Elizabeth Olbert

Elizabeth Olbert

Visited Daniel Field's North Adams space... I'm not sure what to call the space, it's a storefront space filled with interesting stuff. Daniel uses it as his studio, and is surrounded by his own stuff and stuff he's collected, but I think everything is theoretically "for sale".

REALLY liked this Elizabeth Olbert painting, hanging from the ceiling. A many-beady-eyed gentle hunchbacked creature, holding a candle, surrounded by bubbles, butterflies, and clouds. I think it's from the late eighties, or maybe early 90's? The pastel palette, candle, soft curves, beady eyes, sweet grotesque, dreamy atmosphere all had me thinking of Lisa Yuskavage... (+ Robert Crumb).

It's painted on a cloud-printed bedsheet.

1995 David Ebony AiA review
1996 Peter Plagens Newsweek feature on Elizabeth Olbert, Nicola Tyson, Lisa Yuskavage
1998 David Ebony Artnet review
2000 Roberta Smith NYTimes review
2006 Caren Golden exhibition

update

Met Nancy Spector and got to ask her about a couple things I was wondering about -

The heavy use of exhibition prints in the Richard Prince show was both a practical and conceptual decision, mostly practical, or at least a practical decision with a full awareness of the conceptual reading. The prints won't be destroyed... they'll be saved and stored for possible future use, and right now those prints are in Minneapolis for the upcoming Walker show. Regarding the fate of Second House, they - the artist and the museum - are not sure what to do with it yet, but it won't be re-made... they're trying to decide whether it should just be torn down or can somehow be preserved as is, maybe inside of a larger clear structure, somehow.

Nancy Spector will be lecturing on Richard Prince, at the Walker, March 22nd.

late

better late than never, some photos finally retrieved from my phone.... all stuff i liked from a nyc visit last fall -


Patrick Hill, Forming, at Bortolami - excellent show... maybe i can add more later.

nice installation shots here.


Lady Pink and Jenny Holzer, Tear ducts seem to be a grief provision, 1983, from I Am As You Will Be, at Cheim & Read.

More Jenny Holzer + Lady Pink images here.... and here's a good image of one. Ilona Granet did the lettering for Jenny. I'm not sure how it works credit-wise, who the "artist" is... the Cheim & Read show label said the piece was by Jenny Holzer and Lady Pink, the Monika Spruth Philomene Magers listing says they are by Holzer, with credit to Granet for the lettering and no credit to Pink. Lady Pink's paintings are AWESOME...

Jenny Holzer's flaming rocker. Jenny Holzer utilized by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla.


Marcel Broodthaers, Femur d'une Femme Francaise, 1965, from I Am As You Will Be, at Cheim & Read.


Wendy White, from The Show's So Nice, at Monya Rowe - like the edges...


Charles Searles, at GR N'Namdi Gallery.

clown of the corn

corn clown.... it has taken almost five months but i've finally gotten all the photos off my phone. this clown statue was at the halloween corn maze, in which you can get seriously lost.

i'm going to buy a real camera. top choice would be an slr, a nikon d80 or nikon 300, but i'm not ready for that stuff yet and can't afford it anyway... right now a nice point and shoot will be a HUGE technical step up. zoe strauss took a lot of earlier photos with a konica minolta dimage s414, so if a 2003 4-megapixel point and shoot was good enough for her i think i'll be fine.

flickr has been an amazing camera research tool. you can see all the cameras used on flickr, look at the specs, read reviews, and look at all the pictures taken with whatever camera.

i'm definitely getting a canon. these are the ones that look best right now -

a. canon powershot sd1000 digital elph - 7.i megapixel, 3x optical zoom, 2.5 lcd, rechargeable - $179.00

b. canon powershot sd1100 digital elph (the update of the above camera, coming out in march) - 8 mp, 3x oz, 2.5 lcd, rechargeable, image stabilization - $249.00

c. canon powershot sd850 is - 8 mp, 4x oz, 2.5 lcd, rechargeable, image stabilization - $299.00

d. canon powershot sd870 is elph - 8 mp, 3.8 oz, 3x oz, rechargeable, image stabilization - $349.00

Alan Shields

Today, Saturday 2/23, is the final day to see Eat the Document, a show at Larissa Goldston, curated by Dean Daderko, featuring work by A.K. Burns, Jimmy De Sana, Alan Shields, Eileen Quinlan... all of which looks good but I especially like Shields.

Alan Shields show at the Parrish Art Museum - MISSED... super regret
Alan Shields show at Dieu Donne - MISSED

FAAN, especially FAWN

When I was on the Pocket Utopia blog last week I saw a link to something called the Fine Art Adoption Network, aka FAAN.

FAAN is full of artists... you can explore by artwork or by artist... hoping to find deserving homes for excess artwork. Everything is FREE, if you see something you want just contact the artist and try to explain how you will provide a loving and supportive home, and why your home is the best home for the well-being of the piece. Go to the website to learn more about the adoption process.


Fawn Krieger, CORRAL, 2003

Fawn Krieger's CORRAL is one of my favorite pieces, but unfortunately I cannot offer it the home it needs. Fawn is hoping to place CORRAL with a little girl.


Sand T, Negotiating the Irrationalities, 11"x11", 2008

Also like this piece by Sand T... and am happy to see it... because I met Sand T when I showed at her space in Malden, but have never seen her work. NICE SURPRISE!! Now I want to see it for real.

FORTUNATELY, if I get to NYC before too long I can see Fawn Krieger's show at Art in General. I think the store will be open for two more months. I would like a pair of the art handling gloves, or something LV. Maybe I can get a fawncified LV bread tag necklace....

NEW! & Maccarone Approved

more from the statcounter -

Deutsche Bank was checking out this post... I guess because Deutsche Bank was mentioned in the comments -

"i'm assuming carol bove and corey mccorkle's permission to participate in the upcoming whitney biennial means that deutsche bank has been sufficiently vetted"

Har har.

RELATED: Maccarone Approval is fickle, not as cute as Seal of Approval...

FDIC TESTED, MACCARONE APPROVED!

Mission Creep

So sad. I have a statcounter which shows me the things that people google. Someone googled "does white columns respond to artist". Answer posts here and here.

Next week White Columns shows Janice Guy. Janice Guy's gallery, Murray Guy, shows White Columns Director Matthew Higgs.

Janice doesn't really make art anymore, she'll be showing her work from the 1970's. White Columns' website states, "Guy abandoned art making in the early 1980s"... sort of like how White Columns abandoned support of emerging artists in the early 2000's.

Concurrent with the Janice Guy show will be an exhibition of work from the collection of critic Vince Aletti, and a show of stuff from the collection of curator Bob Nickas.

RELATED: White Columns now-joke Wikipedia page, Matthew Higgs on Wikipedia, my White Columns page.

burned house baggie + photo

collection of timothy buckwalter.

From: Michele Maccarone

To:
John Baldessari, Kris Kuramitsu, Weston Naef, Cathy Opie, Ann Philbin, Paul Schimmel;
and the Deans or Chairs of:
Art Center College of Design, California Institute of the Arts, Claremont Graduate University, Otis College of Art and Design, University of California in Irvine, University of California in Riverside, University of California in Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California

January 29, 2008

Re: LA25

Dear Colleagues,

In the summer of 2006, the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (Skadden Arps) announced a three-year program, LA25, intended to aid twenty-five artists from a select group of Southern California art schools and university art departments. I write to you in order to bring to your attention the fact that Skadden Arps is also the law firm that counseled and represented the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), probono, in Mass MoCA's recent lawsuit against artist Christoph Büchel. As you may know, Mass MoCA sued Mr. Büchel in order to obtain a court ruling allowing them to distort and exhibit Mr. Büchel's artwork without his consent.

I find it very ironic and deeply unsettling that Skadden Arps has initiated this program and collection using the existing professional and highly-respected institutions in the Los Angeles art community, all the while counseling and representing an institution that not only disseminated false and negative press about an artist, but also strategically initiated a lawsuit which claimed that either Mr. Büchel's project was not art, or alternatively that the Museum was the co-author of Mr. Büchel's unfinished art work.

The lawyers of Skadden Arps were so aggressive and manipulative in their tactics against Mr. Büchel that they are now responsible, along with MassMoCA, in establishing an unprecedented decision which made it legal for a museum to exhibit an unfinished and unauthorized installation by an artistagainst her or his consent. The negative historical consequences of this matter remain to be seen, but ostensibly the impact of this aggressive and manipulative maneuver by an art institution and its representative is frightening.

I write to urge you to not participate in putting together a collection for a corporation who has challenged the authority and authenticity of a fine contemporary artist, and simultaneously diminished legal protections for the very same visual artists we all help produce, educate, nourish and support.

Yours truly,

Michele Maccarone
Maccarone Gallery
New York City

(Via Geoff Edgers, Via Clinton)

previously -

5/16/2007 - predicting the show will never open
5/22/2007 - expecting notoriety
5/29/2007 - report from tarp show
6/12/2007 - some views
6/18/2007 - Buchel exhibits legal documents in Switzerland
7/27/2007 - tools of the master
7/30/2007 - CLANCCO cranks it up
8/20/2007 - World's First Google image search sculpture
9/05/2007 - Robert Storr VS. Nancy Spector
9/19/2007 - announcement, links to NYTimes, Brooklyn Rail...
9/21/2007 - report from the motion hearing.. part 1
9/22/2007 - report from the motion hearing... part 2
9/24/2007 - on Roberta's piece, and more
9/25/2007 - 2nd correction to Roberta's NYTimes piece
12/09/2007 - Buchel's Miami Basel coda, with a Jenny Holzer reference

KAI SIGHTING!

Kai sighting on Pocket Utopia's blog, at the Rico Gatson opening.

Jenny Holzer

Jenny Holzer at Mass MoCA...

Strange to see how intimate she has managed to make this huge space... it was like opening the door to a dollhouse. The space is practically empty, she's done it all with lighting and scale... the projected words are in fact huge, but from across the vast hall you don't initially realize it... and the beanbag chairs are as big as cars, but again, standing at the door of the darkened space they're like clumps of mushrooms.

The experience is so relaxing and pleasurable, I'm not sure what to make of sinking myself into a giant soft pillow and being soothed by war poetry... or rather, soothed by scrolling atmospheric lights, because I can't say I focused on trying to read much of the text.

The projected text scrolls along the floor and ceiling, wrapping around at the walls... in effect you are sort of embraced by the text while laying flat on your back, cuddled by the soft chair... lulled into passivity. People enter the space, weave around a little, and drop... bodies scattered everywhere.

It is impossible to consider this show without comparing it to the almost-Buchel show; Buchel's unsuccessful attempt to fill the space as densely as possible, Holzer's emptiness... Buchel's bodies required to investigate and navigate a labyrinthe, Holzer's motionless bodies... Buchel's need to push and provoke, Holzer's willingness to aid in time of need (even the Holzer books and merchandise for sale in the shop area have been donated by the artist).

RELATED: Cate McQuaid for Boston Globe, Charles Giuiano's Maverick Arts, Ken Johnson for NYTimes.

Porch Heads

porch heads.


like Devo.


weird things look weirder in the snow.

RELATED: Abraham Lincoln considering naked woman and naked boy, window head. Hit FREAKY and scroll down for lots of freaky stuff.

Endangered Snow Tiger

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PHOTO REMOVED AT REQUEST OF ARTIST DANIEL RICHMOND.
EnDangered Snow Tiger. - by Daniel Richmond

PHOTO REMOVED AT REQUEST OF ARTIST DANIEL RICHMOND.
Approach with caution.

UPDATE 2/20/08: This post originally included three photographs of a snow sculpture of a large animal (tiger?) skull in a public park, part of an advertised small-town outdoor sculpure festival, taken on a snowy day. The guy who made it, Daniel Richmond, pretty much demanded that I remove them... legalities were mentioned... he's not worth it!
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Tom Sanford

Tom Sanford is interviewed on Bad at Sports. These are some images of new work from his studio, discussed during the inteview, which will be included in his show at Leo Koenig (opening on May 2nd).


Dollar Bill Y'All!

RELATED: I think No Rules Jules is part of this body of work and will be in the May show.
UPDATE: I've added a Tom Sanford label.

two friends showing in LA

Timothy Buckwalter has a show at Pharmaka (101 W. Fifth Street). The show begins Feb. 14 and ends April 1. The opening reception is Feb. 16 from 6-9pm.


Meridith Pingree is at Fringe Exhibitions (504 Chung King Court). Meridith's show has already opened, and runs through Feb. 23.

GO!!!