February 2007 Archives

(Dan Christensen Untitled, 1968, 90 X 70 inches, Acrylic on Canvas)

David Reed and Katy Siegel, a painter and art historian, respectively, both of whom I treasure have organized an exhibition at the National Academy Museum. Here is an excerpt from Roberta Smith's review of the show in the NY Times of 16 February 2007.

NY Times: Art Review of "High Times, Hard Times"
"Painting in the Heady Days, After It Was Proclaimed Dead"
Roberta Smith

If it's good enough for the Academy then it's good enough to run again. An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar last night. Here, again, is Ray Pride's excellent interview with Vice President Gore. - Ed

Elizabeth Robinson teaches at the University of Colorado. Her most recent books are Under That Silky Roof (Burning Deck, 2006), Apostrophe (Apogee Press, 2006), Apprehend (Apogee/Fence/Saturnalia, 2003), Pure Descent (winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series; Sun & Moon, 2003), Harrow (Omnidawn, 2001), and House Made of Silver (Kelsey St. Press, 2000). With Colleen Lookingbill, she edits EtherDome Press.

Speak

Address is its own metaphysics. See: the
hereafter in which I speak, now, solely
in your voice.

When I was in high school I saw the 1974 film by Werner Herzog called Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle. In english that's Every Man for Himself and God Against All. The film deals with the fascinating, enigmatic life of Kaspar Hauser, a 19th century German foundling who turned up on the streets of Nuremberg, Germany in May of 1828.

The film is fascinating, dark, disturbing and hilarious, and for years my friends and I have refered to it in passing conversation. If Herzog's rendering is to be believed, Hauser posessed an accute common sense and a beguiling innocence.

Imagine my surprise, then, upon seeing the name of a band we were sharing a bill with last July - Kaspar Hauser. Aside from the fact that the venue and booking organization were beyond lame, KH were a blast to watch, and their new release QUIXOTIC/Taxidermy is terrific. They're playing a CD release show tomorrow night at The Hideout in Chicago.

Sharkforum's very own Nick Tremulis shares a radio show withi Jon Langford called "The Eclectic Company". Tonight's show promises to be another good one:

Tuesday, February 20 at 10 PM: Fat Tuesday Special - Nick is joined by Mark Guarino, Daily Herald music columnist, and Bloodshoot Records owner and co-founder, Rob Miller for a show devoted to songs and stories from today's New Orleans.

Brandi Homan is editor-in-chief of Switchback Books, a new feminist press publishing poetry by women. Her chapbook, Two Kinds of Arson, was recently released from dancing girl press. Homan's work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from Salt Hill, North American Review, Fugue, CutBank, Natural Bridge, and others. She writes professionally in advertising while working toward her MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Homan recently completed her first book-length manuscript, Hard Reds.

Two Kinds of Arson

—And when it was bad,
we believed maple trusses
were enough. I was a charnel

Laissez-faire aesthetics is the aesthetics that violates the very principle of art, because it insists that anything goes, when in fact the only thing that is truly unacceptable in the visual arts is the idea that anything goes.

Sharkforum special: Read the Perl piece here!

Subscribe to The New Republic.

One of the most important newspapers in Switzerland, the St.Galler Tagblatt, last Friday published an almost full page open letter/article by your cantankerous Euro-Shark. It concerns a series of shows which are used by certain Powers That Be (similar to your Consensus Smart Set) to keep "regional" artists in their place (via their exclusion). In fact to rub their noses in their "place." As I have been included in almost all the shows as an artist and am in fact involved in a much larger realm of activity than the region wherein I live, I thought I would attack the situation critically. It is causing immense controversy, so I thought I would clue you in on Sharkforum Central.

The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry gathers works by emerging Latino and Latina poets in the twenty-first century. Here readers will discover 25 new and vital voices including Naomi Ayala, Richard Blanco, David Dominguez, Gina Franco, Sheryl Luna, and Urayoán Noel. The editor of this anthology Francisco Aragón has poems and translations in Crab Orchard Review, Chelsea, Jacket, Electronic Poetry Review, and Tertulia, among others. In addition to Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press), he is the author of three chapbooks and the translator of four poetry collections by Francisco X. Alarcón. He directs Letras Latinas, the literary unit at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Solstice by Emmy Pérez
          the americas

War in sun country
Lights water with orphans.

Braids sawed off. As if arms.

"When NYC was Flyover Land for Collectors: Pollock's tale of how Halpert promoted her artists and snagged influential collectors, despite an initially indifferent public, could be read as a how-to for art communities outside the 212. And it's a cautionary tale for regional collectors who think their local artists have nothing to offer."

What! Heresy! Lisa Hunter, whose great book (and accompanying website) The Intrepid Art Collector, I have plugged before on Sharkforum, has a new post of interest. Hunter plugs ANOTHER author's book, The Girl With the Gallery: Edith Gregor Halpert And the Making of the Modern Art Market by Lindsay Pollock.

Opening reception from 6 - 9 PM.
1433 West Chicago Avenue
for more info, click here. Show details after the jump

This building is scheduled to close at the end of February or early March. Not that I'm one who cares to shop, but the vacant spaces are looking quite wonderful. I'm hoping to bring the mannequins in after everything is out.

Erik Wenzel -local hipster extraordinaire/ purveyor of the art student as new bohemian blog Art Or Idiocy was the victim of a recent SHARK ATTACK!

gephyrophobia, n.
A fear of crossing bridges.

Yes, we at Sharkforum do lots of artworld politicizing, but have other irons in the fire as well: introduction and discussion of new or underexposed artists, especially painters; discussions of culture in a broader sense; — and much more. In particular, I would like to introduce a series by several of us which is intended to discuss various problems of the post-postmodern painter. I have already begun this with my blog a while back on iconosequentiality, a compositional form. Now I would like to discuss the stroke, painting and "media" awareness. I will do this indirectly by discussing a midcareer retrospective of New York painter David Reed and the catalogue which accompanied it.

David Reed is one of the most significant painters, artists in general, currently working. His position as such is brought to a head in a catalogue on the occasion of a quasi-retrospective exhibition of his works in the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen and the Kunstverein Hannover. His work sums up the moment, yet supplies lively counsel for the future of visual art. The question both the exhibition and the book highlight can be simply framed: “Is David Reed our Caravaggio?”

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Ceci n'est pas un marché.

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Elizabeth Treadwell was born in Oakland, California in 1967, of Cherokee, English, Irish and unknown heritage. Her previous books include the 2004 poetry collection Chantry and Lilyfoil +3. Treadwell's work appears in a number of anthologies including 100 Days, Bay Poetics, and Writing Under the Influence: America's New Women Poets & the Generation That Inspires Them. She serves as director of Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center in San Fransisco. She also edits SPT's magazine, Traffic. Her book Cornstarch Figurine was recently released by Dusie (2006).

Pro Model Tells Story

it's not like i'm attached
to all these camel-

Like a Best Western elevator
levels us flat
to glimpse this dark
& brief lobby
after the stretch cables pull us
& let us run to an edge,
a rubber tourniquet returning
our heavy flesh swelled
from its cut off high.

I would like to draw attention to an excellent article on another blog site, The Art Letter, and an attack on it at another blog site which is usually good, but not this time, Art or Idiocy. Since the audiences probably only slightly overlap, I am drawing attention to it on Sharkforum.

Paul Klein has written a fine, heartfelt assault on the insipidness of much of the current artworld — a critique very much in line with the Perl and Salz articles we mentioned and discussed below in other posts. His article is dated 2/2/07 and can be found here.

Art or Idiocy's blogger has posted a remarkably stupid and aggressive attack on this article here. I doubt if he will be open to much intelligent discussion of his silly attack over at his site, so I thought I'd post my response here and ask for others to comment here, and at Art or Idiocy too, here. or at The Art Letter, here.

I wrote the following,...