Justin Anderson

Justin makes beautiful work- he can do things with polaroids that I've never seen anyone do before. His stuff is exquisite in scale, subject matter, and simplicity- and that description ain't just for alliterative purposes, it's the truth. Going tomorrow night to check out his show in the 'burg, won't you come with! There's music too (although, DC and I might skip out on go to Diner instead, why does that not surprise you?)

Cameo Gallery

93 N. 6th Street

Art opening 6-8

Music performance @ 9

Viktor & Rolf

The 1% surrealist fairy nymph inside of me is fuh-reaking out over Viktor and Rolf's new designs. Whaaaa?

Read a little more about this on Refinery

20x200

I've been a fan of 20x200 for awhile. Using the website as both a platform to expose young and emerging artists as well as providing a wide array of artworks for any consumer level, this website was borne as an offshoot to founder Jen Bekman's Gallery. One photo and one work on paper is released each week, at 2pm every Tuesday and Wednesday, and are on sale until Sold Out. Sometimes they are genius, sometimes they fall short, but so is art. Each work always has at least three size options, the cheapest being $20 and the largest $200 (hence the website name), making anyone a viable collector of art. The quality, even for the little pieces, are great- all works are printed with high quality inks and on the finest paper specified by each artist.

I'm fond of the most recent release (pictured in this post), but am afraid to get it as I know it will just look cluttered in my already sparse wall space :(

Also make sure to check out the Jen Bekman Gallery, in the LES.

Painting

From my art school days, hanging in the home.

Oil on Canvas, dims to be updated.

Kandinsky @ Guggenheim

Cannot WAIT to check out the show.  Our friend Roberta Smith gives it a very respectable review.

Clive Murphy @ Magnan Projects

Going to stop by Clive's opening on Friday at Magnan Projects. Clive's work is always larger than life, sometimes in terms of size and other times in terms of ideas.

Plus I hear there's going to be a goat roast. Yes, a goat. On a spit. Over a fire. In the middle of a New York sidewalk. At an art opening.

A must-see event.

Magnan Projects

317 10th Avenue

NY NY 10001

Vandals

Thursday morning tidbits

So many things this morning.

First of all, yoga in the morning is the bomb.

Next, can we please give a woot to this amazing website? I am a sucker for typography.

Then, let's talk about THIS. (Or, for a better picture but the same thing, THIS) I will be visiting my friend MC, who lives around the corner, much more often.

Finally, can everyone look at my new shoes? The Bensimon is the Parisian's answer to the Converse. They're comfortable and will make you look cooler, I swear. At least, that's what I tell myself when I'm struttin' the streets of W'burg. And psst! Here's a secret: On uber-sale for $9.99 at Urban!

Have a good day y'all.

Women Artists in the post-YBA era

Artkrush/Flavorpill does a slideshow feature highlighting the new (relatively speaking) big women artists of this next "generation". The new Cecily Browns, Lisa Yuskavages, Tracy Emins, etc.

To tell you the truth, I am not as overwhelmingly inspired as I thought I would be. Then again, the works are not as blantant and in-your-face as I expected, these women artists seem to have taken a much more subtle stance in their art and aesthetics. I especially like the works of Katie Paterson, Hannah Starkey, and Tomma Abts.

Check out the slideshow HERE

Lisa Hanawalt

I went to school with Lisa.

She makes good stuff.

I saw her new book this weekend, which she says is coming out this month. It looks ah-mazing.

twits

So as most of you know or have figured out I have a twitter account. For those of you who had no idea, there it is, now you know. For those of you who won't be my friend now that I've revealed this, I don't want to be your friend either.

I've only twittered (tweeted, whatever) maybe once or twice, and probably log in three times a week at most. I'm not that much a fan of the site, and though it can be slightly intriguing it is pretty darned pointless. Plus, I hate the fact that all links are scrambled and you can never get an idea of what you'll be linking to. Dangerous, I tell you! But I'm certainly not going to hate on people who tweet like there's no tomorrow. Not only is that unfair, but I know that Twitter has become a relevant Thing (like, it's a Thing with a capital T, something culturally significant, maybe more of a fad than anything lasting in our world but not just a plain ol' thing.) and plus it allows me to stalk, ahem, find out about people and kill some free time. I know, me, free time, crazy right?

Today, however, I found that Twitter can indeed be a really useful, stimulating and even educational tool.

Okay, yes, I think this way because it will tell me things like the location of the Kogi truck and what flavors ice cream the General Greene is serving on any given day. Nay, any given MINUTE. But that's not why I'm blogging about twittering (like whoa, so 2009 of me). See, I've been racking my brain to find ways that I can stay in tune with the art world. When I was in college, (Ready, time warp machine?) my very right brained self was relatively sharp in making art world criticisms, comparisons, and assessments of works and of artists. By the time I graduated I had trained myself to talk art lingo, to see things in art that did not exist, and to familiarize myself with not only older art history figures, but current and emerging artists as well.

Then a funny thing happened - I forgot everything. It was like my brain was wiped clean by alien mutants! (weird comparison, sorry.)

I went from knowing how to talk about art, to knowing how to talk about a signle roster of 25 artists. I suppose this happens in many fields, and frankly I'd love for my neurosurgeon to be focused on exclusively my brain and the synapses that are firing...not my brain a little, and my toes a little, and oh, a little bit of my gall bladder as well. But art is not a science (duh) and is informed so SO much by its history and by it's relevance, you gotta be in it to win it.

Now, of course I can do my own reading and research. But I'm not disciplined enough to do this, aside from the fact that I'm so far removed it's hard to figure out where to jump in, or even how to retain any information that I do manage to collect.

This is where twitter comes in. I knew that everyone was on twitter. But I had no idea that EVERYONE IS I ON Twitter. Artnet, The MoMA, Art Fag City, the list goes on, all these amazing institutions and publications and super knowledgeable art sources, they are all there talking art and art world gossip. What I like about art news in twitter feed is the more approachable and digestible format for which art news is presented. I love ArtForum just as much as anyone else, but sometimes the articles and reviews are so scholarly and so word-centric that I get lost in the writing and can't even begin to analyze what the art is about. All I need is a 140 word round-up about what's going on, who thinks what, which artist is featured in which museum this month. Twitter, I've discovered, allows me to pick up names and bits of information much like I would gain in any normal discussion.

140 words or less. That's how I'm going to get back into the art world.

hiatus

Did you miss me?

Probably not.

Sorry I've been gone, my good friends came up for the weekend from DC and I've been recovering from a whirlwind weekend of food, fun, parks, sun, cocktails, late nights, new friends, and the best - reconnecting with the ones you already have.

Speaking of good friends I have, please check out Carmen's website. I've been a major supporter of Carmen for years, and really love so much of her work. Carmen and I go wayyyy back to undergrad art students at UCLA. We liked to think of ourselves as the normal kids, but there's no such thing as a normal art kid. Anyway, she's also been selected as a finalist for Google's homepage photography competition. 36 Finalists, the public votes, and whoever comes out on top gets to have their images as an option for iGoogle. Kind of like American Idol for the Google Homepage. Check it out and vote HERE; Carmen's work is in the second row down on the very right, with all the feet.

Cheers! Welcome back to my world!!!

Holga + Wedding season

Holgas and weddings, what a perfect match!!!!

...see more lovely Holga pics and wedding pics (two of my favorite things), by Ashley Garmon

oh Diana.

I really want this nifty little 120mm film camera- which also comes with a 35mm film backing. Of course, I would buy the fisheye lens outfit too. See the great pictures it takes here.

Learn to Communicate....

Going to swing by this opening tonight. See you there?

Leviathan

I came across this awhile ago, and thought it was one of the most beautiful book covers I've ever seen!

On the subject of book covers:
If you're like me and will pick a wine for its label, a restaurant for its website, or in this instance a book for its cover...you must check this out, if not for your interest in book covers then definitely for the sheer simplicity of website design (sorry, my inner silicon valley geekiness comes out sometimes):
http://www.bookcoverarchive.com/

On the subject of titles with 'whale':

Here's a very awesome band that I revisit every now and again.

Take a listen!

Call and Response - Or, the Whale

And finally on the subject of whale imagery:

here is a little drawing by artist David Choe, whose work I've admired for some time now. In my opinion, the epitome of Bay Area/california art, borne from Generation X. this isn't my favorite piece, but the whales are cute.