Dara Friedman, Bim Bam

Dara Friedman, Bim Bam, 1999, 16 mm film installation with two slot-loading projectors, metal armature, CD player, and speakers, dimensions variable.

The simplest ideas can lead to the most interesting art. Most of the performance art installed in this exhibition at The Whitney was terribly installed, but this was perfect -- in a room by itself, the sound just loud enough to startle you every time one of the doors slammed, the projection large enough to almost wrap your body in it. The disconnect between the image and the sound still manages to be surprising, and the use of silhouettes and strange back-lit figures adds to the intensity and discomfort.

Henri Matisse, Blue Still Life

Henri Matisse, Blue Still Life, 1907, Oil on canvas. In the collection of the Barnes Foundation.

This picture of the painting is just terrible, but maybe some of the surprising moments in the work are still visible. I can't get over how audaciously the line of fruit on the left of the table lead directly into (or dissolve into) the floral pattern of the wallpaper. Or that single orange on the right side of the table. Or the strange menacing pattern on the tablecloth, or the strange sticks or feathers or strands coming out from the left of the vase, reaching towards that same floral wallpaper. You definitely can't see the strange shades of the shadows on the wall, moving from peach to red to lavender.

Christian Boltanski, No Man’s Land

Christian Boltanski, No Man’s Land, installation. Image courtesy Park Avenue Armory.

A crane delicately picks up items of clothing from an enormous pile, carries them up to the ceiling, and drops them to slowly flutter back down to the pile. The artist talks about the transience of life and the unpredictability of death, but there is also something moving about the plight of the crane, the care of its movements, and the endlessness of its task.

Allan McCollum,

Allan McCollum, Collection of Ten Plaster Surrogates, 1982-1991. enamel on hydrostone. 106.05 x 180.34 cm (41 3/4 x 71 in.) Harvard Art Museum

McCollum's works are often discussed in terms of their anonymous, reproduced character. Which is why upon seeing the real objects, I was so struck by how insistent they are on their handmade quality. In person, the irregularities of the casting process is quite obvious, as well as the uneven layers of paint and the visible brush strokes. This transparency of process makes the works much more lovely in a way, more interesting as objects dealing with the process of art-making.

Ann Hamilton, abc

Ann Hamilton, abc, 1994/1999, Video. Image courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A closeup of a fingertip erases letters from a pane of glass, and then the film plays in reverse and the fingertip seems to be creating the letters on the pane of glass. Moving in its simplicity, this video seems to speak to the problems of creating, of communicating, the transience of our works of art. Each of the letters is unsubstantial and delicate, and they disappear and reappear in endless repetition.

Philip Guston, Ocean

Philip Guston, Ocean, 1976, Oil on canvas, 78 x 116.5 in. Image courtesy the San Antonio Museum of Art.

This is a stunning painting to happen upon in the quiet light-soaked galleries of the San Antonio Museum of Art. Expansive and richly colored, looking at it is a very physical experience, as those waves wash over you. It combines the most beautiful aspects of Guston's early and late work--the depth of color (and that magical grey!) and sensitivity of stroke and graphic sensibility and the directness and unsparing honesty and wry tenderness.

Joseph Beuys, Telephone T----------------R

Joseph Beuys, , (From Two FLUXUS-Objects, Edition of 24), dimensions variable, string, paper, paint/tin cans, 1974. Image courtesy Mary Boone Gallery, New York.

It's hard to tell if the mystical aura around Joseph Beuys objects comes from the works themselves or from his persona, but there is always something transformative about the simplest objects. The texture of the painted cross and the twine, the just-right weathering of the cans. They perfectly evoke childhood games and military rations, these basic objects seem capable of preforming strange feats of magic and alchemy.