August 31, 2005
Marcos is gay
Subcommander Marcos Well, maybe not, but he sounds really good, and he still looks wonderful. His words, especially since they're from the mid-90's, won't be news to many out there, but I tripped over this powerful quote from Subcommander...
bring the National Guard and the money home now
I cry for New Orleans. And I don't want to see another photo with a caption screaming about folks "looting," when they are in the midst of an unprecedented disaster where there is no food, no water and no...
August 30, 2005
the art of United Architects
United Architects World Trade Center Proposal Project 2002 Plexiglas [detail of installation] It was my favorite when I saw it in a magnificent exhibition organized by and presented at Max Protetch now more than three years ago. It may...
August 28, 2005
Sasquatch Society at Sixtyseven
Chris Kannen Chris Making Out with Bigfoot 2005 oil on canvas 12" x 10" [large detail] Emily Lambert They Called Him a Wildman 2005 acrylic on canvas 10" x 8" [large detail] Peter Caine Untitled mixed media 8' x...
August 27, 2005
miniature Manhattan wildlife II
up the wall He's back! I'd seen nothing since last July, but there were two sightings of our roof garden lizard this morning, both on the wall above the planters. Barry thinks we actually saw two separate little creatures,...
August 26, 2005
excellent roof garden seating - in our imaginations
Fernando Campagna and Humberto Campagna Corallo Armchair 2004 steel wire and epoxy paint [detail of installation] It's MoMA's new aquisition, not ours, but it sure is an exciting chair. For a few seconds I fantisized that I'd found the...
functional, beautiful, timeless: for looking at and sitting on
Gebrüder Thonet, company design Vienna Café Chair (no. 18) 1876 bent beech wood 33.5" x 17" x 20" [detail of installation] One of my favorites in MoMA's Architecture and Design Collection is this simple chair. Thonet patented the bentwood...
where did good industrial design leave the road?
Pinin Farina Cisitalia 202 GT Car 1946 aluminum body 49" x 57 5/8" x 13' 2" [detail of installation] I didn't expect to look for the Cisitalia again when I casually wandered into MoMA's Architecture and Design galleries earlier...
August 23, 2005
Barenboim continues Said's dream
playing for peace In a project begun with the dream of his late friend Edward Said, Daniel Barenboim finally made it to Ramallah with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra last night. Members of the orchestra, founded in 1998, come from...
August 22, 2005
more for the PS1 "Free the Art" gallery
Michael Cambre's sketch of Ann Pibal's FLMNCO at PS1's show, "Greater New York 2005" Five great new [color!] sketches have been added to the "Free the Art" gallery. I've also added a separate link to the on-line exhibition at...
August 20, 2005
Diamonds and Oranges in the East Village
last night there was [sic] Diamonds and Oranges spilling onto 1st Avenue Yay! A new space has arrived in a neighborhood with a rich history in the visual arts, but which has been inexplicably gallery-challenged for years. Diamonds and...
papal Carnival in Cologne
demonstrators dressed as a priest and a nun kiss in front of a large model dinosaur during an anti-religion demonstration in Cologne August 19, 2005 [as der Ratzinger arrived in Cologne] Sometimes it's best to let the thing speak...
August 17, 2005
Chelsea's vigil for Cindy Sheehan, and the end of a war
It's finally beginning to look like we might be able to move on. These are images of the silent vigil held on 8th Avenue near 17th Street in Chelsea this evening, an echo of similar observances held all over...
keeping Flosshilde afloat, so to speak
the Rhine maidens taunt Alberich [another cast, same harnesses] What a trooper! What an exciting diversion from the day job! How could you turn it down if the opportunity presented itself? And think of the stories for the grandchildren....
de Menezes in light jacket, walked casually, used transit card
British newspapers front pages, August 17, 2005 carry pictures of the body of Jean Charles... Jean Charles de Menezes walked at a normal pace into the subway station on July 22, used his card to pass through the turnstile,...
August 16, 2005
UPDATE on the Gate Gourmet story
won't take it anymore* Following up on my Heathrow mess post of August 14, I've just seen this shocking August 15 Daily Mirror news report, via a piece in today's NYTimes Business section. It reveals more about corporate thinking...
August 15, 2005
finally, a VJ Day which liberates the queers too?
exactly 60 years later: the kiss watched 'round the world, its original models, and some contemporary enthusiasts Although there is at least one same-sex couple in the group* kissing in the image above, they didn't make it into the...
Chris Martin and compeers at Feature
Chris Martin Staring Into the Sun 2002-2003 oil paint on canvas 143" x 118" [installation view] Chris Martin is represented by two large works in the current group show, "Meditative," at Feature Inc., where they occupy the southwest gallery...
August 14, 2005
Heathrow mess: what's the real story, the clients or the serfs?
are they invisible? Is the story about lost or missed flights and the attendant inconvenience for thousands of travellers, or is it about humiliating and discarding hundreds of low-paid Asian workers struggling in a racist society? There have been...
August 13, 2005
Jack Smith lives at Grimm|Rosenfeld
detail view of gallery installation, showing Matt Saunders's Mario Montez contemplated by Jack Smith's Yolanda La Pinguina New gallery! Well, it's new here. But, anyway, it looks like this one's gonna be really, really good. Grimm|Rosenfeld has had a...
August 12, 2005
the first of the PS1 sketchers
Cory Arcangel and Frankie Martin video, 414-3-RAVE-95, sketched by M. River Earlier this week I invited artists to submit sketches of the works in the Greater New York 2005 show at PS1, since the museum does not allow photography...
August 10, 2005
Barry McGee at Deitch on Wooster Street
it gets better, but no bigger, than this mechanical loo artist at work neo neo geo? getting it all together for art Barry McGee's installation at Deitch, which is around the corner and down the street from Swoon's, was...
Swoon at Deitch on Grand Street
view of an untitled section of an installation by Swoon at Deitch It's a terrific show, and to think I almost missed most of it. Barry and I were at Swoon's opening over a month ago, but the crowd...
August 9, 2005
one for the revolution
This revolutionary [paint on panel] was spotted attached to the same wall as the arrow and the penis. The paving stone she's hurling in anger would have made a better weapon than the large granite blocks of Wooster Street...
art on and off the street in Soho
it starts with the realistic electrical box (complete with pull-switch) in the lower right corner, and it points toward a pudgy paper penis person pasted above it by another artist The building walls across from Deitch Projects on Wooster...
something like a green shitsu, resting
Usually there's a tree of some kind in the middle of these things, but then the grasses don't grow so luxuriantly as they have in this little curb garden, seen on Waverly Place this afternoon. Yes, the usual neat...
August 8, 2005
pull down the blackout curtains at PS1 - we need sketchers!
Peter Baumgras (1827-1903) Three Artists Sketching (1873) pencil on paper 8.5" x 10.75" Ladies and gentlemen, a reader has written in to comment [see the first one on my crabby PS1 post], that I should send out a call...
to PS1: but they're called the visual arts, aren't they?
on some very rare occasions blackouts might be a good thing* But, even when they aren't iniquitous, others are just plain stupid. Barry writes that I'll probably be doing a post about our return visit to PS1's Greater New...
forget about "design" here - just enjoy it
[spotted in Astoria last evening, squeezed between a Cosco and Socrates Sculpture Park]...
August 7, 2005
good design can still surprise
is it a "make-do"? I spotted this wall sconce in a stairwell at PS1 this afternoon, and I thought it was an rigged one-off. Then I found another, virtually identical to this one. What does it mean? They looked...
good design is forever
still looking good I'm thinking it's a design from the 1950's, but someone out there probably knows for sure. In any event, my point is to show how beautiful it is. Look at the stuff the MTA has installed...
August 3, 2005
our own temporary Homomuseum - extended to August 19
UPDATE: post now includes lots of links Alvin Baltrop Moment: NYC West Side Piers one of several images 1975-1986, printed 2005, gelatin silver prints 11" x 14" [detail of installation] "Homomuseum? I didn't know there was one!" answered a friend...
Bryan Zimmerman at Archibald Arts
These are two mixed-medium works by Bryan Zimmerman currently installed in the show, "Begging a Proper Donnybrook," at Archibald Arts. The image at the top is a detail. By now it's pretty clear that both Barry and James think...
August 2, 2005
kinda classic now
[detail of the huge mural on the south side of Williamsburg's North 4th Street, west of Bedford]...
August 1, 2005
so, what was the difference this time?
the signs on Fifth Avenue read "Witness To Israeli War Crimes," and that seems to have stuck in more than one important craw Steve Quester and his remaining four co-defendents in the trial of the M26 arrestees were sentenced...
