ART
Manufactured in Southern California by self-taught sculptor Matt McMullen, the dolls' skin-like surface is molded over a pose-able steel armature. Made to order, clients chose one of eight body types ranging from normal to cartoonish. The dolls come complete with three anatomically correct orifices, but she-males and hermaphrodites are also available.
Though letters to the company describe the dolls as "naturally beautiful" and the sex as "the best ever," Dorfman's pictures tell another story. Invited into the homes of satisfied owners, she artfully uses their private fantasies to question relationships in general. Words like, "pathetic", "repulsive", "tender" and "touching" come to mind as you view the subtle yet disturbing photos.
We see, for instance, a man holding his doll's well-manicured hand, as he snuggles up to her lifeless breast. In another picture, a man sips coffee, while in the foreground his smiling doll is ready for action-dress pulled up, legs apart. Some images can only be described as bizarre, such as that of the overweight man eating breakfast; his doll, dressed like a child, sits awkwardly nearby.
Clearly designed for sex, the objects also operate as passive companions. In one of the few pictures featuring a woman owner, we see her in a messy kitchen playing Scrabble and having drinks with her doll, dressed as a nurse; a boy, presumably her child, watches.
Dorfman also went to the doll factory, and has combined shots of facial choices into a large-framed series. Some dolls have big hair, others long straight hair. Some smile, others coo; still others pose with mouths open and their tongues hanging out. Looking like android prostitutes, these images question how far we've come while asking how far we'll go.
Edwynn Houk Gallery, 745 5th Ave. (betw. 57th & 58th Sts.), 212-750-7070; Tues.-Sat., 11-6, free.
-Julia Morton
As a parallel to The Gates, unveiled in Central Park last week, the Chelsea Art Museum is sponsoring an exhibition of 110 photographs by Wolfgang Volz.
Volz of course is the official photographer of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the husband-and-wife team responsible for the Central Park project. In fact, much of this exhibit serves as a chronicle of the many bizarre undertakings over which the duo has presided throughout their careers, including the positioning of 3100 umbrellas throughout California and Japan as well as wrapping such monuments as Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Germany with synthetic fabrics.
Fortunately, the show does include work that's not tied to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. But unfortunately, whereas his commissioned pictures are dutiful, if sometimes uninspired, Volz's landscape photography is woefully subpar. Press materials accompanying the exhibit contend that the landscapes are presented in a "dialogue" with his pictures of the art projects, which of course is artspeak for saying that the photographs are completely unrelated. One photograph depicts visitors to a UFO study standing in front of a pyramid in Egypt; it sits across from an image of a solar energy plant in Italy. What's more, the photograph of the UFO study participants-which has every reason to be interesting-looks like a still from an X-Files episode. Even when Volk does succeed, as in a picture of swirling clouds above a highway in New Mexico, he never manages to draw a connection between that picture and any of the ones that have come before.
Only rarely does one get a glimpse of what this exhibit aspires to be. In one photograph, a group of "wrapped" trees resembles gigantic, otherwordly mushrooms so preposterous that they appear to be taken from Alice in Wonderland. If only Volz had some sense of parody, some deeper sense of the absurd, he might have captured the bizarre, tragicomic world brought to life by Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work. That would have been "man-made" indeed.
The Chelsea Art Museum, 556 W. 22nd St. (11th Ave), 212-255-0719; Tues.-Sat., 10-6, $6, $3 st./s.c.
-Travis St. Clair
Walls can provide privacy, comfort and protection, but they can also create boundaries that are hard to overcome. So artist Emily Katrencik, 29, is eating one. Starting on Jan. 1, Katrencik began ingesting 1.956 inches of sheet-rock wall per day. For 41 days she will continue to eat the wall in LMAKprojects' new gallery space in Williamsburg. Part artist's lab and part living space, the wall Katrencik is consuming actually separates the gallery space from director Louky Keijsers' bathroom. "So it's really intimate," Keijsers said. But Katrencik isn't eating the wall alone. Visitors can also participate by eating bread made with minerals extracted from the wall. The artist, who has a masters of science degree from M.I.T. in visual studies, has eaten walls before. In 1999, she ate part of one at the Carpenter Center, a building designed by Le Corbusier at Harvard.
LMAKprojects Gallery, 60 N. 6th St. (betw. Kent & Wythe Aves.), Williamsburg, 718-599-0089; Fri.-Mon., 1-6, free.
-Ellen Keohane
Jane Lund's realistic pastel portraits and still-lifes are remarkable. She works on one piece at time, and takes up to 18 months to complete it. Beginning in 1970, Lund began to slowly reveal her family and friends, objects and personal symbols. In a series of self-portraits, Lund ages as she refers to her mortality in works such as Self-portrait with Skull. As seductive as a secret diary, Lund's private thoughts challenge the notion of art as big industry with her slow but sure hand.
Forum Gallery, 745 5th Ave., 4th & 5th fls. (betw. 57th & 58th Sts.), 212-355-4545; Tues.-Sat., 10-5:30, free.
-Julia Morton
It took 20 years of hard research to compile the photos featured in Throckmorton's exhibition of Tina Modotti and Edward Weston.
Weston was Modotti's photography teacher and lover when the two moved to post-revolutionary Mexico in the mid-1920s. While Weston developed his spare style based on Modernist theory, Modotti, moved by the plight of the peasants, captured the spirit of change.
The show highlights both the artistic and temperamental differences. Modotti only photographed for seven years before political activism consumed her life. As a result, she is not widely known; these few pictures are a rare treasure.
Throckmorton Fine Art, 145 E. 57th St., 3rd fl. (betw. Lexington & 3rd Aves.), 212-223-1059; Tues.-Sat., 11-5, free.
-Julia Morton
Okay, so it's not technically a gate. However, built of gilded wrought iron nearly 250 years ago, measuring in at over 40 feet tall, this "rejas" bears far more of a likeness than those orange curtains. And with all the field trips and Eurotrash temporarily diverted to the park, now's the perfect time to gawk at ironmaster Rafael Amezua's unparalleled craftsmanship.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave. (82nd St.), 212-535-7710; Tues.-Sun. 9:30-5:30, Fri.-Sat. 9:30-9, $15, $7 st., $10 s.c.
-Sean Manning