pierogi 2000 press: kansas city

block artspace

Pierogi: Flat Files
Kansas City, MO
19 January - 28 February 2001

REVIEW

Nothing So Simple as a Solution That Works

If the show to see in the western midwest last year was the installation-based extravaganza Wonderland at St. Louis Art Museum, it may be Pierogi Flat Files at H&R Block Artspace, on view through February 28, that proves the best bet of 2001. Nearly antithetical to Wonderland's total-immersion spectacular, the flatfiles are about quiet discovery and intimate viewing, more akin to a visit to a rare bookstore than to an amusement park. Yet, like the St. Louis blockbuster, the Artspace show provides audiences with an overwhelming amount of new information in an accessible package. Further, the exhibition encourages the viewer to assume an active role.

Eureka! I've got it! —Archimedes

Often, the best ideas develop as simple solutions, dictated by necessity. Not surprisingly, in a city like New York, where wants outweigh resources, space is tight, competition is fierce, and time is of the essence, one is forced to be inventive. Conceived with the mission of providing exposure for under-recognized and young, emerging artists, the Brooklyn-based art institution Pierogi 2000 has survived and thrived in part by virtue of creative problem solving. Its "eureka" moment: the conception of the now famous Pierogi Flat Files—wide, shallow stacks of drawers housing portfolios of flat or near-flat, small to medium-sized artworks.

In 1994 Joe Amrhein opened the small gallery on what was then a fairly desolate street in Williamsburg. The explosion of the neighborhood into a thriving cultural hub over the past few years is the stuff of legend. (Image the West Bottoms filled to maximum capacity with resident artists, hip bars, performance venues, video lounges, coffee shops, restaurants, and artist-run galleries). But back in the day, Williamsburg, while home to many working artists, had less art-going street traffic than the Crossroads, and the square-footage of Pierogi amounted to about a fourth of that of the Dirt.

Amrhein, an artist himself, had lots of artist friends—among them many of the early settlers of the area who have gone on to get their dues (Bruce Pearson, James Siena, David C. Scher, Amy Sillman, Roxy Paine, and Jane Fine among them). So the flatfiles, which would establish the space as the apex of the Williamsburg art community—and in fact the emerging New York art scene—were invented as a means to provide exposure for artists and to optimize Pierogi's resources. If the traffic to Williamsburg was limited, at least Pierogi could offer enough goods to give a visitor an eyeful. And the work could be inexpensive. And the work would sell itself. And the viewer could, in effect, curate his/her own viewing experience. And the cost of maintaining a large amount of work (containable in a small space) would be minimal. And the artists could therefore get an unusually large cut of the sales, and thus would develop strong loyalties to the space. And curators would recognize the gallery as a resource, where they could see the work of dozens of artists at once and "discover" someone. And artists would thus be banging on the door to get their work in. And Pierogi would grow to be seen as a tremendous source of exciting new work. And, inspired by Pierogi's success, many more galleries with do-it-yourself ethics would open nearby. And Williamsburg would come to be seen as the new art center of the city.

According to critic and curator Bill Arning (responsible for Neither/Nor at Grand Arts a few years ago), the files "proved a perfect catalyst to make the manic creativity of the Brooklyn art world visible to the powers that be across the river in Manhattan. Formerly Brooklyn-phobic collectors, critics, and curators were lined up on Sunday afternoons to enjoy the time-consuming experience of perusing the drawers."

So in 2001 the flatfiles are a hot commodity, the traveling version containing roughly 3,000 works by some 300 artists. What better way to export an astonishing volume of work to sites around the world? Over the past few years the files have traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, Gasworks in London, the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and most recently to the POST Gallery in Los Angeles, where a number of L.A. artists (most of them familiar to K.C. through the Artspace's L.A. show last fall) were incorporated.

The Show:
To provide an immediate visual referent, Amrhein, who was in town for the installation and opening of the show, hung a small selection of works from the files on one wall, salon-style. Extracted from their portfolio contexts, where one can really jump into the artist's mind through a series of works, these tend to look a bit of a mish-mosh. Additionally, a few dozen larger works (too big for the slim drawers) line the gallery, giving one plenty to look at before even getting to the files themselves. While this installation provides a "way in" to the show—introducing artists whom one might then seek out in the files, and giving a sense of their diversity—the work on the walls is often less engaging than the more intimate objects in the files. For those wishing to sit back and relax, a video file contains dozens of tapes ready to view. (Be sure to check out Matt Morello's Sitcoms, which includes actual clips of Bewitched or The Munsters with Immanuel Kant or Jean Paul Sartre spliced in as co-stars, as well as tapes by Standard & Poor, David Brody, and Eve Sussman).

Then there are the three pristine white stacks of drawers themselves. Alphabetized lists of all artists sit on top, with drawer numbers indicating the location of their portfolios. White cotton gloves are provided. The rest is left to the viewer. Choose familiar names or begin at random, pull out a portfolio, lay it on the files' foldout countertop, and look at your leisure. I would advise visiting several times and leaving yourself plenty of time. You'll never get through all of the work, but guaranteed your viewing experience will be different from that of anyone else. Bring a friend, as you will want to share your discoveries.

There is something inherently magical about this experience of holding drawings in your hands. For the non-artist, it might feel like a forbidden pleasure, touching an original artwork which one is used to experiencing framed on a gallery wall. It's also a bit like making studio visits, without the social aspect and nervous artist nearby. Further, small works on paper have a lovely intimacy that is well suited to this sort of quiet, slow viewing. Opening a portfolio is like opening a package, each containing small gifts, the element of surprise and discovery ever present.

The vast quantity and high quality of the work here offer not only a delightful viewing experience, but also represents a tremendous resource for local artists and arts professionals. What are artists in New York making? How does it relate to what is happening in Kansas City? It would be impossible for me to even to begin a meaningful critique of the files' contents here. Just a few highlights include Tam Van Tran's surprising little worlds created of whiteout, ink, straight pins, and bits of silver foil; Brad Kahlhammer's expressionistic stream-of-consciousness explosions.; Gillie Holmes' collages, book pages, and blacked-out photographs; Nicole Eisenman's smart, hilarious ink drawings and watercolors which include sendups of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon; William Pope L.'s painted Pop-Tarts; Karen Arm's vibrant, precise, intimate universes of color and pattern; Katie Merz's elegant, painterly poems combining text and image; Chris Doyle's exquisite miniature watercolors of suburban homes; and Angela Wyman's paintings on paper of long legged ladies whose polka-dotted, umbrella-like or absurdly ballooning skirts remind one of Alice in Wonderland.

Kansas City Flat Files:
Perhaps in the future every city will have its own set of flatfiles, and we will rotate them around the country so we can see what artists from Anchorage to Omaha are doing. Toward this end, the Artspace has assembled a Kansas City Flatfile, installed in its Project Room. Like its progenitor, our file includes portfolios of flat or relatively flat works by a range of active local artists, from Allan Winkler to Jesse Small, Judi Ross to Ke Sook Lee, Deanna Dikemen to Derek Porter. Among the best: intricate burned pyrographs by Susan White; delightful, text-based chance drawings by Christopher Leitch; Original Drawings by Johnny Naugahyde—complete with yellow carbon copies; fabric covered and pattern-painted 45-rpm vinyl records by Nate Fors; color photographs of Las Vegas weddings, backyard barbecues, and KU basketball crowds by Michael Sinclair; and paintings on paper by David Ford including a green-jacketed, varnished Mao inscribed with the words baby eater.

The juxtaposition of the New York and Kansas City flat files provides a perfect opportunity to make comparisons. True—the work from New York is more abundant, more consistent in quality, and overall somewhat more challenging. It tends to push more on a conceptual level, feeling rather sharper and often more critically significant Yet, there are similarities between artists here and from New York, and it is interesting to draw connections.

Hair Piece portraits, for example, by Tammi Kennedy, which suspend wisps of hair between carefully layered matrices of scotch tape, relate formally to Shari Mendelson's scotch tape, ink, foil, and varnish collages on vellum. The layered abstract "paintings" of Jim Brinsfield, which incorporate tinted Plexiglas, tape magic marker, and foam core, and of Rachel Hayes, who uses Plexi and fabric, feel akin to Ruth Root's colorful cut-paper assemblages of paint chips, paint, and tinted acetate. (A painting on canvas by Root, hung on one wall, similarly plays with the language of abstractions—and the impossibility of its "pureness"—as a tiny, burning cigarette pokes through a colorful formalist grid.) Adriane Herman's ink-jet prints find a nostalgic counterpart in the titles of Joel Adas, while Brian Reeves' satirical Slop Art advertisements/commentaries relate to the charming "fake" postage stamps, packaging and propaganda of William Graef. As comments on the gallery/museum experience, Diane Henk's reworked exhibition invitations, with collaged slogans reading "snobs in the gallery" or "loners on exhibit in the crowded gallery" find a counterpart in Dana Kane's display of Museum of Modern Art wall labels, which function as stand-ins for real works by Rothko, Picasso, Weston, and the like. These are but a few.

For those with the urge to buy, the Artspace can provide contact information for Pierogi 2000, and for Kansas City artists directly.

KATE HACKMAN
February 2001

The Kansas City Star

Uncovering the unframed;
Exhibit of flatfiles presents works on paper of relative unknowns

The strain and uncertainty of making a living as an artist can hardly be exaggerated, and nowhere is art world competition more intense than in New York,

Joe Amrhein discovered that when he moved his studio from Los Angeles to New York 12 years ago. Six struggling years later, he took a step that changed his life and career—and that of many other artists.

Tired of seeing artists marginalized, vilified, or ignored, Amrhein in 1994 turned his studio into a gallery, Pierogi 2000. Pierogi (named for the pastries and vodka served at gallery openings in the once-Polish neighborhood) functions as an alternative space that sponsors work by hundreds of unknown artists working outside of the mainstream.

Set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Pierogi now has flatfiles (drawers of folders containing unframed works on paper) by almost 600 artists. In terms of sheer numbers and diversity, Williamsburg contains, according to The Village Voice, "the biggest tribal gathering of artists in the history of the world." In just a few years Pierogi has become a must-see for serious curators and collectors.
(continues)

ELISABETH KIRSCH
February 11, 2001

P I E R O G I 2 0 0 0
177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144
noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment
pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york

	block artspace Pierogi: Flat Files Kansas City, MO 19 January - 28 February 2001 REVIEW Nothing So Simple as a Solution That Works If the show to see in the western midwest last year was the installation-based extravaganza Wonderland at St. Louis Art Museum, it may be Pierogi Flat Files at H&R Block Artspace, on view through February 28, that proves the best bet of 2001. Nearly antithetical to Wonderland's total-immersion spectacular, the flatfiles are about quiet discovery and intimate viewing, more akin to a visit to a rare bookstore than to an amusement park. Yet, like the St. Louis blockbuster, the Artspace show provides audiences with an overwhelming amount of new information in an accessible package. Further, the exhibition encourages the viewer to assume an active role. Eureka! I've got it! —Archimedes Often, the best ideas develop as simple solutions, dictated by necessity. Not surprisingly, in a city like New York, where wants outweigh resources, space is tight, competition is fierce, and time is of the essence, one is forced to be inventive. Conceived with the mission of providing exposure for under-recognized and young, emerging artists, the Brooklyn-based art institution Pierogi 2000 has survived and thrived in part by virtue of creative problem solving. Its "eureka" moment: the conception of the now famous Pierogi Flat Files—wide, shallow stacks of drawers housing portfolios of flat or near-flat, small to medium-sized artworks. In 1994 Joe Amrhein opened the small gallery on what was then a fairly desolate street in Williamsburg. The explosion of the neighborhood into a thriving cultural hub over the past few years is the stuff of legend. (Image the West Bottoms filled to maximum capacity with resident artists, hip bars, performance venues, video lounges, coffee shops, restaurants, and artist-run galleries). But back in the day, Williamsburg, while home to many working artists, had less art-going street traffic than the Crossroads, and the square-footage of Pierogi amounted to about a fourth of that of the Dirt. Amrhein, an artist himself, had lots of artist friends—among them many of the early settlers of the area who have gone on to get their dues (Bruce Pearson, James Siena, David C. Scher, Amy Sillman, Roxy Paine, and Jane Fine among them). So the flatfiles, which would establish the space as the apex of the Williamsburg art community—and in fact the emerging New York art scene—were invented as a means to provide exposure for artists and to optimize Pierogi's resources. If the traffic to Williamsburg was limited, at least Pierogi could offer enough goods to give a visitor an eyeful. And the work could be inexpensive. And the work would sell itself. And the viewer could, in effect, curate his/her own viewing experience. And the cost of maintaining a large amount of work (containable in a small space) would be minimal. And the artists could therefore get an unusually large cut of the sales, and thus would develop strong loyalties to the space. And curators would recognize the gallery as a resource, where they could see the work of dozens of artists at once and "discover" someone. And artists would thus be banging on the door to get their work in. And Pierogi would grow to be seen as a tremendous source of exciting new work. And, inspired by Pierogi's success, many more galleries with do-it-yourself ethics would open nearby. And Williamsburg would come to be seen as the new art center of the city. According to critic and curator Bill Arning (responsible for Neither/Nor at Grand Arts a few years ago), the files "proved a perfect catalyst to make the manic creativity of the Brooklyn art world visible to the powers that be across the river in Manhattan. Formerly Brooklyn-phobic collectors, critics, and curators were lined up on Sunday afternoons to enjoy the time-consuming experience of perusing the drawers." So in 2001 the flatfiles are a hot commodity, the traveling version containing roughly 3,000 works by some 300 artists. What better way to export an astonishing volume of work to sites around the world? Over the past few years the files have traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, Gasworks in London, the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and most recently to the POST Gallery in Los Angeles, where a number of L.A. artists (most of them familiar to K.C. through the Artspace's L.A. show last fall) were incorporated. The Show: To provide an immediate visual referent, Amrhein, who was in town for the installation and opening of the show, hung a small selection of works from the files on one wall, salon-style. Extracted from their portfolio contexts, where one can really jump into the artist's mind through a series of works, these tend to look a bit of a mish-mosh. Additionally, a few dozen larger works (too big for the slim drawers) line the gallery, giving one plenty to look at before even getting to the files themselves. While this installation provides a "way in" to the show—introducing artists whom one might then seek out in the files, and giving a sense of their diversity—the work on the walls is often less engaging than the more intimate objects in the files. For those wishing to sit back and relax, a video file contains dozens of tapes ready to view. (Be sure to check out Matt Morello's Sitcoms, which includes actual clips of Bewitched or The Munsters with Immanuel Kant or Jean Paul Sartre spliced in as co-stars, as well as tapes by Standard & Poor, David Brody, and Eve Sussman). Then there are the three pristine white stacks of drawers themselves. Alphabetized lists of all artists sit on top, with drawer numbers indicating the location of their portfolios. White cotton gloves are provided. The rest is left to the viewer. Choose familiar names or begin at random, pull out a portfolio, lay it on the files' foldout countertop, and look at your leisure. I would advise visiting several times and leaving yourself plenty of time. You'll never get through all of the work, but guaranteed your viewing experience will be different from that of anyone else. Bring a friend, as you will want to share your discoveries. There is something inherently magical about this experience of holding drawings in your hands. For the non-artist, it might feel like a forbidden pleasure, touching an original artwork which one is used to experiencing framed on a gallery wall. It's also a bit like making studio visits, without the social aspect and nervous artist nearby. Further, small works on paper have a lovely intimacy that is well suited to this sort of quiet, slow viewing. Opening a portfolio is like opening a package, each containing small gifts, the element of surprise and discovery ever present. The vast quantity and high quality of the work here offer not only a delightful viewing experience, but also represents a tremendous resource for local artists and arts professionals. What are artists in New York making? How does it relate to what is happening in Kansas City? It would be impossible for me to even to begin a meaningful critique of the files' contents here. Just a few highlights include Tam Van Tran's surprising little worlds created of whiteout, ink, straight pins, and bits of silver foil; Brad Kahlhammer's expressionistic stream-of-consciousness explosions.; Gillie Holmes' collages, book pages, and blacked-out photographs; Nicole Eisenman's smart, hilarious ink drawings and watercolors which include sendups of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon; William Pope L.'s painted Pop-Tarts; Karen Arm's vibrant, precise, intimate universes of color and pattern; Katie Merz's elegant, painterly poems combining text and image; Chris Doyle's exquisite miniature watercolors of suburban homes; and Angela Wyman's paintings on paper of long legged ladies whose polka-dotted, umbrella-like or absurdly ballooning skirts remind one of Alice in Wonderland. Kansas City Flat Files: Perhaps in the future every city will have its own set of flatfiles, and we will rotate them around the country so we can see what artists from Anchorage to Omaha are doing. Toward this end, the Artspace has assembled a Kansas City Flatfile, installed in its Project Room. Like its progenitor, our file includes portfolios of flat or relatively flat works by a range of active local artists, from Allan Winkler to Jesse Small, Judi Ross to Ke Sook Lee, Deanna Dikemen to Derek Porter. Among the best: intricate burned pyrographs by Susan White; delightful, text-based chance drawings by Christopher Leitch; Original Drawings by Johnny Naugahyde—complete with yellow carbon copies; fabric covered and pattern-painted 45-rpm vinyl records by Nate Fors; color photographs of Las Vegas weddings, backyard barbecues, and KU basketball crowds by Michael Sinclair; and paintings on paper by David Ford including a green-jacketed, varnished Mao inscribed with the words baby eater. The juxtaposition of the New York and Kansas City flat files provides a perfect opportunity to make comparisons. True—the work from New York is more abundant, more consistent in quality, and overall somewhat more challenging. It tends to push more on a conceptual level, feeling rather sharper and often more critically significant Yet, there are similarities between artists here and from New York, and it is interesting to draw connections. Hair Piece portraits, for example, by Tammi Kennedy, which suspend wisps of hair between carefully layered matrices of scotch tape, relate formally to Shari Mendelson's scotch tape, ink, foil, and varnish collages on vellum. The layered abstract "paintings" of Jim Brinsfield, which incorporate tinted Plexiglas, tape magic marker, and foam core, and of Rachel Hayes, who uses Plexi and fabric, feel akin to Ruth Root's colorful cut-paper assemblages of paint chips, paint, and tinted acetate. (A painting on canvas by Root, hung on one wall, similarly plays with the language of abstractions—and the impossibility of its "pureness"—as a tiny, burning cigarette pokes through a colorful formalist grid.) Adriane Herman's ink-jet prints find a nostalgic counterpart in the titles of Joel Adas, while Brian Reeves' satirical Slop Art advertisements/commentaries relate to the charming "fake" postage stamps, packaging and propaganda of William Graef. As comments on the gallery/museum experience, Diane Henk's reworked exhibition invitations, with collaged slogans reading "snobs in the gallery" or "loners on exhibit in the crowded gallery" find a counterpart in Dana Kane's display of Museum of Modern Art wall labels, which function as stand-ins for real works by Rothko, Picasso, Weston, and the like. These are but a few. For those with the urge to buy, the Artspace can provide contact information for Pierogi 2000, and for Kansas City artists directly. KATE HACKMAN February 2001 The Kansas City Star Uncovering the unframed; Exhibit of flatfiles presents works on paper of relative unknowns The strain and uncertainty of making a living as an artist can hardly be exaggerated, and nowhere is art world competition more intense than in New York, Joe Amrhein discovered that when he moved his studio from Los Angeles to New York 12 years ago. Six struggling years later, he took a step that changed his life and career—and that of many other artists. Tired of seeing artists marginalized, vilified, or ignored, Amrhein in 1994 turned his studio into a gallery, Pierogi 2000. Pierogi (named for the pastries and vodka served at gallery openings in the once-Polish neighborhood) functions as an alternative space that sponsors work by hundreds of unknown artists working outside of the mainstream. Set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Pierogi now has flatfiles (drawers of folders containing unframed works on paper) by almost 600 artists. In terms of sheer numbers and diversity, Williamsburg contains, according to The Village Voice, "the biggest tribal gathering of artists in the history of the world." In just a few years Pierogi has become a must-see for serious curators and collectors. (continues) ELISABETH KIRSCH February 11, 2001



	P I E R O G I 2 0 0 0 177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144 noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york