Last week on the day I took shots of this symbolic fence (the thin [nylon?] wires in the photos) along 6th Avenue just below 23rd Street I couldn't find anything on line confirming that it represented a currently-valid eruv, or shituf mevo'ot [sharing of the alleyways], but the concept itself fascinates me.

Victor Sjöström and Bibi Andersson in a still from Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film, "Smultronstället" [Wild Strawberries]

Well, of course it is. Everything is like a scene from a Bergman film.

Wow. Maybe this is not a balanced judgment, since I've been greedily devouring Ingmar Bergman's work for 50 years, but I think this piece by The Reeler's Stu VanAirsdale may be the most extraordinarily beautiful memorial to an artist that I've ever read.

[image from luebeck]

Judy Chicago The Dinner Party 1974–1979 ceramic, porcelain and textiles [installation view]

Nayland Blake Untitled 2002 charcoal on paper [installation view]

Florine Stettheimer Heat 1919 [installation view]

[detail]

Ree Morton Regional Work #2 1976 oil on wood with Celastic [installation view]

Jane E. Bartlett Sarah Cowell (later Sarah Cowell Lemoyne) 1877 oil on canvas

Thomas A. Edison Inc., William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, producer Buffalo Dance 1894 video from original 35mm silent B&W film [still from installation]

Raphaelle Peale Still Life with Cake 1822 oil on panel [installation view]

Barry and I really did have a terrific time at Brooklyn Museum yesterday, and we've decided to visit its permanent and temporary exhibits much more frequently than we have in the past. It's an easy subway run from Chelsea (or most anywhere else in Manhattan at least) and the installations are really smart. I was very impressed by the conception and execution of "American Identities" a long-term exhibition in the Luce Center of American Art which occupies much of the fifth floor. We didn't have time to get into the so-called "visible storage" galleries of the Center, but I'm going to be heading back very soon.

This cultural treasure sits on the edge of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and Prospect Park. It's both a great museum in Brooklyn and a great museum for Brooklyn. There's much of Brooklyn in it, although the rare broadcast of that fact is pretty subtle and a very soft sell: Because I was looking for it, because I love my fabulous neighbor borough (and erstwhile great independent city), and because and I know much about its history and its culture, I think I may have been more aware of Brooklyn references than most visitors would be, including natives of burg themselves.

The crowds are smaller than those in the large Manhattan museums, but they just might be a little more enthusiastic, and it's a delight for me to see their delight. The collection isn't the least bit provincial, but somehow it seems like a museum you can warm up to. I have.

I've uploaded images of just a few things that excited me yesterday. Some of them made it partly because of information provided by documentation on the museum walls I can't include here, but it's clearly a very odd company, spontaneously assembled on the spot. Except for the first work, they were all part of "American Identities", a collection of hundreds of objects from the Museum's collection of art from all the Americas, including the decorative arts, from the colonial era to the present. Judy Chicago's heroic and very elegant piece, "The Dinner Party", is in its [almost?] permanent home on the 4th floor (a separate triangular gallery inside the Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art), but all of the other works I show are part of the "American Identities" exhibition one flight up.

It was still being installed when we were there, but I'm really looking forward to visiting the Museum's upcoming special exhibition, "Global Feminisms Remix", which opens on Friday right on the other side of the wall from "The Dinner Party".

Marsden Hartley Evening Storm, Schoodic, Maine No. 2 1942 oil on board 30" x 40.5"

[detail]

We crossed Brooklyn ferry this afternoon (by subway, of course), on the last day of the Asher Durand show at Brooklyn Museum. I wasn't permitted to photograph the Durand paintings, because they were not part of the museum's own collection, but my camera wasn't idle when we walked through the other galleries on the 5th floor.

This evening, still on the subject of the natural beauty of the Northeast, I can't think of a better image to stand in for the pioneering Durand landscapes than this magnificent painting by Marsden Hartley. It may be my favorite thing of the day.

Jeffrey Tranchell Gold Bar 2007 enamel on wood 3.25" x 32" [installation view]

Mike Smith untitled 2007 latex, ink and enamel on canvas 24" x 18" [installation view]

Mike Smith untitled 2007 latex, ink and enamel on canvas 20" x 16" [installation view]

I wanted to do this post over a month ago, as soon as I left "Darjeeling", the enigmatic title of only the latest informal show installed by the Daniel Reich Gallery in one of the rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. At first I guess a lot of other things got in the way, and when the exhibition with the enigmatic title, shared by the artists Mike Smith and Jeffrey Tranchell, eventually closed writing about it seemed less, what, useful? Well, I haven't been able to forget it. I continually see that room and its quirky installation in my head, regretting not sharing it here and half promising myself to do a belated entry.

So this is it, but for my tardiness I now feel I can't leave without going into a bit of history:

Barry and I have been fans of the wonderfully unconventional Daniel Reich and his aesthetic choices from the beginning of his own gallery visibility, when (well before his first foray west of 10th Avenue) he was running a space in his micro-apartment on the ground floor of a building on West 21st Street. Before that we knew him as an assistant in Pat Hearn's gallery and later the director. Earlier still we had met him when he was one of a number of young earnests attracted to the eccentric court sheltered by Bill Bartman's Art Resources Transfer [A.R.T.] gallery, publishing and bookstore space on West 22nd Street.

I'd like to imagine that it's partly because of Daniel's own career narrative that these two artists were given the opportunity of mounting this interesting small show.

We like his own shows and we like the Chelsea Hotel, our neighbor. I've always regretted that this magnificent building with a legendary, even mythical past, wasn't the full-time venue for more galleries, but then it is fundamentally a residential pile, and I was always pretty fond of the commercial occupancies which did manage to get leases there, like a tackle shop, a guitar store, a tattoo parlor, a tiny tailor shop, an acupuncture salon. The hotel is under new management today, and even these interesting tenants are now going or already gone from the scene, probably to be replaced with one or more national chains to which none of its present residents or neighbors will ever be able to warm up.

I hope this isn't one of the Chelsea Hotel's last adventurous visual arts events, but it and Daniel Reich are certain to remain part of the legend.

BICYCLIST DOWNED BY THUG COP, ARRESTED, THEN UN-ARRESTED

How much do you have to piss off a New York cop (unknowingly, in fact) before he assaults and arrests you?

When Joe Nerolla rode his bike over a large piece of fabric constructed to replicate an American flag (it was deliberately made as a rather casual, almost replica, with disorderly stars), an NYPD officer called to him to come over where he was. In the midst of the cacophony of a very animated and musical First Amendment rally last night the young bicyclist didn't hear the summons. Much later, when someone pointed out that Nerolla was a musician, the youth agreed that his hearing might no longer be what it once was.

I had been standing at the north end of Union Square since 6:30 and I had seen no uniformed police anywhere on the plaza throughout the events of the rally until about this moment, although we knew there were many in plainclothes (think New Jersey or Staten Island casual) and there would certainly be at least scores of cops hiding in various locations just outside the park.

Instead I saw scores of those notorious massed, unpermitted New York bicycles and a huge gathering of people numbering well over the maximum number (49) legally permitted to assemble without securing a permit. Hundreds of these people joined together in using still and video cameras in a public space for longer than 30 minutes (soon to become a violation of the law as well) and finally there was no cabaret license anywhere in sight but there was a lot of exuberant dancing.

At precisely 8:05 some of the bicyclists passed by where my artist friend Marisa Olson and I were talking. They seemed to be gathering over on the northeast corner. At that moment, thinking about what appeared to be an initial assembly of Critical Mass cyclists (this was the evening of their regular monthly run, and the police have been harassing them for years), I mentioned to Marisa that I hadn't actually seen any uniformed police yet. She turned around and pointed to two officers who were walking behind us just then. A moment later I saw another, but this one was running past us chasing after a bicyclist who it appeared might not have realized he was being pursued.

The cop caught up with the guy (who couldn't have been moving very fast), and threw him violently onto the asphalt. Other police immediately appeared as if from nowhere and their shaken and slightly-bleeding quarry was hustled over to the steel barricades which ring the north side of the park. He was then handcuffed and a phalanx of officers in both blue and (executive) white shirts hustled him over towards the shiniest and biggest black SUV I've ever seen, parked exactly where Greenmarket tomatoes and herbs had been arrayed until little more than an hour before. Everybody stopped just short of the truck however, while several legal observers spoke to the police. The crowd pressed around, almost everyone armed with a camera of some sort. Word had quickly circulated that the victim had been scooped up for riding his bike over an American flag.

Remarkably, after a few minutes of this limbo, tensions lowered somewhat as it became known that the arrestee had been un-arrested. The precise terminology, I believe, is "voided"; the arrest was voided. The two legal observers on the scene, Joel Kupferman and Antonia Cedrone, had done a superb job.

Later I learned that while under arrest the bicyclist, Nerolla, had been told by the police, "we're going to charge you with not addressing an officer". Yeah, sure. Instead however, it seems that at some point an unspecified "bicycle infraction", rather than a (non-existent) riding-your-bicycle-on-a-semblance-of-the-American-flag statute violation was substituted as the reason for Nerolla attracting the attention of the cop in the first place.

Whatever the original trigger for the arrest, apparently this time reason and the suasion of a large savvy crowd with cameras won out over one cop's overzealous flag-worship or an imagined wound to his prerogative. His superior officers (there were plenty on the scene) must have seen the senselessness of this particular arrest, but in the end it was more likely that Nerolla was released because "it was too much", in one legal observer's words, describing the circumstances (a very interested public) of the post-arrest environment.

In fact, in a move even the legal advisers seemed to find unorthodox or even weird, at the same time the police released their prisoner, they were concerned enough about the mood of the people assembled to ask the legal observers to address and calm the crowd. They declined; the crowd was capable of taking its own counsel.

All hail to the tekkie gods for both the internet and the camera!

The incident itself was a painfully-dramatic illustration of the importance of resisting rules which give the police arbitrary power. The problem is that an underpaid, undertrained and undisciplined police force will use it, arbitrarily - and prejudicially - not with a consideration of genuine threats to public safety, not with equity, not with any sense of proportion. Rules restricting assembly and speech will always be used against "the other".

The full force of the [law enforcers] will be used against protesters and those who look different from "the mainstream" as it is understood by the officer on the scene. The target of the police last night, that is, both the individual officer and the force dispatched, was not criminal conduct or even the notion of public order; the target was a bicyclist, an all-black costume, and a mohawk haircut.

Near 9 o'clock, when all of the excitement was over, and most of the bicyclists had left to group elsewhere, I started to walk out of the square, taking note of the numbers of police leaning on their two and three-wheel scooters lined along the curb on 17th Street. I could also see a line of idle police vans stretching up Broadway all the way to 18th Street. I passed a dozen or so skateboarders near the corner. They had returned to reclaim the area, and were seemingly oblivious to all of this, and to the First Amendment issues which had played out in the hours before, without a general resolution, on their familiar asphalt "turf".

Go to the galleries at SmugMug for over forty images of Joe Nerolla's arrest/un-arrest, and tons more of the First Amendment rally itself. Except for one image which was cropped, none has been adjusted, and they are all in the sequence in which they were taken.

Even if it were shut down today (and that ain't happening), Guantanamo will remain our shame forever.

[this post is part of a series of reminders begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay is razed]

[image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]

LA police un-permitting a march in MacArthur Park, May 1, 2007, demonstrating that more and more everything which is not permitted by law is forbidden

Tomorrow evening, July 27, folks who want to fight for our right to assemble and speak as a free people will be joined in Union Square by those who oppose the latest repressive maneuver by Police Chief Kelly, City Council Speaker Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg to restrict everybody else's rights, in this case the right to use cameras and video equipment in public.

Just before Memorial Day weekend BloombergÂ’s Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting introduced draconian regulations regarding the taking of still and moving images anywhere in the City of New York. The rules, which will go into effect in August, will severely impede the ability of even casual photographers and filmmakers to operate in the city. A group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour (including setup and breakdown time) will be required to secure $1 million liability insurance coverage and to apply for (and hope to be granted) a permit from the city before any picture could be taken. Perhaps most insidiously of all, any regulation like this becomes an arbitrary device for law enforcement, and we already know the sort of people who will end up feeling its impact.

As usual the police will be free to implement or ignore the law at their own discretion. The new rules have nothing to do with easing the movement of vehicular or pedestrian traffic, as the City would have us believe. It has everything to do with controlling expression. The NY Civil Liberties Union has of course informed the Mayor's office of the obvious, that “these regulations violate the First Amendment right to photograph in public places, and open the door to selective and discriminatory enforcement.” [just when did I first feel I was more militant than the Civil Liberties Union?]

Tomorrow is also the last Friday of the month, Critical Mass day, and both bikes and supporters are certain to be part of the crowd in Union Square.

By the way, just before all this comes together on Broadway below 17th Street Cindy Sheehan returns to Union Square and will be joined by many other outraged citizens will just above 14th Street where Sheehan will host a press conference at 5 pm. It will be followed an hour later by a rally and procession, "Declare It Now". This event is expected to address the crimes of the Bush regime and to launch the color orange (assigned to those the regime has detained and tortured with no due process) as the symbol of the movement to end that outrage - and remove its devisers from office. That group is expected to end up with Critical Mass and the demonstration at the north end of the park, where Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, and Picture New York (a new coalition of concerned filmmakers and photographers) will be gathering "for a festive and un-permitted celebration of the First Amendment".

This all has the makings of being far more interesting as a total event than even the sum of its parts might otherwise promise. Maybe it will become a monthly vigil. I wouldn't miss it tomorrow for anything.

Bloomberg, Quinn, Commissioner Kelly and a lot of other people who don't trust you want you to stay home tomorrow night, but if you are a patriot and if you're within shouting distance of New York you're probably going to want to come to the North Side of Union Square around 6:30.

[image from thefirstamendment.org]

(of course it's never been easy getting downtown) a view of central Paris some years before the current mayor's congestion campaign, in a print by Nicolas Guérard, "Les Embarras pour la circulation, au Pont Neuf à Paris" (early eighteenth century)

In a terrific "Editorial Observer" piece at the bottom of the NYTimes editorial page this morning, American-in-Paris Serge Schmemann delivers the best prescription I've seen yet for making New York safe for human beings. Excerpts follow:

I live near the Boulevard St. Michel, and two years ago the city laid down a granite divider between the bus-only lane and the cars, squeezing private cars from three lanes to two. Taxis and bicycles may use the bus lane.

At the same time, every bus stop was newly equipped with a screen that told you how long the wait was for the bus. During rush hour, when the cars stand still along BoulÂ’ Mich, thereÂ’s nothing better than zooming past them in a bus.

Bus routes reach the most obscure corners of Paris. There’s also the Metro — and especially the great Line No. 1, which runs on tires under the Champs-Élysées and beyond. Then there’s a nifty new tramway that runs along the southern rim of the city and several suburban train lines that can be used for rapid transport within the city.

In short, public transportation will take you where you want to go, and you can use it all you want on an electronic card that can be paid by the week or by the month (about $70 these days). Taxis, of course, can also be summoned anywhere by phone.

The lesson for big-city mayors: If youÂ’re going to squeeze the cars, first primp the public ride. [the italics are mine]

And now the city has turned to bicycles:

Last week, more than 10,000 stolid, gray-painted bicycles (no Tour de France speedsters) became available for rent at 750 self-service locations across Paris. The cost is modest, less than $1.50 for a one-day pass, about $7.50 for a week and about $43.50 for a year — and the bikes can be dropped off at any docking station. The number of bikes is supposed to double by the end of the year.

And finally, Schmemann has a word about cars:

Parisians overwhelmingly buy small cars. And itÂ’s not because people are petite, but because fuel is drop-dead expensive. Gasoline costs more than twice as much in Paris as in New York.

But the price of diesel fuel is deliberately set far lower. ThatÂ’s because diesel-powered cars produce about 30 percent less greenhouse gas pollution than equivalent gasoline-powered engines. So car-buyers in Paris get small, diesel cars not because the French are virtuous (a separate topic), but because it makes economic good sense.

Many of these small cars have ample room for full-size people and have no trouble maintaining (or seriously exceeding) the 130 kilometers-per-hour (about 80 m.p.h.) limit on the national highways and are as clean and almost as quiet as gasoline engines.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

Look at these incredible mpg figures and this typical, brilliant, small European sedan. Not excited yet? Check this engineering miracle for more excitement, and charm, than any of us really deserves. Since I've strayed toward the subject of cars, I feel obliged to say that Americans get junk, or tired designs at best, even if they don't choose an SUV or pickup, and it's mostly our own damn fault - and no surprise. We have wretched taste and apparently equivalent engineering: Look at what passes for public transportation in this country, and compare it to that enjoyed by the rest of the industrial world.

[image from kunstfueralle]

I guess none of our fans read the Wall Street Journal (I suppose that's quite possible), because no one told us until today about this item by Lauren A. E. Schuker from last Saturday's edition. It's all about telling readers where they might find the next art bargains, and among a number of other ideas are the writer's suggestions for checking out the web.

Art blogs can also be a good source of information about emerging artists. Popular sites include artcal.net, artnet.com, edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com, galleryhopper.org and artsjournal.com/man.

I can't help noticing that ArtCal was placed before artnet, and this isn't an alphabetical list.

Maybe WSJ fans will now be tuning in regularly. In any event, the Schuker's piece seems like a good thing for everybody. It doesn't seem it would hurt if our money moguls got more culture and it would definitely help underknown artists and galleries if people with money stopped tripping over each other chasing down the safest art-world stars.

Meanwhile, an inside tip from bloggy and jameswagner: ArtCal will be launching a totally new design in the next week or two. The trim and stylish new logo appears at the top of this post.

This guy in the Battery Park City lotus pool is about eighteen inches long, and what you see here is the actual color.

These two Painted Ladies were very busy in the 28th Street flower market this afternoon. They ignored me entirely, but I can totally understand the reason for their concentration: They have only two weeks to live and to reproduce, once they acquire those fabulous wings.

untitled (the ramp) 2007

This is a view of the hole, taken from a chink in the fabric of the temporary Vesey Street bridge late last night, although it looked to me more like the construction site of a moon base, especially since there were no human figures visible, and no sound. The starry night effect in the left background is produced by the work lights on the Deutsche Bank Building which is slowly being demolished.

Joel Longenecker And Then You Die 2007 oil on canvas 90" x 96"

[detail]

Joel Longenecker Float Theory 2007 oil on linen 62" x 54"

Joel Longenecker Get Drift 2007 oil on canvas 78" x 74"

When I first saw these paintings I didn't know how to fit them into my accustomed ideas about how art should ideally provoke and re-draw my world in some way when I initially encounter it. Joel Longenecker's paintings in his solo show, "Ignorance and Bliss", at Sideshow are both powerful and beautiful, but they do not capture new territory. In fact while they were all finished this year, they would not look anomalous (although they'd probably have been stars) in a Manhattan gallery show years ago.

But to say this is not to dismiss what Longenecker has accomplished. I still like to visit the work of the iconic abstract expressionists, even when it's become very familiar, and when an artist speaks in the same language today, but to tell new stories, why should I refuse to listen?

I knew I would end up appreciating this work more if I hung around a bit yesterday, and I did. I didn't however expect to become as attached to it as I am now, the result of an increased familiarity from having spent an absurd amount of time today trying to adjust the colors on the images I shot during my visit. I had to revise my adjustments over and over to see that the colors were neither too bright and transparent nor too dark and smudgy. I hope I've come close to the originals but, especially with painting, there's no substitute for being able to stand in front of the canvas itself.

untitled (antennae) 2007

Didn't anybody notice this triangular lot when these two buildings were going up?

Alejandro Diaz (selection from "Ongoing series of Cardboard Signs" 2003 - present) [installation view]

[additional signs from the series]

Guy Richards Smit study for front cover of "Grossmalerman Adventures" 2007 gouache on paper 30.25" x 22.75" [installation view]

Terrence Gower Display Modern II-1 (Hepworth) 2006-2007 Paper mâché 49.75" x 38.25" x 9", Display Modern II-2 (Hepworth) 2006-2007 paper mâché 46" x 18" x 15", and Display Modern II-4 (Hepworth) 2006-2007 paper mâché 48.5" x 18" x 15", with Display Modern I (Hepworth) 2006-2007 12 Piezo pigment prints on phot rag 11" x 14" each (unframed) on wall to the rear [installation view]

Rachel Gugelberger and Jeffrey Walkowiak, co-directors of the gallery, are the curators of the current Sara Meltzer show, "Ceci n'est pas... (This is not...)", featuring work by Tamy Ben-Tor, Cary Leibowitz, Peter Coffin, Michael Lindeman, Jennifer Dalton, Pam Lins, Alejandro Diaz, Reynard Loki, Charley Friedman, Edgar Orlaineta, Neil Goldberg, Laura Parnes, Terence Gower, Danica Phelps, Pablo Helguera, Jude Tallichet, Christopher K. Ho and Troy Richards, Guy Richards Smit, Nina Katchadourian, Michael Smith and David Kramer.

The press release is almost as amusing as this very amusing show itself. It begins with a statement warning us about what the installation is not:

Ceci n'est pas... (This is not...) an exhibition about painting. This is not an exhibition that defines a moment or a trend. This is not an exhibition that celebrates the emerging artist or the mid-career artist or those who have passed. This is not an exhibition about appropriation, subversive strategies or architectural interventions. This is not an exhibition about global warming, the war in Iraq, government corruption, Lindsey Lohan or Knut the polar bear.

And it goes on to describe what it is, in an explanation excerpted here:

The group exhibition Ceci n'est pas... (This is not...) presents works that approach various facets of the art world with irony and humor. Culled from artist's observations and experiences as well as art world mythology, the far-ranging styles include self-deprecating anecdotes, commentaries on art and exhibition practices and critiques of art market trends.

Mark Schubert Merry-Jo 2007 epoxy resin, plastic lawn ornaments, chrome table, foam and enamel, approx. 69" x 40" x 42" [installation view]

[detail]

Joey Fauerso If I'm Thinking I'm Probably Feeling 2006 video: 35-second looped animation made from 454 oil and acrylic paintings [two stills from installation]

I'm not surprised that one of my favorite things in the show is Mark Schubert's piece, or that it was already marked sold when we arrived at the gallery one week after the show opened. I'm talking about "Merry-Jo", Schubert's large sculpture occupying the physical center of the current exhibition, "Famous Adults as Children, Famous Children as Adults", at Monya Rowe. Maybe it's spoiler, but I'll tell you anyway: The major elements of this sculpture started life as a plastic Mary and Joseph.

I was also fascinated by Joey Fauerso's "If I'm Thinking I'm probably Feeling", a half-minute video animation assembled from hundreds of individual paintings.

The show was curated by José Lerma, and besides these works by Schubert and Fauerso there are excellent pieces by Evan Gruzis, Christopher McNulty, John McKinnon, Brendan Mulcahy, Jesus Bubu Negron, Joe Pflieger, Andrew Rogers and Chemi Rosado Seijo.

The press release states simply that the installation "examines themes of repetition, replication and the reformulation of existing works and ideas". What a strange idea: a curatorial concept which doesn't end up stuck in the ordinary art fan's throat.

Sarah Braman Step Out 2007 found furniture, Plexiglas, paint 46" x 53" x 32" [installation view]

Nicole Cherubini Amphora 2007 ceramic, terracotta, porcelain, luster, yellow crystal ice, wood, enamel and fake gold and silver chain 70" x 64" x 30" [installation view]

Jacob Robichaux Concrete/Abstract 2007 color pencil, enamel, felt, glue, linen, parquetry tablets, string, wood 27" x 25"

Ian Pedigo Temporary Image of the Exterior 2007 wood, counter top, Plexiglas, decals, found printed image 64" x 63.5" x 1.75" [installation view]

The other reason of my excitement about D'Amelio Terras is the show in the larger space, "Circumventing the City", curated by Rachel Uffner, with work by Sarah Braman, David Brooks, Jedediah Caesar, Nicole Cherubini, Valerie Hegarty, Yuri Masnyj, Ian Pedigo, Jacob Robichaux, Sterling Ruby and Erika Vogt.

Like "Heralds of Creative Anachronism", this is a show of abstraction, and everything in this room too was created within the last year or so, but four of the ten artists are not men, and their medium is not just paint on canvas. In fact, there really isn't anything here which might be called straight painting at all.

It's a beautiful show.

I was already familiar with and enthusastic about the exciting work of Braman, Cherubini, Hegarty, Pedigo, Robichaux and Ruby, and now I'm also going to be watching for Brooks, Caesar and Masnyj.

This smallish piece on paper by Robichaux is not actually part of the show, but I saw it hanging in an office inside the gallery and I couldn't resist sharing it.

Roger White Cloth 2006 oil on canvas 54" x 38"

Chris Martin Mother Popcorn 2006-2007 oil and collage on canvas 64" x 59"

D'Amelio Terras has two dynamite shows up at the same time, and they will both be running for almost four more weeks, until August 10. "Heralds of Creative Anachronism", which occupies the gallery's smaller space, includes five abstract works by four artists, Joe Bradley, Daniel Hesidence, Chris Martin [see also my July 17 post], and Roger White.

The gallery describes the choice of four male painters for this show as a deliberate reference to the 60's art group known as BMPT (Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier, Niele Toroni), but admits that the exhibition is "a light-hearted attempt to create a movement, even a temporary one, for the duration of this exhibition". In fact I think what they're saying is that the idea here, very unlike BMPT's, is to question the whole notion of movements or "schools" in the practice of contemporary abstract painting.

Whatever the show's conceit, the work is terrific.

No curator is credited.

I wasn't going to single out this one article in one periodical for a post here on my site, thinking it would appear too self-serving, but then I realized that people were already reading the provocative piece by James Kalm, "Gangs of New York", in the latest Brooklyn Rail and my not saying anything might look like a statement itself. Besides, it's about much more than art blogs, and I would definitely have wanted to be told about it myself, and read it, even if I didn't already know some of the names involved.

Bloggy already did a small post about Kalm's piece and there he referred to the broadsheet's accompanying photo as broadly "horrific" (he was being kind, since although he didn't single out my own appearance I swear I've still never seen a bad picture of Barry!).

The article is about the future of art criticism, the growth of online art communities, the disintegration of older art authorities, etc., and it includes interviews with PaintersNYC, Barry and myself.

Mira Dancy Burning Flame 2007 oil on canvas 16" x 16"

Mira Dancy Tall Table 2007 oil on canvas 42" x 24"

Chris Martin Untitled 2005-2007 mixed media, insulation foam on wire mesh 32" x26.75' [installation view]

Eric Heist The Kingdom is Inside You and Outside You (From Interfaith Center) 2005 mixed media 40" x 20" x 26" [installation view]

Aaron Williams Are We Dead? 2007 watercolor, enamel and spray paint on paper 27" x 34.5" [installation view]

Mike Cloud Chicken with Two Stars of David 2005 oil on linen with toy from children's game 39.25" x 37.75" x 40" [installation view]

Andrew Guenther The Slap of Bird Shit on Wet Pavement (green and yellow) 2006 acrylic and oil stick on paper 30" x 22.5" [installation view, of work inside frame]

It's been a while since Mid-Chelsea looked as exciting as it does right now. I just counted nine "TOP PICKS" on ArtCal, and seven of them are Chelsea galleries; that may be a record. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that a number of artists are currently making an appearance there who have not previously been associated with our far-west-side, grown-ups-art scene. Barry and I headed west for a few hours this afternoon and much of the time it felt like we were actually visiting Williamsburg or the Lower East Side - except that our local big-deal galleries can afford excellent air conditioning, their market being rather demanding.

We encountered our first stash of treasures at "Unfathom", the beautiful Max Protetch group show curated by the artist Aaron Williams and Stuart Krimko, the gallery's Director of Exhibitions. The artists are Cameron, Nicolas Rule, Saul Chernick, Gary Stephan, Jessica Dickinson, Chris Martin, Byron Kim, Andrew Guenther, Alfred Jensen, Mira Dancy, Rico Gaston, Marc Handelman, Eric Heist, Katherine Keltner, Mike Cloud, Ed Blackburn and Aaron Williams.

untitled (TURN) 2007

This had almost nothing to do with the Manhattan Mini Storage advertising campaign, and almost everything to do with bold and angled lines - and the English bond.

Ju$t Another Rich Kid & Stuart Semple Teen Dream Chaos 2007 mixed media installation, dimensions variable [large detail of installation]

[further detail]

For those who haven't yet seen the show on 21st Street Anna Kustera has fortunately extended the run of "The Black Market" until August 3. It's something about the comodification of everything we think we may still have held simply dear until recently. Yes you may go shopping, and the stuff is attached to a huge range of price tags.

In addition to their rich collaboration shown above there are also individual pieces by Ju$t Another Rich Kid and Stuart Semple, who are jointly responsible for curating the show. Beyond that there's work by Mattia Biagi, Carlo Zanni, Cory Ingram, Craig Wilson, Adham Faramawy, the (aural) collaboration of London Nu Ravers, Warboy and K-tron of All You Can Eat, as well as something called "The Playground", described as an unbound collection of hand-made fashion and art prints produced and boxed in a limited edition.

It all looked like tons of fun to me, and when I was there the contents of The Playground's striking box hadn't even been revealed yet.

looking cool

After yesterday's post, I suppose even I might have been able to predict this one.

The (five-year-old) roof garden outside our apartment is a great joy, even in the winter. But it's so hard to get living things to survive an environment which doesn't get any direct sun, ever. Some of what you see here are perennials, some annuals, some house plants summering outside for a few months, and some were purchased recently (flowers already open).

Eric Hairabedian Pitcher 2006 C-print 30" x 24" [installation view]

Eric Hairabedian Mr. Valentine 2006 C-print 30" x 24" [installation view]

Eric Hairabedian Pepe 2007 C-print 8.5" x 11" [installation view, including blogger's reflection]

Tricia Zigmund The Church of the Cross 2007 C-print [no dimensions indicated; installation view]

Dana Gentile Dreamboy 2007 mixed media collage, wooden spool and cigar box 6.5" x 11" x 1.5" [installation view]

It's almost as much about the space as it is about the photographs, at least that's what the press release for Pocket Utopia's "Not Yet Utopic" seems to be saying. If you've been to the gallery and seen the show, you know what that's all about. But you wouldn't have to agree, since the work in this group show would shine in any environment, even a clean, white space.

The photographers are Dana Gentile, Terry Girard, Kristopher Graves, Eric Hairabedian, Jersey Walz and Tricia Zigmund. I've included in the shots above a bit of the ambiance of the evolving construction that currently defines this space and which is almost inseparable from each piece as presented here.

What follows is a bit more of the de-constructing gallery surfaces themselves, by way of a lagniappe:

I shot these images while crossing through our courtyard garden on my way to the market late this afternoon.

Is it a riot scene, a political demonstration, a fire drill, an Improv Everywhere mission? No, it's just the overflow crowd outside the new 31 Grand on Ludlow Street last night, welcoming the gallery in its move from Williamsburg (yeah, 31 Grand) to the Lower East Side.

The show was dominated by the gallery's own artists, but there were some special guests as well. I think we'll call it a corker and ignore the title. What follows is just a taste of the 28 works in the show (unofficially, 29 last night, since Carol Riot Kane made a stunning addition to the crowd).

More from Bloggy.

This is the complete list:

Claudine Anrather, Ursula Brookbank, Fanny Bostrom, Alessandra Exposito, Maureen Cavanaugh, Mike Cockrill, Jon Elliott, Rachel Frank, Helen Garber, Lauren Gibbes, Jeph Gurecka, Magalie Guerin, Karen Heagle, Jan Kotik, Jason Clay Lewis, Francesca Lo Russo, Ryan McLennan, Christa Parravani, Anthony Pontius, Tom Sanford, Adam Stennett, Kimi Weart, Barnaby Whitfield and Jeff Wyckoff

Tom Sanford David & Victoria Beckham 2007 oil, acrylic and fake silver on wood, 2 panels 28.5" x 28.5" each [installation view]

Barnaby Whitfield The Prestige (Ground Control) 2007 28.5" x 36" [installation view]

the artist and Erik Lindman admire Whitfield's drawing

Karen Heagle Laocoon (Tom DeLonge) 2006 acrylic and ink on paper 51" x 54" [installation view]

Lauren Gibbes the Friendly Barbarian 2005 Astroturf, acrylic, ceramic, siolk flowers, diamond dust, dimensions variable [installation view[

Anthony Pontius The Great Rescue 2007 oil on panel [dimensions not provided, but approximately 16" square]

Kerwin Matthews, "flesh-and-blood Sinbad"

Why didn't somebody tell us?

Kerwin Matthews, the actor who played Sinbad in the 1958 film, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad", died July 5 in his home in San Francisco. The NYTimes obituary says that his death "was confirmed by his lover of 46 years, Tom Nicoll".

Yes, the film was aimed at a young audience, but we weren't too young to fall in love with the beautiful and dashing hairy-chested Sinbad. Who could possibly have imagined that he wasn't as straight as everyone else (everyone except me, of course, and all the other queers of whose existence I would have no suspicion until years later)?

My favorite part of the short item in this morning's paper is this sweet memory recalled by his partner:

Except as Sinbad and Gulliver, Mr. Nicoll said, Mr. Mathews was never satisfied with merely playing action roles.

“He always wanted to do light comedy, or something more weighty,” he said.

Then, in 1963, Mr. Mathews was cast as Johann Strauss Jr. in the Disney television production “The Waltz King.”

“He was most proud to play Strauss,” Mr. Nicoll said, “and that he had to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. Whether they actually followed him I don’t know, but he tried very hard.”

More from the San Francisco Chronicle, and one more visual treat, a publicity shot for "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver" (1960):

Matthews as Dr. Lemuel Gulliver

[the first image from play.com, the second from briansdriveintheater]

Rob Pruitt Under The Cherry Moon 2007 acrylic and oil on panel 36" x 30" approx. [installation view, the rectangular shape of the panel distorted here by the camera parallax]

[detail including unicorn sticker]

Dana Carlson What Cats Think About 2006 embroidery, beadwork, applique and paint on peach satin 32" x 25"

Even if the art weren't so good - and so much good fun - the titles should probably be a sufficient draw for this group show at the new-ish Smith Stewart gallery on, once again, the Lower East Side. Some of the best, even away from the works themselves, are Jamie Warren's "Untitled (Naoko/Squid teeth)", assume vivid astro focus's "Butch Queen 5 (Le Sport Sac)", Michele O'Marah's "Susie's Rainbow (Valley Girl Prop)", Marlene McCarthy's "Annointed: Beeville, Texas", and Jen DeNike's "Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Top, Bottom" and J Penry's "To Dream of Flying Papillon".

The other artists are Hrafnhildur Arnardottir, Jim Krewson, Meredith Danluck, Ryan McGinley and Amy Carlson.

The title of the exhibition itself is "She Was Born To Be My Unicorn", and it was curated by Amy Kellner [in her spare time, writer, photographer, VICE editor, blogger, bon vivant and teenage unicorn].

Barry has an image of Nicole Eisenman's piece.

I'd heard about a bit about her before, but when I arrived at page 38 of today's Newsday and saw that beautiful face turned to the camera the name Harriet Quimby somehow came to life for the first time. It was an illustration for the paper's regular half-page feature, "IT HAPPENED ON LONG ISLAND". This morning it carried the headline, "1911: America's First Licensed Woman Pilot". The picture shows Quimby seated inside her Moisant monoplane*, probably the one on which she learned to fly.

Her life makes a terrific story, and while it wasn't to last very long that bright face still winks at us today.

I did a quick Google search to find more images of Quimby and this is the one which really inspired this post:

The shot may be a bit fuzzy but almost a hundred years after her death it shows that the woman who always wore her self-designed plum-colored, satin flying suit (the pant legs converted into a walking skirt) when she was anywhere near a plane, was much more than a pretty face.

Finally, a breathtaking image of Quimby and her 50-horsepower Moisant in flight, to suggest the thrill , the danger and, yes, the sometime beauty and gracefulness of air travel in 1912:

*
It appears that the paper has it wrong, describing the plane as a Bleriot XI; the Moisant was actually designed and built by the Moisant bothers, aviation pioneers along with their sister Matilde at Hempstead on Long Island, Newsday's backyard.

[the first image is from Newsday, the second from the Library of Congress, the third via Lance]

[detail of Vidal's collage in the gallery window]

Please indulge me for this additional post on Jacques Louis Vidal's show at Sunday. The immediate occasion for my uploading some more pictures now was the fact that the artist performed a second time inside the gallery last Saturday with totally new material, and these images partially document what the gallery billed as a workshop, "making friends + keeping friends".

I think Vidal is an extremely interesting artist, but these pictures have a larger history for me personally: I am very interested in the performing arts as well as the visual arts, but because of the nature of the viewer's experience most theater (of almost any kind, even the experimental and the outré, which is my passion) is much more problematic, of not impossible, for a blogger who loves to introduce unique images to his visitors. Like a bee to honey, if you tell me that an artist I already admire is doing a show, I'm on it.

I believe there will be a final performance this weekend, probably late Saturday afternoon, but I don't know anything more right now.

The picture which leads this post at the top is a detail of the latest version (as of Saturday) of Vidal's continuing window installation.

There are no summer breaks inside the cages at Guantanamo, and no AC.

[image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]

coming soon to a changing neighborhood

Looking at this stage more like the Pompidou than the casual stack of clean, minimal, white spaces which will eventually sit on the side of one of the oldest and most historically-evocative streets in New York City, the new New Museum is slowly rising above [most of] the roofs of the Lower East Side, where it will soon help to re-define the cultural landscape of an entire community.

We have already been seeing a number of good galleries opening up all over the neighborhood, and I wouldn't expect that trend to slow down any time soon. My only question is what took them so long?

In spite of the fact that I live almost on top of the Chelsea gallery ghetto, I more than welcome a new destination: At least on visits to that side of town art junkies will be able to get a drink or a snack while making [our] unflagging rounds.

ADDENDUM:

Looking at this image this morning I realize I should have mentioned how impressed I was several years ago when the Museum announced the location of their new building. It's was a coup for the architects, Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA, and for the institution, and of course a boon for all New Yorkers. The building is at the eastern end of Prince, a street which has attracted interesting tenants at least as long as I've been coming to the city. It comes to a full stop at Bowery, and when I took this picture I was roughly across the street from the site of the legendary Manny's music shop (where I first heard John Zorn play live). Even the great gothic cathedrals of Europe don't always get such a grand parade for a front yard.

lithe youths on light bikes, turning out of Rivington Street last Saturday

Ahmed Alsoudani Opened Ground 2007 charcoal, pastels and acrylic on paper 80" x 105" [installation view]

Ahmed Alsoudani Untitled 2007 charcoal, pastels and acrylic on paper 94" x 107" [installation view]

[detail]

After entering the gallery and exchanging greetings with gallery-keeper Ron Segev, I looked over his shoulder and was almost immediately aware that I was looking at something profoundly disturbing, and profoundly important. I'm referring to the work of Ahmed Alsoudani, one of four artists represented in "The Atrocity Exhibition", currently installed at Thiery Goldberg on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side.

Alsoudani is a young artist, currently living in Connecticut, who was born in Iraq and came to the U.S. after the first Gulf War. He's an American citizen today, but his work has not forgotten the recent history of his native land and the enormous and continuing human disaster whose burden (of the guilt, if not so much the grief) is so closely shared by his adopted home.

My first thought when I saw these two large drawings was that I was looking at a twenty-first-century "Guernica". The technique is ultimately Alsoudani's own, but much of his subject and elements of his dramatic representation of violence evokes the truth and the power of Picasso's anti-war masterpiece, the honest outrage of Goya's "Disasters of War", or the grotesque beauty of Miro's anti-fascist "Black and Red" series.

All of my references are to Spanish artists whose work was impacted by fascist or imperial violence, but they occurred to me even before I had learned about the artist's origins or had read that his work is intended to specifically address the savagery being visited on the land he had to flee years ago, but where his mother and others still remain. Now I don't consider it a stretch to see a connection in this small gallery space between the atrocities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the memorials created by artists whose own countrymen were sacrificed to power, greed, ignorance and fear, and our own atrocity in our own century and a memorial (or series of memorials, since the cataclysm continues) created by another artist, again a countryman of the sacrificial victims, again the very same scourges.

These are fearsomely-magnificent works. I am very grateful to have gotten even a small peek into this artist's extraordinary vision and imagination.

I was also very impressed with the work of the other three artists being shown this month, Ben Grasso, who regularly shows wonderful exploding stuff mid-explosion, and who is associated with Thiery Goldberg, Wendy Heldmann, who shows aftermaths, and lives and works in Los Angeles, and Molly Larkey, represented by two sculptures from her "Bombs" series, and who I think is showing in several spaces around town just now, including PS1.

By the way, the title of the show, "The Atrocity Exhibition", describes its contents much more straightforwardly than is usually the case these days.

If there are no other images in this entry it's only because of the difficulties I encountered in capturing any decent document of the other works. There are a few small pictures on the gallery's own site, but not enough at the moment to keep wise visitors from investigating themselves.

Mary Heilmann Sunset at Makapu 1984 oil on canvas 60" x42"

I'm probably showing an image by the most well-known of the artists included in this pretty serious summer group show, “Three for Society”, at 303 Gallery, but it's the kind of extraordinary painting which so ordinarily produced by Mary Heilmann, so I couldn't resist sharing.

The other names in the exhibition, a majority of which belong to artists associated with the gallery, are Robert Boyd, Rebecca E. Chamberlain, Anne Chu, Hans Peter Feldmann, Tom Gidley, Florian Maier-Aichen, Collier Schorr, Agathe Snow, David Thorpe and Jakub Julian Ziolkowski.

I do think that until you've visited the high prairie you don't fully understand the term, "Big Sky Country". I've been to Montana several times, and I understand. But today I live in a Manhattan canyon, so I also understand how much of a difference even a slightly more low-rise neighborhood can make.

When you finally surface after a ride on the L to Williamsburg or beyond the world always looks very different, not least because of the huge importance the sky assumes when buildings are only two or three stories tall.

When I was very young most of the other kids pretended they could fly, but I just couldn't get very excited about a Superman cape. In the summer, if I wasn't on my bike, I would often lie on the lawn and imagine myself climbing through the clouds, especially when they looked as sturdy as these do.

These pictures were grabbed early in the evening yesterday after Barry and I emerged at the Morgan stop (which is really Bushwick) to make the opening at Pocket Utopia.

For those who might be wondering, the wavy line dangling from the top of the fourth picture is a loose telephone cable. I really liked its intervention there, and I would have tried to get it into focus, but I didn't want to make Barry wait while I dealt with it.

Brian Ulrich Untitled (Thrift 0628) 2006 30" x 24"

Alec Soth Bonnie (with a photograph of an angel), Port Gibson, Mississippi 2000 32" x 40"

They're American, so they come in many models. They're not all pretty, but their images are all riveting. They're all portraits, but they're not the kind that comes out of a photographer's studio. Each of them is done by an artist.

Jen Bekman's current show, "A New American Portrait", is co-curated by Bekman herself and Jörg Colberg.

The photographers represented are Christine Collins, Jen Davis, Benjamin Donaldson, Amy Elkins, Peter Haakon Thompson, Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Brian Ulrich, and Shen Wei.

[Ulrich image from Jen Bekman, Soth image from Alec Soth]

On Tuesday I wrote that Jacques Louis Vidal had scheduled performances through two more weekends during his current show at Sunday on the Lower East Side [LES], but today I've received word that he has reduced them to a single day's production, to be mounted this Saturday afternoon, July 7.

It will be a workshop at the gallery called "making friends + keeping friends", and should start soon after the mesquite cookout, which is on the schedule from 1 to 4. I definitely recommend a visit to Eldridge Street on Saturday.

Tommy Hartung Viewing Station #1 2007 4 black folding chairs, media cart, tripod projection screen, dimensions variable [installation view]

Rashawn Griffin Untitled (Everything Has) 2006 ink, thread, mixed media on paper, dimensions variable [installation view]

and the big white box still looks like it's been barely disturbed. Tommy Hartung and Rashawn Griffin have each brought a number of examples of their very different work into the North Gallery at Moti Hasson, but somehow this elegant installation of smart, (almost) monochromatic work manages to look both spare and lush at the same time.

Michael Williams Fur Tree 2007 oil on canvas 58" x 76"

Melissa Brown Untitled 2007 silk screen on aluminum 48" x 96"

Once again Canada manages to put on a show which local art fans will miss at their own peril, or at least at the risk of losing out on some good serious fun. Dan Nadel curated the gallery's "New Mutants", a show of work by Melissa Brown, Brian Chippendale, Julie Doucet, C.F., Trenton Doyle Hancock, Ben Jones, Amy Lockhart, Sakura Maku, Frank Santoro, Patrick Smith and Michael Williams. Yes, that Michael Williams.

missing person flier in the gallery window

Jacques Louis Vidal's appearance at Sunday is more than a show; it's a way of art, a two-way street for both the artist and the viewer. At the opening reception of "Wood Folks is Good Folks" the artist enlisted himself and some half dozen volunteers in a performance which literally wound through (and into) the entire gallery installation. He's promised one more performance for this Saturday, July 7, a workshop called "making friends + keeping friends". It should start soon after the mesquite cookout, which is on the schedule from 1 to 4. I definitely recommend a visit to Eldridge Street that day.

Vidal's performances and sculptures evoke traditional folk-tale forms and, well, a lot of slacker high school shop, but his subject appears to be a contemporary and grown-up concern with the absurdity of a world created by the rude political, commercial and religious heirs to that more humble and more muted America and its naive how-to culture. Whether inhabited by his own body in performance or seemingly discarded in a gallery, the stuff Vidal creates incorporates toys and monsters, natural relics and human monuments, terrors and amusements, prayers and ad copy, paper and scissors, shiny foil and dull tape, string and wood (always lots of wood). The sculptures, like his (literally) fantastic drawings, display a (misleading) childlike simplicity, and his performances have a charming earnestness almost always leading to some form of embarrassment for the actor himself.

But all this cool "stuff" is only the beginning; what lingers is a very post-post-modern questioning - and the generous spirit of the artist.

I almost forgot. We've been excited about his work since first seeing it in March of 2006 and Vidal was an extremely important part of our curated show last fall.

The images on this post were all captured during the opening on June 22. The series below begins with the artist's performance, moves on to the Houston Astrodome sculpture and Vidal handling the two-headed, tiny-footed wooden man. The last photo is a detail of a wall collage representing the home being prepared for all the good, wooden folks.

Barry has a post with another image from the opening, a link to his flickr set and a 45-second video clip of the performance.

artist inhabiting his work

Brandon Kelley

I'm not much of an advertisement for an energetic homosexual at this moment so I was curious about "Where do Homosexuals Get All Their Energy?", this piece in last week's The Onion. I read it straight through to the end. This was unusual for me, because I normally find the paper's headlines much funnier than the full satirical narratives. Hey, I'm busy.

Sometimes I really am a very energetic homosexual, but right now I'm sitting at the breakfast room table at one in the afternoon, after a leisurely reading of the morning papers (and an old Onion). I'm about to leave the apartment with my partner (although there's no rush) for a visit to the Metropolitan on a beautiful afternoon, leaving it to someone else to clean and put everything in order at home while we're gone.

The satirical weekly's Brandon Kelley (the writer's pseudonym*) would describe my lifestyle differently. He starts out with a general comparison and continues with an elaboration on contrasting staight/gay competencies:

Boy, am I beat. And it's not like I have some crazy life where I'm working three jobs and going to night school. No, I just have one job and a small apartment. I don't even have a pet to look after. Even so, it seems that no matter what I do, there's always more. If they put another eight hours in the day, I might be able to catch up on the laundry list of chores I have, or even just my laundry, if I were lucky. But you know who really gets it done? Homosexuals.

I know what you're saying: Brandon, you're just perpetuating the stereotype that homosexuals are superhuman. That is totally not true. All I'm saying is, with their boundless energy and talents, they make us straight guys look bad.

I'll add an excerpt which brings this post back to one of this site's foci:

And don't remind me about those gallery openings. After a hard day of work, I was barely able to drag my ass down to the last one. I told myself, I'm not doing this again anytime soon! But it would never occur to homosexuals to think those things. The moment I walked in, there they were, dressed impeccably and criticizing the choice of wine.

*
I understand the portrait images used are those of the staff and their friends

[image from The Onion]

untitled (she) 2007

(too much free speech)

An AP story in Newsday reports that Reverend Billy was arrested Friday night while loudly reciting the First Amendment to police.

Could anything make it more clear what's going on in this city? It's time for all New Yorkers to form a larger critical mass of resistance to this dangerous lunacy before we've lost our liberties for ever.

Gothamist tells us that a press release the blog received after the arrest of a man whose day job consists largely of exhorting people to abandon the products of large corporations and mass media, observes that "while the NYPD surrounded and intimidated last night's Critical Mass cyclists, a line of several hundred shoppers formed just across the street to purchase the new iPhone, blocking pedestrian traffic and forcing people to walk in the street." Whoa! This is all way, way beyond irony.

Go here, to Matt Semel's annotated flickr set of images, for a good-humored, inside look at Friday night's bike ride and the police tension which preceded it.

[image by Konstantin Sergeyev from revbilly.com]

untitled (cone) 2007