I try to do the Chelsea zigzag when I know that nobody's there. Thanks to an early morning dentist appointment, I was able to see some shows before noon on Tuesday (which is most galleries' Monday).
Go, Gagosian, go! Continuing their trend of hanging crowd-baiting, museum-style exhibitions of significant deceased male artists, the blue-chip mother ship has two powerhouse exhibitions running semi-concurrently at their 21st & 24th Street spaces. Claude Monet: Late Work is at 21st Street, nearly at the same time that they showed the late work of Pablo Picasso in the same location last year. Whereas every other gallery I visited was virtually empty, the Monet show was full of meandering tour groups. The paintings were lit under low lights, which created a strange feeling of old-world, bourgeois, sumptuous domestic interiority. I thought about Amy Sillman recent zine-riffs on how the light bulb changed painting (how they were made and seen), and since most of Monet's paintings were painted en plein air, it seemed all the more ridiculous to exhibit them under such Zurbaranian twilight.
Gagosian's 24th Street space is showing Roy Lichtenstein: Still Lifes, an excellent, thematic survey of the Pop master's work. It's worth seeing his deceptively cool paintings in person, if not just to revel in their Ben-Day dot symphonies and seemingly inexhaustible stylistic variations. His foundation's website provides, among other things, an incredibly comprehensive chronological archive of Lichtenstein's lifework.
Speaking of prolific Pop artists, the still-living (and, arguably, underrated) John Wesley is exhibiting paintings from the early 70's at Fredericks & Freiser in a show entitled May I Cut In? Like Lichtenstein, Wesley has pared-down his style and palette, though Wesley's subject choices are far more omnivorous than Lichtenstein's. It's worth noting that Wesley was a friend of the late Donald Judd, and that one of Judd's stipulations for The Chinati Foundation museum was that Wesley's paintings are put on permanent display. Some may also recall that Wesley was "commissioned to create the visual identity for The Armory Show (in) 2006."
Patrick Lee's inaugural exhibition Deadly Friends at Ameringer/McEnergy/Yohe included multiple photorealist graphite-on-paper drawings of thuggish men he took pictures of while in Los Angeles. One of the drawings reminded me of a mugshot I had just seen on The Huffington Post, which confirmed for me that people really do get tattoos like that.
Leslie Wayne's small, jewel-like paintings at Jack Shainman had me titling and dipping my head to thoroughly scrutinize all angles of her luscious, color-curl, Richter-inflected, impasto-happy work. In the side gallery, Jonathan Seliger's Spoils featured an oversized enameled-bronze replica of an America's Choice milk carton. It reminded me of a more versimilitudinous cousin of Robert Gober's mammoth, rather nightmarish reproduction of a Farina box.
Like Gagosian, David Zwirner has also been dedicating space to work by significant deceased male artists. Currently, Edward Kienholz's installation Roxys (1960-61) is on view. It's a remake of a brothel in Las Vegas, and it curiously shares an aesthetic with my apartment (which is full of street-culled trappings). Also curious was that, in the small section of Roxys that viewers could actually step into, hung a replica of the Maxfield Parrish painting recently sold by Mel Gibson at auction.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Calm Before the Dreck Storm
It's often a fallacy to pass judgment on something - particularly an artwork - when one hasn't seen it in person and/or in its entirety. To condemn something when you've only seen its fragments is, by definition, presumptuous.
Roundly condemning Bravo's "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" before experiencing its nine-episode run is, I think, a perfect exception to the above rule.
There is, thankfully and of course, a chance that the show will not fucking suck. If "Work of Art" transcends its form, participants, and self-aggrandizing hype, I'll be the first to sing its praises and gorge on bitter humble pie.
What "fragments" have been offered to us, either by Bravo or those taking part in "Work of Art?" Given that all the participants (including the artist-applicants who were not selected to be on the show) have signed confidentiality agreements, one could argue that everything we've seen/heard from the participants has been corralled by Bravo's legal tentacles. The interviews/articles with judges/"industry luminaries" have offered only flattering, PR-style portraits rather than anything of substance. Significantly, judge/critic/Facebook-despot Jerry Saltz states here that he "wanted to perform criticism in public to show that it’s not an elitist practice." This "mission" was echoed by co-producer Sarah Jessica Parker during a "Work of Art" press-conference, with Parker stating her goal to "change the idea that art is for the rarefied and elite." This quote comes from an article on judge/collector/gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohaytn, who cements/triangulates this sentiment with this effusive quote: “So the idea of a television show that reaches a broad-base audience and gives people the tools with which to talk about art was just irresistible.”
The homogeneity of the virtues of "Work of Art" as expressed by its judges and producers is telling. So far, the contestants (accepted or otherwise) and excited prospective viewers have shared this idea of how "Work of Art" will somehow serve to educate the general public on how the "art world" functions. The show will demystify and democratize an obfuscated and elitist subculture for the greater good. What unadulterated hogwash and pandering propaganda.
In another Art Fag City comment thread, I'm trying to fight the Kool-Aid-drinking with logic, chutzpah, and weighty theoretical treatises. I recognize the Sisyphean task of doing this (and the absolute futility of fighting reality-television with theory), but here are links to the readings again:
The Weak Universalism by Boris Groys
The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard
I'm going to recant a bit from my opening statements: sometimes you can discern the value of something without experiencing its "gestalt." Actually, one might argue that all of our experiences are with fragments, and that the notion of being able to truly experience wholeness is what's fallacious. Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project is an embodiment of this, and one can quickly see the significance of this famously unfinished work by engaging with any one of its pieces (even if they are poorly reproduced). Lacunae can be enlightening. The pieces of "Work of Art" reveal it to be a monstrous thing grandstanding as some kind of progressive, aspirational totality. The pieces of The Arcades Project are willfully incomplete, and, unlike "Work of Art," their pieces shimmer.
Roundly condemning Bravo's "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" before experiencing its nine-episode run is, I think, a perfect exception to the above rule.
There is, thankfully and of course, a chance that the show will not fucking suck. If "Work of Art" transcends its form, participants, and self-aggrandizing hype, I'll be the first to sing its praises and gorge on bitter humble pie.
What "fragments" have been offered to us, either by Bravo or those taking part in "Work of Art?" Given that all the participants (including the artist-applicants who were not selected to be on the show) have signed confidentiality agreements, one could argue that everything we've seen/heard from the participants has been corralled by Bravo's legal tentacles. The interviews/articles with judges/"industry luminaries" have offered only flattering, PR-style portraits rather than anything of substance. Significantly, judge/critic/Facebook-despot Jerry Saltz states here that he "wanted to perform criticism in public to show that it’s not an elitist practice." This "mission" was echoed by co-producer Sarah Jessica Parker during a "Work of Art" press-conference, with Parker stating her goal to "change the idea that art is for the rarefied and elite." This quote comes from an article on judge/collector/gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohaytn, who cements/triangulates this sentiment with this effusive quote: “So the idea of a television show that reaches a broad-base audience and gives people the tools with which to talk about art was just irresistible.”
The homogeneity of the virtues of "Work of Art" as expressed by its judges and producers is telling. So far, the contestants (accepted or otherwise) and excited prospective viewers have shared this idea of how "Work of Art" will somehow serve to educate the general public on how the "art world" functions. The show will demystify and democratize an obfuscated and elitist subculture for the greater good. What unadulterated hogwash and pandering propaganda.
In another Art Fag City comment thread, I'm trying to fight the Kool-Aid-drinking with logic, chutzpah, and weighty theoretical treatises. I recognize the Sisyphean task of doing this (and the absolute futility of fighting reality-television with theory), but here are links to the readings again:
The Weak Universalism by Boris Groys
The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard
I'm going to recant a bit from my opening statements: sometimes you can discern the value of something without experiencing its "gestalt." Actually, one might argue that all of our experiences are with fragments, and that the notion of being able to truly experience wholeness is what's fallacious. Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project is an embodiment of this, and one can quickly see the significance of this famously unfinished work by engaging with any one of its pieces (even if they are poorly reproduced). Lacunae can be enlightening. The pieces of "Work of Art" reveal it to be a monstrous thing grandstanding as some kind of progressive, aspirational totality. The pieces of The Arcades Project are willfully incomplete, and, unlike "Work of Art," their pieces shimmer.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Curtail Cursing Curators?
What the f is a curator? It's a contested term. My smarter side knows that they're important, and that I've been known to engage with the practice myself (I've even done some spontaneous curation here, twice). My bitch-ass side has some issues with curators: there are too many of them, they're pretentious, they treat artists like peons, they chaperone Lady Gaga and interview James Franco, they inexplicably involve themselves with "Ltd. Edition Açaí Damage-Protecting Toning Mist" while concurrently being billed as the "curator" of a knowingly vulgar display of institutional reach-around, they have intense accents and names I cannot pronounce...
Ultimately, I'm having trouble with curators because, I think, it's an ill-defined, grossly overused, and generally misunderstood word. I'm wrestling with it, and others appear to be wrestling with it, too. I need to believe that word-wrestling is meaningful, and I want to believe that curators -- and artists -- are really invested in, well, something.
Hyperbole aside, there are some outstanding articles in e-flux's recent journal that engage in some meaningful word-wrestling pertaining to issues involving curators, artists, and all things in between. Thanks again to Art Fag City for the thoughtful posting that directed this malcontent to these articles, particularly Anton Vidokle's "Art Without Artists?" and Dieter Roelstraete's (gloriously alliterative) "Ten Tentative Tenets."
Ultimately, I'm having trouble with curators because, I think, it's an ill-defined, grossly overused, and generally misunderstood word. I'm wrestling with it, and others appear to be wrestling with it, too. I need to believe that word-wrestling is meaningful, and I want to believe that curators -- and artists -- are really invested in, well, something.
Hyperbole aside, there are some outstanding articles in e-flux's recent journal that engage in some meaningful word-wrestling pertaining to issues involving curators, artists, and all things in between. Thanks again to Art Fag City for the thoughtful posting that directed this malcontent to these articles, particularly Anton Vidokle's "Art Without Artists?" and Dieter Roelstraete's (gloriously alliterative) "Ten Tentative Tenets."
Monday, May 24, 2010
My Reading Problem
I have trouble reading in public places. I've tried to go to coffee shops with the sole intention of reading a book, but I end up feeling exposed and cliché for reading a book in a coffee shop. Whenever I go to a park to read in some field, I quickly get annoyed with how bright the pages are under sunlight. When I reconfigure myself on the park's bench, I start to feel something like an outdoors-version of the aforementioned "exposed and cliché" coffee shop syndrome.
Reading while in transit, particularly while in mass-transit, makes me nauseous and distracted. Subway-reading doesn't make me as nauseous as car or train reading, but I usually only "read" on subways so I can fix my gaze on one spot rather than risk making eye-contact with the wrong rider or rereading a Dr. Zizmor campaign for the millionth time. I become so aware that I'm reading to prevent myself from doing other things that I can't follow what I'm supposed to be reading.
I've been trying to read Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House during my commutes, and I've actually succeeded in getting through a few stories. I think this has everything to do with Vonnegut's schizoid style and the fact that I'm reading a collection of short stories, which are arguably more manageable than long stories. The only book that I've read almost exclusively on the subway was Naked Lunch, and that's probably because I gave up trying to make sense of the book after the first ten pages.
I like to look and see what other people are reading when I'm on the subway. There are always people reading small bibles. There are a surprising amount of people who appear to be writing poetry, songs, or diary entries. Tom Clancy is everywhere, as well as books that belong to the science-fiction or fantasy genres. A lot of people have been reading Push these days -- I even once saw two complete strangers sitting side by side who were both reading Push, each completely unaware that they were spontaneously engaging in a serendipitous, subterranean Push collective reading/performance. There's also a lot of Sudoku, word-searches, xeroxed-essays, kids doing homework, teachers grading papers, and people looking at statistics. I assume that anyone reading an e-book is reading the same thing, because that's the effect that people reading e-books give off: generic anonymity.
Today, someone on the subway was reading the textbook Elastic Stable Intramedullary Nailing (ESIN) in Children. I assume that the reader was a doctor. I also can't comprehend how or why they were reading this unfortunately-titled, unwieldy text while standing in the middle of a crowded subway (I'm talking the 42nd Street stop on the downtown 4 express train). What did they expect to glean in such a context? If they were in fact a doctor, was that not the worst time and place to be catching up on such serious information? The idea that they weren't a medical practitioner makes the whole scenario all the more frightening to me.
Reading while in transit, particularly while in mass-transit, makes me nauseous and distracted. Subway-reading doesn't make me as nauseous as car or train reading, but I usually only "read" on subways so I can fix my gaze on one spot rather than risk making eye-contact with the wrong rider or rereading a Dr. Zizmor campaign for the millionth time. I become so aware that I'm reading to prevent myself from doing other things that I can't follow what I'm supposed to be reading.
I've been trying to read Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House during my commutes, and I've actually succeeded in getting through a few stories. I think this has everything to do with Vonnegut's schizoid style and the fact that I'm reading a collection of short stories, which are arguably more manageable than long stories. The only book that I've read almost exclusively on the subway was Naked Lunch, and that's probably because I gave up trying to make sense of the book after the first ten pages.
I like to look and see what other people are reading when I'm on the subway. There are always people reading small bibles. There are a surprising amount of people who appear to be writing poetry, songs, or diary entries. Tom Clancy is everywhere, as well as books that belong to the science-fiction or fantasy genres. A lot of people have been reading Push these days -- I even once saw two complete strangers sitting side by side who were both reading Push, each completely unaware that they were spontaneously engaging in a serendipitous, subterranean Push collective reading/performance. There's also a lot of Sudoku, word-searches, xeroxed-essays, kids doing homework, teachers grading papers, and people looking at statistics. I assume that anyone reading an e-book is reading the same thing, because that's the effect that people reading e-books give off: generic anonymity.
Today, someone on the subway was reading the textbook Elastic Stable Intramedullary Nailing (ESIN) in Children. I assume that the reader was a doctor. I also can't comprehend how or why they were reading this unfortunately-titled, unwieldy text while standing in the middle of a crowded subway (I'm talking the 42nd Street stop on the downtown 4 express train). What did they expect to glean in such a context? If they were in fact a doctor, was that not the worst time and place to be catching up on such serious information? The idea that they weren't a medical practitioner makes the whole scenario all the more frightening to me.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Down in the Dumps
Inspired by Tom Moody's postings of animated gifs and other low-tech digital whirligigs, I took a late-night dive into the scrolling, scintillating world of dump.fm.
I spent the next three hours in what can be imperfectly described as a kind of raging, real-time exquisite corpse exercise combined with a run-of-the-mill chatroom. My inclinations and abilities as an archivist were seized upon and set into an acid-trip-overdrive as I "dumped" various image files (ones I "owned" or grabbed from an image-search) into the psychedelic Siddhartha-stream. It was a magnificently pleasurable and disorienting experience. It's incredible how inclined we are to communicate with images, and how the brain fires-up to create (visual) connections with no real -- or easily definable -- purpose. The speed and voracity of the forum had me dropping images and using search phrases that I should be embarrassed by, but wasn't. Some of my sample search phrases: glitter cake, incredible slug, panther sparkle, spiritual cube, vampire explode.
Looking back, I had an inclination to respond to other people's images with ones that were of equal or superior visual relevance/intensity. Of course, being irreverent and attempting to redirect the stream's apparent "theme" (which, if themes really did coalesce, were the exception rather than the rule) would also become a goal.
In the end, experiencing dump.fm seems ideal to reading any attempt to describe it (which, in my case, is destined to be an exercise in apophenia or pareidolia, pinning me, I suppose, as a pareidoliac). However, there's a great summary & discussion of the site over at Rhizome.org.
You can see my "dumps" here. Unfortunately, you can't see what my images were in response to/conversation with, and please excuse any disturbing and/or NSFW moments!
I spent the next three hours in what can be imperfectly described as a kind of raging, real-time exquisite corpse exercise combined with a run-of-the-mill chatroom. My inclinations and abilities as an archivist were seized upon and set into an acid-trip-overdrive as I "dumped" various image files (ones I "owned" or grabbed from an image-search) into the psychedelic Siddhartha-stream. It was a magnificently pleasurable and disorienting experience. It's incredible how inclined we are to communicate with images, and how the brain fires-up to create (visual) connections with no real -- or easily definable -- purpose. The speed and voracity of the forum had me dropping images and using search phrases that I should be embarrassed by, but wasn't. Some of my sample search phrases: glitter cake, incredible slug, panther sparkle, spiritual cube, vampire explode.
Looking back, I had an inclination to respond to other people's images with ones that were of equal or superior visual relevance/intensity. Of course, being irreverent and attempting to redirect the stream's apparent "theme" (which, if themes really did coalesce, were the exception rather than the rule) would also become a goal.
In the end, experiencing dump.fm seems ideal to reading any attempt to describe it (which, in my case, is destined to be an exercise in apophenia or pareidolia, pinning me, I suppose, as a pareidoliac). However, there's a great summary & discussion of the site over at Rhizome.org.
You can see my "dumps" here. Unfortunately, you can't see what my images were in response to/conversation with, and please excuse any disturbing and/or NSFW moments!
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Hell in a Handbasket
As part of their "going green," "special," and "complete coverage on environment," CNN.com published an article that featured images of the "Top 10 New Species List" released by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The article begins as follows:
A captioned photo gallery of the "top 10 list" is presented at the top of the article, and it's as fascinating and informative as any biology slideshow. However, "top specie" #10, a yam dubbed dioscorea orangeana, was presented with an unusual addition: a pack of Plaza Cigarettes sits clearly and vividly next to the newly-discovered yams, as if it was a newly-discovered form of life, too.
Was this the photographer's solution to showing us the scale of the yams (which appear to be, uh, the size of yams)? And why not use something less biologically-toxic and garishly unnatural than a pack of coffin nails? Given the subject and context of the article, the inclusion of the cigarette pack reads as both an especially resonant gaffe and a perfect illustration of what we do to the planet.
A flat-faced frogfish, bug-eating slug and carnivorous sea sponge are some of the top new species named by scientists.
They appear on a "top 10" list of new species released Saturday amid warnings from the United Nations that the world is not doing enough to protect vulnerable eco-systems.
"Biodiversity loss is moving ecological systems ever closer to tipping point beyond which they will no longer be able to fulfill their vital functions," said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the International Day for Biological Diversity, which is being marked in 11 countries.
A captioned photo gallery of the "top 10 list" is presented at the top of the article, and it's as fascinating and informative as any biology slideshow. However, "top specie" #10, a yam dubbed dioscorea orangeana, was presented with an unusual addition: a pack of Plaza Cigarettes sits clearly and vividly next to the newly-discovered yams, as if it was a newly-discovered form of life, too.
Was this the photographer's solution to showing us the scale of the yams (which appear to be, uh, the size of yams)? And why not use something less biologically-toxic and garishly unnatural than a pack of coffin nails? Given the subject and context of the article, the inclusion of the cigarette pack reads as both an especially resonant gaffe and a perfect illustration of what we do to the planet.
Hot Bullshit
I dunno... Stolen Pieces, however scandalous-seeming, reminds me of people who collect the half-eaten sandwiches of celebrities and sell them on Ebay. Maybe there is something compelling about "masterpiece" crumbs & superstar ort, but at what point do we step back and call it what it is: shameless self-promotion via "subversive" posturing via grubby star-fucking.
Still, I love me some Hot Balls.
Still, I love me some Hot Balls.
Spontaneous Curation II
Some heavy dentistry has me housebound and throbbing. Patti Smith's recent speech at Pratt's graduation ceremony was pure wisdom. More tooth-wisdom (wisdom teeth?) below:
Little Bathers by Rona Pondick
Untitled, 1961 by Lee Bontecou
Between Taxonomy and Communion by Ann Hamilton
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion by Francis Bacon
For the Love of God by Damien Hirst
Forensic Forms by Wangechi Mutu
Cremaster 3 by Matthew Barney
Foam Series by Zhang Huan
And, of course, there's always scrimshaw...
Update: Mysterious commentator Irene Watts posted an excerpt from George Baitaille's The Mouth. Luckily, you can read the rest of the essay here.
Little Bathers by Rona Pondick
Untitled, 1961 by Lee Bontecou
Between Taxonomy and Communion by Ann Hamilton
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion by Francis Bacon
For the Love of God by Damien Hirst
Forensic Forms by Wangechi Mutu
Cremaster 3 by Matthew Barney
Foam Series by Zhang Huan
And, of course, there's always scrimshaw...
Update: Mysterious commentator Irene Watts posted an excerpt from George Baitaille's The Mouth. Luckily, you can read the rest of the essay here.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Unforgettable, That's What You Are
Most people don't care too much about art, let alone an artwork's title. With maybe the exception of The Starry Night (don't forget the The!) and Mona Lisa (which isn't the actual title of the painting), artwork titles just don't seem to adhere long to the public's collective consciousness.
Artists aren't exempt from this trend, either. In fact, many artists fuel the titular-amnesia by laconically and/or arrogantly naming their works Untitled. The default non-title title of Untitled reinforces the general public's belief that art is pretentious absurd bullshit. When artists invoke Untitled, it suggests to me that they're either A) too lazy to come up with a real title, or B) under the impression that their work is ineffable and, subsequently, unnameable (thus reinforcing the popular "pretentious absurd bullshit" sentiment above).
There appears to be an unwritten rule that artists should make their titles short, neat, and otherwise press-release friendly. Manageable titles can make the work of archivists and copy editors easier. Still, adopting the brevity of an ad-jingle's (or slick slogan's) format still doesn't confer their memorability to the reader of succinct artwork titles.
Naturally, there are copious exceptions to the examples above. Artist Barry X Ball has named several of his sculptures with overly, overtly descriptive, stream-of-consciousness titles. For instance:
a sexy little pursed-lipped camouflaged recidivist, petrified and “colorless” (i.e. a grimly-determined rampant yin-yang rock head, looming small) alternately, an interrupted silhouette of indeterminate profile (Lucas Michael)
Cory Arcangel shares Ball's penchant for unusually lengthy titles, although Arcangel's titles are more didactic than ecstatic. Unlike Ball's gleefully verbose titles, Arcangel's double as the exact instructions for recreating the digital prints they're acting as titles for. Case in point:
Photoshop CS: 72 by 110 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient “Spectrum”, mousedown y=1416 x=1000, mouseup y=208 x=42
Arcangel's titles make me wonder about another phenomenon: how many artists title their work primarily (or only) when they have to save an image of it? Rather than keeping the rambling alphanumerics that digital cameras default any image filename into, I will usually title an artwork when I'm forced to label a jpeg of it. I'm sure this has become common practice, but I can't help but see this as a fairly significant shift in how artists are titling their works. Much like how email, texting, Twitter, and other digital forms/formats of communication are altering how/what we write, file-saving and filenaming could mark a paradigm shift in how artist's conceive of their (ultimately forgettable) titles.
Artists aren't exempt from this trend, either. In fact, many artists fuel the titular-amnesia by laconically and/or arrogantly naming their works Untitled. The default non-title title of Untitled reinforces the general public's belief that art is pretentious absurd bullshit. When artists invoke Untitled, it suggests to me that they're either A) too lazy to come up with a real title, or B) under the impression that their work is ineffable and, subsequently, unnameable (thus reinforcing the popular "pretentious absurd bullshit" sentiment above).
There appears to be an unwritten rule that artists should make their titles short, neat, and otherwise press-release friendly. Manageable titles can make the work of archivists and copy editors easier. Still, adopting the brevity of an ad-jingle's (or slick slogan's) format still doesn't confer their memorability to the reader of succinct artwork titles.
Naturally, there are copious exceptions to the examples above. Artist Barry X Ball has named several of his sculptures with overly, overtly descriptive, stream-of-consciousness titles. For instance:
a sexy little pursed-lipped camouflaged recidivist, petrified and “colorless” (i.e. a grimly-determined rampant yin-yang rock head, looming small) alternately, an interrupted silhouette of indeterminate profile (Lucas Michael)
Cory Arcangel shares Ball's penchant for unusually lengthy titles, although Arcangel's titles are more didactic than ecstatic. Unlike Ball's gleefully verbose titles, Arcangel's double as the exact instructions for recreating the digital prints they're acting as titles for. Case in point:
Photoshop CS: 72 by 110 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient “Spectrum”, mousedown y=1416 x=1000, mouseup y=208 x=42
Arcangel's titles make me wonder about another phenomenon: how many artists title their work primarily (or only) when they have to save an image of it? Rather than keeping the rambling alphanumerics that digital cameras default any image filename into, I will usually title an artwork when I'm forced to label a jpeg of it. I'm sure this has become common practice, but I can't help but see this as a fairly significant shift in how artists are titling their works. Much like how email, texting, Twitter, and other digital forms/formats of communication are altering how/what we write, file-saving and filenaming could mark a paradigm shift in how artist's conceive of their (ultimately forgettable) titles.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Eponymous Doppelgängers
I am not these people:
Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin
The internet forced me to invoke my middle name (Patrick), because search-engines are problematically omnivorous and indifferent.
Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin
The internet forced me to invoke my middle name (Patrick), because search-engines are problematically omnivorous and indifferent.
Zeitgeist Zinger
This article by Ben Davis is worth reading, and his indictment of "art world" hackery is especially damning:
"If the art world continues to recycle the same old anti-historic academic bullshit and chirpy gossip then it is going to continue to be a place of intellectual irrelevance and triviality that no one takes seriously besides the people who inhabit it." (Davis)
Update: Conversations on this article continue here and here.
"If the art world continues to recycle the same old anti-historic academic bullshit and chirpy gossip then it is going to continue to be a place of intellectual irrelevance and triviality that no one takes seriously besides the people who inhabit it." (Davis)
Update: Conversations on this article continue here and here.
The Cathectic Archives
In a Borgesian flight of fancy (à la The Book of Imaginary Beings), I authored my own short encyclopedia, The Cathectic Archives. Given that many of the entries refer to other entries, this project was well-suited to be transposed into a website.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Spontaneous Curation I
Siege by Amy Cutler
Close but no Cigar by Nina Chanel Abney
Girl in Water by Roy Lichtenstein
Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity by Yayoi Kusama
Bather/Night by Carroll Dunham
Floral Veins, and Conduits: 006 by Ernesto Caivano
S. City on the Slide by Bryan Rogers
Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp with Soap Bubbles by Dan Fischer
Tan Tan Bo Puking (a.k.a. Gero-Tan) by Takashi Murakami
The Mummy Man by Yuko Shimizu
Close but no Cigar by Nina Chanel Abney
Girl in Water by Roy Lichtenstein
Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity by Yayoi Kusama
Bather/Night by Carroll Dunham
Floral Veins, and Conduits: 006 by Ernesto Caivano
S. City on the Slide by Bryan Rogers
Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp with Soap Bubbles by Dan Fischer
Tan Tan Bo Puking (a.k.a. Gero-Tan) by Takashi Murakami
The Mummy Man by Yuko Shimizu
Monday, May 17, 2010
Things I Forgot to Remember
Words are problems. They're wicked gifts. There are too many of them and you can never know them all. You will die misunderstanding more than you think you have a firm grasp of (which you don't).
I caught a BBC broadcast the other day and learned that lasers were celebrating their fifty-year anniversary. Laser is an acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), and I can't recall ever hearing that before. It bothers me that laser isn't spelled L.A.S.E.R., and that the words hidden in the equally covert acronym make me understand lasers even less.
I was recently amazed to learn that glitch is a Yiddish word -- how funny that something most people associate with the hiccups of high-technology comes from a High German language from the 10th century.
Most people I know understand that using Jew as a verb is pejorative, while no one blinks an eye when someone says that they were gypped.
I've been mispronouncing ostensibly as obstensibly for weeks, and have forced myself to invoke the proper pronunciation by working ostensibly into as many conversations as I possibly can. Bringing new words into one's repertoire requires trial-and-error, misuse, and occasional embarrassment. I attended Catholic School as a child, and naively substituted the lyrics "Round young virgin" (correction: "Round yon virgin") in Silent Silent with "Ground Round Virgin," referring to the restaurant chain where I celebrated a birthday or two.
I'm pleased when reminded that I'm not the only one prone to malapropisms. A quite articulate student of mine recently referred to a farm silo as a farm asylum in their exam essay, a mistake that had me hysterical (and recalling the hard lessons in Animal Farm).
I caught a BBC broadcast the other day and learned that lasers were celebrating their fifty-year anniversary. Laser is an acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), and I can't recall ever hearing that before. It bothers me that laser isn't spelled L.A.S.E.R., and that the words hidden in the equally covert acronym make me understand lasers even less.
I was recently amazed to learn that glitch is a Yiddish word -- how funny that something most people associate with the hiccups of high-technology comes from a High German language from the 10th century.
Most people I know understand that using Jew as a verb is pejorative, while no one blinks an eye when someone says that they were gypped.
I've been mispronouncing ostensibly as obstensibly for weeks, and have forced myself to invoke the proper pronunciation by working ostensibly into as many conversations as I possibly can. Bringing new words into one's repertoire requires trial-and-error, misuse, and occasional embarrassment. I attended Catholic School as a child, and naively substituted the lyrics "Round young virgin" (correction: "Round yon virgin") in Silent Silent with "Ground Round Virgin," referring to the restaurant chain where I celebrated a birthday or two.
I'm pleased when reminded that I'm not the only one prone to malapropisms. A quite articulate student of mine recently referred to a farm silo as a farm asylum in their exam essay, a mistake that had me hysterical (and recalling the hard lessons in Animal Farm).
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Lockjaw
I was taking a creative writing course during my senior year of college, and I didn't know what to write. I called my sister to complain, and she suggested that I start writing about something dumb, fun, and easy.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like porn," she replied.
"What about names? I always get stuck on character's names."
"Just use your friend's names. You can always change them later."
I took her advice, and the following is what ensued.
Lockjaw
Ryan leaned back in his chair and drew a long pull from his Parliament. He held the smoke in his mouth, puffing his cheeks and swishing the mint smoke as if it were mouthwash. With closed eyes, he exhaled from his nostrils, smiling as the smoke met his naked chest.
He imagined that the smoke was green. It tastes green, he thought, the same way white grape juice tastes purple.
“You fucking menthol dragon.”
Ryan took another drag from his Parliament.
“I fuck you in ten minutes. I don’t care what April says: I’m not waiting for you to smoke or eat quiche or whatever the fuck it is you do. I’ve got places to be. I’m tired of waiting around for your lazy ass.”
Ryan opened his eyes. Jeremy hovered above him. His pierced nipples glittered as he spoke.
“And brush your goddamn teeth. That shit might taste like mint to you, but it smells like trash.”
A black viper stretched from Jeremy’s navel to the inside of his left thigh. Its head twisted upwards, fanged mouth opened threateningly below Jeremy’s cock.
“You’re not fucking anyone,” Ryan’s voice was cool, “It’s a suck scene, two minutes, no come- and I’ve got someplace to be, too. Do me a favor and wash your dick, okay?”
Jeremy sneered and turned away. Ryan watched him leave, counting his tattoos. Two diamonds above each shoulder blade, barbed wire down his spine, a heart on his ass. He could still see the viper peeking from inside his thigh, its serpentine head glaring like an omen.
* * *
Everyone jumped as the recess bell rang. Jacob gathered his notebook and pencils and looked outside. It was a good day, brighter and warmer than it had been in weeks. He was excited about his lunch and looked forward to eating it under his favorite tree. He slipped on his backpack and made his way to the blacktop.
A group of girls had started a game of double-dutch. Jacob walked past them, amazed at their grace under the helixed ropes. Most of them were wearing skirts, including Madeleine Thorne, who smiled at Jacob as he passed by.
Jacob found his favorite spot under the old elm tree, sat down and opened his lunch box. He took his turkey, swiss and tomato sandwich and brought it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, taking breaks after each bite to sip his apple juice and look at Madeleine. She was jumping now, her long brown hair bouncing in unison with her strawberry skirt.
“Hey fucker.”
Jacob coughed as his apple juice flooded his throat. Mike Fink stood above him wearing a criminal grin. Mike was taller then everyone. He smoked. He dated girls. He took peoples lunches.
Mike squatted in front of Jacob, a grin tattooed to his face.
“I’m hungry. Give me your sandwich.”
Jacob frowned.
“I won’t ask you twice. Give me your sandwich or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
Mike stood as Jacob handed him the rest of his turkey, swiss and tomato sandwich. Mike laughed, stuffed it in his mouth and walked away. Jacob watched as Mike walked past the jump rope girls. His stomach dropped when Madeleine smiled at Mike. Jacob looked at his remaining lunch of carrot sticks and apple juice. He closed his lunch box. He wanted to cry.
* * *
A lavender shag carpet spread like spilled perfume beneath a collection of tasseled pillows. Vanilla incense sweetened the candle-lit room. Ryan held one of the incense sticks and waved it around his head, spirals of thin gray smoke twirling in its wake.
“Take off the thong, Ryan. This one’s all nude.”
Ryan placed the incense back in its container and removed his thong. He tossed it at April and smiled.
“Hey,” April swatted away the oncoming g-string, “Let’s get this over with, short and sweet, ok?”
“Ready for my close up,” Jeremy walked on to the set, sporting a hard-on.
April clapped her hands and addressed the studio, “Alright! This is our last shot before break. I need two minutes uninterrupted,” she turned to Ryan and Jeremy on the set, “This will be dry, right boys?”
Ryan nodded.
She looked at Jeremy, “If you’re going to come, pull out. Right?”
Jeremy’s hand held his cock, “Don’t worry about it.”
April shouted her usual checks to the sound people, the light people; everything was a go. Ryan knelt in front of Jeremy, who held his cock inches from his face.
“Ready,” April raised her hand, waited a moment, then brought it down, “Action!”
* * *
Recess was almost over. Most of the kids had already gone inside. Madeline had gone inside, too. Jacob collected his things and started towards the building. Just as he was about to go inside, Mike Fink ran up behind him.
“Hey fucker,” his grin was gone this time, “I need some money.”
Jacob froze. His grip tightened around his lunchbox.
Mike stepped closer. He smelled like sweat and cigarettes.
“Give me your fucking money.”
The door was a few feet away. Jacob tried his best to reach it, but Mike was ready for him. He grabbed him by his shirt and threw him to the ground.
“Did you hear me?” Mike lowered his face to Jacob’s, “Give me your money.”
Jacob tried to stand up. Mike pushed him down with his boot.
Jacob trembled as he spoke, “I’m not giving you my money, Mike.”
There was a moment, a few seconds of silence, where Jacob lay still and Mike seemed like he would maybe, just this once, give up and walk away. The silence broke when Mike swung his foot forward, as hard as he could, into Jacob’s side. Jacob tried to scream, but he had no breath. Then Mark started punching, one after the other, first at Jacob’s back, then his head, then his face. He kept punching long after Jacob had stopped trying to cover his head, long after he had stopped trying to scream or crawl to the door or catch his breath, long after he had broken Jacob’s jaw, his ribs, his skull. He kept punching and punching and punching until the sound of his fists against the fifth grader’s head bored him, until the concrete under Jacob was so red it seemed black.
* * *
Ryan leaned forward and took Jeremy into his mouth. He blocked out everything: the lights, the hanging microphones, and began the ecstasy masquerade. Jeremy threw his head back, moaning and sucking in air. He held Ryan’s head lightly at first, moving his fingers through his hair, over his shoulders, around his neck. Ryan kept his eyes closed. It was just dick, any dick, stage dick. It wasn’t Jeremy, the tattooed skinhead who had talked down to him. It was just dick, a paycheck, one of a hundred erotic pantomimes.
He wondered when the scene would end, when April would yell ‘cut’ and he could disengage himself, wash up, get dressed and leave.
He felt Jeremy’s grip tighten. It was just acting. He increased the pace, taking Jeremy deeper, playing to the camera. Jeremy’s grip grew harder. He could barely move his head forward or backwards. He moved his hands over Jeremy’s, signaling him to loosen his grip. Jeremy gripped harder, pulling Ryan in, pushing himself into his throat. Ryan gagged as Jeremy came, fast and hard, sending a wave of thick heat down his throat. Ryan couldn’t pull away.
He flailed his arms and opened his eyes: there was the viper, pumping venom down his unwilling throat. Black acid burned his insides, coated his stomach and compelled him to wretch.
Ryan brought his mouth down as hard as he could. He felt his teeth meet over Jeremy’s flesh. Jeremy clawed at Ryan’s face, beat his fists into his head, pressed his thumbs into his eyes. He bit harder. April was screaming. Hands were all over his body, trying to pull him away. He tasted blood. He heard Jeremy howl like a wild animal, his body twisting, writhing like an awful dying snake.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like porn," she replied.
"What about names? I always get stuck on character's names."
"Just use your friend's names. You can always change them later."
I took her advice, and the following is what ensued.
Lockjaw
Ryan leaned back in his chair and drew a long pull from his Parliament. He held the smoke in his mouth, puffing his cheeks and swishing the mint smoke as if it were mouthwash. With closed eyes, he exhaled from his nostrils, smiling as the smoke met his naked chest.
He imagined that the smoke was green. It tastes green, he thought, the same way white grape juice tastes purple.
“You fucking menthol dragon.”
Ryan took another drag from his Parliament.
“I fuck you in ten minutes. I don’t care what April says: I’m not waiting for you to smoke or eat quiche or whatever the fuck it is you do. I’ve got places to be. I’m tired of waiting around for your lazy ass.”
Ryan opened his eyes. Jeremy hovered above him. His pierced nipples glittered as he spoke.
“And brush your goddamn teeth. That shit might taste like mint to you, but it smells like trash.”
A black viper stretched from Jeremy’s navel to the inside of his left thigh. Its head twisted upwards, fanged mouth opened threateningly below Jeremy’s cock.
“You’re not fucking anyone,” Ryan’s voice was cool, “It’s a suck scene, two minutes, no come- and I’ve got someplace to be, too. Do me a favor and wash your dick, okay?”
Jeremy sneered and turned away. Ryan watched him leave, counting his tattoos. Two diamonds above each shoulder blade, barbed wire down his spine, a heart on his ass. He could still see the viper peeking from inside his thigh, its serpentine head glaring like an omen.
* * *
Everyone jumped as the recess bell rang. Jacob gathered his notebook and pencils and looked outside. It was a good day, brighter and warmer than it had been in weeks. He was excited about his lunch and looked forward to eating it under his favorite tree. He slipped on his backpack and made his way to the blacktop.
A group of girls had started a game of double-dutch. Jacob walked past them, amazed at their grace under the helixed ropes. Most of them were wearing skirts, including Madeleine Thorne, who smiled at Jacob as he passed by.
Jacob found his favorite spot under the old elm tree, sat down and opened his lunch box. He took his turkey, swiss and tomato sandwich and brought it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, taking breaks after each bite to sip his apple juice and look at Madeleine. She was jumping now, her long brown hair bouncing in unison with her strawberry skirt.
“Hey fucker.”
Jacob coughed as his apple juice flooded his throat. Mike Fink stood above him wearing a criminal grin. Mike was taller then everyone. He smoked. He dated girls. He took peoples lunches.
Mike squatted in front of Jacob, a grin tattooed to his face.
“I’m hungry. Give me your sandwich.”
Jacob frowned.
“I won’t ask you twice. Give me your sandwich or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
Mike stood as Jacob handed him the rest of his turkey, swiss and tomato sandwich. Mike laughed, stuffed it in his mouth and walked away. Jacob watched as Mike walked past the jump rope girls. His stomach dropped when Madeleine smiled at Mike. Jacob looked at his remaining lunch of carrot sticks and apple juice. He closed his lunch box. He wanted to cry.
* * *
A lavender shag carpet spread like spilled perfume beneath a collection of tasseled pillows. Vanilla incense sweetened the candle-lit room. Ryan held one of the incense sticks and waved it around his head, spirals of thin gray smoke twirling in its wake.
“Take off the thong, Ryan. This one’s all nude.”
Ryan placed the incense back in its container and removed his thong. He tossed it at April and smiled.
“Hey,” April swatted away the oncoming g-string, “Let’s get this over with, short and sweet, ok?”
“Ready for my close up,” Jeremy walked on to the set, sporting a hard-on.
April clapped her hands and addressed the studio, “Alright! This is our last shot before break. I need two minutes uninterrupted,” she turned to Ryan and Jeremy on the set, “This will be dry, right boys?”
Ryan nodded.
She looked at Jeremy, “If you’re going to come, pull out. Right?”
Jeremy’s hand held his cock, “Don’t worry about it.”
April shouted her usual checks to the sound people, the light people; everything was a go. Ryan knelt in front of Jeremy, who held his cock inches from his face.
“Ready,” April raised her hand, waited a moment, then brought it down, “Action!”
* * *
Recess was almost over. Most of the kids had already gone inside. Madeline had gone inside, too. Jacob collected his things and started towards the building. Just as he was about to go inside, Mike Fink ran up behind him.
“Hey fucker,” his grin was gone this time, “I need some money.”
Jacob froze. His grip tightened around his lunchbox.
Mike stepped closer. He smelled like sweat and cigarettes.
“Give me your fucking money.”
The door was a few feet away. Jacob tried his best to reach it, but Mike was ready for him. He grabbed him by his shirt and threw him to the ground.
“Did you hear me?” Mike lowered his face to Jacob’s, “Give me your money.”
Jacob tried to stand up. Mike pushed him down with his boot.
Jacob trembled as he spoke, “I’m not giving you my money, Mike.”
There was a moment, a few seconds of silence, where Jacob lay still and Mike seemed like he would maybe, just this once, give up and walk away. The silence broke when Mike swung his foot forward, as hard as he could, into Jacob’s side. Jacob tried to scream, but he had no breath. Then Mark started punching, one after the other, first at Jacob’s back, then his head, then his face. He kept punching long after Jacob had stopped trying to cover his head, long after he had stopped trying to scream or crawl to the door or catch his breath, long after he had broken Jacob’s jaw, his ribs, his skull. He kept punching and punching and punching until the sound of his fists against the fifth grader’s head bored him, until the concrete under Jacob was so red it seemed black.
* * *
Ryan leaned forward and took Jeremy into his mouth. He blocked out everything: the lights, the hanging microphones, and began the ecstasy masquerade. Jeremy threw his head back, moaning and sucking in air. He held Ryan’s head lightly at first, moving his fingers through his hair, over his shoulders, around his neck. Ryan kept his eyes closed. It was just dick, any dick, stage dick. It wasn’t Jeremy, the tattooed skinhead who had talked down to him. It was just dick, a paycheck, one of a hundred erotic pantomimes.
He wondered when the scene would end, when April would yell ‘cut’ and he could disengage himself, wash up, get dressed and leave.
He felt Jeremy’s grip tighten. It was just acting. He increased the pace, taking Jeremy deeper, playing to the camera. Jeremy’s grip grew harder. He could barely move his head forward or backwards. He moved his hands over Jeremy’s, signaling him to loosen his grip. Jeremy gripped harder, pulling Ryan in, pushing himself into his throat. Ryan gagged as Jeremy came, fast and hard, sending a wave of thick heat down his throat. Ryan couldn’t pull away.
He flailed his arms and opened his eyes: there was the viper, pumping venom down his unwilling throat. Black acid burned his insides, coated his stomach and compelled him to wretch.
Ryan brought his mouth down as hard as he could. He felt his teeth meet over Jeremy’s flesh. Jeremy clawed at Ryan’s face, beat his fists into his head, pressed his thumbs into his eyes. He bit harder. April was screaming. Hands were all over his body, trying to pull him away. He tasted blood. He heard Jeremy howl like a wild animal, his body twisting, writhing like an awful dying snake.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Honey is Bee Shit
Over the past week or so, I've learned something about using the interwebz (especially the Facebooks) to dialogue with certain artists, critics, and dealers: DON'T.
Also, despite all of this "OMG FACEBOOK IS BIG BROTHER!" panic, I think it's *great* what people are willing to say in a public venue.
So, my trinity of lessons-learned, followed by the corresponding, exhaustive exchanges:
#1
If you call out Jerry Saltz for being a hypocritical fame-whore, he will sarcastically patronize you for having attended art school & being a teacher. He will also call you "dude." (link to our Shakespearean exchange below)
#2
If you dare to question a banal yet unholy collaboration betwixt Oprah & your former (and rapidly-going-down-the-shitter) MFA program, you will be threatened with a "beat down." The person who threatened you with said beat-down will later throw an Oscar Wilde quote at you. Being the only gay person (apparently) in the thread, you will not know whether to shit or go blind. Ultimately, you will do both. (below exchange is excerpted from a comment-thread which stemmed from a group photo of Parsons MFA Director Simone Douglas, participating MFA Students, and Nate Berkus. More of my griping here.)
Gabriel J. Shuldiner
...Can you spot the Black-Fragmented Chunk Necklace(s)...? How many can you see...? The first person to guess the correct number will receive the last promotional Black-Fragmented Chunk Necklace for 2010...
Monica Lorraine Bernal
well mine is the most obvious by far, though i know that simone was wearing one too... but you asked how many can i see..... i am going to have to say ONE. I see one. and that is because i was strategic enough to contrast the art piece with a light background. I win.
Cecile Chong
Fun! Congrats to you and the gang!
Jesse Patrick Martin
So, the Parsons MFA director is acting as an advisor (rather, "guide") to hawk student work for Oprah's design expert... does anyone see this as problematic? Kudos to those who are benefiting from this (it really is some great exposure), but there's something pretty icky about this kind of thing, no?
Mary Younkin
a bit icky indeed, altho i am very proud of my fellow classmates for getting some attention! definitely felt more like an institutional back-patting, as none of the interviews with the artists were shown in the episode, yet the giant New School logo was prominently displayed. I have to say tho... when we're all facing a large post-grad school world, trying to make it as an artist, these kind of opportunities are insane to pass up. AND it was nice to see the fine arts dept represented, not the Fashion or Design depts. congrats guys!!
Jesse Patrick Martin
Well, it's interesting that the fine arts department was represented AS fashion/design (necklaces, wall-filler for an interior designer's swank Chelsea loft), rather than the "challenging and diverse learning environment" where students are "making and thinking about visual culture."
Again, nothing against the artists who were chosen, but Berkus basically presents the program (and all art schools) as a great place to buy cheap things to hang on your walls. Given that this has happened in the wake of sweeping faculty cuts/demotions -- all of which were supposedly pushing the school forward in some beneficial way -- this kind of "promotion" of student's work is seriously wrongheaded.
Jesse Patrick Martin
To put a point on it: http://jessepatrickmartin.blogspot.com/2010/05/no-soul-for-sale.html
Genevieve White
Awesome!!!
David Reinhardt
necklaces and wall filler? WTF? Jesse needs a beat down.
Jesse Patrick Martin
Right. If you actually read what I wrote, I'm saying that the work is portrayed as "wall-filler" by Berkus in the clip (he actually says: "why not find a great art school in your town... that's where you should be looking for the walls in your house"), not that I think that's what it is. My whole point is that the artists and their work are reduced to loft-fodder in what is a fluff-piece for O Magazine & Oprah.com, and *that's* a shame.
@Gabriel: Two necklaces?
David Reinhardt
As Oscar Wilde said "all real art is useless". As an artist be thankfu that people find use and even assign value to what is "worhtless" Surely few will build an altar and worship to it so a spot on a wall isn't such a bad end. It's certainly better than a slot ina studio storage bin. Cheers!
Jesse Patrick Martin
Wilde was brilliant, but it's still crucial that artists themselves are part of the dialogue of how their work is being received, presented, and otherwise "assigned value." To just be thankful for an opportunity -- and not have any opinion, perspective, or agency as to how one's own works are being "assigned value" -- strikes me as incredibly passive/lazy. The fact that I've been (jokingly?) threatened for being critical of how the work is being "assigned value" is troubling, because I would think that people (especially the artists) would want a fuller dialogue than what O Magazine (and Parsons) is beaming to the masses. Is everyone really that complicit? Maybe this is the wrong format to have this dialogue (although it is a "democratic space"), but can't we discuss this beyond all the back-patting?
(The thread continued with a thoughtful & enlightening comment by participating MFA student Alexandria Smith, whose comments (and my response) you can link to here)
#3
If you dare to speak of "corporate office culture," you will receive a sudden condescending tongue-lashing from a dealer before being BLOCKED ON FACEBOOK BY THE TONGUE-LASHER.(exchange below also excerpted via Jerry Saltz's cesspool of sycophancy)
Jesse Patrick Martin
Well, let those dealers/collectors enjoy their glossy stables while we enjoy our poetic poverty. Both perspectives are limiting, but at least the "art world" attempts to engender more interaction between the classes than, I don't know, corporate office culture?
Stephanie Theodore
"at least the "art world" attempts to engender more interaction between the classes than, I don't know, corporate office culture?"
What does anyone in the art world, particularly in the artist's camp, know about so-called corporate office culture? gimme a break and get out in the real world and stop fantasizing about culture wars... it's a crock.
Art is no one's priority but artists, curators, gallerists and the like. To dismiss people who work in corporate environments as automatically taking sides in some sort of class/culture conflict is rather short-sighted, no?
Jesse Patrick Martin
I've worked in corporate offices, actually. And compared to the frequency in which artists/dealers/collectors at least share space (ostensibly for the purpose of engaging with art/one another) is infinitely greater than how often people in HR get to schmooze with their company's CEOs. This has nothing to do with imagining "culture wars." Class is a different issue altogether.
Stephanie Theodore
"how often people in HR get to schmooze with their company's CEO's"
now that seems to be dependent on whether both of those parties are actually doing their jobs or wasting time schmoozing. not a relevant comparison.
Jesse Patrick Martin
You're taking my original remark as a slight against corporate office culture, which wasn't my intent. With all of this hyperbolic talk about art/money/power/"blue chip galleries"/etc. as a realm of impenetrable privilege, I felt it necessary to argue that -- however small -- the "art world" (quotes connote my suspicion of this term) seems to put people of extraordinarily disparate tax-brackets in conversation ("schmooze" was probably the wrong word) more than in "corporate office culture." I didn't mean to offend, but I don't feel that my comparison was irrelevant at all.
Jesse Patrick Martin
@Stephanie: Thanks for being argumentative & patronizing and then not responding!
Stephanie Theodore
@Jesse GEEZ! sensitive! I work in a corporate office culture when I am not running my gallery, and my attention to extracurricular activities waxes and wanes. clearly, though, I should have JUMPED! because it's about ART!
this is my point. there are more important things in the world to most people.
Jesse Patrick Martin
Your responses/focus on my comments kind of suggested that you did "jump" because I compared the oh-so-trifling "art world" with "corporate office culture." And saying that someone in the "artist camp" couldn't POSSIBLY have perspective on "corporate office culture" is incredibly condescending in exactly the same way that you're being with your last response. And yes, things are more important than both corporate & art cultures, but this is Jerry Saltz's Facebook comment stream, for Christ's sake... not exactly a U.N. conference.
Stephanie Theodore
My point was about people valuing things like art differently, and to judge someone else's values is not a position we in the art world should take.
I will make sure to block you so I don't offend you by not responding fast enough or pointedly enough.
much better!
Bonus Supplement: You can watch/listen to my noble adversary synthesize the "art world" and "corporate office culture" via a video/press-release-reading from her gallery site here.
Also, despite all of this "OMG FACEBOOK IS BIG BROTHER!" panic, I think it's *great* what people are willing to say in a public venue.
So, my trinity of lessons-learned, followed by the corresponding, exhaustive exchanges:
#1
If you call out Jerry Saltz for being a hypocritical fame-whore, he will sarcastically patronize you for having attended art school & being a teacher. He will also call you "dude." (link to our Shakespearean exchange below)
#2
If you dare to question a banal yet unholy collaboration betwixt Oprah & your former (and rapidly-going-down-the-shitter) MFA program, you will be threatened with a "beat down." The person who threatened you with said beat-down will later throw an Oscar Wilde quote at you. Being the only gay person (apparently) in the thread, you will not know whether to shit or go blind. Ultimately, you will do both. (below exchange is excerpted from a comment-thread which stemmed from a group photo of Parsons MFA Director Simone Douglas, participating MFA Students, and Nate Berkus. More of my griping here.)
Gabriel J. Shuldiner
...Can you spot the Black-Fragmented Chunk Necklace(s)...? How many can you see...? The first person to guess the correct number will receive the last promotional Black-Fragmented Chunk Necklace for 2010...
Monica Lorraine Bernal
well mine is the most obvious by far, though i know that simone was wearing one too... but you asked how many can i see..... i am going to have to say ONE. I see one. and that is because i was strategic enough to contrast the art piece with a light background. I win.
Cecile Chong
Fun! Congrats to you and the gang!
Jesse Patrick Martin
So, the Parsons MFA director is acting as an advisor (rather, "guide") to hawk student work for Oprah's design expert... does anyone see this as problematic? Kudos to those who are benefiting from this (it really is some great exposure), but there's something pretty icky about this kind of thing, no?
Mary Younkin
a bit icky indeed, altho i am very proud of my fellow classmates for getting some attention! definitely felt more like an institutional back-patting, as none of the interviews with the artists were shown in the episode, yet the giant New School logo was prominently displayed. I have to say tho... when we're all facing a large post-grad school world, trying to make it as an artist, these kind of opportunities are insane to pass up. AND it was nice to see the fine arts dept represented, not the Fashion or Design depts. congrats guys!!
Jesse Patrick Martin
Well, it's interesting that the fine arts department was represented AS fashion/design (necklaces, wall-filler for an interior designer's swank Chelsea loft), rather than the "challenging and diverse learning environment" where students are "making and thinking about visual culture."
Again, nothing against the artists who were chosen, but Berkus basically presents the program (and all art schools) as a great place to buy cheap things to hang on your walls. Given that this has happened in the wake of sweeping faculty cuts/demotions -- all of which were supposedly pushing the school forward in some beneficial way -- this kind of "promotion" of student's work is seriously wrongheaded.
Jesse Patrick Martin
To put a point on it: http://jessepatrickmartin.blogspot.com/2010/05/no-soul-for-sale.html
Genevieve White
Awesome!!!
David Reinhardt
necklaces and wall filler? WTF? Jesse needs a beat down.
Jesse Patrick Martin
Right. If you actually read what I wrote, I'm saying that the work is portrayed as "wall-filler" by Berkus in the clip (he actually says: "why not find a great art school in your town... that's where you should be looking for the walls in your house"), not that I think that's what it is. My whole point is that the artists and their work are reduced to loft-fodder in what is a fluff-piece for O Magazine & Oprah.com, and *that's* a shame.
@Gabriel: Two necklaces?
David Reinhardt
As Oscar Wilde said "all real art is useless". As an artist be thankfu that people find use and even assign value to what is "worhtless" Surely few will build an altar and worship to it so a spot on a wall isn't such a bad end. It's certainly better than a slot ina studio storage bin. Cheers!
Jesse Patrick Martin
Wilde was brilliant, but it's still crucial that artists themselves are part of the dialogue of how their work is being received, presented, and otherwise "assigned value." To just be thankful for an opportunity -- and not have any opinion, perspective, or agency as to how one's own works are being "assigned value" -- strikes me as incredibly passive/lazy. The fact that I've been (jokingly?) threatened for being critical of how the work is being "assigned value" is troubling, because I would think that people (especially the artists) would want a fuller dialogue than what O Magazine (and Parsons) is beaming to the masses. Is everyone really that complicit? Maybe this is the wrong format to have this dialogue (although it is a "democratic space"), but can't we discuss this beyond all the back-patting?
(The thread continued with a thoughtful & enlightening comment by participating MFA student Alexandria Smith, whose comments (and my response) you can link to here)
#3
If you dare to speak of "corporate office culture," you will receive a sudden condescending tongue-lashing from a dealer before being BLOCKED ON FACEBOOK BY THE TONGUE-LASHER.(exchange below also excerpted via Jerry Saltz's cesspool of sycophancy)
Jesse Patrick Martin
Well, let those dealers/collectors enjoy their glossy stables while we enjoy our poetic poverty. Both perspectives are limiting, but at least the "art world" attempts to engender more interaction between the classes than, I don't know, corporate office culture?
Stephanie Theodore
"at least the "art world" attempts to engender more interaction between the classes than, I don't know, corporate office culture?"
What does anyone in the art world, particularly in the artist's camp, know about so-called corporate office culture? gimme a break and get out in the real world and stop fantasizing about culture wars... it's a crock.
Art is no one's priority but artists, curators, gallerists and the like. To dismiss people who work in corporate environments as automatically taking sides in some sort of class/culture conflict is rather short-sighted, no?
Jesse Patrick Martin
I've worked in corporate offices, actually. And compared to the frequency in which artists/dealers/collectors at least share space (ostensibly for the purpose of engaging with art/one another) is infinitely greater than how often people in HR get to schmooze with their company's CEOs. This has nothing to do with imagining "culture wars." Class is a different issue altogether.
Stephanie Theodore
"how often people in HR get to schmooze with their company's CEO's"
now that seems to be dependent on whether both of those parties are actually doing their jobs or wasting time schmoozing. not a relevant comparison.
Jesse Patrick Martin
You're taking my original remark as a slight against corporate office culture, which wasn't my intent. With all of this hyperbolic talk about art/money/power/"blue chip galleries"/etc. as a realm of impenetrable privilege, I felt it necessary to argue that -- however small -- the "art world" (quotes connote my suspicion of this term) seems to put people of extraordinarily disparate tax-brackets in conversation ("schmooze" was probably the wrong word) more than in "corporate office culture." I didn't mean to offend, but I don't feel that my comparison was irrelevant at all.
Jesse Patrick Martin
@Stephanie: Thanks for being argumentative & patronizing and then not responding!
Stephanie Theodore
@Jesse GEEZ! sensitive! I work in a corporate office culture when I am not running my gallery, and my attention to extracurricular activities waxes and wanes. clearly, though, I should have JUMPED! because it's about ART!
this is my point. there are more important things in the world to most people.
Jesse Patrick Martin
Your responses/focus on my comments kind of suggested that you did "jump" because I compared the oh-so-trifling "art world" with "corporate office culture." And saying that someone in the "artist camp" couldn't POSSIBLY have perspective on "corporate office culture" is incredibly condescending in exactly the same way that you're being with your last response. And yes, things are more important than both corporate & art cultures, but this is Jerry Saltz's Facebook comment stream, for Christ's sake... not exactly a U.N. conference.
Stephanie Theodore
My point was about people valuing things like art differently, and to judge someone else's values is not a position we in the art world should take.
I will make sure to block you so I don't offend you by not responding fast enough or pointedly enough.
much better!
Bonus Supplement: You can watch/listen to my noble adversary synthesize the "art world" and "corporate office culture" via a video/press-release-reading from her gallery site here.
Monday, May 10, 2010
I'd Hate You Too If You Blogged Over This
I dipped my toe into the churning waters of Jerry Saltz's following Facebook-status comment-thread:
Dear imbecilic anonymous telephone bidder who paid a record $106 million for a 1932 Picasso @ Christie’s. You think you’re an art lover. Sorry. Had you taken $106 mill. & bought a gigantic building in the West 40s in NYC: 500,000 sq. ft.; & simply rented space ONLY AT COST to 100 good galleries & 100 artist studios you’d have changed American art & the American art world, forever. Enjoy the painting.
I kind of went numb when he responded to my following pithy little spitball:
I guess you're donating whatever you're making from that dreck-storm of a "reality" show to some worthy charity, right? Obviously there are degrees of how each case represents an ostentatious misuse of money for "art's sake," but... hypocrisy?
A flurry of comments followed Saltz's reaction, but here's what transpired between me & Saltz:
Jerry Saltz
Jesse: If I told you how little I made doing that "dreck storm" you would be shocked. Let's just say it's UNDER $1,000 per episode. And I think there are nine episodes. So no one will be able to say, "At least he got paid well."
Jesse Patrick Martin
I guess relative to an oligarch's paycheck that's not much, but it still seems criminal to me (my mom's a nurse, I'm a teacher, to give some context). It just seems like a slippery slope for you to get all theatrically self-righteous about issues related to art/money/power/ethics in this way. I mean, everyone's loving it (look at the hits!), but crowds tend to be idiotic (see: mob mentality, American Idol, etc.) and, in this case, more prone to flattery than truth-seeking.
Jerry Saltz
Jesse: Dude. Chill. No need to imply that anyone who disagrees with you is "criminal," "idiotic," and "all theatrically self-righteous." I am very glad for you that you have a job as a teacher; and that you went to art school (graduated in '08 and already have a job; nice). But relax. Other people may not be as smart as you... And I like Kelly Clarkson from American Idol so I guess I'm one of the "idiots" that you're referring to. Ease off a little. Let's just say that YOU are the RIGHT ONE here.
Jesse Patrick Martin
Kelly Clarkson is great (I'm gay, so I actually *can't* dislike her in the same way Superman can't deal w/Kryptonite). And I'm not claiming to be smarter than anyone, just that there's more "you go, Jerry!" than "let's really think about this" going on. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people in NYC who are working 40-60 hour weeks to make less than I make huffing-and-puffing about whatever. I'm definitely not right -- I'm just not so quick to declare that the $106 mil. bid is connected to some axis-of-evil and, even if it is, that we're not somewhat complicit in the ethically-dubious capitalist art-machine as well.
Jerry Saltz
Jesse: Who is declaring "that the $106 mil. bid is connected to some axis-of-evil?" Oh well: At least we can agree on Kelly Clarkson.
Jesse Patrick Martin
I take any talk of oligarchs to imply evil-axises. My bad.
Well. To clarify, I used the term "oligarch" because -- a hundred or so comments earlier -- Saltz was (jokingly) conjecturing that the anonymous bidder was a "Russian oligarch."
Either way, I didn't anticipate that my little snark would elicit a response. The whole thing was a little weird (and I probably would've benefited from withholding the crowds-are-idiots part), but it was kind of a thrilling (albeit brief) interweb art-moment. I stand by the content of what I was trying to get across (though a couple of commentators didn't like my "tone"), and I'm not sure why Saltz felt the need to tell me to "chill" and "ease off" (and call me "Dude," but whatever), but it was sorta neat to Facebook-face-off with him for a minute or so.
Update: This exchange resulted in me being "blocked" by Saltz on Facebook. He later gives his rundown of "rules" for blocking people here, though I have yet to see how my actions precipitated such a response.
Dear imbecilic anonymous telephone bidder who paid a record $106 million for a 1932 Picasso @ Christie’s. You think you’re an art lover. Sorry. Had you taken $106 mill. & bought a gigantic building in the West 40s in NYC: 500,000 sq. ft.; & simply rented space ONLY AT COST to 100 good galleries & 100 artist studios you’d have changed American art & the American art world, forever. Enjoy the painting.
I kind of went numb when he responded to my following pithy little spitball:
I guess you're donating whatever you're making from that dreck-storm of a "reality" show to some worthy charity, right? Obviously there are degrees of how each case represents an ostentatious misuse of money for "art's sake," but... hypocrisy?
A flurry of comments followed Saltz's reaction, but here's what transpired between me & Saltz:
Jerry Saltz
Jesse: If I told you how little I made doing that "dreck storm" you would be shocked. Let's just say it's UNDER $1,000 per episode. And I think there are nine episodes. So no one will be able to say, "At least he got paid well."
Jesse Patrick Martin
I guess relative to an oligarch's paycheck that's not much, but it still seems criminal to me (my mom's a nurse, I'm a teacher, to give some context). It just seems like a slippery slope for you to get all theatrically self-righteous about issues related to art/money/power/ethics in this way. I mean, everyone's loving it (look at the hits!), but crowds tend to be idiotic (see: mob mentality, American Idol, etc.) and, in this case, more prone to flattery than truth-seeking.
Jerry Saltz
Jesse: Dude. Chill. No need to imply that anyone who disagrees with you is "criminal," "idiotic," and "all theatrically self-righteous." I am very glad for you that you have a job as a teacher; and that you went to art school (graduated in '08 and already have a job; nice). But relax. Other people may not be as smart as you... And I like Kelly Clarkson from American Idol so I guess I'm one of the "idiots" that you're referring to. Ease off a little. Let's just say that YOU are the RIGHT ONE here.
Jesse Patrick Martin
Kelly Clarkson is great (I'm gay, so I actually *can't* dislike her in the same way Superman can't deal w/Kryptonite). And I'm not claiming to be smarter than anyone, just that there's more "you go, Jerry!" than "let's really think about this" going on. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people in NYC who are working 40-60 hour weeks to make less than I make huffing-and-puffing about whatever. I'm definitely not right -- I'm just not so quick to declare that the $106 mil. bid is connected to some axis-of-evil and, even if it is, that we're not somewhat complicit in the ethically-dubious capitalist art-machine as well.
Jerry Saltz
Jesse: Who is declaring "that the $106 mil. bid is connected to some axis-of-evil?" Oh well: At least we can agree on Kelly Clarkson.
Jesse Patrick Martin
I take any talk of oligarchs to imply evil-axises. My bad.
Well. To clarify, I used the term "oligarch" because -- a hundred or so comments earlier -- Saltz was (jokingly) conjecturing that the anonymous bidder was a "Russian oligarch."
Either way, I didn't anticipate that my little snark would elicit a response. The whole thing was a little weird (and I probably would've benefited from withholding the crowds-are-idiots part), but it was kind of a thrilling (albeit brief) interweb art-moment. I stand by the content of what I was trying to get across (though a couple of commentators didn't like my "tone"), and I'm not sure why Saltz felt the need to tell me to "chill" and "ease off" (and call me "Dude," but whatever), but it was sorta neat to Facebook-face-off with him for a minute or so.
Update: This exchange resulted in me being "blocked" by Saltz on Facebook. He later gives his rundown of "rules" for blocking people here, though I have yet to see how my actions precipitated such a response.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
No Soul for Sale?
It’s nice to see that my alma mater is pushing the envelope when it comes to how the public will view fine art (pretty things to hang in your swank Chelsea loft) and graduate art programs (a thrifty place to buy aforementioned pretty things). It’s interesting that this is what MFA director Simone Douglas seems to see as a crackerjack way of promoting the school’s misty, all-inclusive, cutting-edge-sounding mission blurb.
It’s also not a coincidence that this is where the MFA program is heading after massive, unethical, and continuing cuts to their and other programs. By firing or demoting their apparently non-progressive, not with-it, and otherwise Luddite teachers in favor of multidisciplinary-techno-savvy-trailblazing-interweb-performance cyborgs, Parsons has yielded such revolutionary multimedia-culture-happening like this: Oprah’s hunky design guy (Nate Berkus) does a blip where he buys some student work as zesty wall-fodder for his amnesia-chamber/Chelsea loft. I’m sure that this is the kind of fascist-fleeing, countercultural, explicitly critical, uh, shameless corporate opportunism that Parsons’ founders had in mind when they were putting the school together.
Also interesting is that all of the considered artworks were abstract (the one figurative piece’s figure was obscured by fence planks), and that the video & blurbs about the selected artists offered little in the way of why their work was chosen, what their work is about, or how they felt about being included in the Oprah.com segment/Berkus’ loft. In short, the artists (and their work) – ostensibly what the whole bit was about – were the first things to disappear behind the “abstraction” of Oprah.com’s media filters.
It’s also not a coincidence that this is where the MFA program is heading after massive, unethical, and continuing cuts to their and other programs. By firing or demoting their apparently non-progressive, not with-it, and otherwise Luddite teachers in favor of multidisciplinary-techno-savvy-trailblazing-interweb-performance cyborgs, Parsons has yielded such revolutionary multimedia-culture-happening like this: Oprah’s hunky design guy (Nate Berkus) does a blip where he buys some student work as zesty wall-fodder for his amnesia-chamber/Chelsea loft. I’m sure that this is the kind of fascist-fleeing, countercultural, explicitly critical, uh, shameless corporate opportunism that Parsons’ founders had in mind when they were putting the school together.
Also interesting is that all of the considered artworks were abstract (the one figurative piece’s figure was obscured by fence planks), and that the video & blurbs about the selected artists offered little in the way of why their work was chosen, what their work is about, or how they felt about being included in the Oprah.com segment/Berkus’ loft. In short, the artists (and their work) – ostensibly what the whole bit was about – were the first things to disappear behind the “abstraction” of Oprah.com’s media filters.
WHO WANTS PINOS BACON!!!
Besides sounding like a misspelled gay porn site, "Pinosworld's Weblog" offers heady yet astoundingly consistent praise of "genuine" crooners like Sinatra & Dean Martin, while repeatedly hating on fake-crooner "puppet" and "pussy" Michael Buble (there's also some special wrath reserved for Alicia Keys). The author (Pinos?) tends to deliver his crooner-critique in ALL CAPS, and routinely substitutes question marks for exclamation points. Pinos has been going strong with his hyper-focused diatribes for over three years, and his site both thrills and terrifies me in equal measure. Pinos also calls Michael Jackson a "child monger," which are two words I've never seen used in concert.
Wash down your Pinos with this excerpt from a 1985 Francis Bacon documentary!
Wash down your Pinos with this excerpt from a 1985 Francis Bacon documentary!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Poor, poor artists (and those that should be starving but aren't)
I'm not surprised that fine art degrees made the list, but the fact that they used a photo of someone carving Jessica Alba's disembodied clay head at Madame Tussaud as their archetypal "fine artist" photo just seems unfair.
Though I guess Marc Quinn's ridiculous statues of Kate Moss doing yoga are not-too-distant cousins of this kind of work, as is the seminal work of sculptor Daniel Edwards (and by "seminal," I mean that he made sculptures of Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug, as well as a bronze of Suri Cruise's first poop).
Though I guess Marc Quinn's ridiculous statues of Kate Moss doing yoga are not-too-distant cousins of this kind of work, as is the seminal work of sculptor Daniel Edwards (and by "seminal," I mean that he made sculptures of Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug, as well as a bronze of Suri Cruise's first poop).
Sunday, May 2, 2010
May Stroll
I strolled the Chelsea zigzag yesterday in this gorgeous May weather, and here's what stuck:
The $1 zine from Amy Sillman's show at Sikkema Jenkins trumped her curiously-celebrated abstractions in oil, and maybe even made a case (especially in Sillman's case) for zine-making over painting. I'm partaking in a conversation about this at Art Fag City...
I found myself transfixed by Friedrich Kunath's installation in the back, back room at Andrea Rosen. The pair of paintings each featured a lone spider dangling from its web -- one web was fairly traditional and set against a spray-painted Day-Glo background, while the other web took the shape of an artist's line-drawing of a Tudor in construction (imagine Charlotte on an architectonic bent). Centrally placed between the facing paintings was a Janus-faced television monitor set atop a pedestal. On one screen ran a kitschy, Deep Thoughts-esque recording of birds flying against a sherbet sky (echoing the Day-Glo spray-paint). The other side featured slow-motion bloopers of black-and-white Candid Camera-style shorts of people getting old-school Punk'd, thrown by bulls, etc. This was all set to some melancholy contemporary crooner's song (I didn't recognize the singer/song, but it was Rufus Wainwright-ish). I liked being in the room and the absurd mash-up of song, video, and pictures. It was funny and dumb and smart and corny. It reminded me of Vija Celmins' ethereal web drawings, Jim Hodges' web chains, and how much I love bloopers and Enya.
There were many painting and drawing shows around, and if I had to pick one that I liked the most it would Wendell Gladstone's painting at Kravets/Wehby's group exhibition/sequel, Spring 2. I'm pathetically camera-less and couldn't find a photo of it online, but it's really worth seeing in person. It riffs on a maypole ceremony and demonstrates Gladstone's talent for meshing a graphic style, precisionist layering, a pop-art palette, and his incredible facility for using gel medium to create reliefs (in this case, pine cones with faces).
Botero's fatties are odalisque-ing at Marlborough Gallery, and a really funny moment occurred when a Party Rental Ltd. truck parked right in front of the show. The roly poly pink hippo logo perfectly complimented the chubby lounging ladies, and I could readily picture one of them astride the cotton-candy mascot.
The $1 zine from Amy Sillman's show at Sikkema Jenkins trumped her curiously-celebrated abstractions in oil, and maybe even made a case (especially in Sillman's case) for zine-making over painting. I'm partaking in a conversation about this at Art Fag City...
I found myself transfixed by Friedrich Kunath's installation in the back, back room at Andrea Rosen. The pair of paintings each featured a lone spider dangling from its web -- one web was fairly traditional and set against a spray-painted Day-Glo background, while the other web took the shape of an artist's line-drawing of a Tudor in construction (imagine Charlotte on an architectonic bent). Centrally placed between the facing paintings was a Janus-faced television monitor set atop a pedestal. On one screen ran a kitschy, Deep Thoughts-esque recording of birds flying against a sherbet sky (echoing the Day-Glo spray-paint). The other side featured slow-motion bloopers of black-and-white Candid Camera-style shorts of people getting old-school Punk'd, thrown by bulls, etc. This was all set to some melancholy contemporary crooner's song (I didn't recognize the singer/song, but it was Rufus Wainwright-ish). I liked being in the room and the absurd mash-up of song, video, and pictures. It was funny and dumb and smart and corny. It reminded me of Vija Celmins' ethereal web drawings, Jim Hodges' web chains, and how much I love bloopers and Enya.
There were many painting and drawing shows around, and if I had to pick one that I liked the most it would Wendell Gladstone's painting at Kravets/Wehby's group exhibition/sequel, Spring 2. I'm pathetically camera-less and couldn't find a photo of it online, but it's really worth seeing in person. It riffs on a maypole ceremony and demonstrates Gladstone's talent for meshing a graphic style, precisionist layering, a pop-art palette, and his incredible facility for using gel medium to create reliefs (in this case, pine cones with faces).
Botero's fatties are odalisque-ing at Marlborough Gallery, and a really funny moment occurred when a Party Rental Ltd. truck parked right in front of the show. The roly poly pink hippo logo perfectly complimented the chubby lounging ladies, and I could readily picture one of them astride the cotton-candy mascot.
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