kdays was super fun, happy in the best sense, expensive, but i will be getting some of that back.

john burrows, an artist, attacked and yelled and abused me verbally beause i said his paintings were shit, his paintings are shit...you can see them here and his "folk art" here. on brown wedge next week, i am planning on writing about the conversation we had, commerically, poltically, aesthetically, and personally.

more about british art now:

the chapman brothers did a series of etchings, modifying, often violent, sometiems cleverly, something called the big giant colouring book. the work was yellowed in such a way that i thot it was his infamous goya paintings, and of course it wasnt, maybe a preview of that work. the chapman brothers are treating goya and the giant colouring book as synonomous texts. i thot about that for a while, and i realised something--i should find the work, cheap, easy, lazy, badly construted, adn shocking for the sake of shock, vapid in the worst ways--and i do, but i still like them, and im not sure why. its like douglas coupland, who wrote the introductory essay, who i know who is a shit writer, but who moves me emotionally, who makes me feel bad in a good way.

tracey emin, i dont think i like her, ive been annoyed with her for a decade, for no real good reason, mostly i think for extranous ideas of romanticism, or offputtign misogyny, or because i dont think her work is elegant enough, but i keep returning to it, it sticks with me...the work on teh show, is a large, embroided wall hangign, of a nude woman, (scrawled, but with dleicate care, because the stictching is perfect) with a hundred or so coins pouring out of her cunt. the coins are sewn with similar coloured thread, the background a mushroom brown, the coins copper, the hread almsot chocolate...and the stictches go in several directions, acting as a delicate pocket...for something that was supposed to be clumsy, or broken, or falling apart, or scrawly, there was so much work into making it work, delicately, adn with much prescion. that irony is central to emins work, or if not irony, then tension, but its a tension that bothers me on a gut level, and i dont knwo why. talking to ashley about emin, i said to him, ive spent a decade being annoyed by her, and that means here is power there, but i cant get over the block into admiring or liking her work. (i am talkign about the embroidery here, which i think is what she will be famous for. the drawings i hate, the writing i dont bother with, and the neon i am fascinated with---usually i can divorice an artist from their work, the autobiography of emin makes it difficult)

here is the peice i saw:

i cant find a clsoe up of the coins

Sarah Lucas had the same collection of self portraits. the same ones ive seen in london, toronto and vancouver, they have a visual sedution, adn sarah lucas looks like the butch, anglo women ive always found incredibly exciting (tilda, or rachels friend sam, both have the same bone structure). the pyschosexual symbols are both modern adn ancient--the skull could be hamlet or the ambassadors or some goth kid, the fish could be constable or van eyck or any of the performance artists, but i wonder if they are too slick, too obv

gillian wearing makes me happy. that is all.


link dump:

dobson take down, written in denver. he seems to be a cruel, distant, adn often violent man.


Atta Kim, From the Sex Seires, long exposure photograph. makes making love seem cosmic


From a seires of ghost walls, from about to be destroyed buildings in barcelona (tehy are so common, that there is a word for them: Medinaras. more examples herehere the text is in spanish.


WPA mural, in seatle, called dangers of the mail, is at risk of destruction, and is already screened, because of a panel featuring a rape and scalping of a white oman by indians. the work is pretty standard wpa, but im not sure it should be lsot because of poltical concerns...an interesting case of what is considered obsecene over time (like the racism of early windsor mckay now causing them to be classified for mature readers)

an online exhibiton on themes of voyuerism and photographry, advertising a book by the name of voyuer. the photos are the usual noirish, black and white, which adds a visual cohesiveness, but makes it a bit cliched. the combo of known and unknown fotogs, artist studies, papparazzi, porn, and fine art photography are wonderful, as is the timeline (about 90 yrs) though. some excellent examples though, esp:

Roswitha Hecke
Prostitute on Her Street
(image 2)

Pedro Meyer
Eye Bar
(Image 7)

Marcello Gepetti
Liz Tayor and Richard Burton, Ischia Italy
(Iamge no 10)

the unknown image, that is no 13

Atgets
Femme
(no 22)

Erika Langley
The Lusty Lady
(28)

Unknown
31

Ken Probsts work on a gay male porn set, 36 and 37 (though tehy shold be in colour)

Unknown 51

Lou Stoumen
Perrier
(55)

Unknown 63

(i was going to say that the male gaze, either queer or straight, is at full power here, but there are several examples from teh book carnival strippers, by a woman, whose focus is about that gaze, and is critical of how we look, adn issues of class, sexuality, gender, and banality. i find it odd though there are many images by women, there are few by women of women for women, lesbians are completely absent ehre)


From Ram T Jess LJ.
(is it dangerous to treat this image as only kitsch?)

Wal Mart tries to remake myspace, as The hub, and positions itself as radical in its oppostion to cool. please mock



Ralph ReeD loses LG in Georgia (why did he run?)


Oksana Baiul (i will spare you the image of Paris Hilton looking like Tammy Wynette

France forgives and Britian reduces, Ugandas debt. Good first start, people, lets keep the momentum moving.


Prada this season, the heel is hand carved, and the slick patent leater, with teh crafted wood, clunky, is one of the better examples of formalist aesthetic in fashion--its conceptually brilliant, i dont know how wearable it is

textual excerpts from the rapture ready sites, as currated by harpers, without comment. harpers is good at basic info--the readings section are still vital and fresh in the floatsam adn jetson of he internet--and i am still confused about how the naive opitism of much evangelcal american xianity, extends to every aspect. reading the apolyptic texts of christian and hebrew scripture, one is supposed to be both horrofied, and be humble about oens status post mortem...this rapture obsession is really a fundamentalsit belief in the superioruity of ones god over the other. Reading the boards, and then reading primary texts from bombers in london, in teh same week, i burrowed into the belief that fundmentalism is a kind of delayed ecstacy. dont fuck know, but you shall fuck for ever in heaven. dont take pleasure in anyone but jesus, and jesus will never abandon you. the 72 virgins and the rapture are the same lizard brain place.


Just Watch it

how to get laid in San Diego



Peter Caine, Patroit, anamontric erotic sculpture (i want video!)

on
the political implications of Bush's Font Choices.