Moth Snuffploitation

Here's a poster image I made for my forthcoming solo show at High Energy Constructs in LA's Chinatown district opening January 13th 2007. You probably can't make out the caption, but it reads "Spontaneous abortion by moth drowned in spaghetti vomit, Jacobson lakefront trailer 1991." Top that, Wolfgang Tillmans!

Round and Oval, Abstract and Otherwise

Here's my write-up of 7 abstract painting shows in LA that was intended for the award-winning List Issue of the LA Weekly, which failed to materialize this year, but what the heck. This off-register marker mandala is ICON II (2006) by Vancouver artist Nicholas Pittman.



If you go here you can get a free 6-issue subscription to the digital version of ArtReview, whose January issue includes an essay I wrote about Ivan Morley's sometimes abstract sometimes otherwise work -- originally for a catalog essay, but then it found a new home in England. The work above is Tehachepi (sic) from 2003.

Recommended Reading

Here's my holiday book gift list from the LA Weekly, featuring Vale's PRANKS 2 and Brian Chippendale's amazing NINJA (pictured above) among others.

We Only Want What's Best For Him

Here are a couple of shots of the latest addition to our herd of sighthounds. Nigel is a 2 year old whippet of show breeding, but tragically a full inch over standard. Westminster's loss will be Competition Obedience's gain.

Cortisone Psychosis

Speaking of the Egypytian, while introducing Crispin Glover the lady there mentioned that at 7:30 on Dec 17th -- tonight -- they would be screening Nicholas Ray's masterpiece "Bigger Than Life." When Mannlicher Carcano was touring Thunder Bay, we caught it on the motel TV on TCM, and it blew our minds. I tried to get it on video, but it's never been issued! Still hasn't. It's an amazing saga of cortisone addiction and psychosis starring James Mason and shot in Ray's over-the-top saturated primaries. See it first if you have a chance, then read Sam Wasson's article here.

No McFly Zone

My internet's temporarily disabled, so I'll only be able to post occasionally for the next week or so. Artist Georganne Deen snuck me into the LA premiere of Crispin Glover's remarkable film "What Is It?" at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. The screening was preceeded by a slideshow/reading from several of Glover's darkly humorous book projects, created by modifying Victorian novels and how-to books with inspired edits, ink drawing and collage. The image above is the author's shadow during this performance.

The film itself is beautiful and moving, with a surprising psychological/mythological structure. I had expected something deliberately offensive due to the fact that word-of-mouth has always emphasized the Down's Syndrome cast, Adam Parfrey in minstrel blackface, Charlie Manson music, and Shirley Temple in Nazi leather. Instead, "What Is It?" is something like a B-movie Matthew Barney film, only funnier.

"It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!" -- the second part of the planned trilogy -- was written by Steven C. Stewart, who appears naked on the half shell in "What Is It?" as "Dueling Demi-God Auteur and the Young Man's Uber Ego." Stewart, who was institutionalized for many years because his severe cerebral palsy made him unable to communicate well despite his normal intelligence, died a month after initial shooting in Salt Lake City. Glover used his earnings from "Charlie's Angels" to finance the film, which will debut at Sundance in January.

Mr. Glover is not planning a DVD release of "What Is It?" Instead, he's going to tour iit around to independent repertory theaters over the next several years, so if you want to see it keep an eye peeled and check his website.

Good Spirit Screening

There was a full house at the EPFC screening of the lost made-for-TV movie "Ishi: The Last of His Tribe" (see below). Lee Lynch replaced the commercials from the taped-from-broadcast dub with short segments outlining our Ishi-related film project "Hi Good." Pictured above is anthropologist and historian Richard Burrill during the post-screening Q&A, holding one of several scholarly books he's written on Ishi. Note the pictorial anomaly in the upper right corner.

Pachyderm in the Mist

Dry ice technically I guess. There was a request for this image of My Cousin Clint incarnating Ganesha while drumming for Fireworks on Nov 17th at il coral in Los Angeles. "Who needs the infinite compassion of Ganesha when I have Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman staring at me from the cover of Entertainment Weekly with their dead eyes!?" I dooo!

Magritte at LACMA

Here's my review of the Magritte & Contemorary Art show at the LA County Museum of Art. It's been online for a week, but the paper version just hit the streets today. Pictured above is "The Cripple" from Magritte's very brief "Vache" period in 1948, when he abandoned his familiar style and made all these loose, goofy paintings. They're the highlight of the show for me.

THIS IS NOT AN ART REVIEW
NOVEMBER 21, 2006


Hot on the heels of Santa Monica Museum’s tightly curated and visually spectacular pairing of Giorgio de Chirico and Philip Guston in “Enigma Variations” comes its sprawling, ambitious doppelgänger at LACMA, “Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images.” Not only is René Magritte known for the very sort of hauntingly insoluble pictorial puzzles that were de Chirico’s stock in trade, but he basically arrived at that point in an uncanny parallel to Guston — seeing a de Chirico reproduction and abandoning his previous oeuvre of nonrepresentational abstraction. The premises of the two shows are fundamentally similar — tracing the older artist’s influence on a younger generation. Except instead of one painter engaged in a lifelong dialogue with another, “Treachery” delivers 31 artists working in a variety of media (including Guston), often with only a tenuous or indirect link to Magritte’s imagery or conceptual concerns.

Space Baby in Space Juice at INMO

I have a sound sculpture, "Space Baby" in this show at the new INMO, formerly Eddie's Bar & Grill in the Million Dollar Rosslyn Hotel in the heart of LA's skid row. The piece was originally created for a One Night Stand at the Farmer's Daughter Motel curated by Mark Dutcher in 2001, where it was installed in the motel room bathtub. It's now in a silver aquarium.

INMO
114 West Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013 www.inmogallery.net

SPACE JUICE : November 26 - December 24, 2006

andreas angelidakis,
doug harvey,
soyeon cho,
IEPE,
marya kazoun
bora kim,
moon saeng kim,
chang wook lee,
marcos lutyens,
Nickel School > patrick shields & ben konen
Sandy.

Lost Ishi Movie Friday at EPFC

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1 – ISHI: THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE – 8PM

Lee Lynch and Doug Harvey present a rare screening of the out of print 1978 movie "Ishi: The Last Of His Tribe" written for screen by Dalton Trumbo and Christopher Trumbo and starring Dennis Weaver as Professor Benjamin Fuller (AKA anthropologist Thomas Waterman). Not to be confused with the similarly titled 1992 TV movie "The Last Of His Tribe" starring Graham Greene as Ishi, this film chronicles much of Ishi's life as a teenager throughout his nearly 40-year concealment.

Discussion following with Historian Richard Burrill, author of "Ishi Rediscovered" and "Ishi in His Second World" -- including the story of the little known Indian Hunter "Hi Good" and the story of his murder which involved Ishi's tribe. Plus sign the petition for an Ishi stamp to be issued by the Post Office Aug. 28, 2011, to commemorate Ishi's appearance in Oroville. ANTHROPOLOGIST & AUTHOR RICHARD BURRILL IN ATTENDANCE!

http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/events/dec-2006.htm
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/cccpscc/