Elwa Productions Presents:
Quinn Corey
Zane Claverie
David Allyn
Shawn Gilheeney
and
The McGurk Brothers!
Rabbit Hole Gallery
33 Washington St
Dumbo, Brooklyn
Tonight!
and next week...
check ELWA Productions for all the details about the show.
Under Construction, but check back in a few days to see all the great work in the show!
Enjoy.
Stocks tied closely with the Global Psychogeography Commodities Market rose sharply today in last minute heavy trading with the announcement of Kickball Jesus's pending retirement from the World Psychogeography "Scene". Analysts say the biggest jumps were in the stocks of producers of devices such as Hand-held GPS Units, Cell Phones, ipods and Laptops now that Psychogeographers Worldwide will no longer have to fear Kickball Jesus showing up at Psychogeography Festivals running around threatening to smash these devices "into shit" and "shoving them up" unsuspecting Hipster Artists assholes in the name of "Deafeating the ALL PERVASIVE SPECTACLE in all of its incarnations".
Kickball Jesus was lying in a fetal position clutching dearly to Mother Earth drenched in a pool of sweat dry heaving channeling and petitioning the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl to bathe the earth in the blood of all those who are BLINDED BY THE SPECTACLE in a sweat lodge on the outskirts of Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona at press time and could not be reached for comment.
I thought that the Volta fair had an interesting line up. Each gallery gives over their booth to a single artist or group of artists. This made for an interesting mix of designs and displays. Essentially, each artist was able to run wild with various themes and ideas. Sometime with success, others without.
Some of the various things that were of interest to me:
An artist called Peter Sarkisian had this really cool sculpture called Extruded Video Engine. It was a composition of projections into an extruded mold, with all the parts and gear moving. Not really sure how it is done, but the effect is very cool, apparently he had been working on this project for a better part of five years.
Next project that I enjoyed was created by the Fruit and Flower Deli, they let the artists from International Festival take over the booth and throw a continuous party! Drinks were served and everybody seemed very happy.
Some interesting photography that I enjoyed, but cant remember the artist at this moment, it is almost 5am. The artist would sit on a NYC street corner for two weeks taking thousands of pictures. He would then stitch a bunch together with people doing similar things. In one everybody is scratching their head, another everyone is exhaling cigarette smoke.
Of course no art fair is complete without some pop tart art. The Rove gallery in London had some art by William Pope. He was using some pop tarts to express himself. You can see for yourself here:
One last high point for me was some work by Suzannah Sinclair. She is represented by Samson Projects in Boston. The pictures dont do these paintings any justice. They also had some nice drawings on paper by the same artist. The women she paints are hauntingly beautiful, could all be her...
I enjoyed seeing a lot of this fair. Having one artist for each booth makes it really easy to pay attention and focus and specific themes within an individual artists work. The location on 34th street was pretty nice, close to a lot of subways stops, the place was pretty busy for the time we spent there.
By the time I got to the Pulse fair today it was pretty quite. I talked to a few people and they all had expressed that it was a little slow. There are so many different fairs and art event in New York this week, it is hard to see all the different things on offer.
Of course, one of the first things that greeted me when entering the Pulse fair was the now infamous "art" skull:
I thought these small sculptures/reliefs made from old vinyl were fun. They are really well made and detailed, the artist is Carlos Aires and the gallery is Kinz, Tillo + Feigen.
Came across these totally radical architectural collages. Really clever, I enjoyed these very much, there was only this one at the booth, but they had a nice book with a whole lot more of this artists work: Dionisio Gonzalez.
Next on the map for weirdness and grotesque playful beauty awards goes to the artist Jock Mooney. There are not too many images on the gallery's website, but this guy is really prolific, creating all kinds of zany collections of imaginary worlds:
This painter William Steiger, I thought was really great. Really precise, exact painting that I thought worked really well in this painting with the birds eye view:
So one last hit for me was this guy using some serious skills to render these impossible worlds of paper, cardboard, and stone. Man can this guy draw, I think it is some of the best rendering I have seen in a long time. So precise, I came back to this drawing a few times.
So... no art party is finished without a good ol' orgy, so I leave you with the WOW factor of the evening, whatever you may think of paintings like this, it sure does look like fun!
Went to Scope last night for the preview event. The fair is running through March 30th. I was generally excited about some of the work I saw around the fair. Obviously, with so much art work, there are bound to be some horrors, I saw some really horrible painting.
Some highlights for me:
Here is my brother speaking to the artist of the piece to the left. I think he is describing how he buys and the cuts up the lines of cocaine that he puts in the work. A Swiss artist named Comenius, he was pretty interesting using cocaine to spell out Christian Dior and selling dollar bills for incremental amounts. Each dollar bill is framed and is sold, eventually the last dollar for sale will be sold for 4.5 million dollars...
Saw these buddha heads that were really impressive, made entirely from sequins. Not sure if the photos do them justice, but they were really impressive:
Next on the roster was an artist that was based in NYC but now lives in Berlin. He used to be a performance artist but is now working on felt paintings that are hilarious pop. The series is called Infinite Pizza, judge for yourself...
Another artist that I enjoyed was from Brazil, used to be a graffiti artist, who like most street artists realized they needed to make paintings and "art" objects to make money, so this is what we get. I think his works were very impressive and unique...
Hey Frank, ran into this little "living sculpture" on the way out of the fair, may be a candidate for Pflux V. ATT, a veggie powered car that is giving trips around the city for a simple barter. Sounds cool, of course no one was around when we were there and needing a ride, but to be honest, I did not have anything to barter anyway...
All in all, a pretty good fair experience, just remember to eat some food before you go into the endless halls of creativity, it can become overwhelming very quickly on an empty stomach!
Manhattan has no choice but the skyward extrusion of the Grid itself; only the Skyscraper offers business the wide-open spaces of a man-made Wild West, a frontier in the sky.
- Rem Koolhaas
One of the cool things about working at an Indian gallery is that there is a lot of really great work coming out of the east. I am hanging a show for an opening tomorrow. Muhammad Zeeshan is the artist and he is from Pakistan.
I met with him today, he told some interesting stories. In a very real way his work is meant to agitate and make people feel uncomfortable, especially coming from a conservative country like Pakistan. Zeeshan told me that the image above was confiscated by Pakistani customs because it was "pornographic". He said they look at every cd and the images on them! Another gallery in India would not print some of the works in the catalog for fear of a backlash.
One painting of Zeeshan's has two naked ladies and some bearded men on the other half. A newspaper would only print a photo of Zeeshan and the bearded half of the painting! The stories go on.
The artist showing in our London gallery is very interesting as well. I think his work is a direct commentary on US foreign policy and the abuse of habeus corpus in the last seven or so years. It is not a pretty picture:
Another project that has been commissioned for Art Dubai is Wim Delvoye's cement truck: (the image speaks for itself)
In New York, I have not seen this show, but was just checking out the images. I like this work a lot. It is really intricate but the figures and themes can be easily read. I thought it was worth a look:
http://www.pierogi2000.com/flatfile/joneskim.html
Enjoy.
After a quick peak at some trash art I wander around and stumble across this little place called HQ. Now this is my kind of gallery! More or less 200 sq ft, a small desk and a bizarre sculpture occupying the space. I start talking to Jackson McDade, the proprietor of this establishment known as HQ. 
Turns out he is part of a collective called the EH-TEAM. 
Much like the work of PIPS, this group is interested in public interventions and actions. KJ, while not so public, you should check out the cardboard hot tub and invite them to Provflux V.
One of my favorite things to do in new places is just wander and try and remember monuments, signs, strange architectural features. Although spaces are always changing, getting to know a place using its architecture as a guide helps me make mental maps. That way, I dont have to look at the crumpled maps in my pocket every three minutes. A couple examples of some crazy combinations of styles, times, and symbolism:
Hugh?
Also, smaller things, like pills hanging outside a gallery. 
Jumbo pencil collections at the City Reliquary.
And radical bikes showing some serious Puerto Rican pride. 
At this point I have covered a ton of ground and it is getting dark out and starting to rain that bone chilling Northeast sleet. I know there is a show by the What Cheer Brigade at a nearby bar, where I was hoping to run into some old friends, but I was deterred by the rain and a drunken phone call from my brother.
Time for the nightlife! The derive continues... underground in the subway.
I love these, they are some really great ads for nonsense: 
At this point the cultural part of the marathon derive is over and its headlong back into Manhattan for the drunken overdrive part of this adventure. As a lot of you may know, this can be my favorite part of a long city walk: a whole lot of beer.
In the end it turned out to be a good day of wandering and culture topped off in the evening with some more wandering and a huge dose of debauchery. We would have done the likes of Arthur Cravan and Ivan Chtcheglov proud.
Next stop: Manchester!
A Lazy Sunday Stroll
Beginning the day early, I get myself out the door, determined to further my marathon derive training. Inspired by other peoples projects like the Art Riot and events from Provflux past, I am embracing a hardcore workout regime.
For once, I brought my camera. 
Walking around the Brooklyn/Williamsburg area I just cant help make comparisons to my beloved city of Providence. On the waterfront there is major development going on. Some of the construction is brand new, some of it is rehab, but it is the same model. Just recently in the area a scenario much like the legendary Oak/Troy eviction on the coldest evening of the winter in Providence a few years back, a whole building of artisans, small businesses and artists where evicted in EXACTLY the same circumstances here in Williamsburg two weeks ago. Exactly the same story.
The unique architectural features are endlessly fascinating. The brutality of the landscape is striking. Even with the development taking place in fits and spurts all over the place, there are vast expanses of the skeletons and fossils of the industrial revolution.
There is a great presence of street art wherever you are. It is obvious that this once was and may still be a haven for artistic and creative types.
Legendary Space Invaders...
There is a lot going on in this area. It is fun to wander around. Like I said a lot of the landscape and the amount of broken glass on the sidewalks makes me think of Providence. Truth be told, this derive is not completely true to its cause, there is a bit of a plan and I have brought a map where I have the various galleries around Williamsburg marked down.
Stopped by this one show at Southfirst.
Joan my good friend these photos are for you, the cutting edge of trash art...feast your eyes:
Each one is magnificent:
The artist is Elwyn Palmerton. Cool name.
This kind of work can be boring but something about his/her arrangements and his color use and combinations were really interesting. Trash Art!
So this would be a good time to start a philosophical debate about the meaning of trash art and its inherit critique of capitalism, the sexy, seductive veneer of capitol and the downfall of the world. But it is getting late and I have to go get my laundry. Stay tuned for part II with more interesting cultural do-dads!
JJ
