by approximately 20 artists who "conjure the marvelous and magical within the confines of a plain sheet of paper" using only the humble graphite writing instrument.

* "One Leading Away from Another," July 9-Aug. 6, 2010, at 303 Gallery, "aims to bring together some works that use physical space and/or ideas of space as a way to deconstruct and reinterpret belief systems."

* "Inspired," July 14-Aug. 13, 2010, at Steven Kasher Gallery, curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody, includes over 30 artists and features "contemporary photographs inspired by iconic photographs."

* "Metanoia," July 15-Aug. 29, 2010, at P.S.J. Exhibitions (238 West 14th Street), features art by Chris O’Donnell, Jason June, Josh Egnew, Ryan Bonilla, Stephanie Tamez and Thomas Hooper, all artists influenced by tattoo culture -- including a work etched on the chassis of a motorcycle.

* "Incognito: The Hidden Self-Portrait," July 15-Aug. 27, 2010, at Yancey Richardson Gallery, explores the many ways that artists incorporate themselves into their images via shadow, reflections, body parts and other surreptitious means. Artists include Uta Barth, Anne Collier, Lee Friedlander, Ray Metzker, Stephen Shore, Francesca Woodman and 14 other artists.

* "Young Curators, New Ideas III," July 22-Aug. 20, 2010, at P.P.O.W., organized by Mr. & Mrs Amani Olu, features "micro-exhibitions" by six curators, including "Personal / Public / Private" curated by Andrew Russeth & Liza Buzytsky, and "Quantum Limbo" curated by Stamatina Gregory.

DOUG OHLSON, 1936-2010
Doug Ohlson, 73, New York painter of sensuous color abstractions, died on June 29 at Bellevue Hospital from injuries suffered from a fall. Born in Cherokee, Iowa, Ohlson served in the Marines before coming to New York in 1961 to pursue a career as an artist. One of the last of a long line of "formalist" painters who sought to give color a pure, non-illusionist pictorial vitality, Ohlson made color "the music of visual art. . .  abstract, sensuous and sufficient unto itself," according to critic E.C. Goossen. His work was included in "The Art of the Real," the Museum of Modern Art’s groundbreaking 1968 survey of Minimalism and Color Field painting, and in 1969 he exhibited a cycle of abstract paintings at Fischbach Gallery on a custom-built rectilinear structure that effectively turned the gallery inside-out. He later exhibited at Susan Caldwell, Andre Zarre and Elaine Baker galleries, and was given survey shows at Bennington College (1982) and Hunter College (2002). He taught at Hunter for many years. A memorial gathering is scheduled for 2-5 pm, July 3, 2010, at Greenwich Village Funeral Home.

RAMMELLZEE, 1960-2010
Rammellzee, 49, New York graffiti writer and hip-hop musician, died after a long illness in Queens. Celebrated for manic energy and a rhetoric of baroque excess -- he wrote a treatise on his own philosophy, called "Iconic Panzerism" -- Rammellzee was self-medicating throughout his art career and known as a difficult and even paranoid creative force. Though his exhibition history was spotty, his graffiti paintings show a real material verve -- 19 works are listed on the Artnet Price Database, the most recent selling for more than $18,000 at Artcurial in 2008 -- and recently he had exhibited Transformer-type sculptural models. For an appreciation of his work by Jeff Weiss on the L.A. Times music blog, click here.

HELENE SEEMAN, 1950-2010
Helene Seeman, 60, venturesome art advisor who championed the work of young artists to corporations and private collectors, was hit by a drunk driver in the driveway of her home in Princeton, N.J., on June 27. She worked at Louis K. Meisel Gallery (1973-80), where she assisted on the publication of The Photorealists (Abrams, 1979). In 1980 she became curator of the Prudential Life Insurance Company collection, a job she held for almost two decades. She was a practicing potter, and recently had been an adjunct professor at NYU’s school of continuing education. A graduate of Boston University and CUNY, Seeman was wife to Fred Seeman, who was also critically injured in the automobile accident.

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