real

The front page of this morning's real New York Times looks an awful lot like the fake New York Times published by the Yes Men with the help of many others last November 12. My own hard copy of today's Late [City] Edition differs only slightly from the one shown above. It adds a story which suggests the feds are getting closer to nationalizing the banks.

Probably the most significant element missing from the February 27, 2009, paper is the banner headline on the July 4, 2009, edition shown below: "IRAQ WAR ENDS" - but then we still have more than four months to get that one right.

fake New York Times

[first image from the real NYT site; second from the faux NYT site]

front yard

open house

sales tour

Lisa Kirk continues her provocative body of work (what she calls her "series of social occasions"), more recently investigating capitalism, terrorism and political violence, in a dramatic installation, "House of Cards", currently installed at the Lower East Side gallery Invisible-Exports. Although the show opened this past weekend and will continue there through most of March, after that it will take on the second life for which it was conceived.

This time Kirk has re-conceived the story of our contemporary real estate boom and bust in the form of a show model “shanty timeshare” whose structure and interior furnishings have been assembled, in classic (not "classical") style, from discarded materials found in the neighborhood.

An experienced sales staff will be present in the rear of the gallery throughout the run of "House of Cards", and visitors will have the opportunity to buy shares in this "private residence club" featuring all the conveniences which inhabit our current nightmares about home. Upon the show’s completion, the structure will be rebuilt inside a secure, honest-to-goodness gated community located on the edge of one of New York's scenic waterways, where we are told "shareholders will have the opportunity to experience shanty living. After 52 weeks, maison des cartes will be disassembled and distributed to the shareholders as 52 separate and unique artworks," thus promising a more upscale metamorphosis than that permitted most shanties when they are razed.

None of the serious satire (it's not a burlesque) I describe here made this show any less frightening when I visited it with Barry during a preview last week, although the images I'm including here, of happy guests mingling inside these digs, would seem to belie that assertion.

It's pretty scary; and it should be.

The press release announces a second installation, not related to the work on the main floor of the gallery:

Kirk’s shanty will be coupled with an underground installation of her updated project, Revolution (06-09). Last exhibited at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Revolution appeared as a fragrance lab and terrorist headquarters suspended upside-down from the museum’s ceiling.

"sorry about all the torture"

fragrance TV commercial

continuing "Revolution"

Nayland Blake Companion 2006 t-shirt, bubble wrap, trunk 48" x 50" x 9.5" [installation view]

Just about as inscrutable as Matt Mullican, but different. Very different.

Soho's Location One is hosting what the gallery describes as a 25-year survey of Nayland Blake's work in almost every medium. Curated by Maura Reilly, the show is titled "Behavior". Even for a visitor familiar, even comfortable with the transgressive, it seems Blake doesn't really care whether you get much of what he's doing. But then he's something of a virtuoso in this field. You can get lost in this installation, but you won't get out unaffected by some of the images.

Oh, the printed text on the soiled shirt in the image above reads, "GNOME FONDLER".

Nayland Blake Bunnyhole II 1997 steel, nylon, wood and stuffed animal 40" x 7" x 8.5" [installation view]