Whoops. One more post. The Bloom County Christmas special: A Wish for Wings That Work
part 1
part 2
part 3
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
1021
Saturday, December 19, 2009
1020
I imagine this will be the last post for the year. You might think that I didn't post for the past few days because I was leaving the Burch post up top so people could find the free music. Nope. Just didn't have much on the plate. It did work out well. I remembered to look at his site everyday and heard the songs. Good stuff. Grab the free EP before it's gone. "Harbour Lights" and "Ocean of Tears" were my favorites. Hard to go wrong with a lead steel guitar on one song and Kelly Hogan on another.
Trying to wrap up the semester and work through an artist's block has kept me out of the gallery loop. I have, so far, missed the Fleisher/Ollman show. I'll get over there before it's gone. I'm sure I missed a bunch of other stuff as well.
Here are some odds and ends:
Seurat- Models, 1887-1888, oil on canvas, 79x98"
If you can get to the Barnes in a blizzard, you will have the place to yourself. That is the lesson that I learned this morning. Also, if you did not know, they are permanently shutting down a few of the upstairs galleries at the end of this month so if you want to see the whole place before the eventual move into Philly, you have about11 days to make that happen. The 26th and the 27th are already sold out.
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Need a gift for that person that has everything? They probably don't have Gregory King's Rotating Mirror DVD. Here is a link for information about the video and below is a preview clip:
Rotating Mirror
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I'm hoping to track down this book at a library next week...because it's $181 dollars. What the? It's 192 pages. Is it printed on gold or something? That's almost a dollar a page. Makes no sense. There's a dadblame reeeecession on.
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I ran across this horse in Fishtown near the Rocket Cat Cafe. Right on.
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Have a good Christmas and New Year. I'll be drawing, finishing The Double and re-reading Looking at the Overlooked. Somewhere in there will be the annual viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation:
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
1019
The Paul Burch Hanukkah Celebration
By now you probably know that I like Paul Burch.
He made this year's best of list here.
He also made the decade list here.
Paul wanted his fans to know that starting at sundown on Friday, December 11 that he and his band, the WPA Ballclub, will be streaming a new song each day for the next 8 days. Here's the paragraph off of the website:
"SPECIAL GUESTS FOR 8 NIGHTS OF ROCK!
Starting sundown on Friday, December 11th, the first night of Hanukkah, PB & WPA Ballclub will stream a new song for 8 consecutive nights featuring special guests with a free downloadable EP of all 8 nights available for 24 hours only on 12/18. Confirmed guests include Laura Cantrell, the Waco Brothers, the Mekons, and members of Superchunk, Lambchop, and Calexico."
Well dang-ola. Look at that line-up. Not bad at all. Note the free EP you get to download at the end of it all. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas. Just follow the link on Burch's name at the top to dig in. Gotta wait 'til Friday though. If you do go to the site now, you can stream a few songs off of his latest, Still Your Man. Worth the cash to get the whole thing.
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In other music news, the Ras G session of Saturn Never Sleeps goes down tomorrow night at the Painted Bride. I suggest getting tickets for that:
Ras G and the Afrikan Space Program- Alkebulan
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clip from A Face in the Crowd
Thanks to Neko Case acting as a guest programmer, TCM played 1957's A Face in the Crowd last night. It's hard to forget how brilliant Andy Griffith is in this movie but I had forgotten the power of this Vitajex scene. It is mind-bending. The 1:30 mark? Whew. If you've never seen this movie, this clip goes relatively uncut until the last minute where they add a lot of pieces from the end of the movie.
Monday, December 07, 2009
1018
Friday ended up being packed with more art than expected thanks to friends stepping up and driving us everywhere we wanted to go. Unfortunately I only had my cellphone with me so the photos are few, far between and not too good. Sorry.
Early in the day I met with Steve Evans. Steve is a senior at UArts in the painting department. It was a nice studio visit that gave me hope that someday, someone, somewhere (hopefully in Philly) might ask me to teach something besides a foundation level class. He has a lot of ideas rolling around in the ol' bean so I'm hopeful for his thesis show in the spring.
Part Time Studios in Fishtown was the first stop. Friends of mine not commonly associated with the arts kept telling me they were going to the reception. Curiosity got the better of me so we went to check it out. Ends up I know two of the people associated with it: Seth Shimkonis and Lydia Smith. Seth is a photographer. Lydia has a loom. What does that make her? A weaver? Yes. The reception at the Studio included a group show of the artists that work in the studios in a small gallery they made in the front. You could also get a tour of the place and pick up a pretzel too. You might be able to view these photos of the space that Seth posted on Facebook.
I didn't ask too many questions about what their gallery program would be like. Seems like they want to work with Philly artists. The Frankford Ave. arts corridor is expanding. Nice to see.
We hit up the ArtStore at Circle of Hope and then headed to the Vox building.
I finally got to Marginal Utility to see the Ronnie Bass video/installation: The Astronomer, Part 1: Departure From Shed. The list of pop culture references that we tried to stitch together to make sense of what we were seeing got too long after a while. Bass kind of acts like Jeff Tweedy and the song has a Bowie/Muppet-esque 70s quality. There's a sing-songy dialogue that drives the simple music.
From the press release: "In a haze of notes and tones from an electric synthesizer and an incantatory voice-over that gently issues commands, Bass's videos provide images of individuals striving for a better life and stepping towards the unknown. They make use of the useless, harvesting from junk to create new items for their purpose. In Departure From Shed, their purpose is a calling indicated by a cosmological sign."
Bass is also constructing a water fountain throughout the course of the exhibition. I didn't get any photos of that. He also played that night but we missed it too. Our timing was awesome. The show is up through early January so there is time to go see it.
Grizzly Grizzly debuted their space on Friday. Once again, I only knew the name but got there to find out that I did know one of the organizers, Bruce Wilhelm. I met Bruce in Richmond in the summer of 2008 when I had show down there. He moved to Philadelphia not long after that. Obviously we don't talk a whole lot, otherwise I might have know he was up to something. The space is run by Wilhelm and a few other VCU alumni. I didn't know any of these guys when I was in school in Richmond. They all came along after I was gone. Nice to see VCU continuing to overrun Philadelphia.
Grizzly Grizzly is another welcome addition to the Vox building. Similar to the Tiger Strikes Asteroid model, it's a collective of people paying rent on a space to show work by other artists. I can't imagine they have regular hours during the week but they'll probably be open on the weekends. I can't even tell you how to get in touch with anyone about this space. Maybe try Bruce's website? Who knows. If I can figure out a way to get on a mailing list or something, I'll post it.
Works by Justin Samson and George Terry. Not sure which is which. Yes, I fully understand that this is the lamest summary of a gallery visit ever. I make no excuses.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
1017
RIP Jack Rose
Sad news today that Jack Rose has passed away, apparently from a heart attack. The only album I own of his is The Black Dirt Sessions but I do like it quite a bit. I'm going to follow Philebrity's lead and post this "Kensington" video. Seems most appropriate of the work that's on YouTube.
1016
I'll try to get some First Friday photos up later. I only had my camera phone with me so that might be fair to the artists whose work I saw.
The Oughties:
Just to get the "winding down the decade" ball rolling, here are what are probably my 50 favorite albums of the decade. I'm starting here because it's the easiest body of work to recall, "research" and organize. I am doing this now because I am tired of drawing leaves and need a break.
Some of these albums, honestly, I rarely listen to anymore but I tried to remember how much I liked them and played them at the time. You can check some top 10 lists on here to see that I have grown to appreciate some others more than I did upon first evaluation. Others are still in constant rotation. According to this list, 2003 was a low point in music for me. 2006 and 2008 were big...probably because I made more effort to branch out more during those times. I also tried to limit each act to one album but Machinefabriek made it in twice due to his collaboration.
This might be the entirety of my decade summary. Who knows. I really should plan this stuff out more than I do. If I could rethink film, art and books, that might be a nice way to but a bow on the past few years. The idea of searching through my brain to make sense of the art I saw this decade is a bit daunting. Drawing Now: Eight Propositions at MoMA marked the beginning of my Oughties but maybe I'll write more on that later.
Alphabetical order. The numbers do not reflect rankings. Bands names that are in bold mean that I could have put more than one of their albums on this list:
1. William Basinski- 92982
2. Belle and Sebastian- The Life Pursuit
3. Black Mountain- Black Mountain
4. Blanche- Little Amber Bottles
5. Harlan T. Bobo- I'm Your Man
6. Bonnie "Prince" Billy- The Letting Go
7. Peter Broderick and Machinefabriek- Blank Grey Canvas Sky
8. Paul Burch- Fool for Love
9. Calexico- Feast of Wire
10. Califone- Roots and Crowns
11. Camera Obscura- Let's Get Out of This Country
12. Neko Case- Blacklisted
13. Cat Power- The Greatest
14. Danielson- Ships
15. Dismemberment Plan- Change
16. Doves- Some Cities
17. Edan- Beauty and the Beat
18. El Perro del Mar- From the Valley to the Stars
19. Flying Lotus- Los Angeles
20. Fugazi- The Argument
21. Grizzly Bear- Yellow House
22. Philip Jeck- Sand
23. Richard Hawley- Coles Corner
24. The Kills- Keep on Your Mean Side
25. Kings of Leon- Aha Shake Heartbreak
26. Mark Kozelek- What's Next to the Moon
27. Lambchop- Is a Woman
28. LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver
29. Shelby Lynne- I Am Shelby Lynne
30. Les Savy Fav- Let's Stay Friends
31. Los Super Seven- Canto
32. Machinefabriek and Soccer Committee- Drawn
33. Madvillain- Madvillainy
34. Mazarin- We're Already There
35. The National- Boxer
36. Portishead- Third
37. Prefuse 73- Vocal Studies and Upright Narrative
38. Radiohead- Kid A
39. The Roots- Phrenology
40. Josh Rouse- Under Cold Blue Stars
41. Sparklehorse- It's a Wonderful Life
42. Spiritualized- Let It Come Down
43. Spoon- Kill the Moonlight
44. The Teeth- You're My Lover Now
45. Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend
46. The Walkmen- You and Me
47. White Hassle- Your Language
48. The White Stripes- Elephant
49. Brian Wilson- Smile
50. Yo La Tengo- And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Thursday, December 03, 2009
1015
I have a print in the fundraising Print Center auction. Above is the first state of the print. You can click here to see the final product and bid on it. If you have the money to help the Print Center, please do.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
1014
I'm not privy to many art receptions this week. It's First Friday. Walk around.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) there is a reception at Drexel's gallery for Mel Leipzig's exhibition. It runs from 6-8.
Friday I think I'm going to Part Time Studios to find out what it is. Non-artist friends of mine seem to know more about it than me.
I contributed my first piece of criticism to the NY Times this week. This one was for free. I expect to be picked up by them on a regular basis by the end of the year. That's a joke if you're keeping score at home.
I can't decide whether or not to get tickets for the Ras G show at the Painted Bride next week.
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