Favorites '09

.
'Pop-up'/DIY/artist-driven shows and spaces. Many of these shows were one-night only, or in gallery spaces which the artist-organizers created from extra live/work space -

*106 Green - one-month shows open on Sundays and by appointment in a space run by artist Mitchell Wright. I saw Whitey on the Moon, curated by Kanishka Raja.
*Apartment Show - one night shows, mostly in empty apartments between tenants, organized by artists Denise Kupferschmidt and Joshua Smith. Are these all archived somewhere? I went to Apartment Show XOXO, Apartment Show at Artist's Space, and Real Love Apartment Show.
*Daily Operation - one night shows curated by The Old Gold's Jon Lutz... I saw last year's outdoor sculpture show in a park (co-curated by Matthew Fisher) and Patrick Brennan's FAZES... most of the recent ones have been in the same borrowed space, ClIcK on the individual shows to see installation pictures and what you are missing. Many shared artists and friends between the Apartment Show and Daily Operation gangs.
*EXHIBITION - this was a months-long, multi-artist, ungoogleable and practically anonymous continusly-evolving installation in a an empty storefront that I just happened to stumble upon. It's over now and I never read anything about it anywhere else. Don't know what they are doing next or even who it was.
*HKJB - one-week shows organized by Benjamin King and Jay Henderson. I saw Bad Graphic Design.
*Real Fine Arts - okay this is an actual dedicated gallery space, but run by artists living in the back, only open on the weekends when they are free from their day-jobs or otherwise available. I saw Sam Pulitzer.
*The Sum and All Parts was a one-month show in a temporary gallery space curated by Jenny Borland and Beau Rutland. Listened to Leroy Stevens scream album.
*Use Your Illusion was what looked like (i missed it) an excellent one-week show in the back of a Bushiwck bodega, curated by artist Jesse Hamerman. Don't know if there is a website or if he has done any others, but the space is wicked.
* there is another ongoing one but I can't remember enough to find it... a basement space... where is that? what is it called? they had a group anonymous show recently.

TOP FAVORITE SHOWS
Joanne Greenbaum at D'Amelio Terras
Luca Buvoli at Susan Inglett
Sarah Braman at the Armory
Manzoni show
Apartment Show XOXO - LEGENDARY!
Small A Projects Upstate show

ONE MILLION PAGE VIEWS
anaba broke the one million page view mark... damn! not bad for an artblog... what other artblogs have had a million page views? definitely Tyler Green and Ed Winkleman, probably Fallon and Rosof(?)... I'm not sure if even AFC has it yet (she started a little later). UPDATE: oh wow AFC has it... she's had a million page views in the past six months(!).

FIRST (or Early) NYC-area SOLO SHOWs I WAS GLAD TO SEE -
Martha Friedman
Ida Ekblad
Josh Blackwell
Jonathan Van Dyke
EJ Hauser - at Pluto (not solo but many paintings), and at John Davis.
Jane Benson
Patrick Brennan
Barb Choit
Erin Shireff
David Kennedy Cutler
Jonathan Delachaux and Lizzie Fitch - okay, it was a 2-person show.


Joanne Greenbaum in Cave Painting 2.

MORE Favorite ARTISTs/work of 2009
Lance Rautzhan
Melissa Meyer
Deniz Ozuygur
Nicole Eisenman - at the Tang, and at Leo Koenig.
Ethan Greenbaum - in Abstractions and Contractions and Fresh Asphalt.. but missed his solo show.
Agathe Snow - at Canada, and at the Armory.
Arnold Weschler
Linda Francis - great interview with her.
Cosbe
Loren Munk
Stacy Fisher
Jeffrey Tranchell - in HKJB's Bad Graphic Design and Apartment Show XOXO.
Ivin Ballen - in Abstractions and Contractions, at Pulse with Winkleman, in Blackston show... unfortunately never got to his solo show at Winkleman, but Kai said it was fantastic and took some great pictures.
Patrick Brennan - in The Object Direct (at Heskin, curated by Matthew Fisher), in Apartment Show at Artist's Space, Solo Show with Daily Operation.
Joe Fyfe - and here
William Powhida - his Brooklyn Rail piece.
Joanne Greenbaum - at her studio, at D'Amelio Terras, in Cave Painting 2.
Rosanna Bruno - at Pluto and at John Davis.
Lauren Luloff
Keltie Ferris - these photos are mostly from 2008, but I am all-on-board now.
Sarah Braman - in Apartment Show at Artist's Space, at Museum 52 with Joe Bradley, at Armory Show with Museum 52, in Apartment Show XOXO, at Small A Projects show in Greenwich.
...i keep thinking of artists but i have to stop because i am just re-posting my whole blog.

WORST '09
Jerry Saltz. this isn't a popular position but it just got worse and worse for me...
* slammed Marlene Dumas for years, not in reviews but in sideswipes, and when she had a solo show at MoMA all he could manage was a spiteful Facebook note.
* i added Saltz on Facebook because I'd heard he'd written that note about Dumas and wanted to read it. I quoted it critically and was immediately 'de-friended'... guess you can read his facebook criticism as long as you do not disagree publicly? this is where he really lost me, with trying to control who can see what he writes AND punishing dissenters.
* Bravo show... it might be good, but I doubt it. Samantha Mathis and Kyra Sedgwick? Someone told me that Jerry wants to be the new Tim Gunn. i wish it would just happen already and he can move on.
* feminist crusade -sorry, it's creeeepy
* 'challenging' Glenn Beck to curate two shows with the promise to "secure a first-rate New York venue for each exhibition" and to write about each show in NYMagazine. WOW. Thankfully that never happened. Glenn Beck's producers are pretty good at sniffing out the fame-whores. Sorry, Jer!
* three defense of New Museum articles in a week, the last one a ridiculous deflection.
* suddenly this month his Facebook wall has become visible, not sure if it is intentional or if he missed adjusting the privacy settings. Jeez I had been pissed I was missing something.... shouldn't have worried... my prophets, my children of Thebes, my darlings. BARF! No surprise after my January de-friending to see that almost all the comments are adulatory, from the same few hundred or so 'friends'... I'm assuming his remaining 4,400 'friends' are reading along thinking WTF? and wisely keeping silent.
(this will be edited later)

RELATED: Favorites '08, Fantastic Four 'o7, more '07 faves, Worst Art Things 2004.