A photograph meant to vaguely approximate the small one used in the original listing. Photo via: Mc Morr’s flickr stream

Here’s a panel discussion I’m not going to miss next Wednesday: Futures of the Internet, at the NYU Information Law Institute and Free Culture. Normally I don’t do this, but rather than regurgitate an invitation of facebook, I’m just going to list it here with the observation that the speakers list is very impressive.

WHERE and WHEN
Wednesday, April 16, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Vanderbilt Hall 206, NYU Law
40 Washington Square South
New York, NY

DESCRIPTION

What will come of the next decade on the Internet? We often take for granted the state of the net today, but there’s no guarantee that it will remain this way. Will the digital future be dystopian, or is there a brighter outlook ahead than some may believe? Our panelists — thinkers and net visionaries — will provide their perspectives on the future of the net, with backgrounds ranging from art, law, technology, politics, media, culture, and entrepreneurship. We will tap in to each speaker’s knowledge to provide a unique vision of the digital future, and will engage with members of the audience to further the exploration of what lies ahead.

SPEAKERS:

Lauren Cornell
Executive Director, Rhizome
http://www.rhizome.org/

Clay Shirky
Author, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Adjunct Professor, NYU ITP
http:/www.shirky.com

Tim Wu
Professor, Columbia Law School
http://www.timwu.org/

Jonathan Zittrain
Professor, Oxford University, Visting Professor, NYU Law
Author, The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It
http://www.jz.org

And a special surprise guest!

Trevor Paglen speaks with Steven Colbert. Screengrab AFC

Bellwether’s Trevor Paglen spoke to Steven Colbert yesterday night about his new book, “I could tell you, but then you would have to be killed by me”. Best known for Black World, an exhibition of photographs documenting classified military activities, the artist’s latest book brings together patches worn by people who work on top secret programs.

A patch from Trevor Paglen’s book.

I’m not sure what I expected from these patches, but I’m pretty sure it was something along the lines of abstract symbols, as opposed to the teenage mutant turtle -esque iconography presented. Of course, as Paglen explains, the Green Door referenced above has a long cultural history representing places you can’t go into, so the text and iconography are meant to suggest the job at hand, or as Steven Colbert points out, the porn movie with the same name. The patch is worn by military officers who do something with reconnaissance satellites (spy stuff).

Star Trek geek that I am, the last portion of the interview naturally peaked piqued my interest as Paglen cited a patch featuring an alien with a chain around its neck and a phrase written in Klingon as the one he’d most like to get his hands on. Apparently, this badge is worn by those working in Alien Technology Exploitations, a government supported activity that according to the Internet, actually investigates extra terrestrials. I’m not sure this patch brings up any questions other than, what will the translated text read?, and will the imagery reference the Next Generation aliens, or X-Files?, but either way, I’m interested in having them answered.

Related: My review of Trevor Paglen’s Black World for Flavorpill (I can’t seem to get it from the site, so I’m pasting it below)

Evoking the softly rendered forms characteristic of a Gerhard Richter painting, Trevor Paglen’s photographs of the military-industrial complex are as beautiful as they are mysterious. Appropriately titled Black World, the exhibition documents classified military and intelligence activities with the use of telescopes and high-powered telephoto lenses. The dramatic lighting in shots of airplanes, such as Unmarked 737, lends the work a cinematic edge, whereas Large Hangars and Fuel Storage, and Canyons and Unidentified Vehicle use a traditional landscape sensibility to suggest untold narratives. The works posit both the possible and the unreachable, representing clandestine government operations and the limitations of visual representation. Via: Flavorpill.

“I Sell Computers” by Canadian comedy troupe The Frantics. The group is said to have influenced Kids in the Hall. This video obviously draws inspiration from Devo.

Not that I don’t think anyone could have won Saturday nights drunken youtube free for all at the NYUFF’s Tube Time, but it does seem clear that “anyone” wouldn’t have included me. I have no instincts for estimating the taste of aggressive crowds, which is to say, I managed to make it to the 2nd round despite three or four needless recheers and the fact that Edith Zimmerman of the L Magazine proclaimed the above video boring, but was eliminated shortly thereafter when this breast examination video failed to please anyone. I thought it was hilarious?

I’m officially a bad blogger as I have no idea who won (help me out). I can however report that Ben Coonley is responsible for the best NYUFF Tube Time promo yet. That video below.

Youtube link

Ultimately vetoed because a knowledge of the conservative Canadian hockey announcer Don Cherry makes this interview 100 times funnier than it already is, you can expect more than a few choice youtube picks from us tomorrow at the New York Film Anthologies, Tube Time. I will be competing against New York’s most savvy Internet surfers, for the glory of top video surfing dog - a challenge I don’t take lightly. I hope you’ll join me!

We don’t normally report on exhibitions outside New York, but we will make exception from time to time for shows that interest us. Using the title M-Class Planet, a term coined on Star Trek meaning a planetary atmosphere capable of supporting human life, Keary Rosen’s upcoming exhibition at Jenny Jaskey in Philadelphia naturally appealed to the nerds here at the AFC HQ. The show itself is comprised of three kenetic sculptures, as well as video, drawing and photography. Jpeg evaluation being what it is, I find myself quite fond of what appears to be a photograph of an owl, but don’t yet have an overall sense of what the show will look like. Guess you’ll just have to go see it to find out. The exhibition opens this Friday, 6-9, a perfect excuse for those not interested in art fairs to get out of the city. Full disclosure: I went to grad school with Keary Rosen, and on an unrelated note, love his work.

The Whistles go Woo Woo!

And the remix!

Last year I spent countless hours posting obscure(ish) youtube videos suitable for the New York Underground Film Festival’s tubetime — a competition that pits Internet professional’s found web videos against one another — only to be eliminated in the first round when I stupidly to use a movie with 10 MILLION VIEWS as my choice of weaponry. Well, not this time around. The NYUFF has given me a second chance at the glory, which means I’ll be using ubu web exclusively from to source my videos. Joking aside, we take this competition very seriously, particularly in light of the fact that the New York Underground Film Festival has announced this will be its final year. The competition will take place Saturday April 5th, but I encourage everyone to check out the festival’s schedule and attend a few screenings.

Postmasters delivers my favorite press release of the month, beginning benignly enough with a standard format sheet listing show details, and describing the baroque Internet based collages of Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, [editors warning: this link will do annoying things to your browser]  A snippet of the ordinary below,

Born in Hong Kong and now living in New York Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung creates explosive political spectacles in a form of dense, psychedelically flavored video animations, sculptures and digital collages…

This is followed by a description of a portion of the final scene in one of the artist’s videos, which features a man masturbating with a ballet box covering his cock, his head wrapped in an American flag, and his hand on a tv remote control shaped like a gun.  When the man reaches his climax he turns the screen in to a Washington Monument that explodes red white and blue from it’s tip.  The end, (or so says the press release).  Press clips and recent exhibitions are then noted, before closing with this final jewel;

Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung’s work is not about “lessness”.

An understatement to say the least, and most amusing opposition to the Whitney Biennial’s “unofficial theme” I’ve read to date.

It’s never to early to start the New York Art Fair coverage, particularly, when it involves your own self promotion. This year Red Dot will be hosting a blogger panel discussion March 30 at 11:00 am, organized by Sharon Butler and Joanne Mattera aptly titled ArtBloggers, which I have been invited to be a part of. Other panelists include Edward Winkleman, Carol Diehl, C-Monster, Sharon Butler and Joanne Mattera as moderator. I’m not sure what kinds of questions will be tabled, but certainly one point I’d like to make is that since many bloggers write material that is on par or better than what you read in newspapers, and it would behoove a few more museums to act accordingly. Fairs tend not to do a bad job in this respect, which is why I’m sure this discussion will be added to Red Dot’s programming schedule within the next day. Bloggy cites a compelling example of the differences readers find in the New York Times print edition verses their blogs. We certainly see this on art blogs as well.

I can’t imagine anyone will get too excited over what The Jewish Museum is doing to advertise, but they have a new(ish) ad on ArtCal that features LoVid. It’s really great to see New Media artists being used to promotes shows and events at Museums.

Speaking of which, the event promoted in the above ad is titled Off The Wall, a two week long open studio project that includes eleven invited artists beginning March 16th. The museum rather unfortunately describes the project as a “live art laboratory”, a term reading as though it were lifted straight from Boing Boing, but we’ll let it slide since the program looks good. Showcasing fashion designs, music, performance art, and “video that already exists” (not sure if this means appropriated material or simply works made in advance by these artists), artist Alicia Jo Rabins and her acoustic ensemble will kick off the show at 2:00 pm, with a live musical tour of the museum’s permanent collection, highlighting objects sympathetic with her “Girls in Trouble” theme. For those who love LoVid, or have been so deeply effected by the above ad that they care only to hear news about the due, Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapiduswill perform from 7:30-8:00 pm that same day. In September I featured the group in my masthead describing their work as material art made from immaterial video abstraction. For the full AFC blurb click here, and here for the Jewish Museum event description.

Notably, the Jewish Museum’s Off the Wall site is a blog. It’s hard to imagine anything more appropriate for a performance series. Participating artists include: Alina and Jeff Bliumis, LoVid, Alicia Jo Rabins, Socalled, Evan Tapper, Danielle Abrams, Diwon, Levi Okunov and Melissa Shiff.

Richard Serra, Backstop, Andrea Rosen Gallery Photo: AFC

Omitted from the above photo is the security guard stationed at the other end the room, whose only job is to warn people not to get too close to the piece. Given the recent online discussion about photography rights in galleries, I had initially thought he was stationed there only to police my camera, though it turns out the concern is public safety. I can’t imagine the art viewer who has enough strength to make that sculpture pose a safety risk to themselves, but I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Mostly I was interested in the guard because I’ve been noticing a lot more gallery security these days, 303 Gallery being the most obvious example. Incidentally, I asked the person positioned at 303 gallery what their purpose was, and apparently they aren’t the photo police, but simply stationed to make sure theft doesn’t occur. Given various reports online, I suspect they’ll also nail you for clandestine photography, but the woman I spoke to told me this wasn’t her job.

Matthew Ronay, Installation view, photo copyright of Andrea Rosen Gallery

Despite the impression my lead Serra photo might give, as you’ll note above, Matthew Ronay’s sculptures compose the main space exhibition. For those wishing to read a full review on the subject, Deborah Fisher wrote a piece for ArtCal zine a while ago I largely agree with. As she wisely points out, the new hanging tree leaves and other hippy looking sculptures certainly lack the teeth of his anal cupcake beads, and cum finish lines of previous years. Rather than repeat Fisher’s thoughts however, I will mention as an aside to the exhibition, that it’s been difficult to look at Ronay positively, since watching his bad punk band The Final Run Ins play last spring at Taxter and Spengemann. Andrea Rosen only adds salt to this wound every time I enter the gallery, his CDs prominently displayed at the front desk. For what it’s worth my reaction to the band was something along the lines of: This is worse than mediocre band I’d ignore were they playing at a venue other than a gallery. The low point of the performance was clearly reached when The Final Run Ins played a cover of the Sesame Street pinball song; though it normally doesn’t need to be said, if the Family Guy beats you to your best cultural reference, you might consider dropping the song.

After months of listening to The Callers practice outside my office and neglecting to blog about their gigs, I’ve finally gotten around to pulling my weight in this relationship. I listen to great free music all the time, now it’s your turn. This Sunday at 7 pm in the district of cool (i.e. Williamsburg,) the band will perform their latest ditties.

Now, as use the term “ditty” may already suggest, I’m not much of a music critic, so the kind of music descriptions you’ll find on this blog will run something along the lines of “crooning voice” and “sparse and emotive guitar strumming”. You won’t read anything about comparable bands or micro-genre labelings, though I see they use the term Soul on their myspace page to describe their work, so I think it’s reasonable to mention that as a means of identifying the band. I can however say quite unequivocally that I have enjoyed the music a lot over the past several months, and that has nothing to do with the fact that one of the band members is a roommate. [Consider this your disclosure.]

One handy, albeit necessary perk in writing this plug: It’s actually art related. Hosted by the emerging artist gallery, Outrageous Look, in Williamsburg, listeners will also have the opportunity to view Ryan Sarah Murphy, an artist known for his pickling of clothing. Though there are many practitioners of this sort, Aganetha Dyck who similarly explored this topic in 1984, immediately comes to mind, I suppose it never hurts to see another one.

UPDATE: Looks like you probably won’t see Ryan Sarah Murphy since the exhibition information on their splash page shows it closed several months ago. Sorry for that folks.

I see no shortage of unusual decisions by galleries this month. Take Luxe Gallery, which debuts the robotic experiments of M.I.T. artist in residence Pai Lindman this Friday. Lindman creates chairs “echoing the devices used in early photographic portraiture”,  and provides video footage of a machine designed to contort the face. I guess I’ll have to see the show before making any final judgments, but I have some serious reservations. What is the value of a piece whose documentation claims only to remove the intentionality behind facial expression? What’s more the one photograph provided predictably shows the body’s resistance to the device. It looks bad.

Left: Brandon Herman, Right: Ryan Pfluger, Image copyright of the artists.

Envoy is now the gay pin up boy gallery. This month they show the work of Ryan Pfluger, who exhibits at least a few photos of scantily clad young men, shooting poses awfully close to those in American Apparel ads. This show will be followed up by Brandon Herman, who in conjunction with a number of homo erotic horror shots, also photographs a large number of men in their underwear. While both artists make good work, Brandon Herman in particular has an affinity for the overly staged and dramatic. These works are considerably less successful.

Jordan Buschur, Image copyright realform projects.

David Gibson of Article Projects has a reputation for supporting the work of emerging artists which we like, but his choices can be inconsistent. I’ll leave it to you to prejudge Jordan Buschur.

Screw the beer snobs. PBR offers something far greater than those imports and it’s not great taste!  It appears they inspire art and creativity.  Launching this Monday at 7 pm, the Knitting factory hosts the PBR Art Tour, an exhibition consisting of roughly 18 paintings using Pabst Blue Ribbon as subject matter.  The work is about as good as you’d expect — it’s bar art– but attendance gets you free beer, which should mean something to at least three readers.  For better or worse, it also gives you the experience of DJ sets by Awesome Derek of Awesome Color, Cody Ranaldo (who’s father Lee Ranaldo you might know from Sonic Youth), and Rezound.

More substantial posts to arrive later in the day.

Double Triple, Art Fag City’s favorite design group teams up with artist Ryan Junell to bring you this great Obama advertisement asking registered Californians to vote this Tuesday. I’m a fan. Full disclosure: Jason Corace, a member Double Triple, is also my roommate.

As if there were any question of Jeff Koon’s art stardom, this craigslist resale offer on tickets to his talk tonight with Katy Siegel at the 92nd Street Y may seal the deal. Yes, I’m easily impressed - it’s not like a sold out talk and tickets going for their original price says all that much - but who knew Jeff Koons was that interesting?

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the event. Just two weeks ago artforum diary complained about his Howdy Doody look and “old-master references mingled with self help–isms slathered with gobs of luxury-sales-style condescension.” I guess Times critic Carol Vogel didn’t challenge the artist much on any of his platitudes. This time around Koons will be speaking with critic Katy Siegel, who I trust will bring something a little more challenging to the table than what appeared to be a rather odious conversation on among other things the responsibility of the collector to conserve materials never meant to last more than a decade. Perhaps she can ask him why, with his 80 plus employees, he couldn’t have launched a better website. The site looks nice enough, but you’d think someone could have gotten it together to figure out a design that didn’t make copying the unique url for each image so difficult.

Dave Choi, detail from Titan’s Revenge, mixed media, 34x 24×20 in., 2006

For those readers not nerdy enough to identify Titan’s Revenge as a ceremonial javelin from the online Dungeons and Dragons-esque site Diabloii.net, have no fear; Dave Choi’s sculpture of the same name undoubtedly references what you’d expect: Greek mythology. Opening Saturday at Hogar Collection, Name No One Man by Michael Behle and Dave Choi, promises a fine exhibition of sculpture and paintings. Admittedly, new comer Behle represents a bit of a blank spot on the Art Fag City radar having not seen his work before (UPDATE: Opps. I have seen it,) but we certainly like what we’ve witnessed from Mr. Choi. Diamonds Cut Diamonds, an excellent group show curated by Johnston Foster at Rare Gallery, won us over in 2006, the artist contributing a number of weird free standing and wall mounted creatures including this giant flowered piranha. Choi went on to show this similarly hilarious monster of plastic greedily holding on to a mannequin’s leg at Red Dot last year. From the looks of things, we’ll be seeing a few more of these guys Saturday.

UPDATE:  The opening for this exhibition was originally listed incorrectly as Friday.  We apologize if you made the trip out in vein.  We did too.

Chelsea rain, Image via Musiquegirl

It’s thundering outside, and the AFC HQ has gotten off to a ridiculously slow start. A number of disgarded posts lay somewhere in the internet ether. Chelsea’s impossible round robin began last night as I passed a crack addict yelling into the streets,

“This woman got away from me the other night. She said Sir, You’ve got roaches crawling off your shoulder.”, he paused, “That should tell you something.”

Who knows what we should all learn from that annecdote — I didn’t stick around to find out. A full write up exhibition openings over the weekend will appear Monday, unfortunately lacking an reports on culture critic Ed Halter’s lecture yesterday at Art in General, or performance artist Sharon Hayes talk at the New Museum. There was simply too much to see yesterday to get to it all.

Oliver Laric, Flying Dropkick, 2006

In lieu of a missing write up on Ed Halter’s talk, I link to his summation of great unreviewed experimental cinema works. As far as to do lists go, it’s hard to do much better than his, so I suggest checking it out. Personal favorites include Oliver Laric’s WWF masterpiece Flying DropKick and GrandMaster Flash’s alphebetized lyrics in Message The, and Eddo Stern’s collaged masks made of images created by gamers at Postmasters earlier this year. I too had fully intended to write something about these artists, but time got away from me. Probably my greatest disappointment brought to mind by this list, comes from missing Sadie Benning’s Play Pause at Dia this year. I’ve always been a fan of her narratives. I also missed her concurrent show of paintings at Orchard. My bad.

Does anyone else think January’s opening round of exhibitions looks a little thin? I’m not looking forward to much tonight, which frankly, depresses me.  I’ve come up with a pick or two below, but issue the speculative warning that there may not be a lot of good work around Chelsea for the next month or two.

Michael Bell-Smith, Glitter Bend, 2008, video loop

Michael Bell-Smith looks like a good bet, though unlike his last show, there are fewer works available on the Foxy Production website for preview so it’s hard to do much prejudging of jpegs and quicktime videos.  I am however relieved to see Electricity in the Air, (American Beauty) has not been included in this “digital sublime” themed exhibition, since far too much cultural narrative on the subject of beauty accompanies the piece to ever achieve that goal.   As a bit of background to his work, I recommend reading Geeks in the Gallery, a three part conversation I moderated between MBS and Tom Moody in July 2006, which discusses their respective shows and a number of issues the work brings up.   Both artists are incredibly smart and well spoken, so it’s well worth the read.

AA Bronson returns to his collaborative roots at John Connelly Presents this month.    Those who were fans of the General Idea, a three person collective of which he was a member, may similarly find interest in this show, though I suspect the results will be very different.  Now collaborating with 11 other artists Terence Koh amongst them, Bronson presents at least one body binding photograph, a double toilet cubicle joined by a glory hole, and an array of other works including a small piece by Joseph Beuys.  As I mentioned in Miami, Terence Koh’s installation at Perez Projects might have benefited from a little more editing in the anal bone probing department, so I naturally have some reservations about this show, but I guess there’s no need to judge prematurely.   Even if I don’t wholly agree, AA Bronson’s defense of Koh’s work posted in a previous comment thread, provides a good counter point;

I have to admit, I liked Terence’s photos. I always thought that artists like Dieter Rot, who just let art pour out of them, without self-reflection, are the real deal. They may not edit very well, and the marketplace thrives on editing, but who cares? Terence is similarly unique, I think, in his ability to just let the art flow… and to do that you ultimately have to not give a shit about the marketplace, which—contrary to appearances—describes Terence well: another quality I favor.

If Koh’s interested in spectacle, which I think he is, he probably gives shit about the current market, because it embodies marvel and exposition.  Art does pour out of the man though, and as imprecise a term as that is to describe an endeavor of merit, I buy it.

David Wojnarowicz, Untitled, [Falling Buffalo], 1988-89, Gelatin-silver print . Courtesy of P.P.O.W.

Schroeder Romero
637 West 27th Street, Suite B, 212-630-0722
January 10 - February 16, 2008
Opening: Thursday, January 10, 6 - 8PM

Even if the intent behind all the work in Schroeder Romero’s exhibition Caucus, isn’t political, David Wojnarowicz’s photograph capturing buffalo falling off a cliff certainly takes on a few of these qualities, particularly in light of the primaries. A well known painter and photographer working in the 80’s and early 90’s, Wojnarowicz work as a writer and activist, takes on an equally sad poetic tone. DiVA TV hosts an mp3 from his Reading series well worth the listen.

I suspect some of the other work in the show may lack Wojnarowicz’s sophistication; William Powhida’s website documenting the artworld’s allies and enemies as identified by you, for example, feels a little shallow for my tastes, but I guess we’ll see how that piece turned out tonight. Much like a mixed tape, very few group exhibitions present work that pleases everyone equally.

Those wishing to maximize the openings they attend in one shot, would be well advised to go to Cheslea this Thursday between 6 and 8 pm. Over the last couple of days I’ve entered 100 plus listings into ArtCal the majority of them happening on the 10th. I have a few comments on shows picks, but before I get to that, an observation on press releases: The most common mistake this year seems to be forgetting to include specific opening information (ie assuming editors will know whether or not a gallery has a public reception without actually telling us). We will write to confirm any details we have question about of course –indeed in many cases this information is not listed because no reception is planned –, but remembering to include it will both give the gallery a better chance of making it into the artcal mailer, and keep me from pulling my hair out during particularly busy times.

On that note, every year we receive submissions from galleries who give us a show title and reception time, without closing or opening dates, a exhibition description, and a usable jpeg. Inevitably such galleries have a website that consists of their name only. Please remember that listings are made from the information given to us; if all we have is an opening time and a show title, we can’t fill in the fields required to upload the exhibition.