Merryl Tielman, Blufpoker
Hester van Eeghen, Fiorissimo
A brief ode to Baltimore:
I've visited this city twice in a short month. Both trips have included pristine happenings that put you to shame, Brooklyn.
Word of Soft Fest came from friends involved in the production (/living in the space...) early in the makes so I had the chance to produce an afghan-themed triptych for the event. I was told the space would be littered with afghans--there was a deliciously painful anticipation--which nonetheless left me completely unprepared for the utter perfection of the environment and the performances that seamlessly unfolded within it. 
Afghanistan - the space at dusk.
My triptych. Florescent tempera on stretched bedsheets from the thrift store.
Afghans...
And more.
The chessboard was in the projection room, where slomo Daisies screened.
Authority figure.
I loved this light installation.
Every performance I saw was fantastic but Run DMT was a favorite.
He had this amazing handmade instrument that looked like it washed ashore from a cruise accident aboard the yellow submarine.
And poor mouth, who I caught a few weeks later playing in a basement at The Zoo:
The whistling song was electric at Soft Fest, where at least a hundred pairs of lips were chirping.
They are angels disguised as hobos--two unlike vocal styles in compliment to a degree of divinity.
The Zoo is a strange basement land with encyclopedia P on the walls: Parakeet to Parrot to Picasso. They made us spiced hot toddies and a nice fire outside to lite our cigarettes by...
Soft Fest [Myspace]
Run DMT [Myspace]
poor mouth [Myspace]
More photos of both events:
Soft Fest [Flickr]
The Zoo [Flickr]
Inspired by Soft Fest at Afghanistan in Baltimore (I'm putting together a post on the event--so good) and the "Afghanopy" that hangs above my own bed, I've put together a new space to archive the knitted weirdo-heros of the handcrafted realm: afghans. I'm calling it Illkniterate.
Also, I'm using the Cargo Collective platform (now in beta testing) which is so beautiful, intuitive and clean that I wonder where it has been all my virtual life. So thank you, Cargo. 
Illkniterate [Cargo Collective]
EARLY NBC LOGOS:
THE 1957 PEACOCK:
THE 1962 PEACOCK:
SNEEZING PEACOCK:
ARTIST PEACOCKS:
J.J. Sedelmeir
Peter Max
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]
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]
It just looks too familiar.
Scans of the Book [Vêpres Laquées]
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]
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. 
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]
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 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
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.
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?
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]
Something to aim for with all that hope you're feeling for the future:
Shary Boyle [Portfolio]
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]
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'.
Dark Notebook Page, 2007
Pincher Martin, 2005
The Dead Man, 2008
Ecole Cahier, 2008
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
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
