Art Review

Bill Gusky, a New York based artist, reviews a show by Jennifer Dalton at Plus Ultra in Manhattan. Thanks Bill for a great review!

From his review...

A thought-provoking projected series of slides titled How Do Artists Live? displays hand-drawn statistics from a 2005 survey covering economic issues for artists. The figures are revealing, disconcerting and, in a few cases, surprising. The thrust of this display, to my eyes, was an inequality for women in fine art. In spite of all the artwork by women now jamming the galleries in Chelsea, female artists are apparently still much more likely to be supported by a partner than male artists.

Another work wraps the top foot of the wall in parallel strings of pale yellow lights in flame-shaped bulbs. You can follow the path around the ceiling to one wall of the gallery, where each string of bulbs ends in a colored tag containing a written factoid about women in art.

Five wooden cabinets filled with tiny figurines comprises The Collector-ibles, a work that brings to visual life ArtNews' 2005 list of the top 200 art collectors. Each figurine represents a collector -- I seem to recall more corporations than individuals -- and is styled to match that collector. Their bases are labeled with tiny fake metallic plaques with names "inscribed." Something I found comical: many figurines carry shopping bags labeled with the categories of artwork they collect.

A large open plexiglass box is divided from corner to corner. Each half of the box contains plastic gray bracelets, one set labeled Loser and the other set labeled Pig. In the press release it states that this work, which gives title to the show Would You Rather be a Loser or a Pig?, reflects
...the increasing tendency within the art world to define achievement solely in terms of financial earnings and conspicuous consumption.