Blankets from the Floor

Okay, here is an update on life. Classes are going... some better than others. I get my second midterm back tomorrow. That's exciting. Life is chugging along. I was talking with Mercy tonight about how good of an education we think we got at Rutgers. We both concluded that it was decent, but only because we worked to find good professors and concentrate in areas of interest within our majors. She's traveling on into the world of Academia towards a P.H.D., while I am planning on moving to Philadelphia and workinh in the arts. If you know anyone in the city of Philadelphia looking for a full time Gallery Assistant, (listen, I'll take part time if you offer) who has previous experience in that field, let me know. No handouts please, I'll offer a $50 finders fee (that's a lie). As far as work, Karl is waiting to get a crocheted frame on him, but I have to wait until I make a little money and can afford nice yarn like this stuff here:


or hopefullybutprobablynot:


That "Bubble Burst" piece has changed into:

On another note, Pilgrim came home today:


ROMANBLOG just posted about Jackie Saccoccio and I really dig her work:


But then again I really enjoy the work of:

Howard Hodgkin ("The Sky's the Limit")
so I guess there's some connection there... perhaps...

Anyway.
Here is the new notreallynewbutnewtoyou Tin Kitchen screen:


That's it. Rien Rein.

Last Night at CourtlandtLand

Biz, Tin Kitchen, Cheeky, & Screaming Females played. It was a fun night. Who is this person in the scarf?

I cannot wait to move.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/15712697.html

"For years, young artists have been settling in Philadelphia in increasing numbers. Lately, the community has reached critical mass.

Hundreds, mostly recent graduates but also some with established careers, have chosen to make their homes and studios here, drawn by the very qualities that have long given the city an inferiority complex: blue-collar grit, block after block of industrial burial grounds, less fury in the grapple for the top rung.

As the immigration has quickened, artists are moving into areas with more poverty and more crime. Places where the landscape features dunes of trash and crumbling brick.

But also where those willing to reach out to neighbors struggling to get by can create an artistic nirvana. Make almost anything they can dream up. And do it in spaces with plenty of light at preposterously low rates for rooms so vast, the artists have to travel by skateboard to get from one end to the other."

A few things from this week...

I stretched Karl:



I started a new piece (shitty photo, skewed and resized, etc.):



I organized my desk into a workslashart space. Algebra gets dual priority:



Other than that, I've spent quite a long time at the gallery this week, preparing for a new show. I'm questioning that piece, "The Bubble Burst", at the moment and have removed quite a few elements from it. I'm looking for new exhibition opportunities as well. I have work Wednesday-Saturday this week, but I'm looking to go up for openings next week. Oh yeah, school is progressing alright. I'm not crazy about my "American Unions in Politics" class, but love my "Contemporary Jewish Ethnography" one. The rest, "Visual Sociology", "Political Sociology", and "Economic Sociology" all fall somewhere in the middle. RIght now I am sitting in my friend's living room watching "Cape Fear", which is an awesome film.

Paintings update

"The Bubble Burst" and "Karl Lagerfeld Fat. Riding An Oyster To Safety."

I worked the grass out with Lagerfeld and am getting happier. I think I'll put it back onto it's stretchers soon. The Bubble came together quickly. I'm not sure if I want to remove or replace any elements. I'm happy with the stories it's telling. It's been a productive weekend, FYI.

My relaxing day...

It's been a while since I have been able to go to New York City, but with NJTransits "students ride free" deal for this week, I figured it was time. I skipped my Sociology of Politics class, but I think that it was worth it. I hit most of the galleries between 9th and 10th Avenue and 19th and 29th Street, even the ones in the high-rises (547 West 27th Street, you know what I'm talking about) and here are some pictures:


This was by far the best Basquiat I've ever seen in person. The colors and divisions in the canvas remind me of a great Cy Twombly piece I saw in Germany. It's currently on view at Tony Shafrazi Gallery.


Mark Bradford is currently showing "Nobody Jones" at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. and I must say it is one of the best exhibitions that I have ever seen. The works are unbelievable. These goliath sized collages, which use found materials and paint, are dazzling to the eye. Abstract city road maps, or arteries, or skewed checker boards emerge and illuminate the materials underneath with such simple abstraction that I felt drawn into them like few other works I have ever seen. Perhaps it is because I am a collagist before anything else, but if I could recommend one exhibition for anyone to see in Chelsea, it would be this one. The show is over on February 23rd.


This is from Rauschenberg's new collage series entitled "RUNTS" at PaceWildenstein: 25th Street. I was pretty impressed by the work, but was REALLY happy to find that he had taken a shot with a work by Judith Supine in it, who is my favorite street artist. As I was walking around later, I happened across the spot where his photo was taken, and decided to take an updated shot:


Then I stopped for lunch at my favorite restaurant in Chelsea. It's a hole-in-the-wall Punjabi place on the corner of 9th Ave. and West 27th Street. The lunch buffet is AWESOME and they have bottles of Stella Artois, which I treat myself to when I got to New York. If you've never been there, I believe it's the best deal in the area for quality versus price. Check it out.


After that I went to a gallery (I don't remember the name!) that had a bunch of Bernd and Hilda Brecher photographs. I've been a big fan of theirs for quite a while. I love how personable and human they are able to make machinery appear.


Other than that, I saw a book at Printed Matter I really wanted ($37! Too rich for my blood at the moment), and saw some other cool exhibitions - or parts thereof - which were:

Jan Kopp, "The Missing Image", Martos Gallery

Anne Collier, Anton Kern Gallery

Paul Pagk, Untitled (On Paper), Moti Hasson Gallery

Johannes Girardoni, Stephen Haller Gallery

Jade Townsend, "YARDSALE", Priska C. Juschka Fine Art

Michael Slater, "Are You Sure", Jeff Bailey Gallery

Dan Perjovschi, "You Remember My Pin?", Lombard-Freid Projects

Isoje Chou, "Salome Salome (You Must Not Look At Her: Look Too Much At Her)", M.Y. Art Prospects


Other than that, I saw a man not much older than myself on the New Brunswick NJTransit Platform this morning drinking a bottle of Orange Juice. Not odd or worth remark you say? When he pulled the bottle of Vodka out of his bag to refill the Orange Juice container it was. An older hispanic woman and I were the only two people who saw this and we exchanged looks of pity with one another. It was 11am on a Tuesday for god'sake! At least wait until noon before you start drinking screwdrivers willy-nilly! Also, as I boarded the train, a woman sitting in front of me found an unpunched ticket on the floor. She put it in the place where the conductors usually place a ticket and pretended to be asleep when they came around to punch tickets. Ugh... I can't argue I guess. I wouldn't have taken the train today either unless it was free. Anyway, that was my day. I really enjoyed myself and can't wait to go to openings tomorrow evening after classes.

Gallery Aferro - Open Call

OPEN CALL Theory & Practice
Gallery Aferro Newark NJ
www.aferro.org

Theory and Practice on display April 19-May 17, 2008 with full color catalog.
Curated by Evonne M. Davis

Deadline February 15, 2008

Artists working in any and all media are invited to submit existing work, or propose new work, in response to the following:

Theory and Practice
In the gulf between what one wants to be and what one is, what you want and what you have, the way things ought to be, and the way they are. What we imagine it ¬being anything¬ could be and what it is.

The tension and void between the two.

"Freedom is not something that is given by a government or structure but must be a developing character of the life of the people. It is not a political but an existential reality."

Culture, Freedom and Democracy, Marin Aiftinc

Notification of acceptance by March 1.
Delivery by March 28

submit.aferro@gmail.com
Please put the exhibition title in the subject line.

Where Karl is at.

Karl Lagerfeld Fat. Riding a Large Oyster to Safety.

Shingo Inao

Shingo Inao, the sound artist that I mentioned a couple posts back, uploaded the videos from the night we saw him perform in Berlin. It's great to hear his music again and watch him compose it.

Damn

you look good.