Day: March 13, 2008

Seeing this work by Arend deGruyter-Helfer made me nostalgic for the "infinite fill" show, a New York moment that came and passed in 2004. A fair amount of energy crackled around that show [photos] [writing].
Then "the gallery didn't sell a single piece," word had it.
And that was it.
The current "slacker" shows in the museums (or whatever they're supposed to be) do not reflect Komputer Kraft--hybrids of the handmade and lo fi digital, which some artists are more committed to than others. The only work that comes close are the Lialina and Slocum* pieces linkable at the New Museum. It's a shame, I think it's still interesting.

*Update, 2011: The link to Paul Slocum's Unmonumental project has been changed to http://archive.rhizome.org:8080/exhibition/montage/14_slocum.php

As artists we go to shows for a sense of the zeitgeist and things we can use (ideas, materials). There is little here in either case.

The most exciting things happening today are (i) online, and (ii) with how artists are navigating the space between the web, home computers, and "real space." These topics are barely addressed in the show.

Although not in the above categories, the best work is by a deceased artist, Jason Rhoades. It is the disordered double to the Phoebe Washburn installation (plants growing in Gatorade), which was calm and formally pleasing but could have been less sprawling. With Rhoades the sprawl is the point--like Cady Noland in its damaged nihilism, except funny.

mp3 of Greg Palast on why Eliot Spitzer had to go down. Palast notes that David Vitter is still serving in Congress after exposure for the exact same crime of moral turpitude (from Air America)