Ten for Ten: Nicole Mauser

For the end of 2010, Art or Idiocy? has invited ten guests to each contribute a list of ten items. Join us each week as a new list is published. Earlier contributors include Steve Ruiz and Danille Paz.

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Nicole Mauser is a painter currently living and working in Kansas City. She has an upcoming exhibition and teaching fellowship at The University of Chicago’s Department of Visual Arts in 2011. She is a culture-hungry carnivore.




NICOLE MAUSER: TEN IN TWO-K-TEN

1. Flamenco at the Berlin Philharmonie
On my way to a Rudolph Stinglel performance and installation at Neue Nationalgalerie, I crammed into the elevator with a group of French students. They were running late to a Flamenco performance in the same Kultureforum complex. They asked directions and I obliged. When I realized I had the month and day mixed up for the Stingel event (I forgot the detail that the day is listed before month in EU), I tagged along with them. The performance blew my mind. I was not expecting the dance to be such a language of fierce sadness. The final performer was channeling the character and death so deeply, she was moved to tears during the performance. It brought the house down. Just like working in the studio, being flexible to being waylaid can really pay off. Best $10 euro I ever spent.

2. The Red Shoes (1948)
Originally done in brilliant Technicolor, the film recently enjoyed screenings across the country as it has been remastered and released by Criterion after a seven-year effort. Based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale, this film is “quintessential backstage drama.” I wonder if we will be seeing Aronofsky drawing from it in the forthcoming Black Swan.

3. IMA 100 Acres
The opening day for this park was electric. I appreciated the unexpected austerity, integrated landscape, and local fauna of Alfredo Jaar’s contribution. The IMA curator in charge of this undertaking, Lisa Freiman, will be representing the US with Puerto Rican duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla at the upcoming Venice Bienale.


Berlin Philharmonie = Awesome Acoustics • Moira Shearer as Victoria Page in The Red Shoes 1948 • View from Alfredo Jaar’s Park of the Laments at The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s 100 Acres

4. Kathryn Andrews (Rubell Collection)
Andrews was one of those artists that if you don’t know the work when you finally encounter it, feel blindsided. Her piece, Baldessari, composed of mirror, steel, and reflection of Goya Series: THE SAME ELSEWHERE, 1997 by
John Baldessari was stunning.

5. Lesley Vance (Art Basel)
Pay no mind to the reproduction; these little paintings are sheer knockouts in person. I’m really interested in her dive into a specific period of painting’s history and usage of the photograph as mediator for still life and process.

6. Sigrid Sangstrom (NADA)
The first time I encountered Sangstrom’s work, it was a large-scale piece that attracted my attention yet ultimately underwhelmed. The next day we returned and the booth had switched up their inventory (as many did to stay
fresh to repeat customers). The smaller works slowed me down, posed more questions, and kept my attention. Long live landscape.

7. West Gallery (Art Basel)
This booth at Art Basel Miami was a smart and challenging site-specific installation by artist Jasper Niens. Inside, our reward was a series of strong formalist works by Jan van der Ploeg and other Netherland-based artists.


Kathryn Andrews • Baldessari • 2010 • mirror, steel & reflection of Goya Series: THE SAME ELSEWHERE, 1997 by John Baldessari • 75 x 60 inches • Leslie Vance • untitled (39) • 2010 • oil on linen • 16 x 12 inches • View from inside West booth at Art Basel Miami


8. Do You Read Me?!
Located conveniently near numerous gallery spaces on Auguststraße, I was repeatedly sucked back into this bookstore. A fantastic space to discover new periodicals such as Gentlewoman, and get caught up on the latest Text Zer Kunst (Btw- did anyone else read the Painting Issue?). It’s like a larger version of Chicago’s own Golden Age. Thanks to DYRM?! my new guilty
pleasure is, Apartamento. *(A top ten list is not going to even scratch the surface of painting in Berlin. The Gemäldegalerie left me awestruck after three visits in one week. If you have the opportunity, you must go.)

9. Indiana Dunes State Park: Escape from Chicago
The Dunes State Park has a serious, unique, and uncanny beauty. Spare yourself a toll-road drive and take the South Shore train straight to the park. Spend the day communing with nature and do the dune hike. This secluded park has immense and wild beaches squeezed between two steel factories pumping out bucolic puffy white clouds. It gives way to a decidedly apocalyptic mood. On the woodsy trails I felt as if I was in Mathias Poledna’s lush Crystal Palace piece. Enjoy!


Tobey Albright & Claire Michelson perusing periodicals inside, Do You Read Me?! • Indiana Dunes State Park • Everyday abstraction in KCMO

10. Homeless Abstraction, On Repeat, Blue Highways
I’m thrilled to be back in KCMO working on a new body of work and haunting my favorite spaces for nurturing art (Grand Arts, Dolphin, Review, Nerman, Charlotte Street, and many more). During my daily commute, I pass this painted image on the front door of a provisional church while listening to John McLaughlin’s Peace Piece. I am enamored by this architectural non sequitur. Does anyone else notice it? What was the urgency that caused it to pop up? Is it religious or political? Was it always there? It is part the fabric of everyday. A book that left a lasting impact this year was not theoretical but personal, somber, and multi-layered. If you are into Americana, philosophical introspection, and taking off on road trips in the face of disintegrating
relationships, then dust off this eighties best seller: Blue Highways.

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