Today is the Day, Mouth of the Architect, Psyopus, Complete Failure @ The Knitting Factory
Monday March 17, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Today is the Day, Mouth of the Architect, Psyopus, Complete Failure @ The Knitting Factory
Today is the Day, Mouth of the Architect, Psyopus, Complete Failure @ The Knitting Factory
Monday March 17, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Astomatous Logo
Logo for technical death metal band, Astomatous. First album, "The Beauty of Reason," due out spring 2008.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Krallice Logo
New work for black metal band, Krallice, the latest side project of Mick Barr (Orthrelm) and Colin Martson (Dysrhythmia, Behold...The Arctopus). Their first album is coming out late summer.
Krallice on Profound Lore Records
Krallice on Myspace
Monday, March 10, 2008
Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe
Fetus Movement II: Project for Extraterrestrials No.9
Tokyo, Japan
1991
Cai Guo-Qiang
I Want to Believe
Guggenheim, NY
February 22 - May 28, 2008
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When I try to imagine what a retrospective is meant to look and feel like, I will now, forever, see this show play behind my eyes. This is one of the best retrospectives I've ever seen and is certainly the best show I have seen thus far this year. I imagine it will be a difficult one to beat. Cai Guo-Qiang's multimedia explosion of sound, light, sculpture and drawing takes me back about five years to the showing of Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle. This exhibition is what a retrospective should be.
The first Chinese artist to be given a solo show at the Guggenheim New York, Cai Guo-Qiang is a leader among the emerging Chinese artists, as well as an outsider. He left China for Japan, and then later New York, while artistic production was still highly regulated and mostly stifled in China. Having left for Japan, Cai was able to make and display work that would most likely not have been allowed in China. However, he missed the early movements of China's avant-garde that paved the way for today's influential Chinese contemporary art movement. Despite or perhaps because of that, he is one of the most highly regarded Chinese artists of today.
Cai's work is a defining announcement of postmodern artistic expression. A delicate and violent balance between performance, installation, and traditional sensability, Cai's work explores his Chinese heritage through materials that have historically defined China. Gunpowder and fireworks, both Chinese inventions, are two of the favorite media used by this artist. Yet, lifesize human figures made from clay, recalling the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi, and paper screens are also a part of Cai's vocabulary. From the materials that have laid the very foundation of tradition in Chinese artistic practice to performances that are decidedly spectacular and transient, Cai's work is a melding of history and innovation, of traditional and contemporary expression.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Masked Portrait @ Mirianne Boesky Gallery
Kazuo Shiraga
Ten Sokusei Shingyo Taibo, 1960
Oil on canvas
71 7/8 x 95 1/2 inches
The Masked Portrait
Curated by Midori Nishizawa
Marianne Boesky Gallery
January 11 to February 9, 2008
Shirin Neshat @ Barbara Gladstone
Shirin Neshat
Munis & Revolutionary Man, 2008.
49 x 90 4/5 inches (124.5 x 230.6 cm); 54 1/2 x 96 inches (138.4 x 243.8 cm)
Shirin Neshat
Barbara Gladstone Gallery
January 19 to February 23, 2008
Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art
Stan Douglas
Overture, 1986
Installation view, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 1996
Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art
International Center of Photography
January 18 – May 4, 2008
Robert Mapplethorpe: Certain People
Louise Nevelson, 1986
silver gelatin print
image: 19 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches
(48.9 x 48.9 cm)
paper: 24 x 20 inches
(61 x 51 cm)
edition of 10 with 2 APs
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Robert Mapplethorpe: Certain People
Sean Kelly Gallery
February 9 to March 15, 2008
Joanna M. Wezyk @ Tina Kim Gallery
Pink Corpus Christi
2007, Oil on wood, 24" x 18"
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Joanna M. Wezyk
Tina Kim Gallery
February 8-March 8, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
William Kentridge: Seeing Double
William Kentridge
"Seeing Double"
Marian Goodman Gallery
January 16 - February 16, 2007
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Kentridge's newest body of work does more than simply restate his painstaking workmanship, it nearly reinvents it. No stranger to innovative and unconventional approaches, Kentridge dazzled this audience once again with his fruitful union of rather traditional drawing technique and unorthodox looking-glasses.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
El Anatsui: Zebra Crossing
(Above) Oga Cavorting in Lace, 2007
Aluminum and copper wire
111 x 111 inches
El Anatsui: Zebra Crossing
Jack Shainman Gallery
January 4 to February 2, 2008
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El Anatsui
New York Times, "Art in Review"
Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century & Collage: The Unmonumental Picture
Kim Jones, Untitled, 1994-2004
Acrylic and ink on color photograph
28 1/2 x 39 in
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Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century & Collage: The Unmonumental Picture
New Museum
Through March 23, 2008
At the halfway point of the New Museum's accumulating exhibition, many works stand out as some of the more transient examples of current trends in contemporary art. The first installment of this show, "The Object in the 21st Century," displays works in which underinformed notions of the role of artist as cultural commentator are toxically mixed with a low-as-high underpolished execution. As an example, "Split Endz" (1) fails almost entirely to elevate its components beyond the echelon of nostalgic thrift store articles. Not all the works in this exhibition fall into this pitfall of contemporary art. Marc Andre Robinson's "Myth Monolith (Liberation Movement)"(2) metamorphosizes a mass of chairs into a wave of motion. While it is built from refuse of contemporary life, the work propels itself beyond nostalgic reference to its materials and becomes instead reminiscent of Hokusai's most famous print from his series "Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji." Though both of these pieces certainly fit the curators' goal of "zeroing in a way that visual art can help define the moment in which we are living,"(3) I do wonder how many of these pieces will survive this moment and be revisited by future generations of artists.
From the show's second installment, "Collage: The Unmonumental Picture," the noteworthy include:
Mark Bradford, "Helter Skelter I & II"
Christian Holstead
Kim Jones
Wangechi Mutu
(1) Jim Lambie, Split Endz (wig mix), 2005, Wardrobes, mirror, belts, training shoes, and gloss paint, 72 7/16 in x 53 15/16 in x 47 3/16 in / 184 cm x 137 cm x 120 cm
(2) Marc Andre Robinson, Myth Monolith (Liberation Movement), 2002-2003, Dimensions Variable
(3) Pg. 1, Unmonumental: An Exhibition in Four Parts, No Author Given, New Museum of Art, New York, NY: 2007.
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Mark Bradford at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Mark Bradford at Saachi Gallery
KIM JONES, by Peter Clothier
March 24 - May 19, 2007 at Cal State L.A., Luckman Gallery, East Los Angeles
Wangechi Mutu at Saachi Gallery
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Decrepit Birth, Hate Eternal, 3 Inches of Blood, The Black Dahlia Murder @ B.B. Kings
Decrepit Birth, Hate Eternal, 3 Inches of Blood, The Black Dahlia Murder @ B.B. Kings
January 16, 2008
10:43pm
A Conversation from Last Night
Me: Hello.
Nick's Mom (Hippy, in her 60s): Hi!
Me: Hey, it's just me. Nick and Lev went to the corner store. They'll be here in a few minutes.
Mom: Oh. Did you go out to dinner?
Me: No, we actually went to a concert.
Mom: Oh! What did you see?!
Me: Well, we went to see Hate Eternal, but we didn't get to see them. They had car trouble this morning on their way from D.C. There was another opening band though that was pretty good.
Nick's Dad (Also Hippy in his 60s): (What did they see?)
Mom: Gate Eternal.
Dad: Oh, Gate Eternal...
Me: No, no, HATE Eternal.
Mom and Dad: HATE ETERNAL?!
Me: Yeah, kind of an unfortunate name, but that's the genre. We didn't get to see them play though.
Dad: What happened?
Me: The sound guy said that their radiator over heated this morning on their way from a show last night in D.C.
Dad: They were consumed by the hate.
Me: It would seem that way.
Mom: So, uh... who were the other bands?
Me: The Headliner was Black Dahlia Murder, but we weren't there to see them. The band we all liked was Decrepit Birth.
Dad: (Decrepit Birth...)
Me: Yeah, they were awesome! Even though they were first and their sound was not very good coming through the P.A.
Dad: So, this sound guy was not the bearer of good things...
Me: (chuckles) No, not really.
Mom: So, the headliner was who?
Me: Black Dahlia Murder. When they went on, we decided to leave.
Mom: That bad?
Me: Well, I guess they are ok, but they are a total rip off of this other band At the Gates, right down to a t-shirt they were selling at the concert. And they aren't even half as good, so, yeah, they suck. We left.
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Decrepit Birth Myspace
Hate Eternal Myspace
3 Inches of Blood Myspace
The Black Dahlia Murder Myspace
January 16, 2008
10:43pm
A Conversation from Last Night
Me: Hello.
Nick's Mom (Hippy, in her 60s): Hi!
Me: Hey, it's just me. Nick and Lev went to the corner store. They'll be here in a few minutes.
Mom: Oh. Did you go out to dinner?
Me: No, we actually went to a concert.
Mom: Oh! What did you see?!
Me: Well, we went to see Hate Eternal, but we didn't get to see them. They had car trouble this morning on their way from D.C. There was another opening band though that was pretty good.
Nick's Dad (Also Hippy in his 60s): (What did they see?)
Mom: Gate Eternal.
Dad: Oh, Gate Eternal...
Me: No, no, HATE Eternal.
Mom and Dad: HATE ETERNAL?!
Me: Yeah, kind of an unfortunate name, but that's the genre. We didn't get to see them play though.
Dad: What happened?
Me: The sound guy said that their radiator over heated this morning on their way from a show last night in D.C.
Dad: They were consumed by the hate.
Me: It would seem that way.
Mom: So, uh... who were the other bands?
Me: The Headliner was Black Dahlia Murder, but we weren't there to see them. The band we all liked was Decrepit Birth.
Dad: (Decrepit Birth...)
Me: Yeah, they were awesome! Even though they were first and their sound was not very good coming through the P.A.
Dad: So, this sound guy was not the bearer of good things...
Me: (chuckles) No, not really.
Mom: So, the headliner was who?
Me: Black Dahlia Murder. When they went on, we decided to leave.
Mom: That bad?
Me: Well, I guess they are ok, but they are a total rip off of this other band At the Gates, right down to a t-shirt they were selling at the concert. And they aren't even half as good, so, yeah, they suck. We left.
---
Decrepit Birth Myspace
Hate Eternal Myspace
3 Inches of Blood Myspace
The Black Dahlia Murder Myspace
Sunday, January 13, 2008
blog.mode: addressing fashion
Simon Costin (British, b. 1963). “Incubus” Necklace, 1987. Silver, copper, Baroque pearls, and glass vials filled with samples of human sperm.
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blog.mode: addressing fashion
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Through April 13, 2008
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blog.mode
Tara Donovan at the Met
Untitled (Mylar), 2007
Tara Donovan at the Met
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Through April 27, 2008
Tucked into the soft light of the northwest cornor of the Met, at the top of the first flight of stairs connecting the Modern Wings, are ten thousand one inch two inch three inch diameter rings reflecting upon thier interiors. Veiwed from a distance, their irregular repetition froths and condenses between the two uncrossable boundries of ceiling and floor. The installation's stark and subtle game unfolds quietly, gently caressing the perception, calling it to come closer and discover the secret of its construction. Rings of mylar disguise themselves at first as a material that calls back to modernism, appearing to be welded pieces of thin metal, polished on one side and shaped into small circular rings. Closer inspection reveals the truth to be must more delicate, and contemporary. Thousands of peices of mylar tape surround the viewer, rolled into this simple shape and stuck together simply, as the material was designed to do. The adhesive underbelly of the tape surrounds its polished face, catching dust and debris from the air and the floor. The shining face of the mylar tape reflects inward, in thousands upon thousands of repititons, scattering glancing particle-waves(1) from the room across their individual interior spaces. Somehow, magically, these pieces of commercial material become organic, combinging and expanding in a pattern built by the selction of chance.
Wholey indicative of Donovan's work, Untitled (Mylar) expands upon the artist's vocabulary of ordinary, commercial materials installed in a singular chosen architectural area: a luminous ceiling of styrophoam cups(2), a pulsing wall of stacked plastic straws (3), fuzzy translucent pods of fishin wire (4), cubes of sewing pins held retaining their shape by the forces of gravity and friction(5). The pieces are singular meditations on the materials that inhabit our contemporary lives, revealing their man-made nature to be surprisingly capable of organic grace.
(1) Light.
(2) Untitled, 2003 Styrofoam Cups, Hot Glue6'(H) x 20'(W) x 19' 2"(D)
(3) Haze, 2003 Stacked Clear Plastic Drinking Straws12' 7"(H) x 42' 2"(W) 7 3/4"(D)
(4) Lure, 2004 Fishing Line2 1/2"(H) x 10'6"(W) x 26'(D)
(5) Untitled, 2001 Nickel-Plated Steel Pins Held Together by Friction & Gravity Only35"(H) x 35"(W) x 35"(D)
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Tara Donovan at ACE Gallery
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