Colorado in Review

Two posts in April, that's the least ever. But I'll try and compensate. Mi esposa's solo show vernisages next Saturday, so I'll plug that shortly, but first a few more shots from my Colorado expedition: Above is a metal Disney-themed picnic table covered in snow - I probably hadn't touched snow in 5 years, so it was pretty exciting. The rest are from Casa Bonita - the Menudo air freshener or whatever it is from a bleak little fake market stall that hasn't been dusted since the 80s; a television monitor above the waiting shute asks and answers the question on everyone's mind; the view from behind the cliff-divers' waterfall. More soon!

All Aboard for Casalogical Studies

I have returned from my fact-finding mission to the Denver area and will be filing a fuller report shortly. In the meantime, behold your humble scribe getting all Patacritical on the Casa Bonita bus' ass. Yes, that Casa Bonita!

Who Moderates the Moderators?

LAST DAY OF JEFFREY VALLANCE'S GALLIMAUFRY AT
TRACK 16 GALLERY, INCLUDING PANEL DISCUSSION
WITH ALL SIX ARTISTS MODERATED BY DOUG HARVEY

Saturday, April 5, at 7:00 P.M.

Been crazy busy, going to do my time at Casa Bonita next week, gotta finish the Mel's Hole catalog. More on all that soon, but first this:

Closing Reception and Panel Discussion for:

Jeffrey Vallance: Blinky the Friendly Hen 30th Anniversary Exhibition
James Goodwin: Nostalgic Subterfuge
Laurie Hassold: Supernature
Marjan Hormozi: Vice Squad
Dave Shulman: Exhibit Dave
Scotty Vera: Eat This

Panelists include: Jeffrey Vallance, James Goodwin, Laurie Hassold,
Marjan Hormozi, Dave Shulman, and Scotty Vera.

Moderated by Doug Harvey.

Admission free

Refreshments will be served
7:00 to 7:30: Coffee and donuts
After panel discussion: Champagne and beer until 9:00

Above: 'Lobster Dom Rescuing Anne Frank from the Gestapo' by Scotty Vera; Photo by Miss Clover

The Gallery That Came In from the Cold

That was my working title for this piece on the Jancar Gallery and Marie Thibeault's show, which is down now. This weekend saw the opening of two geometric abstractionists' excellent solo shows - Gina Borg's luminous spiritual-in-abstract-artisms (Green on Pink, 2007 above) and Katy Crowe's rickety geodesics (untitled, 2008 below)
The show's up through April 5th.

Taste the Hate!

Most of the (rare) negative commentary regarding 'Some Paintings' has been alternately predictable - as in too much, too crowded, wrong painters, and no overriding curatorial theme (duh) - and baffling - as in "Has this person actually seen the show or ever read my writing?" - and so not really worth plowing through. But I was googling myself online for an ancient piece I wrote on Jeffrey Vallance's work (still looking - anyone who has a digital copy of Lateral Drawing, my email's in the thing there) and I came across this completely-over-the-top harangue attributed to one of my personal heroes, Caligula:

"On the other hand, there is hate, which you shouldn't mimic, because it should never be coupled with reason, and writing is always more reasonable than blood. The critic's show was Hell, of which I also know much. Harvey hung too many bodies in a too strong tree. This shouldn't be permitted – it's something a Senator would do, whenever it's time to punish the Senate in just that way. Harvey put the worst thing he could find by a beautiful artist next to an artwork that makes the ones around it ugly, again and again, seventy times in all, each murder in turn diagnosed and autopsied by the critic, in the manner of biography of the artist so impaled. Fantastically hateful work... I always appreciate when the System elevates someone who hates his fate to the public stage to celebrate failure or to hide worse ones or to oppress the Good Better or Best Choice from the weakened mob. I appreciate this tactic most, of course, because it was my greatest gift and skill."

Sounds like they've been putting the Brown Acid in the water over at Claremont's business schools - which I guess helps explain Stephen Cambone, but bodes ominous weird for the future of Arts & Cultural Management.

Sizzling Lobster Chicken Fiesta!

Sorry for the infrequent postings; I've been swamped, and it seems will continue to be. One project I recently helped coordinate (and DJ'ed at with Jimmy Chertkow) was the solo debut of the artist Scotty Vera (in conjunction with Jeffrey Vallance's 30th Anniversary Chapel to Blinky the Friendly Hen - Blinky's grave pictured above). Scotty's work is incredibly diverse, although it is mostly painting and always contains an image of a lobster and Dom DeLuise. The LA WEEKLY ran this image of the artist in front of his titular canvas as part of its online slideshow of the combined openings. The shows are both up through April 5 at Track 16.

Prodigal Fudds

Flash Fudd "God's Smug" (1999) [sorry for the lousy Pshop border]

I've been doing these comic strip collages since I was 11 years old, and a couple of years back I lost track of the portfolio case full of (for me) fussily crafted artworks I'd been lugging around for decades It was weird, because if I were to pack one carload of stuff to take with me when the shit hits the fan, they would be in it - but their disappearance barely registered. Makes me wonder what else and how much I could do without. Then on Thursday in the course of fixing the water heater and preparing for a studio visit, I finally recovered my stash - albeit soaked with a couple of years rain and sprouting the black mold - from an old suitcase on the side deck. I love collaborating with decay - as I excavate the moldier examples, maybe I'll scan and post a couple. (A selection of Flash Fudd strips exhibited at LA's Wayward Gallery in Oct 2001.)


Flash Fudd "Love Out" (1998)

A Glimpse of Holes to Come

Lee Lynch, Jennifer West, and Marnie Weber with Christian Cummings as Mel

Just a taste of the goings-on that will culminate in my next large curatorial project - 'Aspects of Mel's Hole: Artists Respond to a Paranormal Land Event Occurring in Radiospace' which will open at Cal State Fullerton's Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana in September. Marnie Weber is working on a site-specific Super 8/video installation, and I had the chance to hang out at a recent shoot in Newhall.


Tito stands guard while Thorbyorg Jonsdottir helps Lee Lynch prepare for his role as the "fetal seal with human-looking eyes."


So maybe the dog wasn't 'dead' after all. And the whole resurrection thing, his weird behavior. He was 'dead' drunk and then wickedly hung over! Just like Jesus!

You Don't Tell the Bees - the Bees Tell You.

Apart from the flu and dark dealings with the Insurance Industry over my beleagured 91 Honda Accord Wagon, I've been keeping busy with a number of unusual projects. One of these is the class in 'patacritical Interrogation Techniques I'm teaching for the Critical Studies Department at Cal Arts. 'Patacriticism, for those who don't know, is to criticism as 'pataphysics is to physics. This seems to be working out to be around the place where paranoid conspiracy theory and experimental poetry trade identities - near to J.G. Ballard's 'The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As A Downhill Motor Race' but back and to the left, and with lots more words. And moving pictures. And we're not just talking Zapruder here.


I remember hearing about 'Wax, or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees' - the first straight-to-internet streaming feature - when it was first released, but didn't have access to the webosphere at the time. But I tracked down a rare VHS copy for the P.I.T. class, and during my research found out that it's still available for viewing online 15 years later!


It's embedded in a complex tangle of hypertextual elaborations, but I suggest working "straight" through the narrative first - the layers of science, myth, fantasy, humor, and paranormal and patacritical implications that make up this ultra low-budget treasure are more than enough to chew on. It's like Matthew Barney with 1000 times more words and 1000 times less money. I'm a Barney Booster, but this works just as good for me.



Briefly, 'Wax' is the story of a weapons guidance system software designer in Alamogordo, NM whose hobby is beekeeping. But once the bees drill a hole in his head and install bee television, watch out! Consensus reality reconfigures into a prismatic hive mind that collapses time and erases the boundaries between individual personalities and autonomous dimensions, culminating - I kid you not - with a sacrificial military strike in Iraq.

SPPR: 'Some Paintings' Press Roundup

Friday saw a flurry of journalistic activity concerning 'Some Paintings: The Third (2007) Annual LA Weekly Biennial' with Christopher Knight's lead review in the Los Angeles Times leading the pack. (The print version had a better headline owing to an apparent Larry Cohen reference - "It's Alive! With wit, diversity")

'Interiority' by Brian Cooper

Simultaneously, Emma Gray's L.A. CONFIDENTIAL column for Artnet's online magazine provided an ethusiastic overview of the show and opening.

'Smear Campaign' by Victoria Reynolds

Earlier in the month, Emma also named the 'SP' the #1 show in LA in her column on the Saatchi website

'Wellness' by Brad Spence

I was surprised and impressed at the unconventional choice of pieces singled out by Chris and Emma. For example, they both gave props to Esther Pearl Watson's faux-outsider UFO-scape.


Another early entry came from artblogging LA/sixspace multitasker Caryn Coleman in her debut online column for ArtReview's new online edition.
'Tekel Upharsin (He weighed, now they divide)' by Gustavo Herrera

Illin

Wow. That was some opening. 3000+?! I've been deathly ill with that new long-duration flu that's going around - it'll have lasted a full week as of tonight. Had to miss my first Patacritical Interrogation Techniques seminar and everything. There was a pretty good LA Weekly online slideshow of the event as well as a photo spread and write-up in the current print issue, but I can't seem to find it on the site. In the meantime, check out John Geary's photo album, from which the above shot of the inimitable Michael Q. Schmidt is excerpted. My thanks again to everyone who made it happen, especially the bands and performers! If you haven't seen the show, make sure you do - it's only up for a little over a month.

Accordian, Aerial, Africa, Aircraft, Airstream, Alain Delon, etc...

In my capacity as Secretary of the CCCP-SCC, and in conjunction with the artist's imminent speaking engagement through UCLA at the Hammer Museum, I would like to direct your attention to a remarkable work of Mongo Video by Canadian photographer Roy Arden, consisting of 28,144 images gleaned from the interweb and arranged in alphabetical order to a jaunty organ loop, like a DIY Koyaanisqatsi directed by Bernd and Hilla Becher. It's called The World as Will and Representation - Archive 2007 and is located on Arden's website.

What I did on my Winter Vacation

“SOME PAINTINGS”
THE THIRD (2007) LA WEEKLY ANNUAL BIENNIAL
CURATED BY DOUG HARVEY
JANUARY 12–FEBRUARY 16, 2008

Opening reception on Saturday, January 12 from 7 P.M. to 11 P.M. with refreshments and performances by The Spirit Girls, Wounded Lion, John Kilduff of Let’s Paint TV, and others.
Here's who's in it and why.*

TRACK 16 GALLERY & SMART ART PRESS
2525 MICHIGAN AVE. BLDG. C1
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90404
P 310.264.4678 F 310.264.4682
reception@track16.com
www.track16.com

*except Wendell Gladstone, whose hot-off-the-easel 'Drawn Out' is reproduced above. His missing profile reads as follows:

Wendell Gladstone’s seething, super-saturated neo-mythological allegories have oscillated between sculpture and painting in a way that opens new paths in both media while shedding light on their disparity in tolerance levels for fantastic, opulently decorative experimental storytelling.

Yo, Citizens of New Hampshire!

This is the one Bonzo Dog song I could never find, but just did and it is very timely. It's a reunion single called "No Matter Who You Vote For, The Government Always Gets In (Heigh Ho)" recorded for the 1987 British General Election but unreleased until 1992.

Pump It Up

If, like myself, you were disappointed by the "mysterious" interruption of the live broadcast feed from TimeWarner cable during Saturday's episode of "Let's Paint TV," you will be glad to know that the unadulterated, un-cut-off version of the show is now up on Youtube in three parts:

Let's Paint the Tinman & Perform Open Heart Surgery Part 1
Let's Paint the Tinman & Perform Open Heart Surgery Part 2
Let's Paint the Tinman & Perform Open Heart Surgery Part 3

I think we may have witnessed the pinnacle of Western Civilization here, people.

But just in case, swing by the opening of the Third Annual (2007) LA Weekly Biennial: Some Paintings next Saturday, January 12th, from 7 - 11, during which Mr. Kilduff will perform a live painting demonstration.

Healing Green Energy

A riotous crowd of 16 turned out for the Shishimai Lion Dance & Taiko performance at the Mitsuwa grocery store in downtown LA's Little Tokyo district, including the crazy homeless man at bottom right, whose agitated outbursts ceased briefly under the magical spell of the benevolent harvest spirit.

Mick Wakes Up

O Lucky Man (Warner Home Video)
Speaking of Candide... The middle installment of Lindsay Anderson's Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) trilogy is a sprawling Bildungsroman for the blown minds and crushed blossoms of 1973, featuring a great, brilliantly integrated soundtrack by Alan Price and a remarkable balance of dreamlike mythic recursivity and incisive (and sadly still relevant) political satire. Sometimes self-indulgence is just the ticket. Finally out on bargain-priced double DVD!

Accidentally left off the published version of my list of the 'Best Cultural Artifacts of 2007 that I Can Remember' - it goes right after the entry on the Jimbo doll.

Seasoning Unto You

"You may order your pastels from Alaska,
Imported, as the Igloo, in review"
- Evelyn Christmas (songpoem, Vol 2 track 4)

Download Outsider XMAS Vol 1
Download Outsider XMAS Vol 2

Tracklists in Comments

A Washington Post Two

While I'm linking to youtube, I've been meaning to follow up my post regarding my cinematic foray to Long Beach last April by linking to the completed short film Mimesis. I wish they'd used the part where George is doing the frug, but you can't talk to these people. I also noticed that the enhance your calm link was leading to the wrong material, so I fixed it. Next project Dr. Shantibugs? George W and John Spartan have much in common!

Let's Paint Mannlicher Carcano's Portrait

Mannlicher Carcano's appearance on John Kilduff's public access instructional painting program 'Let's Paint TV' on Youtube. The band in this incarnation includes (L to R) Christ's Cumming II, Herr Schurdt, Really Happening, & Gogo Godot.

I hate how these embedded videos slow down the page loading, so I'll just provide a screen shot and links, OK?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Can't Get There from Here

"What is the point of making art? I worked at a Montessori daycare one summer, and there was this one kid who — when other entertainments weren’t forthcoming — would endlessly recite a schizophrenic Zen vaudeville routine of his own precocious concoction, to wit: “Why did the chicken cross the road? I don’t know Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Why did the chicken cross the road? I don’t know Ha ha...” The Art World has yet to arrive at this level of sublime denial, but it’s mostly due to the enormous quantity of multiple personalities duking it out — or more often avoiding the issue. In a fashion culture driven by planned obsolescence and amnesia, there’s no place for consensus — except maybe the one that suggests nobody push the question too far, at the risk of queering a good thing for everybody. It’s sort of a microcosm thing."


Continued, eventually getting around to Linda Stark's Potion Paintings, here.

Shortage of Fats Imperils Nation at War! Do Your Bit!

If the lure of XMAS salvage (now including guest sub-curator Jodi Wille of Process Media presenting previously unscreened video of local glam evangelist Miss Velma and the SOURCE Family’s Hawaiian Christmas special!!!) is not enough to get you to Echo Park this Saturday night, consider the synergistic possibilities of this:

Fry-B-Q 3, Wrath of Fry-B-Q
Saturday Dec 15, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Free Admission/$5 all you can fry

Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado
Los Angeles, CA, 90026
213-483-8761

Here’s what you do…

1) Arrive between 7 - 10 pm Saturday Dec 15th.

2) Bring something edible to fry. Machine's trained fryolater technicians will be standing by, eager to batter and fatify your soon to be delicious snacks. Machine's extensive testing suggests that almost any item will bring great fried satisfaction - potatoes, fish, vegetables, onions, twinkies, etc. Just in case Machine bought extra fire extinguishers.

3) Bring checks small and large and become a friend of Machine Project. Your donation helps Machine keep doing what Machine does, and is fully tax deductible. Details on Machine's support page

The secret bar (accessible through a stabilized rift in the time/space continuum) will be open.

Southland Skintasia

I'm a little late promoting this year's 'Skin' themed Pasadena Art & Ideas Festival, but many of the related shows are still up, and you can still get the catalog containing the rest of this essay.


From it’s origins in Otzi the Iceman’s elegant geometric inkage and the Paleolithic inverse spray-paint hand-prints of Chauvet Cave (not to mention the Venus of Willendorf - if only for square footage! Va-va-Voom!) art has been inextricably intermingled with the 5 layers of the upper integument. Underlying this seemingly fundamental use of epidermis as canvas is a radical semiotic event: skin inversely branded onto symbol, what “thought-stylist” R. Gros-Tumore has referred to as “OOTAT culture.” “The decision to deliberately mark the body,” claims Gros-Tumore “is the very Genesis-spot of Art, the point where abstraction of and alienation from the totally physiomatic Self is first materially recorded, to the best of our knowledge. It is, in fact, the opposite of branding; it is the ground zero of individuation.”

Whether or not the very origins of artmaking are to be found in this prehistoric moment of self-objectification, skin -- as a subject, metaphor, and even medium – has undeniably been a major recurring theme throughout art history. Along with three-point linear perspective and anatomical verisimilitude, the convincing depiction of skin was (and remains) one of the holy grails of pictorial illusionism, the dominant criterion of significant and successful art until the Modern era. Nor would this be a concern were it not for the peculiar exception granted the Fine Arts from various codes of prudery over the centuries, resulting both in countless Renaissance Classicist and Neoclassical depictions of nude Greek goddesses and equally abundant early 20th century mail-order pulp booklets of “Nude artist’s model” photography.

Solutions to You

More posts soon I swear to god. In the meantime, take comfort in the inspirational thought-stylings of Dethklok leader Nathan Explosion:



Update: First my nephews never get their talking Towelly dolls and now this? Screw you Cartoon Network! So 20th century. Here's a transcription:

Nathan: [reading the scripted commencement speech] Harvard... solutions... solutions to you...
Ofdensen: [whispers] Salutations!
Nathan: [tossing the speech aside] I don't need this stupid speech! (looking out at the graduates) You think you're smart huh? Think you can come up here and take a piece of this? Huh? Any of you? You? You? Listen, Harvard. I'm a billionaire. And most of you are gonna graduate and move back in with your parents! I'm gonna tell you somethin', though. We have something in common: we're all gonna die. No matter whatcha' do. No matter whatcha' do with your lives, you're dead! You're dead! You're dying. You're gonna die. All of you. Dead. You, dead. You, dead. All of you. You, lady? Your tits will be eaten by maggots. In just a few short years. So here's my message. My message to you. A very simple message: Go forth. Go forth, and DIIIIIE!

OK, here's the official site's version. You should just never buy anything by the company whose ad you have to sit through to get to the actual video. UPDATE 2020: OK now you don't have to watch the ad. Does Cartoon Network even still exist?

Thrift Store Movies XMAS

Just a heads up on one upcoming curatorial project:

The Coalition for Cinematic Conservation and Preservation – Southern California Chapter and the Echo Park Film Center are proud to present
A Thrift Store Movie Xmas
Inoculate yourself for the holiday season with a burst of vernacular surrealism from the CCCP-SCC. Drawing from found films, thrift store discoveries, ephemeral oddities, and oddball cult classics, the CCCP-SCC has assembled a spectacular mosaic of cartoons, television specials, musical numbers, and feature film excerpts that explore the weird side of Yuletide. Highlights include “Santa Claus” a dubbed Mexican kiddie film from 1960 in which Santa battles the Devil, the infamous “lost” Star Wars Holiday special, local glam evangelist Miss Velma, cable access musical performances, and Christmas adventures from Benji, the Mirthworms, HeMan & SheRa, and Garfield, and much more. As always, special refreshments and amazing door prizes will abound. Join the festivities!

Saturday December 15th at 8 PM at the Echo Park Film Center
1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Somehow It All Makes Sense

I have a lot of catching up to do here, and stuff to promote. Recent writing, Thrift Store Movies Xmas, the upcoming 3rd LA Weekly Annual Biennial. I should start with my review of Lari Pittman's recent show at Regen Projects Dos.

The first time I saw the work of Lari Pittman was at the multiple-careers-making “Helter Skelter” show at MOCA in 1992, and I didn’t care for it. This was the era of his menacing sexualized owls, meticulously built-up psychedelic reliefs of dripping white candles, and circus-font repetitions of the number 69. In spite of their obvious craftsmanship and manifest fluency with a wide swath of the history of visual culture, the paintings’ sense of contained (if provocative) energies — not to mention the unironic deployment of such a conventional medium as acrylic and enamel on rectangular mahogany panels — made them seem out of step with such eruptive gestures as Paul McCarthy’s tree-fucking robot and Nancy Rubins’ roof-high mushroom-cloud tangle of trailers and hot-water heaters. Pittman’s work seemed a quirky vestige of the previous decade’s Reaganomic love affair with “New Image” painting, not the shape of things to come. Continued Here.

Dogstar Dogstar (Laikalaikalaika)

In a full-page full-color story the Sunday New York Times outed my spouse M.A. Peers as the artist responsible for the space dog paintings at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. You can access the story online here or check the comments. M.A.'s first show of new work in a few years is scheduled for May at the Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Top photo by Tull, bottom by Bastian.

Bike Pathologies Tonight

In a CCCP-SCC peripheral curation, treasurer Erik Knutzen has put together a stellar program of vintage educational films for tonight!

Head on down to the Echo Park Film Center on Sunday November 4th for an evening of vintage bicycle safety films from the 50s, 60s and 70s in this special benefit screening for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. Watch as little Jane and Johnny take to the streets for the first time to learn the rules of the road. But bring your motoring friends as well, since we’ll also serve up a selection of classic driver’s safety films. We’ll round out the evening with a few bicycle related shorts and oddities from the world of educational films.

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) is a membership based advocacy organization working to improve the bicycling environment and quality of life in Los Angeles County through advocacy and education. The LACBC envisions a Los Angeles County that is a great place for everyday, year-round cycling with bicycles accepted as an integral part of our transportation system, culture, and communities.

Admission is $10 with all proceeds going to support the LACBC.

Sunday November 4th
Two screenings: 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm
The Echo Park Film Center is located at 1200 North Alvarado Street @ Sunset Blvd.