January Blog has a post on a new project by Harrel Fletcher, in which he documents the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. In Viet Nam, the war we call the Viet Nam War is known as The American War. The photos are artless, photographed at odd angles, in order to minimize the reflected flash.

Go read the post, and then visit the project’s web site.

We’re headed to Miami, as James says, November 30th to December 4th.

Part one is here.

At Jessica Murray group show, a new discovery for me was Ivelisse Jimenez. Here is a detail of one of her wall pieces.

Ivelisse Jimenez, IT1104 (10 con 10 series) [detail], 2005, mixed media, 96 × 60 × 70″ (dimensions variable)

The show include Lisa Sigal, who also has a small show worth visiting at Frederieke Taylor.

We visited Andrew Kreps while things were still being set up, but we’re headed back soon to see Roe Ethridge and Adam Putnam. The latter has an amazing installation upstairs.

Julia Friedman has a show of affordable art for your shopping pleasure. James has a photo of Alejandro Diaz making one of the cardboard signs we purchased.

Others to see: Will Ryman at Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, and Gelitin’s Tantamounter 24/7 lasts until Wednesday night.

To make it easier to point someone to one page when requesting press access, I’ve created about pages for myself and James.

If you’ve written something wonderful about us on your blog and I haven’t linked to it, please do let me know!

[photo by the lovely and talented Robert Boyd]

Earlier in the season, I wasn’t feeling so excited by the work I was seeing in Chelsea, except for a few exception like the always-reliable Foxy Production.

Our visits in the last couple of weeks, though, have made me much happier. I’ll put of some highlights tonight, and add a few more in the next day or so.

Larry Mantello’s outrageous installations at Kustera Tilton. We first saw his work in a great installation at Henry Urback in 2003.

Julia Oschatz, Untitled (72-05), 2005, Oil, enamel, acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 21 5/8 × 15 inches

Julia Oschatz’s New York debut show of videos, installation, and paintings at Leslie Tonkonow is one of my favorites of the year. Check out the gallery web site for more images, plus some video excerpts.

James has already written about the Josephine Meckseper show at Elizabeth Dee, so go read him.

Mark Napier’s show Empire, at bitforms, manages to combine interactive computer-based art with a beautiful visual aesthetic that I have rarely seen in the field. You know it’s a good tech-y art show when James is really into it. Visit Mark’s web site for more information on his work.

[All photos except Marge are from the respective gallery sites. Marge was photographed by me.]

I found the Hotel Chelsea blog via BlogChelsea. They have a short interview up now with gallerist Daniel Reich. I hadn’t realized he lived in the hotel. We live on the same block.

Check out Tom Moody’s post on Cory and his distant relative Allan D’Arcangelo.

Cory Arcangel

Allan D’Arcangelo

I’m too discouraged to post on political topics too often, but here are two things I want you to see.

Target may like to pretend it’s the hip alternative to Wal-Mart and K-Mart, but they have decided that their pharmacists are allowed to decide whether to fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptive pills (such as Plan B) based on their religious beliefs. That’s crap. You’re either a pharmacy or you’re not. Leave that stuff to the churches who are already abusing their tax-exempt status to interfere in our lives. As I said to James, apparently religious freedom is the only right left.

Via Ed Winkleman, I learned of an excellent series on the group blog Obsidian Wings about the debate over habeas corpus and torture currently being conducted in the Senate. Well, not really conducted, since they’re trying to ram this stuff through with minimal debate. The idea that the Senate is talking about secret trials and repealing habeas corpus for any group at all (Magna Carta, anyone?) is appalling.

Remember, after World War II, a number of German and Japanese officials and military officers were executed for the things many Republicans, including Dick Cheney, are advocating. Check out this op-ed from the Washington Post for more on the topic.

In a perfect world, these people would be hauled before The Hague. We’ll see.

That’s a lot of money! After losing their space at the (theoretically to be built someday) World Trade Center site, this news appears today in Crain’s New York:

In a boost to arts downtown, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. said it plans to give the Drawing Center up to $10 million for a new home and will begin considering grants of another $35 million.

…

Separately, the LMDC said it will start accepting applications from cultural institutions and individuals for $35 million in arts grants. The announcement comes nearly five months after the city and state earmarked $45 million for cultural purposes out of the $800 million of federal money dedicated to Lower Manhattan development.