Herein lies the tale of a Sunday in Williamsburg, in which our hero tours some galleries with friends, spots crack vials on Bedford, ogles hot tattooed (straight?) skateboarders with “lovely” in their vocabulary, and is accosted at Relish by people at the next table saying “Williamsburg really seems like a hotbed for real estate.”

I revisited two shows that I mentioned in an earlier post: “Decade” at Schroeder Romero and “Soft Cell” at Foxy Productions. I attended the openings of both shows, and I wanted to go back to spend a little quality time with them.

Schroeder Romero’s show is worth spending a bit of time with, since there are over 50 artists in the show. Make sure you check out the Williamsburg art timeline near the entrance. A trip to Williamsburg just doesn’t feel right without a chance to visit with Sara Jo and Lisa. They even offered to introduce my friends to some single gay men at their next opening!

I really love the work at Foxy Productions by Teresa Moro — you might have to use Internet Explorer to get the page to display. Ask to see her gouaches that they have as well. They’re exquisite.

The painting show at Black & White by KK Kozik, titled “Ashcan Rococo”, is pretty cool. There is a sly humor in them that’s not always apparent when you first see the brightly colored canvases. Those aren’t your father’s oil colors — I thought they were acrylic at first. If you haven’t seen Austin Thomas’s sculpture out in the “sculpture garden”, go check them out. I first encountered this gallery when they showed work by my friend Meighan Gale.

The group show at Parker’s Box, titled “Grounds,” isn’t totally successful, but there are some sweet sculptures/installations by Ezra Parzybok and some photographs by Ravi Rajakumar, who collected moments in cartooons where no characters are present.

Robert Grunder

The show of paintings by Robert Grunder at *sixty seven, inspired by his growing up in a planned community, is quite nice. Don’t miss the selection of works by other gallery artists in the back room, including the video titled “Your Head is a Cloud” by Jeremiah Teipen.

Tamara Zahaykevich
smoke-pillow-ghost, 2002

I loved Tamara Zahaykevich‘s show of foam core sculptures in the back at Bellwether. The front room has work by John Bauer. I like him, and I like some of his work I’ve seen in the past — especially works on paper — but I don’t know where he’s going with his paintings lately, and I can’t say I’m excited about them.

I haven’t made it to Meredith Allen’s show at im n iL (in Greenpoint) yet, but it’s there through May 11 and I need to make a trip to see it. I ran into her on her bicycle as we were headed over to Schroeder Romero, next to Brooklyn’s most fabulous Laundromat. Have you seen that thing? It has aisles wider than my apartment! Soon I’ll be able to link to her homepage which I’m working on…

I picked up cards for a couple of shows in Manhattan that I need to go see: Anxiety at the Chelsea Art Museum, and Airport ’03 at HERE.

I worked out so well in Afghanistan, right? US May Use Mujahideen Rebels in Tensions with Iran

[via idols of the marketplace]

We spent the afternoon checking out some Chelsea gallery shows.

Lothar Hempel’s show at Anton Kern was the highlight of the day. Their web site is “under construction”, so try here for some images of his work. I have loved everything I’ve seen from him. He is a smart artist whose work is aesthetically pleasing even before you start to notice or read about the conceptual content.

The upcoming Dan McCarthy paintings show (opens May 15) at Anton Kern looks promising too.

Noguchi Rika’s “Rocket Hill” at D’Amelio Terras: The exhibition consists of ten large-scale digital c-print photographs taken in and around the Tanegashima Space Center, an island complex from which NASDA, the Japanese space program, launches nearly all of its flights. I chose this picture in honor of Dan, since it reminds me a little bit of Space 1999.

Their next show is Cornelia Parker.

Wayne Gonzalez at Paula Cooper is worth a visit, but I wasn’t bowled over the way I was by his previous show there.

Omer Fast at Postmasters was really powerful. The image is an installation view of “Tank Translated”, which is a compilation of video interviews (in Hebrew with English subtitles) with four crew members from an Israeli tank, conducted separately after they were no longer in service. The one at the front was the one I spent the most time watching. At various times he talks about not wanting to be “exploited for your overseas audience”.

Marco Maggi’s “Constructing and Demolishing” at Christinerose|Josee Bienvenu is a great show, both as installation, and for the skill of the individual works such as the drypoint on aluminum foil works. Their web site only has one image, so go here to see more.

Philippe Parreno’s highly conceptual show, “Alien Seasons,” at Friedrich Petzel has good production values, and is visually interesting, but I don’t know if it’s a great show. I’m leaning towards “no”.

I wanted to like Eric Ringsby’s show “The Indian Wars / Palestine” at Cornell DeWitt. I think bringing up parallels between the Indian Wars in the U.S. and Israel/Palestine question is an interesting way to start a discussion, but the work in the end is more political than aesthetic, and I believe that it is important for an artist to try to transcend the political message. I did like his use of this 1937 quote by Winston Churchill, who believed that the Jews were a “better” race than the Palestinians:

I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

Emily Jacir’s show at Debs and Co. does a better job of achieving both political and artistic ends. That said, I give credit to Cornell DeWitt for putting on a show that many galleries wouldn’t touch.

The highlight of attending the opening at Cornell DeWitt was meeting the parents of Adam Shapiro, the peace activist who works with The International Solidarity Movement and Seeds of Peace. They received death threats after their son became trapped in Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah while it was being shelled by Israeli forces. He had breakfast with Arafat and compared the house-to- house raids on Palestinians in Ramallah to Nazi raids during World War II.

Faces For Peace is an “online peace rally” web site that allows people around the world to post photos and anti-war statements.

I know where the octopus went. It went to the motel.

Here is an amazing exchange from yesterday’s White House press briefing. Does anyone know who the reporter is that asked the question?

Q And if I can just shift gears very briefly, what’s the President’s beliefs about homosexuality?

MR. FLEISCHER: You know, that’s a question that’s been put to the President, and if you go back and you look at it, the President has said that, first of all, he doesn’t ask that question about people. He judges people about who they are, their individual soul. That’s not a matter the President concerns himself with. He judges people for how they act and how they relate, and that’s his focus on that.

Q How they act sexually? Because I asked sexually —

MR. FLEISCHER: How they act as a person. The same way —

Q But the police in Texas asked how they act sexually.

MR. FLEISCHER: The same way you would say that about how anybody — what’s his reaction to this person or that person — say, are they a nice person, what kind of person are they? It has nothing to do with their sexuality.

Q So does he believe that they ought to be free to be themselves, without interference from police?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President has always said that when it comes to legal matters, that it’s a question of different groups, homosexual groups, gay groups should not have special rights or special privileges.

Q Is it a special privilege to be able to love the person you love the way you want to love them, without interference from the police?

MR. FLEISCHER: If you’re asking about a matter that is a legal matter that is pending before the Supreme Court, that’s a matter for the court to rule on, and we’ll find out what the court says in the specific case in mind.

Q So he has no position on that?

MR. FLEISCHER: It’s a matter that’s pending before the court, in regard to your last question.

I just came across this story from last week:

Marines Feast on Saddam’s Wild Gazelles

TIKRIT, Iraq — Supper time has become a double treat at a Marine base outside Saddam Hussein’s hometown — not only is there fresh meat, but it’s from Saddam’s personal hunting preserve.

The Tikrit South airfield, where Marine Wing Support Squadron 271 set up base in this week’s campaign to take the city, is on the edge of a preserve where Saddam and favored guests once hunted gazelle.

…

The marines are using 9mm pistols to hunt after initially being forbidden to use firearms for fear that gunshots in the woods might be mistaken for enemy fire.

“We hunted them with rocks, as Stone Age as that sounds,” Wicksell said. “We gutted them and skinned them and pretty much carried them over our shoulders barbarian-style.”

FYI: The species of gazelles found in this region are endangered.

If I lived in LA, I would definitely be at this opening for asianpunkboy at the fabulous Peres Projects. Check out their list of past exhibitions.

Via Sean, I just discovered Patrick King’s weblog. He has a very nice post on Madonna, which I shall excerpt here:

i may be one of seven people on the planet willing to say this, but here goes: madonna is a terrible artist. watching the current brouhaha over whether or not she should pull a video is, at best, embarrassing.

the fact that she’s trying to ascribe social relevance to her work through its messaging in the first place is asinine — and, i might add, an embarrassing case of an artist listening to her own press. she obviously believes that she is important and has a responsibility to make “good art,” which is so sad. madonna’s work has never been about a conscious social statement. in fact, she’s at her absolute worst when trying to make some sort of statement on an sort of level other than the personal. madonna is narcissistic and publicly paranoid. the two never make for a socially-aware artist willing to take the necessary risks to create a statement. she is at her best when simply talking about her own role as either empowered woman or party person. her relevance shines through in both those subjects, when she’s not in control of the subject matter. frankly, she’s not good at much else.

I am reminded of a very amusing speech from Ryan Landry’s play Madame Ex. In the production I know, Little Clay (a boy of 10 years) is played by a little girl.

HOLLY: Clay. Sometimes in this life. Things aren’t always what they seem. Do you know what keeping up appearances means?

LITTLE CLAY: Sure. It means to be a complete phony amongst your peers so that they don’t suspect that you may be as scared of the world as they are. It means buying things you can’t afford so that you look rich because rich is “good” and poor is “bad.” It means never being happy with the physical features God gave you because you’re such a self absorbed megalomaniac you think that people are constantly looking at you; judging your face and not your heart. It’s really the backbone of the American Classist System. A great example would be the majority of gay men who make up the “circuit” culture. Being an oppressed minority group of non-traditional, financially independent individuals, they have a wealth of opportunity to make great change in the world. Instead they choose to create an elitist circle of ignorance hosted by “Madonna.” Everything’s a party so they might mask their loneliness with “celebration;” their fear with sex and drugs. It’s tragic, really. I mean when you consider that there are alternatives to such a vapid lifestyle. However, most choose to shut out the rest of the world and simply run themselves into the ground. Then, when they reach the age of 45 or so, they start hanging around in leather bars and calling themselves “Bears.” Does that answer your question?

“It doesn’t matter what I say. You don’t make my dreams come true.”