Show Us Your Tits!

Oh, right. You don't have any. Nevermind.

You know the drill. Art. Sexism. Stupidity.

J. Crew

R. Pruitt


[UPDATE: OK. It's not really clear if the catalogue cover is the general JCrew cover or just for the Men's publication. I'll say this. If you go to the corresponding Women's section on the website, it just shows another one of their fake blueblood throat-pokers. Which then leads to the question, "Why wouldn't they have done a matching photo shoot with female artists?"]

BONUS WARNING: The Acconci pages are totally stuck together.

Hat tips to Art Fag City and Roberta Smith for pointing out the numbers, or the lack thereof.

Thunderpollen, Motherfuckers!!!

Hyperallergic. Storming your heart, head, and lungs soon. Actually, it kind of already is. Go and be good. Your immune system mediators will never be the same.

TOTAL BONUS POINTS if you caught the reference to MOTT THE HOOPLE's back up singers.

I have to go away for a bit, so behave yourselves while I'm out of class. Seriously. This is gonna be good.

Lost.

Christopher Saunders, Whitenoise 3

I'm always getting lost in Chinatown. And I mean, like, ALWAYS. The nice thing is that somehow I (usually) eventually (somehow) find my way to the East Broadway F station which is right across the street from LaViolaBank Gallery. I always stop in. I consistently like at least 60% (sometimes more, never less) of what I see on the walls there, which, let's face it, is a pretty good average. Much better than most. The group show that's up now, Outside In, mos def hits a higher than usual. Christopher Saunders' exquisite paintings were one of the things that helped the average this time 'round. Also killin' it was Mira O'Brien's gorgeous and broken Glass Platform. Leighton Pierce's Tree videos in the basement reminded me a lot of the video that I saw Wolfgang Voigt use up at Columbia earlier in the summer. Trust me. This is a good thing. These are all good things. I should get lost more often.

Pre.

Before there were signs there were pictures. From the flickr photostream of the legend that is Newsgrist.

70/30. 100%!!!

Bob Schatz

Go Olympia! Look y'all. Any project that includes both Robert Schatz AND Alison Blickle is more than alright by me. It's fucking fabulous. One day of ass-kicking only, so get yourself out to Ditmas Park, like, now and stuff. Another way to find you.


Alison Blickle

T Pain.

Yeah. I give up. I'm tweetling. Seems like a pain. Expansion or contraction? Only one way to find out. There will be many music references and much swearing. And I'm betting some art will show up as well.

Pink.

Great to see Kate Gilmore's new video inthe group show at The Kitchen, but it was especially good to see the installation that went with it. The color of the paint somehow exploits the viewer's depth perception, and looks like it's floating just above the surface of the wood or the floor. It's like a blowout version of other shades of pink that have appeared in earlier videos. Plus, it totally matches the rubber on a Grolsch bottle.

Maria Bartiromo

Open The Door.

Andy Yoder, Door Number Four, 2008

It's time to put on your back-to-school outfit, kids. Finally, I'm jazzed about art again. Was kind of not interested over the summer, Governor's Island notwithstanding. Oddly enough, this wildly problematic article about the state of the art world by Roberta Smith got me excited about the new season. Not because it said anything I cared about, but just because it mentioned a lot of galleries and artists. (And seriously, hearing Michelle Maccarone say, "I’m even doing resale. Me, Michele Maccarone." was pretty fucking priceless. Not because I don't like her. I do. [Or at least I like her eye. I don't know her.] It was more about how refreshingly honest the statement was, and how accurate it was as a self-assessment and a picture of the larger situation. I mean, seriously. Michelle Maccarone doing resale. Everything is wrong.)

I know. Kind of lame on my part, but I'll take what I can get at this point. And really, this year I think I've finally learned. Am I going to try to go to every opening in Chelsea on Thursday night? No. You can't see the art anyway. I'll focus on friends and the free beer I can find in between them. Simple as that. The Winkleman Gallery and Schroeder Romero axis,, Denise Bibro Fine Art, and then to The Kitchen where Kate Gilmore is part of the group show One Minute More. Celebrate the success that is here right now. And we'll go from there, our hearts bigger than we ever knew.

Don't Be A Brent. Go To These Openings Tonight.

Jack Whitten

It's killin' me that I'm not going to be able to make it to two openings tonight. I'll have to catch the shows later, but without a doubt you should be going to Jack Whitten at Alexander Gray in Chelsea, and Franklin Evans on the LES. A late comer to Whitten's work, every painting is a revelation for me. I'm not being all HeartAsArena-y when I say that either. I mean it. Evans provided me with the liveliest (Or more accurately, "liviest") studio experience in recent memory with his year-long studio-as-art journey during his Marie Walsh Sharpe residency last year. I can't wait to see the endless results.

Here's a primer on my great affection for both artists' work: First Jack Whitten, and then Franklin Evans.


Franklin Evans

Laughing At The Deaf.

On Jerry Saltz's offer to Glenn Beck, I quote Luna: "You can never give/The finger to the blind". Then I go back to something that I care about.

Is It My Body?

What have I got
That makes you
Want to love me?
--Alice Cooper


Genesis P-Orridge, Untitled (Mail art to Robert Delford Brown), Mixed media

The academy and not the academy. Both should be loved. Both should be feared. Everybody kicks ass in their own special way. Otherwise they wouldn't be here. Go ask Alice if you don't believe me.

Two shows open Wednesday night. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge's 30 Years of Being Cut Up at Invisible Exports, and Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820–2009 @ The National Academy of Art (including HAA fave, Jenny Dubnau).


Jenny Dubnau, Self-portrait with Striped Shirt, oil on canvas

Round And Round.

In the most recent issue of Interview "sometimes-we'll-mail-it-to-you-sometimes-we'll-not" Magazine there's a turntable art feature with one glaring omission: the amazing Angela White. Although, she's not a dude, so I guess she didn't qualify for this particular line-up. Which is a shame, because--both sonically and visually--what she's been doing with turntables is a lot more interesting than anybody listed in the article. Her work was one of the highlights in the Christian Marclay-curated Ensemble at the ICA in 2007, and the first time I saw one of her sculptures in Chelsea I was so thrilled I actually thanked the rain.

Here's some video from her 2007 solo show at Shoshana Wayne in LA.

She Stepped Into . . . She Stepped Into . . .

Sharon Butler ON the Square.

Sharon Butler on the Square.

. . . another world.

Off The Wall.

More Is More.

Watching a head-on single shot video of an ensemble can be pretty boring unless it's a head-on single shot video of Carsten Nicolai and Ryuichi Sakamoto with the Ensemble Modern backed by Carsten's images. Then it can be pretty damn fabulous. The DVD is included in a beautifully designed package with the CD UTP. If I was filthy rich, the first thing I would do would be to commission Nicolai to make a room for me: walls, floor, ceiling, air. Done.

As I've said before, Sakamoto works best in collaboration, and his work with Nicolai is some of the best music either one of them have ever made. The wider canvas provided by the ensemble could have led to disaster, but it doesn't. The music moves from less to more with aplomb, the musicians pushing the composers into Krautrock at one point and not-so-simply changing the shape of their studio sound in others. Augment. Restructure. Move forward. You know, the usual with these two.

Bring The Big Fork.

Generous servings of Clare Grill's Cake are now available at Jen Bekman's wondrous 20X200 series. Try some. Eat one.