Category: Culture

the latest (last?) proposal for Larry Silverstein‘s new World trade Center cock

If there’s more of it to be made, money really does always win in New York, so I really wanted to stay out of this thing, and recently I told myself I don’t care what happens to that damn vacant lot, but what they’ve come up with is just too outrageous, and if they carry it through we’re all going to have to live with it, on a big, noisy, obsessive scale which will make the original WTC site seem like an anonymous Staten Island mini-mall. It’s a Jackalope, it’s an abomination, it’s an outrage for New Yorkers, a betrayal of trust, and an assault on good sense and every aesthetic sensibility.
We can’t let them get away with this.
The NYTimes editorial board and their very strange architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, seem to be crazy about this monstrous* “Freedom Tower” stuck in Liebeskind’s office park. Didn’t they do enough damage in Columbus Circle? I’m scared.

* I call it “monstrous” for its hideousness, and not for its size, to which I have no objection. I note that its designers and backers don’t even have the courage of their own pretensions, since only 60 floors are actually to be occupied. The rest of the height of this building which will replace a World Trade Center is a phallic conceit they hope to make respectable with narrow patriotic references, and an expedient “green” gimmick unlikely to make the final cut.

Scott Hug entertains in the game room

Scott Hug’s wonderworld curatorial set, “Attack–The Kult K48 Klubhouse,” originally scheduled to be struck yesterday, will remain in the Deitch Projects space in Williamsburg through Saturday. Yea!
He’s done it again.
It’s another incredible trip through a bold, irreverent new world of creativity which is still only barely understood even by scribes and gallerists who make emerging art their business.
Scott’s created an incredible environment related in one way or another to the idea or practice of cults and Kults, and he and the other artists have divided it into microworlds, but the gods are also in the details of individual works. You’ll need plenty of time, but you still won’t be digesting it easily.
I can’t begin to name favorites, since any list I would draw from this show would be totally arbitrary, if it didn’t include every artist.
Only one small complaint: There’s no checklist, although I’m not surprised, given the scale and complexity of the installation. Big compensation: You get to talk to Scott if you want to know more about individual works.
Don’t miss the show no matter how you fit it in, but it’s probably best to experience the Klubhouse twice, once while it’s at rest, if it could ever appear to be at rest (afternoons), and once when it will be further amplified by partying and music this Wednesday and Thursday evening. Ask Scott for details, or see the Outlaw Series posting for Wednesday night’s special amusements.
Hey, if B and I could wade through the slush and heavy rain in the dark yesterday, both of us with bad colds (with an East River crossing detour via the E and G trains because the L was down), there’s no real excuse for other curious fanatics to deny themselves in better weather. We’re definitely going to check back ourselves.
The venue is a garage at 110 North 1st Street, between Wythe and Berry, just a few blocks south and west of the Bedford Street L stop. “Normal” hours are 12 until 6.
Scott’s newest issue of his sensational glossy zine, K48-4, is now available at the space on North 1st and everywhere good cultish literature can be found, like St. Mark’s Book Store, Other Music, Mondo Kim’s, Dia Center for the Arts, Printed Matter, alife, The New Museum, MOMA Design Store, See Hear and Isa.

Collier Schorr, Jens im Weizen (Topless) 2000
c-print 55 x 37 inches

We went to a benefit for the New Festival two nights ago. It was essentially a silent auction of nearly a hundred items related, directly or remotely, to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered film.
A few items, paintings and photographs, would have been standouts even in a benefit specifically oriented to the visual arts. They were of extrordinary quality.
In the midst of the minor chaos of the competition, Barry and I quicky zeroed-in on two items. I think we were successful with both because our interest in those pieces was not shared by other males in the room, and the lesbians present may have been too impecunious, in spite of the great personal style of a number of the women there.
One prize was a new history tome titled, “Entertaining Lesbians,” by Martha Gever accompanied by a unique, hand-assembled photo album memorializing a pioneer female Hollywood director, Dorothy Arzner. The other catch was a wonderful example of the confounding art of Collier Schorr, whose photographs usually portray young males in a way which discomforts even those who would normally be attracted to them. This image was different. The small color print portrayed two affectionate young lesbians who could easily be mistaken for boys. In fact one member of the Festival staff insisted that they were male. Even after he was shown the title of the image I think he still had his doubts. The title? Karin & Michelle, Bismark Kassern 1998-2000
Arzner was a lesbian, a very successful director and later a film academic whose students incuded Francis Ford Coppola. Schorr is something like a gay man in a woman’s body. Although I have a curious, remote connection with Arzner through a visit I made to Coppola’s Rome apartment in 1961, neither B nor I is yet acquainted with her films. That’s obviously going to be remedied soon, thanks to NETFLIX.* We’ve both admired Schorr for years, even before the wonderful show of her own “stuff” (not her work) which she curated at Apex.
Our thanks to the New Festival and everyone who went home happy that night.

* [later the same day] Oops. I placed too much confidence in our suppliers – or their suppliers. Barry just checked, and found that none of her films are available on DVD, although some are available on tape.

[image from 303 Gallery]

We had every intention of making it three days in a row, but we stayed inside out of the storm today. Our unusual homebody status was established mostly through reports that the streets linking the artists of the weekend’s Long Island City “Open Studios” event were unplowed, but we had some catching-up to do around our imaginary hearth, so we may only have been looking for a convenient excuse.
On Friday we trekked to Brooklyn for a performance at BAM of John Adams’s “The Death of Klinghoffer”. No machine guns or bombs, thank goodness [the metal detectors we’re all now taking for granted surely must have saved the evening – may the devil not take this new America!], but there was still a lot of snow and wind.
Something was missing from this performance, but I have no idea what it was. I’ve now seen “Klinghoffer” three times. We have the beautiful CD and it never collects any dust on the shelf. For the first time, I was not moved upon hearing the music and Alice Goodman’s sensitive libretto. Much of the time the evening seemed to crawl. Maybe the busy Mark Morris choreography I found so annoying in its New York premier over ten years ago, missing last night, made all the difference, but the Ridge Theater Company‘s minimal staging of the current production was certainly very beautiful.
For a real review, see Felix Salmon.
We ducked across the street in the swirl of a real nor’easter, into the warmth of Thomas Beisl, a very comfortable and very real Viennese restaurant/conditorei (ok, bistro). I ordered the esoteric Sulze appetizer , but the beautiful Hungarian waitress didn’t bat an eye. We could have been at Freud’s own Stammtisch. I sat facing a window which framed a view of the magnificent storm. The driving snow, dramatically lighted by street lamps, only partially obscured Vic Muniz’s fanciful gingerbread house image painted on the canvas still covering the scaffolding on the facade of the Opera House. Wow.
On Saturday we bundled-up again and tramped around west Chelsea mostly visiting those galleries which had shows we knew were about to close. The storm continued all day, and eventually into the night. There were a few other souls about, but we shocked the galleristas in several spaces when we walked through their doors, and the only place we found the kind of crowd we’d normally expect on a weekend was LFL Gallery, where the collaborative PFFR was about to break camp. Lots of fun for the entire family there. We bought some more souvenirs, a video and a CD, having grabbed a small drawing on an earlier raid.
For more on our Saturday afternoon adventures, see Bloggy.
That evening, after a brief stop home for a cappucino and half of a cinnamon pastry each, we headed back into the wind and snow on a return to “Breukelyn,” this time to the granite-block streets under the Manhattan Bridge, for a benefit for the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Center Winter Auction.
We were delighted to be able to bring home two great pieces, a small painting by Johathan Podwil and a large drawing by Fritz Chesnut.
We had been afraid that the place might be mostly empty, because of the storm, but were [almost selflessly] delighted to see we had the decent bidding competition of a very good size crowd. Obviously we weren’t the only fanatics not easily discouraged by the elements. Less than is sometimes the case at these events, there was no heavy anxiety and no trampling of competing bidders, just good food and wine, and lots of laughter and smiles. Folks at the party, guests, artists and patrons, were all in a festive mood. Some of that must have been the snow, the rest the great vibe of this very interesting, and “developing” neighborhood of artists and . . . others.


Jonathan Podwil, Huey, 2000
oil on paper, 5 1/8″ x 10″


Fritz Chesnut, Total Request Live/J. Lo #1, 2001
graphite on paper, 24″ x 18″

UPDATE December 11: For a full c.v., and more still and video images of Jonathan Podwil, see his own site.

On 10th Avenue, outside the Exit Art “L Factor” opening on Saturday night


Border fence, rasor wire and observation tower installed at the entrance to the show

On Saturday night Exit Art opened its latest show, “The L Factor.” The curators’ assignment was to challenge a group of wonderfully fecund young North American Latino visual artists to create work relating to North American Latino (large and small-c) culture. It’s a great show, with some pretty heavy stuff alongside of, and sometimes within, works of great wit.
The opening party was very decorative, but something less than what we’d imagined it would be. Everyone had apparently been doing some serious community outreach, but at least up until the time we left the party everything was still pretty straight in every way, especially for an art crowd.
Maybe it was the impact of the chain link fence at the entrance, topped with rasor wire and dominated by a watchtower crowded with visitors with cameras.
Exit Art is redefining the geography of the Chelsea gallery scene, even if it’s new location is not a part of Chelsea by anyone’s definition and even if right now I think it’s still some seven blocks north of its nearest colleagues, Sean Kelly on 26th Street. Time Out New York now has offices in Exit Art’s building, and Art Resources Transfer may soon be moving to 33rd Street. It’s hard to imagine that the west 30’s could remain dominated by shipping companies and tire repair stands much longer. And, no, we don’t need or want a stadium – ever.
The High Line development will change everything, but I hope that even with that reinvention there will still be room for people other than the moneychangers.
Anyway, it’s worth the trek right now, and there’s a neat cafe once you get there.

Shelby Hughes’s fog regularly enveloped the crowd at Daniel Reich


Trick Giglio and Barry Hoggard in front of Nick Maus’s work at Daniel’s

Daniel Reich ran away from home on Saturday. The great new space on 23rd Street gave the enthusiastic mob which attends this delightful, improbable wizard’s every move just a bit more elbow room, but, come the cold weather and with it a much less friendly sidewalk, we will all be feeling the pinch again – and getting to know each other even better.
It’s that darn crowd. But they are beautiful.
And of course they were the show on Saturday, but judging from even a quick look at the stuff I saw lying around I expect a return visit to the new work of Christian Holstad in the rear and Nick Maus and Shelby Hughes up front will confirm the attractions of the art as well. It all needed at least a little more room than we were able to give it last night.

Jeremy Blake, still from “Reading Ossie Clark”

A beautiful show, and a literate video delightful on any level. It’s at Feigen Contemoporary, and it closes at the end of this week.

[image taken while viewing the DVD projection in the gallery on Saturday]

Anne Gadwa, in “I Dream of Monster Babies”

Through fully half of the piece the dancers performed in complete darkness, but it wasn’t really a problem, since a suited gentleman sat at front, stage right, reading a description by penlight.
It was that kind of a program tonight at the latest of Dance Theater Workshop‘s regular “Fresh Tracks” events, which schedules innovative new choreographers, sometimes for their first public exposure. I eat this stuff up – in any medium.
The light-challenged choreography was the eccentric work of Renée Archibald and Daryl Owens, who were the two actual dancers. The piece was called “Subject Obscured” and it may have had something to do with the question about the tree falling in the forest, but if so, here the question was both more and less profound. The dance was delightful.
Most of the pieces were humorous and most were text-based, or maybe the texts were dance-based. In any event it was very good dance theatre which hugely honored the name and the mission of this irreplaceable venue on 19th Street tonight.
We look forward to seeing every one of the choreographers on tonight’s program again wherever they next surface. The others were Pascale Wettstein, who collaborated with her dancers in a brilliant engineering of space and a bizarre manipulation of limbs to both a jerky and buoyant effect; Ivy Baldwin, who was in a collaboration with her own dancers, who performed an intimate and abusive bathing ritual with two beautiful transparent tubs of water; Anne Gadwa, who shared her nightmares of pregnancy (including the dramatic birth of a giant plastic bottle of Pepsi) with a delighted audience; Melinda Ring, whose work reminded Barry of the childlike effect Eric Satie hoped to produce in his music; and finally, Linas Phillips and John Wyszniewski, whose performance with Jo Williamson remains absolutely indescribable, but it may suffice to say the material had something to do with an invented slavic myth about overstimulated teenagers and the poaching of the spirits of dead rabbits. The music was Black Sabbath.

[image from the Village Voice]

Deitch on Wooster Saturday night – hardly a grownup to be seen

Deitch still pulls them in – both artists and their young fans – meaning a hugely-diminished SOHO cannot be ignored quite yet.
There were simultaneous openings Saturday on both Grand and Wooster Streets, and it was good to be there(s).
Highlights: Tim Lokiec, Naomi Fisher and Hernan Bas in the smaller venue, and Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Tim Hawkinson and Christopher Garrett in the great barn on Wooster, where the attractive crowd was a distraction and a return visit should reveal some more (highlights).
Tim Lokiec’s drawings were exceptionally beautiful, even (or especially) if you’ve already seen him at LFL. Loved Tim Hawkinson’s truck tire.
There is a site for the curator of the Wooster St. show, Chris Perez, but there’s no Deitch website! Especially shocking in the circumstances of their moneyed hipsterdom. Logistics: 76 Grand St. and 18 Wooster Street (212) 343 7300

Beatriz Monteavaro, from the series, “Picasso visits the Planet of the Apes”

A very subjective and definitely only partial list of some of the good stuff in Williamsburg galleries this week:
Manit Sriwanichpoom‘s ghostly pink photographic provocations at Momenta
72 Berry
Andrew Jeffrey Wright‘s delightful and very smart conscience drawings at Champion
281 N. 7th
Jackie Gendel‘s gorgeous waxy oils at Jessica Murray, esp, Kablasto!
210 N. 6th
Meighan Gale‘s breathtakingly intimate effortlessly majestic self-portraits at Black & White
483 Driggs
Everest Hall‘s shameless sourced brush and pencil images at Bellwether
335 Grand
Andrea Loefke‘s enigmatic sculptures and tiny drawing constructions at S1
242 S. 1st
Beatriz Monteavaro‘s beautiful Picasso/Planet of the Apes obsessions at Monya Rowe
242 S. 1st
Joe Fig‘s sculptural reconfigurations of painters’ studios at Plus Ultra
235 S. 1st
Joe Amrhein‘s affectionate reading of the detritus of art criticism at Roebling Hall
390 Wythe

[image from Times Stereo]