blinnk: inside outliers

Jim Lambie, ZOBOP, 2000-13, metallic vinyl on floor, ed 1/5

LAT. 41° 7' N., LONG. 72° 19' W

Martos Gallery

organized by Bob Nickas

Aaron Suggs, Untitled (Transparent Dingy), 2013, clear acrylic, 144 x 54 x 120"

First of all, Orient Point is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Situated between the Long Island Sound and Gardiner's Bay, it feels like the actual tip of the world. Its glorious marshes, flatlands and incredible bird population make it one of the all-time best places. To find art there -- well -- to me, it's just that much better.

Martos Gallery (ordinarily on West 29th Street in Chelsea), has dispatched to East Marion, NY where gallery owner Jose Martos and his wife, the artist Servane Mary have taken up residence in the bucolic surrounds of eastern Long Island. Last year they jettisoned their former location in Bridgehampton on the snootier south fork in favor of a 19th century Victorian just a stone's throw from Orient Harbor.

The distinctive house sits on seven acres that overlook the Dam Pond Maritime Preserve, a tidal pond filled with salt marshes, birders and long sand dunes. The title of the show, LAT. 41° 7' N., LONG. 72° 19' W, references the geographic coordinates of the Martos property.


Peter Coffin, Untitled (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet), 2013, tinted resin, tree

This summer, the independent curator Bob Nickas organized a guerrilla-type art extravaganza in and around the house, its outbuildings and the sweeping countryside it occupies. 66 artists later, the exhibition consists of 132 works installed variously in the house, on the deck, among the brush and in the water. Art is everywhere. It hangs from trees, is squeezed between limbs, and is nestled inside brush, birches, scrub oaks and grassy fields. It's fabulous.

Above, Peter Coffin's pointed hands reinvigorate a towering snag. Throughout the property, multiple works range from eye-popping installations to meditations on nature, allegory and history.

Jason Metcalf, Orient Focus People, 2013, acrylic enamel on wood

The region's original population, the Native American Orient Focus People (c. 1000 B.C.), is memorialized in Jason Metcalf's sculptural signage, offering the first indication that you have come to the right place. Perched at the end of a long driveway, this is your gateway to contemporary art on the far edge.

Sam Moyer, Birch Tide, 2010, printed vinyl on aluminum, 27 pieces

Located near the entrance to the property, Sam Moyer's oceanscape panels seem to open a doorway to a parallel universe where all of nature exists in everything, at every moment. Diverting and sublime, the panels lean against narrow trees in an area of woodlands that is dappled with sunlight. Idyllic, to be sure, but here Moyer is sort of splitting atoms, offering a stunning schism in the ocean/woodlands continuum.


John Miller, Untitled, insulation foam board, skim coated with concrete, glitter, ink, concrete hardener, acrylic paint

Inside the house, a glorious melange of painting, sculpture and installation takes root in every room. Above, John Miller's Untitled, mirrors the rock formations scattered across the shallow waters of Dam Pond. The scatalogical heap rises up through the dining annex as if the house was built around it.

B. Wurtz, L to R: Red Glass and Red Bowl; Orange Bowl; Yellow Bowl; Green Bowl and Green Glass; Green Bowl; 1987-88

In a feat of curatorial aplomb, no room is safe from Nickas's intervention. The kitchen contains works by B. Wrutz (above), Jim Drain and Josh Tonsfeldt; the living room has works by Meredyth Sparks (below), Olivier Mosset, Jacqueline Humphries, David Flaugher, Trisha Donnelly, Eddie Martinez, Rachel Harrison, Jason Fox and Nick Relph. Even the seat cushions in the breakfast nook have been reimagined (by Jim Drain).

Meredyth Sparks, Untitled, (Eno), 2013, digital print on paper, aluminum foil, glitter

Atop Jim Lambie's magical stairway that leads to the second floor, Barry X Ball's installation of 24 heads is breathtaking. Ambient lighting illuminates two wall units filled with heads, like a modern day wunderkammern. Tied off at the top or bottom where the plaster begins or ends, the assembled parties feel like a sleepy Greek chorus that soars above the maddening crowd.

Barry X Ball, Collection of Twenty-Four Plaster Heads, 1997-2007

Mary Heilmann and other painters stand their ground across the hall as visitors wander room after room. The works bounce between idioms and energies, playfully lacing through floral wallpaper, window treatments and hallways.

Mary Heilmann, Rose Wave, 2013, oil on canvas

Chris Martin, Dead Mother Returns #19, 2013, acrylic, flash, gel medium, collage on vinyl

There's an indisputable conviviality here that extends into a larger community and dabbles in how we live with contemporary art. Let's face it, it can't be easy having your home open to the public for 8 weeks. Nonetheless, the spirit here is buoyant, genial, smart and invigorating.

It's living with art in the extreme -- as it should be.
For Martos, who is something of a cultural outlier in the best sense of the concept, the idea of intervention seems to go with the territory. In East Marion, it is a rich experience indeed.

Dave Muller, W.W.S.R.D. (x7), 2013, acrylic on wall

Dave Muller honors the late, great Afro-futurist musician, Sun Ra, in W.W.S.R.D., (what would Sun Ra do), in a pastiche of banner ads splayed across a bedroom wall. Urban, electric and very current, Sun Ra, who died in 1993, seems in some ways more germane now than during his lifetime.

David Flaugher, Untitled, 2013, Christmas lights, wax, detritus, Carhartt jacket

Isa Genzken, Untitled, 2006, two walker frames, steel helmet, plastic helmet, doll, tin, lacquer

Back downstairs, the garage is transformed into a theater with Wolfgang Tillman's Peas, a video of green peas boiling in a pot. Hypnotic.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Peas, 2003, video with ambient sound, 2 minutes 48 seconds (loop)

Jim Drain, Hi-5, 2013, mixed media

Bill Komoski, 2/7/12, 2012, acrylic, water based enamel, polyurethane and cardboard on canvas

The new abstractionists, the casualists, meta-painting -- whatever you want to call it, the paintings here are mostly energetic and fresh. They don't so much hold court as they comment on it, stroke by stroke.

Erik Lindman, L: not yet titled, 2012, enamel, wood stain, mixed media; R: not yet titled, 2012-13, found surface, enamel, mixed media

In the basement, a sprawling subterranean environment has been created by Servane Mary. Catacomb-like and nearly pitch dark, the walls glow in a ghostly phthalo green and black, silhouetting various component parts of the average basement -- screwdrivers, sheers, saws.

Servane Mary, Untitled (The Green Room) detail, 2013, site-specific installation with aqua glow-in-the-dark powder, egg, pink fluorescent ink

Unbeknownst to me, the couple's three year old son followed us down the stairs into this darkness, his tiny shadow moving among the soft light of the installation. "Bon jour," I said over and over, assuming he was lost and scared. He wasn't. He was right at home.

Don't miss this dazzling show, on view through September 2nd.