some openings

some upcoming openings -

Colleen Asper in a group show opening at Deitch Projects on Sept. 4th, 6-8 - this painting would have been so good in the lady-lacking Mr. President.

Diana Al-Hadid at Perry Rubinstein, opens September 4th.

Sally Smart at Postmasters, opens September 6th - i liked her Surface Charge installation.

Jennifer Coates at Kinz Tillou Feigen, opens September 9th !!!

Amy Wilson at BravinLee, opens September 12th, 6-8pm.

Noel Grunwaldt at Stellan Holm, opens September 12th - nice work, and it will likely be a fairly star-studded opening, if you know what i mean.

Pawel Wojtasik at Martos Gallery, opens September 18th - very good... and he once included me in a show he co-curated.

misc internet

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- Google "small abstract paintings"... with or without quotation marks. WOW.

- Roberta Smith wrote about public art last week. Is internet art considered public art? Is graffiti? She didn't mention either of those. My definition of public art is very looooose... I've added a public art label. UPDATE: I've re-read the article and now realize that Smith was writing specifically about public sculpture... it was probably an editor who made the public art headline.

- Tyler Green posted a response.

- anaba archived in the NYTimes!!! FOREVER!

- Major shake-up in my flickr ranking since I last posted the ten most-viewed photos (scroll down). Kjartan Slettemark has unexpectedly leapt into second place after getting more than 1,500 views because it was linked to in this comment thread.

- Read about the work of Kjartan Slettemark here.

- James Kalm was featured in the LATimes! That's cool. This is from April, but I just saw it.

- Speaking of LA, Eric Sall has a show opening next week at Acuna-Hansen.

Poll: Which Infant Stool Sample?

I'm taking a poll. Which 1907 infant stool sample does Cai Guo-Qiang's Whitney Biennial Gap Artist Editions T-shirt most resemble?

a. meconium
b. constipated, greasy stool of artificially fed infant. this stool is due to the administration of too much fat. it is foul-smelling, like limburger cheese.
c. stool of dyspepsia
d. stool of a case of diarrhea discolored by bismuth.
e. diarrhea discolored by bismuth. note blood and mucus.


Close-up of Cai Guo-Qiang's Whitney Biennial Gap Artist Editions T-shirt. Note splatter and apparent absence of blood.

Jason Coates on Art of This Century

Jason Coates wrote a review of Art of This Century, my 2006 show at the Markel Building. The review was never published... UNTIL NOW!

I've added links to things -

Redefining the Center
Jason Coates

When discussing Martin Bromirski's one person show at Haigh Jamgochian's wonderfully out of place Markel Building in Richmond, VA, it is quite possible to focus only on the near-perfect matchup between the small group of paintings and the site. For starters, Jamgochian's office building- which resembles a gigantic flying saucer plopped down amid the car dealerships and strip malls on West Broad Street, has the same future-as-imagined-from-the-past quality that Bromirski's misty abstracts capture. Bromirski has a knack for redefining the center, often creating art venues where there were none. He's accomplished this with his popular art blog anaba.blogspot.com, his mock Art Basel at Stuffy's Sub Shop in Richmond, and now this show at what Bromirski deems the "Bizzarro Guggenheim". But equally as interesting is the way that the paintings ask you to imagine where they have been.

The handful of small paintings are hung in a circular lobby among an elevator entrance and vending machines. Yet, even in this modest setting, Bromirski's paintings appear unassuming- almost tailor made to blend into the space. It is this unassuming quality- bordering on sweetness and pathos- that sets this work apart from his earlier, grander paintings. Previously, Bromirski's large scale work would center around a tiny, barely recognizable figure dwarfed by it's surroundings . In the new body of work, the individual paintings become characters themselves, ready to be crammed into a suitcase like a stack of dog-eared postcards and rushed off to the next adventure.

The vocabulary in the paintings is limited: each containing one or more circular elements fixed atop a hazy backdrop. Many Japanese landscape drawings make use of the sun as a balancing device, acting like a free-floating punctuation mark above the picture plane. Bromirski focuses only on this sun-shape, doing away with the rest of the picture. The sun-shapes have various colors and moods. Some rub up against each another and appear to socialize, some seem quite and contemplative.

If Bromirski's work has always dealt, in some way or another, with accumulation of experience, the new paintings wear that experience on their skin. Often the sun-shapes are cut from the paintings, reveling the layers beneath. Bromirski uses colored sand and acrylic paint to build complex, pockmarked surfaces. The result is a nebulous environment that is both ethereal and terrestrial, like the surface of the moon. In my favorite work in the show, hung just to the right of a snack machine, Bromirski lovingly repairs a large gash formed at the center of the painting by weaving it back together and dousing it with silver paint. The care with which the painting is mended is visible, and makes one wonder how (or why) it got gashed in the first place.

In an art world where the more-is-more aesthetic has become so commonplace that it can't be called brash anymore, it is nice to see an off-the-beaten-path and understated show like Art of This Century. It is a show that stokes a desire to see more, rather than pounding the viewer over the head with everything within reach. While many artists confuse making a lot with saying a lot, Bromirski clearly knows better.

- THanKS, Jason!

PLUS: Vittorio Colaizzi's review of the same show... An Assault on Taste!!!


Haigh Jamgochian's Markel Building, Richmond VA.... FROM SPACE.

Heaven

Are you going to Heaven? 2 Question Test Reveals Answer.

POETRY and ART at Geoffrey Young Gallery

Martha Lewis, Pseudonymity, 2008, acrylic gouache on paper - it's a small piece, click the photo to see it much enlarged.

Exquisitude, at Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington MA.


Martha Lewis - she had three small pieces... mandalas and machines... really liked. This green one is so Kirby. Bring me my Image Duplicator!

Paging Mike Martin, come in Mike Martin... you would also like these Martha Lewis works. I miss my old bedroom with the Mike Martin painting on the wall.


Gianna Commito, Tent, 2008 - as featured on The Old Gold! Old Gold-miner Jon Lutz will be adding an interview with her later on. She was in a Drawing Center show last year with Jered Sprecher... I think they went to school together (?).


Gianna Commito, Bend, 2008


Kathy Bradford, Room of Unencumbered Promise, 2008 - that studio painting on the right reminded me a lot of Brenda Goodman's excellent studio paintings, with the canvases piled up. Guston-y.

Katherine Bradford talking with James Kalm. Katherine Bradford interviewed by Peter Acheson and Chris Martin, for The Brooklyn Rail.


Steve DiBenedetto, untitled, 2008, oil on linen, 24"x18".... click here to see a lot more Steve DiBenedetto from his current huge show in Albany. WORTH the TRIP.

POETRY READINGS! - Geoffrey Young is a poet, and the gallery holds poetry readings. We heard Derek Fenner, Ryan Gallagher, and Geoffrey Young read... Derek and Ryan are both published by Bootstrap Press.

Derek Fenner - so funny... all of the poems were about Katie Couric... and he played a slideshow of his KC art and related photographs as he read (and sang).

Ryan Gallagher - read one of his own poems, but mostly stuff from his book translating the funny vulgar bitter (love) poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Catullus on Wikipedia.


Geoffrey Young - THE MAN!

King Kutter

Rotating Driveline Contact Can Cause Death.


King Kutter.

Steve DiBenedetto

Casa Amnesia, 2008

Steve DiBenedetto at University Art Museum, SUNY Albany.


detail of Casa Amnesia - i love red and blue together... they are Spider-Man colors.


detail of Casa Amnesia


detail of Casa Amnesia - hot pool of grenade green.


Half a Place, 2005


detail of Half a Place - carnival Eiffel Tower of electro-guns, zap.


Edge Dwelling, 2008


detail of Edge Dwelling - glyphs like guns, in each pane.


Breakup, 2003-04 - better in reality, maybe you can see some of the good stuff if you click the picture to make it bigger. Here's a much smaller helicopter+spinning color-wheel+octopus painting from 2000.

The many helicopter paintings and drawings are full of short choppy strokes, spaces, and breaks... like the choppy thwack sound of helicopters. The lines and ridges shared the same pulsing blade whop. It was a synaesthetic experience like what I get with some of Charles Burchfield's paintings and the pulsing hum of ciccadas.

Helicopter sounds (third one down is good), blade whops. Some intense sounds, I want to make music. Here I am playing the Netflix strip.

Red and Green Abstraction, 1997-98 - pre-helicopter and octopi? maybe he didn't even start those until he was forty? here's another (relatively) early abstraction, i didn't get the date or title.
Fester, 1999 - earliest of the helicopters and octopi in the show...
Untitled, 2000
Cryptopsy, 2000-01 - sort of a bio-Lasker... like J. Lasker and T. Winters got caught in the same transporter.
Octotech, 2007


detail of helicopter from Octotech, 2007.


Steve DiBenedetto is upstairs, Keith Edmier is downstairs.


Ceilings are fantastic... place feels like Iran or something, even the outside.

RELATED: as seen on anaba!!
- Lane Twitchell at University Art Museum
- Judith Linhares at University Art Museum
- James Siena at University Art Museum
- Mr. President at University Art Museum

a show

I'm going to have an unexpected show in October... this is good news because my resume was looking pretty bare for 2008. Also have a show happening at the start of the new year, although I should probably get back in touch with them and confirm things.

- failed again to see the DiBenedetto and Edmier shows. I'll try again next Saturday... either that or maybe go to Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington to see this show recommended to me by Jon Lutz (because of the inclusion of Gianna Commito).

- those interested in following the Steven Parrino talk started here, continued (a little) in the comments here, but mostly here and here, should check back on Bill Schwarz's blog to read the many subsequent comments.

- Timothy Buckwalter did a three-part "oral history" with Philadelphia artist Michael Macfeat... and Mildred Greenberg was mentioned (!) -

"Michael Macfeat: In 1986 I founded Meat, giving the original Heat group members a chance to exhibit with a wider selection of artists, with me in the unenviable position of curator. There were 16 original members, the five Heat artists plus Harry Anderson, David Goerk (of Bunnydrums), Judith Schaecter, Millie Greenberg (a septuagenarian), Tom Steigerwald, Bill Russell, Martha Masiello, Linda Stoudt, Arline Peco and Bill Hooper."

click here to scroll through much Mildred...

suny albany bummer + car show

attention steve dibenedetto and keith edmier: double-checked the hours on the museum website before i left on sunday (sundays until 4pm), but university art museum at suny albany was closed when we arrived shortly before 3pm. aarghravation. bummer. it was too late to find some other art thing to see.

BUT... i did see the schaghticoke car show -

drive-in

Hathaway's Drive-In, North Hoosick NY...










...this is where I saw Star Wars thirty-plus years ago.

PLUS: posted some video on youtube - inside the car with better sound, outside the car with better color. we used to have to put the speakers on the car windows, but now those are mostly gone and you can tune in on your car radio... that's about the only thing that has changed.

updates

New Comments on Old Posts: old posts never die....

(1) Morris Yarowsky - still get comments on Morris Yarowsky... some nice reminiscences from friends and former students... students from when Morris taught at University of Oregon, San Francisco Art Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University.... students from literally 45 years ago. That's pretty amazing; are they googling him after forty years?

and former student Matthew Fisher mentions Morris in a recent post on MTY, the blog he shares with Rob Matthews -

"The late Morris Yarowsky felt that folk artists were not doing the same thing as he was (they weren't making art). A disconnect to art history, culture and 'knowledge' prevented them from making art like his"

Matthew has been spotlighting artists... scroll down to see them all.

(2) Jamie O'Shea - somebody else has commented calling out Jamie O'SuperLame for lifting photos from other people's flickr sets and posting them without any acknowledgement... or actually, in the post he is being called out on, he credits a "Supertouch roving reporter" visiting Paris... so ballsy, Super Tightie Pants.

Comments left in complaint get Super Douched, into the void.

(3) Steven Parrino - this is not such an old post, but the commenter who said Steven Parrino was partly supported by his wife has prompted - (among people that knew Parrino) - further discussion on Bill Schwarz's blog.

pLuS: Tom Moody on Bill Schwarz.

anaba paparazzi

Lauren Luloff and friend. Click here to see Lauren's work. I'll add her friend's name later cuz I can't remember it now.

***Art-Stars attend Amy Sillman's opening at the Tang***


Thomas Nozkowski and Polly Apfelbaum.

Polly Apfelbaum's work I love... the more I see the more I'm into it. Saw Cartoon Garden at D'Amelio Terras, and recently saw these pieces on pillowcases in Present Tense, at Spanierman Modern.

First saw Nozkowski more than fifteen years ago at Jessica Berwind Gallery, in Philadelphia... can clearly remember appreciating that small painting.

RELATED: Casimir Nozkowski's youtube interview with Tom Nozkowski.... Thomas Nozkowski talks about art while on a hike... check out Casimir's other videos, he's funny.


Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey. Jennifer has a show opening in September at Kinz, Tillou and Feigen.


Halsey Rodman and Dana Schutz. Was Ryan Johnson there? His show looked good.

RED ALERT - Halsey Rodman's show is up at Guild & Greyshkul through the 25th. Read Paddy Johnson's review.


Dean Snyder, on left.

Dean Snyder has the upstairs show, Amy has the downstairs show. Both shows are excellent... with a nice small group show on the mezzanine (including Richard Artschwager) and a small grouping of work from the collection in the first-floor hall (including Nancy Shaver).

The Tang is BACK! The Tang is recommended again! Yay, Molecules that Matter is GONE!

I'll be going back a couple times to see these shows, although I probably won't post anything because the Tang doesn't allow photography and the guards have eagle eyes. It's a lot of mostly thankless effort on my part and I admit to being less inclined to make that effort when a place throws up bullshit restrictions. It would have been nice to show and tell how good the Martin Kersels and Joseph Grigely shows were.

Mass MoCA now allows photography.

miscellaneous stuff noted

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Christopher Knight, on Marlene Dumas, for the LATimes - "The earliest painting dates from 1984, when Dumas, then 32, picked up a brush again after a five-year hiatus"

Another (female) artist who stopped for a while, and came back strong. Agnes Martin stopped for seven years, Emily Carr stopped for fifteen years.

I once attended a lecture at which Jerry Saltz advised if you don't work for a year, you are maybe a year better, but if you don't work for two maybe you are not an artist (that is not an exact quote).

Dorothy Spears, on Steven Parrino, for the NYTimes - "In eight years and five solo New York shows, his former dealer José Freire said, he sold only two of Mr. Parrino’s paintings, one for $9,000 and the other for $10,000"

I'm always curious how artists support themselves, especially those that are living in super-expensive NYC. What was Parrino doing for money?

RELATED: a job, PLUS... what is your job - anaba post asking artists about jobs, recent Winkleman post on jobs and something (in comments) about not supposed to be having one, somehow. Lost me.

Greg Allen pining for the supposed days when "an energetic young painter would declare his presence with a work three or six years in the making, not three months"... wtf?

Chris Ashley posted a Bruce Conner video in memory and tribute to the recently deceased artist, and the next day received a comment from his widow's lawyer requesting and demanding it's removal. Again, WTF. This is the artist who cobbled together films from other filmmaker's footage, right? The artist known for bucking expectations, rules, and regulated behavior?

I'm reading a Thomas Disch book - The M.D. - after learning of him (and his recent suicide) on Eric Gelber and Tom Moody's blogs... it's good. Tom Moody is great for book and movie recommendations.

sneak preview

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sneak preview

catch-up on nyc stuff of note

Benjamin Butler, Leafless Trees, 2008, at ATM

I've liked his stuff on-line for a while, but I think this was the first time I've seen any for real. He had four solid little exercises here, all trees.


Benjamin Butler, Dark Tree, 2008 - many nods to greater artists, mostly Mondrian... this one, Dark Tree, has a bit of Charles Burchfield's radiant pulsation.

Nice to look at the old Burchfield post on Mountain Man's blog from two+ years ago... my comment was "i love him, and Emily Carr. they are like shinto landscapists, every element of the landscape is imbued with spirits and energy."

Laleh Khorramian, at Salon 94 Freemans - another artist whose work I'd previously admired only on-line.... has a time-lapse film of orange peel figures, curling in a tight embrace as they decay. Quietly beautiful and otherworldly, she's constructed a Persian-inspired miniature oasis isolated in the desert under a star-filled sky.

My 1/2006 PainterNYC comment - "i don't hate this at all. it's like a late 60's illustration of a tatooine funeral."


Chrissy Conant, in Sexy Time: A Group Effort, at Morgan Lehman - Wow. She made a rubber cast of herself.... so disturbing... it's like the sickest sex doll. The Chrissy skin is supported by magnets placed in the hands, feet, and head... so you could actually take that down and put it on your floor.

She made a painting also.


Robert Colescott at G.R. N'Namdi - always go to this gallery and always see something good.

Cliff Evans, Empyrean, at Luxe - showstopper of a video, on five(?) vertical screens... only six minutes, I watched it at least three times. Full of collaged moving images... I think he must take all of the photo images from the computer, and then does a kind of stop-motion edit with them... they don't move a lot, just a little bit, mechanically... but it's a total cacophony of images and references, a super-epic commentary on the American now. Movie stars, logos, the military... it's America here and abroad, everywhere, from the internet. The audio is great also, so many muffled sounds... rumbles, helicopters, cameras clicking, singing, birds.

David Ebony was there, he was into it.


Jamisen Ogg, at Hudson Franklin. More exhbition photos. His studio.

Liz-n-Val at Winkleman Gallery... they are the real deal. FAVORITES! UPDATE: Eric Gelber's review of the David Kinast show at Winkleman.

Michael St. John, at Marvelli - Disappointment. Really liked his installation of fourteen small Negroes With Guns paintings last year... inspired by the book, they were all book size... so compact and powerful in the small room. Don't get the point of this new enlarged version.

John Armleder and Haim Steinbach at Nicole Klagsbrun.
Joyce Kim at Thierry Goldberg and Fake Estate.


Anna Mertens, "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" (Sunset, January 24, 1848, Sutter's Mill, Columa, California), 2008, in Making History, at Jeff Bailey - she uses a computer to calculate the star rotation patterns at the dawn or dusk of important dates... and makes quilts. This one shows what the stars looked like the evening gold was discovered in California.

Here is a detail showing the star rotation pattern. Lauren Ross was there... she also liked the Mertens piece.

Regret missing Roger Shimomura at Flomenhaft, Kerry James Marshall at Jack Shainman, Tetsumi Kudo at Andrea Rosen... others.

more later maybe....

Hood

Hood, by Shooters Air. Here is the truck.

RELATED: Hulk hoods!!!

Roger Brown

Buzzin' Bridges, 1974

Roger Brown, at DC Moore. Haven't seen any Roger Brown since visiting Robert Cozzolino's excellent show in Philadelphia two-plus years ago... I love those Chicago artists, and the artists they were inspired by. This was in the same building as the Jess show at Tibor de Nagy, around the corner from Present Tense at Spanierman Modern. Trifecta.

Alexi Worth will be showing at DC Moore in November.


Heavy Cloud Mask, 1989


Fall Out at Three Mile Island, 1979


detail from Fall Out at Three Mile Island, 1979


Mothra at Inner Circle Drive, 1988


GIANT MOTH!!! Hairy WHO/What? - from the farm... it was HUGE, like a hamster with wings... click on the picture to see it bigger.