On the Solstice

Without Night, the nature of Man would receive no income, so there would be nothing for Day to spend.
--Rumi

All acting requires forgetting, as not only light but also darkness is required for life by all organisms.
--Nietzsche

A strange coincidence that I came across both of these today. To all of us in the darkness, happy longest night.

Blogadultery

Matthew Jensen, The 49 States, detail (2008-09)

For those of you who have not caught the F1B1 virus, just want to let you know that there's this other blog. One where the post titles probably should not be "I Hate You, So-and-So," as is the in-house standard here at the Gote Notery. Though I'm sure, actually, that such a thing would fit right in... Just sayin'.

Austin Kennedy, Twenty-Nine (2009)

Rabid

"A portrait of repression known to inspire particularly rabid loyalty" is how the Times theater reviewer described my favorite movie, adapted for the stage. Yup, that just about nails it. And yes, I fear any adaptation would indeed be "Heresy!"

P-p-p-places

Eye&brain vacation after last few weeks' grant-writing inferno. FINALLY!

***

Also, some notes:

1. I hate you, Lars von Trier. You, in turn, seem to hate the world and everybody in it and like to make movies about this. I wish you would stop. Or rather, I wish I would stop getting tricked into watching them, because they make me want to step out in front of a train.

2. Walter de Maria's Hardcore (1969) plays every half-hour at the PS1.

It is a film consisting of many slow 360 degree pans of the camera in various spots in the Nevada desert. Occasionally, these are interspliced with bits showing cowboys shooting guns. The soundtrack is a loud wind noise which is actually the ocean. It is so good. I sat and watched it for a half an hour today and experienced some extreme emotions, including some kind of hallucination that should probably not be recounted in this space. (It was not about being encased in wax, though, if you're wondering.)

3. The Archives of American Art post oral history transcripts online.

PC: What about Dick Bellamy who you've mentioned a few times here? Have you known him well; have you been involved with him on any projects?

WDM: Yes, Bellamy has been my unofficial dealer in between every falling out with other dealers I've had. He's been my dealer at least three or four times, and he is my dealer now in New York since the Dwan Gallery closed. He is my New York dealer but nobody knows it. It works because of the peculiar nature of Bellamy and in fact I'm doing a conceptual piece in a book right now, of six photos of my six dealers. And you'll be able to buy this book, or I'll send you a copy, I hope they give me some, in about a week. It's published by Praeger and it's called . . . it has a terrible title, it's called The New Avant Garde. I mean they couldn't have thought of a worse title.

PC: Whose idea was that?

WDM: It was Praeger's, I think.

PC: What editor?

WDM: The editor is Daniel Bell.

PC: David Bell.

WDM: David Bell and it was coordinated by a guy named Alferi that published Metro magazine in Italy. He's supposed to be difficult to work with and the photographer had terrific problems with him, finally ended up punching him out in Venice this summer [...]

4. It's time again for carrot soup, among other things.

Baptism

photo: Irina Shteinberg

New performance by Andrey Kuzkin: washing glossy magazines at Fabrika in Moscow.

This has all the qualities of Kuzkin's recent work: simple (though not simplistic) concept, earnestness and bodily exertions, criticism of media/spectacle/commerce, allusions to conceptualism, this time through institutional critique, and a real attempt to break distance between artist & audience. Wish I'd been there. Wonder what happened to all the image/text-free magazines after it was all over... (Thanks for the tip, vk.)

See some other works. some

Around the World and Back Again

Tragic.

Just read that a fire has burned up much of the oeuvre of the amazing Brazilian conceptual artist Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980). Looks like some of it is restorable and the digital archive is almost complete, but still. This is beyond words.

Hélio Oiticica, Metaesquema No. 348, 1958. (MoMA)

Magic Cities

If J.M. Barrie were from Chicago...

People gettin' married!

Japanese Garden behind the Museum of Science & Industry

Promontory Point

where one did not swim, though one had wanted to

Train ride into Moscow, you had me at tree.

"A large, gratuitous waste of human potential."

Krugman lays it out on the current state of higher education in America. It is painful.

I don't have much to add. Other than to say that, like a blind, optimistic salmon (or a 60s pop icon), I'm going to continue swimming upstream while awishin' and ahopin', athinkin' and aprayin' that there will be a job for us all at the end of it all.

zen zen zen zen zen

Here are some pictures to distract you (me) from the horror vacui of the preceding.

Goodbye, summer.

Hello, academe.

All of the preceding were taken in Beacon, NY. Except the racoons, those are straight from the offices of the Ministry of Higher Education.

Psych!!! There's no such thing! That may account for something.

Oh yea, ps., welcome back.

Summer!

Oh, kitty kats, I'm sorry I've been m.i.a. It's been a busy time and if I know anything, it's that summer's too good to waste at the computer.

I'm going on a little trip and will be back 7/10. In the meanwhile, watch this: ArtFem.TV

More pictures and sounds upon return.

xo.