HANNE'S ART AND CULTURE BLOG

If you are in New York tomorrow, stop by this screening I curated with Lauren Cornell for Light Industry..!

Light Industry
220 36th Street, 5th Floor
Brooklyn, New York
http://www.lightindustry.org

Disturbing History
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 7:30pm

Curated by Lauren Cornell and Hanne Mugaas

A selection of experimental documentaries that recall obscure or lesser
known histories. Some works evoke the not so distant past through personal
narratives, such as Lene Berg¹s The Man in the Background, which uncovers
the double-life of a CIA operative during the Cold War. Others bring to
light marginal stories or situations and point to factors that repress them,
while Winner by Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn portrays a fictional character,
Lois, who evokes the weird genius (or isolation) of the misunderstood
artist. The screening touches on a broad range of subjects including a
present-day love affair between woman and monument, dreams of celebrity, and
a short-lived genre called New Jack Swing, each disturbing and re-telling a
set history.

The Man in the Background, Lene Berg, 2006
Over a compilation of found home-movie footage shot on Super-8, Berg layers
seven voice-overs, each describing a different side of the story of Michael
and Diana Josselson, a seemingly ordinary and convivial American couple
later exposed for cooperation with the CIA, he as an operative and she as
complicit in his affairs. The Man in the Background builds a narrative
picture of the complex double-life of the couple, as shaped by prevailing
Cold War cultural politics.

Berlinmuren, Lars Laumann, 2008
Berlinmuren centers on an unusual relationship: the love affair between
Eija-Riita Berliner-Mauer and the Berlin Wall. Laumann's approach is not
primarily documentary but guided instead by a respectful interest in the
idiosyncrasies of marginalized social phenomena ‹ not only that such
relationships are possible, but also how society reacts to them.

Misty Boundaries Has Left the Room, James Richards, 2008
James Richards uses the accumulation and reassembly of imagery as a
devotional and elegiac process; the archetypes of the mixtape and of the
souvenir create and demonstrate the obsession of the fan, the transformation
of the mass archive into a personal one. He proposes an arena of
subjectivity distinct from the one bounded by commerce and the media, and in
so doing redefines processes of making and showing. Misty Bounderies Has
Left the Room was made for the online project The Politics in the Room.

Winner, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, 2003
In this short fictional documentary, Lois (played by Kahn) is a peripatetic,
struggling artist who wins a cruise through a radio contest but, when paid a
visit by the station¹s representative, refuses to accept it. Instead, she
locks the station¹s representative (played by Dodge) into a winding
conversation and informal studio visit which ends in her displaying works in
the trunk of her car.

NJS Map, Seth Price, 2001-02
Excerpted from Price's 2001 video-lecture "New York Woman," which explored
the ways in which music production techniques change over time, NJS Map uses
animated diagrams to lay out the historical development of one period in pop
music, the briefly-lived but influential genre often called "New Jack
Swing."

Tickets - $7, available at door.

This event is supported by Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA).

About Light Industry

Light Industry is a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York.
Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project has begun
as a series of events at Industry City in Sunset Park, each organized by a
different artist, critic, or curator. Conceptually, Light Industry draws
equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in New
York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid film
exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and
lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of
time-based media and foster an ongoing dialogue amongst a wide range of
artists and audiences within the city.

About Industry City

Industry City, an industrial complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is home to a
cross-section of manufacturing, warehousing and light industry. As part of a
regeneration program intended to diversify the use of its 6 million square
feet of space to better reflect 21st century production, Industry City now
includes workspace for artists. In addition to offering studios at
competitive rates, Industry City also provides a limited number of low-cost
studios for artists in need of reasonably priced space. This program was
conceived in response to the lack of affordable workspace for artists in New
York City and aims to establish a new paradigm for industrial
redevelopment--one that does not displace artists, workers, local residents
or industry but instead builds a sustainable community in a context that
integrates cultural and industrial production. For more information:
http://www.industrycityartproject.org

And here is Biz Markie in 1989:

Cool then, cool now.

Biz Markie first surfaced on the music scene in the early '80s as a pioneer of Beat Boxer & Emcee with DJ Marley Marl & the Legendary Juice Crew All-Stars. Biz's humorous, innovative and unorthodox approach has influenced generations and led Biz to countless guest appearances with Hip-Hop's biggest stars.

Bonus information: In 2002, he appeared as an alien in Men in Black II with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, essentially playing an alien parody of himself, whose native language sounded exactly like beatboxing.

It's Bo at home in the White House, doing tricks! And he already learnt how to attack the paparazzi, just like a real celebrity!:

If you're in New York, or will be going to New York between June 10 and November 30, make sure to stop by the exhibition Looking at Music: Side 2 at MoMA. The show is curated by Barbara London, and includes photography, video, film, music, publications by and with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Blondie, Richard Hell, Sonic Youth, and Patti Smith, among others. Make sure to check out the film and video program!

NEW YORK, June 4, 2009—The Museum of Modern Art presents Looking at Music: Side 2, a survey of over 120 photographs, music videos, drawings, audio recordings, publications, Super 8 films, and ephemera that look at New York City from the early 1970s to the early 1980s when the city became a haven for young renegade artists who often doubled as musicians and poets. Art and music cross-fertilized with a vengeance following a stripped-down, hard-edged, anti-establishment ethos, with some artists plastering city walls with self-designed posters or spray painted monikers, while others commandeered abandoned buildings, turning vacant garages into makeshift theaters for Super 8 film screenings and raucous performances. Many artists found the experimental music scene more vital and conducive to their contrarian ideas than the handful of contemporary art galleries in the city. Artists in turn formed bands, performed in clubs and non-profit art galleries, and self-published their own records and zines while using public access cable channels as a venue for media experiments and cultural debates.

Looking at Music: Side 2 is organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and succeeds Looking at Music (2008), an examination of the interaction between artists and musicians of the 1960s and early 1970s. Looking at Music: Side 2 is on view from June 10 to November 30, 2009, with an accompanying film series in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters to commence in September 2009.

The exhibition spans numerous forms of media by a diverse group of artists including: drawings by Patti Smith and photography by Dan Graham, Nan Goldin, and Jimmy DeSana; experimental video by James Nares; issues of influential zines and magazines including Search & Destroy, Interview, and Punk; posters designed by Adrian Piper and Collaborative Projects, Inc. (Colab); prints by Jenny Holzer, Betsey Johnson, and Bern Boyle; music videos with songs by Blondie and Suicide; record covers designed by Kim Gordon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Raymond Pettibon; music from Television, The Ramones, and Talking Heads; and live band footage from performances at Max’s Kansas City.

Barbara London states: “This exhibition shows how musicians and artists coalesced at a time when New York City, while financially struggling, seemed to incubate innovative ideas and facilitate the phenomenal success of a few, marking the transition into the next, more commercial decade of artists in New York City.”

Outside The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery, Looking at Music: Side 2 is introduced through a title wall designed by the New York artist Laurie Anderson. Within the exhibition James Nares’s video, Game (1975), greets viewers at the exhibition’s entrance. Active in the 1970s on the Lower East Side as a Super 8 filmmaker and member of The Del-Byzanteens, Nares concocted a percussive, imaginary board game, performed with Seth Tillett, which he turned into the subject of his experimental film. Nares’s work is accompanied by a monitor displaying segments from Glenn O’Brien’s late 1970s Manhattan Public Access television show, TV Party. Equal parts party, talk show, video art, concert, and political action, TV Party took live television to a place it had never been before, including interviews with a number of the artists included in the exhibition. Also on display are drawings by Patti Smith and an audio station playing her song Hey Joe/Piss Factory (1974), considered to be the first punk rock record and funded by the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Two tracks from The Ramones, widely cited as the first punk rock group, play at a nearby audio station, including “Beat on the Brat” and “Blitzkrieg Bop” (1976). In vitrines, poetry from the musician Richard Hell and a record from the German artist Martin Kippenberger’s short-lived musical project with Christine Hahn and Eric Mitchell are on display.

The exhibition next focuses on the work of New York based Colab, a non-profit artist collective distinguished for political engagement and the co-opting of public spaces, including an abandoned building in the heart of Times Square in 1980. In a set of video monitors, works from Colab artists are on display, including Coleen Fitzgibbon, a founding Colab member and instigator of the Times Square Show, which housed socially themed artworks in a derelict Times Square building. With a background in 1960s structuralist cinema, Fitzgibbon’s Super 8 film transferred to video, Time (1975), is a nonstop visual flow of headlines and text, all drawn from an issue of Time magazine, with the effect of an incessant restlessness of the filmic frame. On a nearby monitor, the music video Frankie Teardrop (1978), set to the New York-based band Suicide, is on display. This coarsely-textured film-video hybrid combines super-imposed projector manipulations and high-end video post-production. An insightful collaboration between videomaker Paul Dougherty and Art-Rite zine editors Walter Robinson and Edit DeAk, the work interprets a strident song by Suicide about a poverty-stricken Vietnam vet pushed to the edge. These works are surrounded by posters, audio, and a video by Judith Barry, Richard Kern, and the New York band Sonic Youth and the work of Beth and Scott B.

Looking at Music: Side 2 next examines the cross-influence of hip hop and art in New York City, including the video of Rapture (1981) by Blondie. Rapture, the first video to incorporate elements from rap on MTV, opens with choreographer William Barnes dancing in a white suit and top hat in New York’s Upper East Side. Barnes is joined by Debbie Harry and her bandmates—easy-going, cross-over artists who bridged uptown and downtown scenes. In the final sequence of the music video, the band dances down a street passing Fab 5 Freddy and graffiti artists Lee Quiñones and Jean-Michel Basquiat in action. The video is accompanied by photographs of Basquiat’s graffiti work from the 1970s, by Peter Moore and Stephanie Chernikowski, and a large-scale drawing by the artist, Untitled (1981).

The exhibition concludes with images from five rock n’ roll photographers. Adjacent to a large-scale photographic collage of the work of Bob Gruen, adapted from the 2007 installation Rock and Roll Teenager's Bedroom and measuring 7.5’ x 22.5’, the exhibition includes vitrines with photographs of Suicide by Godlis and Sonic Youth by Stephanie Chernikowski, along with additional photographs by Roberta Bayley and Marcia Resnick. On a monitor beside these works is Bob Gruen’s New York Death Cult (Live at Max’s Kansas City) (1976), featuring grainy footage from famed music club Max’s Kansas City, which captures the raw, immersive spirit of up-and-coming musicians of that era such as Patti Smith.

FILM AND VIDEO PROGRAM:

Films

Taxi Driver. 1976. Directed by Martin Scorsese.
A Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in NYC, whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process.
Monday, September 21, 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, September 27, 5:00 p.m. T2

New York Dolls - All Dolled Up. 2005. Directed by Bob Gruen and Nadya Beck
This documentary captures the band during early performances in New York at Kenny's Castaways and Max's Kansas City, then follows the Dolls on their tour of the west coast, including footage from the Whisky A Go Go, the Real Don Steele Show, Rodney Bingenheimer's E Club, and much more.
Wednesday, September 23, 4:00 p.m.
Monday, September 28, 7:00 p.m. T2

The Blank Generation.1976. Directed by Ivan Kral, Amos Poe.
Amos Poe and Ivan Kral married silent footage with live tapes or demo recordings of bands (most of whom had yet to release a record) to create a deliberately rough audio-visual record of the burgeoning punk scene, including bands such as Blondie, Talking Heads, The Ramones, and The Heartbreakers.
Saturday, September 26, 4:00 p.m.
Wednesday, September 30, 4:00 p.m. T2

Blank City. 2009. Directed by Celine Danhier
The documentary uncovers New York’s underexposed filmmaking movements circa 1977 to 1987, when pioneering independent filmmakers collaborated with experimental musicians and vanguard artists, all on a shoestring budget, to create some of the most daring films of their generation.
Thursday, October 1, 7 p.m., T2

Deadly Art of Survival. 1979. 58 min. Directed by Charlie Ahearn.
Charlie Ahearn's first Super-8 feature is a Bruce Lee-style docu-epic, shot in the housing projects of the Lower East Side, with a story revolving around the real and imaginary rivals of an idealistic martial arts school led in actual life by the star of the flick, Nathan Ingram.

Underground USA. 1980, 85 min. Directed by Eric Mitchell.
In this 16 millimeter film, Victor (played by Eric Mitchell), a street hustler, meets Vicki (played by Patti Astor), a Manhattan movie star who has fallen from fame, at New York venue the Mudd Club. The two entertain each other for a while, but Victor betrays Vicki, leading to a bleak ending.
Monday, October 5, 7 p.m., T2
Wednesday, October 7, 4 p.m. T2

Downtown 81/ New York Beat Movie. 1981 and 2000. Directed by Edo Bertoglio, written by Glenn O’Brien, and produced by O'Brien and Maripol.
The story of a charismatic artist (Jean-Michel Basquiat) who attempts to sell a painting amidst the rappers, junkies, strippers, models and art-world matriarchs on the Lower East Side. With music by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Tuxedomoon, The Plastics, DNA, The Lounge Lizards, and Basquiat's own band, Gray.
Friday, October 2, 7 p.m., T2
Sunday, October 11, 5 p.m., T2

Men in Orbit. 1979, 33 min. Directed by Lydia Lunch, written by John Lurie.
A “sci-fi povera” film shot on Super-8, “Men In Orbit” features musician John Lurie and Eric Mitchell as chain-smoking astronauts occupying a decrepit New York living room transformed into a spacecraft.

G Men. 1978, 40 min. Directed by Beth and Scott B.
An exploration of social schizophrenia in which terrorists consult their mothers before planting bombs, and the head of the NYC bomb squad succumbs to his dominatrix. With Bill Rice and Marcia Resnick.

She Had Her Gun All Ready. 1978, 28 min. Directed by Vivienne Dick.
With Lydia Lunch and Pat Place, this film, set in the Lower East Side, is about unequal power between two people (of any gender), or the repressive side of a person in conflict with the sexual powerful side.
Wednesday, October 7, 7 p.m., T2
Sunday, October 18, 5:30, T1

Rome 78. 1978. Directed by James Nares.
A noted classic of the “New Cinema” of underground East Village filmmakers, this color Super-8 film presents a narrative surrounding the Roman Emperor Caligula set in a shabby New York apartment. Ultimately, James Nares proposes an analogy between ancient Rome and modern America as cultural empires.
Monday, October 12, 7 p.m., T2
Saturday, November 28, 7:30 p.m., T2

Stranger than Paradise. 1984. Directed by Jim Jarmusch.
A self-styled New York hipster (John Lurie of the Lounge Lizards) is paid a surprise and quite unwelcome visit by his sixteen-year-old Hungarian cousin. From initial hostility and indifference a strange affection grows between the two exiles.
Saturday, October 17, 8 p.m., T1
Sunday, November 29, 2 p.m., T2

Variety. 1984, 100 min. Directed by Bette Gordon.
In Bette Gordon's pioneering indie film about voyeurism from a female perspective, a young woman (played by Sandy McLeod) works as a ticket taker in a porn theater, and her curiosity leads her to shadow a male patron.
Friday, November 27, 7 p.m., T2
Monday, November 30, 4 p.m., T2

I know, I know, this all happened way back in 2008, and it for some weird reason it has not made it onto this blog until now. I'll try to up up the game here. Well, anyway, enjoy Snoop making food.

It's the circus queen and tinker bell Tiny Kline! While working for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Kline became well known for her signature "slide for life" stunt, an "iron jaw" act in which she slid to the ground while dangling from trapeze rigging by her teeth. Kline renewed her spectacular acrobatics at the age of seventy when she played Tinker Bell in the "Fantasy in the Sky" fireworks show at Disneyland.

Youtube user jonslick13, who uploaded the video says: "This is an actual filming in 1932 with a woman crossing Time Square , New York , hanging by her teeth. This is real and what I love is that she does an aerobic routine while she is hanging by her teeth; because hanging by her teeth 500 feet up might not be enticing enough. Awesome and will never be repeated". Commenter weirdiejohnson410 says: "tiny kline was my friend nora's great great aunt. so if anyone has any questions email ashleytisdale1207, and tell her hope told u to." Via Lars.

"We learned a lot from the first Gulf War."

Commenter bmdola says" "now heres some responsible stars. nowadays celebs like miley cyrus and 50 cent just throw some movie cash on a Honda Prius and everyone thinks their socially conscious. Now this! is what I call activism", while stickshaka does not agree with that: "As this was done in 1990 and the 80's just ended it's clear that they must have enticed all these stars with mountains of "snow" they could ski nose first down.".

Although, my favorite quote of all these is the soldier in the end stating "If I was a female, I would have makeup down my face, because it really touched me". Well, you just touched me, soldier. In all the wrong places.

Oh yes. Is there anything more beautiful than Kenny G's Silhouette? I don't think I know of anything. But where is Kenny G now? Well, I did a little research, and here are some notes that might be of interest to you:

Kenny G has recorded some Chinese songs, such as "Jasmine Flower" (茉莉花) or "The Moon Represents My Heart" (月亮代表我的心). His music is noticeably popular in China. His recording "Going Home" is often played at closing time at public places or the at end of classes at schools. Mass transit systems in Tianjin and Shanghai play these songs when trains approach terminus stations.

He frequently plays golf and has a playing handicap of +0.6. He has participated in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am tournament seven times as of 2009, and Golf Digest awarded him the position of number one golfer in their December rankings of Top 100 in Music.

Kenny is a qualified pilot and has been known to fly to many events. He is also one of the original investors in the Starbucks coffee house chain.

Kenny is also allergic to shell fish.

Bonus material: My favorite Kenny G music video, and artist Charles Irvin's great Tribute to Da Gee Man, one of my favorite art works of all time, which inspired me to do this post.

As said on music-mix.ew.com, Jay Z is not aiming here for a pop hit, this is a manifesto! And people are already in war about it online. Jay Z, say what? "This is practically assault with a deadly weapon." "Y'all n----s singing too much/Get back to rap, you T-Painin' too much!" Although, apparently Kanye West co-produced Death to Autotune, and in an interview during the weekend Jay Z said that he is not after any of the rappers using autotune, such as T Pain. So who is he after? Maybe the Wendy's commercial below?

I don't remember if I posted this before, but in honor to the current autotune debate, I'm hereby posting South Park's Kanye West Gay Fish, with clips from the Kanye West episode. Based on Kanye's Heartless, this is the real hit. Also, take a close look at the clip in the end of Kanye in his apartment; they even got his art interest right.

Director Peter Kerekes brings to the cinematic table a documentary entitled Cooking History. Here’s the synopsis: This innovative film re-imagines Europe’s troubled past through the unheralded culinary workers who “catered” some of the pivotal armed conflicts of the modern era. Punctuated by recipes, cooking demonstrations and sometimes-fanciful interviews, this record of the quotidian details of military cuisine underscores the futility—and unfortunate persistence—of ethnic and political warfare.

More information here and here.

Now this is what I call art. 3000 smurfs, all together under one roof! These 3000 crazy peoples from Swansea University in Wales can be proud about holding the Guinness World Record in The Most Smurfs in One Place.

A story found worthy both for TV and the Huffington Post front page (where I found it): SEATTLE — A dog that ran off from its owner in Seattle's Seward Park found and ate some marijuana and got high. Owner Jen Nestor Waddell told KING-TV the 11-year-old black Lab mix named Jack was "just stoned" May 12 after they returned home from the park. The dog's eyes glossed over and he had trouble walking.

The vet said Jack had swallowed a large amount of dried, harvested marijuana. After some medication to induce vomiting and a night of rest Jack was back to normal.

News must be scarce these days.

In related news: "Dog Eats 8 Golf Balls", over at CNN. They even have a video, including the dog's X-rays. Go here to watch.

The price for "bringing sexiness to a whole new level" goes to.... John Daly! From Luxist.com: In the staid world of American professional golf, John Daly has always stood out, but never more so than this week. The Bunyanesque two-time major champion is making his return to the PGA Tour, after a six-month suspension for bad behavior, sporting a wardrobe right out of Caddyshack. Daly is being outfitted by Loudmouth Golf, a California-based producer of kaleidoscopic golf wear.

The company was started in 2000 by Scott Woodworth, an accomplished graphic designer and Rhode Island School of Design grad who says the idea came to him when he couldn't find any colorful clothes to wear for golf. He'd grown up watching greats like Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller win tournaments in the '70s in garishly colored polyester pants and decided to create a retro clothing line harkening back to that era.

Loudmouth's pants ($89.99) come in a variety of styles: paisley, argyle, dots, stripes, houndstooth and plaid. All of which Daly has been showcasing for months now during his exile on the PGA European Tour. Loudmouth offers an American fit (wide, straight leg) and a European fit (slimmer, flared leg). The company also sells shorts ($69.95), in the same styles as its pants; matching solid-color shirts ($49.99); and patent leather belts ($49.99), which are made in three colors including de rigeur white.

While shopping these wonderful items, keep in mind Daly's catch phrase: "Grip it and rip it", and the title of his book: "My Life In And Out Of The Rough". The book is something I will get back to later, as it deserves a post on its own, in my "Reading of the Day" section.

If you're in New York next week, make sure to visit the opening of my gallery, on June 18..! If you can't make it to the opening, stop by during Thursdays through Sundays, and make sure to stay updated on upcoming exhibitions on our website, www.artsince69.com .

As Small As It Gets

June 18 - July 15, 2009
Opening reception on June 18 from 6 to 9 p.m.

Mike Ballou
Davide Balula
Olaf Breuning
Charles Broskoski
Spartacus Chetwynd
Jennifer Cohen
Delphine Coindet
Ligia Dias
Marcel Dionne
Ryan Foerster
Lina Viste Groenli
Anders Nordby
Guillaume Pilet
Benjamin Valenza

Art Since the Summer of '69 is proud to present its inaugural exhibition in its premiere space. Located on Chrystie Street in Manhattan, the gallery is very small, but we intend to show great things. The title of our first exhibition, As Small As It Gets, relates both to the space and the exhibition, which contains small sculptures produced by friends of the gallery. From Spartacus Chetwynd's hat used in the video The Walk to Dover, to Ligia Dias' custom made jewelry based on Robert Morris' sculptures, all works are smaller than 15".

Art Since the Summer of '69 was founded in January 2008 by Hanne Mugaas, Fabienne Stephan and Paul-Aymar Mourge d'Algue. Since then the gallery has presented projects at Ooga Booga in Los Angeles, Koelnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, and Swiss Institute in New York.

Art Since the Summer of '69
195 Chrystie Street
(Between Stanton and Rivington)
#303, 3rd floor
10002 New York, NY

www.artsince69.com
info@artsince69.com
(+1) 64 691 87667
(+1) 347 208 5437

Eddie Van Halen wants Nike to stop running with the devil.

Reps for the Van Halen rocker’s company, ELVH Inc., filed a cause of action for copyright infringement Friday in Los Angeles Federal District Court against Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike.

ELVH alleges that the design of certain Nike Dunk Low styles infringe on the copyright the company holds for the red-white-and-black-striped pattern Van Halen made famous on his “Frankenstein” guitar — and for which the musician has held the copyright since 2001.

Citing “irreparable harm and damage,” ELVH is asking for the impoundment and destruction of all the shoes in question, as well as all profits from the sale of the shoes and damages.

Read the rest about this color based craziness over at wwd.com

If you're in New York this week, make sure to stop by No Soul for Sale at X Initiative in Chelsea. I will be there with my projects Secondary Market and Artistic Coffee Mugs, in Dispatch's booth. Opening tonight from 6 to 9. As you can see, there will be lots of beer. Info below.

*******************

Opening Reception: June 23, 6-9 pm with a performance by
Martin Soto Climent.

Opening time: June 24 - 28, 2009, 1-9 pm

Held at X from June 24 through June 28, NO SOUL FOR SALE – A Festival Of Independents will bring together the most exciting, creative and respected not-for-profit centers, alternative institutions, artists’ collectives and independent enterprises from around the world that contribute to the international art scene by inventing new strategies for the distribution of information and by supporting a diverse cultural program.

X has invited more than 30 art spaces to travel to New York City to present themselves, their programs and the artists they support. With a gesture of radical hospitality, X will provide free space to all participants within the premises of the X building. The participants will be allowed to show whatever they choose, be it art, performances, publications, videos, or simply themselves. In addition to the exhibition space, X will make available to each participant, for a one-hour period, a dedicated performance area on the ground floor in which participants can organize performances, presentations, discussions and music programs.

Neither a fair nor an exhibition, NO SOUL FOR SALE is a convention of individuals and groups who have devoted their energies to keeping art alive. The Festival will be an exercise in coexistence: organizations will exhibit alongside each other without partitions or walls. As on the set of the legendary Lars Von Trier’s
movie Dogville, participants will be assigned spaces that are only marked on the floor, creating a map of an imaginary city of art, where distances and hierarchies are abolished.

With associations and groups coming from Berlin, Milan, Dublin, Barcelona, Paris, Reykjavík, Hong Kong, Rabat, Trinidad, New York, Los Angeles, and many other locations, NO SOUL FOR SALE provides a unique occasion to foster creative exchange and to connect with international organizations that aren’t usually accessible in New York City. With free entrance and a rich program of daily activities, NO SOUL FOR SALE will be a celebration of the independent forces that animate contemporary art.

Participants: ARTIS CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI ART FUND (NEW YORK AND TEL AVIV), BALLROOM (MARFA), BIZART/ARTHUB (SHANGHAI/HONG KONG), DISPATCH (NEW YORK), EMPTY PURSE PUBLICATIONS (NEW YORK), FILIPA OLIVEIRA + MIGUEL AMADO (LISBON), FLUXSPACE (PHILADELPHIA), GALERIE IM REGIERUNGSVIERTEL/FORGOTTEN BAR PROJECT (BERLIN), HERMES UND DER PFAU (STUTTGART), K 48 (NEW YORK), KADIST ART FOUNDATION (PARIS), KLING&BANG (REYKJAVÍK), L’APPARTEMENT 22 (RABAT), LATITUDES (BARCELONA), LAXART (LOS ANGELES), LIGHT INDUSTRY (BROOKLYN), LUCIE FONTAINE (MILAN), MIGRATING FORMS (NEW YORK), MONO.KULTUR (BERLIN), MOUSSE MAGAZINE (MILAN), NEXT VISIT (BERLIN), NOT AN ALTERNATIVE (BROOKLYN), PARTICIPANT INC. (NEW YORK), ROB PRUITT (NEW YORK), RHIZOME (NEW YORK), STARSHIP (BERLIN), STOREFRONT FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE (NEW YORK), STUDIO FILM CLUB (TRINIDAD), SUPPORTICO LOPEZ (BERLIN), SURASI KUSOLWONG (THAILAND), SWISS INSTITUTE (NEW YORK), THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL OF ARTS (LOS ANGELES), THISISNOTASHOP (DUBLIN), TRANSFORMER (WASHINGTON, D.C.), VIAFARINI (MILAN), VOX POPULI (PHILADELPHIA), WAGE ARTISTS (NEW YORK), WHITE COLUMNS (NEW YORK), YOKOLAND supported by the OFFICE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART NORWAY, (OSLO).

In conjunction with the opening of NO SOUL FOR SALE, Mexico City-based artist MARTIN SOTO CLIMENT will orchestrate a performative sculpture titled Impulsive Chorus, realized with the assistance of the public. With more than one thousand beer cans to be consumed in the course of one evening, the performance creates an instant community: as beer cans are emptied, Martin Soto Climent will alter them with a slight crush and places them on the floor in a formation. Recent solo shows by the artist include: Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Mexico City (2007), T293, Naples (2008) and BROADWAY 1602 (2008), New York. Martin’s work was featured in group shows at Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow (2008) and Vilma Gold, London (2007). Special thanks to Asahi.

About X Initiative: X is a not for profit initiative of the global contemporary art community that will exist for one year and present exhibitions in four phases. Advised by a 50+ advisory board comprised of artists, curators, museum professionals, gallerists, collectors, art historians and critics, X is reaching across traditional boundaries to form a consortium interested in responding quickly to the major philosophical and economic shifts impacting culture. X will feature durational artist interventions, site-specific projects, historical in-depth exhibitions, one-night performances, lectures and weekly events. Questions posed in the form of programming will address relevant and pressing issues pertaining to the changing landscape of contemporary art.

Please visit our new website: www.x-initiative.org.

Media Contact:
Justin Conner at Black Frame
jconner@framenoir.com // 212-226-2196

‘AS SMALL AS IT GETS’

Art Since the Summer of ’69

195 Chrystie Street,

Lower East Side

Through July 15

Lower East Side galleries are typically cozy, but the new space Art Since the Summer of ’69 has to be among the tiniest anywhere in the city. “The opening was packed,” the proprietor said on a recent visit before unlocking a 6-by-16-foot sliver of a room.

The inaugural exhibition is devoted to sculptures, all under 20 inches. Most are clustered on a table that takes up much of the square footage. Crude construction is the norm, perhaps as a way to avoid seeming precious. Jennifer Cohen immobilizes leather ballet slippers in cement; Lisa Viste Groenli fashions a dime-store Brancusi from a scrap of wood and a metal stick. Peeking out from under the tie-dyed tablecloth is Olaf Breuning’s “Yellow Dog,” a comic-pathetic figure cobbled together from rubber gloves, plastic eyes, a child’s chair and a pair of Crocs sandals.

Some of the most eye-catching works are wearable: Mended Veil’s doll-size charm “Tiny Penny,” and Ligia Dias’s series of necklaces inspired by the sculptures of Robert Morris. One, modeled on his felt pieces, is a web of tan leather with metal studs; another consists of a coil of black rope and an oversize strand of plastic pearls.

You don’t need a big space to show video, which is why Spartacus Chetwynd’s “Walk to Dover” (2007), played by request on a computer monitor, works especially well. The entertaining, presciently themed piece shows the artist and her friends retracing the path of Dickens’s “David Copperfield” as a narrator comments on Victorian debtors’ prisons and the contemporary credit cycle.

All together it’s an exhibition of twee things that accommodates at least one Big Idea.

KAREN ROSENBERG

New York Times, June 26, 2009.

Link.

I'm convinced that this ant is so good as this only because he's a healthy Norwegian ant. Update: the guy who uploaded the video says that the ant kept on running for half an hour. You go, ant!

This post is dedicated to Ludwig, with lots of love.

It's the Neti Pot! This is the only pot which has actually changed my life! I'm serious, if you don't have a neti pot yet, why don't you get one? Read a New York Times article on the neti pot here if you don't believe me, and to find out what a neti pot actually is, if you don't know. PS: Oprah loves it too.

Obviously there's nothing Grace Jones can't do.

Well, I guess that the only person who will get any fun out of this is me, the Crazy House Person. I have been watching House so much that I'm dreaming about it at night, and I have actually caught myself thinking that if I got seriously ill it would be ok because Dr.House would figure it out. So, as you might have noticed, House is addictive. That's why this post has a (1) attached to it, because there will be more.

The great Martine of Golden Age asked me to give them my favorite links. If you want to know what my favorite links are (of this second), go here.

I don't understand why this book is not a classic....! I'm serious.

From the guy who said "There's no shame in my game, I did therapy" comes a book filled to the brim with great things. Get it on Amazon, starting at $ 0.30! Yes, $ 0.30!! What a deal!

But where is Vanilla Ice now, and what is he doing? Well, he's doing what I'm doing: He has a blog! Here's a picture from his blog; it's Ice rocking out in Australia! I especially like the look on the face of the guy with the dark hair and a yellow shirt. I guess he expected something else, maybe something like in the clip below.

This is "conceptual", or actually, "postmodern" art at its finest. It's Michael Jackson, dressed as a younger Michael Jackson! I think the 3000 smurfs, whom I entitled "the greatest artwork" just met their match.