Meat Beat Manifesto.

Painters Dekker (aka Adam Hurwitz) and David Humphrey are throwing down the beats and the brats at Loreley on Thursday night. The beats will be deep and furious, insisting that Ike takes off his pants and paints in the back yard.

Bad Press.

Art Review garnered a lot of deserved attention in the blogosphere with the news of their first online issue which happened to be The Power 100 edition. Attention in the blogosphere can be a bad thing if you fuck up though (Remember the Finch Fry?). And I have to say that Art Review really fucked up. They had made me very happy the month before with their excellent and timely focus on Philly, and then . . . well . . . then came the list. Read the comments section from my earlier post on it. Better yet, read this money response at the Corn Palace today.

And again I gotta say . . . Tracy Emin? How many ways can I say "HUH?" (And hell, I'm a fan.)

Oh. And my vote for the woman most missing from the Power 100 list? Andrea Bowers. Her show at Redcat in LA was easily the most powerful show I saw by a female artist all year, and it signified even greater things to come. Utterly devastating.

If It Weren't For Bad Luck I'd Have No Luck At All.

Trying to post without the help of the internets is hard work. Cable was great for a couple days until I stopped having it. I'm going to start using pigeons.

Time Warner is coming tomorrow morning. Any prayers, chants, or spells will be appreciated. For whatever reason I can't upload pics to blogger at Tea Lounge. This is a loss to all of us as I found a photo of the classic Hee Haw skit to which this post's title refers. (Wait. There we go.)

Joke.

There's a new post over on my Creative Time blog with some pics of the Jens Haaning posters around the city with some help from a possibly unaware, but ever wonderful, Sasha Frere-Jones.

One.

I never did go off on something an anonymous blogger pointed out in the Comments section for my post about the Art Review Power 100 issue: There's one female artist on the entire list, Tracy Emin. Let me say that again, slowly . . . One. Female. Artist. On. The. Entire. List.

A bit ironic that 7 pages later they're clapping their hands for Jerry Saltz's championing of women. I guess it's easier to sit in the stands and cheer than it is to get on the floor and change the game. Boooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Hoover Factory.

Pretty much every time I've made a vacuum cleaner reference here it's been in regards to Verizon's jaw-dropping ability to find new ways of SUCKING. I have to say that it's mightily impressive. This'll be the last post you'll hear about it though. I dropped their asses today like the DSL signal they claim to provide.

I'm moving over to the land of cable on Tuesday. More "regular" posting will resume after that.

Free Love.

Mark Cuban was on C-SPAN last week talking about how print and web media can work hand-in-hand. Turns out that ArtReview is smart enough to agree with him. You can get the entire publication online for free starting today. If you're like me and Mark Cuban you'll check out the issue online and then dig deeper after buying the print version. Giving away information open things up, not the opposite.

The first issue available is the Power issue. These things always make me a little itchy, mostly because of the definition of power. However, I'd be a lying sack of doo if I didn't say that I also find them entertaining and angularly informative.

Quick review of the list . . .

Cool: Robert Storr (13, up from 73 making it even cooler.), Marian Goodman (15), Thelma Golden (25), Zach Feuer (75, Hell yeah. I went off last year because it was so idiotic that he wasn't on the list. Nice to see that that's changed, but higher would have been more accurate.)

Cool, but backwards: Roberta Smith (55), Jerry Saltz (57). Love 'em both, but is Smith higher because she has a larger readership? This gets to the crux of what makes me itchy about Power lists. It seems that Saltz forces me into a new revelation almost everytime I read something by him. I like Smith's criticism, but I never feel the same possibility with her writing. And to be quite frank, he's the more trusted and influential of the two. Bump the boy.

Makes my head hurt: Damien Hirst (11)

Frieze Out, part 4.

This all started here. And so it goes.

The Print Center

Hester Stinnett
#114, 2006
silkscreen, woodcut, suminagashi


Robert Asman
Abstract Interaction Series II, 2002
toned gelatin silver print, Monoprint



International Print Center New York

Suzanne Caporael
Leonids, 2006
Digital print


Carrie Moyer
For Sister Corita, v. 2, 2004
Screenprint with flocking



Schirmer-Mosel

Laurenz Berges
Gesolei, 2000, 2005
C-Print


Axel Hütte
Portrait 9 from the series Portrait III 2001-2003, 2005
C-Print



Landfall Press

Peter Doig
Untitled, 2006
Lithograph


Sheryl Oring
Writer's Block, 2003
Suite of 20 Lithographs

Frieze Out, part 3.

Here are some not-for-profits I love that offer prints and editions.

My affection for Creative Time is well documented here and on the blog I write for them. The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia with their focus on fabric--and the wide scope of activity that encompasses-- has one of the most interesting programs of any n-f-p arts org I know. RxArt. I've been meaning to say something here about them for awhile now. Their mission, quite simply, is to "make it better" by placing art in hospitals. One recent project has Ryan McGinness decorating the NYU Child Study Center. Upcoming for RxArt is a fund-raiser, a coloring book, featuring work by everybody from Sol LeWitt to Grace Hartigan to Assume Vivid Astro Focus. And last but not least is the god-like entity that is Printed Matter. They rule.

Creative Time

Jim Hodges
Untitled (for Creative Time), 2006
19-color screenprint


Zhang Huan
Untitled 2004
C-Print




The Fabric Workshop and Museum

William Wegman
Forest, 1999-2000
Scarf of 100% silk twill


Kiki Smith in collaboration with
The Fabric Workshop and Museum
Singing Siren, 2003
Cast plastic, motion sensor, sound device, audio



RxArt

Martabel Wasserman
Untitled (Man and Pond Collage), 2002
Color light jet print


The Coloring Book Project, November 2006

Cover


John Wesley



Printed Matter

Vik Muniz
Mounds, 2005
Placemats


John Baldessari
Blue Masterstroke Over Red Diagram and Two Cowboys, 1989
Lithograph

Frieze Out, part 2.

First of all, I don't want to go any further without thanking Cesar Llacuna for his invaluable help with this series of posts. Thank you, Cesar! You are the Print King.

And now back to the land of prints and honey.

Graphicstudio U.S.F.

George Baselitz and Robert Creeley
Signs, 1996
Book of ten prints in drypoint and aquatint


Alex Katz
Kate, 2006
Cyanotype



Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art

Inka Essenhigh
Devil on the Highway, 2001
Etching with aquatint


Jenny Holzer
Use What is Dominant (From the Survival Series),
Silkscreen on brushed aluminum



Susan Inglett / I.C. Editions

Paul Noble
A; Paul’s Place, 2002
Etching on 300 gm. Somerset Textured White Mouldmade


Jessica Stockholder
With your Salad, 2005
Plastic igloo cooler (red), brushed aluminum wall sconce, extension cord, polyester resin, fabric



Sims Reed

Howard Hodgkin
Night Palm, 1990
Etching with handcolouring and carborandum


Bridget Riley
Chicago Seven, 1971
Screenprint



Paul Stolper

Roger Kelly
Division, 2003
Screenprint


Peter Saville
Working Title, 2004
Screenprint on whiteboard

Frieze Out.

Editor's Note: For best effect, read this post while humming the melody to Napalm Death's classic, "Continuing War On Stupidity"

Look. It's pretty simple here at Heart As Arena. I want to see art that moves me. I don't care who made it, what medium it is, where it's shown, or who's showing it. However, the art has to be shown to be seen. When that possibility is limited the teeth of my heart come out. Not because they're angry, but because they're hungry.

One increasingly common cause for their hunger is the exclusion of prints at art fairs. These fairs are hated by many, but not by me (See above.). Stupidly expensive ticket prices and some truly horrible people are never enough keep me away. Not from a place where I can see so much art from so many galleries visiting from outside of New York.

The Frieze Art Fair's decision to exclude print dealers this year was more than a little disheartening. In Ed Winkelman's spot-on piece regarding this dumbass move, he mentioned that The Armory Show might be next. Oy. Shall I mention that some of the best work I saw at The Armory last year was in the prints section? I guess I just did.

Of course, the argument can be made that it's a free market and Frieze can do what they want to bring in the most money. Whatever. Even from that angle it's a short-sighted move. Wait. Don't take my word for it. Let's allow uber collector Martin Z. Margulies to speak for just about every collector on the bloody planet. From the first issue of Whitewall:

WW: When did you make your first purchase?
MM: It was in the mid-70's. I STARTED PURCHASING PRINTS. (Bold italic capitalization mine.)

Now the dude has a warehouse.

As usual we can't rely on the gate keepers, even those with really wonderful art magazines. Big surprise. So, in the spirit of counteracting mountains of stupidity in the world I'll be listing sources for prints and editions for the duration of Frieze. There will be no particular order or method to this but I will begin with the print dealer that schooled me on the medium, Pace Prints. A visit to their gallery on 57th street never fails to remind me what a vital medium print-making has always been and forever shall be. Amen.

Pace Prints

Tara Donovan
Untitled, 2006
Relief print from rubber band matrix


Pat Steir
Winter Fall, 2005
Handpainted monoprint with oil based paint and colored pencil on a screenprint




Crown Point

Ed Ruscha
Public Market, 2006
Sugar lift flat bite with hardground etching on gampi paper chine colle


Julie Mehretu
Local Calm, 2005
Sugar lift aquatint with color aquatint, spit bite aquatint, soft and hard ground etching and engraving on gampi paper chine colle




LACE

Andrea Bowers
Political Slogans and Flower Magick:
Someone You Know May Need A CHOICE, 2006
paper, wire, gouache, political button


John Baldessari
The Intersection Series: Statue/Bound Person, 2002
Iris print




Kido Press

Jeremy Dickinson
Buses, 2004-2005
Etching, Spitbite, Drypoint


Youichi Miyajima
花, 2005
Sugar lift, Aquatint




Lower East Side Printshop

Gina Ruggeri
Ivyfolds, 2005
Screenprint


Mark Dean Veca
No Quarter, 2004
Four-panel screenprint with hand painting

Open Secret.

There are two galleries in Williamsburg that almost never let me down. One of them is the time-tested Pierogi. The other, Outrageous Look, is a newer gallery that doesn't seem to know the meaning of failure. Their confidence in beauty is a clear voice ringing out in the chasing forest.


Outrageous Look's latest bit of wonder, a show by Ruijun Shun, is another blow against the empire of all things predictable. Shun's paintings and drawings are exquisite, their sun shining through unexpected windows. The brush on silk pieces are mounted on metal box frames that deliver the paintings to the viewer just ahead of their own light. Other paintings present a balanced internal tension between the flat sections of the paintings that register color and the raised white forms with which they share the canvas. A floating world of oil and ink on mylar holds it's own beauty while transforming the room and the pieces around it.


This show--like so many of the shows at Outrageous Look--reveals art's open secret: beauty matters and when it's engaged this directly and successfully it's quite comfortable kicking your ass.

Show White.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect when I walked into Wendy White's show at Sixtyseven. I'd seen a nice piece in a group show at Moti Hasson this summer, and I had seen paintings and sculptures online. I really wasn't prepared for the Bowling-For-Brent Deathmatch that ensued inside the open confines of the gallery. Color me slayed.


This show is like a riot in your heart. I'm not just referring to the colors either. It's like an unruly crowd moving in 8 directions at once, wrestling and worshipping some art monkey god. White holds the center with solid composition and a true sense of humor. The humor is especially refreshing in that it's without irony or preciousness. If you don't find yourself giggling or whispering out loud the words, "What the fuck?", then you're probably in the wrong gallery.


Monday night during Studio 60 one of the characters inspired another by reminding them that the most revered comedians are the ones who were never afraid of silence. Similarly, White feels comfortable utilizing empty patches of her canvases as a spilling point on the way into or out of the painting. There's a certain bravery in that.


I have to admit that I was concerned about the sculptures when I saw them online. However, in the context of the paintings they worked brilliantly. Brillantly! Guarding the canvases like some anorexic vikings hitting the mescaline, they extend and reflect the lines, humor, and life of their charges.

This show is just great. Easily one of the biggest kicks in town right now.