Glistening, Overwhelming Geographies

I don't know where to begin....first things first -- Enemy Elite Trooper 2008:


Cindy Wright at Mark Moore Gallery -- Her paintings do that thing, that sexy thing where the paint falls off the bone up close. Sumptuous, fitful strokes of dull pinks and grays coalesce to form subject matter that has been rendered into glistening, overwhelming geographies of beauty. And we all got to hang out later. She said nice things about my paintings.

Louise Bourgeoisie at MOCA -- A perfect complement to the Kippenberger show. Him- all over the place male painter that died young. Her - consistently interesting female sculptor that is still active, 97 years young. She presents the themes humanity has the most trouble ever coming to terms with -- love, intimacy, sex, relationships, family, gender -- in the most inviting and universal ways. Her methods are the same ways ancient peoples communicated these ideas; transmitted through the hands on the oldest materials with the simplest forms. Fantastic.

Oranges and Sardines at the Hammer -- Father-raping awesome. 6 abstract painters pick their favorites, and its named after a line from a Frank O'Hara poem. Go, go, go to this show. Take me with you again. Bacon. Guston. Mondrian. Still. Heilman. Amy Sillman. Dieter Roth. Malcolm Morley. Amy Sillman is my new favorite painter. I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve, I'm afraid and cannot be properly critical. And the Hammer Cafe is open, and they make a nice tuna melt.

Didn't make it to any openings this Saturday because I went to see Marnie Stern at the El Rey. Dopeatronic. Her and her band are just a three piece and they make a hellacious racket. What is gained in her live show reminded me of live Hendrix footage; you see it happen all right there, it's for real. That's a human being making those cosmic sounds. And she brought her dog.

My old pal Mark Flood is in town from Houston. He has a show at Peres Projects in Culver City this weekend. He brings the piss and the vinegar with all he does, despite being a real sweetheart and buying me lunch at LACMA Saturday. Machine Projects had taken over the entire LACMA nation-state that day, and I am going to attempt to describe the interventions they staged as I remembered and encountered them:

-- A wonderful group of cult like musicians invaded the restaurant while we had lunch and played haunting, joyful melodies while we and the rest of the patrons ate.

-- A woman in the area between the BCAM and the Ahmanson building was doing some kind of vocal/noise/perfomance thing on the floor.

-- A screaming box in front a Kurt Schwitters piece.

-- A masked, singing couple in front of some paintings in the room before you get to the Picasso room.

-- A big yellow tarp on the floor where the medieval stuff was.

-- A fake breathing kitty in one the ancient Mesopotamian display cases.

-- A dude video-ing and altering images of....some great painting with a whole video computer setup.

-- Various group workshop things going on all over.

-- Blindfolded amateur art installing.

All in all, a wonderful afternoon.

Unconsidered, Dashed-off, and Weak

Hey kids.  So its been a little while.  The Brewery Art Walk is this weekend, and us here at Raid Projects will have our doors open from 11 – 6 both days.  The walls have been painted, and the art is hung.  It will be a little group showing of work from yours truly, and roommates Max Presneil and Terri Thomas.  Do come won’t you?  There’s a free beer with your name on it. 

And in other news:

-- Daybreak – 2250 AD by Andre Norton was kind of ‘ehn’.  Pretty typical sci-fi paperback fare.  Methinks there are better seminal post-apocalyptic tales out there, as this one sort of just bumbled along confusingly.  Still, it’s supposedly the first.  My favorite character was Lura, the slightly telepathic mountain lion.

-- BRD Trilogy by Fassbinder – Well we can’t all aspire to make 35 films before we die of coke and sleeping pills at 37, fuck everything that moves (male or female), and generally be a total badass, but we can watch the fantastic work of someone that did.  And that someone, of course, is another one of my dead heroes, Rainer Werner Fassbinder.  Near the end he made the BRD Trilogy – The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, and Lola.  Together they comprise everything one needs to know about cinematography and acting, separately they provide a compelling portrait of three women dealing with Fassbinder’s motherland of Germany, after WWII.  I confess to being more drawn to his earlier work (Fear of Fear, Chinese Roulette, Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant), but the BRD trilogy shows the final polish of an experienced filmmaker taking bold formal risks and ambitious structuring with the confidence that only being prolific allows. 

I am struck by a comparison between him and fellow German artist Martin Kippenberger, whose big show at MOCA left me a bit underwhelmed.  Both German, both monstrously prolific, both drunken badasses, both died prematurely.  Perhaps its because my exposure to painting is more involved than with film, but I am not completely bowled over my Kippenberger’s output.  Much of it seems unconsidered, dashed-off, and weak.  Much of it is truly inspired.  Upon first viewing the show, the sheer volume of work was amazing.  But after a second look, it seemed that he tried his hand at several different conceptual strategies that had already been established.  Furthermore, I found myself taking issue with the celebration of the Pollock-esque behavior he seemed to embody. Perhaps it is because I am painter myself looking down the barrel of some lifestyle clichés that I question the tired stereotype of the alcoholic asshole painter.  At least with Fassbinder there is the issue of his, shall we say, “advanced” sexuality that breaks him free of any real stereotypes. 

I see Kippenberger as a character foil to the other force of nature in modern German painting – Gerhard Richter (a non-dead hero).  It seems that, in a way Kipp (my little name for him) was trying to be in many ways the kind of artist Richter was not.  Unfortunately, one of the things Richter didn’t do was die young.

-- Louise Bourgeois at MOCA.  That's what I'm sayin'.  I'll hit that up next week, probably Friday.

Chili-cheeseburgers

So I heard that Paul McCarthy is writing a book about the history of chili-cheeseburgers.  Its what I heard.

So this Tuesday, the 14th of October, at 7:30 pm. me, along with Janne Larsen, Robert Arieas & Ryan Ross will be giving a little artist's talk about the show we just opened, "Neosapian".  Its at the Cal State LA Fine Art Gallery.  5151 State​ Unive​rsity​ Dr. Los Angel​es CA 90032​ (​323)​ 343-​3000

Cal State​ LA campu​s map: http:​/​/​www.​ calst​atela​.​ edu/​univ/​maps/​cslam​ap.​ php

Should be groovy.  And now for your viewing pleasure, here's some drawings that wern't in the installation for the afomentioned show because I forgot to bring them --

And for your amusement, new pics of Santa's Little Workshop™ -- 

A Strategy of Intimacy

So, Neosapian is on display at the Cal State LA Fine Art Gallery until October 18th, if you just can't live without seeing my drawings. Good turnout at the opening and all that, nice of everyone who dropped by to drop by. There's a little talk-slash-discussion-slash-q&a with me and some of the other artists planned for the 14th there at Cal State LA, I'll be more specific as the time draws nigh...

Other than that, I managed to witness one of my most favorite movies of all time, Night of the Living Dead, in glorious, grainy 35 mm on the big screen for the first time at the Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax last night. I walked in, handed them my ticket and was handed a Tecate in return. In between the double feature (Day of the Dead followed) there was free wine and hanging out, and the clink and clank of sneaked booze was heard throughout the house. When the lights went up, it looked like Animal House inside. It was beautiful. As many of you know, I have a particular obsession with NOTLD. Much of that is evidenced by my YouTube page, where my efforts at making video art invloving the appropriation of that public domain classic is there for all to see. As a child that movie seemed to slowly follow me around, and I gave in to it at the onset of grad school, and began to let it devour me. It began with paintings, and then a series of re-edits and re-mixes of the film (something which is being done all over the world since, I have found), in an effort to maximize the intimacy I desired with this amazing work.

My intentions with all of the NOTLD based works I produce, as far as I can tell, is two-fold: One, I crave a closeness and intimacy with it that goes beyond conventional expression. The idea of intimacy is something that has helped me describe much of my work, in as much as provides me an excuse to become closer with the images and ideas I have an attraction to. I want my involvement with NOTLD to cause a confusion/blurring/disintegration of the boundries that define who I am and what that film is. The next project I have in mind for it I hope escalates this desire -- beyond conventional expression. Why I am attracted to this film so much has something to do with witnessing it as a child and being struck by its subversive and radical form and content, despite not having the ability to comprehend or articulate ideas of subversion or radicalism at that young age. I fancy trying to negotiate the positive trauma of that experience with this film for the rest of my life, ideally escalating the level of involement each time.

The second reason has to do with an ontological obsession with the film. At its core, what are the essential components to the meaning of NOTLD, and, if those components are taken out of context, changed, or removed what then becomes of it? This is ultimately a strategy of intimacy, but it is the results of this strategy that become the work. Basic conceptual moves are employed (subtraction, compression, isolation, repetition, visual abstraction) and the ideas that seem to be subsequently conveyed reveal further nuance and complexity to Romero's film.

So the next work involving 'Night' is going to be the most involved yet. I'm hoping to have it complete by this time next year. Without letting the cat out of the bag, let me just say I have quite a bit of rehearsing to do.

"Um...My Gallery"

Insect Politics

So in all my pissing and moaning about how no art blew me away last weekend, I was gently reminded of the one artful experience that was especially enlightening, that of witnessing the The Fly at the LA Opera.

I've always wanted to see opera. As I get older (and poorer) my tastes become more and more refined (read: bourgeois) and what challenges me intellectually becomes more and more esoteric and complex. It seems. The world of opera and its rich history was daunting, and I sought some entry way to its grand world. And so it was that on the back of a bus I was driving behind on my way to Secret Headquarters one Saturday did I see an ad for an operatic adaptation of David Cronenberg's The Fly.

After swiftly sharing this information with the only person I knew who had the requisite taste and panache to appreciate such a boldly ridiculous postmodern endeavor, I went broke for this month in the best way possible: I bought opera tickets.

Now, my admiration of Cronenberg and his various cinematic treatises on the betrayal of the flesh are well known (well, to people who, uh, know me). The Fly in particular, having its slick Hollywood finish and effects budget, remains a truly horrific but thoughtful speculation on how we are all, in the end, mere blobs of flesh, fluid, entrails, piss and shit, waiting to fall apart and be disposed of.

So me and my friend, plastic money in tow, sat down among the upper crust and took in this all-new, all-different Fly. Calmly ridiculous at first (no doubt partly due to the way opera sounds in English), it rolled along smoothly and dramatically, and everything had a vaguely anachronistic but considered aesthetic. Self conscious enough to laugh at itself at times (particularly when the acrobat stunt double fucked up his backflip), I found the whole thing a worthy and compelling spectacle. It was like a some kind of live-action European sci-fi cartoon. And at intermission I think I may have found a blended scotch I like. Maybe.

Anywho, it was fantastic time. And with fantastic company. But now I got a hankerin' for some real opera. Some Italian shit. I don't know what my tastes think I do for a living, but safe to say the LA Opera will be getting a chunk of one my part-time brain whore checks. I think my friend said they're doing Carmen soon (that's French, but close enough). Really. Opera.

800 Page Dick Joke

It' s been a little while. Art season started last weekend, saw some shows. Nothing blew me away....with the possible exception of...

Chinatown. It looked good. Sort of in general. Which makes me happy, because I live downtown. I want downtown to have art I like. Looking back on what everyone had, Michael Lazarus at Sister Gallery wasn't bad. I remember liking Eric Sall's paintings at Acuna-Hansen.

Mark Moore Gallery's 3rd annual Ultrasonic International was up and running. Roberts and Tilton's new space in Culver City opened, but I guess I forgot to walk inside. I was in a mood.

The new show at the Geffen Center is good for some laughs. Good follow up to the Lawrence Weiner show.

If I seem a little bereft of opinions, its probably because I've started teaching again, specifically an Introduction to Art Concepts class (some schools call it 'Art Appreciation), and my mind has been occupied with explaining the basics of what art 'is' to people who have little or no experience with it. This is the kind of fine challenge I relish sinking my teeth into, and, like much of my teaching have taken on the seriousness of it to the point of emotional exhaustion. I love it.

The young people in my class seem to have an aversion to non-representational painting, which interests me deeply, being a painter who loves and appreciates painting of that 'genre'. When I taught 2D Design, by the end, I had most of the students making super-tight Ellsworth Kelley / Theo van Doesburg / Barnett Newman-esque mini-paintings, and they could talk about them. Hmm.....

Besides all that, I finished reading Gravity's Rainbow. I have been making dents in this sprawling tome since December, along with a readers guide that was indispensable. After all of it, I think I can say that I know exactly what Pynchon was doing with GR, and what it is, as whole, and it is this:

Its an 800-page dick joke.

I realized this about 30 pages from the end, and that explanation somehow satisfies a lot of my instincts about the novel, and its overall concerns. Layered, researched, and complicated, yet also juvenile, self-indulgent, and scatological. So I've pretty much committed to reading all of Pynchon's output now, but I must have some lighter reading for the immediate time-being. I began many flings and affairs with other books while I was with GR, and now they will get my full attention. And I've got Daybreak 2250 AD, apparently the first modern post-apocalyptic novel, penned by one Ms. Andre Norton.

Two shows of interest coming up -- Friday, Sept. 19th, my friend Amanda Browder is throwing a show entitled "Um...My Gallery", which I will be taking part in, right here at Raid Projects (602 Moulton Ave, LA 90031). I imagine things will start around 6-ish, hm? Do come.

And, on Saturday, Sept 27th, "Neosapian" at the Cal State LA Fine Art Gallery opens, curated by M-L Flemington. And you are required to attend that as well.

























ps
Be sure to check out Bad at Sports, a super art world podcasting destination, for your listening pleasure.