James and I braved rain and wind to see art and survived to share it with all of you.

On Saturday in Chelsea the highlights were:

• Jeff Whetstone: Zoolatry at Wallspace – black and white photography of humans and other creatures as nature specimens, including a sexy turkey hunter in camouflage

  

• Tim Lokiec at LFL Gallery — Zach continues to find wacky and interesting painters. Disclosure: we bought two works on paper of Tim’s.

  

  Tim Lokiec, “Plateau Sigma II”, oil on panel, 32″ x 35″, 2003

We also saw Clemente at Gagosian and Larry Clark at Luhring Augustine, but I wouldn’t describe those as “highlights.” My favorite part of seeing Larry Clark was the “guard” or whoever the young guy in the hooded sweatshirt sitting at the edge of the gallery was. I was also amused to see that some people had come from the driving range at Chelsea Piers to see the Clark show, and left their golf clubs in the area near the entrance with everyone’s umbrellas.

Sunday’s Williamsburg highlights were:

• Schroeder Romero — Eric Heist’s “Leisure Management Corporation”
• Foxy Productions — fun group show called “Blinky” that includes Paper Rad and Cory Arcangel. There will be performances related to the show on Friday, June 27, from 6-9pm. It should be worth a visit, after reading Tom Moody’s description of an earlier Cory Arcangel appearance. He is the artist who hacks Nintendo code to create new works. We first saw the work of him and Paper Rad at Daniel Reich gallery. One of the other artists in the show, Sarah Ciraci, uses images of houses and other buildings in digital prints that turn them into UFOs. A little bird told me that she had to seek permission to use images of the Bilbao Guggenheim building by Frank Gehry, and the legal letter from the museum told her what edition size they expected her to use. Geez, they’re getting worse than Microsoft.
• Speaking of intellectual property and fair use, the “Focus Group” show at Momenta, curated by Eric Heist, includes one of Perry Hoberman‘s modified computer dialogs, this time one that warns someone they’re using a trademarked corporate advertising slogan, so they need to decide whether they’re going to pay for the privilege or invoke a fair use argument. Nothing like that would surprise me were it to come to pass. The whole show is really strong.

  

• Black and White — for the David Baskin installation in the courtyard, plus a photo by Meighan Gale and a pretty interesting painting by Andrew Piedilato. The Piedilato is somewhere between figurative and macho physical Ab-Ex painting. Tatyana the gallery owner told me he puts on some big yellow gloves and uses his hands to paint.
• Sheila Ross and Eric Trosko at Dam Stuhltrager. No web site, but you can find the gallery’s contact info at Free Williamsburg. She makes mixed media drawings/collages with paint, contact paper, masking tape, etc. I think the work would have been better served by showing a few less of them. The overall effect of a bunch of them crammed together on a wall was dizzying. The meticulous and minimal paintings of Eric Trosko are somewhere in the realm of Wayne Thiebaud or Alex Katz, with something about them that makes one want to lick them.
• Jonathan Herder has a brilliant show at Pierogi 2000 in the smaller north gallery. He makes beautiful collages from postage stamps that have to be seen to be believed. I wasn’t surprised when I learned they were almost all sold.

  
  untitled (brown desert stampscape – self-regeneration), detail, 2002; stamp collage on paper; 14 x 17 inches

Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, held up “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” the relished fifth installment. It was author J.K. Rowling’s “special wish” to give the book to the library to honor New York City’s tenacity since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Nadaq sign in Times Square boldly advertised the book’s release. Nearby, a Toys “R” Us store urged children to show up dressed as their favorite character. The first to line up to buy a book was a young woman who parked herself in a lawn chair at 2 in the afternoon.

The only antidote to a world in which the NY Times has a special Harry Potter section is to read Betty Bower’s Has Satan hired a better ad agency than the Lord?

Some samples:

I note with no surprise that throughout history, religions that foolishly choose to promise excruciating pain and embarrassment to believers after they die never manage to be embraced by all but a few mordant masochists. Savvy people shopping for a new faith shrewdly demand extravagant incentives from any group that courts their patronage. Of course, when one is making cold calls to people in first century Palestine, promising something better is all but impossible not to do. Just mention antiperspirant! To jaded American Christians, however, the pot must be sweetened somewhat. Therefore, Heaven is seemingly decorated by Carmela Soprano, sporting gaudy gold paved road and has everyone wearing excessive jewelry, such as crowns, before 5pm.

…

Christianity has always been blessed with nimble marketing, able to shift campaigns to adapt to the vicissitudes of the both the spiritual and political marketplace. Once Adolf Hitler was able to draw upon centuries of Christian anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual inflammatory rhetoric to employ both clergy and congregation to exterminate both, it became impolitic to associate with someone who lost a war. Therefore, True Christians(tm) wisely distanced themselves from him by simply passing him off as “anti-Christian.” (Yes, it was disingenuous and misleading, but so is Palmolive’s claim to be anti-bacterial.)

…

Just when we were patting ourselves on the back over convincing unsaved Americans that Islamic Fundamentalist fanatics, who believe they act for God in killing Americans (stock brokers), are substantively different from American Fundamentalist fanatics, who believe they act for God in killing Americans (abortionists), along comes Satan with the most clever ad campaign for the nonsensical since the Catholics claimed Mary died a virgin: Harry Potter.

All hail the power of Google. Someone from Casey Kaplan gallery found my mention of the Jeff Burton show “Kevin” in April and sent me some images and the press release. Here is the description from the press release:

For his fifth solo exhibition in New York, Jeff Burton will present “Kevin,” a new series of portrait photographs taken from a brief exchange with a young male hustler.

This is the first exhibition that the artist will devote entirely to portraiture. Burton’s previous shows have explored the cultural and sexual landscape of southern California through his involvement in Hollywood’s adult film industry. The photographs portray elements of both voyeurism and anonymity.

In contrast to Burton’s earlier work, “Kevin” demonstrates a shift in focus by the artist where we are presented with eight photographs recording an individual’s performance. Burton’s own significant history within the adult film industry contributes to the powerful images of “Kevin” that unfold. The artist’s approach to photographing this character communicates the tension of a highly private moment that developed publicly in a crowded New Orleans bar. “Kevin” offers himself in a spontaneous performative act. The resulting photographs demonstrate an intimate moment shared between photographer and model making this Burton’s boldest work to date.

My understanding is that the whole set of images was photographed in less than half an hour.

They’re not particularly work-safe, so click on “More” to see them. We saw it while my mom was here and she liked it too!

The Tank is a new space for visual and performing arts on 42nd Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Go check out the web site and sign up for the mailing list.