imomus | Artzines and artblogs

Artzines and artblogs

At a loose end after a day of unreliable tour guiding yesterday I headed down to SoHo and looked at The Garden Party, the current show at Deitch's Wooster Street gallery, proposed as an "erotic garden" in the tradition of Giorgione and Manet. It's a spectacular and impressive show, in the Deitch tradition of lavish installation and sexy but well-chosen art. In a kind of answer to my lament of last week, Where have all the New York Japanese gone?, the "erotic garden" was full of them (not to mention lots of tasty paintings and installations by Cecily Brown, Momoyo Toremitsu and others). I ran into my old friend Hiroshi Sunairi, who was showing round a party of Tokyo gallerists over for the Armory Show, some of whom I'd already met at art events in Japan. They were the staff of Kodama Gallery, which started in Osaka but now has a Tokyo branch (you can see Kodama Gallery's Armory stall in the top right photo in Wednesday's entry) and Kazuyuki Takezaki, who's opened his private apartment in Ebisu as Gallery Takefloor.

Hiroshi also introduced me to two Japanese girls who run an art magazine called Educated Community. They immediately recognized the tartan padded jacket I was wearing as a dotera, usually worn by old ladies sitting at a kotatsu table, and clucked about how kawaii my oba-chan style was. Art magazines became the evening's theme: we all re-convened up at Boesky Gallery in Chelsea (Takashi Murakami's gallery), where there was an opening for a Chinese artist

called Yi Chen (big-eyed creature-paintings based on magazine collages, didn't look very "Chinese"). Here we were joined by staff from ArtKrush, FlavorPill and Art Asia Pacific magazines. Art Asia Pacific's staff had already kindly given me copies of their magazine at the Armory Show.

The current ArtKrush has an interview with Philippe Vergne in which the Whitney curator has this to say about my performance in the Biennial: "Momus is our unreliable tour guide who tells us that there is no truth. I think an exhibition should be about freedom of interpretation and organic, individual expertise. You grab what you can, you see what you wish, and you leave the room with your own conclusions. This is what the work is about. It is always up to you, and that's what's difficult — embracing the responsibility to make a decision for yourself and not look up to a structure of authority." So there, you have your instruction not to look up to authority on good authority!

Other artzines and artblogs worth mentioning (apart from the obvious Artnet) are Aaron Rose's ANP Quarterly (not available online). You can read an interview with Rose in the charmingly-named Fecal Face, a bay-area arts scene blog. Teenage Unicorn is a nice resource for snapshots of openings (good for fashion tips).

We ended up at the apartment of Diego Cortez, curator, downtown music-scene impressario (he co-founded the Mudd Club) and good friend of Arto Lindsay (who's currently in Brazil).

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Fecal Face is very reputable here :)
is Teenage Unicorn just photos of NY?

I had a good chuckle or two reading the ArtKrush interview with Philippe Vergne.

"Culture is like a gene pool: the more diverse, the better."

Notice how, even while using the "umbrella of inclusion," the curators unsurprisingly failed to include the conservative American viewpoint into their show.

"Art is ultimately about subversion..."

Yes, an artist making an anti-war statement is pretty subversive. Like putting ketchup on a hotdog.

It's fine to base a modern/abstract art show around the liberal political viewpoint. Very few of those sorts of artists are conservative anyway. And it makes sense. A lack of respect or interest in traditional art often translates into a lack of respect or interest in other sorts of tradition. And when you ignore history, it's very easy to think that you've stumbled upon all the answers. If only the world would just listen to what I have to say!

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking the message behind the show is so critical and original. The media flogged the abu gharib and hurricane katrina stories horse beyond recognition. I'm no fan of Bush, either, but let's get real.

the curators unsurprisingly failed to include the conservative American viewpoint into their show.

The American conservative viewpoint is notoriously anti-art.

Their pitch would go something like this:

"Hey, we openly hate you and want you shut down simply because we believe art is immoral as well as a waste of 'human resources', time and money. ...By the way, will you show anything that pushes our political agenda? For the sake of 'fair balance', of course. No? You hypocrites!"

The American conservative viewpoint is notoriously anti-art.

Isn't that the point? Or don't artists have a sense of humour anymore?

a waste of 'human resources'

ha ha

It's interesting that they can say such a thing while they have such a high unemployment rate.

First, give everyone jobs, and then you can complain about wasting "human resources."

Their view on unemployment is: "Dignity? Youse bums need to get yerselves jobs! Move your lazy asses. No jobs? All lies!"

As of March 20, 2006, the confirmed death toll from Katrina stood at 1,604, with more than 1,500 unaccounted for. How should such an event be presented in "the media"? Of course, it was a natural disaster, not, say, an unprovoked war, so it's not like the President is responsible for the event. Just the response. The bumbling, racist response.

My friend is a conservative and an artist. Mostly we talk about art, not politics. But sometimes he stretches reality like putty as you've done here. What SHOULD be on "the media" if not the largest natural disaster in the country's history? Patriotic jingles and soldier recruiting infomercials? Yeah, I know where conservativism wants to go. I'd rather attend another hippy art show.

i especially like your outfit in this post. it is very lego-man-esque.

Thanks for the artblog links; I've been looking for some for the last month or so. I was at that tinyvices afterhours party shown in Teenage Unicorn and half expected to see you there. It was fun but the bouncer was a prick. The place was empty and they were just keeping people out in queue to make it seem crowded and cool. When we left we started yelling at everyone telling them that there were no drinks inside and all the people were ugly. We kept it up until we grew hoarse.

What a sorry excuse for a bar.

Why do 99% of the bars in North America suck?

The article makes a point though. Perhaps better than simply telling people that there is no truth it would be more effective to lead them to that conclusion without saying it, kind of like Witold Gombrowicz does with his books -- now that he is finally becoming known, I can mention his name without feeling I have to explain everything about him.

A small light accidental foreskin folded burst gush on nomorepolitics, no sooner was the lad hood properly fixed stopping the drizzle on the poor tattooed boys face and normal vacuation was resumed. A pube caught on the japs eye split the stream unexpectedly, with a forked tounge motion like the beast of Shbrawxyz's novella the yellow jet hit the pan while simulteneously the ink faced goon watched and the other mandel influenced yellow jet shot down the side of my trouser leg, later only to be explained to art show attendees as a latest japanese fashion titled "pishdoonmatrooserleg"..the smell lingered

"Course of anticipated response: 1.Slight anger.2.Fear of critic being uncomfortably close to the bone.3.Reassurance of self.4.Assertation of inadequacy, lack of skill, etc of critic.5."Faux" pity for critic, to demonish her/him and elevate self.6. Return to normal smug state."

Kovac, whar's yer troosers?

Took you long enough...there were about 10 other hidden "tracks" in that page too...but spot on as ever you sharp one eyed old tack, nice to see crayon face follows the found rules...Actually next time your in Tokyo we should meet up cos we probably would have a laugh together..unless yer feart ?

I can be proud of inspiring such hatred in you.

peh - Im proud...aye you'll always be proud, proud of yourself.Have you tried not being proud of yourself for a bit no ?

独り善がりやろ3秒ほかの人考えたら自分の方気がつくよ

Trying to teach me Christian morals will get you nowhere.

aww the wee boy has some word in his mooth aye ? easy escape route to name me a biblethumper, or bring christianity into it crayon face, I gave up on that shite long ago, but obviously a wee issue with yerself eh ? a wee knee jerk response there as its called no ? You should have better sense than gettin wrapped up wi a nasty cunt like me, r'ey fact yer even wound up aboot it is showing aw yer weak spots ma wee boy, ye gonnay be strong and take a deep breath and shut the fuck up and nae say anythin mair ? or are ye gonna carry on showing the cracks in that wee pisspoor shield o yours ? if yer aww settled to shut yer mooth like a wee boy that does as he's told thats fine, ye shut the fuck up just like Im tellin ye tae, so you wont post anything mair... cunts the like ay you are only ready for what you think your prpeared for, which is nothin.Now you jost toddle off and keep yer wee mouth shut until youve got something useful tae dae..ah mean m'ahn tae fuck you think yer oan a wee gig here ? now away and think of smart reply, take yer time or just play the better than it and not reply, but a nae reply is a nae reply to yoursel.

If you want to make a wikipedia entry on "how to make an idiotic response" cut and paste the above.

Did you roll down the hill!?!? Its like being a child again, but in a gallery. What did you think of the piece that had all of those little toy soldier dolls dressed as politicians?
I really loved the show at the Deitch gallery. Ive only just started going to openings and such, and was really happy to see humour in alot of the work.

I didn't roll down the hill, because the turf had gotten a bit muddy. But you know, that piece is an exact copy of a piece by Tsuyoshi Ozawa, a slope that you could roll down featured in his Mori Museum show Answer with Yes and No (http://imomus.livejournal.com/47810.html). So I felt slightly miffed at the plagiarism too, and shunned it!

I was too busy talking to Japanese friends to see all the work, and we got thrown out at 6pm. I went back the next day to see it properly, but again it was 6 and they were closing. So I'm going back soon to get a better look, because it does look like a very good show.

ANP is probably one of the top three magazines available

integrity + catchy format + quality photos/profiles/writing = TOP 3

oh yea, AND IT'S FREE!

~openorganone

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