~BOWLING EBAY DEATH . . at MUDDGUTS
BOWLING EBAY DEATH – a POP-UP BOWLING ALLEY at MUDDGUTS
featuring vintage funeral home bowling shirts from the collection of – JOHAN KUGELBERG
staged with KEEGAN COOKE/CIRCADIAN PRESS & LELE SAVERI/MUDDGUTS
opened FRI AUG 29, 2014 and ran thru the LABOR DAY WEEKEND.
MUDDGUTS – 41 MONTROSE AVE, BROOKLYN, NY.
LELE SAVERI and MARK CROSS – artist co-owners of MUDDGUTS.
MARK CROSS ?
he did those custom blanket/carpets with hardcore photos of wasted homeless people on them, you saw one at the MAY 2014 – IT’S AN INVASION show at the National Arts Club, and there was also one on the floor at the more recent CINDERS 10th ANNIVERSARY pop-up show – I hear he’s only made 5, each one is different, and he takes the photos with a point and shoot. I also hear tell that if you get west coast side, San Francisco – BARRY McGEE uses one as his family beach blanket. yes indeedy, summer of death, or what !!
file under: art slay.
beach blanket art slay, whatever.
I mean beach, desert, what’s the diff. it’s all sand.
except . . ok, fill in the blanks yourself.
hint: one side is all . . skillz and MIRTH !!
and the other is friggin desperate.
oh, back to . . bowling !!
bring on the hardcore prankster – clowns !!
JOHAN KUGELBERG – the curator of the show.
when they talk about . . you can live your whole life in New York – and STILL, you can turn a corner – and a whole new world opens up, this guy . . is what they mean.
check out: BOO-HOORAY
KEEGEAN COOKE did some of the props – talk about bowling pins killing it.
he did those skull and cross bone great graphics. distressed, but just right. not too showy, not too ghostly.
the guy likes to keep a low profile, but I think, watch out.
check out: CIRCADIAN PRESS.
so yeah, they did turn the small storefront gallery into an ad hoc bowling alley, except of course minus the auto pin – pick up !!
the death pins !!
graphics . . KEEGAN COOKE
X marks the spot. you got one chance to score a strike and you won something, I forget what.
I was so blown away, I mean if you know me, I had already tripped over them, the bowling pins .. and knocked some down, so I guess that was my one shot.
so embarrassing.
my friends back at artnet didn’t call me artlovers – for naught.
and, there’s a reason why the name – stuck.
but . . back to bowling.
some pretty choice vintage funeral home / league bowling shirts lined the walls.
have I been watching one too many American Pickers ?!!
HOEFLINGERS ?!!
or as Frank would exclaim, waving his tiny flashlight – Mike check out those HO-HO !! HO FLINGERS !!
damn that’s one sick slick wall.
caught my attention. looks like the limited edition of 3 (?) SURVIVAL box sets, packed just the same – in USPS PRIORITY BOXES that JOSH HARRIS . . JOSH HARRIS my ex-buddy and his former partner-in-crime – the late great silk screen artist MARK ENGER aka EXPL SKY / EXPLODING SKY made up on the farm, after WE LIVE IN PUBLIC crashed.
it had a disposable haz mat suit inside, one size fits all – as well as a few other needy 21st C things, and yeah I scored one. of course. so, yes boxed set USPS . . rang a bell.
and a good one. don’t get me wrong. I mean maybe Mark’s death put Josh on the wrong path ?
I dunno – but he sure ain’t bowling . . strikes. lately.
but, back to bowling !!
damn. you got . .
~one vintage funeral home bowling shirt
~one zine
~a grim reaper Bowling trophy
~a skull and cross bones bowling pin
~a Too Bad You’re Gonna Die T-shirt
~all packaged in a hand-stenciled priority box .. for $150 / ?!!!
LIMITED EDITION of 10 – count me in.
I had Theo with me – so duh, artist kid with credit card is good for $150, or what !!
I mean check out that swift stencil job !!
black as night, and slightly diffused around the edges. good proportions, too.
and what about that . . trophy ?
grim reaper, or what ?!!!!!
Summer of DEATH, or what ?!!!!!
and look at how the light glances off that glass, plastic, plexiglas ? base. wow. may as well be crystal.
JOHAN KUGELBERG actually made the trophy. nice job.
no hesitation. count me in, Theo man – give the kid in the office your credit card.
and then oh god, I had a panic attack . . I actually had to pick a funeral home bowling league shirt for my boxed set, from the assortment lining the walls. wow, you could pick your own, it wasn’t just a random surprise. luckily about half of them were already gone, so I went for the shiniest – the RED ONE !!!!!!
I mean it was the only red one, fire engine red at that.
and I liked the name of my new home team, my new . . GHOST ARMY !!!!
am I building a huge ghost army – or what. all praise to BOB MARLEY for setting me on the path.
but back to bowling, I also liked the word play: OEH – LEA !!
OLA !! DEATH. OLAY, olah !!
and the player’s name was . . Siewerth ?
you got to be kidding me – rhymes with BLOW MIRTH, (see CINDERS show write-up) !!
kind of.
or, what about just: SEE WORTH.
but apparently it also held a great ‘secret’ !!
can you see it ?
guess all my American Pickers vintage signage forays were paying off . . . subconsciously.
apparently some wicked funny signage guy – did the ‘drop shadows’ on the letters, for they surely are at . . play.
the ‘O’s – are shadowed backwards to the rest of the letters !!
for real. just look at it, you’ll see it.
PETER. this is the kid who turned me onto that.
seems he’s a real bright kid who knows his fonts & shadows. and signage and graff and stuff.
he told me: you bought the BEST ONE !!
upon a little questioning he told me he was into BARRY McGEE & west coast graff. funny how McGEE still pops up on the east coast, even with Deitch down. see top of this post, for example. a great legend lives, is all I can say – the BLOW MIRTH crew as we like to call them.
he told me to check out: THR / THE HARSH REALITY & . . DFW.
in fact, DFW had just surfaced at CINDERS . . ISACC LIN.
also: KRON4NEWS, but not the tv channel.in the mix.instagram.
but WHAT really pops up on the radar for west coast graff right now is: ROBERTO CAVALLI SUED BY 3 GRAFFITI artists . . !!
big storm brewing, go for it, slam those theivin’ bastard sleazebags.
PRADA ripped off a watercolor textile design with Japanese flower buds, that I had shopped around in NYC in the early 90s, I saw it adorning a dress and coat suit – almost dot for dot, in her big MET show 2 summers ago. it was first ripped off and made into a bed sheet by the company I shopped it to.
then she, MIUCCIA took it and embroidered straight onto to her pant suit, without even resourcing it as . . ‘found’. she took full credit and in the same breath went on about how artists aren’t special and she doesn’t work with them. you know that big Schiaperelli and Prada show a few summers back.
so don’t get me started. always ahead of the curve or what.
all I can say is, TOO BAD YOU’RE GONNA DIE. losers.
PATRICK McCARTHY – had the last show at MUDDGUTS.
totally sweet and counter to the grain. but still most definite: GRIT.
it was called PAT’S PIGEON CLUB . . and I got great pix and they are coming up – next week.
sorry for the grainy portrait, my auto focus got distracted by the . . SATAN CERAMICS logo, and truth be told, so did I. Pat had some handmade ceramics in his show, including some very sublime porcelain pigeon perch ‘high rises’, and some very zen-like nesting bowls.
speaking of which . . TOM SACHS.
PAT McCARTHY works in the production crew at the TOM SACHS studio. I heard he actually holds a key position. sculpture / fabrication.
they are both, TOM and PAT going to have ceramic work in a quickly upcoming ceramics group show at SALON 94 in their downtown Freemans Alley location – opening SUNDAY SEPT 7, 2014 – wow, that’s next week.
and so, the Fall 2014 art season begins.
see you there.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH