Yuh-Shioh Wong Despite the Sun (2004) pigment, oil, styrofoam, concrete, MDF 14" x 12"

Yuh-Shioh Wong Being Invisible (2004) oil, styrofoam, concrete, MDF 36" x 27"

I told myself while at the opening on October 23rd that I really had to stop reporting on so many Foxy Production shows (they're very, very good), since it looks like I'm virtually living on the sixth floor above 27th Street.

But that same evening, just before my almost-resolution, I had asked for some JPEG images of Yuh-Shioh Wong's work (one of three artists included in the current show), and they just arrived today. Now there was just no way I wasn't going to share these wonderful sculptural paintings with others.

Barry and I had first seen her work as drawings at *sixtyseven when that gallery (now simply sixtyseven) was still in Williamsburg and we thought they were terrific, but we had missed what photographs document must have been an extraordinary installation at the excellent ATM Gallery in the East Village.

The prominent three-dimensional physicality, the robust surface textures, and the lusty colors describe what are totally winsome shapes, but there are hints that something just a little more disturbing is working itself out here.

Thomas Nast cartoon, featuring Boss Tweed ( referencing the 1876 disputed election)

The caption:

Boss. "You have the liberty of Voting for any one you please; but we have
the Liberty of Counting in any one we please."</p>

"Do your Duty as Citizens, and leave the rest to take its course." - New York Times.</i>

</blockquote>

My overwhelmed friends in Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and elsewhere will find it difficult to believe, but I've barely seen a single political campaign ad, TV or print, all year long. (I'm not complaining, of course, especially since no real information is ever conveyed by this stuff.)

Yeah, so I don't even watch TV (except Jon Stewart and SNL) and somehow I've always been able to turn a blind eye to print advertising of any kind (except for those which include particularly sexy men). Actually however my relative isolation from the campaign (it's always war metaphors in America) has more to do with the perverse wonders of the Electoral College and the fact that everyone long ago agreed that New York belongs to the Democrats.

So where do I leave my teeny tiny vote for president tomorrow? Not for the Republican candidate of course, but I'm also not going to check the Democratic column. As I've said often before, both clubs are Rightwing parties and while only one of the two standard-bearers has a mind, he's used it to argue, among other things, that the Iraq war must be expanded, that Americans can't have single-payer universal health care, that he might nominate anti-choice candidates for federal courts, that the WTO is a good thing, that lesbians and gays should not be permitted to marry and that we need the Patriot Act.

But do I have an alternative? Like most of the United States, New York makes it very difficult for parties or candidates to get onto the ballot, the result being this abysmal selection (taken directly from the New York State Board of Elections site).

[REP] REPUBLICAN: George W. Bush

[DEM] DEMOCRATIC: John F. Kerry

[IND] INDEPENDENCE: Ralph Nader

[CON] CONSERVATIVE: George W. Bush

[WOR] WORKING FAMILIES: John F. Kerry

[PJP] PEACE AND JUSTICE: Ralph Nader

[SWP] SOCIALIST WORKERS: Roger Calero

[LBT] LIBERTARIAN: Michael Badnarik

New Yorkers can choose among only five people (all men). There are probably twice as many kinds of premium brands of butter available at each of the two food stores a block away from where I'll be voting tomorrow!

The Democrats and the Republicans are clearly part of the problem and are both responsible for our current crisis, the Conservatives think the Republicans are too Lefty and the Libertarians would eliminate government from all regulation and welfare responsibilities.

I don't know whether to admire or ridicule the fact that the only socialist party on the ballot has advanced a candidate who, regardless of his merits, could not Constitutionally become President of the U.S. and who in fact is not even a U.S. citizen. I do think this tells us a lot about support in the U.S. for the kind of social contract other industrial societies take for granted, even the parties on the Right.

Aside from his own heroic history of social contributions which have benefitted the entire world, Ralph Nader once again represents an almost perfect platform, and I will not condemn his campaign for accepting funds from sources to whom he could never be beholden. The money is well-spent. Nader is one of the few true democrats in American politics.

There is still the possibility of pulling the lever for Kerry on the Working Families line, but while that excellent party is worthy of the attention and support of any progressive, that is still a vote for a seriously flawed candidate. Besides, it's totally unnecessary to keep every one of New York Electoral votes away from Bush.

Whoa, wait a minute. Where are the Greens? What does it say about our fake democracy that so important a party (okay, make that any party) is not permitted on the ballot? But I think we are still allowed a write-in candidate, so in very good conscience we could make it David Cobb, the Green Party candidate for President.

But back to the discussion of the least of many available evils, or at least a resolution of the current dilemma. Even now I can't say for sure if I'm going to vote for Nader on the Independent Party line, Kerry on the Working families Party line or Cobb as a write-in. Wow! I guess this means that technically I could be labelled as one of those reviled "Undecideds," even if my indecision does not relate to anything having to do with Bush or the Republicans. At least I don't have to agonize about deciding between someone who has already demonstrated he's a bungling idiot and someone without Bush's extraordinary record.

Anyone but Bush? I don't think so.

The only point I wanted to make with this post is the fact that in New York and a large number of other states voters with consciences and minds should be able to see that "anyone but Bush" could still mean that there is a choice, even on Election day itself. We don't have to feel totally powerless when we walk into a polling place. The anti-democratic system we have to work with allows at least some of us to balk at ratifying a slate or a platform not established democraticaly.

Many of us do have some choice tomorrow, and our numbers will be recorded. We have to think ahead - now.

[image from HarpWeek]

UPDATE: Barry has just set up a website for Joe and got him featured on Wooster Collective. Both developments will make his work more visible all around the world.

Joe Ovelman's art zap.

Joe had left seven images, bills really, on boards scattered around Chelsea when he was through wheatpasting this morning. I saw only six when I went looking for them in the middle of the afternoon. I have no idea how long the rest will be dominating their busy walls, but four of those are documented here.

For still more, see Bloggy.

Okay, next time I'll be on my own bike. The perineum probably could have managed it this time, but I hadn't gotten the bike ready. Also, last night when at least part of an especially colorful and joyous Critical Mass flowed East on 23rd Street I was in the back of the apartment and first thought it was a political demonstration and I wondered how I had missed hearing about it (actually, after the events of the past months, it really was necessarily political). Although I raced to a front window, I was in the midst of cooking and couldn't even get down to the street for a picture.

Actually I'm pretty happy with this one.

I love bikes, and I love bike people. It's so simple: We belong in the streets. Some day everyone will understand that.

I'd call it an art zap. Ephemeral by design, the success of Joe Ovelman's street images depends upon our seeing them - quickly, almost necessarily today. This time he's spread the work throughout Chelsea, and there's something like a star map at each stop to help locate the next piece.

Bloggy has the details.

file photograph

Fascism, it's so US. Are there still any doubters out there?

The Bush campaign is now asking followers to swear allegiance to Bush, right hands extended. The pledge:

"I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

The principle established, the words can easily be rearranged in the future as needed.

[image from Chemtrails]

"Sooo . . . What do you wear to a civil war anyway?"

A week ago I wrote that I would probably post a list of progressive spaces which are encouraging visitors to hang out next Tuesday evening, on the [first?] day of our federal election agony.

I ended up contributing to a list which Barry assembled and has now posted on his own site. We haven't yet decided what we're going to do that night ourselves. The only thing I've done so far in the way of preparation is to get half way through a good apartment cleaning, the remainder to be completed tomorrow. I just knew I wouldn't feel like doing anything once the street fighting began.

Having also done tons of laundry this week, I'm now free to think about the balloon in the last box of the latest "get your war on."

[image from "get your war on"]

Alex Barry I Wish I Was Richard Colman #2 (red trees and blue leaves) ink on paper 22" x 30"

This is the Alex Barry drawing I referred to in a post yesterday, and below is a detail from the lower right. The excited little bear's shirt reads, "CARE-ALOT CREW."

Oliver Herring Patrick (2004)
digital C-print photographs, museum board, foam core and polystrene, 51" x 37" x 37" with vitrine

Oliver Herring Gloria (2004)
digital C-print photographs, museum board, foam core and polystyrene, 72" x 40" x 40" with vitrine

Oliver Herring continues his fascination with play and the figure in a terrific installation at Max Protetch. There's an amusing video which turns large earthmoving machinery into dancing Tonka toys, a wall-size installation composed of the intersecting lines of two separate photo narratives, a couple of large, luscious male portrait photographs, a topographically-described photo representsation of a languorous youth (and his snake), a limited-edition newspaper documenting the mud-wrestling performance of two brothers and, the show's centerpiece, both figuratively and creatively, two life-size portrait sculptures sheathed in bits cut from thousands of separate photographs.

Instant personal favorites: Gloria's beautiful hips and Patrick's underarm hair.

Alex Barry I Wish I Was Sean Landers (2003-2004) ink on paper 4.25" x 5.5"

No, really, I'm fine. In fact, the radiation side effects have nearly disappeared. I just decided I could now share this wonderful little Alex Barry drawing, one of several my partner Barry and I picked up late in June at the TAG Projects show in DUMBO.

The image and its text wouldn't have made much sense on this site before a few weeks ago, when I first wrote about what I did on my summer vacation. I liked the drawing and its wisdom then and I like it even more now, after what we call the recent unpleasantness. I have no idea what inspired the piece. Although it almost surely references some personal experience of the artist, I think its humor will register with most people.

Unfortunately I can't find any links to Barry's other work, but I'm going to try to record and post the really beautiful, much larger drawing he sent to us as a gift, more or less out of the blue. We still haven't even met him, but surely will, and we want to visit the studio where these drawings begin.