A sparkle from How I Quit Crack's Viceland Blog interview:
Vice: Would you recommend smoking crack to others?
Tina F. (HIQC): Yeah, cause crack makes you want to commit suicide. I use to smoke crack and think I wanna kill myself cause that’s the only way I can stop smoking crack. I think suicide is a really good way to push ya, gives ya a deadline. I wouldn’t recommend crack or any drugs but it gives you perspective cause you wanna kill yourself.
How I Quit Crack [Myspace/Youtube]
Full Interview [Viceland]
Kutna Hora's Sedlec Ossuary [OS]
Monday, October 19, 2009
Kutna Hora ..x.. How I Quit Crack
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Blank Generation
The Blank Generation screened at MoMA (in conjunct with Looking at Music: Side II) last week and I'm really dying to get a hold of the bootleg live recordings used in the film. Google is dry...any leads?
Also, stream the entire film "limited time only" on the official site.
The Blank Generation [OS]
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Vêpres Laquées, photos by Michel Saloff-Coste
It just looks too familiar.
Scans of the Book [Vêpres Laquées]
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tim Lahan, Sitting Witty
Billy
Just Saying
Triplets
Last Gasp of a Lost Soul
Do You Want Me Now?
Now & Later
New Skin #2
Not Another Today (official sticker)
Wait: This Ain't Tobacco
Passive Aggression
Shirts for sale. Mr. P / No Business Like No Business
Tim Lahan [Trademark TM]
His Photostream, a personal favorite (i mean...) [Flickr]
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Yayoi Kusama at the Gagosian
Infinity-Nets Zssatt, 2008
Gagosian is celebrating Kusama's 80 years of life in simultaneous exhibits of new work in L.A. and New York. On the walls in the Chelsea edition are new iterations of Kusama's characteristic "Infinity Net" paintings. For Kusama, the repetition in these nets becomes a device for qualifying the nature of an infinite continuity. Although the Gag's press release does raise an interesting note regarding the "inherent philosophical paradox" of this method, "that 'infinity' could be quantified within the arbitrary framework of a readymade canvas". But Kusama has already proven that she is not confined by the convenience of canvas works. I nearly cried for the opportunity to be enclosed in a new mirrored infinity room, entitled Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity. The room seems to offer up Kusama's vocabulary for dissection. To her, eternity only pertains to the material reality, which is vulnerable to time and age; whereas infinity is bestowed on the metaphysical reality, impervious to all. The dull glow of specially designed lights hang, projecting to infinity against a blanket of black nothing, like souls that remain after the vessels have ceased to be. In other words, the fabric may decay but the weave is indestructible.
Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuiton
Also hoping to get in on Ms. Kusama's birthday celebrations are the makers of this artdoc, Princess of Polka Dots. [Website][Trailer]
Although I can't see why you would watch a cache of talking heads hawk a paraphrased press release. All that could be said could be even more illuminatingly surmised by watching Kusama's own thesis, "Self Obliteration," which was photographed and edited by Jud Yalkut. And is available on YouTube in three parts. [Part 1][2][3]. 
Alice in Wonderland Happening, Alice in Wonderland statue, Central Park, New York, 1968.
On a personal note, Kusama came into my spectrum while examining 60's happenings in NYC. I became enamored with her Alice in Wonderland Happening in Central Park. She came up again when a painting professor saw one of my notebooks (obsessively adorned with peeled price tags) and pointed me to YK's airmail stamp accumulations (one of which is also currently on view at MoMA's Drawing Show). It was these simple works that solidified her as kindred in my aspect. 
Andre Ethier, Heading South at Derek Eller Gallery
Isn't Andre Ethier just the perfect marriage of Guiseppe Arcimboldo, Van Gogh and Bacon? With the outlook of Hieronymus Bosch? Glorious doom; or doom is in the detail. How can anyone look and not see trouble coming? Even in Canada, apparently.
Untitled (No New Jokes), 2009
Untitled, 2009
Untitled (This One is for POETS!), 2008
Untitled, 2009
Untitled, 2009
I do love that the end for Ethier is most poignant in the loss of the ridiculous.
Andre Ethier [Derek Eller Gallery]
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Rosemarie Fiore: Pyrotechnics at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
Firework Drawing #11, 2009
Fiore is it. As evidenced by the first line of her statement, which reads, "I bomb blank sheets of paper". You've probably heard of her, the artist who draws with colored smoke from fireworks. I've seen plenty of her work floating on blogsmogery, but those (and these) digital reproductions are mere clip art next to the vision of these works in real.
Process shots.
Drawings are ultimately layered in collage fashion. They are many layers of thick Fabriano deep, producing a relief-like surface just shy of sculptural. In certain drawings it was clear that Fiore had detonated fireworks over areas of collage. A very ballsy move that could seriously damage--if not completely destroy--an already laboured work. I was most impressed with her nerve.
Firework Drawing #25, 2009
Although, how nervey is it really, given the obvious aptitude she demonstrates in her unusual media? The works pace a tender membrane, on the outside is the seeming unpredictability of explosives she implements; inside, Fiore's ability to tame and control the mark of the smoke and the crack of the fire. 
Firework Drawing #26, 2009
Nam June Paik: Live Feed: 1972 -1994 at James Cohan Gallery
Nam June Paik retrospect spanning just over two decades at James Cohan. Curiously, the following piece was included although the listed date is 2004. 
TV Fish, 2004
Additional Paik not on view:
Video of & Stills from "Global Groove" (1973)
TV Story Board
Electronic Moon #2, 1969, with Jud Yalkut
Chelsea Redeemed
Allen Ruppersberg, Honey, I rearranged the collection as an excuse to stay away from CHELSEA. It scares me., 2001
Scary no more! Chelsea was abrim with respectable exhibitables on my last visit. I'll be posting my picks individually over the next few days. Then on to what is happening at the Modern.
John Salvest, Not Myself Lately. From "Not Myself Lately" at Morgan Lehman Gallery until May 30, 2009.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Clean Form Analog Dream Strobe
I was at a showish thing in a galleryish thing for no particular reason and a girl with a printish thing in the showthing said that this Patrick Cleandenim shot this videoish thing with real film of some particular millimeter I'm sure. And it is quite beautiful. This event was inspired by people gatherings in a room at the Chelsea Hotel. The gatherings in questions happened recently, isn't that a tease? Doesn't that have just the feeling of a sitcom gone on too long to engage you; but that you watch anyway for some sad stew involving petty loyalties to the pleasures of bygone? Or a disengaged nostalgia that hits before the era has ended?
Lisa Frank Forever
You have no idea what seven-year-old Lucy would put herself through for these stickers. I was consequently very disappointed to go to a real desert and find the tones less neon than I'd hoped. 
This is very impressive:
A good collection of the sticky stuff. [[LA Toys]
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Attainable Worlds of Shary Boyle
Something to aim for with all that hope you're feeling for the future:
Shary Boyle [Portfolio]
Andreas Barsleth, Earth-ly Works
Some candle magic that tickles me, how badly I want winter to end.
Rock and chalk.
A bit of a mystery, this one.
Andreas Barsleth [Flickr]
Monday, March 2, 2009
Gallore
I didza Chelsea sweep last week. I read somewhere that galleries in Chelsea are closing at at a rate of one per week. Oh boy! Can't say I'm not glad to see the white wall stacks become the stuff archives are not made of.
I visited around fifteen pre-selected spots and there were all of two delicious sectors. We'll start with those.
Brendan Cass' New Nature at Stellan Holm Gallery:
Cass is making paint look edible again.
Simon Evans' Island Time at James Cohan Gallery:
Details from One Hundred Mix CDs for NYC
Everything else was mediocre to toilet paper. But there was salvage.
"Works on Paper" at Anna Kustera: 
Tapestry 2, 2008
Foot to mouth when I saw these Mike Pare graphite drawings at Anna Kustera's "Works on Paper" show. I once criticized Pare for calling these geometric tapestries "Mandalas". And now he has made these Mandalas and calls them "Tapestries".
Nina Bovasso, "New Works on Paper" at BravinLee Programs:
Circle I, 2008.
Thomas Scheibitz "Missing Link In Delphi" at Tanya Bonakdar:
In Delphi
"The Collected Multiples of Cary S. Leibowitz" at Printed Matter:
After Allen Ruppersberg, I assume.
"Manzoni: A Retrospective" at Gagosian Gallery:
Achrome, 1961-1962
Not oft spoke of Piero Manzoni is texture obsessed. There's a Yayoi Kusama and a small Frank Stella to break up la mer zoni, for those who are not impressed.
"Al Held: Prints 1973-1999" at Pace Prints:
Ahh, the golden lining of a dark cloud of obsessive compulsions.
See more and larger. [Flickr]
p.s. Dear Chelsea, for fucks sake. Stop naming every show 'Works on Paper'.
Richard Baker's Gouache Paper(backs) on Paper
Dark Notebook Page, 2007
Pincher Martin, 2005
The Dead Man, 2008
Ecole Cahier, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Jedediah Caeser's Junk Bricks
Dry Stock, 2007
Detail of Dry Stock, 2007
1,000,000 A.D., 2004
Untitled (Glyphcube), 2008
Untitled, 2008(Print for sale.)
Untitled (White Domino), 2006
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Baker Overstreet at Fredericks & Freiser
From the Overstreet exhibit, Follies, which appeared at Fredericks & Freiser over the fall:
Alibaster Plaster Caster, 2008
Sequined Cyclone Sequence, 2008
Sizzle '76, 2008
Tubular Bells, 2008
Gossipo Perpetuo, 2008
The New World Symphony (For the Elite Ark), 2008
Technicolor Chromolume, 2008
The Continental Bathosphere, 2008
Ball in the Jack, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
If a Fine Black Line Westfalls in the Dark, Can All the Colors Hear It?
Too Much Love, 2008
Springs, 2006
Untitled, 2008
Juarez, 2006
My Beautiful Laundrette, 2007
Stephen Westfall is showing new work at Lennon, Weinberg Gallery in Chelesa through December 20th.
Stephen Westfall [Lennon, Weinberg]
SW interview with John Yau [The Brooklyn Rail]
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being (Essay) [In Liquid]
Mirror Mirror, New Horizons
I saw Mirror Mirror play the Jason Yates opening at Fingered last night.
Mirror Mirror "New Horizons" HD from David Riley on Vimeo.
Jason Yates [Fast Friends Myspace]
Fingered [FM Official]
Mirror Mirror [Myspace] [Society for the Advancement of Inflammatory Conciousness]
Fast Friends Retrospective Info [Human Ear Music]
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Subconscious Art of Grafitti Removal by Matt McCormick
This is a preview. You can see the whole film on McCormick's DVD [From Tugboats to Polar Bears]
Matt McCormick [Rodeo Film Co.]
Karl Blossfeldt's Architectural Forms of Nature
Plate # 13: Aesculus parviflora (12x) 1928.
Plate # 13: Aesculus parviflora (12x) 1928.
Plate # 68: Parnassia palustris (25x) 1928.
Plate # 40: Silphium laciniatum (6x) 1928.
Plate # 90: Phacelia tanacetifolia (12x) 1928.
Plate # 27: Cajophora lateritia (5x) 1928.
Plate # 2: Equisetum hiemale (12x), Equisetum maximum (4x), Equisetum hiemale (18x) 1928.
Nice resource for Blossfeldt prints [Soulcatcher Studio]
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
DEVOlution & Dear Readers
"Secret Agent Man" by DEVO (1976)
You can see this in the (scimpy dense) "Looking at Music" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. But, as it is screening on a television set with less than reliable headphones, you won't gain much in the way of quality by viewing it there. Youtube suffices!
We might just change the name of this blog to "Things I saw at the MoMA."
Dear Readers,
Thank you for your patience whilst I took an unwanted break from CM. I don't know what happened exactly, but in midst of summer magics, moving around a lot, doing shit, and intermittent internet connections, this thing sort of fell through the cracks (many they are).
Love,
Lucy
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Manimal Vinyl: The New Primitive
I'm really late with this post.
Xu Xu Fang
Joshua Tree deserved the color carnage and carnival that dusted Manimal's 1st Annual Festival. I am very excited, because for the most part these bands are pretty new. The music was a beautiful contradiction, total sophistication in the wake of the new primitive.
Gangi with T.Oliver (of Electrc Tickle Machine)
Winter Flowers
"The dreams of the old wake up the new,*" and it is like this for these bands. Though there are clearly many applications of new techs in the development of these sounds, they are definitely conjuring elements of ages past and cultures estranged. Still, you can't call it contrived--or fakey--(maybe nostalgic and maybe derivative, but there is nothing wrong with any of that). There is a real calling to recycle aged devices in the contemporary, in keeping with efforts to restore our wayward race to simpler and more primal ways, to bring us back to the reality that resources are precious and human activity is of sacred importance worthy of ritual and reward. And you feel it when you listen to Rainbow Arabia's vocals high pitched against tribal ground beats (think rainjungle birdcaller). You feel like all you need to survive in this world is a flint stone and a pocket full of instincts. And you also feel like there is not enough room in the all the deserts in the world for the crazy you need to dance, so that is a great force. Then there is Gangi's use of samples from the Enviormental Protection Agency in "Ground," so there is no doubt that there is an agenda in place under what is still, on the surface, a really pleasurable listening experience.
Chapin Sisters
As I've passed along all the fantastic bands I was exposed to in Joshua Tree this summer to my east coast friends, the resounding feedback is "this is dark." And yeah, of course the new primitive is dark, because it looks back on everything that has been, a vantage the old primitive was unburdened by.
Rainbow Arabia
We Are the World
blackblack, photo courtesy Jim Martin
Another point of rejoice is how fucking visual these bands are. Rainbow Arabia packs a killer stage set complete with elephant and tiger cardboard cutouts that have been painted with literal arabic-influenced florescent rainbow dots. We Are the World won't give you the option of not partaking in their wild visual multimedia program; they are costumed and masked and choreographed and fierce in their M.J-thriller-era performance stylings. Gangi let me go insane to make their stage backdrop, and blackblack had some crazy homemade stage garb that I'm still trying to figure out. These are not musicians in a unilateral sense, they are showmen in a multi-lateral, totally prismatic way.
Hecuba Newspaper designed by OSK featuring photos by Lauren Dukoff.
I love the feminism touted by Isabelle of Hecuba. She demands so much of language, and commands a right to implement silence, "I like to keep it simple, says what i means without too many turns...I don't waste words...I say yes like Yoko Ono / I say no whenever I wanna" (Hey Sir) and it is right on the same level as Geneva Jacuzzi's simple, "Don't like to talk too much**,". Really a reclaiming of the feminine stereotype that all we broads want to do is talk and talk and talk. Maybe not. Maybe its not so important to tell you what we're thinking at all. Where have the feminists chanting the virtues of a command on silence been all this while?
Manimal Vinyl [Official Site][Myspace]
Manimal Festival [Lucyburrows.com]
Download "Waiting on the Line" by Gangi
*Olivia Tremor Control in 'Dusk at Cubist Castle'
** In Bubonic Plague's 'Dracula'
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