Friday, February 24, 2006

I've been in NYC for few weeks and if I tried to list all of the amazing things I have seen here, I'd fill the page so here are some highlights:

1. Thomas Hirshhorn's show using Emma Kunz's drawings



I thought I was the only person on earth who knew of Emma Kunz. Her works are maps and tools for energetic healing work that she did with clients. She was part of the Kandinsky/Madam Blavatsky school of abstraction. Her works are basically function as tonal/astral maps. Tomas Hirshorn has the foresight to put her works next to some of the most brutal images of human dismemberment I have ever seen. Faces in pieces staring up from concrete, limbs torn apart by us weapons and children missing heads where warms ups for some of the images in this show. Mix that with mannequins covered in nails and there you have it. AMAZING. To quote the press release, "I want to do artwork beyond history. Not against history."


2. Gang Gang Dance

Wow. It was a strange crowd at an unannounced show full of the usual weapons NYC A+ list. They tore it up. If you haven't heard them, do it now. Full on psychedelic, improv trance with lost scraping female vocals. My favorite part came from Bryan K, who mentioned they are all very into grime. The keyboardist had on a Dizze Rascal shirt. How perfect is that?


3. Motomichi

We hung out and have been friends for a long time, but this time the man rearranged my brain. His new work is out of control. Blood, blood and more blood.




4. Bird ov Prey

KILLER new blood/skull fashion for us dorks.




5. Jeff Soto at the Jonathan Levine gallery



For those of you who have seen my little creatures, you can see why I found this show so joyful and amazing. Go. Go now before they take it down.


6. Get your ass to Chelsea and see the show up at Feigen now called "Blessed Are The Merciful." The most amazing stuff I saw in the show was by Cedric Tanguy.




7. Julie Heffernan at PPOW

to quote the site: "Heaven and Hell marks a change in Julie Heffernan's paintings. In these new self portraits, she has replaced her dominant central figure with corporeal cornucopia-like bushes, vines, and bouquets; all intertwined with multi-vignettes and visions. In the painting, Self-Portrait with Holes in my Head, Heffernan wraps a lattice-like structure of intoxicatingly beautiful flowers stretching from the center to the periphery of the canvas. The central structure holds and hides lizards on the hunt and snakes wrapped through vines, vignettes of fiery war scenes, saints aglow with aura, and a cavern revealing an orgy scene resembling Ingres' Turkish Bath. Each one of these scenes expands upon the painting as being a 'self portrait'. The accumulated vignettes act like entries in a journal, telling and retelling dreamlike narratives through her own symbolism. Heffernan's feminine miasma echoes that of surrealists like Leonora Carrington, creating new histories and narratives through her own personal ingrained iconographies."


8. Martha Colburn's work at the Stefan Stux gallery

My favorite comment was made my a 10 year old boy who said, "orgasmic arachnid spider sex is good with me". The same little boy said "disgusting" when a penis went flying in the air and some animal grabbed it in their mouth. Fun stuff!


9. Yesterday I went to Scott Pagano's new website. Maybe I am already a convert, but I must say that I had to watch Cream3 at least three times. It's the new SpeedyJ video.




10. I am off to see The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black tonight at Deitch Projects.


This isn't even a quarter of what I have seen. God help my exploding brain. This doesn't even cover all of the amazing nights at Subtonic on Friday or the Wolf + Lamb parties. Wow. Ms. Kendra's birthday party is tonight at Subtonic FYI!

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