Detail.

I met painter Clare Grill only briefly on Saturday night at the opening for Out of me, Out of you. However, the meeting was long enough for her to give me the post card for her upcoming show at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT. I couldn't quite get the image out of my head. Something about the colors and textures. Something about the swaths. I'm a sucker for a well-done swath, so I wrote Grill and asked her for a jpeg. Turns out that it's a detail of a larger, unfinished, 5' X 6' painting.

Note that Chris Doyle's 50,000 Beds will also be up at RAW through September 23. Can you say, "roadtrip"?

After The Ever.

Since the 80's Glenn O'Brien's writing has provided me with an island. It does so again when he enters the final words for The Wit of the Staircase, the late Theresa Duncan's online journal. Goodnight.

Feed Me Weird Things.

A show curated by well-warped painter René Smith is opening tonight at Subdivision Gallery in Long Island City. Smith's paintings start out seemingly innocent, but they can hit a vaguely taboo note while you're not looking. She somehow keeps the whole thing delicious rather than blushy though. I'm looking forward to seeing where her tastes take us.

I wrote about Smith's solo show for Libby and Roberta on artblog back in 2005. Artists include Brendan Carroll, Leidy Churchman, Ann Flaherty, Rubens Ghenov, Andrea Moreau, Smith, Rachael Wren, Mika Yokobori, and Elizabeth Zans

Bonus points for those of you who caught the Squarepusher reference in this post's title.

Post-opening Update: I gotta mention two standouts in this show, Brendan Carroll and Rubens Ghenov. Hell, yeah!


Carroll's bank of Polaroids were especially touching. His photographs of the backs of his subjects are as expressive as the the quotes that the artist includes below their image. The strength of the assemblage works because of the expert juxtapositions of images.


Rubens Ghenov's piece was just one of those images that took hold and wouldn't let go. I found myself returning to it over the course of the opening. I loved the stark silhouette, but the texture of the background was also engaging. I didn't actually get to the part where I thought about "what the image means". I just grooved to my own baskinghood that the picture set off. I was comfortable looking at it in the same way as I would an early R.E.M. lyric.

Trash.

Oh, I like this. The Garbage Can Project brought to you by Jonathan Gitelson.The art of thievery and return. This 'un goes out to Fairy Butler with all her similar troubles.

Care Package.

Grand Funk Railroad. They were the first to teach me that music could be more than sound. It could be an object. The 45 for We're An American Band was made of clear gold vinyl. To this day, I haven't recovered from the moment that I slipped that puppy out of its sleeve. Apparently, I'm not the only one that has that kind of memory.


Evidence of that is plastered all over the walls of Secret Project Robot. A celebration of the limited and the coveted, it's a great survey of the amazing work that's being done underneath the underground. Like a blessing in a cool mustard-colored suit, Jim Thirlwell, master of the Total Package, was in attendance. The care with which these record covers are being produced is inspiring and heart-warming. This show should not be missed. Actually, I'm coming to the conclusion that just about any show at Secret Project Robot should not be missed. Put the needle down.


There's a certain intimacy with these releases. It's not just the limited numbers in which they're produced either. It's something about the care and intention put into each object. It reminds me of how my grandmother used to cook.



And in the store, art shopping as it should be . . . with darts.


Bonus track: A little sampling from my shelves . . .

This Is A Prayer.

Really. You Have No Idea.

It is weird working down on Wall Street. While the rest of the nation is still struggling to figure out that flavor-coded threat level chart I merely have to count the number of AK47s I see when I go out to get my lunch. Then, there are days like today.


How did we get here? This is so not my beautiful wife. It is, however, Lawrence Goldhuber's Whose Broads Stripes being performed on the steps of Federal Hall as part of the LMCC's Sitelines series. Catty-corner from the Stock Exchange, dancers Patricia Hoffbauer and Amber Martin (along with the well-planted choreographer) struck their blow against the empire dancing to Pink Floyd's "Money". An obvious choice maybe, but an effective one nonetheless. It drew the tourists and the money in like honey. Then the company dropped their glitter bomb in a storm of capitalist blasphemy. It was beautiful and completely, well, weird.










God bless the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Most of you know them for their work with the visual arts, but they also support dance and music. This is how they roll.

Confusion

"The thread won't divide us, the sensation survives" --New Order

I went to see art tonight and a protest (and the requisite counter-protest) broke out. Between 6 and 7 pm Creative Time celebrated seven amazing fucking years of The 59th Minute. I trust deeply in the art of chance, especially when it comes to this series. This is why.










Mark Titchner

Fly Like An . . .

This is fucking awesome.

Moves.

Right now, we need some alternatives. One possibility is to open a space that's not in Chelsea or Williamsburg or the Lower East Side. Molly Bradford and Bill Pace's Pluto is a safe distance from all of the above, but their new show curated by Vargas-Suarez Universal is wel worthl the trip to Prospect Heights (and it's just a couple blocks from the Brooklyn Museum so I don't want to hear any excuses). I wrote about their first show, Norf*neasters, here.


I think I've met Pedro Barbeito a couple hundred times through his sister-in-law and a friend, so it was nice to finally see his work. Barbeito's work feels like the artist might start in a minimal place and then realize that, well, it's really not enough. So from there he just lets it flow . . . lines, grafitti, new surfaces, what's next until he knows it's done. I am imagining this and I'm probably wrong, but wasn't that fun? I like when paintings make me say "WTF?" There are angels in the architecture here.


I didn't like Angela de Rosette's paintings when I looked at them the first time. When I took another look though they warmed up. Like an infinitely looser version of Chuck Close's grids, the work also made me think of Warhol's camouflage paintings. All I know is that, in the end, the pieces pulled me into to the paint. Surface blitz.


Things tighten up in the back of the gallery with Marsha Cottrell and Daniel Zeller. It's difficult to look at Marsha Cottrell's work without thinking of Julie Mehretu, but get past that difficulty and you land in a place that's closer to the invented architecture of Angela Dufresne. Actually, that's not quite right either. Although their media and methods are completely different, I was most reminded of Amy Sillman paintings, the way respresentational forms peak out from the abstraction. But these are all useless thoughts that came to me after I got lost in the little dramas created by Cottrell's fine lines and markings.


Last, but sooooo not least, is the wonder that is Daniel Zeller's work. I always find his work mesmerizing and beautiful, and his three pieces in this show keep the pressure on. Gallery co-owner Molly Bradford made a video of the four artists in their studios, and the bit on Zeller is especially illuminating.

On a personal note, one of the biggest kicks of the opening night festivities was getting to meet one of the owners of one of my favorite bars in the city.

Very.

OK. I get it. You want me to be overwhelmed. I am. I always am. And I thank you. God, I love this crew. Assume. Astro. Vivid. Focus. Now.

Terrorizer Quote of the Month Club.

From the intro to Claren Tracey's profile of NYC Death Metal legends Immolation: "Immolation are like the devil's butler. They'll always be there, and when hell has to be ushered in, they're more capable than most."

Big Pink.

It's always been a tossup. I've never been a big fan of Julian Schnabel the painter, but I love Julian Schnabel the filmmaker. Now, his skills as a house colorist have broken the tie. His building isn't nearly as pink as portrayed in that photo in The Villager. (Somebody got a little M-happy in PShop.) Seems like I'm not the only one thinking about this. At any rate, this is a brilliantly tasteless thing. It makes me happy just thinking about it.

777

If you want to kill the good vibe gasses given off by Live Earth today, this is the way to do it. Shifting plates of metal and noise at a bored strip bar in the Financial District. Trust me when I say that this is one of the weirdest places in the city to see a show. The mightily crushing Unearthly Trance should never be missed when they play out. Their cassette release on Heart Break Beat has been one of the musical highlights of the year. I listen to it even more than their excellent release on Relapse, The Trident. Death By A Thousand Cuts always always always alway always always delivers, and OMG I'm finally going to see Destructo Swarmbots play. Hellsies! This is gonna be a lot more fun than Banks Violette, and I bet these motherfuckers start on time.

Mythic.

Since opening on the LES, Smith-Stewart has consistently delivered interesting, if not exactly perfect shows. The latest, She Was Born To Be My Unicorn, curated by Amy Kellner, follows that trend with some excellent work from Dana Carlson, Rob Pruitt (!!!!), Assume Vivid Astro Focus, and others. I wish Carlson could do dubs of her paintings. Even though I've finally begun to understand how to enjoy the whole package, I'd still like to see what's underneath too. If she could figure out how to do this she could be the King Tubby of painting. Somebody needs to step up and give her a solo show. I had just been to see AVAF's blowout at John Connelly earlier in the afternoon so it almost gave me whiplash to see their maxi-onslaught contained within a rectangle. Don't get me wrong. What they do inside that rectangle is a LOT of fun. I could live in their work, I swear. And Rob Pruitt. Oh, my. He's another one. No missteps from this guy. I could have stared at his piece for a couple hours, that color is so supple.



I always look forward to seeing what they're doing at Smith-Stewart. My only real complaint is that--just once--I'd like to visit this gallery without hearing conversation that makes me want to put a gun in my mouth. It's a small gallery so there's no escaping the (usually loud and emphatic) yapping. Last time it was some Eurotrashboy going on about his fahhhhhhhbulous boyfriend the brilllllllllliant curator. This time it went like this . . .

Woman: Yeah. Junior Associates.
Man: Yeah. I mean. I do wanna get married.
Woman: Yeah. It's like a dating device.

Then there are a couple pieces of a certain type--best exemplified by Michelle O'Marah's Suzie's Rainbow (Valley Girl Prop)--that I'd really like to stop having to look at. Please. All the wonderful not-showing artists out there and I have to look at this. Just say, "No.", next time. Please and pretty please. Even the unicorns are starting to get embarrassed by this crap.

iHeart

Complement.

At Mixed Greens Coke Wisdom delivers one of my favorite show titles of the year, Please Mr. Bowie, Come To My Show. HaHa. Yes, Mr. Bowie. Do come. The front room will especially work for you. It did for me. I enjoyed the work more as sculpture than as photography. The front/back photo approach is kind of hokey, but all is forgiven in the context of how well everything comes together as an installation. And I especially loved that wooden box sculpture hiding in plain sight in the northeast corner of the front room. It's like a comforting visual non sequitor, a lost box in the forest. Nice.


Don't miss Michael Yinger's all i know is that i don't know nothin' in the group show at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art. I almost did, but thankfully I ran in to Barry (aka Bloggy) on 27th Street and he pointed me in the right direction. Yinger gives us a map of the American heart. Just follow the bullets and the fiberglass to find our itchy trigger finger.



There are some really nice pieces in the group show at Peer Gallery. I checked out the show when I learned that Sebastian Lemm's work was in it. As ever, Lemm's work was excellent. No surpises there. Brian Getnick's scaryass drawings reminded me of Night of the Hunter, but without the protection of the animals in the woods. Letha Wilson's sculpture reminded me of a 3-D manifestation of of works from Lemm's Lapse series without the complications. That's not a slam. I'm just talking about form. I actually enjoyed the undiluted nature of the piece. Pierre St.-Jacques' exquisite Project for a Grey Dress is the real revelation here. I loved the pacing and the lines of this piece. Check out the generous Quicktime clip on the Peer website.


Sebastian Lemm, Traveller II #6

Southern Cross.

There's a motif popping up lately that combines Nazi symbols with those of the Confederacy. At the Assume Vivid Astro Focus show on Saturday one of the day's performers was wearing swastika pasties made of tape and Confederate flag panties. Last month at No Fun Fest I picked up an amazing sonic collaboration between Prurient and ffh, Women In The War. The stunning packaging is an obsessive exploration of the same theme. Seriously. Our times so totally SUCK.

Words with a B this time.