~THOMAS SPOERNDLE . .
THOMAS SPOERNDLE – NEW WORK
OPENS SUN MAY 19, 2013 / 7PM
the show runs thru JUNE 16, 2013
NOVELLA – 164 ORCHARD ST – LOWER EAST SIDE – NYC
HRS: WED-SUN 12-6
more info: on the show
~DANIEL REICH . . MEMORIAL
BELIEVER – DANIEL REICH / 1972-2012
A Gathering for Daniel – TUES MAY 14, 2013 / 4PM
All Welcome . . .
HENRY ST. SETTLEMENT, ABRONS ART CENTER – 466 GRAND ST. – NYC / Lower East Side
if planted, this card will grow wildflowers – so, no you can’t do that yet by digital transmission – but here’s to the day – you can !!
in memory of a visionary – Daniel Reich.
DANIEL REICH, WINTER 2004 . . . PHOTO BY NANCY SMITH
editor WALTER ROBINSON published it in artnet, the caption read:
“Daniel Reich opens ‘Milwaukee’ paintings by TYSON REEDER, in his new space on 23rd St.”
the report was titled: ‘Out in New York – Winter 2004’
Art Lovers New York – Photos by Nancy Smith
see: the full report – artnet/Out in New York – Winter 2004
~FREIZE, NOT !! GOLDSTEIN to the RESCUE . .
oh my god, could anything be worse than New York City this week ?
it’s so predictable. it’s so market-driven, it’s so embarrassing.
what ? is the only good artist .. a DEAD ONE ?!!!
we are so sick of JEFF KOONS, or what.
his retrospective hasn’t even opened, and we’re sick of him.
this guy peaked in the 80s – give me a break, that’s 40 yrs ago. and he’s still cutting edge ?
I don’t think so. he’s SO played out.
just take one look at that lame poetry/drawing piece he just did for the New York Times.
no wonder all his other stuff, is fabrication-driven. he even has an outside/consultant balloon wizard guy, design his balloons.
see: VULTURE
I used to be a big fan, but I guess that shows where my head’s at, it was the work inspired by that Italian porn chick – that I dug !! apparently his art rep took a big dive after that. well like I said, once a contrarian, always !!
but a word to the wise. look out, all ye would-be nouveau collectors . . . buying art is just like buying stocks, you have to look for the under-rated guys, not the over-valued ones, that everyone has already bought into – in which case, you have already .. missed the boat.
not to mention that awful awful cover portrait on NEW YORK magazine
if you are in town, and you really want to see some action, you do have a couple of other choices.
you can go see the ‘DENIS HOPPER – THE LOST ALBUM’ show up at GAGOSIAN on Madison Ave. a dynamic selection of Hopper’s early ‘paparazzi’ pix from the 60s, which according to the website info, haven’t been exhibited in the United States since 1970 – so don’t blink.
as for truly cutting edge contemporary art, as in NOT played-out to death – guess what, it’s THE JEWISH MUSEUM that holds the golden keys.
ok, he’s a dead guy, but maybe that’s what I’m talking about !!
‘JACK GOLDSTEIN x 10,000’ opens there this FRI MAY 10, 2013 and runs thru SEPT 29, 2013.
organized by the ORANGE COUNTY MUSEUM of ART and curated by guest curator PHILIPP KAISER – this show is BRILLIANT. not overly informational, and dead-on: influential.
see: JACK GOLDSTEIN x 10,000/THE JEWISH MUSEUM
the other show to see at THE JEWISH MUSEUM is: ‘SIX THING: SAGMEISTER & WALSH’.
ok, they are not DEAD, but they are cutting edge, as cutting edge as you can get and still have a foot in both worlds, design and fine art. and they bleed. as in they take chances, a few things don’t quite make it, like that god-awful script that runs at the base of the exhibit walls, but they don’t bomb completely … like Koons.
sorry, I can’t resist sticking it to him, and the big $ marketing – that trumpets him.
as in, so cutting edge … they just might just be courting career ‘death’ – just joking !! calm down !! love it !!
when more of the mainstream gets a load of their . . . new business / calling card.
p.s take a note: to Sagmeister. better watch it , or people gonna be comparing you to the SOURCE FAMILY & Cult figure FATHER YOD, who was also into .. naked young chicks!! hahaha. omg, yeah, I’m laughing !!
see: THE SOURCE FAMILY .. documentary now playing in NYC
IMAGE: whatmademelook/tumblr
see: SIX THINGS: SAGMEISTER & WALSH/THE JEWISH MUSEUM
PIX FROM THE PRESS PREVIEW: ‘JACK GOLDSTEIN x 10,000’ – now at THE JEWISH MUSEUM thru SEPT 29, 2013.
CLAUDIA GOULD, the new DIRECTOR of THE JEWISH MUSEUM . . .
and looking good, bye the way !!
the show’s guest curator, PHILIPP KAISER.
DENNIS SZAKACS, Director of the Orange County Museum of Art, which organized the show.
the show includes 2 short film / loop areas. one dedicated to the early film clips, and the other, to the later ones. all are quite minimalist .. and fascinating. this one, ‘THE KNIFE’, belongs to the latter category. these films were made on actual film, this was way before video, let alone the digital video option on your iPhone today, and they have not been transformed or re-formatted, for the show. they are projected onto the wall by archival projectors, which is of interest all by itself.
an installation view.
you don’t get to see the big paintings, esp up close and personal, very often. partly because he is such an under-rated artist. don’t ask me why. maybe just as well.
the blue and pink one at the left, is one of my absolute favs. abstract art … to the max.
well actually, hyper-realist photo-base art – that crossed the abstract line, oh you can die a thousand deaths – to experience that transformation.
‘Untitled’, 1983. Acrylic on canvas. Vanmoerkerke Collection, Ostend.
JACK GOLDSTEIN, lightning painting. c-l-a-s-s-i-c.
‘Untitled’, 1983. Acrylic on canvas. Collection: B.Z. and Michael Schwartz, New York.
my recently deceased hubbie, I was going to say LATE, but truth be told, his biggest fault was being TOO EARLY !! to the game . . SIMON CERIGO was one of the first people to buy a large Goldstein ‘Lightning’ canvas. it was a knock-out. we paid like $8,000 for it, from METRO PICTURES, I guess just about that time, 1983 – 84.
I believe it’s still the biggest canvas Goldstein ever painted. it ended up being bought, we had to sell it, in 1989 – when we could get at least 10 x the purchase price, little kids to feed and what .. but good karma. it somehow ended up in the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa .. where the label still says: PROVENANCE/COLLECTION of SIMON CERIGO !!
double the karma actually, because like Jack Goldstein, me and Simon were both brought up in Montreal, we were like the generation just before his. Montreal was hot for art at that time. Leonard Cohen and all. the French Canadian color field painters. we alos moved to NYC in the early 80s.
so I’m thinking, too bad it’s not TRIPLE KARMA, that the painting wasn’t borrowed from Canada and shown here, esp it being .. the year that Simon died.
the other quietly impressive part of this exhibit was a row of vinyl recordings. according to the museum notes, JACK “embraced technology, using it to create works that anticipated today’s digital media … words had always been a presence in his work.” and with specific reference to these pieces, “GOLDSTEIN also began to appropriate and remix recorded sound and image; by the mid-1970s he was producing VINYL RECORDS as artworks ..”
the burning forest . . .
a swim against the tide . . .
the dying wind . . .
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH. MAY 7, 2013
P.S. not to worry, back to the YALE OPEN STUDIOS, up next . . .
~YALE OPEN STUDIOS: JERRY BLACKMAN
YALE GRADUATE PROGRAM – OPEN STUDIOS, APRIL 27-28, 2013
first year Yale grad student/sculpture .. JERRY BLACKMAN.
I’ve been following Jerry’s work for quite a few years now. he is a native New Yorker, who went to LaGuardia High School, yes fame .. and Cooper Union. when his work started popping up in group exhibits, most notably a GAVIN BROWN summer survey a few years back .. I was on it, with no doubt – as to his potential.
the sculpture students really have it made. their building is brand new, they all have huge studios to work in, 4 times the size of the grad painting studios !! with huge windows looking onto to a shallow border of large trees. and a lot of sunlight. you can really step back .. and look at your work.
this looks to be the sister piece – to that ‘telephone’ piece highlighted in the recent 109 Gallery invite. it’s made of clay, with a matte matte black glaze/finish. it speaks to cultural stresses, and presents .. a medley of metaphor – that knows no bounds.
it is the exact OPPOSITE of an IED/pressure cooker.
but it also speaks .. to an interesting facet of Jerry’s work, that I always found compelling, and that is how .. even when his work references the real world, that is, it is OBJECTIVE / figurative .. it attains the abstract plane. not an easy feat. and the result is: a great, almost musical, theoretical tension .. runs through the work, making your brain do a nice .. visual double take.
the comes across as very straightforward, but in this aspect . . well, it’s very TRIPPY.
this piece is a nice upgrade to the mosaic-like mirrored wall pieces he has been showing around town, for the past few years. I like it much better than the few examples I saw in the past.
so I guess that answers: grow grow grow.
the small blue ball, is a nice feature. the open, negative space it lives in .. dances against the mosaic surface, asking .. all the right questions.
also really dig the color scheme and color choices, I mean REALLY. everybody is just so sick of bold color-block – esp as it’s all over the fashion scene right now. if the people on the subway are wearing it, and it’s splashed all over your TV 24/7 !! who wants to see it .. in your hi-end one-of-a-kind sculpture ?
that (perfecto) pink line – is just like a river running through .. me.
it’s the shade of lipstick . . that makes you do a double-take.
I guess I should be saying .. the work is sensual vs. just purely materials & composition – oriented.
another example of his off-the-hardware-store-color-chart hue, running amidst a more purely formal, abstract piece.
how to put it. it’s like the color hue of a flower just opening .. as opposed to the worn-out attention desperate / seeking .. shout-out of a Real Housewife .. of (……).
fill in the blanks yourself.
from right: musician DARREN WILL, JERRY BLACKMAN, and designer KATE CERIGO.
of course what’s really the best element of an open studio, is the opportunity for interchange with the artist, and seeing .. the works in progress, the work tables. the environment.
there’s that slightly left-of-center color hue, again !!
the color palette is basically the subject.
yeah, I had a fun time at YALE.
more studio visits .. to follow.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~Got Tech ? what about a .. pressure cooker ?
ok, so artlovers is in the midst of a tech crisis and I gotta upgrade, quote: “artlovers has exceeded its .. we cannot disclose .. shared server memory allotment”, so I have to go slow on the uploads. or they gonna kick me off, and it’s not so easy to fix.
on a low budget.
nothing like reading a good cookbook to help relax the brain .. in the midst of an under-financed web server breakdown. so, guess what JULIA CHILD had to say about pressure cookers, aka IEDs / improvised explosive devices .. !!
Julia disliked them .. “Stinking, nasty bloody pressure cookers, I hate them.”
pg 57, ‘Julia Child – A Life’, Laura Shapiro. Penguin Books, 2007.
so was Julia right on, about EVERYTHING, or what !!
I also really like the book’s cover photo because it relates time-wise and utility-wise to JERRY BLACKMAN’s landline ‘telephone’, below.
and NO, I’m not making light of it, the Marathon Bombing. it was esp terribly sad to target a celebration of life and a new age aspiration .. to bio human green-ness !! I’m just saying, anybody else notice both parents were safely out of the USA. it’s like they came here, and dropped their evil Chechen seed, and split.
I’m just saying I feel for the younger kid .. because he didn’t have a chance. nature & nuture. it’s totally in-wired for humans, esp young humans .. to BELIEVE and to be manipulated . . that’s why their parents are supposed to stick around !! and to set them straight. not twist them out.
see: ‘BELIEVE .. Ever Meek, Ever Malleable’, FRANK BRUNI, NEW YORK TIMES, AUG 26, 2012
IMAGE GRAPHIC/Gullibility .. BELIEVE/FRANK BRUNI, NYT
which brings me to .. this past weekend I went up to YALE, to see the Graduate Open Art Studios.
the one thing that struck me, was .. how much they were bullied by their teachers. produce produce produce. grow grow grow. hey, even the WALL STREET JOURNAL will tell you that sometimes your best ideas come when you sleep, and that the world’s top ten start-up entrepreneurs say number one: .. take time to walk in the park and smell the daisies !!
so, FILE UNDER: pressure cooker, TAKE II.
teachers, ambitions .. living in a bubble. boil. boil. whatever.
it got me thinking back to my OWN time in grad school. well luckily, or unluckily .. pretty much just as much (!!), unlike most of the world .. I was born a dyed-in-the-wool CONTRARIAN, as opposed to a BELIEVER. though I have been, and still pretty much am, quite naive .. which is why the topic holds so much interest for me, I guess.
while everybody else was doing huge, and I mean huge !! acrylic color field paintings, with mad use of masking tape to delineate the sharp compositional edges .. I was drawing, with pencil, tiny 4 x 6 inch drawings .. riffing off 18th Japanese woodblock prints. go figure !!
I had a lot that said: “UP YOURS” !! though I can’t find one like that, exactly at this moment.
but here’s another one:
note the funky hair, and dazed expression .. looking both backwards and forwards at one and the same time, wtf ?
I saw something. but how to put it to .. words.
it didn’t change when I got to New York either.
Kiki Smith conceptualism, Basquiat primitivism .. I was painting flower & vase watercolors.
Jeff Koons hyper-fabrication. I learned to stitch and repair antique quilts.
Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson fabricated narrative photography ? ha. that’s the best !!
I became a paparazzi.
Brooklyn, and back-to-the-earth drawing, with homemade pigments. I started a blog.
I guess that’s just another reason why .. they call me: CRACK, for short ?
NANCY SMITH, pencil drawing, riff off an 18th C Japanese woodblock print, 1976. on paper, 4 x 6 in. Concordia University, MFA Studio Program. Montreal, Quebec, CANADA.
Guido Molinari was my teacher / mentor.
yep, I paid .. my dues. and 3 decades later, I’m still waiting for MY ship to come in.
so good luck .. all.
I’m a BELIEVER, not !!
actually, in a hard-core sense .. yes !!
but, seriously: good luck. NYC ain’t one to embrace anybody, esp work work work, produce.
more like, network network, have dough – can travel.
not that I want to burst anybody’s bubble – what, me ?
and by the way, that’s NYC, spelt: pressure cooker. the mother of them all. and, that’s what’s so much fun about it.
for a contrarian, anyways !!
~JERRY BLACKMAN .. CARMEN ORTIZ
RE: BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING:
if you are a HIPSTER, COMPUTER GEEK, FUTURE THEORY DREAMER, or just anybody reasonably cognizant .. you will know that things really heated up when it came out that notorious CARMEN ORTIZ, the Massachusetts U.S. attorney who hounded down internet rebel/baby/genius AARON SWARTZ . . . to his DEATH (!!) will lead the government’s prosecution of the surviving younger brother .. DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV, 19 years old.
wow, now can she finally target, and I guess hopefully, legally kill .. . someone who actually harmed people. I’m thinking that’s gonna possibly turn the tide in the kid’s favor, at least not to kill him .. for a lot of people who might just see him in a more humane way now .. and who MIGHT be more likely to view him now, as a kid who got caught up in the crosshairs of a crazy fanatic mom, a loser dad, and an off-the-rails bro .. not to mention the great human propensity for manipulation, esp of the young . . .
p.s. the BOSTON GLOBE named her ..’Bostonian of the Year’ in 2011.
RE: JERRY BLACKMAN OPENING To-NITE:
(I was thinking .. JERRY BLACKMAN / as in .. GOODMAN. you might have caught the typo !! ha !!)
if you are an art-loving’ hipster, you might get more than a ‘kick’ out of JERRY BLACKMAN’S image below. the gallery website goes on and on about it .. in the most dopey way. and completely misses the point.
the theater. the lock-in .. to tragedy. the metaphor.
art at it’s best: working as a lightning rod to the brain, and .. the subconscious.
which ‘lightning’ is .. black days, old-world, upside-down world, messed-up communications, no logic. no good. short circuit. wtf. in a nutshell.
the land line. how quaint – it was not so long ago when it was the ONLY means of communication. person to person. family to family.
how fragile: wired devices. even if they be built of tough, heavy-duty plastic.
note the scissors, they spell .. ominous. a potential with just one snip .. of doomed communication.
‘THE SURROGATE SPACE … JERRY BLACKMAN & SCOTT GOODMAN”
OPENING TODAY – THURS APRIL 25 / 7-9 PM
the show runs APRIL 25 – MAY 19, 2013
109 GALLERY – 109 BROADWAY, WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN, NY
the image .. also brings to mind: surveillance cameras.
you know .. the way they hang overhead like that, but in a black domed/globe .. housing.
this is another metaphor for updated/old school communication .. evolution.
in the old days, this was “how you dropped the dime”. you saw something, you made the tip-off call to the cops.
plus: it’s funny to think how surveillance, the widespread surveillance of today .. both institutional and popular/grass roots can work BOTH for and against you, I’m thinking right now, police-wise, for instance .. but widespread surveillance has many other drawbacks, re privacy, etc etc. a specific example from Boston.
FOR: widespread cameras .. both institutional & amatuer caught the 2 bombers on video planting the bombs.
AGAINST: homemade amateur video, shot by a Boston man from his third floor upper window .. showed the real truth about the first police confrontation which resulted in the younger bro mowing down his sibling, with a car .. the older bro did not simply die .. “after a firefight with police”.
of course, expect the ever-ready conspiracy theorist to pop up .. over that too, like I said: wtf. a hanging upside down .. telephone ?
~LEO LIKES .. ELIZABETH & URS
that be: LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ELIZABETH PEYTON and URS FISCHER !!
guess I was right a while back, while reviewing the low-key ELIZABETH PEYTON opening at GAVIN BROWN’S, which is still up thru MAY 13, 2013 .. when speculating that the ‘real’ action, had already taken place .. behind the scenes !!
‘HOW LEO GOT HIS NAME’, ART SECTION, WALL STREET JOURNAL/APRIL 19, 2013
in a recent WSJ interview, put out to no doubt create some buzz for an upcoming art project of his own, on MAY 13, 2013 . . Mr. DiCaprio is holding an art auction at CHRISTIE’S to support his environmental causes .. Leo lets it be known that ELIZABETH PEYTON is one of the invited participating artists, and that she donated a portrait she did of Leonardo, just for this event.
KELLY CROW who asked the questions, asked Mr. DiCaprio: “I hear you sat for the ELIZABETH PEYTON portrait that’s in the coming auction. What was that like?”
the answer: “I had to be incredibly still for a long time – like two hours – which I’m not used to, but it was amazing to see her flip that switch as an artist.”
earlier on the article he is quoted as saying: “At one point I slowed down in my collecting because I felt like I was a little misdirected, but lately I’ve been collecting more. I’m really excited about a lot of these artists like URS FISCHER in the scene now.”
I guess you can CONNECT the DOTS .. YOURSELF !!
read the entire interview, for yourself, it’s INTERESTING – YES !!: ‘How Leo Got His Name’, WALL STREET JOURNAL, APRIL 19, 2013
there is actually a new URS FISCHER photo ‘table’ – acting as a book’shelf’ – in the front lobby of the ELIZABETH PEYTON show, now up at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, MARCH 29 – May 13, 2013.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH. MARCH 28, 2013
I actually happened to cross paths with URS FISCHER a little ago while I strolling thru the Lower East Side. he was with his pretty dog, Ms. Terry, aka MYSTERY … well, something like that.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH, NOV 17, 2013
see: PIX from the ELIZABETH OPENING – MARCH 28, 2013
see: PIX from the URS FISCHER OPENING – OCT 22, 2011
~THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES/new edit
THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES: REVIEWED BY NANCY SMITH. APRIL 22, 2013
if you saw THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, you might be in more of a mindset to better be able to ‘process’ the BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING TRAGEDY, of last week.
esp as it is playing out – with the younger bomber communicating from his hospital bed, after being reported to have fatally mowed-down his older brother, the mastermind, with a car during a gun battle. and the questions I would love to ask him about that. done to shut him up, spare him torture/imprisonment, or because he was finally mad at a him .. the mind boggles.
and the live breaking news interviews with his family and friends. amazing.
not that the film is about terrorists or bombing, though there are .. car mechanics ? ok, bike/motorcycle mechanics. and oh, I almost forgot: immigrants.
but it is . . about tragedy.
and families. sons. and twisted, intertwined .. fates.
and ultimately how easy it is, for a father to mess up a son, and esp how easy it is .. for a younger person to come under the bad influence of another.
both movie, and the real-life event, are very very intense. and move deeply to the dark side.
in the movie as in this Boston real-life story, the narrative centers on how .. just one family, i.e. each family – is .. in itself: is a cell.
a self-contained unit within society, and both fiction and non-fiction each demonstrate just how easy it is .. for everything to go south, really really quickly. with young boys at the heart of the storm.
south, for that family, and for society as a whole .. based on the particulars & history of that family: be it genetic characteristics and/or parental guidance, in this movie’s the main storyline is the lack of …
THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES .. in a nutshell, it’s the ole nature vs. nuture game, staring some pretty great actors.
it’s a game that plays out bad on both sides of the typical American scenario: a struggling ethnic/immigrant family vs. a privileged upper class family . . and predictably, both sides take a dive.
and guess what?
this film says: a lot of that bad action – depends on the actions of .. the dads.
though I’m not sure, they mean dads as in bio ‘DNA gene pool’ dad, as in the Ryan Gosling ‘dumb-luck’ dad passing on the genetic dumb-luck potential for making bad choices .. to his son, who never knew him, but had a loving home.
or .. the ‘nuturing’ factor – as in the Bradley Cooper over-achieving but traumatized cop dad because he shot the Ryan bank robber dad, and his son, of course .. turns out rotten.
who knows: maybe they were trying to cover all bases ?
I guess subconsciously that’s what makes the movie so compelling.
it really does suck you up, into the drama.
either way you cut it: this film spells .. tragedy.
Ryan Gosling’s character, Luke, is .. a maladjusted gypsy-like ‘carnie’ figure. who seemed self-contained and alright until, Eva came back .. for just one last look.
He’s a little on the dumb side, served up with a gorgeous all-American face, and skills. he is a daredevil motorcyclist in a traveling circus. a hero to summer kids with circus tickets, but a way big loser . . in the bigger picture.
anyway this film – is NOT about religion, or immigration. it cuts closer to the bone.
it’s about the fathers. and their sons. and just how crucial, and how precarious the family unit, EACH FAMILY UNIT is, dad being central .. to the success and mellowness of the family, therefore to all of society, as a whole.
I mean who wants to be shot, dead .. on a minor expedition to empty the bank. yes Ryan’s character quickly morphs into a bank robber, motivated by wanting to take care of his new son.
fast forward, and I do mean FAST FORWARD !!
who wants their carefully raised and loved school kid, same Ryan’s son .. caught up in neglected rich kids’ drug-fuelled parties . . and being busted and put behind bars for like .. 5 to 15 years.
likewise back to real life: who wants to be blown up and maimed in a marathon. a celebration of inner resolve and new age positivity.
so consider that: ALL you people always looking for the b-i-g answer, the .. ‘motive’.
the black and white. the ‘why’?
tragedy, it seems is very complex: born of bad choices, certainly .. but also stemming from deep-rooted parental, if not downright genetic .. circumstance.
that’s the mind-set I was referring to.
in Boston, just like in this harrowing movie, it might just come down to .. the family. the dad. the mom. the genes. the instincts. the old world culture. the history.
this film is also about .. ‘losers’. a word that got taken away from the Boston event, too.
though ‘corruption’ also plays a part.
in fact the police corruption bit in the film . . is it’s weakest link. and the most boring part of the whole movie. RAY LIOTTA . . is way too obvious. I almost walked out, right then and there. lucky I didn’t, so just sit still when the movie wanes .. it most definite gets better.
‘losers’.
in this movie .. its about the spectrum, the different ways there are to be losers, on both sides of the coin .. rob a bank / shoot a robber too soon. and the way these bad choice actions in and of themselves produce a shared tragedy: produces the next generation of losers – the robber’s son is a loser for making wrong choices, but seems to come out ahead, while the cop’s son looks to be totally evil & unredeemed. the bad guy Ryan’s son is looking good, after taking a manipulated wrong turn, unlike his dad, he gets a second chance – by the very cop who did not give his dad a second chance. while his son – looks e.o.a. – evil on arrival, no going back, no good to come. and in that sense: dead. it’s kind of the classic – cross-over. it sounds a bit complicated as a soundbite – but as a movie – it rocks, and it ROLLS.
plus: it’s worth the time and ticket just to watch RYAN GOSLING .. duh.
do you feel for him, or what ? and he’s – the bad guy !!
or is it the cop, whose the bad guy. well, that a sense of how the movie plays the viewer, just like .. a damn violin.
but still, GOSLING.
is that guy some emotional straight-faced .. sweet-faced camera-magnet, or what !!
and when he dies, and his body leaves the screen, half-way through the movie no less, the young EMORY COHEN . . who plays BRADLEY COOPER’s privileged but neglected evil son, AJ .. takes up the camera-so- loves-him .. slack. big time.!
a young Marlon Brando, and I bet I’m not the first .. to say this.
c-h-a-r-i-s-m-a.
THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES .. at the end of the day, you have to wonder seriously, about how e-a-s-y it is .. for some people to be totally TOTALLY dominated, totally twisted out by others .. so, I’m also thinking, Boston Marathon .. here, too.
in the film the bad domination comes from total, TOTAL strangers. what the hell guys, whatever happened to just say: NO ? but then there would be no story, this is the key to the action, in the PLACE BEYOND THE PINES.
the Ryan Gosling/dad is dominated to no good by a bank robbin’ mechanic he just happens to run into on the road; his son is likewise easily dominated by a drug-seeking high school macho moron who just arrived at the school, a total unknown, who happens to be Bradley the cop’s bad-to-the-bone son .. in the school cafeteria.
1. so is this a tragic genetic flaw that both Ryan and his son, share .. to be so easily undone by strangers. is this why you DO need your dad around to tell the bio son, look I got mislead, now don’t you be doing the same thing. we prob share a dumb domination gene.
file under: nature.
3. while the Bradley Cooper dad, though he’s successful and smart, and his kid looks to be smart enough too, manages to screw up his kid, big time, because he neglected him.
file under: nuture.
.
so I’m still thinking Boston. sons. fathers. family units. nature / nuture.
is it genetic.
a propensity for making bad choices. a propensity to be influenced. a propensity for not being able to channel disappointment, aggression, or faith.
is it nuture ?
could better family influence/guidance have helped with those ancient mountain fighter Chechen genes.
and finally, it’s a long, deep wide-sweeping movie !!
file under: AS IF !!
everybody should be born with .. a great, wise and powerful, rich is nice too, power lawyer dad – to get them out of jams. Bradley Cooper’s character’s – dad !!
at least, until we figure out how to modify .. all human DNA. and therefore families !!
down to a universal .. and, very m-e-l-l-o-w state. and, then we WILL not have any short-circuiting ole world crazy bros blowing-up .. new age runners.
but by then, we’ll probably all be clones.
let’s hope the guys look like Ryan . . and the girls, like Eva.
watch the trailer: The Place Beyond the Pines – official website
RYAN GOSLING in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES / image credit
EMORY COHEN (AJ) and DANE DEHAAN (who plays the Ryan Gosling character, Luke’s son .. Jason) in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES / image credit
~can’t take a joke ..
IMAGE: AP via DAILY MAIL
wow, I bet that older brother Boston Marathon Bomber dude was . . ‘set off’ by that March 17, 2013 episode of FAMILY GUY that made fun of terrorists and trivialized mass destruction at the Boston Marathon. see: Fox pulls ‘Family Guy’ …
though he was going to wreak mayhem, eventually, no matter what.
so stop censoring our TV.
looks like he had a real short fuse . . and losing at Boxing .. did not help.
bet .. he also murdered his best friend and 2 others on Sept 11, 2011, and left them covered in marijuana bye the way .. news which is just beginning to make the headlines. guess his friends were wisecracking over 9-11 conspiracy theories, or what ?
maybe he blamed them .. for his smoking too much pot.
just saying because ALFREDO also has a short fuse too.
or is it just .. MY JOKES.
I once cracked a joke while we were working 24/7 to assemble a show back in the late 1990s and no, he didn’t slit my throat, or bomb my hood, but he did take a sharp little penknife and grabbed my ear and was about to slice it off. for real.
I had to think quick. to defuse the situation . . so I said something art world related, knowing that was about all he focused on. “Please don’t make me look like VINCENT VAN GOGH” – got me off the hook.
losers. losers. and more losers. a joke will always bring a loser to boil.
not saying Alfredo is a loser, but he skipped art school . . on the way to the pro games.
welcome to the art world.
go through a first year studio critique .. haha that will toughen you up.
come to the art world and show your stuff to a dealer .. haha, that will REALLY toughen you up. you think boxing is tough ?
you think rising to top in anything .. is easy ?
take a chill pill.
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ .. I.E.D.
RE: BOSTON MARATHON BOMB BLAST – TERROR ATTACK, MON MAY 15, 2013
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘REPLICATE WEAPONS’, hand-built from found parts. life-size. NYC. 2001.
‘QUIET, GUNS & QUILTS – JOSH HARRIS, ALFREDO MARTINEZ & NANCY SMITH’
JUNE 28-JULY 20, 2001
SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, 520 West 21st St, NYC
of course, the other reason ALFREDO MARTINEZ came to mind was in a word: I.E.D. or IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE.
these are the deadly hand-made bombs that usually terrorize other parts of the world like Afghanistan and Pakistan . . and whose construction are detailed online filed under catchy titles like: HOW TO MAKE BOMBS FROM YOUR MOTHER’S KITCHEN . . and which were also just set off in BOSTON, using common household pressure cookers as the main housing.
of course the big diff is . . ALFREDO’S were art.
they were made to be displayed on your wall, not blown up in your face. period.
what I’m trying to say is . . though I’d rather just take the photos, post them, and leave it at that any day .. is what was so uncanny, auspicious, provocative, and so art-meaningful about Alfredo’s work was that was such a great & bonafide s-i-g-n-i-f-i-e-r . . for what was to come.
circa 2001 – 2013 and counting.
art pioneers and visionaries never strike twice the same way .. but just as surely as ANDY WARHOL delivered us up an advance ticket to the pop imagery and multi-media art forms to follow, and saturate our society, and just as JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT in turn foretold primal chaos and no holds-barred disturbo .. in the face of increasing mass computerism, facebook & digital photoshop . . . as they are fond of saying, “make no mistake” . . Alfredo served up the next decade, starting with the first fizzled-out World Trade Center bombing of 1993, and then the grand daddy, 9-11. going on to targeted mass destruction episodes in Europe and drenching the Mid-East in an on-going blood bath.
and now, Boston.
except in Alfredo’s case, for a number of personal reasons, as well as the collapse of the hard-core art scene into some kind of trust fund baby holding pattern .. and as well the very unconventional non-art, obviously edgy/aggressive content .. there was NO grand art world entry ($$) party. at least on the same upwardly mobile, ascent as followed Warhol and Basquiat.
in retrospect .. looks like extreme times, and its ‘unconventional’ army of extremist/individualistic radicalized warfare .. called out for extreme home-made ordinance. i.e. weapons, and Alfredo nailed it.
art. life. it’s a fine line . . . esp when you are walking on the edge.
in a nutshell: it’s an unknown but compulsive auto-response from the heart and the mind, the seer’s eye looking out .. that produces the bleeding, cutting .. edge.
maybe it’s part of our in-born shamanistic wiring, which in turn enables our ‘artists’ to prepare the tribe for the mind-set . . necessary to deal with, process .. events to come.
at any rate, Alfredo had an innate ability to build weapons. his earliest works were actual working replicas, i.e. guns that worked, that could be fired. they were (DIY) artisinal to the max. they took a long time to produce and as he revved up to fulfill the various gallery exhibits that trickled in, he had to cross quickly over into quicker production, and he started to produced cheaper, truly improvised non-working ‘weapons’ made more from, and for .. the imagination. hot glue held together pipes and tins .. culled from really found parts, as opposed to real .. ‘spare’ parts.
he also started drawing, and his work continued on a purely more poetic .. more formal, traditional art-like path.
he never really blew anything up, ok a small failed explosive device set off on a beach in the Hamptons one summer – singed his face for a while, and there was talk of a few bullets that bounced off target walls, but stopped just this .. short of doing any actual harm.
when the stupidity and elitism of the art world got to him, he turned to ‘art’, as opposed to weapons, to play out his frustration and .. pay the bills. He put out a couple of phony Basquiats .. turned out he was also pretty good at this, too. the ‘caper’ landed him in jail for a couple of years. but the worms did come out of the can, big time and haven’t stopped.
artist estates and letters of authenticity, ha.ha.ha.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘GUN’, JAN 2011. JOSH HARRIS STUDIO, WILLIAMSBURG. BROOKLYN, NYC.
approx 2 ft x 4-1/2 ft. chalk on canvas painted black.
some of his drawings are more technical. all have a primal ‘charm’. this one veers towards ‘caricature’, and is reminiscent of Keith Haring ‘subway’ chalk drawings.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘Ordinance’, JAN 2011. white drawing on an actual ironing board painted black.
JOSH HARRIS STUDIO, BROOKLYN, NYC.
actually the fuller title would be … ‘JOSH HARRIS-ordered ‘ordinance’ for Nancy, … cause you owe her . . big guy. big time’.
COLLECTION: NANCY SMITH
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
continues …