3days&nights

Last night Sarah was here and Meghan was in town from Austin with her boyfriend, we went to see Ear Pwr at DBA and then went to the Levee where I saw this woman Meredith who gave a talk about Mexico City at Silent Barn last year right before I went.  She seemed really full of anger- I tried to be all zen and hippy with her but whatever- some people just like to be angry- myself included at various points on the trajectory. Before that, Sarah and I went and got sushi at Sunrise Mart on Broome, saw Todd and Federico, got posh drinks at the Hudson Hotel (i had a mango ginger margarita!), and then went and drank beer in Central Park with Luke while eating more sushi before going to BK. Sushi and drinks in the spring are A plus.

Today we went to Washington Square Park and before that sandwiches at this place I really love that Liza and I used to go to on 13th st- Te Adore.  

Saturday night I went to see Dan Deacon at midnite with Lynas and Luke- it was Really Fun.  All caps.  Future Islands opened and everyone was drunk and slip sliding around by the end.  Got home pretty late and woke up with Shoog-ala.  

The night before that I went to a nice opening at the Boiler- Pierogi's new space on n.14th.  Two real live camaros gradually crashing into each other and a corona bottle that endlessly breaks itself in slow motion and then re-constitutes itself at rapid speed.

I have an article in my friend Zara's zine, Taffy Hips- you can  get them at Spoonbill and Sugartown on Bedford and at Desert Island on Metropolitan, get get it it...

Keep it happy keep it snappy.  

Friday night, I trotted around a bit. Left work around 7pm for my friend Anne's show at ATM gallery in Chelsea. Lots of mirrors and masks and also Tauba Auerbach-esque pattern paintings in the back room. Jerry and Roberta were there, the rain finally let up, Anne looked beautiful, and since the gallery is so far west, everyone was outside drinking bottled budweiser on the street.

Some of Anne's work looks like this:


Chris and Todd were there too, two JD art handlers- Chris had fashioned a belt buckle out of the Paola Pivi rhinestones, it was quite glamorous. Unfortunately, I had to leave very quickly.

Next, I went to the Jonathan Borofsky opening at Deitch. I was partially going to pick up a wall sign for artist who's been added to the show in Long Island City, and partially because I've been trying to go to every opening at the gallery just for sayings sake. Anyway, no one was there really by the time i got there, I said hi to all da ladies camped  out behind the desk, picked up the sign, and learned something new about myself- according to JD, I look like a sumo wrestler with my hair in a ball on top of my head. Go check out the show? I dunno, not my favorite, but here's the poster:




Then, I went home and made dinner with lots of produce from Zabar's that I got last week on a trip to the Upper West Side. I sauteed shitakes with olive oil and salt, warmed leftover brown rice in the pan and then added a little bit of parmesan, all served over a bed of mixed greens dressed with balsamic vinegar- a warm/cold salad. I also two glasses of a really nice Sauvignon Blanc.

Then I went to see Alexis Gideon at Death by Audio- Edan's show. The last time I saw him was at Asterisk with Dan Deacon when I was 20. Anyway, I missed the whole thing because I was being Euro at home, but I saw some really nice projection he did on the back wall. I'm trying to figure out how to get some youtube of it on here.

Then finally, I went to Daddy's. Is that really where people hang out? I guess so. I saw: Julia, girl with an intense unibrow from VB64 who's been sending me serious stalker emails for the past three weeks in reference to 100 dollars she's owed from Vanessa's studio; Ellen, girl who lived in Greg and Pete's dorm at Umass- she sort of follows me throughout my life; Rachel, woman who runs Secret Project Robot; Mike O'Neil, girl who I worked with at Ghost Robot (so many robots in new york); and The Beets!
What a tangled web we weave.

Pennsylvania tomorrow for further dental damnation.

art farts

I am currently employed by one of the largest galleries in New York. The art world has nice work if you can get it.

I suppose the reason I find my job quite interesting is largely due to the fact that the "chosen" people and objects of desire lie at the crux of many issues currently agitatating this big bad world I call home. Religion and economy, higher education and innate intelligence, memory and imagination, media and community, the familiar and the real, fate and chance, fabrication and mass production, value and money and beauty and intended de-aesthetization, sex and power, post-modernity and DIY, performance and depth, color and light. All the tangible stuff people shove in galleries and museums signifies absolutely everything fascinating about our world, and simultanously, means veritably nothing.

However, the concepts at hand become particularly poignant in our city of hustle as the art market is currently experiencing a 90 percent loss of confidence, with most major works currently valued at about a third of their pre-recession worth.

So to say that I'm lucky to be employed is the understatement of the year, and I try to be grateful each day I'm allowed to come to work and talk about massive installations that I've helped produce. Especially programming as absurd and arbitrary as the current show at JD's space in Long Island City where I spend my days and early evenings. It's a group show called "The Pig", and features artists Jim Drain, Paul Chan, Jeff Koons, Simon Martin, Paola Pivi and Gelatin, an Austrian collective. I'm only going to talk about the pieces I like because no one is forcing me to do otherwise. There are only so many times one can explain a steel grid covered in rhinestones that is the size of a movie screen to middle aged white women with Louis Vuitton bags who aren't going to buy anything anyway using words and phrases like- movement, forced navigation of the terrain, texture, organic yet hyper synthetic. Ok, it's actually really fun, but can become mildly nauseating at times.

There are two "moving sculptures" drive around the gallery for a quarter. One piece is covered in stuffed animals and the other is fashioned from aluminum and found wood, titled "Henry Moore for the Poor". Henry Moore was an English artist and sculptor mainly known for large-scale bronze casts. His amorphous yet feminine figures, generally bulbous in form, usually contain an aspect of hollow, negative space.


"Henry Moore for the Poor" is a non-sensical moving machine- I dare not write car because that would imply it moves forward and back upon command- that plays Disney music for its bemused guest. Just as Universal told me I could "ride the movies" at its amusement park in the previews for E.T, Gelatin instructs any proper art patron to "ride" Henry Moore. Or at least his aesthetic.

C'mon, it's summer- everyone's at Basel anyway.

Today is Wednesday. The sun came out which was nice. I thought about Meg alot today- maybe this is because my boyfriend left me and I want someone to talk to who gets my insides. Or maybe because it felt like summer and I really wanted to drive around and eat sandwiches and be in Amherst.

But I was in New York, which was actually wonderfully great.

Sometimes I think New York hates me and wants me to live in a shithole, freeze my ass off, work for stupid people and get old and wrinkled faster. On days when it's raining and cabs spit on my calves, days when no one calls and I feel like everyone is wrapped up in their own mini city, days when somehow I've spent 60 dollars on seemingly nothing except 10 dollar packs of cigarettes, days when eveything smells and everyone seems sad. Days that would make anyone want to move to Kansas and cook hot dogs all day.

And then sometimes New York kisses me on my head and reminds me everything's going to be alright. It wraps its arms around my waist and asks me if I need anything, lies in my backyard and smokes cigarettes with me while drinking white wine and telling me there is nothing to fear but fear itself. It lets me know I'm special and that I'm going to figure everything out and that I am truly truly loved. New York buys me a drink and lets my train come just as I've stepped into the station, tells all the assholes to go fuck themselves. It plays me music and holds my hand and talks to me about grand adventures and future projects. It reminds me that everything is a construct and to grind my feet a little harder into it's pavement. New York stays up all night with me and screams loudly at me to engage with my work, to love deeply and absurdly, and to always stay the course.

Anyway. Meta.

My boyfriend's body haunts me. Most nights I wake up in the dead of sleep and expect his chest to be sidled next to mine, hand firmly placed in the small of my back. It's not. I turn over some more. Look out the window. Pet my cat.

So today, as on all other days for the past couple weeks, I try to get my body to develop new rhythms. It's not about my mind. My brain is too vast to focus on now- my body is manageable. sleep by myself, walk with your hands in your pockets to places you usually wouldn't go, stand up straight, legs together- no warm, wet anything.

stark, strong, bold, alone.

Alone I was as I walked into Zach Feuer in Chelsea this afternoon. Momus was wearing a ninja suit, beaming a clip light at a small woman named Aki Sasamoto. His voice is hypnotic as ever, even when he's not singing. He says all sorts of things to her, one anecdote about how he's convinced she contorts her face in her sleep especially for him because, subconsciously, she can feel his body and his eyes on hers and knows which expressions he thinks are beautiful. He also goes into the voice of an art critic while she rambles nonsense like a kindergardner, and recites songs by the Police while she flings potatoes attached to bungee cords against a collapsable wall.

Very romantic.

I adored it.