JENNIFER LAWRENCE meets LARRY DAVID at the VANITY FAIR OSCARS AFTER-PARTY, 2014.
PHOTO: KEVIN MAZUR/VF14/WireImage via US WEEKLY
two incredibly talented nut cases, at heart !!
who both love to laugh !!
LARRY . . must have had her in stitches !!
and, FILE UNDER: ok, I know, I know . . already !!
b-o-r-i-n-g already.
everybody in NYC . . knows. where the hell are you – if you don’t.
must be something about famous fathers, and sons. I dunno.
the glam road . . beckons ?
file under: dark ‘arts’.
come on, life is hard enough – I hope they at least . . . talk ‘art’ ?
PHOTO:X17online.com via MAIL ONLINE
read: HEIDI KLUM ‘tries’ to sneak out of Oscars party . . with ‘toyboy’ VITO DAILY MAIL, MARCH 4, 2014
their words in quotation marks, not mine !!
oh boy, oh boy . . .
you know your mainstream art world is in TROUBLE, when the biggest media buzz you are getting . . is VITO and HEIDI.
like I said, LIFE IN THE FAST LANE is .. funnie ?
how about . . addictive ?
I wonder if VITO . . still represents RENE RICARD ?
if so, he will have his own fast lane . . soon enough ?!!
~LAWRENCE . . meet LARRY !! !! JENNIFER & DAVID trump . . HEIDI & VITO . . ?!! |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 4th, 2014, 11:01am
and we do mean . . the CUTTING EDGE !!
JARED LETO . . PHOTOBOMBS ANNE HATHAWAY at the OSCARS . . PIX !! – GOING VIRAL !!
see: still pix
hilarious.
what a comeback kid, the ultimate American cowboy/rebel/dreamer, jerk ? . . or what !!
& so C-U-T-E. day old hair !! HASH HALPER . . eat your heart out !!
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT . . move over, you fake bastard.
in your . . dreams.
I mean . . talk about ‘celebrity’ photography !!
check out: JARED LETO & his band . . 30 SECONDS TO MARS – ‘CLOSER TO THE EDGE’ / SEPT 23, 2010 !!
as Simon would say, play it l-o-u-d.
don’t know why his so-called MTV ‘fans’ dropped off, after this . . ?
it’s pretty good. or, maybe it was the .. the filmmakers !!
because .. yeah, the rest of his music, is well: yeah . . he was a loser on the music scene, but he had his moment at the Oscars – last night, sometimes that’s all you get . . a moment.
a moment . . to catch a photo.
a moment to bomb . . one !!
the way he danced around Anne Hathaway . . was fab.
also: TALKIN BOUT . . CLAIRE DANES !!
watch: a YOUNG CLAIRE DANES, and a YOUNG JARED LETO – in ‘MY SO-CALLED LIFE’ !!
a certain generation, now in their mid-to-late twenties . . grew up on this stuff, b-i-g time.
esp here in NYC.
well, what can I say, there was more magic in that ‘photo-bomb’ – then there is to be found in the entire collective mainstream art world . . this week.
buzz-wise, anyways.
WHITNEY BIENNIAL, and ALL the art fairs . . big and small.
I dunno . .
I guess that’s what . . I’m really saying.
I mean, just sayin’, but you k-n-o-w . . I’m right.
‘revitalizing’ abstract art ?
gimme a break.
MIRO to ROTHKO, be rollin’ in their graves.
~JARED LETO . . gets CLOSER TO THE EDGE !! |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 3rd, 2014, 3:39pm
WILL THE REAL !! . . FAB FREDDY !! . . PLEASE STAND UP !!
LISTEN UP: LAST WEEK TO CATCH . . PUTTING ASIDE, JOSH HARRIS !! & RENE RICARD !!
AN AMAZING SLICE OF NYC ART WORLD HISTORY . .
FRED W. McDARRAH . . ‘SAVE THE VILLAGE’
JAN 30 thru SAT MARCH 8, 2014
STEVEN KASHER GALLERY – 521 WEST 23, CHELSEA, NYC
FRED W. McDARRAH (1926-2007) was the “first picture editor and only staff photographer at the VILLAGE VOICE for decades” . . so, GO FIGURE !!
this wonderful, amazing, archival show . . presents over 130 rare & original VINTAGE PRINTS that span 1958-1979, in short: the height of when NYC truly was the center of all.
art world included !!
so, listen up, all you digital geeks, these are the original hard copy black & white prints !! many of which are . . signed, dated and often accompanied with Fred McDarrah’s own notations, in his characteristic squiggly script – scribbled by hand, in thick black ink – across the bottom white border.
this is a big week in NYC – BUT this jewel box of a show should go to the top of YOUR list, no matter who you are, and . . what your interests !!
the show’s card, says it very well:
“Before the Internet there was FRED W. McDARRAH: the most curious, knowledgeable, and indefatigable photographer of the New York downtown scene in the second half of the 20th century. NOBODY did more than FRED to save Greenwich village in our collective memory.” !!
read more: FRED W McDARRAH – BIO & background
see: selection – exhibit images
FRED W. McDARRAH, ‘CARL BERNSTEIN AND NORA EPHRON’, ca 1978.
vintage gelatin silver, printed ca. 1978, 10 x 8 in.
($2,500)
I’d snap that up in a nanosecond – if I had the dough.
damn, if NORA EPHRON wasn’t such a foxy, cute chick, back in the day.
this is such a famous image, it played at the top of the game, when essayist Nora (sadly) passed away a few years back. it makes you realize the huge impact digital photography has had on the proliferation of pictorial material & images. back in the day, there was no way to get photos out there, except though print, newspaper & magazines – mostly.
an indie ? forget about it !!
and, when a photographer caught a moment, it was a real ‘catch’ – there weren’t that many people out there, going for it.
you can also see that great ‘characteristic’ of the most gifted event photographers, very plainly here in this image.
you have one chance, one second . . to catch the moment, and then: time was up !! so you had better be . . quick & g-o-o-d.
and, if you are too much of an art world purist to be interested in NORA EPHRON, who was NOT well served by that stupid Meryl Strep cinematic characterization, what about:
ED RUSCHA . .
FRED W. McDARRAH, ‘ED RUSCHA and UNIDENTIFIED’, ca 1968.
vintage gelatin silver, printed ca 1968. 4-3/4 x 7-1/2 in.
($3,000)
a young and super, super hip, cowboy: ED RUSCHA !!
taken in 1968 – when most people, even those in the art world, and esp those on the East Coast !!
still hadn’t heard about him, ED RUSCHA. . to become known as possibly contemporary art’s most influential . . ‘sign painter’ – !!
~FRED W. McDARRAH . . LAST WEEK !! |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 1st, 2014, 9:46am
just in case you live under a rock, or are too young to know . . or most likely, just plain eschew mainstream media ?!!
art world character, painter, poet, and influential mover and groover, i.e. ‘art junkie’,
RENE RICARD . . died at the start of this month.
there is an excellent obit in the NEW YORK TIMES, penned by BRUCE WEBER . . that captures the loss, and all the poetry . . of the proud, colorful, and, yes even . . legendary era that RENE strode through.
the article seems to state that Rene coined the phrase . . ‘RADIANT CHILD’ . . for Jean Michel.
in which case, for me, that’s reason enough to mourn his passing and salute his singular art ‘eye’ . . the poetry. and his lyrical, narrative . . painting.
very information-based, bye the way.
see: RENE RICARD, ART ARBITER – NEW YORK TIMES
in fact . . this obit, is really a nice and very telling ‘slice’ of how things work in NYC, the movers and groovers, the players – the ‘art junkies’ who break the art down, and set up the stars.
the super fans, the real power brokers, the king makers. oh . . yeah !!
I crossed paths many, many times with RENE since arriving on the island in summer 1981 or was it, 82. but we were not friends. he had already drawn his close circle of friends around him, and he was jealous, petty, and super territorial, and competitive, and aren’t we all . .
but, he was also bitchy in that super queen gay way. I mean all the power to him, he had a hard life . . but, that’s the truth. he also liked really girlie girls in his entourage – if there were to be any girls at all. I’m talking about the early club days, and that was not me, tomboy to the core . . clueless. guileless. that was me. he liked girls in towering, even crystal heels.
I marched around in . . work boots. I was super super shy, all friggin radar . . and no way to express it. borderline gifted, but slightly autistic – in a nutshell, you get the picture.
cut to the truth . .
well o.k. we had a run-in right off the bat. I went to the first KEITH HARING opening at FUN GALLERY, and all my pals, well Simon and his pals (!!) went in, and then Rene slammed the door in my face and said . . “no more”.
whoa . . do not underestimate the inner power of a fellow, natural born art junkie. even if they look . . clueless.
I definite pushed that door open, and entered, but I was mad.
lo and behold, the very next weekend I’m in line to enter some hot party at MARY BOONE’S gallery when it was downtown on West Broadway, and who the f . . . is behind me ?
yep. Rene.
damn if I didn’t slam that huge, heavy 2 ton plate glass door right in his goddamn face, and . . hard. It was sheer instinct, no thinking. and, looking back: I’m friggin lucky I didn’t break his nose.
after that we maintained a healthy respect for each other and always checked each other out, but definite stayed 10 feet away !!
years later . . like about 20 !!
you can see, in this photo I caught of him, the respect we had for each other.
I was only mad that he had shut me out.
and, as for him ? what’s NOT to like . . about the now, very influential, and trend-calling . . event photographer for artnet ?!!!!!!
RENE RICARD at his CHEIM & READ OPENING, NYC. SUMMER 2003.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH
the poignant poetry of . . ships that pass in the dark, or what ?
and, p.s. yes. I do consider this one of my best shots. come on, look at his expression, those huge white shades !! and damn, if there isn’t a ‘light’ source, a light refection, a ‘twinkle’ in both . . lenses !!
perfecto mundo, if I don’t say so – myself.
the original artnet report, edited by WALTER ROBINSON . . was titled, by him as: ‘Goodbye to Summer 2003 and the Shining Stars of the NY Artworld’ . . so it’s nice for someone who was initially dissed by Rene, and who then . . in return slammed a door in his face . . to be able to google him, and see a great photo of him at what was surely a high point in his life, posted under my name . . and see that, thanks to that photo . . he got branded as a “shining star”.
a recognition, he surely deserved. and most likely very much enjoyed at the moment it posted.
it’s these characters who make the art scene, there is no other way to put it.
life, in the fast lane . . sure is funnie.
that summer 2003 artnet report also caught a few other art world super stars, and even some ‘baby’ super stars . . in the making:
for starters, there’s some chick . . named EMILY in that notorious anti-Bush, KAYROCK T-Shirt from the ‘HUNDRED and ONE T SHIRT’ . . show !!
then, check out: CLAIRE DANES, P.S.3 grad (!!) . . on the streets of SOHO, and . . KARA WALKER !!
there’s an ALFREDO MARTINEZ ‘HUNGER STRIKE’ T SHIRT, it’s printed with a drawing smuggled out of prison. something about a little art fraud caper. haha. Alfredo ran that big ‘gun shooting gallery’ . . in ‘QUIET’.
moving on, up pops – the very first published photo of JOE BRADLEY, with his band CHEESEBURGER, MISAKI KAWAII, MICHAEL WILLIAMS, and DEVENDRA BANHART.
not a bad haul for . . a severely under-estimated, socially clueless, tomboy chick on the scene, when the big party glammazones ruled, & the mucho serious art critics & ‘reviewers’ of the NEW YORK TIMES and ARTFORUM, thought . . they reigned !!
NOT.
like I said, life is funnie – in the fast lane.
I prob won’t even get . . an obit – when I die.
I so . . don’t get it. I run this huge website and catch all these guys, and make all the calls and set things into motion, just like Rene, and I’m ‘volatile’ too (!!) though in a different manner, and he at least got some real mainstream ‘love’ . . . and art exhibits.
I have yet to see one, ONE !! of my photographs on a gallery wall.
I dunno, man.
I just don’t know. I know so many things, and I just don’t . . get that.
I guess there is a price to pay for being rock solid . . hardcore & indie to the very last drop ?
New York . . is a really strange place.
see: SUMMER OF 2003 – ARTNET
~RENE RICARD . . DEPARTS |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 27th, 2014, 10:29am
since it looks to be we are all stuck inside . . polar vortexing, today !!
not to worry . . boredom, NOT !!
JOSH HARRIS . . has sent in a link to the long lost, ORIGINAL !! MUCHO RAW !! & UNCENSORED !! . .
ROUGH CUT of . . . ‘QUIET’
. . . as in, ‘QUIET’ – ‘WE ARE ALL WATCHING’ !!
the $1 MILLION DOLLAR+ MILLENNIUM NEW YEAR’S EVE / YEAR 2000 – 2 WEEK ART PARTY – that shook downtown New York City to the rafters, and whose live streaming 24/7 surveillance videos . . became the basis for ONDI TIMONER’S . . SUNDANCE AWARD WINNING . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, (2009).
SO, HEADS UP, 15 WARREN STREET, haha. if you think you were . . WILD !!
this was . . INSANE, CRAZY, and completely – OFF THE WALL !!
and held in, yes . . 2 warehouse/abandoned storefronts in . . . TRIBECA !!
you guys came after . . 9-11 – we called it !!
so, new wave / new gen . . 15 WARREN STREET, meet . . your predecessor, your brother from another mother !!
the NEW YEAR’S ART PAR-TAY . . . to end all art parties.
so, hold onto your hats. cause, hello . . ‘WOLF ON WALL STREET’ – !!!!!!
meets . . the REAL !! DOWNTOWN art scene !!! NYC. JAN 1, 2000.
talk about: climbing high & dangerous places . . !!!
THIS WAS . . . JAN 1, 2000 – downtown NYC !!
ladies and gentlemen,
here .. is the raw archival link – WATCH: OMG – * * the 2001 rough cut of . . ‘QUIET’ – !! * *
ps:
hello. for . . all ya newbies !!
here’s a few key players, who pop up . . in the first 10 seconds of the raw footage:
MARK ENGER . . the incredibly talented, incredibly messed-up, original redneck cowboy, army brat, artist, and master silkscreener . . . co-founder of EXPLODING SKY WORLDWIDE, and now . . dead.
YOURS TRULY !!
yep, me . . NANCY SMITH. aka artloversnewyork.
hardcore downtown artist, quilt repairer/consultant & ‘art world groover’ . . . to JOSH HARRIS, and yes, damn it . . . he paid well !!
and well, damn it . . YES !!
I’m still terrorizing the mainstream art world !!
and, calling the . . shots & the REAL TALENT !!!!!!!!!
so, boo-ya !! all ya wannabes, fakes & posers !!
JOSH HARRIS. the head honcho.
CEO. and .. not to forget: LUVVY !! / the CLOWN – or, how to put it ?
the art world’s ‘WOLF’ . . before there was … a ‘WOLF ON WALL STREET’ – ?!!
JOSH HARRIS, mad brilliant . .
Internet guru, futurist . . and well, GENIUS !! ARTIST !! VISIONARY !!
who funded !! & founded !! it all . . and, set it all in motion.
just as SEAN VEGEZZI . . is a (far-out) ‘product’ of his unique time . . and place.
so was JOSH.
JOSH HARRIS . . left sunny U CAL in the mid 90s . . and came to NYC with only a second-hand car, and big dreams. he promptly sold the car for $750 . . and, with that small seed of dough – he started JUPITER.COM – the very first internet web trend tracking company – which he then promptly flipped, as they say: IPO’D !! . . for $81+ million dollars.
so yes. he was . . a mad crazy 90s dot.com CEO, for real.
and so – yes, ‘WOLF ON WALL STREET’ drugs, sex and $$ collides . . with the hardcore art scene, NYC style !! it was . . the dot.com era.
ok. maybe not quite as much .. drugs. but almost. but def, more ART !!
so, yeah. this is . . the stuff of legends. he is also know as the ‘Andy Warhol of the web’, and the ‘father’ . . of social working, by the way.
(just saying. google: ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – the movie)
he, JOSH . . then pumped all that money, $81 million !! o.k. he bought a few antique quilts along the way (!!) . . into PSEUDO.COM.
OMG — Pseudo.com !!
live streaming video, comedy, culture, gaming, hip hop & soft porn, of course !! while most people were still on dial-up, if that !!
and the rest . .
is history !!
~JOSH HARRIS . . SENDS IN ‘QUIET’ / ROUGH CUT 2001 |
Posted in Movie Reviews, The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 26th, 2014, 11:02am
SEAN VEGEZZI . . . one of the 3 young curators of ’15 WARREN STREET’ . . . that huge blast of an opening, of fresh air & talent !! . . . that opened the 2014 NEW YEAR, with a rush of raw energy . . . and was featured on artlovers for all of JAN 2014 !!
scored a remarkable write-up in the NEW YORK TIMES, this weekend !!
the article, titled . . ‘Closed Doors ? Not a Problem’, was penned by ALAN FEUR – and was featured in both the print and online editions, in the Metropolitan section – ‘ALBUM’ column.
check it out : ‘Closed Doors? Not A Problem’, by ALAN FEUR/NEW YORK TIMES. FEB 21, 2014 !!
and, for sure: check out the slide show !!
the ‘kids’ in the pix – are SEAN and his pals.
I believe in the hi-vantage point photo, ‘A View from the Top of the Manhattan Bridge in 2009’, that is SEAN VEGEZZI himself . . on the top rungs of the bridge, at an alarming, mother-killing heart-stopping (!!) height . . .
hey, just local kids from the hood. the hood of TRIBECA !!
also, NOTICE THE DOMINANT ROLE of ‘LIGHT’ . . in all the pix !!
and it goes without saying, from the ashes . . . rises !!
the World Trade Center towers were crashed down, right in front of these kids – 8 years earlier, 9-11-2001.
I guess most of them would have been, what ? . . 10.
it would be wise, never to under-estimate the power of that destruction, but esp on the young kids of NYC.
ARCHIVAL PHOTO, 2006:
SEAN VEGEZZI, at THE CANAL CHAPTER, an early SERF and MINT / MIRF venue/project.
CANAL STREET, TRIBECA, NYC JUNE 2006.
yes. that’s a DAZE painting he’s standing in front of. DAZE another local, straight out of a NYC hood, a couple of generations earlier.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH
SEAN . . was 15 at the time I took the photo. that was the first time I met him.
I guess that makes him all of . . 23 now.
and with a big NYT profile, under his belt !!
read the original post: SEAN / NYC EXPOSED – artlovers archive
FAST FORWARD:
SEAN VEGEZZI, TODAY – LOWER MANHATTAN, NYC. FEB 20, 2014.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH
street photographer SEAN VEGEZZI, has also put out a book, manned a couple of solo photo shows, and recently co-curated . . with ABELINE COHEN and ANDREW KASS, the huge ’15 WARREN STREET’ 2014 New Year blow-out . .
it would be a mistake to pigeon-hole any of these guys, or their friends.
Sean in particular . . doesn’t like to be pigeon-holed as simply a ‘street photographer’ . . or even, ‘photographer/curator’. the dug-down, illuminated site specific piece he installed for ’15 WARREN ST’, definitely says this local kid is not only an ‘ARTIST’, who wears many hats . . he’s a force to be reckoned with . .
emphasis on . . reckon !! / see: Urban Dictionary: reckon .. !!
look out NYC !!
look out world.
R.I.P. JEAN MICHEL, STAY HIGH, DAN ASHER & all other dead downtown gods.
and even SIMON CERIGO, and incl. the recently departed . . RENE RICARD !!
NYC is still . . king.
the cover for: SEAN VEGEZZI, ‘I DON’T WARNA GROW UP’.
photos by SEAN VEGEZZI, text by ABELINE COHEN.
for sure, check out: SEAN VEGEZZI / FOURTEEN – NINETEEN, for more info on the book & other projects, twitter feeds, etc
~SEAN VEGEZZI SCORES . . NEW YORK TIMES PROFILE |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 24th, 2014, 9:36am
for all my . . ‘insider’ writers !!
and p.s. YES, I think I was the first to substitute ‘tagger’ for ‘writer’ . . re street artists, esp those who purely ‘wrote’, or ‘tagged’, their custom scribbles and codes . . all over town. . . . to avoid confusion in a mainstream media.
I mean writers were not exactly ‘literary wirters . . byt they werent exactly v artist either. taggers made sense.
I’ve actually got a pretty big 35mm photo archive of ‘pure’ and, mostly undecipherable tags, mostly from downtown Lower Manhattan . . going aall the way back to 1981 !!
maybe some day, I’ll put out a book.
maybe I’ll call it: tags I have known . . !!
‘JESUS SAVES’, SEPT 15, 2014.
WEST 24th STREET, CHELSEA, NYC.
‘JESUS SAVES’ and ‘STAY HIGH’ are two of my favs . . just because they come straight up from the native-born hoods . . before they were gentrified . . and they never or haven’t yet, received huge success or recognition.
STAY HIGH passed away a few years ago, and was as hard core as they come. but JESUS SAVES, of a slightly younger generation, is still out there.
and apparently, he’s still interested in the art scene, proper !!
maybe he caught the LOREN MUNK show opening, because that’s when I caught the tag.
~JESUS SAVES . . CHELSEA |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 24th, 2014, 9:33am
LAST WEEKEND . . to CATCH !!
ANDREW GUENTHER’S SOLO SHOW – ‘POPCORN ILLUSIONS’ . . at RIDLEY HOWARD & MITCHELL WRIGHT’S . .
ARTIST RUN GALLERY . . 106 GREEN in GREENPOINT.
the show runs thru SUNDAY, FEB 23, 2014.
Gallery Hours are on Sundays from 12-5 PM / or by appointment.
106 GREEN – 104 GREEN ST, Greenpoint, BROOKLYN.
SO, IF . . LOREN MUNK’S current show . . is all about LISTS !!
lists, and maps, and diagrams of text / i.e. written historical information . . .
ANDREW GUENTHER’S show here . . is all about LISTS . . of purely visual images / implied information.
ABSOLUTELY . . . NO TEXTS, no words !!
can you get your head . . around that ?!!
some images from the show:
well, I guess that’s one thing to do, when the hole in the crotch of your well-worn jeans, gets big enough !!
the power of paint.
the power of black and white.
the power of the . . third finger !!
the power of . . nature.
from the press release:
“GUENTHER’S new body of work began in February 2013 with a conscious choice, made by the artist, to limit the color choices to flat black and unbleached titanium. The result is a highly graphic image, which recalls the film tinting process of the silent film era. Like those films, the paintings make the most of the limitation, high contrasts that burn into your memory and engage in a sort of sequential slapstick of events.
A book titled ‘POPCORN ILLUSIONS’ will available at the gallery in concert with the exhibition and features a series of photographs and paintings that may be seen as an active sketchbook of thoughts both completed and beginning.”
also while you are at the gallery . . look for a book, ‘ORANGE PEEL BELIEVER’, a small artist book . .
of haikus by musician LUKE RATHBORNE – with art work by ANDREW GUENTHER.
ANDREW GUENTHER . . at the JOE BRADLEY, ‘LOTUS BEATERS’ opening, GBE, NYC .. MAY 17, 2013.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH
check out: ANDREW GUENTHER – online portfolio . . while you are there check out his TWITTER FEED, it’s good, real good.
see: TWITTER – EAT THE LEAF
the last time . . I ran into Andrew was at the JOE BRADLEY SUMMER 2013 opening. Andrew’s wife, TIFFANY . . had just given birth to a son, a brother for little, big sister . . EASTER LILY.
I first meet . . Andrew when he was hired by dead hubby/art maven Simon Cerigo . . to be the gallery intern at DANIEL SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, when it was on 21st St. in Chelsea, sometime around the summer 2000. Danny and Simon gave Andrew his first real exposure, in several shows, and they also let him curate a few shows too, including the huge blow-out ‘ONE HUNDRED ARTISTS ONE HUNDRED T SHIRTS’ group show, that ran JULY 16 – AUGUST 18, 2003.
some of the participating artists: SIMON CERIGO, NANCY SMITH, ALFREDO MARTINEZ, MARK ENGER/EXPLODING SKY, WALTER ROBINSON, KAYROCK, LAUREL NAKADATE, SCOTT HUG, MICHAEL MAGNAN, ERIC DEN BREEJEN, SURFACE TO AIR, UNITED BAMBOO, MADASKI, SUSAN CIANCIOLO.
was it .. PETER COFFIN who made an “I’M WITH … IDIOT” t shirt, that ended up being parodied on . . PAGE SIX.
KAYROCK’S anti-Bush t shirt ended up gracing the pages of BLACK BOOK.
my . . ‘ANDY WARHOL’ tank top with a real fur collar from a thrift shop . . got coverage incl a photo – in WWD / WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY !!
so much, for 15 seconds . . of fleeting media fame.
talk about . . . POPCORN ILLUSIONS !!!!!!!!!!
the card for: ‘ONE HUNDRED ARTISTS ONE HUNDRED T SHIRTS’, DANIEL SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, 520 WEST 21st STREET, CHELSEA. JULY 16 – AUGUST 18, 2003.
~ANDREW GUENTHER . . POPCORN ILLUSIONS |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 21st, 2014, 9:25am
LOREN MUNK – ‘YOU ARE HERE’
opened SAT, FEB 15, 2014
the show runs thru MARCH 15, 2014
FREIGHT+VOLUME – 530 WEST 24th ST , CHELSEA, NYC
LOREN MUNK, painter and video/archivist, at center, with . . KATE AUGENBLICK, and NICK LAWRENCE.
also at the opening, ERIK DEN BREEJEN.
Erik Den Breejen is also a ‘brute’, as in high contrast colorist, and he also works with hand-lettered fonts, and diagramming ‘cultural’ info / via pure ‘text’, so . . it was interesting to see him here.
Erik told me . . . he has a show of new work coming up at FREIGHT+VOLUME in about 2 months . .
interestingly, he also told me he had visited LOREN MUNK’S studio, and that . . “Loren has painted a pretty good ‘map’ of the cutting edge / ‘contemporary’ artist scene in Williamsburg”, or as he put it . . . “well, I mean, I’m on it.” !!
I’m taking that . . as a ‘yes’ !!
the very ‘painterly’ information graphics were set out in different ways, some like ribbons, and streamers, some like maps, some like puzzles.
LOREN MUNK, ‘Armory Century’, 2012-2013. oil on linen, 72 x 66 in.
($28,000)
‘Armory Century’ was presented as a American geographic-style . . ‘map’.
it held quite a bit of info . . & history.
WILLIAM DE KOONING holds his first one man show at CHARLES EGAN GALLERY, 1948.
MARCEL DUCHAMP arrives in NYC, from PARIS, 1915.
SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001 – THE WORLD TRADE CENTERS are crashed down, makes the cut !!
hello, my young friends . . at 15 WARREN STREET !!
LOREN MUNK, ‘CLEMENT GREENBERG (large)’, 2005-2006. oil on linen. 48 x 72 in.
($16,000)
I found this one, particularly interesting, mostly because of the overall composition, which centered on the simple, but spirited . . cartoon-like portrait of CLEMENT GREENBERG, and the way the pictorial/narrative focus on .. a single, individual ‘player’. . evolved.
although all the work in the exhibit pulsed with an ‘outsiders’ obsession, and seemed infused with a American folk art-like character, this one seemed to have an almost ‘Russian’ revolutionary poster ‘feel’, and alluded well to the European roots of modern art.
the color and ‘font’ work was also . . very compelling.
‘insider/outsider’ . . is harder to define these days, so it was also intriguing to look back with Loren Munk . . at the days when the art world was so much ‘simpler’, kind of a big . . ole boys club.
CLEMENT GREENBERG, ‘Born in the Bronx .. Jan 16, 1909.’
the timeline was fascinating. that’s more than a hundred years . . ago !!
‘1933 WORKS AS A TRAVELING SALESMAN’ . . .
the next date highlighted is: ‘1950 meets HELEN FRANKENTHALER.’
LOREN MUNK, ‘DEAD WRITE’, 2010. oil on linen, 60 x 36 in.
($12,000)
one of the smaller pieces in the show, it also was the only one to reference 2 cutting edge, but yes, DEAD !! superstars.
splayed out . . on a map of Manhattan.
JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT . . 1960-1988, 57 Great Jones St.
DASH SNOW . . 1981-2009, Lafayette Hotel, 38 East 4th St.
ROBERT STORR.
haha. my young friends .. at YALE !!
the painting was a chart, a diagram that opposed dead artists on the left, with living ‘writers’ on the right.
my old boss at artnet, WALTER ROBINSON . . . made the cut.
but, like the painting bold proclaims at the bottom:
“NO CORRELATION IS IMPLIED.”
LOREN MUNK, ‘The Irascibles’, 2008. oil on canvas, 26 x 36 in.
($6,500)
this was also a very unique piece, in that it centered on an almost primitive / photographic rendering of a ‘group’, and took the form of a ‘riddle’.
I mean, who the hell . . were the Irascibles ? and I do (!!) have a masters degree in fine art & and decades of being immersed in the art scene !!
so, in a way, this piece was the most . . ‘interactive’ to me, in that, I wanted to rush home, and do . . some research !!
what a bunch of . . characters.
I only knew the answer to one (!!) question.
the top one: JACKSON POLLOCK.
can YOU . . answer this ?
‘As of this date, December 2007, the last surviving member of “the Irascibles’ and the only female. Unfortunately her work has been excluded from the canon of postwar American art.’
answer: HEDDA STERNE, and yes, checkout: HEDDA STERNE
wow, she lived to be . . 100 !!
she died in NYC in 2011.
check out: her work, Loren .. is right. unfortunate x 100,000.
looking back at art . . with LOREN MUNK.
a lot of ‘dead’ stuff . . comes vividly back to life, with renewed relevance – and hopefully a new . . ‘take’.
these paintings are as colorful & inventive, as they are ‘informative’ . .
for sure, they take . . ‘flight’ – as ‘art’ in their own: right / write.
& yes, you want to check out: The Irascibles, a group of American abstract painters . . who in 1950 wrote an open letter rejecting the MET exhibit ‘American Painting Today’, and set .. NYC and, art history . . into a tail spin !!
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~LOREN MUNK . . PIX FROM THE OPENING |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 19th, 2014, 9:44am
MICHAEL DeFORGE . . . BOOK SIGNING TO-NITE, SAT FEB 15, 2014 / 8PM
BERGEN STREET COMICS – 470 BERGEN STREET, BROOKLYN
BERGEN STREET COMICS PRESENTS THE DEBUT OF MICHAEL DEFORGE’S GRAPHIC NOVEL . . ‘ANT COLONY’, with a slideshow presented by the author/artist, and a book signing to follow.
MICHAEL DeFORGE, ‘ANT COLONY’
published by DRAWN & QUARTERLY, JAN 2014
$21.95
11 x 8.5 in.
112 pages, full color with hard cover
from the press release:
‘ANT COLONY’ follows the denizens of a black ant colony under attack from the nearby red ants: from its opening pages, DeForge immerses the reader in a world of false prophets, unjust wars, and corrupt police officers.
On the surface, ‘ANT COLONY’ tells the story of this war, the destruction of a civilization, and the ants’ all-too-familiar desire to re-build. Underneath, though, ‘ANT COLONY’, plumbs the deepest human concerns – loneliness, faith, love, apathy, and more.
DeForge’s striking visual sensibility – stark lines, dramatic color choices, and brilliant use of page and panel space – stands out in this volume.
MICHAEL DeFORGE, ‘ANT COLONY’ page – via DRAWN & QUARTERLY.
yep, I think MICHAEL DeFORGE, and LOREN MUNK . . have some similar painterly . . characteristics !!
they both want to say . . . something !!
and, they both make great use of ‘diagrams’, informational graphics, and BOLD, BOLD COLOR !!
there is a great . . VISUAL RHYTHM to both their works.
~MICHAEL DeFORGE . . ANT COLONY |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 15th, 2014, 11:17am
