Good Ship, Man


Matthew Barney: The Occidental Guest

Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th Street [btw. 10th & 11th Aves.], 212.206.9300
http://www.gladstonegallery.com/default.asp

Closed


Matthew Barney, Torii, 2006. Vivak, cast polycaprolactone thermoplastic, and acrylic; 5 x 23 x 27'
When the prettiest boy in school decides that the prom song is going to be by Bread, and that we are all to be dressed like Scottish satyrs and smeared in Vaseline, who are we to argue? Who are we poor, ugly pantshitters to criticize?

And what are we to do when the prettiest boy in school takes to the prom a really cool, exotic girl from out of town? Oh man. And then they make a movie together! Oh man. This is what Brangelina’s baby would look like if he were born an art film. Too fucking gorgeous to bother.

God, I hate myself so much.

* * *

Free Running

It is perhaps the only thing purely and beautifully born of the great social experiments/disasters that were and are the large housing projects that swept the world from the 30’s on. From the Soviet bloc of flats to the council houses of Great Britain and the Corbusian nightmares of the French banlieues—the only good thing to have been directly inspired by this soul deadening architecture is a sport so pure it requires no equipment, apparatus, field or court. Crumbling concrete walls and stairs will do nicely for an arena. A pair of sneakers for equipment. That’s it.

The French call it Parkour [they have a name for everything], but the best name for it is Free Running. The combination of creativity and virtuoso physicality involved in the sport is exhilarating and downright liberating. Take a look at the clip in the link below and see if you don’t agree:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=515642196227308929&q=russian+climbing

* * *

The Little Dog Laughed

Amy Sillman

Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
530 West 22nd St [btw. 10th & 11th Aves.], 212.929.2262
http://sikkemajenkinsco.com/index.html

Closed


Amy Sillman—Get the Moon, 2006, Oil on canvas, 80 x 69 inches
If you wanted to rid New York city of a good many of its painters, you would have done well to set off an IED at Amy Sillman’s opening last Saturday. All the close-shorn and bespectacled painters from Brooklyn and lower Manhattan gathered to catch glimpses of each other against the backdrop of the diminutive painter’s strapping abstractions.

Amy gave Max, my older son, a melted candy the moment she met him—as one might hand garlic to a vampire. A couple leaned against the wall and peered out from behind curator and architect weight eyewear respectively. Another woman strode about purposefully in her Skull & Bones pants hoping to become a conversation piece.

I saw some people who clearly had forgotten me and others whom I wish had. Painting students and recent grads did the bulk of the smoking in front of the gallery. From the street you could watch Brent and Michael entertain clients in the conspicuously front/back room.

And the dish ran away with the spoon.


Prescient, Amn’t I?

Barry Frydlender will be having a solo exhibition at MoMA next year,early summer, in the photography galleries.


Life is short. Art is long. You never know.
artholes!