Crowding in to see vibrating bottles and such. — Photos by Mimi Luse

Bushwick saw it’s own installment of the Apartment Show phenomenon two Sundays ago. Organized by artists Denise Kupferschmidt and Joshua Smith, The Apartment Show is a one-night-only show series installed in a different apartment each time.

Past shows have been in Clinton Hill, Greenpoint, and in an exceptional case, to really confuse you, one Apartment Show this Spring was held at an actual gallery (Artists Space). Titled Real Love, the four-person group show this Sunday was held on 505 Johnson, in the new studio space that Kupferschmidt and Smith share. The show’s title, Kupferschmidt said, ”came from song lyrics, although not from the Mary J. song. And as usual, there is no underlying curatorial thematic, as Joshua and I do not identify as curators, but rather artists/organizers.”

Art. Click to see more.

Liz Markus, who can name The Whitney Museum of American Art as one of her collectors, showed two new works in Real Love. Previous series by the artist were lucid pop-political references painted in trippy acrylic washes on unprimed canvases (in the manner of Kenneth Noland).  Markus, who once had Nancy Reagan as a satirical muse, and who can paint a scathing George Plimpton in what seems like three quick strokes of the brush, has turned her gaze to Picasso. She copied one of his pieces, and painted a Robert Doisneau portrait of the legend for another work.

“I was very taken with the Picasso show at Gagosian in June and have since been exploring his work and his life," said markus. "I’ve always been obsessed with the canon of modern art and in that sense, my interest in Picasso is similar to my interest in Kenneth Noland.”

Two source photos she sent me illuminate how deftly Markus reinterprets the images that effect her. Her paintings are loose-lipped translations, looking very off-the cuff in a sophisticated way.

On a pedestal in the center of the room, Andres Laracuente’s contribution to Real Love was a simple glass bottle bound with three vibrating rubber cock rings. Laracuente is known (i.e., he has been invited to speak at MIT, if that counts for enough) for his boundary-testing performances in which he invites Craigslist curios to tickle his feet or to attend erotic balloon popping sessions. More recent works have been sculptural performances dealing with barely perceptible material and atmospheric changes. The bottle vibrated slightly as gallerygoers walked around; and as people slowly filled the room, raising the temperature with their body heat, water droplets began to condense at its top.

One work by Kyle Knodell was a generic frame holding a 19th-century print. The print depicted a door-to-door merchant hucking wares to some ladies and the glass enclosing it was dotted with bits of what looked like painted tape. I walked up to the work, and started talking to a fellow standing next to it, who, though he may or may not have been Knodell (he would not confirm with me) did know a lot about the piece. He explained that the frame contained a print the artist had borrowed from the New York Public Library, and that hypothetically, (I guess if the show were longer) the print will be replaced with a new NYPL-borrowed image every week. Then, much like the merchant in the antique print itself, he tried to maybe sell me the work — maybe.

The experience brought up issues of authorship, public access, and the ownership of art.  Had I bought the work from this man, would I have been able to "own" the work from the NYPL?  Do either the work or the artist truly need to exist in order to make a sale? As for the tape dots on the glass of the frames, he said it was sort of the artists’ signature motif. Did this function as way of preventing the viewer’s access to a sincere, or face value, reading of the image?

Amanda Friedman’s works used a crayola palette to make playfully re-invented topographies. Index of Valleys was a personal interpretation of specific valleys. “[I] make drawings, prints, paintings and installations that play with the way forms and objects sit on surfaces," says Friedman in her statement. "[My] recent work investigates repetition, proxy, mark making and place.”

Real Love was on display for one night only, on Sunday October 11 from 7-10 pm at 505 Johnson Avenue #3

See apartmentshow.net for more Apartment Shows in Bushwick and beyond.