Checking Out the Cup-etition

Tim Hawkinson pursuing his investigations Saturday at the opening of "Don Suggs: One Man Group Show." He is inspecting the Feast Pole entitled "Cone" Below is a detail of "Feast Pole of an Ideal" Both works were completed last week. Here is David Pagel's insightful LA Times review from this morning.

Suggsomania Saturday Night!

Don Suggs: One Man Group Show
A survey exhibition spanning 35 years of the work of Los Angeles-based artist Don Suggs co-curated by Doug Harvey, Artist and Art Critic for the LA Weekly, and Meg Linton, Director of the Ben Maltz Gallery.
Exhibition Dates: April 14 – June 23, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 14, 5-7pm. Free and open to the public.

The first of several curatorial chickens is coming home to roost tomorrow. Even if you think you're familiar with the work of Don Suggs, I can guarantee you'll encounter at least one body of work (if not half a dozen) that you haven't seen. Above and below are examples from one of my favorite discoveries during the curatorial process -- a remarkable series of altered found images from the early 70s. Apologies for the photo quality -- my bad. From my catalog essay:

"The early painting Lady (1975) prefigures how Suggs -- on his own terms -- would later allow geometry to resurface as a tool of semiotic interference. But the most exhaustive roadmap of these future concerns was laid out in his Decodes, a little-seen but remarkable group of small, playful collagey interventions. Also known as “Paint Ons”, the Decodes overlay an extensive array of found and appropriated imagery – often from magazines or other commercial reproductions such as postcards – with various painted configurations of the nine geometric forms*. The Decodes prefigure much of Suggs’ later work involving obscured vistas -- as well as the signature found-image obliterations by John Baldessari which they predate by a decade. These small works set the template for Suggs’ multivalent use of ideal geometric forms superimposed on (or otherwise conflated with) stock pictorial representations: they interrupt the trompe l’oeil conspiracy between the viewer and the ground image while delivering a formal structural translation of the picture’s mechanism – simultaneously destabilizing and reinforcing the image; diluting its authority while corroborating its essential authenticity as a picture.

While this is a potent formula, easily (and elsewhere) mined for an entire career, Suggs adds extra layers of playful consonance by incorporating aspects of the source material’s narrative content – often simply through his choice of imagery, as in “Ike,” a rectilinear reduction of General Eisenhower delivering a perfect 45˚’ salute – I mean like, how square can you get? Other examples undermine the order of symbolic codes by looping them back on themselves, as in "Premier Alambic w/ Monk Chartreuse", which superimposes (among other geometric figures) a vessel-shaped silhouette in the titular hue – obviously a jug of the very yellow-green liqueur presumably being distilled in the underlying image. This sort of punning subversion of the platonic idealism of the geometric overlays throws a monkeywrench into the implied dualism of the pictorial/abstract pairings and keeps the viewer on his or her toes. The visual clarity, sweetness, and wit of these works rival the best “Grafis Annual 76” had to offer (which is saying a lot) and suggest that Suggs, in the best Modern tradition, has one foot (and a phantom potential career) in graphic design."


* "the 9 underlying geometric forms of nature (the circle, cross, triangle, square, teardrop, spiral, mandorla, wave, and spire)"

22: Ruptured Rationalist Hubris Spews Glossolalia Plume!

Harry Smith Anthology Remixed
Alt.Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
8 May – 30 June 2007

The exhibition aims to create a visual representation of the Anthology of American Folk Music edited by Harry Smith. Artists have been selected who reflect the ethos of the Anthology and whose practice may explore processes of patterning, systems, music, alchemy, anthropology, social change or a ‘folk’ identity. We are interested in creating an archive to continue the collective history and human experience of the Anthology, as seen through the eyes of contemporary visual artists and musicians.

The exhibition has been organised in consultation with Rani Singh of the Harry Smith Archives and is a companion exhibition to the Harry Smith exhibition at Reg Vardy Gallery in Sunderland UK which runs from 1st May – 8th June 2007.


PS: If anyone wants to print out a hi-res copy of the image above, there's one here.

Click the Ha Ha for entertaining audiovisual presentation!

Sigmar Polke "Slimming Through Richter" 1965
Ha Ha!

Kroncong, Dangdut, Ronggeng, Langgam Jawa, AND Kerawitan?!!

The Dead Walk the Earth

On Friday, while others mourned the loss of their saviour, the hepcats at Il Coral celebrated Halloween with an array of musical acts including Fireworks, who were joined by Victorville's 12-year-old bluegrass sensation Lolo Lodot. Here's an mp3 of their entire performance.


"I just want to point out to all of you the real meaning of this holiday... because it's at midnight on Halloween that the REAL Jesus Christ rises from his grave and walks the earth, killing and drinking the blood of virgins. Are there any virgins in the house? You have two hours."
- My Cousin Clint

A Washington Post

Here are a couple of shots from my most recent film shoot -- Cecil B. Shantibugian's "Mimesis" -- in which I play the role of George Washington. Things were fine until they shut down the jukebox and wouldn't give me back my dollar. Whose face is on it anyway? Motherfuckers. Photos by James Chertkow, M.Ed.


"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. It does little to enhance your calm."
G. Washington

Dangling Participles

Having been suspended from the ceiling of the Armory Northwest in Pasadena for seven weeks, I finally got around to snapping some shots of my Limp Chandelier just before the deinstall. Them's Deb Diehl's video silhouette cameos in the background.

Poupee in the Mist

Reyna, pursuing her investigations this morning at the top of Elysian Park.

Prolegomena to Any Future Chick Art

My testy review of Connie Butler's WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution has been online for a week, but the print version hits the streets tomorrow. The picture shows a little-known portion of Judy Chicago's oeuvre, which is described therein.

Both Sides Now

Here's the back side of one of the five sculptural components of my piece "Out/In," created for Jan Tumlir's 'White Album' show at Shoshona Wayne in 2000, and resurrected for this show opening this Thursday March 15th at West LA College:

A Warning Shouldn't Be Pleasant
March 15 - May 11, 2007

WEST LA COLLEGE GALLERY
9000 Overland Ave., Culver City, CA 90230

Opening Celebration: Thursday, March 15, 2007, 6-9pm
with a musical performance by Wreck of the Zephyr

HIGH ENERGY CONSTRUCTS is proud to present its second off-site project, A Warning Shouldn't Be Pleasant – a group exhibition of 23 California-based artists' responsiveness to the end of the world. The exhibition takes its title from an essay by the poet Alice Notley. Like Notely's subtly brash warning, the selected artists playfully and irreverently examine notions of apocalypse with hope and abandonment. Offering conceptually and metaphorically uncanny responses to a somewhat melancholic world-view-notion through a various range of media and visual languages, A Warning Shouldn't Be Pleasant aims at evoking a series of mercurial and illuminating narratives amongst artworks, which address, embody, and explore this very current and somewhat timelessly elusive and incalculable theme. Revealing connections to belief, doubt, and politics, the artworks here hope to contribute to a larger more realistic conversation that seems to not be happening loudly nor clearly enough, concerning and/or in response to current global obsessions with cultural stasis and battle.

Featured artists include: Jimmy Chertkow, Marcus Civin, Christian Cummings and Michael Decker, Todd Davis, Julie Dermansky, Nicholas Grider, Mark Hagen, Kent Hammond, Jeremiah Harrison, Doug Harvey, Marc Herbst, Gregory Michael Hernandez, Peter Herrmann, August Highland, Candice Lin, Jay Lizo, Katrin Jurati, Caroline Rankin, Greg Santos, Michael Smoler, David E. Stone, and Megan Whitmarsh.

March 15 – May 11, 2007
Gallery hours: Monday - Friday, 10am-4pm

WEST LA COLLEGE GALLERY
9000 Overland Ave., Culver City, CA 90230
Official Map & Directions
Unofficial directions:
get yrself to Culver City off the 10 west or something...exit at Overland...
the campus is on Overland just past Jefferson...
once you turn into the campus, take yr second right (Albert Vera Street) and follow it up to parking lot B...take a right into parking lot B and across the way is the FAC...
the gallery is in the Fine Arts Complex...


for more information email: info@highenergyconstructs.com or call 323.227.7920

Through a glass, Dorkily

AKA Retroactive Breed Parity II. Here is Al Gordon, C.D. as seen through a Pellegrino bottle.

Danceability in the Crosshairs

The other opening I made was Brad Eberhard's & Allan Ludwig's thesis shows out at Claremont Graduate University. Brad, in addition to being a talented painter, is the leader of Wounded Lion. For this evening's musical portion, however, Brad subcontracted to a remarkable act: The Incredible 2-headed DJ Scottie Vera, who regaled the hundred + revellers with such classic dance numbers as "Psycho" and "Hello Lucille, Are You a Lesbian?" These conjoined fellows are on the right track and will almost certainly go all the way!! Photo by Jun.

For Organ Security Please Wear a Vest

I actually made it out to a couple of openings. The unveiling of the Getty version of Tim Hawkinson's Uberorgan (and concurrent 'Zoopsia' exhibit) was embiggened by the gourmet hot dogs and presence of Gordon Haines. My recent LA WEEKLY studio visit with Tim is detailed here. This clipping -- from the Uberorgan's original installation at Mass MoCA in 2001 -- is reminiscent of Cecil Beaton's Jackson Pollock fashion spread in Vogue executed almost exactly 50 years previously. I'll see if I can't dig up the pictures I took of "der Ub" in Manhattan during the Whitney retrospective in 2005.

Retroactive Breed Parity

We have received complaints that Nigel the whippet has been accorded considerable exposure on this blog at the expense of his older greyhound comrades, Albert and Reyna. To begin to address this issue, we offer the above recent snap of Reyna in full regal splendor. Mess of other posts coming soon. Thankyou for your patience. The MGT.
Addendum: In response to a number of misguided comments on the 'cuteness' of this image, it behooves us to point out that it was not posed and that the crown-shaped cushion did in fact find its way into this position entirely by chance. Thankyou. The MGT.

Dog Meat the Press

On Tuesday, Feb 23 at 8 PM the CCCP-SCC and Echo Park Film Center will proudly host the only LA appearance of Kim Yung Soo, President of Kea So Joo, and world-renowned pioneer in western canine culinary arts. "Lot people eat dog...Dog is healthy for you...You make more money, more people happy. You get cleaner air. No burn up dog. No waste dog. People pet no disappear. Everybody happy...Dog no suffer. We have quick death for dog." Please join us for this inspiring and motivational event. 1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd), Los Angeles, CA 90026

Layered Uncanny Surveilance

Made the scene at Diana Zlotnick's salon-thang last night, where Christian Cummings and Michael "Eckerat" channeled offbeat tee-shirt designs with the aid of a ouija board. In this photo, the spirit of Brice Foreskin is sketching an image of two men joined at the penis, surrounded by the legend "Brothers from Different Mothers" but entitled "Champion Knot Tie." From the background a plate in an early 60's Pop painting by MIA LA artist Michael Oledart gazes in awe. And you thought the Melvins was the place to be!

FALURE!

The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest have just released their first book: FAILURE! Experiments in Aesthetics and Social Practices edited by Nicole Antebi, Colin Dickey, and Robby Herbst. The book includes Cathertine Lord's ruminations on Valerie Solanis, Sarah Lewinson's meditations on the collapse of Lou Gottlieb's Morningstar Ranch commune, and much more. My piece is called "St Sebastian Tom Sawyer Cathy Mishima Expo 67: Fragments from a Failed Exegesis of a Failed Exhibition about Failure" Here's the front page they couldn't use for the book, and a color detail of "The Guisewite Ambergris" Copies are available at High Energy Constructs as well as direct from the publisher.

Pac o' Family in the Mist

Speaking of Venice, we took my visiting family there the other night when is was all foggy -- you couldn't see 30 feet and there was no one else around. Very spooky. Here's what the marine layer looks like when you flash it.

Manifest Destiny Ends Here

I'm finally back in the WEEKLY with a review of the Hammer's retrospective of Vija Celmins'drawings. If you're in LA check it out. Here's one of her drawings of my favorite view of LA -- looking west from Venice! There's something haywire with the WEEKLY's server, so I'm going to post the article's text in the comments section.

Balancing Monster from the Past

My solo show has been drawing some odd birds out of the woodwork. I received some mysterious email containing a mail art comic strip I did when I was 12 or 13 (of which I have no copy) with my face photoshopped onto one of the characters and no further information. The weirdest thing is that it was this comic I would mail out at random with a sparkler enclosed, and the picture of me is from the opening of the solo show, when FIREWORKS played. In its listing, the LA WEEKLY misunderstood and said we'd be setting off actual fireworks, so we were actually trying to acquire sparklers for the band throughout the day just in case anyone was coming specifically for the pyrotechnics. Anyway, after several exchanges and some reverse engineering of anagrams I finally figured out my stalker's ID. THERE IS NO WAY THIS INDIVIDUAL COULD POSSIBLY HAVE KNOWN OF THIS SPARKLER CONNECTION! Mere coincidence? The comic is too embarassingly derivative to share, but here's an awesome mystery image that was included in the most recent communique.

The Ghost of Joe Meek?

Thanks to Benji C for this remarkable photo apparently showing a manifestation of what could be the spirit of English record producer Joe Meek during the "The Day The Music Died" performance at High Energy Constructs, which took place on the 48th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, which -- not coincidentally -- is the 40th anniversary of Meek's suicide.

UPDATE! Please see comment section

Sarah Bubbles

Here's my niece Sarah, down from Calgary for Disneyland and related phenomena with her elderly brother Jack and even more elderly mother Margie. Her interests include hockey, soccer, surfing, other sports, video games, anime, manga, toys, and ice cream. She thinks this other picture is better, so I'll put it up as well.

Nigel Bubbles

OK I'll get back to my writing chores now.

The Day the Music Died

Well, that was pretty awesome. Especially considering we'd never played together before. Unfortunately the telephone link to Canada went south about halfway through.

I was trying out this cheap digital voice recorder (Olympus DS-2) for documenting audio. Sounds OK to me, though I realize that's not saying much. Anyway, I've uploaded mp3s of the performance in a zip compressed folder here.

Thanks to guest soloists Steve Roden, Dani Tull, & Rick Potts
Mannlicher Carcano LA: Really Happening, Herr Schurdt, Bonnje Pjarker, Cocoa Puph, Christ's Cumming II
Mannlicher Carcano proper: Gogo Godot, Porter Hall
Psychedelic lightshow extravaganza by Robbie Herbst and Karl Erickson

Nigel got some traumatic shmutz embedded in his cornea, so he's been coned for a few weeks.

Thought Bubble

I've been too busy to post images from my show, but here are a couple of shots finally. One is the always amazing Wounded Lion , pictured are Brad Eberhart and the brothers Kalendarian rocking out at the vernissage. The other shot is the gallery's front window, showing the light sculpture "What's on a Wizard's Mind" 2007


Tonight at High Energy Constructs: “The Day The Music Died”
Saturday, February 3, 2007
8:30pm
$5 at the door

As part of Doug Harvey’s exhibition Great Expectorations, HIGH ENERGY CONSTRUCTS presents an evening of serendipitous interplay featuring:

Psychedelic Light Swirls by Sly Robby and the Karl Stone

Experimental musical compositions by Mannlicher Carcano with Rick Potts and Steve Roden

Sound and performance by Dani Tull

ALSO, there will be a debut screening of the pilot episode of LESS ART VIDEO ZINE, a cable access movement created by Doug Harvey and Lee Lynch, featuring a live performance by recently disbanded indie icons DEAD MOON, a profile of 6-yr-old painting prodigy Marla Olmstead, a video by Brian Bress, and much more!!!

Fungus for the Whole Family

In conjunction with the show DARKNESS & LIGHT at Pasadena's Armory Northwest (in which I also have a sculpture) I'll be presenting my show of Moldy Slides with vintage hypnosis records and live musical saw accompaniement at 8 PM Saturday, January 20. This is a selection (140 from a couple of thousand) of moldy travel slides scavenged from the pile of debris outside the house of an Echo Park hoarder who must have got a court order to clean up.

965 North Fair Oaks Avenue, Pasadena

Darkness & Light
Opening reception, , 7-9 p.m.

Happy Birthday Art!

I'll have a post about my solo show opening and the upcoming moldy slides screening shortly, but first a heads-up concerning a rare Mannlicher Carcano radio broadcast hosted by Gogo Godot in Winnipeg on The University of Manitoba's CFUM-FM on Wednesday from 11 - 1 Pacific Time (1 -3 Winnipeg time) as part of the station's all day radio art celebration of "Art's birthday." Tune in. We'll give Art one to grow on! In the ear! Oh yeah, there was a record number of adjunct participants in the LA Mannlicher audio dungeon two weeks ago: Clockwise from Buddy Holy (in orange shirt); Purse Launch, Herr Schurdt, Cocoa Puph, Christ's Cumming II. Photographed by Really Happening.

Vintage Wolvertoon

Just finished a catalog essay for an exhibition of Glenn Bray's collection of work by the amazing cartoonist Basil Wolverton, which will open at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana in September. Bray's an amazing guy who, among other things, started Carl Barks doing oil paintings of Uncle Scrooge and produced Fred Blassie's "Pencil Neck Geek" single. Above is an episode of Wolverton's beautiful 1930's unpublished strip "Ethan Downing" from Bray's collection. The strip has elaborate typed narrative descriptions stuck on the backs of the drawings, but I prefer the WTF factor that they have in this form, as in "WTF is that stuff dropping on that giant frog inside the yurt frame?" I stacked the 2 panels so they'd be more visible here, but the originl format was side by side, daily strip style.

Nigel's Pa

For all fans of Nigel, we've been looking up his pedigree and came across this picture of his sire CH Sportingfield Hot Topic. Spittin image!

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!