Vincent Skeltis Mel's Corral #58 2004 metal, incandescent bulbs, photograph, plexi-glas 48" x 48" x 9"

31 Grand's press release says that Vincent Skeltis's show, "Nowhere But Up," among other things, "explores the death of the American nuclear family." I suspect that the only thing which has really changed about that almost mythical societal arrangement is what photography can now do, in the hands of an artist, to tell us about it.

This particular family happens to be Skeltis's own. He has installed a haunting show of photographs and artifacts describing the parallel lives of a father who disappeared into dissipation when his son was four, and the son who by his own admission was well on the way toward destroying himself when their paths crossed twenty-one years later, only ten months before Vincent Skeltis, Sr. died.

It's a dizzying array of images, of men, women - and things - presented without sentimentality but also without any bitterness. Things happened, people remembered.

Art survives.

Barry and I were walking about Williamsburg with our friend Karen the evening the show opened, and had earlier run into two other friends visiting the same galeries we were. At 31 Grand I was still in something of a daze, struck by the honesty and the strength of what Skeltis had done, when Cory Arcangel and Noah Lyon came in with a mutual friend of their own, Alex Galloway. Cory really loved what he saw, and since I don't think I'd heard it before, I took his own tribute to the show, "This is like real art!" for high praise indeed. There was no argument.

Vincent Skeltis Nude Portrait of Amy 2003 C-print 40" x 30"

Vincent Skeltis All Things Considered 2003 framed photograph, pocket knife, cross, camera, music box/flask figurine, scissors, steel, plywood 23.75" x 19.5" x 6.75"

[image, "Nude Portrait of Amy," from 31 Grand]

Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle (but imagine grainy and black & white)

I won't give any details. That's the way I myself like to approach a night at the theatre (that is, with just enough information to tell me it's going to be worth a detour) and that's the way Barry and I came to ALL WEAR BOWLERS on Thursday.

Well, I do remember reading something about Laurel and Hardy, Magritte, and Beckett. I also saw promotional images which showed two very hot men, each usually holding an egg in his open mouth. And to be fair, I admit we had already seen each of these wonderful performers several times before, working with separate companies (Trey Lyford with The Civilians and Geoff Sobelle with the Pig Iron Theatre Company). We knew we weren't going to miss their collaboration for anything, so I guess we did have a lot of information after all.

Now that I've seen it I will say that nothing I've read since and none of the images or short clips I've seen on line (don't go to the act's website - it doesn't begin to do the piece justice) can prepare anyone for what happens at the HERE Arts Center on lower 6th Avenue.

Like most everyone else in the audience, I laughed out loud throughout more than half of the evening's single act, and the rest of the time I was really worried about the survival of these two pure souls. Is this what our grandparents (great-grandparents?) experienced before talkies, before the victory of mass entertainment and the near-totally-unconditional surrender of live theatre?

In any event, I'm certain no one has ever seen anything like what these two performers are giving us today.

Their remarkable feat of collaboration has produced an extrordinary and compelling evening of sensitive drama. I admit that since all four members of our party sat in the front row, it would have been hard not to have been affected by what was going on only feet, or even inches, away. But since there were, I think, only four rows behind us, nobody is likely to miss anything.

And they shouldn't want to, but there are only two more weeks to secure a seat.

ALL WEAR BOWLERS is almost perfectly brilliant.

[image, by Gregory Costanzo, from Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe]

Carter Kustera Boys Will Be Boys 2004 gouache and mixed media on paper 22" x 30"

Boys Will Be Boys detail

Violence with a flair. In his current show at Lyonsweirgallery Carter Kustera finds a way to seriously address the commercial world's obsession with glamorizing violence without abandoning his own aesthetic - or his usual good humor.

The show is titled, "Fabulous Anger," and these provocative works on paper will be up until March 12.

The press release on the gallery site tells us how we can become be an integral part of Kustera's art and wit. He's also a really nice guy, which would be pretty relevant to those who can accept this offer:

Carter Kustera will also be featured in -scope New York from March 11th – 14th at Flatotel, 135 West 52nd Street. Kustera’s "America’s Most Wanting" is a body of work gleaned from personal encounters. These intimate works on paper are simple silhouettes that have quips about the sitter. These engaging antidotes utter volumes about the way people project themselves in public and how the public interprets them. Kustera will be available for individual portrait commissions during the run of the scope Art Fair.

Carter Kustera Who's the Bitch Now? 2005 gouache and mixed media on paper 22" x 30"

Who's the Bitch Now? detail

[images from Lyonsweirgallery]

Jenny Scobel Flutter in the Room 2004 graphite, watercolor, oil and wax 32" x 24"

Friends already know I really like Jenny Scobel's work, but the current show at Thomas Erben has the best stuff I've seen yet. These two may be my favorites. I'll also admit that the backdrops are so exciting they make me shudder.

This is the first time we've seen a male image in her iconography, and the faces are usually anonymous. Scobel's brother Quentin died of AIDS in 1996.

Jenny Scobel Quent 2004 graphite, oil and wax on prepared wooden panel 32" x 24"

[images from Thomas Erben Gallery]

drawing from a pre-school Chechynan child

To Chechnya with art, with deep concern, and love too.

A number of artists from around the world have organized what they are calling the "EMERGENCY BIENNALE in CHECHNYA."

The extraordinary occasion, a work of conceptional art itself, will be inaugurated tomorrow, February 23, at 5 pm with a press conference at le Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Thereafter a suitcase filled with works, projects and concepts by more than 60 artists from all over the world will "hit the road," to be delivered in Grozny to a location yet to be finalized. The project is co-curated by Evelyne Jouanno and the artist Jota Castro with the support of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH).

Duplicates of the works and documentation packed in the suitcase sent to Chechnya will be displayed in Paris until April 23.

All kinds of information on Chechnya will also be presented [in le Palais de Tokyo]. Mylene Sauloy's and Manon Loizeau's films on daily life and culture of Chechens since the beginning of the first war in 1994 will be screened.

In addition, an internet post with webcam and direct access to the website created for the occasion - http://www.emergencybiennale.org - will do its utmost to connect with Chechen partners, to receive images and information on the suitcase and the organization of the exhibition in Grozny. A discussion forum will also offer an opportunity to react and exchange on the subject across and beyond all borders.

A publication is in preparation. It will comprise texts on the situation of human rights, some theoretical articles on art, political and social sciences as well as images of the various artistic projects.

[tip from e-Flux, image from sauseschritt, where it was accompanied by the text I've copied below]

terror und gegenterror in tschetschenien: aus einem 2002 veröffentlichten bericht (der russischen föderation und der republik chechnya) über die lage des Bildungswesens in tschetschenien stammen folgendes zitat und die kinderzeichnungen:
pre-school children were born and lived during war and continue to live in war affected situation. the psychological condition of children could be described by words and expressions like terror, reserved disposition, cautiousness in behavior with other adults, insufficient level of development of native speech, poor imagination, absence of variety of emotions ...

[my] English translation of the German above:

terror and counterterror in Chechnya: these drawings and the following quotation comes from an official report (of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Chechnya) published in 2002 on conditions within the Chechnyan education system:

a girl holds a poster reading 'Seriously damages human rights' during an anti-Bush demonstration in front of the US Embassy in Brussels today

Of course, like most people outside this country, William Pfaff knows that Bush doesn't really know a damn thing, so in this excellent discussion of the enormous and essential divide between the U.S. and the European world he addresses the myths held by a much larger constituency, the one which has made that little man President - and still likes what it sees.

Why Bush will fail in Europe</p>

The President has an enormous political gulf to bridge. The trouble is, he doesn't even know it's there

William Pfaff
Observer, February 20
</strong>

[Mr Bush's] trip will fail because he and his administration do not understand what really divides most continental European governments from the US ... Few Europeans believe either in the global "war on terror" or the "war against tyranny," as Washington describes them.

American claims about the threat of terrorism seem grossly exaggerated, and the American reaction disproportionate and even hysterical ... The invasion of Iraq is widely regarded in Europe as irrelevant to the reality of terrorism, overwrought in scale and destruction, and perverse in effect, vastly deepening hostility between the western powers and Muslim society ... Many Europeans believe it is not the world that has changed, but the United States.

[these excerpts from the full article appeared on a Guardian page covering the attitude of the world's press to the purposes of Bush's European visit]

</blockquote>

I don't know how I'm going to be able to stay.

[image by Jacques Colett for Agence France Presse Belgium]

untitled (599 Lexington/Citycorp Center) 2005

Rob Fisher installation view of Summery (Goodyear Ecology) in foreground, Unity Road No. 1-5 on the wall, both works in detail

Cohan and Leslie has another winner with Rob Fischer's current show [site not updated] of sculptures, painted photographs and paintings. Once engaged, it's hard to walk away from this space, the images and the entire environment are that compelling.

The very healthy-looking grasses shown in both images included here are a part of a stunning piece which, in the words of the press release, "makes 'the outside' suddenly containable." It includes

. . . a tire track cut across Fischer's yard accidently which has been excavated whole and installed in a metal tray.

. . .

Fisher's project [that is, the entire show] addresses and explores the tension between transience and memory and the specifics of site.

. . .

The photographs on view, painted C-prints shot by the artist from his car while driving through his native Minnesota, are images of abandoned trailers on fire from various viewpoints. This creates a cinematic yet disorienting effect when viewed from one to the other. The trailer, an American icon of a culture that is historically characterized by the desire to migrate and discover is seen in an indefinable state - partly present, partly destroyed.

Rob Fischer Summery (Goodyear Ecology) 2004-05 tire track excavated from cultivated swamp, mixed media 32" x 71" x 30"

As I child I delighted in constructing new or re-imagining found miniature environments, so Summery totally charmed me on more than one level. I wanted to bring this one home. Barry suggested we could commission Eric Doeringer to do a "bootleg" work in a more convenient, apartment size. Hmmmm.

I kept expecting to see a tiny frog or guppy show up in the track, and the sight and gentle sound of water trickling from the pipe, if normally unnecessary to represent an ordinary puddle, was a delightful recognition of the requirements of the unnatural venue.

There is still much more, including a small warren of rooms constructed so that their interiors are less than two feet wide, each one separate from the other yet connected by a maze of water pipes. These spaces suggest domesticity, but with a built-in architecture of unease. New Yorkers will get it right away.

untitled (bicycle wheel) 2005

the "politicization" of the gates!

Many thanks to Noah Lyon for giving me the opportunity of pulling together my last two posts about art and politics (and maybe a good many more of these blogs, going back almost three years) with an email to which these photos were attached. The elegant sticker in the pictures is Noah's art, and my caption is taken straight from his message. Of course none of us knows much about the specifics of this particular "politicization" operation.

Incidently, for those who might be disturbed by the negativity of some of their critics, remember that we're still all part of their art, according to Christo and Jeanne-Claude, even when we quibble about or shout at The Gates.* It's such a burden.

[the images from Michael Carreira via Noah Lyon]