general

Panoramic view of Aron Namenwirth's art opening at vertexList, Brooklyn, NY. Midway between bin Laden and Bush, gallery proprietor Charles Beronio introduces Glomag, preparing to play a Gameboy music set to the left of bin Laden's beard.

The show's meticulously painted acrylic on canvas imagery in a Warhol meets Chuck Close by way of Yahoo! vein also includes the future President and (gulp) Secretary of State. The title of the exhibit is "Made in U.S.A." That's what we do these days--gin out imagery of political celebrities to frighten or amuse the world. The icons exist in endless feedback loops--one such eddy is internet thumbnail --> painting --> art exhibit --> photo --> internet thumbnail. Eventually we may get things back on track and stop leading the world in the production of simulacra but this show bears witness to our current predicament.

File under: Artists with Computers

recycled older post with a nod to brennaaa

One of the locations of the Distributed Gallery where some of my GIF videos are showing is the store Ooga Booga, in Los Angeles. It is having an opening tonight of a show called Secondary Market, curated by Hanne Mugaas, consisting of paintings, sculptures and art ephemera bought from eBay.

In Dallas, And/Or Gallery features "new paintings by Milwaukee-based artist, Peter Barrickman, and new digital prints and images by Petra Cortright, a new media artist from Los Angeles." The reception is tomorrow.

Bringing this post full circle, Paul Slocum, artist and proprietor of And/Or Gallery, will be showing work in the project space at artMovingProjects in NY (John Giglio in the main space). The opening is tonight.

Kind of a real world web ring (critics might have a more off-color term).

Really dislike the trend (especially egregious on Talking Points Memo and Huffington Post) of having a photo, usually unrelated to a story, of a politician smiling or frowning depending on the day's news about that pol. It seems mainstream-media-fake, or even photoshop-fake. If the photographer captures a pic of a candidate grimacing at the precise moment of being told "you lost the recount," fine, that's honest and accurate. But for Josh Marshall to tell an intern, "get me a pic of so-and-so looking super grumpy" is just phony baloney. If you need visual interest to spice up your blog page, use a cartoon.

From Japan, Delaware presents an iPhone/iPodTouch application: "Records001" ($1.99)
A small spinning vinyl record appears on the touchscreen, which can be "scratched" with your fingertips while an infectious Vocaloid-esque ditty plays. Even if you are not a participant in the Steve Jobs conspiracy it's fun to watch the video: [.m4v file that might play in your Quicktime]

Somewhat related, check out the Zom Zoms CD Lumbobo's Tube on Mutant Sounds. Great Devo/Residents-ish synth punk from Austin ca. 2003. Saw them in NY a few years ago, and, like, posted about them on my blog. Lumbobo's lacks the pop finesse of their later work; it's mostly slight Casio tunes and spoken/mumbled vocals with occasional jangly guitar or bass licks. But the whole is unpredictable, dissonant, and bracingly primitive.