Will Kurtz Exhibition: "Extra F**king Ordinary" at Mike Weiss Gallery

Dancing Girls

Will Kurtz
(Mike Weiss Gallery Email Circular)

Ever since I became minimally involved with the art scene in New York City through getting to know Terrance Lindall, and especially since becoming one of the founding committee members of the Williamsburg Circle, I seem to have gotten onto several art e-lists, thereby adding to my daily pile-up of inbox emails to delete, though I always check them first to see if any of the art being exhibited appeals to me.

I received several emails from the Mike Weiss Gallery recently calling attention to an exhibition of Will Kurtz's sculptures, but being put off by the exhibit's title, "Extra F**king Ordinary" (literally spelled out in the original), I initially ignored the photos of his work. Or tried to. But they caught my eye. Maybe the energy in the photo above shows why. I finally took a closer look this morning and really liked his sculptures, which he forms from old newspapers.

Kurtz describes the process in this twelve-minute video. He explains that he was trained as an architect (though a landscape architect), which might account for his interest in structure, for his sculptures, due to their wire frames, look as though they have bones. He doesn't just wad up newspapers and paste them together to see what emerges. Rather, his creations suggest a deep concern for classical form. He tells us in the video that he makes the naked image first, then applies the colored pages from newspapers for the skin and everything that we see on the surface, which tells me that he's a sculptor with a concern for the appearance as well as the form, and in his art, the surface acts as a collage in which various images are brought together in fascinating ways, such that the closer one looks, the more one sees.

For those readers in New York City, you have until this Saturday (February 18, 2012) to visit the exhibition:

Mike Weiss Gallery
520 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat 10am to 6pm

Everyone else will perhaps have to be satisfied with images from the Mike Weiss Gallery itself.

Or from reviews: Maria Teicher's "Inside the Studio"; Hyperallergic's "Weekly Art Rx"; Look Into My Owl's "Will Kurtz"; Romanblog II's "Will Kurtz"; or Structure and Imagery's "Will Kurtz."

Or get to Googling . . .