Tonight is our Muse Fuse event, presented by NURTUREart at 7PM. Details are here.
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Come ask us questions tonight in Williamsburg
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Categories: Art -
Jim Kempner Fine Art, 23rd and Eighth Ave
The work in the window is
The Memory of Truth, 2003
Ligorano/Reese
Digital print on Duratrans
96 × 113 inchesIt is part of a show curated by Marshall Reese titled The Medium is the Message.
They also did the ice sculpture I photographed in April at the same gallery.
The State of Things
Ligorano/Reese·
Categories: Postcard -
Don’t forget to vote!
If you’re voting in the New York Democratic primary today, and still undecided on Hillary Clinton versus Jonathan Tasini, just choose based on your beliefs:
Gay Marriage
Tasini: for
Clinton: againstPATRIOT Act
Clinton: for
Tasini: againstIraq War
Clinton: for
Tasini: againstDeath Penalty
Clinton: for
Tasini: againstCluster Bombs
Clinton: for
Tasini: againstI realize he has little chance to defeat her, but a big turnout for Tasini would certainly help put some fear into her plans to win elections by moving ever rightward.
Gay City News has two good articles on Tasini:
- Endorsing him for the Senate
- Why Tasini Matters
From the endorsement:
On a shoestring campaign, Tasini has raised critical questions—most prominently about this nation’s disastrous policy in Iraq. Not incidentally, he is also a supporter of same-sex marriage.
Clinton has ducked fair dialogue on where she stands on the most pressing foreign policy question facing the nation. Just because she can get away with it does not make it the right thing to do. Clinton has also bobbed and weaved this year on gay rights. Activists have pressed her on her opposition to gay marriage—and come away disappointed that did not even speak out on the dignity of gay families on the Senate floor when Congress debated the ugly Marriage Protection Amendment.
Note that I’m not saying the gay issue overrides all. I think the fact that both of New York’s senators voted for the Iraq War, when the overwhelming majority of their constituents were opposed to it (and millions demonstrated on the streets), should be enough reason to get rid of both as soon as possible. The Democratic primary is really our only chance to have a say in this.
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Categories: Politics -
leftover gallery opening cup
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Categories: Image -
Pierogi 2000 opening tonight
Matt Marello, Footprint in World Trade Center Dust, 2006, Digital ink jet print on watercolor paper, 30 × 40 inches
Pierogi 2000 has a 9/11-themed set of exhibitions opening tonight from 7-9. I can’t think of a better community with whom to spend this evening.
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Categories: Art -
Robert Melee chandelier at Andrew Kreps Gallery
This hangs above the desks in the office.
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Categories: Postcard -
My 9/11 post
From Robert Scheer’s column published on May 22, 2001:
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that “rogue regime” for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban’s estimation, are most human activities, but it’s the ban on drugs that catches this administration’s attention.
Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.
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Categories: War -
castaneda/reiman at DCKT Contemporary
I like the confusing perspective of the installation of this exhibition. When one first walks into the gallery, one’s depth perception seems off, and what’s a painted surface versus a three-dimensional surface is a bit of a mystery. I also found some of the images reminiscent of a Gerhard Richter painting of a meadow.
From the press release:
Several large wall pieces loosely depict postcard versions of coastal California. At first glance, these appear to be large multilayered canvas paintings of beautiful scenes rich with glazes and grounded in painting tradition. In fact, they are standard 4×8 foot plywood and sheetrock layered in drywall mud. This mud is pigmented with commercial tints and applied with a trowel more in the tradition of house building than conventional landscape painting.
Dozens of carefully cast, concrete replicas of river rock and quarry stones ranging in scale from overlooked pebbles to average landscaping rock are carefully placed in piles around the gallery. Some rocks blend with the architecture of the space while others supply substructure for the weighty landscape pieces. It soon becomes clear that there is a uniformity of color and a repeat of the forms not present in nature, an evident indication that they are not rocks but replicas. Their function is multi-faceted: they represent the geological foundation of an exterior landscape, their concrete material represents the foundation of a house, while at the same time they are hand-crafted art objects.
There is a rather obsessive quality to making hand-waxed, crafted rocks to present big piles of them. When we walked into the gallery on Saturday afternoon, Dennis Christie told us “We just sold a pile of rocks!”
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Hillary Clinton loves cluster bombs
Have you noticed that Tasini button over on the right of this page? Here is a reminder of why it’s there:
An unexploded bomblet from a cluster bomb marked by the UN in a field near the village of El Maalliye in southern Lebanon. (AP) [source]
Clinton Joins with Republicans to Reject Limits on Cluster Bombs
The Senate on Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules.
On a 70-30 vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill to block use of the deadly munitions near populated areas. The vote came after the State Department announced last month that it is investigating whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.
Unexploded cluster bombs — anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area — litter homes, gardens and highways in south Lebanon after Israel’s 34-day war with Hezbollah militants.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have long sought to keep cluster bombs from being used near concentrated areas of civilians. They say that as many as 40 percent of the munitions fail to detonate on impact — they can still can explode later — leaving innocent civilians and children vulnerable to injury or death long after hostilities have ceased.
Relief organizations and the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center reported finding evidence that Israel used three types of U.S.-made cluster bombs during the war with Hezbollah militants. Israel also manufactures its own cluster munitions.
“For too long, innocent civilians, not enemy combatants, have suffered the majority of casualties from cluster munitions,” Leahy said. “The recent experience in Lebanon is only the latest example of the appalling human toll of injury and death. Strict rules of engagement are long overdue.”
The AP story doesn’t mention that Clinton and Schumer voted with Republicans on the bill. I had to get that information from Tasini’s web site. The roll call vote is here.
The New York Democratic Party primary is this Tuesday. Don’t forget to vote!
Related: Daniel Millstone at Daily Gotham on cluster bombs in Lebanon.
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Crazy art week begins
You can check out ArtCal for the 100+ openings we care about in the next few days, but I wanted to highlight a few things.
First, part one of our first-ever curating opens this Friday at Dam, Stuhltrager:
Susan C. Dessel, Our Backyard, A Cautionary Tale
Dam, Stuhltrager
Williamsburg
38 Marcy Avenue
Opening: Friday, September 8, 7:00PM – 9:00PMWe also want to try to hit Christopher Reiger’s show at AG Gallery that night. Based on other things I’ve seem out of Team Lump fron North Carolina, the Cinders Gallery show, also opening Friday, should be great.
On Thursday night in Chelsea, we may not make it to all, but I definitely want to try to hit:
- Jesse Bercowetz & Matt Bua at Derek Eller
- Ester Partegàs at Foxy Production
- Jen Dalton at Winkleman / Plus Ultra
It looks like you should just hit 27th Street if you can’t make it to everything.
If you’re in Williamsburg on Thursday night, there is an opening party for The Rider Project at Galapagos art space, 70 North 6th Street, 6-10 pm.
I know I left a huge number of things off (including DCKT, Monya Rowe, and Sixtyseven), but I’m running back to coding now, and recommend just checking out ArtCal to make your own list.
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Categories: Art