DONALD BAECHLER @ FISHER LANDAU CENTER FOR ART

Donald Baechler opening at Fisher Landau Center for Art.

 

SOME CHELSEA OPENINGS

Dark Christmas opening @ Leo Koenig, Chelsea

MERCI ENCORE UNE FOIS

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

                                                                 -Igor Stravinsky 1882-1971

CARTER/ISMAILY/STREET @ ZEBULON

Daniel Carter/ Shahzad Ismaily/ Indigo Street @ Cafe Zebulon.

Carter and Street @ Zebulon

It happens while waiting for a bus. One thinks they can steal to the next stop and not have to stand in one place, waiting. It is called progress. Unless while hightailing it to the next stop the bus drives by and again one is left standing at the stop, the same dilemma, calculating time blocks. Just then a bus comes! It is the wrong bus going the right direction on a holiday schedule. So there is some fast driving, whipping along, skipping all the stops: destination unknown.

That was Monday night at Zebulon....worth the wait.

UNDEREMPLOYED OPENING DINNER @ Zürcher Studio

Underemployed - who isn't? Or what isn't. I always feel a tinge of guilt for the lemon zester and melon baller in the kitchen drawer, they could use more work.  I believe it was Dave Hickey that described de Kooning as the "golden tool" (in a good way) of the 29th c. that no one really knew what to do with. (Need to check my facts on that but it's close.) Underemployed is a thoughtful group show curated by the artist Josh Blackwell who also has his own charming sewn yarn on plastic bag works in the exhibition.  Underemployed extends to a materiality as in Images can be seen at Zürcher Studio. 

VIEWS TO AND FROM MY STUDIO

SCRAP ON THE WALL

COLLABORATION: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTISTS

Specificity does not necessarily result in accuracy. I made a drawing from a very blurry photo. It was a very detailed drawing trying to avoid copying the photo. Ironically in an effort to avoid making a photo-like drawing I drew the details from memory and ended up with a more photo-like drawing than the photo! A friend remedied this: he shook the drawing while I photographed it. This friendly collaboration was the perfect culmination of our years of experience - Resulting in a photo-realistic drawing from a fuzzy photo then re-photographed to appear like an exact drawing of an inexact photo and hence a perfect copy. We managed to elaborately reproduce exactly what I was trying to avoid and we did so perfectly, or should it be accurately.

LSO IN NYC

RICHARD SERRA @ GAGOSIAN CHELSEA

‘The sun never knew how great it was until it struck the side of a building." Louis Kahn

...And I would add or the side of Junction / Cycle  a sculpture by Richard Serra currently on view in NYC.

ENLIGHTENMENT SUBLET

I went in search of a studio space and I was handed the keys to the door of enlightenment....

The door to enlightenment

The view from enlightenment

That was listed in Craig's List under "Temporary Sublet" and it has a view.

ALL THE LONELY PAINTINGS: MoMA

Varvara Stepanova, Figure, 1921, oil on canvas

The MoMa was smashed full of people avoiding a spot of rain and taking in the de Kooning retrospective. I too had come to see the heralded de Kooning exhibition curated by John Elderfield. However the show was so crowded that protecting my broken foot became a distraction. When I took a swipe at two young Spanish tourists as they collided with my injured paw I knew it was time for me to move on.

It was time to look at all the paintings that were not drawing a crowd. It was time to discover all the lonely paintings. de Kooning had a Cedar Tavern cool crew packed in and around each brush stroke. There was no room for the paintings to greet each other o the wall let a lone a visitor see them. 

But one floor away...Stepanova was dancing!

de Kooning

THIS HOUSE IS NO LONGER FOR SALE

FROM HIGH LIFE TO HIGH LINE: FULL MOON

Detail Laleh Khorramian: Atom Fables from the performance
with Shahzad Ismaily

Detail Laleh Khorramian: Atom Fables from the performance
with Shahzad Ismaily

 Names for tonight's full moon:

October

Harvest Moon

Hunter's Moon

Travel Moon, Dying Grass Moon, Blood Moon

Kojagiri or Sharad Purnima,lakshmi puja

Vap Poya

Introduction on NYC High Line for Atom Fables curated by Ballroom Marfa

FRONTIER F9 #0450

INFINITY CHICKEN

 This is my Infinity Chicken with...

FRANZ WEST OPENING @ MEYER KAINER

HANDFULS OF PAINTINGS: SUMMER 2011

Julie Ryan, Echolocation, 2011, Gouache on paper, 41x31cm

Julie Ryan, You May Feel a Little Pinch, 2011, Gouache on paper, 41x31cm

Julie Ryan, Bat Breath, 2011, Gouache on paper, 41x31cm

Julie Ryan, One Orange Candle, 2011, Gouache on paper, 41x31cm

A RARE THING: HONEY HARVEST

“…A Rare thing, fine as a beeswing.” Beeswing song by Richard Thompson

Have you ever really looked closely at a beeswing? This fineness may hold true for rareness and as a lyric in a song but if you get one of those beeswing stuck between your teeth it can be a real bugger to get out! A few years ago I cut my finger on a sugar cube and I think it is a cosmically comparable experience to the beeswing-between-teeth scenario that occurred this weekend.

1932 news about bees

Because this weekend was Honey Harvest and I was nipping at a pile of oozing honey and comb when the fine beeswing found me! I harbor mostly allergic and allegoric relationships to bees and was thrilled to expand experientially at my first ever Harvest. I also highly recommend that if you happen to have lost track of a dear friend in the world the best place to reunite is in a garage cutting and scratching honeycomb…thank you for the invitation Al!

Honey Harvesting 

And thank you Kurt and Rita for being urban beekeepers!

BEET BEAT

Spiral and bullseye beats mesmerized my salad and me.

ADVENTURES OF A ONE-EYED COON

Sometimes life can feel like that of a one-eyed coon stuck in the dregs of a drained pool on a hot summer's day alone. What will happen to our hero? 



Is there any hope? A reason to chin up?

PORTRAIT

RICHARD BUCKNER

In 1998 I raced from Newark Airport to the lobby of the Gramercy Hotel in order to meet and interview the musician Richard Buckner for a magazine I worked for at the time. This was a completely spontaneous interview therefor I was ill prepared by having nothing to record the interview with. Nonetheless being both professionals and perhaps creatures of the night the interviewed ensued. In subsequent years I have seen and heard Buckner repeated times and various venues and our conversation has never ended and our interview is yet to be published. (Note to self: locate RB interview.)

4. NOT A 'PROJECT': A REAL BAND

23 June, 2011

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog

@ Le Poisson Rouge

Listed under "projects" on Marc Ribot's website is Ceramic Dog. Listed under Ceramic Dog at #4 is "Not a 'project': a real band." And indeed it is a real band and a heck of a 
conundrum with no need for justification.

Comprised of Ribot (Guitars), Shahzad Ismaily (Bass et al.) and Ches Smith (Drums), 

Ceramic Dog is a raucously vibrant race between some perspicacious musical minds. No 
one needs to understand it all. Ceramic Dog is a mad motioning of contrapuntal and 

contrapunktal and Ribot is a guitar playing a guitar playing a guitar.

ONE EYE ROCKS a song by JULIUS RYAN

Inspired by our hero One-eye the raccoon, Julius Ryan created the song "One Eye Rocks."

FRIDAY FISH FEAST

 The Friday Fish Feast.

INJURED PAW

Looks like a vacation? Actually it is an injured paw! 

SCOTT REEDER OPENING

Scott Reeder opening at Art Since the Summer of '69, a small but super cool gallery space on the Lower East Side.

GAY PRIDE WEEKEND: NYC

DARN THAT DREAM

DO SOMETHING YOU HAVE NEVER DONE

 I went to bed a bit on the early side last night but this in no way justified waking up at 4:00 this morning. I remained in bed wishing to be pondering the life of Montaigne, thoughts on Rumi or Indian Philosophy as some of the book titles around me suggest I might be. Instead I am strapped with the nature of my personal reality being kept awake in my mind’s very own hamster wheel.

 

I am distressed to be thinking about things I have no control over. It is not like I am worried because "Oh, maybe I left  the keys in the car!" I know I left the keys in the car and I am worried if it will still be there when we get back. I want new thoughts. I want to freshen my mind and I think I will meditate myself back to sleep. Clear the mind…. this state lasts approximately 20 seconds when I decide in order to change my thinking I need to do something I have never done before.

 

So it is in my zombie-morning-state wearing an oversized Notorius B.I.G. t-shirt, leggings and a red ribbon in my hair that I trek down the hall to the elevator and push “R” and the mechanized voice recognizes my destination and says “Roof Top Terrace.”