"Sunshine Stomp (Drum Solo)" [mp3 removed]
The tune above chopped up and reassembled with mucho filtering and added beats. Inspired by Buddy Rich.
"Love Reconstituted"
"Love Reconstituted" [mp3 removed]
Took two piano chords from an early '90s minor house hit that I have always loved (it has "love" in the title) and reconstructed the vamp with slightly different timing--but not much, this is an adoring homage. The piano part comes at the end of this otherwise fairly atmospheric and mellow *art piece*.
More on Breasts in the Lobby
My post on the removal of artist Diana Kingsley's work from a curated show in the lobby of a 5th Avenue building ("Get those breasts out of the lobby, they're offending women") drew some lively online discussion: 1 2 3 4
I want to add that it is also being discussed on the blog "How's My Dealing?", where commenters anonymous and otherwise weigh in on art world power brokers (gallerists, critics, curators). The blogger, "Buck Naked," assigns a red X or a green O to the personage "based on your positive or negative feedback, and my sense of your sincerity. It's an imperfect system."
Currently curator Elisabeth Akkerman has a red X because of the Kingsley incident. She is a curator hired by arts patron and real estate businessman Francis Greenburger to organize exhibitions in his lobbies; she picked the Kingsley piece, named the show after it ("Blue Ribbon"), and then removed it after complaints. We don't know exactly who complained or what Greenburger's role was in vetting the work after it was installed.
An anonymous commenter on "How's My Dealing?" chides Buck Naked for his/her anonymity and says:
I would only hope that someone who chooses to host a blog on NYC dealers, curators and critics - and appoints him or herself judge, jury and executioner - has some serious creds. I'm very familiar with Akkerman, OMI, her boss, and the complex politics involved. Although it was very unfortunate that the piece was removed (I've had my own work censored in a public space before, know how it feels), blaming Akkerman is naive. [link to the Greenburger-endowed Art OMI added]
My reply in the comment thread:
What are these complex politics? Please share. Also, any particular reason you didn't mention Akkerman's boss by name? Lastly, how in the world can you have a beef with someone for posting anonymously when you do the same?
Hopefully we'll get more facts about the incident and who actually made the decision to remove the work. (Right.)
Perry House
I had slides of this Houston-based artist's work, which I shot back in the early '90s when I organized a show of his paintings, and felt like scanning them. Click on the lower two for enlarged views. The multipanel piece at the bottom was an older work, possibly dating from the '70s, that was rolled up in the artist's studio.
I like the combination of Di Chirico-esque mood and modern emptied-out-ness. The bottom image has a underground comix feel but is also classically surreal. At the risk of sounding like ad copy, no one in Houston (or anywhere) does work quite like this. Possibly some of the Chicago imagists but without their illustrator-y sense of polish.
The paintings are done in acrylic. House has a technique of layering washes of thinned out black over a finished image to give a kind of fractal scrim livening up the paint's inherent flat inertness. It's kind of an artificial aging patina but has nothing to do with making it look old--just more complex.
The imagery is a series of personal symbols that recur from painting to painting and are constantly mutating and being layered and violated by Modernist stripes, dots, etc. There is something cabalistic about it but House isn't a mystic or a new-ager. He talks about the symbols in an almost childlike way but his approach to assembling a picture is quintessentially grown up.