Day: March 12, 2009

re: the New Museum's "Younger Than Jesus" show (yes, it's actually called that), from my twitter page:

not getting any younger...than Jesus

Looking forward to a couple months' worth of smart cracks about the "Younger than Jesus" show

"None of these artists (Leonardo, Picasso etc) are constrained by what they make their work out of, or how they make it. And that’s very new." [actual quote from curator, but I added the parenthetical]

and lo, Jesus was found talking to elder artists and critics, engaging them on points of doctrine, and Mary and Joseph were sore afraid

OTJ (older than Jesus) artists can have fun with the show - the excluded class is too large to be meaningfully resentful

some of my best friends are younger than Jesus

though to be younger than Jesus wouldn't that technically mean you were born between 0 and 33 AD? That would make you older than Methuselah

Correction: the show is now being called "Younger than Jesus (Was When He Died, pre-Resurrection)"

This will be a continuing series.

Yikes, the vvork twitter narration has resumed. What can someone possibly be thinking?

copied and pasted:

side-to-side gestural painting made with "oil on lightbox"
cartoon of curvaceous babe blotted out with some kind of spray tool
photo of woman's eyes with "red eye" reflections, from a series
conversation in cab ride to Belgrade about immigration woes, police beatings (YouTube)
laptop text projected on gallery partition
"Vertical solid light installation": two video projectors, two haze machines
large radio telescope water tower object on scaffolding in industrial space
evenly dispersed fried eggs on black circle on gallery wall
backlit cone cluster honeycomb leans against gallery wall
persian carpet "frames" on floor - fringe and trim only, all patterns cut out of center
cages for dangerous research animals, digital corona projected on wall, wall-mounted lights
wall and floor abstractions: asterisks, trapezoidal shapes on blue carpet, fantastic 4 logo
plastic cylindrical objects--from consumer products?--handled like game pieces (still from video)
theatrical lights and speakers in snowbank play "Close Encounters" theme
postcard of cruise ship with word "Rwanda" in lavish cursive font
paintings of the word "diptych" that are not, in fact, diptychs
advertising sign with word "rwanda" repeated 8 times
word "Darfur" written over and over in Courier font
"important vvork" and "timeless vvork" etched on granite slabs
poems on pillars
light shines through cutout hand lettering on whitish board: "You would have seen it happen if you hadn’t been looking somewhere else"
finger-drawing on foggy window glass: the words "unpredictable future"
finger-drawing on foggy window glass: desert island cartoon
architectural models captioned "5 Notable Pavilions"
Broodthaers, SEX - FILM, Nobel prize, internet site-specific, felt tip, slides, 1971-1972
largely illegible installation photo: blob-monster painting on wall and organized stack of plexiglas, stones, paper etc on floor
three periscope-like ducts with electric cords in gallery space with curtains and bunker-like slit window
another scatter installation on gallery floor of shopping bags from different stores
scatter installation on gallery floor of shopping bags from different stores
carpentry as art: entrance inside gallery space "for film program of Rirkrit Tiravanija"
flipped, hand drawn maps of Europe with fictional country names
neon scrawl in infinitely receding mirror
woman hanging upside down holds sign that says WOW
blue wave pattern - still from set of animated screen savers
catacomb-like interior with fluorescent lights on wavy ceiling
photo of Duane Hanson people mixed with actual people
pencil sketch of woman with limbs, facial features, etc. dispersed randomly around page
bronze euro coin floor-sculpture
self-describing wall label text as art
photos of open pages of artist's book that is "never intended to be either finished or published"
people visiting exhibition are offered to be measured by museum attendants
scattering of illegible, different sized photos on wall
announcement of vvork-curated exhibition
wood struts hold recursive framed image on wall, near ceiling
dinosaur skeleton made of dismantled bugles and tubas
oil on linen painting of microsoft desktop wallpaper (supposedly)
handwritten list of every adjective used to describe artists and their work in Artforum’s Best of 2000 (supposedly)
murky photo of pulley-apparatus in plexi box captioned "photomat"
photo of phrases in stop motion arcs captioned "audio kinematics"
video still from "Dirty Dancing" imitates Klein's leap
photo of five colored tubes on rolling stands
phrase about rough sex inside nested rectangles
series of posts linking to vvork imitators, wannabes, and wanna-be-ons
sculptures of large eyeglasses made of wood with title referencing homelessness
bird's eye view of tanker against monochrome blue background
photographic series of dead ends of tunnels inside a mine in Pribyslav (supposedly)
youtube of men flinging monochrome painting at wall, crating it, and eventually turning it into a sailboat
venn diagram: iPhoto-flipped barn owl

On Salon, Gabriel Winant watches CNBC so we don't have to (subscription prob. required). The article chronicles 12 horrible hours of a typical day's business reporting:

I have also noticed, by "Power Lunch," that the seemingly endless market slide is posing a profound problem for cable news experts. As the hardheaded veterans, these guys are full of disdain for the weekday warriors who expect to work the market and make a quick buck. That's how you know you can trust them. "Right now, attempts at stock-picking, for six months, have been completely unsuccessful," warns Bob Pisani, standing on the trading floor. Guest Vern Hayden advises, "People have to not worry so much about missing the turn!" Bob Griffeth, agreeing, shakes his head in consternation at "human nature, wanting to get that last downtick."

A heartbeat later, Sue Herera is asking Hayden, "What's the signal of the turn, for you?" Because CNBC is aimed at making its viewers feel like masters of the universe, it has to offer them this bizarre sweet-and-sour cocktail of happy-days-around-the-corner optimism and I'm-no-sap flintiness.

Banks bleeding jobless for fees related to their state unemployment payments. This is happening because certain states are saving costs of administering unemployment by contracting the payments to...the industry that caused the financial collapse. Instead of receiving mailed checks the unemployed get "smart cards" with hidden fees.

No bank that receives Federal funds or assistance should be allowed to do this.