AUTHOR: Chris Rywalt DATE: 3/11/2009 10:39:00 PM —– BODY:

I missed the blogpix (March 5 through March 28, 2009) opening but managed to make it to Denise Bibro the very next day so I could be greeted by Olympia Lambert saying, "You're twelve hours late or twenty-four hours early!" It seems I not only missed the opening, I also was going to miss the Blogger Panel Discussion the next day. Such a shame, too, because really there's nothing more fun than a panel discussion, especially involving people whose job description involves zero contact with other humans. Oly mentioned that, among others, Bill Gusky was going to be there, and I'll admit missing Bill is a shame, because he's a funny, interesting, all-around good guy. I mean, I don't know him that well, for all I know he kicks puppies and drowns kittens for fun, but he's a good guy to hang out with for a few minutes and his Facebook posts are entertaining. And, really, what else matters?

Oly then happily took me through blogpix. I could discuss the work openly with her because she's not the curator for the show; Oly is more of the meta-curator for the show. As she explained, she chose the art bloggers who'd be the curators, and she gave them a mission statement: Choose artists who don't have gallery representation, or don't have much presence in Chelsea, anyway, or who you feel are underappreciated or overlooked in some way. Oly chose Roberta Fallon & Libby Rosof, the pair behind Artblog; veritable force of nature Joanne Mattera; and Hrag Vartanian, who I honestly had never heard of. (I should mention at this point that I've shown work with Roberta & Libby and Joanne, met them, and talked with them. Hrag -- no idea who he is.)

Christopher Davison, Black and White Sculpture, 2006

Christopher Davison, Black and White Sculpture, 2006

Entering the space Denise calls Platform -- a somewhat separate room from her main gallery -- we were immediately met by an ugly hanging critter by Fallon & Rosof's entry Christopher Davison. Its provocative, evocative title is Black and White Sculpture and it is unpleasant and dopey, a half-houndstooth half poorly sewed figure hanging from the ceiling like a morose monkey. I made immediate noises of distaste and Oly chided me saying, "We love our sad little monkey" or something to that effect. It is hideous and badly made. It is not deserving of her love.

Neither are the other Davison works in the show, all of which are not so much disturbing as they make me worry about the artist. He looks like he could use a little therapy, maybe a nice pet. Certainly not any more time with his pencils and gouache, through which he clearly wishes to infect us with unhappiness. His flat, unmercifully unskilled drawings are unrelieved by any bright spots of skill or compositional interest.

Julie Karabenick, Composition 71, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 28x28 inches

Julie Karabenick, Composition 71, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 28x28 inches

Almost directly across from those, though, are a couple of good-sized jazzy paintings by one of Joanne's picks, Julie Karabenick. Julie's working in a variation on Mondrian, expanding his strict vocabulary to include criss-crossing squares and angular loops, while also extending his palette beyond the primaries and secondaries. Julie's work is certainly energetic and Oly and I batted around some ideas of what they reminded us of before concluding that she was channeling a kind of Atari 2600 aesthetic. Her colors definitely come right off of early game cartridges and the big blocky pixels feel just like Adventure. I'd like her work better, I think, if it had more texture -- Mondrian's paintings are never wholly flat, but Julie's taped hers obsessively and painted so smoothly between the edges that the faintest extra thickness where the paint laps up against the tape shows up in sharp relief.

Steven Alexander, The Primrose Path, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 48x36 inches

Steven Alexander, The Primrose Path, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 48x36 inches

From there it's easy to turn right and see the rough-hewn paintings of Steven Alexander. Oly said she thought at first they were encaustic, and indeed they have that dull waxy sheen you get from that medium, that feeling that you're seeing the pigments through some translucent glaze. But they're acrylics. I suggested that maybe Steven mixes his own acrylic paint using gel medium and raw pigments; he could use less pigment to get that encaustic-like texture. His surface is roughly prepared and very uneven; the result is to take what might be unexciting hard-edged abstraction and give it an earthy, flawed quality, like Stephen Westfall's work left out in the rain for a few months. Which would honestly improve it.

Ben La Rocco, Constellation, 2009

Ben La Rocco, Constellation, 2009

Next to Steven we found Ben La Rocco, Hrag's entrant in the show. I found Ben's work simply too crude. The paintings feel like studies of studies, like someone barely even made an effort at applying paint; almost no sense of color, almost no sense of style, but just enough of each to avoid being anti-color or -style. I felt immediately that Ben's work was just too clunky for me. Very uninspired in every category involved in arranging paint on a surface.

Sharon Butler, Siding 1, 2008, oil on wood panel, 12x9.75 inches

Sharon Butler, Siding 1, 2008, oil on wood panel, 12x9.75 inches

On the other side of Steven is Sharon Butler of -- as Oly and I said over each other as she introdcued me to the work -- Two Coats of Paint. Hers is probably the most professional, serious, best work in the show. Somehow Sharon has painted a few small works here -- there are two on the Website and I think there were four, maybe five, in the gallery -- which look as if they were painted in the heyday of geometric abstraction in the 1940s. Her color scheme is almost the same as Morandi's, maybe a little more colorful in some cases. I found the effect kind of neat, but at the same time I had to wonder: Are these homage or pastiche? Are they sincere or ironic? Does Sharon come naturally to this style, or is she deliberately copying? As I looked at the paintings I found this cognitive dissonance eroding my faith in my appreciation of them.

I made a motion towards one of the panels, which looked as if a chunk had been taken out of it with a circular saw. "Don't touch that," Oly warned me, "it's alarmed."

Reese Inman, Projection III, 2008, acrylic on wood panel, 30x30 inches

Reese Inman, Projection III, 2008, acrylic on wood panel, 30x30 inches

On the way out -- or on the way in, if you turned right at the ugly monkey -- are the last (or first) two works in the show, two pieces by Reese Inman; like Sharon, she was chosen by Joanne. From viewing distance Reese's works appear to be made up of dots of different size and color glued to a flat surface. The resulting grid is clearly reminiscent of a computer graphic. Move closer and you see, not dots glued to the surface, but what look like raised spots that may have been left after the surrounding surface was removed, as if by a router. The dots themselves have a certain color shift on top that looks more like layers that were sanded through than colors layered additively. The result is much less than the sum of its parts, though: For how much visual interest her labor-intensive techniques add, she might as well be gluing plastic dots down. Visually the two works are mildly interesting, with that added "How does she do that?" fillip; but ultimately interest flags due to the narrow color range and staid pattern. Go to Reese's site and you'll get a lovely explanation of how these relate to computer algorithms and musical experiments and so forth, all of which I'm sure is very exciting if you have Asperger's and are up past your bedtime, but which wrap up into extremely dull paintings.

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——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/12/2009 08:47:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I have Asperger's and stay up past my bedtime but I would not find the pretentious babble found on artist's websites interesting. Just thought I would present a counter claim. Chris you obviously have a schedule that allows you to go see a lot of art and then come home and write about it. Sometimes you give a half hearted thumbs up, usually a thumbs down. Why do you do it? Why not stay home and make art? Even when you like something I always get the feeling that you would have prefered to do something else with your afternoon. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/12/2009 09:24:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I had a short conversation with Franklin about this recently. He told me he'd asked himself, what if he'd used all that time he'd spent arguing with idiots online and instead devoted it to his art? I noted that I've asked myself that question, and my answer is that time isn't fungible (that's his word); meaning I don't think I could readily take time of one kind (gallery-going time) and convert it into time of another (art-making time).

Part of the problem is that I run out of materials really quickly when I'm making art. That's just a recent problem, actually. Before I had the studio, when I was painting in my bedroom, I tended to make art only sporadically. Even though my studio is farther away than my bedroom, I find I spend more time making art there, and so I keep running out of things to paint on and with.

In a way, your question -- why not stay home and make art? -- is like asking, why do you sleep? Sleeping seems like a waste of time until you realize that sleep time is one of the things that makes all the other time possible for you. Seeing other people's art, seeing what's possible, what artists are doing, what colors they're using, how they put paintings together, what other kinds of art there are out there -- all the kinds of sculpture, printmaking, painting -- all of that is valuable to my own art.

And as much as it's so often awful, sometimes the art is really, really good. Larry Poons was worth the trip. I'll be writing soon about Julie Evans, whose show was really wonderful. Every so often there's a Nancy Baker or Madeline von Foerster or Anna Druzcz who makes gallery-hopping good. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/12/2009 10:37:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I do think time is fungible or however you want to put it. If I don't watch TV on any given day I get a helluva a lot of reading done. It is nice that you would consider seeing and writing about art as essential to your existence as sleep is. If you would lose interest in making art if you stopped trolling the galleries then it makes perfect sense that you would continue doing it. I guess I don't feel that way.

As you know, the qualifications for becoming an art critic are pretty meager. I am not talking about really good art writing, just plain old, mediocre, run of the mill, art criticism. There are so many online art critics nowadays that I personally feel less of a pressing need to write art criticism. Plus, I don't want to feel like a PR guy. And it is difficult for me to see art criticism, especially the breed of it that is weak intellectually, as anything but an extended press release for an artist. The negative review serves its purpose, but I think it can only have the opposite effect that the writer intends it to have. All press is good press. Granted if someone with influence and a large readership thoroughly pans a spanking brand new emerging artist it might hurt his or her career. But that almost never happens. Most art critics write about artists who already have a selling base and the negative review gets added to the artist’s burgeoning press kit and everyone moves on. I guess as an historical record the negative review has some value, but does it ever put a stop to the artist's career or make a specific viewership turn tail and run away? No. And the more press or text that an artist’s work generates the more likely their career will maintain a lasting presence before the public.

I am thinking about writing about Internet art, or art that is made for the Internet, to be experienced online on a computer monitor, because this type of work, and there is plenty of it out there, gets almost no attention. I know that artists who get no press attention appreciate it when they do. So of course online art criticism does have value in those instances.

Art Critics With Aspergers (ACWA) ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/12/2009 03:29:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:EAG sez:
It is nice that you would consider seeing and writing about art as essential to your existence as sleep is.

Let's not get carried away. It was a metaphor. Seeing and writing about art is inessential.

I've written before about the main reason why I do this. You asked about the main reason not to do this. The reason this is how I spend my time, and not reading or playing video games or writing about TV (which I used to do) is that writing about the art I see a) makes me go see it (without the "deadline" of a blog hanging over my head I might just stay home) and b) makes me think about it. That thinking about it helps me steer myself when I think about my own art.

In short, looking at art improves me eye, even if a lot of the art is bad.

Your criticisms of art criticism -- that there are a lot of us writing out here, that it's PR, that it has no effect -- are sort of beside the point for me. All true, but not related to why I keep doing it.

As far as Internet art goes, I haven't seen any that compares even to the weakest doodle on paper, so I have no interest in it. Well, that's hyperbole. I've seen some stuff that's kind of neat. I remember The Urban Diary really fondly.

Let us know if you find anything really good. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/12/2009 06:16:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:"In short, looking at art improves me eye..."

All this talk about the me eye. What about the you eye? (Just kidding) My visits to the MET and the old MoMA, sketchbook in hand, were always learning experiences, so I know where you are coming from. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/12/2009 06:30:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Good lord I really typed "me eye". Argh, matey, lookin at art improves me eye, me hearties! ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 07:43:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I hate these things but here it goes...LOL! ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 09:38:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I'll tell you, though, I do feel somewhat dispirited when, for example, Sharon Butler Twitters this post calling me a "cranky blogger". I mean, I am a cranky blogger, it's true, but her implication here, it seems to me, is that I "slammed" the show because I'm cranky. Which is demonstrably untrue: My review of Lisa Dinhofer's show, which I saw at almost exactly the same time -- blogpix and Lisa's show aren't even separated by a hallway -- was, to my mind, extremely positive. And later that day I saw Julie Evan's show, which I haven't written up yet but which I also liked a lot; and I saw some really good stuff at Bridge, too, which I'll also get to eventually.

But of course I "slammed" blogpix -- I don't even think this is a slam, but okay -- I slammed blogpix because I'm cranky, not because the show is mediocre or not to my taste.

I get dispirited. But then I know there are people out there who understand me. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 11:05:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:"Julie's work is certainly energetic"

"what might be unexciting hard-edged abstraction and give it an earthy, flawed quality"

"Hers is probably the most professional, serious, best work in the show."

These are somewhat positive comments.

I guess the problem was that you didn't gush about the show. Less genuflecting and more ambivalence I say! Face it Chris, you will always be the enemy because they will pin the sour and 'cranky' grapes label on you. Unless of course you rave about some show and it gets read by the artist and he or she decides to send you a thank you note. That has probably happened in the past and it is the best you can hope for. Artists who have never been written about are very appreciative when it does happen. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 11:12:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:One of the more gratifying things that's happened is when I find a link to one of my reviews on the artist's Website. Even less glowing reviews. When no one wrote to let me know, no one thanked me, no word at all -- just a link off somewhere that says, yes, they read it, and think other people might want to read it too.

Of course it could just be resume padding.

A couple of times I've had artists write to me to tell me they agreed with my criticisms of their show, and they explained what went wrong, or whatever. I appreciate that, too.

Mostly I just don't hear anything. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 11:37:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I think this is a universal condition for art critics. Years ago I sent an email to Arthur Danto at his email address at Columbia and he actually responded! He said that it was good to hear from someone because he has no idea what people think of his art criticism. Saltz also responded to the very first email I ever sent him. For the most part, art critics, even the ones who appear in newspapers and magazines on a consistent basis, work in a vacuum. So another words, get used to it pal. I have also had links to my reviews appear on websites without ever hearing a word from the gallery or artist. I have received several nice notes from artists through the years though. The reviews were positive and the artists would say things like, "Yeah you understood what I was doing. Thanks." I wrote at least three reviews of exhibitions at the John Davis Gallery, when it was back in NYC for a brief period a few years back, and each artist actually gave me a work of art, a big drawing, a small sculpture, and a small oil painting, after they read the review. I know I know. It was very unethical of me to accept these gifts. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 11:41:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:Funny you should say that. I was just reading Roger Ebert today:

"I think Dwayne Johnson has a likable screen presence and is a good choice for an innocuous family entertainment like this, and also he once sent me some Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Brickle. I would have mailed it back because film critics are not supposed to accept gifts from movie stars, but I accidentally ate it first." ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Oly COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 03:58:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:No offense taken, Chris, but truthfully your writing style has an extremely negative connotation that most all of us pick up upon almost immediately, to say your in-person demeanro as well.

The sheer fact you consider the Dinhofer review to be "positive" belies that fact.

Either way, I thank you for your two cents.

Dinhofer herself was certainly a bit taken aback by the language you used as well-- she's not used to it, nor should she be.

I do want you to know that I have yet to ever read a review written by you that would ever be construed as positive.

Perhaps you should look into the personal takes and the words "I" throughout.

Either way, I'm glad you wrote about the show, though I disagree with about 99% of what you said.

Cheers.

Olympia Lambert
Boston University Journalism grad ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/13/2009 04:16:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Thanks for quoting your bonafides, there, Oly. Did BU teach you to misuse words like "belies"?

But I'm just reflecting back your tone. I really do think my Dinhofer review is positive and don't see how it could be construed otherwise. I like her work. I said so.

As for personal takes and my use of the word "I": News flash! I'm not a journalist! This isn't objective reporting! I use the pronoun to make it clear that I'm describing my own limited and flawed opinions, not stating facts. Should I adopt some kind of generic reportorial style as if this is the New York Times? Why would that make sense?

I think it's wonderful, by the way, how you can be nice and pleasant to me face to face, but wait until I say something less than positive about your show, then sandbag me through the marvelous distancing of blog comments. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Oly COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 02:11:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Blogging IS journalism, Chris.
If you would have come to the panel discussion you would note it as such.
I am giving your tone back to you.
The fact is you really need to take a look at how you're perceived by others-- and start to work on it.
I'm kind in person and I'm a battle axe online just like you.
If you can't take the heat, you know what they say.

And trust me, the artist and the gallery does not take your Dinhofer review as positive, by any means.

The fact you think it as such means you really should start examining your style a bit more.

I still wish you well and wouldn't mind a girl scout cookie.

:)

I just highly disagree with your take on both shows. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 03:39:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Just to brush up on your reading comprehension: I didn't say anything about blogging not being journalism. Of course it can be. What I wrote was that I am not a journalist. This is not journalism here in my blog. Bloggers can be journalists but they don't have to be, and I'm not. Never wanted to be. The closest I got to journalism in the newspaper was the weekly comic I drew for my college paper.

Now, as for my reading comprehension, let's see if I've got this right: You wrote, "...truthfully your writing style has an extremely negative connotation...to say your in-person demeanro as well." And then you wrote, "I'm kind in person and I'm a battle axe online just like you." Here I thought you were saying that I'm a battle axe both online and in person. No?

I don't honestly care that much about how I'm perceived by others. No, wait, that's not true. It can bother me when I'm misunderstood. I do get upset when people fail to read what I write, and also when they fail to apply the same standards to themselves as they apparently wish to apply to me.

But as long as I'm being open and honest about my opinions, and as long as I feel I'm not trying to be deliberately mean, I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

As far as taking the heat, I'm not the one being defensive here. I'm confident in what I wrote. If neither the artist nor the gallery considers my Dinhofer review positive, well, that's a shame. If you were confident in your show you'd have ignored me instead of showing up here waving your BA (as if that has any chance of impressing me) trying to take me down a peg.

You're free to disagree with me. And you're also free to get in your order for Girl Scout cookies, but you'd better make it soon because a) they're going quickly and b) I'm rapidly reaching the point where I won't want to see you in person so I don't offend you. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Anonymous Anonymous COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 04:36:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Someone who majored in journalism wrote
"If you would have come to the panel discussion you would note it as such."
?? ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 04:43:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:It's just comments on a blog, not real journalism. No editor, no careful re-reading before publication. Mistakes are made. It's not a complete invalidation of someone. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 06:10:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:If someone compared the art I make to Chopin's compositions I wouldn't hate them. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 06:19:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:I thought it was a favorable comparison, but maybe she doesn't like Chopin. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger eageageag COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 09:06:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Just keep at it if you want to Chris and don't be discouraged. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/14/2009 09:16:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:I'm discouraged, maybe, but not dissuaded. It is what it is.

I still have to write up the Bridge Fair and some other shows I saw the same day. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Anonymous Tim Folzenlogen COMMENT-DATE:3/17/2009 10:57:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I just read this entire thread.

First thing, kind of funny, about the Lisa review positive / negative question - I thought you were both referring to the Lisa Yuskavage review.

It kind of made me think that Chris was much more out of touch than I could ever have imagined, as there is no way that was a positive review.

It was kind of a jarring experience.

But I'll weigh in and say that if Lisa D is truly upset with that review, I think she is expecting far too much from people.

I mean, Chris is who he is, he took the time to go to her show, thought about it, and wrote what he did (which I thought was friendly - certainly not destructive) and then there is a completely democratic comment section right below the review where she could respond.

Why wouldn't she simply respond, and inform us about her work from her own perspective?

As an artist, I'd be all over that kind of opportunity were it my show - especially if I felt that the criticism was wrong.

That said, I really have no idea how or where Chris stacks up in the world of art criticism, blogger or otherwise, as I've hardly ever read any of it. The amount of art criticism that I have read in my entire life wouldn't fill a short novel.

Chris' blog is the first blog I have ever visited.

I'm a full time artist who hardly ever travels outside the realm of my own inspirations and who/whatever shows up.

Chris showed up, as I noticed that my website was getting traffic via his blog, so I went there, and was surprised to see a link to my site - so I started reading. He says we had email conversation a while back, but I have no recollection, which is true of anyone who doesn't keep showing up. I either have a lot on my mind or have an incredibly bad memory.

But I must say, I really like Chris. I like everything about him. I like his somewhat grouchy attitude, maybe because I can sense a warm heart underneath.

In any case, in this time and place, I simply don't think anyone can be so critical of a show in one of those Palace Galleries in Chelsea, that can in any way measurably counter the positive spin (in the mind of the average viewer)of simply seeing the work displayed in that multi-million dollar presentation.

Like shooting a bean at a battleship.

It never occurred to me that his reviews are unfair. Not that "Chris Is My Brain" when it comes to these artists and shows - but then most of the artists I don't know - nor will I have the opportunity to see their shows - so I guess I see Chris as being rather generous in sharing his impressions with us, and posting such professional images as examples.

Seems like a free gift to me.

And then the fact that Chris is always rather critical of himself (he flat out says that he is usually wrong - I mean - what do you want?)

geeze....

I just find the guy to be incredibly charming and endearing.

Tim Folzenlogen ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:3/17/2009 12:08:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:I've come to believe that I'm the subject of Tim's latest conceptual art piece in which he flatters and says nothing but nice things to the subject to see how they'll react. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Anonymous Tim Folzenlogen COMMENT-DATE:3/17/2009 02:22:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:You just haven't dissed my work yet. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Bill Gusky COMMENT-DATE:3/20/2009 07:32:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Missed you, Chris! We'll do it another time, Brotha - time to kick me some puppies - :) - B ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Keiko COMMENT-DATE:4/14/2009 03:33:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:hi chris,

i'm a bit behind, but i just caught up on your blogs. i don't understand how anyone could see your review on lisa d as negative. it does have a bad boy critic attitude in a way of dave hickey, but like hickey, you also reveal the tenderness of an impressionable boy and hopeless desire to be swept off your feet. comparison to chopin may be too much but the analogy of coin funnel is brilliant. it made me look twice this artist whom otherwise i would have merely glanced over. isn't that what a positive art review is supposed to do?

did you quit fb? what happened?

i'll register in stacking blocks next time. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:4/14/2009 08:34:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:Hey there, Keiko. Nice to hear from you! I did quit Facebook. It's too complicated to go into here, but basically I realized, after I was unfriended by four people in a row, and then egregiously insulted by one of my best friends, that Facebook somehow focused my assholishness and I'd better quit before I alienated everyone I know.

I do have a hopeless desire to be swept off my feet. I suppose Mark Cameron Boyd was right when he said I was a romantic.

I don't know Dave Hickey but I'll take that as a compliment. ——– AUTHOR: Chris Rywalt DATE: 9/27/2008 01:42:00 AM —– BODY:

I hadn't planned on going out for a gallery slog. I planned to go to one or two shows, maybe, then pick up some art supplies and head for my Brooklyn studio. Instead, because of my wandering eye and my inability to find my way around Manhattan south of 14th Street, I ended up walking across half of the island like a stunad and never making it to Brooklyn. It was a great day for a walking tour of downtown New York City, a lovely, wet, gray fall day. At one point the water came down in a dense mist moving sideways. Did you know New York gets more rain than Seattle, London, or Glasgow? It does.

I knew things were going badly when I'd carefully typed up all the addresses I wanted to hit in a nice Word document which I promptly forgot open on my PC without printing as I left the house. Luckily I had an earlier printout of a list of shows I wanted to see in my bag so I was able to find my first stop -- first because it was easiest -- and see Jason Bryant's show at Raandesk Gallery of Art.

First things first: Raandesk isn't a gallery. It's some walls around a group of interconnected spaces which are being used for other things, including desks rented out to people who, I suppose, need desks and a room to put them in. This makes it a little hard to see the work because you have to lean over desks, or squeeze between them and the wall, or surreptitiously glance around the people sitting at them, in order to see the paintings.

Jason Bryant, In Passing, West 52nd Street, 2008, oil on canvas, 40x60 inches

Jason Bryant, In Passing, West 52nd Street, 2008, oil on canvas, 40x60 inches

But never mind that. The paintings are where they are and that's that. The question is, are they worth looking at? And my answer is an absolute, undiluted, unequivocal maybe. I liked Jason's work well enough the last time I saw it. Since then he has, if anything, gotten even smoother and more assured. These paintings are more photorealistic and more confident in their compositions than the work I saw last year. There's less evidence of the artist's hand and fewer passages where he seems unsure of himself. There's the feeling, with these, that Jason's hit his stride.

But this only underscores the most important question raised by Jason's work: Is this trip really necessary? That is, do we really need another artist painstakingly copying advertising images using the techniques of advertising to tell us...what? That there is advertising? That advertising images are really nice? That cropping ads strategically gives us different ads? The better Jason's technique gets the more I find myself asking why bother -- why should he bother painting these, and why should we bother looking.

For myself, I didn't bother long. One sweep around the room, wiggle my eyebrows at the receptionist, and I'm off. Off to call my wife to get me the address of my next stop, which was so far away, I figured I might as well make a few other stops as I went.

New York City's subway system is truly second to none; it's huge, easy to use, and very convenient -- unless you're trying to go certain ways. Trying to get diagonally across Manhattan, for example, is an exercise in frustration, unless you want to follow Broadway. And trying to get anywhere in Chelsea is impossible because the trains don't go over that far.

Since my next stop, then, was on 20th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, I figured I might as well trudge crosstown from Raandesk to the far end of 27th Street, to where the mighty Hudson nearly laps at your toes, to see what was happening at my old favorites Winkleman and Schroeder Romero.

Ed wasn't in but Murat was so, rather than actually look at the installation of Yevgeniy Fiks' Adopt Lenin I chatted with him. Murat is far more interesting than any old work of art anyhow. We discussed everyday things -- the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and that's true for women, too -- and Murat made excuses for why Ed's too busy to respond to my e-mail messages.

So I narrowly dodged Lenin and crept into Schroeder Romero just to see what was happening. There was a group of students there whose teacher was talking to Lisa and Sara Jo so I thought I had a chance to get out before I was noticed, but Lisa called out to me before I could get to the door. Not that I don't like talking to her -- far from it, I love her -- but I feel bad that I don't like what they show in their gallery.

"Another show right up your alley, eh?" Lisa chuckled at me.

"I've been thinking," I said, "of just never mentioning Winkleman or your gallery ever again, just because I feel so bad always saying terrible things about you guys."

"Come on, Chris, we like you because you're honest."

Marsha Pels, Dead Mother, Dead Cowboy, 2008, installation view

Marsha Pels, Dead Mother, Dead Cowboy, 2008, installation view

So, honestly: Well, this, um, crystal-like skull with arm and handbag reclining on a pile of furs is...different.

On my way out I very coolly tripped over the motorcycle sculpture and almost broke my neck. That'd be why they put the guardrail around it, because otherwise I'd have stomped through Marsha's blue neon tubing like a postmodern Godzilla.

I said my good-byes and exited, aimed southward. Then on the corner of 23rd Street I bumped into Ed Winkleman himself, hurrying to his gallery to be busy some more. It wasn't a good day for running into people on the street -- did I mention it was raining? -- but Ed paused long enough to have a short conversation. I told him I'd just come from his gallery and Schroeder Romero.

"Another show right up your alley, eh?"

Indeed. We parted as friends and I continued south down Eleventh Avenue until I passed something that made me draw up short. It takes a fair bit to get noticed in Chelsea below 23rd Street; apparently the ghosts of Haring and Basquiat together don't possess enough presence to impress on everyone that graffiti art is dead, the 1980s are long gone, and no one's going to get discovered by scribbling on the walls any more. So to stand out amidst all the clamoring sunbursts, peeling wheatpaste doodles, slap-on stickers, and exhortations of awesomeness and street cred requires something truly special.

In this case it was a perfectly flat, blank, white wall -- like you'd find inside any gallery -- with a doorway.

I backpedaled and stood in front. Inside the door was another expanse of white wall with the legend "Midori Harima" below the word NEGATIVESCAPE. I walked inside and around into the room....

...and I'd hate to ruin it for you. Go for yourself. But if you can't, or don't mind having the surprise drained out of it -- well, it's not that great or anything, but -- okay. After the sunlight on the white walls inside you can't see anything except, floating a few feet in front of you, a ghostly merry-go-round. It hangs there, vaguely alive, pale. Unmoving but somehow waiting. Waiting for you. Waiting for you to unwisely move towards it....

It's profoundly creepy.

Tentatively I tried to walk around it, keeping my distance, only to bump into a heavy black curtain. After a little bit my eyes adjusted and I could see the space was just a medium-sized room with a high, New York industrial ceiling and black curtains covering the walls. The merry-go-round is a forced-perspective sculpture in white plaster, or something similar, with a shadowed, negative version of itself being projected on it from just inside the door. Basically it's not much different from the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World, where they project singing faces onto blank sculpted heads, making what looks like living statues. But in this case, of course, you're on Eleventh Avenue -- at a place called Honey Space -- and not in an amusement park. And you're expecting an art exhibit, not a haunted house ride. The net result is it's a lot more freaky.

Bumping into random crap like that is one of the things I love most in life.

Of course it's easy to bump into random crap when you get lost going around the corner like I do. There's a reason my family lived on an island for over twenty years -- as long as you don't go over a bridge, through a tunnel, or on a boat, you can be sure you're not too far lost. So it shouldn't be too surprising that I turned down 21st Street instead of 20th and ended up pacing back and forth in front of Manhattan Mini-Storage wondering where my next destination had gotten to. Are you sure, darling wife, it's 529? Because I can't find that building number.... Let me get a Coke from the Mini-Storage vending machine for sustenance as I pace a few more times....

But then my eye was drawn to Casey Kaplan where someone named Nathan Carter was showing something called "RADIO TRANSMISSION CONTRAPTIONS." In I went to find a collection of works put together by someone who'd spent altogether too much time in the Joan Miró and Alexander Calder wing of the nearest museum.

Nathan Carter, CALLING FOUR TOWERS SIGNAL DRIFTING WITH NO FIXED PURPOSE, 2008, steel, acrylic paint, 240x31x112 inches

Nathan Carter, CALLING FOUR TOWERS SIGNAL DRIFTING WITH NO FIXED PURPOSE, 2008, steel, acrylic paint, 240x31x112 inches

Not that I'm complaining at all. I'm a big fan of Calder (we went to the same college -- only eighty years apart) and Miró, well, I think you have to have no heart at all to dislike him entirely. I really enjoyed Nathan's various works in this show. Most of them are painted wire, but he's also got an assemblage of painted plywood, a couple of collages, a painting, and a few mobiles with stained glass added in. None of it is the most original work of all time -- Calder and Miró already swiped from each other, and Nathan isn't bringing anything overwhelmingly new to the enterprise. But he's working with wire, so saying his work looks like Calder's is a little like saying that anyone working in charcoal makes work that looks like Leonardo da Vinci's: It's strictly true and sort of beside the point. Then again, a lot more artists work in charcoal than in wire, so here the comparison comes to mind more easily. Still, to see something this basically Modernist in Chelsea is always a treat.

In fact I was so enamored of this that I wanted very much to talk with the director in charge of this exhibition. I approached one of the two gallerinas and asked if I could talk to the gallerist in charge.

"You mean Casey Kaplan?" she asked.

There are actually people with the gallery name in the gallery? Weird! "I guess so," I allowed.

"What do you want to talk about? The art?"

"Well, yes."

"Is there anything I can help you with? Any questions I can answer?"

"No, I mean, I just want to talk to whoever put the show together. You know, about the art." I mean, I wanted to say, Casey is most likely through the door right behind you, listening to everything we're saying, and couldn't I just say hello or something?

"Let me see."

Curiously, the other gallerina then got off the phone and went back into the office. She came back out followed by a small dark-haired woman. I got the impression that Casey Kaplan was male, but one never knows.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked.

"I'm Chris Rywalt," I said. Nothing happened. This is the part, I wanted to say, where you tell me your name. Leaving me no choice but to say the kind of clichéd thing I hate saying. "And you are...?"

"I'm Chana," she said, pronouncing it like "Shawna," which is the same name as Reilly's lady friend whose name I didn't want to write out because I didn't know how to spell it. Small world!

"Yes, okay, well, I wanted to talk about the art here."

"Do you have any questions?"

"Well, no, not...you know, I just wanted to...I mean, this show is just so unabashedly retro, so old-fashioned, and you don't see this kind of thing in Chelsea that often, and I...just wondered...you know...how...why someone would put on a show like this. Because. I mean, I like it, it's just...."

It's just that I sound like a mental case.

"Well, Nathan Carter has worked closely with our gallery for many years," she said as if she were reading it off a nearby card. "And this was a direction he chose to take."

"Right. Okay. Well, I just...it's good. That's good. I...."

The conversation wandered off, entirely out of my control, petered out in a few small gasps, then died on the floor. Why Casey didn't want to talk to me him/herself I don't know.

Feeling thoroughly stupid by now I managed to find my way out of the gallery and around the corner. As I did so I passed Yvon Lambert. I paused. Should I turn around and go in? Do I need to? Is it worth the effort? Unsure, uncertain, I wobbly backtracked and stood in awe before the majesty that is

ANDRES SERRANO'S SHIT

Andres Serrano, SHIT (BULL SHIT), 2007, c-print, silicone, acrylic, wood frame, 88x72 inches

Andres Serrano, SHIT (BULL SHIT), 2007, c-print, silicone, acrylic, wood frame, 88x72 inches

Fact is, I have nothing against Andres. Of course I remember the big deal about Piss Christ and how angry all the Christians got about it, and how regular Joes liked to use that photo, along with Mapplethorpe's body (heh heh) of work, as an argument for how stupid, inconsequential, and intent on shocking the bourgeois so-called high art had become here at the fin of the siècle. In the intervening years I'd read some articles on Andres, though, and he struck me as a guy who was gravely exploring areas of interest to him. Sure, it's a bit weird to collect one's urine in a vat and take photos of stuff submerged in it. But you don't do something like that unless you mean it. And, really, who would know it was a vat of urine if they weren't told? I also saw (online only) some of his morgue photos, and they seemed to me to be powerful and tragic.

So I have nothing against Andres. And I knew what to expect from these images because I'd seen some of them online. I hadn't meant to see the show, but of course one keeps on top of these things anyway, and so here it was.

What I wasn't prepared for, though, was the sheer size of the photos. Each one has been enlarged to slightly over seven feet high. Considering the subject of each photo is maybe a few inches high, this is a factor of at least twelve we're looking at. This is some HUGE SHIT.

And shit it is. Surely Andres is courting all manner of easy reviews of his work, and given the titles of his photos he must know it, because each one is named after a standard use of the word "shit" in English: Holy Shit, Bull Shit, Dog Shit, Heroic Shit, Good Shit, Bad Shit. And so on. It's sophomoric, if junior high has a sophomore year; the whole exercise reminds me of something I'd have done in seventh grade, some kind of dictionary of shit. Speaking of which, there's a long-winded (but very funny) online joke listing the basic tenets of the world's religions as applied to shit ("Confucianism: Confucius say, 'Shit happens'").

I must admit some of the photos made me queasy. I wonder if I'd have felt that way if I didn't know what the subject was; I think so. Sometimes you can just tell shit. Also, the gallery kind of had this odor vaguely reminiscent of poop, as if some of the photos, being so gigantuan, actually gave off an aroma of the subject. Then again maybe someone just changed a diaper in the room. Who knows?

In any case, the photos themselves are intensely uninteresting. Doodie has different textures. Wow. Flies sometimes land on it. Really. Andres likes bright lights behind his subjects. Exciting.

Piss Christ is off in a smaller room, by the way. In person it looks, well, exactly like it does online, only with so much glare from the gallery windows it's hard to see. Way to go, blue chip gallery!

I exited past the goofy knot of students ogling the turds and bravely refrained from asking the gallerina if I could the bathroom. I didn't have to go number two anyhow. Just outside, on the wall of Yvon Lambert, a sign prominently declares: NO DUMPING. And now I need a blood transfusion; I think I overdosed on irony.

But guess what? I finally made it around the corner and onto 20th Street whereon one can find 529 West 20th Street, specifically the fourth floor, specifically Denise Bibro Fine Art, which is what we all came here for! For the woodpeckershrooms, as my wife so delicately called them when she texted me the address? No, for Nancy Baker's Duck and Cover Drill!

Nancy Baker, No Man's Land, 2008, oil on wood panel, 20x20 inches

Nancy Baker, No Man's Land, 2008, oil on wood panel, 20x20 inches

Nancy Baker, No Man's Land (detail), 2008, oil on wood panel, 20x20 inches

Nancy Baker, No Man's Land (detail), 2008, oil on wood panel, 20x20 inches

Nancy's one of my favorite art people. I love talking to her. She was the subject of one of my earliest reviews and we were in a group show together. So certainly I'm biased in her favor. I like her work. And I know she can be very sensitive about it, so I don't want to come on too strongly here.

Can you hear the "but" coming?

But I'm a little disappointed in these paintings. Not a lot. Just a little. They have many very good points: Nancy's sense of color is fantastic. Her compositions are excellent. Her subjects and her juxtapositions are weird. Her choice of source material is impeccable.

Here it comes again: But. But her inscrutable hermeticism makes it hard for me to love these paintings. In her earlier show her work was full of things going on, and somehow that helped carry them along; these paintings are more focused, with fewer figures and situations, and in a way that makes them more confusing, because when there are only four or five subjects in a painting, you expect them to make some kind of sense together. But here we have a parrot eating a worm being worshiped by some south Asian beauties who are ignoring the medieval knights fighting -- over them? -- on the shore. The ladies are lovely and the parrots are lively and the knights are knightly and they go together how?

Also I get the feeling these works were either rushed or Nancy's at the limit of her abilities as a painter. There are altogether too many passages that aren't quite right, aren't a hundred percent. That may be intentional or it may be she's hurrying too much. Or maybe she's just loosening up. Which could eventually be really good. But here in these works, it doesn't seem fitting.

With those criticisms laid out, then, I should say that Nancy still puts on a good show. I love the way her smoothly smoky cloudscapes surround the hard-edged figures in front of them, the way she moves between a flavor of academic realism, medieval Boschism, and paint-by-numbers. Her high-contrast patterns laid over painterly backgrounds are beautiful. She's not using quite as much kitsch as she was -- which I consider a good thing -- although Casper the Friendly Ghost and the Poky Little Puppy put in appearances. Gotta love the Poky Little Puppy!

I spent a goodly amount of time alone with Nancy's paintings, going back and forth between them. They're really lovely. After a while, though, I had to move on. For the sake of completeness I went into Denise Bibro's main gallery where I found the work of Boyce Cummings, Christopher Reiger, and Amy Ross. I've been meaning to see Chris' work, and to get him to come gallery-hopping with me, and somehow have failed at either. Until now, when I sort of accidentally wandered into his show -- I'd forgotten about it in my rush to get to Nancy. Boyce I'd reviewed before although I honestly couldn't remember a thing about his work. And Amy Ross I knew nothing about.

Christopher Reiger, A Cruel and Beautiful Faraway Place, 2007, watercolor, gouache, sumi ink and marker on Arches paper, 32x27 inches

Christopher Reiger, A Cruel and Beautiful Faraway Place, 2007, watercolor, gouache, sumi ink and marker on Arches paper, 32x27 inches

Animus Botanica is an odd little show. I'm not sure what to make of it. Chris' paintings were the first I noticed, and not because I know his work that well; they're just the most likely to leap across the room at you. I found his paintings -- "watercolor, gouache, sumi ink and marker" -- extremely dense and overwhelming. So dense, in fact, that I sincerely feel I couldn't form an opinion of them; I didn't have enough time to digest them. They're so busy they're almost Jackson Pollock all-over paintings. My initial reaction was to think Chris really needs to tone it down a bit, but then a little more looking made me think I was being hasty -- that there's something to these works, but it's so tightly knotted, so layered, that you can't really wrap your mind around it in one sitting.

Christopher Reiger, Ri Hokkai, 2007, pen and ink on Arches paper, 9.75x11.75 inches

Christopher Reiger, Ri Hokkai, 2007, pen and ink on Arches paper, 9.75x11.75 inches

Chris' smaller works, though, are tightly focused little bits of quasi-surrealism, such as when a cross-section of a human brain has a bird's foot depending from it.

Boyce Cummings, Black Trumpet, 2008, mixed media on canvas, 42x42 inches

Boyce Cummings, Black Trumpet, 2008, mixed media on canvas, 42x42 inches

By way of contrast, Boyce's paintings did exactly the same thing they did last time, which was vanish from my memory almost as soon as I'd apprehended them. Sort of an obverse deja vu -- you get the feeling that nothing at all has happened. Just now I almost fell asleep putting his image on this page.

Amy Ross, Bluejay Magnolia, 2008, watercolor on paper, 26.5x34 inches

Amy Ross, Bluejay Magnolia, 2008, watercolor on paper, 26.5x34 inches

Amy's paintings are another thing entirely. As much as my wife seemed nonplussed by the Woodpeckershrooms, I found myself enjoying some of the paintings, mainly for their lyrical, luminous, almost minimalist use of watercolor. Well, what about the naked women with wolf heads? Um, yeah. They're nicely painted, you know.

As I was picking up my postcard to go, someone called out to me, asking if I was Chris Rywalt. No use denying it -- I am. It turns out Oly Lambert, an online acquaintance, works at Denise Bibro. We talked a bit and she introduced me to Denise Bibro herself. Take that, Casey Kaplan!

Downstairs from Denise is Hasted Hunt and they're showing the very big (although not Serrano-sized) photos of Michael Thompson. Well, not of Michael himself -- he took the photos, I mean. Apparently he took them in the service of several ad campaigns because that's exactly what they look like, up to and including Kate Moss topless. Because what the world really needs is another photo of Kate Moss' tits. Note I have not included any images for your delectation.

Having thus exhausted Chelsea for the day, I turned my weary feet cross-downtown. Because I wanted to get to -- well, by then I was so tired I wasn't sure where I was going. Lower east side kind of thing, like that. In my plans earlier I'd thought of going to Soho Art Materials, and also to see a show David Gibson invited me to, but somehow I got them all mixed up and wasn't sure which one I was going to first. And then I wanted to go to my studio. All of which meant finding a downtown train, which meant walking crosstown from Tenth Avenue or so about a hundred miles to...some other Avenue. Seventh or Sixth or something. I was getting slightly delirious. I'd promised myself I wouldn't walk much because I wasn't feeling really well, and here I'd already walked about fifty-two miles, in the rain, uphill, both ways....

I wandered cross- and downtown until I found the F train at 14th and Sixth. I hadn't been in that area in a while. I caught the downtown F and, blearily consulting the map, figured I'd get off at -- Delancey? Then I saw East Broadway and a little bell rang: That's where David's show was. Why did I want to go to Grand Street? Oh, right, to go to Soho Art Materials. So I should get off -- HERE!

And I jumped off the train at Second Avenue. Which is, incidentally, about ninety-seven miles from where Soho Art Materials actually is, especially if you, like I did, start out going downtown, then head crosstown, then turn back uptown and end up where you started again.

Eventually I found Grand Street and began working my way over. Building numbers down there are decidedly fractal. You see you're at 167 and you want 121 or something like that, and you think it can't be far, but then you see the next building is 165+1e-72, and so on, and pretty soon, if you're like me, you're thinking you should've brought the sherpas and some dried yak meat.

Also, I know what you're thinking: You're thinking Soho! Artsy groovy people! Must be cool! Wrong. More like Soho! Chinese and Italian people! I was walking through the part of town where Chinatown and Little Italy are battling it out corner by corner to decide if the shops should sell dried moldy milk curds or dried split fish stomachs. Cannoli or Peking duck? Espresso or GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT STUFF?!

As an aside -- I know that we're supposed to be enlightened now, and say that all human cultures are equally nuanced and worthwhile, and that people everywhere are pretty much the same. But I'd like to point out that I don't understand places like Chinatown or Little Italy or other mini-countries. It seems to me you left your country for a reason, right? So why do you want to recreate it in your new home? I understand that your homeland might have some good qualities, but if an argument could be made that you can't import what's good about a culture -- food, calligraphy, frescoes -- without also getting what's bad about it -- shameless disregard for intellectual property, big stinky cigars, sidewalks that smell funny when it rains -- Soho is it.

Also, my feet hurt.

In any case, I found Soho Art Materials and bought myself some paints. Then I realized I needed somehow to find my way to East Broadway while knowing very, very little about how to get there from where I was. I knew Canal Street was down the way a bit. I figured I'd go there and head east and see what happened. Eventually -- did you know Canal Street goes uphill? -- at least it'd stopped raining -- I turned south on the Bowery and, by heading doggedly downtown, bumped into East Broadway at last. The English language signs had by this time disappeared as had most of the white people. The shops carried merchandise that made the stuff on Canal Street look like Neiman Marcus. I trudged along East Broadway, counting off the addresses, hoping I'd find David's show before I collapsed.

I did finally find it, thankfully just across from another F train stop for a quick escape. The show is at the Ernest Rubenstein Gallery of The Educational Alliance and is titled Beauty's Burden. David is the co-curator along with Jennifer Junkermeier. I have to admit to being a little leery of this show just because of David's verbiage; what is one to make of a phrase like "...beauty operates in collusion with the specific dictates of image and form, occurring randomly across mediums, flowing through the cracks in our understanding of each artist's process"? Flowing through the cracks? Operates in collusion? Huh? Nevertheless I went because David invited me and I like David (for what little time we've had to talk).

In defense of David, I should note that after all the walking I'd done, if I arrived to find Jesus Christ Himself beaming at me and holding out on his right hand a 22-year-old Cindy Crawford slathered in baby oil and crying my name in ecstasy, I'd have been mildy irritated.

Meridith Pingree, five separate pieces

Five separate pieces by Meridith Pingree

I did not find Jesus or Cindy, however. What I found was this show. And it's pretty terrible. The only works even remotely interesting were the ones by Meridith Pingree, who somehow managed to make geodesic-style patterned objects out of extremely unlikely materials, like plastic zipper fragments and plastic cocktail swords. They have zero aesthetic quality like everything else in the show, but they're at least neato.

Installation view

Junk or art?

Installation view

You decide!

Installation view

"Ceci n'est pas une peinture"

In fact the most compelling pieces in the show were these two piles of construction debris in the middle of the floor. What does it say about the art world in general and this show in particular that I'm not sure if these were artworks or not? There were workmen going back and forth through the room while I was there. Part of the show or not? Nothing in the exhibition list about them, but.... And then there was the brilliant dada of the sign commanding us not to touch the artworks. Certainly these explore "our predetermined attitudes toward art"!

My day was nearly over. Drained of all will to live I crept out of Ernie's gallery and slumped dejectedly towards the subway station. But what's this? Another gallery? In this far-flung place? Why, it's LaViolaBank Gallery with a small group show! And what have we here? Some reasonably neat things by Joey Archuleta, Eske Kath, and Casey Jex Smith!

But the critic is tired. He's going home now -- F train to A train to bus to bed. Thank you, and good night.

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——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Hungry Hyaena COMMENT-DATE:9/29/2008 10:53:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:Thanks for the thoughtful write-up of Animus Botanica, Chris. In fact, I'm pleased that you found my work too much for one sitting. There is, of course, always the chance that multiple sittings would still leave you wanting. ;)

I hope that you're well. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:9/29/2008 10:11:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Well, my feet still hurt. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger CAP COMMENT-DATE:9/30/2008 11:37:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:The thing about the Serranos for me is, if they didn't have the provocative titles, would you infer them from the pictures?

I guess the point is that you couldn't or wouldn't. There is nothing unmistakably piss-like or shit-like about them - they're just shapes, colors, fluids. And it's hard to think what he could do to really convince you that the objects are authentic actually, and not just coloured fluids or clay etc - like say a Cindy Sherman 'abject' scene.

So really it all comes down to pinning a provocative title on them, which doesn't seem like a project with much focus or future, frankly. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger CAP COMMENT-DATE:10/02/2008 07:23:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Also, to commend you on the almost full-screen jpegs you have here and which still download so fast! Is there a trick there? Apart from websizing them?

If only more gallery sites would show this kind of respect for the work and the function of reproductions.

Bravo! ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:10/02/2008 08:57:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:The Serrano poop photos are almost certainly poop, simply because they're so gigantic it would be hard to fake the texture. Also, why fake shit? It's easy enough to get the real thing. I suppose some of it could be stew or something.

The urine, however, could be anything at all. The color in the photo doesn't even have to be real -- filters or gels could easily give the same effect.

So, yes, the Serrano photos are all about the titles, which I tried to imply. That project shouldn't have much of a future, but so far it seems to have done okay for old Andres. A hundred years from now will there be an audience for this? Good lord I hope not.

Regarding the JPEGS: It's all Photoshop CS3. Most of the images are directly from the gallery sites; if the site has an especially large image I'll scale it down a bit. I aim for 600 to 800 pixels wide, since I'm still prejudiced towards 1024x768. My system is larger than that, but I still think some people's aren't. If the image is tall, I aim for 500 to 600 high.

Some sites are Flash only, in which case I have to take a screen shot (if I can't work out the directory of the actual JPEGs, which I do occasionally). I usually leave those at whatever size they grab.

I wish I had a better image of Marsha Pels' work because that photo makes it look lamer than it should. Not that it's, like, awesome or anything, but it is better than it looks here. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Anonymous Anonymous COMMENT-DATE:10/02/2008 11:47:00 PM COMMENT-BODY:Art martyr! ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger CAP COMMENT-DATE:10/03/2008 12:13:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:Those Flash sites are just plain evil. I have trouble collecting there - but more importantly I can't even get specific urls for the jpegs - just to link to them.

One of the most disappointing is the Eli Broad Foundation in LA - which has good-sized JPEGS and you can even isolate them, but they won't display properties, so I can't get to the JPEG directory. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:10/03/2008 07:42:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:I have considered Flash evil since its introduction. Some of its evil has been mitigated -- Google indexes Flash content to some degree -- but a lot of it is still there. Like the inability to link to anything but the "top." It's a bondage & discipline approach to the Web and I've always hated that.

Sometimes you can use View Source to dig out the directory Flash is using for its JPEGs. It depends on the Flash code. Incidentally, as a programmer who's had to work in Flash from time to time, I can say it sucks on the inside, too.

Vista has a built-in screen grab utility which works well enough. There's one on Mac as well. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger Chris Rywalt COMMENT-DATE:10/03/2008 07:59:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:For Eli Broad you could always use the Internet Archive, like so. ——– COMMENT-AUTHOR:Blogger CAP COMMENT-DATE:10/04/2008 11:00:00 AM COMMENT-BODY:Many thanks!

I'm supposed to be learning some basic FLASH in evening classes, but I can't work up much enthusiasm. The thing is web designers use it as just a gimmick because they really don't know what they're looking at with art works (I suspect there's an element of envy or threat there as well) - so they figure if they 'animate' the whole thing in some way it makes it more 'visual' - but of course this is completely counter to the whole point of pictures!

It's the fact that they don't move - the fact that it's the eye that does all the moving (and moving in directions that time/motion does not otherwise allow) that's crucial!

I can't wait for everyone to get over the 'web animation' thing frankly - or at least it's misapplication to gallery sites. ——–