With A Heave And A Hope: Doug Aitken's Station To Station.

Tyler Green asked me a question on twitter last Friday. It was a good question. It made me want to write more than 140 characters. Tommy Aldridge is going to have to hit pause on that drum solo.

After I declared my love for Doug Aitken's Station To Station website, Tyler replied with the tweet, "So far the whole thing seems very corporate scenester. What am I not getting?"

Hmmm. I don't know. There are so many things to not get about Doug Aitken, and they are a constantly shifting. For me, those things usually stay at bay and it all comes together for me in almost all of Aitken's work. I often do get it, even when I can't explain why. (Don't sweat the small stuff, Brent!)

Ironically, the one place where it's never come together for me is Aitken's "Happenings." Besides not liking the dodgy-ass, cliché name, every one I've gone to has been a shitshow. Disorganized. Crap sound. Annoying audience. Intellectually cluster-fucked events are not fun or interesting. They're just messes that seem to be enjoyed mostly by the people on stage or on the walls or in their resultant CV augmentations. However, props to Aitken for even trying.

So, why do I have any hope for Station To Station, which is essentially a rolling "happening" (Sorry, that shit ain't escaping the quotation marks.)? Lots of reasons. These are the reasons, in this case, that I'm getting it. At least so far. All I've seen is the website. We'll see if the train journey is the expressway through my skull that i'm hoping for.

To return to Tyler's use of the phrase, "corporate scenester" . . . Yes and yes.

Oddly enough, I hadn't seen the LEVI'S logo in my many visits to the site until I did a search and landed on the home page where it's a prominent fixture. It IS on all subsequent pages, but it was so small I never noticed it on my 15" screen. Generally, I can't get too excited about corporate sponsorship unless it becomes a detriment to the art, in which case the art, the artist, and the sponsor should be ridiculed mercilessly.

I don't see that happening here with Station To Station. In fact, to a certain extent, if anything, Aitken has stolen from the LEVI'S aesthetic throughout his entire career. He owes THEM. Either way, my take on corporate sponsorship is one of bemused detachment, akin to Sebastian Bach's defense of embracing the reality TV gravy train. Sebastian Bach could give a flying fuck about reality TV, but he'll take their money. Paraphrasing now: "Thank you for you money. I am going to take it now and put it all into METAL." [Metal heads, insert long boriing argument here as to whether or not Sebastian Bach is Metal.] Everybody knows what an institution is buying when they give money to an artist or an institution (Illusion of edge!), and everybody knows what an artist is getting when they take money from a corporate entity (Illusion of lunch!). [Art heads, insert long boring conversation about corporations and courtiers here.]

An aside: I don't know if I want an art world where I can't laugh at an Altria executive getting to say "a couple words" in the ghetto of a Whitney press opening.

Scenesterism. [This is the paragraph in which I will both agree and disagree with myself.] I don't mind Aitken's brand of scenesterism. Or at least, in respects to it prompting decent art actions, I maintain a weird hope for it. It comes out of the fact that he's very well connected with a number of scenes, both well-moneyed and not, interesting and not. I'd call it boosterism and it seems to come from a place of love and encouragement. It's a warm blanket of sheen. In the case of the interviews on the website, it reminds me of old issues of Interview magazine, which were more than a little scenestery. And I like the same repeated or similar questions leading to everything from the existential to the mundane when it comes to the answers. To quote Charles Bukowski, "i have shit stains in my underwear too." So, scene on, Doug Aitken. Scene on. (This viewpoint self-intersects with my fears that it WILL be too scene-y, but something about Aitken makes me live in hope. [Which is not a bad place to start.])

Other things that give me hope for Station To Station to be as good on a whole as it is as a website:

1. I'm a sucker for anything based on a Bowie song. Especially this Bowie song. And quite specifically, that intro. It should not be forgotten that he did that without the help of Eno. You could stop that song after the intro and you'd be guaranteed forward motion for a couple hours.

2. Slanted, this. But, well: Hunger. The typeface and design aesthetic used for the quotes throughout the website is either borrowed from or influenced by Blackest Ever Black has been doing for the last couple years. Or, maybe it's been plucked from the air of the zeitgeist, but a it's a little behind the breeze. And that means that Aitken has some catching up to do. He's usually coming in on top of the beat. This time, he's a little behind. That's a spot that can be just as fertile though when it comes to pushing a song forward.

3. Man Bartlett is involved. I don't know the details, but even if it's at the most technician-y level, Man Bartlett makes everything better.

4. Even with my past perceived disasters of earlier "happenings", I maintain a certain faith in all things wide-ranging. From the interests of the website to the train's path, this project covers that.

5. I'm a sucker for trains. I often dream of them when I'm alone.

6. Blackfoot.

Roll on, Doug Aitken. Roll on. Take that train, baby.

Big Preview: Doug Aitken at 303 Gallery.

This Is How I Feel.

Hey. Sorry 'bout the lightness of posting lately. 1. It's summer which means more drinking and picnics. 2. I've been working on something. Not to go all Winkleman on you, but I'll share the details when things are more firmed up. And no, I'm not doing what we're all betting Ed is doing.

Plus, this is the part of the summer when I finally go to see the summer shows in Chelsea only to be reminded--as I am every single year--that a boatload of the galleries are closed on Saturdays for the hot months. Which is what happened on Saturday. Sorry kids, I don't have that much jam.

So, enjoy the the Ryan Adams vid. The song is derivative as hell, but it's fucking great. It's a balance. Be the fulcrum. Whatever. To see Doug Aitken's take on the song click here. (Nice Christian Marclay reference, by the way, Mr. Aitken). You knew this was coming back around to art, right? So, not whatever. Not whatever at all.

Alright Now.

The Armory was where I spent Sunday afternoon and it kicked mad ass. A total clusterfuck, but I didn't care. I'm tired of writing about art fairs though so this post will mostly be pics of some of the highlights except for the part where I say how smart Leo Koenig is at the end.

Doug Aitken


Ryan McGinness



Tara Donovan


Nicola Tyson


Marilyn Minter



Kate Gilmore and her painful piece about fitting in, fame, and fuckery.


And finally, the smart gallery award goes to Leo Koenig for putting up Wendy White at their booth. Her show last year at Sixty-Seven was #3 on my top 10 list. I mentioned that if Mary Boone were on it, she'd be scooping up this painting monster. This'll do though. I asked, and White is not with the gallery. However, showing somebody at a fair like this is a good way to test the waters and obviously shows more than a passing interest. Good news for White no matter how you slice it.

Immersion.

For the last week or so most of my art blogging energy has been going into my attempt to blog Doug Aitken's Sleepwalkers on a daily basis over on my Creative Time Blog. I fell in love with it opening night, and I thought that I'd go up to see it a few more times before it ended. When I went to see it the Friday night after the opening I realized that I wanted to try to see it every night after that. I've only missed one night since then, and the piece just continues to unfold and reward.

Here. Wait. This'll make it easier.
Night 1
Night 4
Night 5
Night 6
Night 7
Night 9
Night 10
Night 11
Night 12
Night 13
Night 14
Night 15

Silent Rhythm.

Here's my first post over at Creative Time about Doug Aitken's Sleepwalkers.

New Posts Over At Creative Time.

Charles de Meaux, You Should be the Next Astronaut, for Creative Time's 59th Minute, 2006

There's a bunch of new posts over at my Creative Time blog. And while I'm on the subject of Creative Time . . . the upcoming project that Doug Aitken is doing for them--projections onto the outside walls of MoMA--is sooooooo going to rock.





Doug Aitken, rendering and stills from Sleepwalkers

I Knew Something Was Happening . . .

I just wasn't sure what. This'll do. This'll do quite nicely. Creative Time + MoMA = LOVE. Doug Aitken at the controls.

Broken.

There's a new new post on my Creative Time blog about Doug Aitken's Broken Screen Happening. It was in a spectacularly decaying building on the Lower East Side, the old Essex Street Retail Market. The line was down the block. Many of the beautiful ones were there (Let's call it the Hermes Effect.). Things happened. Paint peeled. Adam Green was pissed. Where has his love gone?

I Predict.

Not to go all Crystal Ball on you but sometimes it's just really easy. I predict, like Criswell, that the next few days will utterly RULE! Here's why.

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe will be up at Gray-Kapernekas on Friday. I'll be going to a preview Thursday night. To be honest, I'm not that familiar with Gilbert-Rolfe's work, but I am very familiar with the flawless taste of Alexander Gray and Venetia Kapernekas. They've been open for a year now, and they've knocked me on my keister with every show. I was happy to see that their dedication to midcareer artists garnered them a mention in Holland Carter's recent article in the Times. That dedication makes what they're doing important, but the quality of the art they're showing is what makes them essential.



Friday is Cinco de Mayo. Monica will lead the way. Bottles and hearts will be broken.

Saturday brings two bits of predictable goodness. First, I'm traveling to Philly to see Zoe Strauss' I-95 show earlier in the day. (See Strauss' blog for directions and more photos.) Once a year Strauss exhibits 250 photographs underneath I-95 for two hours. In my book, this officially qualifies her for some kind of mad genius award. I smell MacArthur.




Saturday evening and Amtrak will bring me back to the city for the Creative Time event, Doug Aitken's Broken Screen Happening. This looks to be massive. Broken illumination. What more can a boy ask for? You know me. I love the sound of breaking glass.



Note: Sad to report that there's no more rsvp'ing for the Aitken shindig. The event is apparently booked beyond bookdom.