We just came back from our second visit to see Christian Holstad’s show at Daniel Reich. See the NY Times article, plus some images from LFL Gallery. Great show! There is a lot of creative energy, with a lot of different media in a show titled “Life is a Gift”. We had seen some of his work based on erasing NY Times photos and adding drawing in the past at Daniel’s, and there are some fabulous examples of those, but there is so much more. It’s the first time in a long time that I have bought a work at an opening, and what an opening it was! Daniel’s gallery is his tiny studio apartment, and there must have been over 100 people there over the course of the evening, including a huge crowd in the building hallway, chatting, smoking and drinking beer. Christian also did the sets and costumes for a show at P.S.122 this weekend: Stable.

We went to the party afterward at Simon Watson‘s loft downtown, and ran into a lot of fabulous people, plus met some new ones. We spent a while talking with charming musician/aesthete Patrick, whom we originally met through artist Joe Ovelman. Patrick recognized Christian as the person he spotted on the L train, crocheting, on a regular basis. Joe has an opening in February at Daniel Silverstein, so watch this space, or the gallery’s web site, for more info.

We also met Alejandro Diaz. We just ended up talking to this charming artist, along with Maika from SOUTHFIRST, who was telling us about the fact that he recently had The New Yorker buy some drawings of his for use in little places within articles, when he mentioned his name. We both said, “We have a work of yours, from the White Box benefit!” We also met Eric Stormes, who has some charming little pins made from drawings on mapboard and is in Cynthia Broan’s $99 Bargain Store Show which opens February 1.

The Times article mentioned above also talks about a show at Oliver Kamm’s apartment, which is three floors above ours. If he can get away with it in our building, maybe we should start having exhibits too! I certainly know of a lot of people whose work I would like to show.

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Last night we went to a dance performance by Allyson Green and Ben Wright at Danspace titled “Interim”. It had its moments, but I wasn’t bowled over by the dance itself. However, the lighting design, by Sarah Gilmartin, was absolutely the best lighting I have ever seen at Danspace. The sound design, by Alan Stones, based on manipulating a recording of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata performed by Paderewski, plus a performance of Bluebird of Happiness by Jan Peerce in 1945, was exquisite – one of the best things I’ve heard at a dance performance.

We spent most of the afternoon and evening in Williamsburg, going to galleries and ending the evening with Glenn at Galapagos to see John Moran and Eva Müller in “What’s Opera Doc?” The performance was great — cool sound and movement, acting that was scary and good at the same time. I got a little worried at the beginning, especially since we dragged Glenn away from his lesson plans to join us. When we walked in we could smell pot, and Ms. Müller joked in her introduction about John being “over there smoking pot”, but it all turned out alright. More than alright — fabulous! Check out the images on their site of Moran’s theatre productions.

We saw some good things in Williamsburg today. I’m feeling the need to spend most of my gallery-going time in Williamsburg rather than Chelsea these days. Recommended:

• Deborah Stratman’s video “In Order Not To Be Here” at Momenta
• Tricia McLaughlin at Star 67 — great models, drawings, and animation
• Lee Etheridge IV at Pierogi 2000 — He uses an IBM selectric to create patterns of letters and words on handmade paper, in a new phase, on photographs. I liked his previous show at the gallery, but I think this one is better and really strong.

I’m going to see John Moran and Eva Mueller at Galapagos tonight at 9pm. Any takers?

Over the last few days, I’ve “done some art”, plus seen one movie that wasn’t quite art, but was entertaining: I went to a preview screening of P.S. Your Cat is Dead from actor/co-writer/director/80s hunk Steve Guttenberg. It’s amusing, but I would probably wait to see it on video if I hadn’t seen it already. The screening was organized by The New Festival, so it was a big gay crowd there to see him in person. The highlight of the evening was getting to talk to David Drake, whom we hadn’t seen since attending his Son of Drakula at Dance Theater Workshop. People like David give me hope for homo culture and art — he’s a pretty face, but he’s a smart guy who is much more than a pretty face. Another one of those is John Cameron Mitchell.

OK. Enough celebrity worship — on to other things.

Several nights ago I saw a cool evening of music at Merkin. The first half was a collaboration of “live animation” by Pierre Hébert and music by Bob Ostertag called Between Science and Garbage. Hébert used an iBook plus web cam and a lot of objects and drawings to gradually assemble an animated film while we watched, using everything from drawings on paper to apples and Coke cans. They were selling Ostertag’s CDs in the lobby, so I bought PantyChrist, which I always knew about but had never heard. It’s wonderful — a collaboration between him and Justin Bond. How could you ask for more? I’ll put up some MP3s later.

On Friday we went to an opening for Stacy Greene at Plus Ultra in Williamsburg, then hopped back on the L to see puppet wizard Paul Zaloom at P.S. 122 featuring political puppetry and a gay Punch and Judy show, renamed “Punch and Jimmy”.

Stacy’s new work, as she has told me, is a new direction for an artist who already has worked in several media. We first encountered her at Plus Ultra’s inaugural show, titled “Skank” where we picked up a copy of her Rorschach Striptease DVD. There are 3 photographs of abandoned drive-in movie theaters, then the rest of the works consists of pieces assembled from photgraphs on individual panels to form a sort of collage. My favorite piece in the show is called “Los Zapatos de Lorraine”, in which the title comes from a pair of chintz-patterned shoes belonging to her aunt Lorraine in one of the panels.

Yesterday we went to a few Chelsea galleries. My favorite things I saw were Devorah Sperber at Caren Golden, Michael Wetzel at Clementine, and Kevin Landers at Elizabeth Dee.

Today we’re headed out to Williamsburg to see some shows.