Another gap

More accounting for myself after a long absence. I do have plans to get back to blogging soon, so if you are paying attention, now is the time.

Since my last mea culpa post, I finished traveling too much (Oct-2nd week of Jan, I was home about 1 week a month), wrote quite a few reviews for the Daily Serving, wrote a review for artsfuse about the new Americas wing, applied and was rejected from CMS at MIT, became a contributor for Art Writ and printeresting, and finalized/installed/feted my show at the BCA.

I plan on laying out a curator's thingy for that show soon-- including pictures etc. Briefly, knowing that I am biased, I love this show and I love all the artists in it. It seems to have been beneficial to the space, artists, and me, so I think we all win.

I'm writing some thoughts on internet nerdery, social media in the arts. I will likely post something about that soon.


Things you should see if you are near Boston-
Drawing with Code and Rachel Perry Welty at DeCordova
Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection at the PEM and Mirror of Holland: Drawings from the George and Maida Abrams Collection at the MFA.
All of the upcoming ICA exhibitions including the AR works (that the ICA approved, but doesn't seem to know how to advertise for or have even mentioned yet) during the Cyber Arts Festival.
Nathalie Miebach at Fuller Craft

If you are in NY, go see the amazing Lucy Lippard talk about Ghosts, the Daily News, and Prophecy: Critical Landscape Photography Thursday, April 7, 2011, 7 pm. She's the smartest art nerd I know and is we should all wish to be half as smart as her.
Feel free to ignore my dear friend the Museum Nerd who didn't like Mark Morisoe at the Artists Space. I wanted to see this show as it is an important part of the Boston School that the ICA cemented as a thing. (Also go to the Shellburne Thurber show at Bab's Gallery)

If you are in NJ, Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage at Princeton should be worth your attention.

In bad news, 57 Delle is closed, MEME is closing (but has a great schedule over the next few months), Walker Contemporary/Anthony Greaney/Carroll and Sons are all moving. We have so few contemporary spaces, this is a big deal to me. Boston seems to always seems to be on the edge of slipping into a dark ages, now is no different.

Open Air

Installing Open Air this weekend. If you're around the Boston area, stop by during the upcoming weekends. It will also be open, preview style, Monday the 6th from 6-8.

Steffen Schleiermacher

Also, feel free to use the comments section at Big Red and Shiny to tell me that my review was (insert angry internet criticism here). Or that you think Steffen is a crap pianist. Isn't that what the internet is for?

May has been friggin busy...

Some good news. As soon as B/R/S #131 is published, you'll see a review I wrote for Carlin Wing at Anthony Greaney. It's effectively what I wanted to say. It took less than a week to write, so it could be better, and will be when I send it Frieze for their young critics contest.

I also expect a review of Dürer at the MFA Boston to be published by the SGC newsletter. I'll put that review up after it's finalized.

September at the Nave is Open Air. The show brings the work of Matthew Best, Nathalie Miebach, Carolyn Muskat, Ted Ollier, and Jason Shoemaker together for the first time. Each are exploring the outdoors in different ways. I'm a fan of each, but together I think they augment each other's work.

Last, and certainly not least, The Mills at Boston Center for the Arts has accepted my proposal for Contact with Density. This show will be scheduled soon, and currently has 12 artists in it. Each of the artists are dealing with part of the urban landscape or just the experience of living in the city.

So I'm tired. Oh, and I'm hoping to get mean angry comments in the comments section of B/R/S... It's just what happens.

cultural baggage.

More examples of hybrid forms. Haven't seen these shows, but they sound and talk about not needing to follow the rules of genre. Musik für Barbaren und Klassiker breaks the traditional boundaries between concerts, sound installations, sculpture and music. Did you say:

The Ultrasound of Therapy from Staalplaat Soundsystem is an installation-as-a-whole, built up as an infirmary. In each of the beds the visitor undergoes an individualised sensory processing. Highlights are the meditation videos, the beds connected to bass amplifiers (which intensify the physical experience of sound), or the treatment with sine waves, based on the Indo-Tibetan vadacakra theory.

Cuz I like the sound of that. I don't think I know how I'd react to that exhibit, and how I'd shoehorn the work into a single definitive genre.

Also Paola Pivi's work in Rotterdam. A free animals concert? With a democratic recording studio for anyone to record in? Did I mention the animals will be in the studio too. They will make noise while you record.

Neither of these have issues with being too familiar. Instead, they are new forms. I think of them through the lens of Sculpture in the Expanded Field (link is PDF). I can't help it, but the klein group that Krauss talks about has been hanging over my head informing how I look at art since I read that article circa 2003. It was probably the moment where art went from something that we react at to something that I considered in a historical and conceptual construct. I was already familiar with most of the works mentioned in the article, but no one had presented such a clear and useful argument to me about the meta-data involved or enumerated the complicated relationship between the work and genre. Art work was either good or bad. I didn't even consider if it fit into sculpture comfortably.

That article is my cultural baggage.

007- Spoke Count

RSVP form

Chorus Gallery's first outing with my name behind it is Spoke Count. Democratic, curated by no one, and fun, it is united by only size (8x8) and theme (bikes). We will not be editing out for content or for media.

Why? Besides having a great big group show for our first show that will bring in a ton of people? This will be the only "bike-art" show I hope I ever put on. Chorus will not be a bike gallery. It will be an alternative space contemporary art gallery showing local and national talent.

My wife and I were making a comparison between Chorus and restaurants. "New American" sounds specific and identifiable, but is rather vague. If you ask a foodie what it is, they would have a hard time to identify it exactly, but would know some of the things that you should expect.

Furthering the restaurant metaphor, "fresh, local, and best" the mantra of new foodie CSA/localvore/slowfood culture is applicable to Chorus. New work, locals predominantly, and "best of" quality artists is what we plan on specializing.

I'll be updating here about each show we produce. I've got a schedule already for the first 6 months, so I'll release info when we solidify the details and content for each show.

Chicago

I got a crush on Chitown right now. (other than their b-ball team... damn game 7)





Olafur Eliasson is up at the MCA.

AIC has a show of Multiples and Works on Paper that haven't been seen in a while. And is about to have a Cy Twombly show of recent work.

Jen Thomas is at Vespine

Ann Nathan has up Ben Duke and Christopher Klein (painters? recommended by me? Every now and then a brush can be used to make art...)