Hippy New Year

A 1

The Wrestler.

Loss - of glory, of youth, of love – is a theme that really keeps me in my seat. And other people’s loneliness always, but always puts tears in my eyes.

And I just love seeing wrinkles on the big screen. Mickey Rourke looks fantastic, if you ask me.

I guess the only thing that bothered me was the choppy filming and editing of the match scenes. And perhaps a few too many behind the head while walking shots. Oh, and some of the daughter scenes were just a wee bit cliché. But, who cares!

La la land

In Los Angeles. Talk to you next week.
Be well.

Mudra 2009

As the calendar year winds down, art writers everywhere are hypothesizing about what’s next for art now that what we have known is almost a thing of the past. The mega bucks artists and collectors have been spending on art is drying up, galleries are closing everywhere, dealers are apparently thinking safe. The art world (as they call it) is bracing itself.

All I think we artists can do is continue. The burden is not upon us to predict, to forge new ways for art – although if either results, great. It is upon us just to keep making work as candidly as we can. We can’t count on what’s outside, but perhaps we can on what’s inside. Even if it is in flux, it is our own.

I myself feel anxiety, but excitement too. A more serious art scene may burgeon; the uncommitted may lose their steam. Might a kinder time be coming?

No Denying It

In November, Michael Kimmelman – typical of his arrogant assuredness – wrote in the New York Times that French film had been shying away from tackling meaty issues since the New Wave because of an identity crises sparked by their collaboration with the nazis. He calls it Cinema of Denial. Sure, there was "La Haine (Hate),"in 1995, but not much else. And it’s true, there are a lot of stupid, provincial comedies coming out of France, usually involving a likeable, well-dressed guy, his slightly mean but beautiful wife and his beautiful lover.

But what Kimmelman overlooked are recent films coming out of France that do one of the things the French do best: psychology. And I think that’s both meaty and honest. It's this conflicted, tense psychology that people are seeing when they say a movie is “so French,” I think.

Here are a few noteworthy examples I’ve seen of late:
"Kings and Queen" and "A Christmas Tale" (now out in theaters). Both directed by Arnaud Desplechin and staring actor Matthieu Amalric – playing appealing rebel characters in both (above in "Kings and Queen"). Now these are both all about completely fucked-up and complex families, but life goes on in a non-sentimental way and that’s what I like about them.

Then there’s Olivier Assayas’s "Late August, Early September," which is beautifully edited. Great fades! And while there are a lot of romantic triangles and accepted sexual no-no’s– and I think very erotic sex scenes - it really gets into people being blunt with each other both with words and in action in ways we Americans just aren’t. The story mostly centers around a writer who falls ill, and the changes that that spurs within himself and those around him. No violins, thank god, but realism, yes.

Mark your calendars

I will be giving an artist’s talk about text-based art – including my own – at the Slag Gallery on January 24, 5-7pm.

It is tentatively called Not Conceptual No: The Inner and Outer Languages of Text-Based Art.

Other working titles:

Please stop calling it conceptual please

It’s not conceptual, it’s not

Not conceptual Not


As of today, the description is as follows:

In this presentation, Molly Stevens will survey how text has been used in art as a declarative form, a psychological form and a visual form of communication. She’ll discuss Christopher Wool, Cy Twombly and Jean-Luc Godard among others, as well as her own work in video, drawing and signage.

I think the names of other artists is important. It could turn people on or off. Twombly is the big name, Wool is the cool cat, and Godard is the surprise. Other candidates for this part of the blurb: Matt Mullican, Jenny Holzer, Glen Ligon or…

Opinions welcome.

Seriously

While I’m the first to hate Richard Prince without really having seen much of his work, I found Martha Schwendener’s scathing critique of his work and current show in this week’s Village Voice to be sophomoric. I agree: he’s a symbol of the art market and what it will be immune to; he’s searching for a new shock that shakes as much as his appropriation work did; he’s competitive. What else is new. Plus, her idea that he – and what he represents – has triumphed over feminist movement that imploded is a bit of an easy punch. Feels old. My humble opinion.

This said, I think we have to add Prince’s joke paintings to our list of text-based art. I like their faux-pas-ness, I do. But my hunch is that they are affect, like the rest of his shit. He lucked out on this one.

Gallery Crawl

Here’s what I saw on Friday that I thought was worth it:

Luigi Ghirri at the Aperture Foundation
Humble photographs mostly from the 70s that are surprising and poetic. His work often looks like a created set or still life, but they’re clearly found. Above Modena (1973)

Karen Heagle at I-20
Although she may be known for her more pulpy imagery, I was attracted to a series of still lifes with vultures. Her painting process was vigorous and the poetry was all there. Unfortunately, this show closed on December 6.

Kay Rosen at Yvon Lambert
Text-based wall paintings and small format works. She plays with language, reading vs.seeing and graphics. Why I’m not jumping up and down, I don’t know. I think I like a little more human touch.

Joyce Pensato at Friedrich Petzel – Now this is may be too much human touch. Very visceral portraits of cartoony-monsters. I like how she did one right on the wall. That’s brave. Makes me want to.

I liked Jason Karolak’s paintings at Massimo Audiello because they feel both human and mathematical. Also, I was interested in the selection of work at Mitchell-Innes and Nash that included the work of Cady Noland, Matt Mullican, Frances Stark and Amanda Ross-Ho. But, the fact that three of these artists were in this year’s Whitney Biennial makes me feel that my taste is being taught.

The list grows

Got to add Jack Pierson to our list of text-based artists (he also photographs, etc., yes I know). I'm most familiar with his word sculptures made from discarded signage. They suggest a faded fame, a lost celebrity, something like Sunset Boulevard.

This approach was notoriously appropriated by Barney’s, the fashion haven. As much as I think it sucks for Pierson, this is what happens. The ideas get taken and twisted. I don’t think there’s much you can do to protect against it. If it's any consolation, I can tell the difference.


















This piece below is from Pierson’s student years. I like. Very steal-able.

Opiate

There’s no better way to repress family tension than watching movies. Here’s what the Stevens watched over the holiday.

27 Dresses-Perhaps the whitest movie ever made, culminating in the two main characters dancing on a bar to Billy Joel.

Slumdog Millionaire – Good entertainment. And I liked how subtitles became a style choice.

A Christmas Tale – I dig. A psychologically rich story about a family’s whose members really don’t like each other and are honest about it. But they never the less stick together, and that strikes me as uplifting. Catherine Deneuve and the guy from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Milk – Boring. But, Sean Penn.

Do the Right Thing – I forgot how visually stylized it was - I think in a good way. And still funny. But, I realize I’m not as radical as I was when it came out and that depresses me. Oh, and I want a knuckle ring that spells a word.

Civilization and its Discontents

There was no Gossip Girl on Monday, so at a loss, I surfed my other three channels. After a stint with Dancing with the Stars, I fell upon a documentary on what happened to art and national monuments during World War II.

Did you know:

1. When Paris was evacuated, volunteers gathered at the Louvre to help pack its collection into trucks that would drive it to safer shelter?

2. In Florence, a brick tube was built around the David and wooden shelters on stilts were erected to protect a building’s (I can’t remember which one) treasured molding.

3. An American commission (do we care if it was a PR move?) of curators, art historians and educators to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from the perils of war. These “Monuments Men” also returned art stolen by Hitler and the Nazis, during and right after the war.

Question of the day

Let’s say you’re putting together a solo show. I always thought the whole room, no matter how many pieces, should look like a unit, both visually and conceptually. The work should be part of the same series, and this sometimes means leaving good past work out. But, how unified does this union have to be? Can the dialogue be looser than I think? Or does that variety only work if it's part of the concept?

PS

It occurred to me: the birth of Conceptual Art really has to be considered in historical terms. This was the 60s, and artists were breaking away from, rebelling against, the established and revered norms of Modernism. So, against heroic self-expression, against the narrow concerns of color and light, against beauty really. If this is true, we can’t forget that.
So, Kosuth, as tight as it seems, was in fact going astray.

Attempting a Nod

We have to add Joseph Kosuth to our list of text artists because he’s a pioneer of language-based work and more generally Conceptual Art. A selection of his early works is on view at Sean Kelly through December 6.

Kosuth is the kind of artist I’m grateful to – for expanding notions of art by helping art become conscious of itself, by including what is outside the frame, and even in the viewer’s mind as part of the piece – but who makes me feel kind of stupid, and mostly superficial for even thinking about esthetics instead of meaning and structure. But, that’s my problem, not his.

Kosuth’s work counters excess and formalism in art when used for its own sake. What’s important are the ideas. And even what you have in front of you on the wall is just a model. “The actual works of art are the ideas,” he has said.

How could you approach this piece pictured here (from the mid-60s)? For one, it's art literally referring to itself. It's not about formalism, but about redundant meaning. They call it tautology.

Grass is always greener

I have a friend, probably almost fifty years old, who is a composer. He makes money doing sound recordings and the music for short films he learns about on Craigslist. He lives in an apartment with two roommates. He doesn’t have a cell phone. He has a very small social circle. But he has a large and growing number of contemporary music compositions.

When I asked him about getting his work performed, he said he was lazy and also said that if he had to deal with the inevitable rejection, it would adversely affect his work. So, if it happens easily then great. If not, well, he’s just not going to bother, it seems. He’s confident that the work has worth because he has listened to so much music, both from the past and present.

To me, he’s the real deal. I almost idealize his inner world and his outsider-ness. Does this mean the rest of us are just a bunch of kiss-ass fakes?

Question of the day

In art school. they tell you to be aware of your influences, to be able to explain how your work responds to other art.

What I want to know is this:

Do I have to really name my influences in my artist statement? Does this help a curator value my work? Does it help a viewer find his or her way? I feel stupid doing it.

(image from Christopher Wool and Richard Hell's artist book Psychopts)

Sigh

I’d like to add Cy Twombly to my list of text-based artists. He’s who I want to be this week.

His markings, scrawls, and actual words – dating from the time of the Abstract Expressionism to our present - are a form of writing in itself. In the October issue of Flash Art, Manfred de la Motte is cited:

Does Twombly use a kind of writing? Certainly, but a kind of writing that has hardly anything in common with other genres, if not the name of writing. There is no preventive understanding of the 26 letters, no conventional calligraphy. No poème-objet, that almost imperfect permeation of painting and writing. There is no decorative element as in common abstract drawings. And yet it is a kind of writing, a transcription, or a mere psychogram that demands: Read! Yet there is no sense of meaning in his writing: it is the autopresentation of reading and a demand to read. Twombly’s theme is reading, not legibility.

The Hell Phase

In the creative process, let’s designate the uncertain-but-doing-it-anyway phase. This is a time of grappling, liking one way one day, another the next. This is a time when almost anyone you show the work to returns a blank stare. You have only the vaguest words for what you’re doing – although you can get excited about various aspects -, and anyone else who does saves the day. You’re not even certain the work is going anywhere. The almighty “intention” you learned about in art school shifts or is null. But you’re doing the work anyway.

This phase probably should be embraced. Because something unexpected can happen; because complexity is knit when the analytical mind doesn’t take over and confine an idea; because the thinking mind, that “intention,” may not be the best thing for your work.

Although I’ve been at my series of text-drawings for almost a year now, I’m in this phase. I could call it hell, so I think I will.

Musical!

Something about hard times, it seems, that makes people want to watch movie musicals. Last weekend Disney’s High School Musical 3 was our nation’s top-grossing film.

I can get into the genre. My all-time favorite movie musical – hands down – is the French Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with Catherine Deneuve, about love unfulfilled. Unbelievably stylized in rich, brilliant colors, every single word of this heartbreaking tale is lightly sung (making the heartbreak all the more breaking). ie: comment ça va monsieur Mailman.

Then of course, Hair. Can’t go wrong.

I can easily get into Rent, because it taps into a deep-rooted romantic notion that I have about being an artist and struggling. And it gets me crying, it does.

But what I cannot get into is Across the Universe. Made in 2006, and all set to Beatles songs sung by the actors, the movie aims to be something between Hair and Rent. The story is about a Brit who comes to the US in the 60s, falls in love, his friend is drafted, his girlfriend becomes an anti-war activist and after some strife, love reigns. Julie Teymour directs. So bad. A string of sentimental music videos. Schlock.

The best show in town

Do not miss the Morandi show at the Met, on through 14 December. If you don’t live in NYC, fly in. The work does not reproduce well, so the catalogue is no substitute.

His life-long devotion to exploring still life, using the same objects repeatedly, and his sensitive rendering of the subtleties of changing light and form put a lump in my throat.

From Holland Cotter’s review:

[…] the work goes on. Because it is controllable reality. It is a form of thinking that frees up thought. It is time-consuming, but time-slowing, isolating but self-fulfilling. It is a part of life, but also a metaphor for how life should be: with everything in place, every pattern clear, every rhyme exact, every goal near.

The bad and maybe better

I really expected to like Doug Aiken’s video installation at 303 Gallery because of how it was described: animals let loose in hotel rooms. I was hoping for something like Douglas Gordan’s elephant video Play Dead (2003) (see clip here), which is elegant, a simple but poignant metaphor about the fine line between tame and wild. But I hated it.

There are three screens mounted like billboards for no other reason that I can think of other than it looks video installation-y. Then every shot pretends to be meaningful instead of actually being so. So, you have a lot of slow motion, a lot of animal eyeballs or close-ups of hair, a lot of pregnant pauses, and pseudo-symbolic props (a jigsaw puzzle on a bed, for example). What’s missing is any sense of the unknown, any sense that what you are seeing was not entirely controlled or planned. Even when the buffalo (I think it was a buffalo) butts the bed. We need a little real surprise, a little unknown, a little tension, something like when Joseph Beuys spent three days in a room with a coyote in 1974.

That show is on until November 8, if you must.

Things get a little better – and a little weirder – over at I-20, where Ronnie Bass has a few videos and related objects on view (through Saturday). If I weren’t in a gallery, I might have thought this was cable access TV, some spiritually inflected, low-grade performance for an odd-ball audience. But, I was in a gallery, so I convinced myself there was something more to it. I think there may be, but I’m not sure what yet. Something like James Lee Byars: ordinary but hypnotic. I'm not looking for a quick fix idea here.

I remember seeing another of Bass’s unusual performances at PS1 in the 2005 Greater New York show. The fact that that was three years ago substantiates my hunch that he may not be a passing fad, and that he may be worth keeping an eye on. But the jury is still out.

Act IV, Scene 5

Me: So, translation work is easing a bit, which means I can get back to the studio.

She: That’s right, you can do your personal work.

Me: Well, it’s my professional work too.

She: That’s right. Well, if it makes you happy, we’ll call it professional work. But, I know – and I think you know very well too, deep inside – that until you actually sell something, and until you actually have a gallery – oh, and until someone else tells me you’re any good – we should just call a spade a spade. Anyway…

Me: OK. Well, maybe we can catch a movie next week.

She: Sounds great.

They hang up.

Molly turns back to the stack of white paper. But, first she texts that gallerist who didn’t respond to her email last week.

The Salesman

The thing about gallerists – maybe even curators? – I think you have to tell them how great it’s going to be. I think you have to explain exactly what it’s going to look like, what you think it means, how it’s unique. You got to sell it, baby! Because, in the end, they may not actually trust it unless you get excited.

This I hate to do so much. I want an agent.

I’m figuring this out only after an extremely disappointing studio visit last week. I’m actually writing a follow up to said gallerist where I sound like a car dealer. I’ll keep you posted.

Political Party

What an unbelievable photograph. (Sorry for the blurriness, I re-photographed the invitation). They're laughing at us, right?

Diana Walker, All the President's Men, 1981.

Show at Howard Greenberg opens October 23.

More on art later

James Wood’s “Verbage: The Republican war on words” in this week’s New Yorker had me laughing out loud.

The article ends:

Hearing [Palin] being interviewed by Sean Hannity, on Fox News, almost made one wish for a Republican victory in November, so that her bizarre locutions might be available a bit longer to delve into. At times, even Hannity looked taken aback; his eyes, slightly too close to each other, like the headlamps on an Army jeep, went blank, as if registering the abyss we are teetering above. Or perhaps he just couldn’t follow. The most revealing moment happened earlier, when she was asked about Obama’s attack on McCain’s claim that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. “Well,” Palin said, “it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use, because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course that is strong, and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used.” This is certainly doing rather than mere talking, and what is being done is the coinage of “verbage.” It would be hard to find a better example of the Republican disdain for words than that remarkable term, so close to garbage, so far from language.

Maybe the poets will let me in...

I’m applying to a poetry residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts – and as a visual artist, obviously. Because I’m working so much with text, I think it would be exciting, and eye opening.

The “master” Bob Holman sounds interesting. Here’s a bit of spoken work set to music that had my foot tapping.

She never called me back.

What's the big deal?

Artist’s tend to talk preciously about exhibiting their work: don’t compromise about what you show or how you want it shown, because you know best and what you have to say is very meaningful. But, the fact of the matter is, when you show – especially in a group situation or at a screening – it ain’t ever going to be perfect. Life just doesn’t work that way. So, relax people. Until your solo show that is.

On another note, what’s so great about Elizabeth Payton? Calvin Tomkins’s article portraying her in this week’s New Yorker opens,

No artist in recent memory has sailed into the mainstream with work that seemed so far out of it […] Since [a show at the Chelsea Hotel] her vividly painted, lushly romantic images of rock stars, film idols and eventually fellow-artists and friends have brought her the kind of fervid admiration that non-admirers find inexplicable and annoying.

That would be me. I just don’t get it. All I see is hip people and what I consider to be bad painting. And, yes, it is annoying. I will go to the New Museum’s retrospective, though. To be continued.

A little life

I went to about ten shows last week, and the only one that got me a wee-bit pumped was Bendix Harms at Anton Kern.

The paintings feel lively, energetic and in fact they are, because they were each completed in one session with a restricted palette. I fell for the imagery, reminiscent as they are of Philip Guston and also Picasso. So, I recommend.

Junk

Still nothing about art today. Except that the guy appointed the new director of the Guggenheim sounds serious. And I’d like the Guggenheim to become serious again.

On another note: bailout? Is anyone amazed at how much money the government actually has at it’s disposal? Has there ever been an emergency bailout for education, health care, the poor?

So I may head to this interesting protest:

Subject: Bury the Bull

Thursday, 4pm
Bowling Green Park
By the Wall Street Bull

"Bailout This!"

Since Bush wants to buy up Wall Street's worthless investments with
Main Street's hard-earned tax dollars, some folks are planning to
bring their OWN junk to Wall Street to see if they can get a bailout,
too. Bring your 8-track tape collection, high-school yearbook,
Grampa's old recliner, and that snow globe from Great Adventure – not
to mention your mortgage statements and student loan invoices -- and
add 'em to the pile! And tell Secretary Paulson why you deserve a
bailout, too! Bring your most audacious junk. Junk that has a story.
Make your case. (Ordinary garbage discouraged.)

They're everywhere!

Nothing about art today. The few shows I saw last week were entirely boring: I mean not even stimulating enough to complain about.

This weekend, however, just a mere three hours from downtown Manhattan, I was confronted with a very grim reality. There are actually real live people out there who want McCain to win the presidency. Call me naïve, fine.

From The Walton Reporter, I quote:

Senator McCain’s pick for vice president came as a pleasant surprise to almost everyone.[…]One thing is for sure, the Sara Palins of this world are the future of our country. Their values, their work ethic, their straightforward conversational style will re-shape the policies of our country and re-earn us the respect of the rest of the world. […] As we all know, the governor’s 17-year old daughter is pregnant. This is a situation that occurs in thousands of families every year, and we all should know what’s really important – it’s how responsibly the family deals with the situation. Every single baby born is a gift from God. […] [The media] doesn’t understand that she is one of us. She can relate to ordinary people because she is an ordinary person, who has made it because of extraordinary effort on her part. She’s got kids, worked her way through college, started at the bottom and worker her way up and got to the top by being smarter and tougher than the good ol’ boys who stood in her way […]

I’ve literally had dreams about yelling at people about their political disillusionment in recent weeks. I'm really very upset and anxious. This country is dying - we know that. Either we die nobly or we can dwindle into provincial insignificance.

I can only think that I should write a letter to the paper. But, honestly, I don’t know where to start, and how to say something poignant that won’t just have me written off as a citidiot.

All drafts welcome.

Pierre Takal,editor extraordinaire , took this cool pic of one of my video projections for the Beeps concert on Saturday. Very cool.

Long Live the Butterflies

Damien Hirst sounds like such a jerk. He’s bypassing the dealer and gallery system this week and selling a body of work directly through Sotheby’s. What is this, Ebay? On top of it all, he’s claiming this kind of selling scheme will liberate the working artist from a blood-sucking system of intermediaries. Empowering the artist, Damien, or your ego?

I don’t have time for this shit.

Sticking together

There’s a sinking feeling I have since the RNC, and that’s that McCain might actually pull this off. Call me defeatist, perhaps.

If he actually does, I can only take solace in the fact that I’m a New Yorker and that is certainly not the same as being an American. My people are here, and I think they may be in the art world especially - as much as I despise aspects of that world.

Tribal? Yes.

So, I felt both like cheering and booing when I read Michael Kimmelman’s disdain for contemporary art in his New York Times analysis of the Met’s appointment of a new director.

Other museums these days have looked toward polished administrators or contemporary-art wheeler-dealers to raise money and deal with neophyte collectors. Since Philippe de Montebello announced his pending retirement, among the names bandied about in the art-world echo chamber for the longest time were a few lightning rods and contemporary-art favorites who, it was suggested, could provide useful connections to new money and links with living artists — so that the Met might become, as if it weren’t already, sufficiently “relevant.”

The chattering class was wrong as usual. […]

Bringing together cultures of the world for a global public is a moral undertaking and indispensable to civilization, and it must be defended on those grounds. At the same time, the last thing New York needs is another museum of contemporary art.

I can get on my high-horse too, Michael. But, these days, I'm choosing not to.

Monday Thoughts

Here’s a concept: being friendly.

I’m starting to realize that if you don’t always just get down to business, and if you find something personal to say every now and then, “people” are more likely to respond. For example, last week I waged what you might call a mass email campaign. Usually, I just put everyone in bcc and send (3 seconds). This time, I spent about three hours writing personal little notes to about half the people on my list. And I got emails back (including from curators and gallerists). I didn’t really think that would ever happen.

On another note, because I don’t have cable, I only get to watch TV when I’m in a hotel room. At the risk of sounding naïve, I’ve got to say, I learned a lot this weekend! You can soak letters in amphetamines and send it to prisoners, but guards check; some people regret their transgender choices and op back to their birth gender; and, get this! the Republicans are lying through their teeth!

I’m watching more and more TV thanks to netflix. Something tells me that this will keep me from becoming an “earnest” artist. In any case, the best art is art that is aware that its seriousness has its limits and impossibilities.

Reality Television

The great thing about Gossip Girl is how completely deranged all the mothers are.

You got this one who left her family to be a painter in Hudson. (They’re the “less wealthy, quirky” family living in a Dumbo loft.) Then there’s one who’s never around, being more concerned about the future of her career than her child (named Blair Waldorf). And don’t forget the grandmother (this has been going on for generations) who lied to her daughter about having lung cancer as a means to guilt her granddaughter into coming out at a debutante ball.

As for fathers, they’re all corrupt money-makers. Except for the gay one who lives in Paris.

That said, please visit my revamped website. Feedback always appreciated.

The New Me

There are a few cultural figures that early on I decided I would never like. One is Tom Waits. His bluesy wailing has always seemed an act to me, perhaps something I’ve mostly garnered from the looks of his fan-base. Bjork is another one. I just don’t buy her innocent “wackiness,” which is so loved by a fan-base I usually label “deep.” Yes, I judge a book by its cover.

And Julian Schnabel. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I don’t like him. He embodies a certain kind of know-it-all SoHo artist that shopped at Gourmet Garage before that kind of thing was the thing. I’ve never heard anyone really say anything complimentary about him. Yes, he is macho. Yes, he is full of himself. And then, all that attention he gets! What’s to like?

So it is disturbing to say the least that I – dare I say it – was moved by his most recent film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby It’s a grim, grim story (true) about this journalist and fashion editor who, after suffering a stroke that left him trapped in a paralyzed body, dictated his story through eye blinks. I’m a real sucker for hope. And also the idea of a free mind. And I have to say, it wasn’t sentimental.

But, what to do about my fading convictions? All I can say is, I’m deeply involved in the first season of Gossip Girl.

Attachment Theory

Nothing about art today.

One thing that really makes me want crawl into a cave far, far away - and never, ever come out - is any community or group festivity that involves holding hands and moving around in a circle or a train. I'm talking about anything from the hava nagila, or the party train, to the closing ceremony for the Bejing Olympics.

The electric slide or line dancing, on the other hand, tends to make me excited.

Talk to me

I'm developing a text piece based on New York idioms for an upcoming festival. These will be interruptions again.

Anyone with any contributions, please chime in. Think in the vein of:

What am I, chopped liver?
Bagel, Schmear
I'm 'bout that
The boogie down and Shaolin
The bricks
Mudder
The Giants win the Supe
Shut the fuck up
Not for nothin',but you might want to lay off the pizza
Tell me somethin' I don't know

Art After All

The current show at the New Museum is oh so grim and, yes, satisfying. This is a world abandoned, without hope. People are lonely, maimed; materials are dirty, drippy or stark.

I’ve seen quite a few images of Maurizio Cattelan’s headless stuffed horse mounted high on the wall next and Zoe Leonard’s metal bolted tree. Nevertheless, seen live, they hit you in the gut.

It’s worth a go. Not recommended for children under the age of 10.

blah blah blah

I have no time to write or think about art right now. Too busy being a step mother (the anti-art role) and completing an assanine translation about new architecture in France. The only thing I can tell you is that salvaging, using what is already there, is what's in in that field.

And I'm tired with this blog and the fact that no one reads it.