Sunday, February 27, 2011

SUNDAY SPECIAL

I am not sure what impresses me more, that this is a Budget Best Bets recipe or that it comes from the diet center Weight Watchers! The awe doesn't end there though because the architecture of this Crown Roast of Frankfurters is manufactured to hold a can of beans and some sort of cabbage salad. As elegant as it is inviting for that special Sunday supper. 

Thursday, February 24, 2011

GÉRICAULT and MUNTEAN/ROSENBLUM

The Raft of the Medusa


DISCO

After the ship struck the reef off the coast of Africa and passengers clung to makeshift rafts. After ropes were cut leaving people adrift at sea eating bits of leather and one another. After 15 out of more than 140 were rescued only 10 survived. Their account of events shocked the world and was carried in the news as the public outrage grew. Fingers were pointed, accusations made against the captain, the crew and the government.

The story and its aftermath could well have been ripped from the headlines today. But the year was 1816 when the shipwreck Medusa grabbed the attention of a disgruntled post-Napoleonic France.


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

OUR MAN ON THE GROUND: the drawings of Constantin Luser

Drawing by Constantin Luser

...In Graham Green's 1958 novel Our Man in Havana the protagonist attempts to justify his time and job position as an intelligence officer, pre-Cuban Missile Crisis. It is his duty to make himself invaluable to the British Security Service back at home as a sort of under qualified but enthusiastic spy in Havana, ferreting out military secrets, weapons arsenals and troop activities. He is failing grossly in his attempts to find any sort of real military threat. What he does find is a vacuum cleaner (he is a vacuum cleaner salesman). And what he does do is to dissect the vacuum cleaner and draw its parts to a different scale while adding threatening numbers and possibilities—all unknown, but suggested. The imaginations of the head honchos back in the UK are engaged. Our protagonist is encouraged to stay on the job and investigate further. The whole ordeal is a farce but a lovely poetic delving into wartime fear and paranoia, the power of visual suggestion and man's ability to exploit, encourage and persevere. It is about the full potential of the ingenious imagination. There is sympathy in this story to Luser’s own work. Creating a need where none exists—arguably, like all artists—to convey urgent information...

Monday, February 21, 2011

SATURDAY GALLERIES: VIENNA 2






Klaus Auderer, Shark Attack...,Tel Aviv @ Galerie Dana Charkasi




I am listening to two art-world people talk about the Luisa Kasalicky exhibition at the BAWAG. The one says “But what does it mean? It means nothing!” And the other person describes it as “looking like it was made out of all the building materials that can kill you from the 70’s.” I’ll call it Asbestos Aesthetic.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

MISSING YOU



Most of the winter my bike has been locked to a pole at the end of my building. I see it there almost everyday and think "I should ride that bike" or "I should move the bike inside." I am not used to having a bike so I half-forget I have one. I sometimes marvalled that the bike wasn't stolen.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

COCA-COLA's SECRET FORMULA

Over the weekend National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" released what is believed to be the secret formula for Coca-Cola. Unlike many Americans I was not weened on Coke (or Pepsi) or any sweet drinks. But I have vivid memories of the Pepsi Challange advertising campaign that pitted the two soda giants against one another in blind taste tests across the country. Two forbidden treasures hidden behind a screen in a mall parking lot where woman wobbled over and sipped and screamed "Pepsi! I can't believe it!" I wanted to believe to know the difference. I wanted to be not only a consumer of these products but a connoisseur.  


The secret formula.....

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA: THEATER AN DER WIEN


Angel Blue and Angelika Kirchschlager


















The Rape of Lucretia, a 1946 chamber opera by Benjamin Britten directed by Keith Warner and featuring Angelika Kirchschlager as Lucretia and Jonathan Lemalu as Collatinus. The production was generally strong, well cast and was a surprisingly effective vehical for the popular Kirchschlager. The standout however was the young American Angel Blue singing the role of Female Chorus. A former Miss California Blue not only sang with a technically flawless voice but had the stage presence of a star (not to be confused with the formulaic presence of a diva). What a fantastic production and great mid-century opera to take in mid-winter. 


Hopefully the man conducting his mustache wont be sitting next you! 
Back stage Theater an der Wien

Sunday, February 13, 2011

MICHAEL HUEY: CHINA CUPBOARD and HOUSEGUESTS

 
CHINA CUPBOARD and HOUSEGUESTS complete two reversible covers and contents of one book and span a lifetime of small histories for the artist Michael Huey. Published in conjunction with a recent show at Newman Popiashvili Gallery, NYC, Huey sets out to present two sides of two coins bound together by proximity and purpose. The HOUSEGUESTS half of the book was an exhibition that took place in rooms of the 1820's Schloss Damtschach. In the exhibition the photographs of American interiors function as house guests of the villa and of the exhibition - the interior within an interior. 


CHINA CUPBOARD collates and collects interior views of cupboards stacked with china. Each cupboard a vitrine dedicated to abundance and limitation, to memory and relationships. In the US the television program "Hoarding" depicts the extreme side, the sickness, of collecting or stockpiling. Middle aged people fear death by avalanche of doll collections or being crushed by stuffed cats and newspapers. It can be almost unbearable to watch and weigh the meaning of accumulation this way. Contrastingly, Huey's beautifully colored photographs linger on the other end of that spectrum. His work shows carefully tended objects, the comfort of having and preserving like things together or the loneliness and fragility of missing, neglected or miss-placed objects. The origin of the objects and people who placed them there never seem far from the photographs, these china portraits.






www.MichaelHuey.com























MAGAZIN OPENING: 11.02.11

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAGAZIN


Works by assistants from Atelier Franz West


Galerie Magazin




PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Reinhard Bernsteiner, Songül Boyraz, Peter Fritzenwallner,
Heiri Häflinger, Anton Herzl, Peter Höll, Franz Kapfer,
Andrew Mezvinsky, Cilo Moroder, Hans Riedl, Ronald Zechner

Saturday, February 12, 2011

SONG SONG




















Saturday afternoon at Song Song Galerie and we three sat sipping green tea and coffees as customers streamed into the connected fashion store Song. 


The architect was a bit sick and flying to Hong Kong the next day, the long time music dude talked about retiring and the third person had good eyesight and a red pen. All three loved Georgian food and found Thailand tourists trashy.


Works by Ezara Spangl at Song Song.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

LA PHIL

Below is an amusing blog from the LA PHILL about the last time they played in Austria and their Strauss was met by boos. So they were a bit fearful of playing Mahler in Vienna the other night.....

SOME OF MY OIL PAINTINGS: 2009 - 2010


























click here to view more of my oil paintings







Monday, February 7, 2011

SATURDAY GALLERIES: VIENNA 1

Christopher Wool


A friend was on a quiche kick this week and I was first in line to try both versions. Scrumptious! We then headed out to the galleries on this bright and sunny Saturday afternoon and I expected lots of people would have the same idea. But no, it was pretty empty in those art galleries. 

Galerie Winiarczyk was closed but the window was completely open! Blown out from the crazy winds and a clever cowgirl could have lassoed a sculpture out but we decided to alert the gallerist instead. Next door at Galerie Meyer Kainer all the glass was in tact but the walls were being jostled by the large blocking of paper, fabric and paintings of Heimo Zobernig. I was not a fan of his last show at this gallery so I carried a sort of anticipatory dread of disappointment with me before entering the exhibition.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

BY SOUTHWEST




















It seems like yesterday or last Tuesday that we were tooling along, you and I, two strangers in my new car and you were insisting you knew how to drive stick shift. We were driving a long ways North that day and you had never touched a stick shift! But we arrived safely and each time we meet we arrive safely again. You are a compass to go by and a dear friend. Enjoy your day!

I think it is fitting that these completely Bio whole-wheat honey cinnamon buns were finishing a final rise as the Packers finished theirs!

THE OTHER SIDE OF FORTUNE..

The fortune itself was quite banal but I loved the other side. It is a campaign against learning Chinese. Gotta run, happiness is knocking at my door.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

YEAR OF THE RABBIT

Today on the Chinese Lunar New Year it is considered bad luck to sweep the floors because good luck might be swept away with the dust. Just to be safe I will also steer clear of the vacuum, mop and dirty laundry too. Can't have too much good luck!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

SECRET SOCIETY

















For a while last year Wolfy lived in the apartment across the hall from me. We mostly had an open door policy and would wander over for morning coffee or a snack on the way to the studio. I always reminded him “Don’t forget your keys” because it seemed like an accident waiting to happen. So inevitably one night on our way to meet friends for sushi on a boat moored in the Danube canal I forgot my keys. I cursed myself, my little purse and high heals. It was too late to get extra keys from the landlord.


A few days later we were scavenging the flea market and Wolfy says, “You should get this!” In his hand was a chocker necklace with a single key dangling. I did get it. Stuck it around my neck there and then with a plan to rotate my key for the original. The key that came on the chocker I never really looked at, neither of us had. It was more like we bought the idea of the key necklace than the necklace itself.

But then we looked at it. What was this strange key? Was this the key to NYC city?  'Greetings from Mayor Robert F. Wagner" are etched into the key along with the New York City crest and Yale. Robert F. Wagner Jr. was mayor of NYC from 1954 – 1965. A little research showed that Mayor Wagner had been a member of the Scroll & Key society at Yale University. Scroll & Key was a splinter group of Skull & Bones and is the second oldest secret society at the University. He was also a Mason.

Had Robert F. Wagner Jr. sent out these keys to his cronies from the Scroll & Key society upon entering office? Does it actually unlock a door? To where and for whom? And how did my key necklace end up at a flea market in Vienna? I never replaced my house key for the Mayor's key. I decided to stop locking myself out of my own house instead. (Knock on wood!) 




Tuesday, February 1, 2011

RESPECT THE DISTANCE: SAMMLUNG IVO MOSER




We use to meet more frequently when I lived closer but after I moved we saw less and less of one another. And no, I am not talking about my leap across the ocean or 'move East young woman' migration pattern but a simple switch to the other side of town. Because of this move we tend not to meet randomly on the street and tend not to have coffee at the place on the corner like when I lived nearby. So it was nice to grab a coffee (one with caffeine, one without) and catch-up.

Talking points included art news, exhibitions, German television and traveling with fish. At one point while describing an upcoming trip he explained how best to vacation with people by stating "Respect the distance" and it reminded me of the London Tube announcement of "Mind the gap." 

I thought about distance again when I learned that the New York based artist Carol Bove has a show up in Innsbruck at a space I didn't know existed. Carol's show is the second installation at Sammlung Ivo Moser and will stay up until August. There are no openings, or opening hours but it can be viewed by private appointment. Michael Sailstorfer, Herbert Hinteregger and Rudolf Stingel had the premier exhibition...what a start! I would love to see this place. But if I don't I love the perversity of this beautiful private gallery space nestled in the mountains of Innsbruck mounting a full fledged exhibition of an artist just for the pleasure of seeing the work together. Respect the distance.


Sammlung Ivo Mosser