Heroes Show Photos!!! PLUS!

Fast on the heels of the Richmond VA Art Basel: Stuffy's photos, The Heroes Show photos!!! I stole them from Judith Baumann's blog.

The show was at Bryce's Barber Shop, in Olympia WA...


My piece is between the mirrors, on the left... here is a picture of it on Judy's blog. Here's the scanned-in version, with my Heroes statement.


Top-center is Laura Sharp Wilson and elin o'hara slavick, to the right is Michael Lease, and that little blue one might be the Joanne Greenbaum.


The middle one is Kimya Dawson... she played at the opening (she's a musician also)... listen to I Like Giants on her Myspace.

Let me know any of the unidentified artists pictured here and I'll post their names... where is Josh Rickards?


This is Judith Baumann's... she explains it here.

PLUS: Here are the flickr photos and youtube video of Drew Liverman/Jules Buck Jones/Scott Eastwood/Mike Phalan's Stalemate of the Boozefoxxx, in Austin TX.

Art Basel: Stuffy's Photos!!! PLUS... where are they now???

Douglas Witmer sent me his Art Basel: Stuffy's photos! LOOK, this is it! The pieces on that first wall are me, Michael Lease, 3 by Drew Liverman, and Rachel Hayes. Check out all the booths!

I saw today that Drew has an EIGHT-PAGE spread in the current issue of Beautiful Decay! wow. PLUS, Rachel has a review in NYArts Magazine.

Oura Sananikone, Bruce Wilhelm, Travis Conner, Timothy Sean Johnston, Don Crow, Scott Eastwood.

Bruce has got a lot going on.... Don is back in Richmond for the summer.... Scott is where? Last thing I know is Scott made Boozefox with Drew and Jules, in Austin... and it LOOKS AMAZING... Travis is probably in a boxcar somewhere?

UPDATE: Travis RIP


Timothy Sean Johnston and Don Crow.


First wall - Drew Liverman, Travis Conner, Rachel Hayes, Barbara Tisserat.

Back wall - Scott Eastwood, Travis Conner


THE SIGN!


Drew Liverman, Tom Harte, Drew Liverman, Scott Eastwood, Travis Conner.


Don Crow, Scott Eastwood, 2 by me, Paul DiPasquale, Drew Liverman, Travis Conner, Rachel Hayes, Barbara Tisserat.

I think Paul is probably the only one here that has had a movie made about him..


THE STAFF!

Scott Eastwood, Travis Conner, Scott Eastwood.

2 by Tom Harte, Fiona Ross, Drew Liverman, Travis Conner, 2 by Michael Lease, Oura Sananikone.

Fiona just finished a residency in Ireland.

That is almost the whole show, only a couple spaces not shot. One artist, Michelle Arthur, isn't pictured here, these photos were taken at the end of the show and she had just picked up her stuff.

Jerry Saltz at Art Basel: Stuffy's!!! We are still waiting for the review!

RELATED: Secret Origin of Stuffy's.
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Jerry Saltz at Art Basel: Stuffy's!!!

Jerry Saltz visited Art Basel: Stuffy's!!! I'm so lucky that I happened to go to Stuffy's for a meatball sandwich and recognized him! What are the odds?

I wonder if this art fair will get on Artnet??? He seemed to take a lot of notes.


Jerry Saltz reading Michael Lease's obituary.


Jerry Saltz with work by Don Crow, Scott Eastwood, me, and Paul DiPasquale.

Sorry for all the bad cropping and angles, I was trying to be inconspicuous.


He looked at Barbara Tisserat's piece for a long time. I could hear him softly whispering.. "hello my lovelies, my pretties"... it was a little creepy.


AAARRGHH!!! He walked right by my painting! This is the SECOND TIME he has done this! Bastard!! He did the same thing last year at Scope Miami, when I was sitting out front with a bunch of paintings. I can't get a break.


Admiring one of Rachel Hayes' two pieces.


Studying one of Timothy Sean Johnston's paintings. He kept that same expression throughout the entire show, he is THAT intense. I guess maybe that is his poker-face?

I couldn't figure out what he was thinking AT ALL.

Michael Lease and Christopher Wiedeman

An Assault on Taste, formerly referred to as Art of This Century, and Art Basel: Stuffy's are NOT the only two CURRENT BEST shows in Richmond... there is also Michael Lease and Christopher Weideman's artist-initiated Alley-Oop, in an old cinderblock shed behind the former Hand Workshop Art Center.

Michael has wrapped all four sides of the small building with wheatpasted photographs; most of the photographs seem to be of, or reference, people and places that Michael feels close to. Sweet documentary snapshots... details of odd little corners, cropped figures and moments. I think he calls this body of work For The Lack Of Words.

Judith Baumann says "equal parts nostalgia, mystery and deliberate spontaneity, Michael's photography makes you wish you were there."

Michael Lease is also in Art Basel: Stuffy's!!!


The two tombstones one above is funny; Eggleston of course would reference the photographer William Eggleston... Adair must be local artist and teacher Tom Adair.

When I saw Tom indoors at the opening I greeted him with, "hey, there's a tombstone out back with your name on it"... which was probably not the best thing to say. Hopefully he ended up getting the joke. Ha ha.

P.S. Tom is a GREAT drawing teacher...


The opening was a couple weeks ago... some of the pictures are starting to peel away now.


Michael's work is outside, and Christopher Weideman has the INSIDE of the building.

Christopher has built a plywood wall and floor.. so that when you walk into the building you step UP into a short corridor, around the corner of which the plywood floor becomes a curved ramp directing your eye and body toward a black pit near the opposite corner of a darkened room. All of the dirt and rubble pulled from the pit is piled up in that corner, on the other side of the pit and curved around it, so that the black hole is encircled by cement, wood, and dirt.

Man, I really like seeing the arrangement of these three materials together... the rough plywood, smooth cold cement, and soft dirt... and that round black void. It feels like an altar, or waiting for some arrival.


There is MORE! Inside the hole, at the bottom, is a television screen playing a video... a ten-minute (or so) edited loop of Christopher digging the hole. He rigged a video camera directly overhead.

The hole itself is so pretty.. it's hard to see well in this picture, but the sides are like petals. It reminded me of the Imi Hwangbo pieces that were exhibited last month.. but this whole thing was way more interesting.


Working through the layer of cement floor.


The sweaty, grunting artist... glimpses of ambition and futility.

Go see it! Monday through Friday, 9-5, through November 24th. They have documented the whole process here.

someone's photos

Someone's photos on a boarded up window near Chop Suey. The photo DEADLINE is August 1st.

Michael Lease

Michael Lease, originally uploaded by Bromirski.

Michael Lease is showing at Chop Suey with a selection of digital prints blown up from birthday snapshots. Michael solicited friends and acquaintances for the photos, also asking to be put in contact with each contributor's mother, from whom he then requested written thoughts and birthday remembrances. Michael's correspondence with both the contributors and their mothers is all displayed in a binder, easily matched up with the photos on the walls.

Most of the photos are from the 70's and 80's, it's fun to look back at the Pac-Man pajamas and feathered hair. One kid is having his party at McDonald's with a McDonald's cake (do they still do that?) and a photo from the Bicentennial Year of 1976 features a cake covered with little paper American flags. A seven-year-old princess from 1985 is wearing a Happy Birthday tiara and leaning over a tablecloth of hearts to blow out her star-covered rainbow cake.

I've seen the exhibition twice; the first time was at the opening and it felt like a party, surrounded by all the photos of children and cakes and balloons - celebratory. The second time I was alone in the quiet gallery space and my encounter was much different, almost mournful. Most of the photos are of the moment, the moment of blowing out the birthday candles, the moment of wish-making and the exhalation of breath. It's a magic combination I hadn't considered before. Some of these little faces look so serious and intent on blowing out those candles and getting that wish, like they almost understand and are maybe even considering the worth of this acknowledgment of mortality. The all-white borders of the prints and white frames contributed to the more ethereal, elegiac feelings I had on my second visit.

Michael's last projects I saw, a photo-narrative remembrance of people from his life he has lost contact with, and his own fake obituary published in the Washington Post, had the same melancholy combination of the celebratory and mournful.

RELATED: I'm two! Three! Four! My mom's cakes look pretty simple but they are made from scratch and DELICIOUS. Maybe carrot cake or spice cake. I want to go baaack.

VCU MFA Thesis Shows - Round One II

Okay, I went back (first visit here) to VCU's first round thesis shows and was able to spend more time with stuff so here are some more introductions -

Marius Valdes - I saw a film he made earlier this year at a Flat International show about this little cute thing, some kind of unwanted mutant, that gets out of it's jar and encounters the scary world. Here in the gallery he had hundreds of these little unwantables, each unique and super cute. They're about the size a finger at most. Super cute!! I took two. I'm not sure if I was supposed to.

Michael Lease - I can't believe he did this. Michael submitted his own In Memoriam piece to the Washington Post and they printed it. His picture is right there along with a short memorial. I heard that he didn't tell anyone and upset a number of people. Wow. It's so weird to look at a real page of death notices and (a) see someone you know and (b) know that he is not dead. I like this piece because it upsets me - I'm upset that he has gone somewhere he doesn't belong and has defiled the page.

Michael also has a big photo/text installation of people that he used to be very close to but are now no longer in his life. Pictures of ex-girlfriends and childhood friends along with short remembrances.

You can see Michael's piece in the April 10, 2005 Washington Post.

Ryan Mulligan - Ryan has a small room installation called Defense is the Best Defense. There is a drawing on the wall of the Anderson Gallery building and a bunch of ways to defend it or escape, a video of Ryan in a corner of his studio swinging shovels and crowbars at unseen (zombie visiting artist?) assailants, and another video of people reading lines from movies like Independence Day. The room is full of tools and planks of wood, probably to barricade the door and window with, but it looks like he either got away or the zombies ate him.

This room is an act of desperation and it works.

The second round of thesis shows opens Friday, May 6th.