Pawel Althamer at the New Museum

On Sunday, Derp and I went to the New Museum to check out the work of Polish artist Pawel Althamer in his exhibit entitled: TheNeighbors. I saw a sign for the exhibition in one of the L subway stations on Saturday. Althamer’s little diorama drew me in.

I love sculpture and I was excited to see three floors of it. Derp and I started at the top and worked our way down. The topmost floor of the exhibit was a room filled with children (mostly) and other people painting on walls. Althamer’s work examines social interactions and relationships and this is such a cool way to do it. There were paint cans everywhere and people running around with paint brushes painting on every surface imaginable. My favorite image was a little girl who’d made a light brown soup out of several colors and was wiping it all over a folding chair and herself.

Adorkable Derp

The second floor consisted of several statues spaced well apart, (make sure you don’t cross the line, those museum docents are on it). Althamer had help creating these works from some guys he met in Africa. Their group creation is quite original. 

The little dudes below are so cute, I love their whole scene. They are on the subway poster that made me want to see the show.

Many others, but these little dudes are my favorite

 The third floor is a dark room with sculptures everywhere. They have plaster cast faces; apparently Althamer used people in his life and put each person’s name somewhere on the surface.

I was very interested in how the statues worked with each other and with the audience. You have to steer your body carefully around each statue to navigate the room. I love the reasoning behind the pieces, it reminds me of the concepts I'm working with right now in my own work. I’m not using sculpture, I’m using shapes to represent the connection, but the concepts are there. I’m very inspired by this showing.

From Gallerist

If you can make it over there, Althamer’s works will be displayed until April 14, 2014. Get there while you still can! Here’s a link to the New Museum’s site.