GREAT REVIEWS for TULLMAN COLLECTION ARTIST CAMERON GRAY'S NEW YORK SHOW

Your Show of Shows   By Bruce Helander Huffington Post "At this moment in history, Gray has strategically put his foot through an invisible, historic curtain (but not in his mouth) that like his predecessors, armed with an explorer's compulsion, bravado and a burning ambition, literally changes everything."  Read Full Article Below Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the sizzling streets of Chelsea, not expecting to discover something particularly notable in the typical "summer show" venues but nevertheless making the rounds, out pops a truly unique and memorable exhibition that is shaking things up. "Birth of a Legend," recent works by Cameron Gray, the Venice, California-based artist, recently opened at Mike Weiss Gallery, is commanding a great deal of attention and with good reason.  Gray has spent the better part of the last decade assembling disparate pictorial fragments into a grid of painted squares that have been meticulously crafted from miniature two inch four-sided compositions on board. Each puzzle piece needed to fit precisely in order to build a much bigger picture that eventually formed a curious collage of a recognizable work, like a Warhol dollar sign or a Lichtenstein classic portrait. These attractive and amusing visual exercises were a valuable experience that taught the artist about the rewards of having patience and the fine art of foraging literally around the world in order to compile something pretty amazing. Everything he learned in the past, it seems, was simply a dress rehearsal for this show at Mike Weiss, which coincided with the gallery's tenth anniversary.

In this exhibition, the artist takes a deliberate quantum leap from his past strict geometrical neo-cubist inspired arrangements to a stunning examination and idiosyncratic salute to the collage aesthetic. The ingenuity shown here follows in the tradition of great innovators who were initially controversial, yet transformed into those who made history. Gray joins a special fraternity of inventors that have harnessed the internet's limitless imagery inventory, which became a de facto and integral extension of his studio and allows him to acquire a complex inventory of often bizarre images, painstakingly woven together and loaded with sexual innuendo, in hilariously nutty situations a la "Mission Impossible," with strange people doing really odd things and laced with a left-footed goofiness so over the top that it becomes a serious contender for Ripley's Believe It or Not! His "found objects"-also known as "internet trash"-from the World Wide Web are cleverly mixed, altered, spliced, diced, electrified, homogenized and usually animated to boot, and, like a seasoned carnival pitchman, he continues throwing unexpected, hypnotic curve balls at the viewer that become home runs. Following Picasso's historic lead, where the artist added a new dimension to painting by attaching a single piece of newspaper to his canvas, Gray, no stranger to the challenges of collage, has found a convincing additional step forward to the ongoing history of this artistic discipline, which has caught the art world off guard.   Early pioneers like Braque, Ernst, Arp, Duchamp and Schwitters felt compelled to find another aspect of pictorial compositions that also adopted the French word coller-to paste-and expanded the topography of a work's flat surface until a painting became more sculptural. This morphed into the technique called assemblage, from another French word: assembler-to collect. The development of the camera introduced a new level of reality to two-dimensional art. As photographs (and now video) became more widely available, artists generated a new method called montage (an important aspect of Gray's work), once again from the French monter-to mount. Eventually and predictably, this process sprouted into photomontage, which was invented by the German artist John Heartfield in the early twentieth century and later followed with assemblage made popular by Joseph Cornell, the real master of the technique. Art made from car parts (Chamberlain), wood scraps (Nevelson), drugs (Tomaselli) and a shark (Hirst), all owe their audacity for change to the pioneers who were exploring provocative new territory outside of a traditional palette. It didn't take long for artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Ray Johnson and Romare Bearden to completely engulf their work in the collage aesthetic, which continues today through the assemblage work of artists like Richard Prince, Llyn Foulkes and Tony Berlant. The artist who somehow elegantly assimilated all of the above and who is aligned most closely with Cameron Gray is the brilliant and unsurpassed photomontage Dada-Surrealist, Hannah Höch, and her friend, Raoul Hausmann. Step by step, layer by layer, artists continued to add new and often shocking dimensions with fragments of novel materials, which ultimately developed into a polished and acceptable format that welcomed innovation and controversy. At this moment in history, Gray has strategically put his foot through an invisible, historic curtain (but not in his mouth) that like his predecessors, armed with an explorer's compulsion, bravado and a burning ambition, literally changes everything.  Gray's gargantuan video collage installation is mesmerizing, holding your gaze with its pulsating electronic vignettes and drawing you closer for a surprising examination of uncommon voyeuristic phenomena. The largest work in the show, I Have a Feeling I Shall Go Mad...., an all-encompassing 12-foot wide installation comprised of twenty-seven monitors, is a flashback to Times Square meets Japanese animation on an alien ship painted in Day-Glo colors. Thousands of moving electronic collage squares overlap each other and compete for your attention like a rare, crazed and determined Tasmanian bird doing a ferocious mating dance with pre-meditated intentions in mind. It's Been a Series of Unforeseen and Unexpected Circumstances Outside of My Control, a quite amazing construction, is an epic 7-foot-tall pin bricolage; 3,000 photographic images call out for your notice, selling their dubious wares and strutting their eccentric stuff. In another part of the exhibition, four pinned-to-the-wall, cordless "electronic" posters of heartthrob pop stars are displayed at the entrance to the gallery, requiring the talents of a young Sherlock Holmes and his knack for uncovering clues to solve the mystery of how they were constructed.  This is a perfectly pleasurable show, with each wall presenting another inventive "step" on a magical neon ladder that Gray, a former stand-up comedian, is swiftly climbing with deadpan enthusiasm. One part of the exhibition might be more suitable for the "Dining Out" section of The New York Times: Gray seems to enjoy playing with his food, in this case, a smorgasbord of plastic fake fare often illuminated by black lights, which he arranges to illuminate simple circular Arcimboldo-inspired smiley-face assemblages that incorporate items insinuating eyes (sausage patties), a frowning mouth (plastic hot dog), or two turkey dinners forming the eyes of one piece and a glazed, faux Jell-O mold for its nose. In this optical feast for the eyes with handmade, circular stage sets appropriate for a classic movie like "Picnic," everybody gets enough to eat and no doubt will come back for seconds. A scene in David Byrne's classic movie, "True Stories," also comes to mind, in which the nutty dad offers his astonished family a quick overview of commerce at work; looking down on the dining table, asparagus becomes railroad tracks, plates emulate service centers and the whole tabletop dinner becomes a hilarious, illustrated aerial view of industry on parade.  Cameron Gray has taken a fortunate cue from the developmental pilgrimage of modern masters to explore an amazing new extension of collage and assemblage that converges in an unforgettable presentation, giving credence to the show's title of "Birth of a Legend" as a palatable, mythic description and--arguably the most photographed exhibition currently in Manhattan--something to write home about. - Bruce Helander, Huffington Post, July 16, 2013 Bruce Helander is the Editor-in-Chief of The Art Economist, the recently launched publication that examines the contemporary art market. He has a master's degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he later became Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He is a former White House Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and has been awarded several grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts. As an artist, his work is in over fifty museum collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A work of his was included in the recent Sotheby's auction of the estate of actor Dennis Hopper. He has been a contributor to numerous magazines, including Art and Living, ARTnews and The New Yorker. His latest book, Learning to See-An Artist's View On Contemporary Artists From Artschwager to Zakanitch, was an Indie Awards Finalist. Other Selected Press from the Show: "CAMERON GRAY: BIRTH OF A LEGEND AT MIKE WEISS GALLERY" By Stephanie White Walls NYC    "It was like the whole internet and every meme and every gif threw up onto a 1997 geocities website designed by a thirteen year old with ADHD. It was like the jittery headache of a Ryan Trecartin video but I actually knew what was going on. It was like Marco Brambilla but trashy. It was like what would happen if you went inside tumblr. It was neon and movement and flashing and more neon and flashing and gifs and gifs and gifs." "The last room in the gallery consisted of sculptures that seemed to be the video in static form. The largest made out of little paper cut outs of pop culture and fashion and color layered on top of each other into a cacophony of stuff, glowing under the black light. Another sculpture looked like bits of bright and shiny party trash surrounding a loop of Kate Upton doing the cat daddy, which is basically all you need to know about the internet." "There it is folks, the art world in a single moment."        "Cameron Gray Transforms Overstimulation Into Awe At 'Birth of a Legend" By Emily Colucci Société Perrier    "From posters of teen heartthrobs such as Matt Dillon pulsating with psychedelic video and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," to three-dimensional faces made from tacky plastic food to an entire day-glo paint-splattered black light room filled with art, California-based artist Cameron Gray's wild, wacky and wonderfully hallucinatory exhibition Birth of a Legend at the Mike Weiss Gallery is a hypnotic trip into the visual overstimulation of the Internet age. Transforming the gallery into a complete barrage of Pop references, flashing images, jerky gifs and swirling sounds, Gray's exhibition not only reveals his deft mining of the Internet, where every material in the show comes from, but also, the humor he brings to representing this over-mediated void."          Cameron Gray's Cryptic Coding by Empty Lighthouse  "Gray's works allow us to be everywhere at the same time and to have a multiple conversation with everybody and everything. He makes sure that his visual explosion enters your brain and stays there for good while offering the possibility of a new universe and a whole different understanding of communication."  "Artist Cameron Gray might have been born in Geneva in 1980 or might have been born in America in 1974, or might have not been born at all. He might, in fact, come from the future to show us how we should understand our context and how we should be handling the unnecessary, obsolete and obscene information that surrounds our daily life. His proposition is the game, the changing of the rules and the new perception: to be omniscience in a flat world and to play, as if we where little gods of a little, tiny micro-cosmos." Video Walk-Through By Odelle Abney

TULLMAN COLLECTION ARTIST CAMERON GRAY IN NEW "POP" SHOW AT CARL HAMMER GALLERY

A TRIP BACK TO THE FUTURE (Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy)

A TRIP BACK TO THE FUTURE

                         (Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy)
          We decided to revisit mega-collector Howard Tullman’s newly-renamed college, now called Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, to catch up on what new artists and works of art he’s added to the constantly rotating displays at the Academy which he selects from his own personal collection. We also wanted to see what, if anything, has changed since Robert DeNiro and his partners became major investors in the school and when we could expect to see a branch of Tribeca Flashpoint in the Big Apple.

          Tullman was his usual energetic self and he was quick to point out that many of the newer pieces on the walls were paintings by artists prominently featured in issues of the American Art Collector magazine which he continues to rely upon as a regular source for identifying new artists and selecting work for his extensive collection.

Tullman says that Alyssa Monks’ work continues to amaze and impress him and that he thinks she’s an important new voice in the New York arts community and tremendously dedicated and talented.

          As we started our walk through the main campus building (about 100,000 square feet of newly-renovated and very “green” space), it was immediately apparent that there were an astonishing number of additional works and many of which would be familiar to our readers as well as to anyone active in the arts markets and national fairs over the last three years. We recognized artists from the Midwest and both coasts and Tullman pointed out that there were also a number of new works from international artists – particularly Germany and Mexico which were major acquisitions.

Tullman says that this very large painting by German artist Jorg Lohse works on multiple levels – first it’s just amazingly well painted and then the students connect with the pop culture references as well.

          We were struck again by the fact that substantial works of art are literally everywhere your eyes wander and the fact that the views are simply amazing. A new initiative now includes printed and framed artists’ statements and comments about their work which are posted alongside a number of the pieces. As our tour continued through the various floors, we took extensive notes as well as a couple of rest breaks because there’s a real risk of simply being overpowered by the sheer size and scale of the presentations. In fact, we’re not sure - for pure stomach-wrenching visceral impact – that there’s a museum we’ve seen anywhere which can match the power and emotion of the Tribeca Flashpoint space. It just oozes energy and excitement.

          So much art and so little time. While he wasn’t especially interested in giving us a firm number, we learned that there are now more than 1400 individual paintings and drawings in the overall collection with more than 200 large-scale works on display at Tribeca Flashpoint alone. Several recent articles have noted that The Tullman Collection is now among the five largest collections of contemporary realist work in the United States even after giving effect to more than a million dollars of recent donations to museums and foundations throughout the country.

Cameron Gray’s “Oops! I Did It Again” with its prominent Britney Spears image is actually a collaboration organized over the Internet by the artist with hundreds of other artists. Tullman says it’s both iconic and also perfectly consistent with Tribeca Flashpoint’s emphasis on collaboration and team work.

The Stefanie Gutheil piece called “Birdcage” is somewhat of a departure for the collection, but Tullman says that the artist has so much imagination and such a special world of her own creation that it just felt like it belonged here with the animation students.

          But the simple numbers don’t begin to describe how the environment and the electric atmosphere of Tribeca Flashpoint surrounds you from the first instant you step into the space. It’s also immediately apparent that the students, staff and faculty share this energy and enthusiasm for great and beautifully-executed work in their everyday activities. The range and diversity of the collection is quite substantial, but almost every piece also seems to be a highly-focused reflection of Tullman’s very critical eye.

In examples like this Tim Okamura painting called “The Conversation”, the students are challenged to imagine and/or supply the narrative and try to explain the piece in their own words.

         As we continued walking through the space, Tullman mentioned specifically that powerful narrative continues to be an important consideration in his selections of new work. But, most importantly, each piece still needed to be executed in a fashion consistent with Tribeca Flashpoint’s overall theme of excellence.

         Tullman said that storytelling has always been and will always be a central concern of the visual arts (noting also that it’s become an increasingly important tool in education) and it’s really no different at Tribeca Flashpoint. He laughed and said: “I like to say that all the technology in the world won’t save a story that sucks.” But, he went on to say: “Even more crucial from an education standpoint – and especially for younger students – is how the requirement to “tell a story” engages students and gives them a sense of ownership and responsibility that simply talking “at” them will certainly no longer achieve – if it ever did.

         At Tribeca Flashpoint, working in constantly-changing teams across all four of the main digital disciplines, the students essentially construct their own learning approaches (aided, guided and abetted by the faculty) since everyone believes that it’s absolutely clear, in any creative group, that you’ll have a variety of people who learn at different paces and in different ways.

Tullman pointed out this striking Austin Parkhill painting and said that he expects that there will always be paintings that are confrontational and very much “in your face” just to keep things interesting.

          The real bottom line and the primary outcomes they look for from the graduates at Tribeca Flashpoint are pretty simple. Tullman says that they’re trying to build creative problem-solvers with great people skills for the next digital generation.

The main lobby at Tribeca Flashpoint features this large painting by Canadian artist William Lazos

          He continued and noted that “In many ways, our students and graduates will face the same kind of challenges and issues that every artist confronts each time he or she sets up in front of a blank canvas. The fundamental questions never really change regardless of the medium of expression. They will always be:

What do I want to say?

How can I best say it?

What will it take to get the job done?

Do I have what it takes?

TULLMAN COLLECTION ARTIST CAMERON GRAY IN NEW SHOW AT ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY