Talking shop with Josée Bienvenu

Ken Solomon, “From Pittsburg to New York,” 2006

By Shane McAdams

A few weeks ago, I went on an art world tour of Los Angeles. My last stop was the very reputable Shoshana Wayne gallery at Bergamot Station, where they were showing an artist I immediately recognized from New York named Yuken Teruya. I peeked over the top of a counter to ask an elfish attendant who wouldn’t make eye contact with me where “Ms. Teruya” showed in New York. “It’s a he,” the attendant said somewhat too proudly, then looked back down into her seaweed salad. But then it came to me: “Josée Bienvenu, isn’t it?” It was as if I’d uttered the secret code and at that point I became worthy of conversation.

We discussed Josée Bienvenu’s gallery for a moment, and then I continued the conversation with an artist friend of mine. We talked about Marco Maggi’s last exhibition there and his intensive display of manual execution. His language of symbols and codes is meticulously carved into Plexiglas, scored on sheets of foil, or drawn onto paper. We talked about Julianne Swartz and her spatially dislocating optical projects — work that we both considered as inventive as any artist’s today. My friend (a work on paper guy) is a big fan of Ricardo Lanzarini who, as it turns out, opened a much-anticipated exhibition of his drawings at Josée Bienvenu last week.

I checked the gallery’s website after arriving home, and it occurred to me that I’d seen most of their exhibitions over the past few years, including Stefana McClure’s fantastic show there several months ago and Marti Cormand’s icy painting show a few weeks prior. And yes, Mister Yuken Teruya’s almost indescribably wonderful show in 2005 of lacelike cutouts that utterly transform the character of paper objects such as newspapers and fast food packaging.

It was because of these incredibly diverse shows that I decided to approach Ms. Bienvenu for this column, and ask what she’s been occupying her mind and eyes with in recent weeks.

Time Away from Art

My mind and time have been busy in the past weeks with very art-peripheral things: I have been spending a lot of time around McCarren Park in Williamsburg visiting apartments. I became familiar with the park six years ago when I first did a studio visit at Ken Solomon, an artist I ended up working with. The building has now been turned into condos where, with my husband Toby, I just got an apartment, becoming perpetrators of the gentrification cycle that everyone, including us, always rants about. There’s an amazing playroom called Mamalu next door that will be great for Louise, our one-year-old daughter. I also love the concerts in the summer in the empty McCarren Park pool.

Pain Quotidien

Pain Quotidien recently opened a branch in Chelsea. A friend of mine from Belgium, Alain Caumont, opened the first one in 1994. I remember him back then nailing every plank of wood himself at the first location on Madison Avenue. He managed to turn it into a mini empire without altering the concept and quality of the food — excellent homemade breads and pastries, all organic and a long wooden communal table. I hope he will open one in West Chelsea soon.

Tropicalia at the Bronx Museum

This exhibition revisited the ’60s and ’70s at a seminal time in Brazil and offered the opportunity to see installations by Oiticica, works by Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape and the younger generations they have influenced such as Rivane Neuenschwander, who had a beautiful show in Chelsea earlier this season at Tanya Bonakdar.

Yuken Teruya at the Asia Society

Yuken Teruya’s project at the Asia Society, in which a contemporary artist is invited to choose an object from the permanent collection and create an installation in dialogue with it, opens February 22. Yuken has been working on an amazing kimono where he camouflages objects from the collection.

Sarah Sze

I loved Sarah Sze’s recent project in Central Park commissioned by the Public Art Fund [it’s now closed]. I thought it was brilliant at every level.

Music that Compliments Art