United States of Art

Because I think the last sentence in what I wrote is hilarious, and I get the feeling no one saw it, I'm copying a comment I made in the discussion/thread on Jerry Saltz's Facebook Wall today and pasting it here. I think my comment is the 95th one in this thread.

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Jerry Saltz: "My esteemd friend Howard Halle says “It’s a widely held belief ... that painting is dead.” Come on! No one has actually believed this since at least the Nixon administration! The 'P. is D.' canard is dead rhetoric, a way to keep art boxed in. Mediums don’t die until all of the problems they were invented to solve are s...olved. If anyone can prove that P. is D. I will give them a $10,000 ‘Jerry Saltz Tautology Prize.’"

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Kevin Regan: "I think the p is d camp just wanted to undermine the privileged status of painting. Just look at the controversy caused by the Richard Tuttle show at the Whitney back in the mid 70s (not really all that long ago). And even if those aforementioned POMO critics blew the door open for other forms, other media, more often than not, if I tell someone I'm an artist they assume I'm a painter. And, not only that, painting sells better (and for more money) than any other medium. In other words, painting is the United States of art."

Drippy

Drippy is the second show at Famous Accountants. I should have posted images of the first one. We got a great response for the first one but, I think because the content was so personal, so close to me, I spent less time trying to get the word out on it. Whateva. I came up with the idea for Drippy. Ellen Letcher, my partner at Famous Accountants, and I painted the blood dripping down the walls. Ben Godward made the amazing, colorful sculpture on the floor. Ellen took the two photos of the show. They were taken the night before the opening. One of the photos features Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and my self. I designed the flyer for the show but Ellen made the illustration. Word.

It's weird how the blog theme is clipping off the edges of the photos. Click on them to see the whole image. I don't feel like fixing it.

"Living in a State of Permanent Recession"

Hrag Vartanian wrote this cool article, "Living in a State of Permanent Recession", for NYFA Currents. I was one of the artists he talked to. It's an interesting read.

Clearing

I don't trust the government any more than I trust corporations. In my opinion, neither has my best interest at heart. And I'd prefer that both leave me alone and have as little as possible to say about how I live my life or spend my money. Not to mention, the government -- especially the federal government -- is really just some sort of über corporation anyway. And, despite what the fools say, no law will change this fact. It's just the way it is. That's why, as my high school English teacher liked to say, less is more (of course, she was talking about writing and not government). But, all that said, in my honest and very pessimistic opinion, some sort of techno-feudalism is what the future holds. Our only hope is that society is wealthy enough that it just doesn't matter. Wars tend to be fought over scarcity not surplus.

I hope this clears a few things up for ya! Thanks.

One thing about and one thing by

Stephen Truax wrote an article about Famous Accountants for BushwickBK, "Meaning IS Inevitable".


And I wrote this review/article for Hyperallergic about a show called Reaganography.

The zombie rides a unicorn into the mirage...

"The promise of the public plan is a mirage. Its political brilliance is to use free-market rhetoric (more "choice" and "competition") to expand government power."

from "Public Plan Mirage", The Washington Post, October 26, 2009



"A public plan is likely to damage competition. A government insurer has some big advantages over a private one; its financing costs would be lower because the government can borrow cheaply; it would not have to worry too much about future liabilities since it could never go bust; and its economies of scale would be larger than those of the competition. Those using the public plan would benefit in the short term, but the scheme might very well squeeze private insurers out of business, which would be bad news for the other half of Americans that have them—and, according to opinion polls, are generally happy about that."

from "Back from the Dead", The Economist, October 29, 2009

Hyperreality

"A few years ago, however, the health-care economists Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider recalculated the numbers after controlling for deaths from homicides and traffic accidents. Because these things tend to strike very young people, they can have an outsize impact on mortality statistics. Those deaths reflect America’s crime policy and its driving habits more than the effectiveness of its health-care system. And if you remove them from the picture, say Ohsfeldt and Schneider, America jumps to the top of the life-expectancy tables."

from "Misleading Indicator" by Megan McArdle