phrases i’ve deleted today while writing exhibition copy

A sample of my rejected phrases:

: at times, her images are imbued with allegory (Death) and deal with the expressionistic potential of the grotesque through her inhumanly contorted figures.

well…camp is style without content and Kollwitz has too much content (j’espere)…Sontag, “Notes on Camp”

as an element worthy of both formal experimentation and social value.

At the center of this plurality, however, is the emptiness of a viewer confronted with

as far as an operative mode of

how a warm curator in cold weather should dress

The trick is to try not to wear all black because then you would be mistaken for a Scandinavian Goth.

Another Post from the Anonymous Gallerina with a Heart of Gold

Day in the Life of a Creepy Grad Student in a mid-20s Crisis

Overheard

Gallery manager to the intern, “You need to work on your voice. Also, when you call him, make it sound like _____ is the most exciting artist right now and has a lot of great things in store. And that no one else is doing anything like _____. “

Marilyn Minter, Crystal Swallow, 2006.

the men i love

Thurston Moore is six foot and six inches tall. Although he lacks any obvious sex appeal, he makes up for it with arms that could throw you up against a wall.

This series is inspired by Annette Messager. In the 1970s, Messager made a scrapbook called The Men I Love. She tore out pages of magazines that showed glamorous Hollywood stars and rough Marlboro men, all men who she had never met, but who she was “supposed” to swoon over. She also assembled a companion book called The Men I Do Not Love.

Do you know Estonian?

I don’t, but I do know that my blog was referenced in this article by Kati Ilves: http://artishok.blogspot.com/2010/01/kunstnikud-kuraatorid-ja-voim.html

ART THAT STOPS IT FROM ALL DIRECTIONS

Instead of reclaiming the commodity as a gesture towards the personal and specific or altering it into an absurd hyperbole, once these artists intervene with a pre-made cultural object, the works just break, like a hot glass shattering onto itself.

Claire Fontaine, an anonymous artists’ collective that produces visual and text-based work under the nomme de plume of the aforementioned French notebook company, showed four objects in “her” most recent exhibition at Reena Spaulings Fine Art. Located above a Chinese restaurant, the gallery keeps its seedy atmosphere – tiles uprooted from the floor – because, really, the term “white cube” has been dying for over fifty years and even though it’s occasionally shot at, it keeps on running with precision.

Claire Fontaine’s installation Human Strike (Grève humaine) was a combined effort of labor on the part of the artists and gallery-workers where thousands of holes were drilled into the wall and then filled with matches. Although CF has performed similar tasks to this one, to elucidate just how overwhelming and potentially futile this act, some holes were left purposely unfilled. No fire and no fireworks, just the human drama of premature carpal tunnel syndrome.

For Shape Shifters at Rachel Uffner Gallery, Sam Moyer began to rip up IKEA rugs and then sealed them with encaustic. These Worry Rugs are gross mummifications of failed grids and hopeful IKEA dreams gone goth. IKEA, Minimalism, and any other overarching power-wielding -ism were never right, but Sam Moyer and Claire Fontaine don’t attempt to destroy or remedy what has already happened. Letting out a disinterested sigh, the artists leave the mess that’s already been made, letting the sticky, gooey mess pool onto itself and only then, they retreat.

a very sexy printing press

More than you ever wanted to know about Vito Acconci’s Kiss Off, a work that we all know has nothing to do with any cooly formal objectives like color transfer and instead reveals a queered body:

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/wampr/wamnewsmain/2010/01/from_the_collection_vito_accon.html

Radiohole’s Whatever, Heaven Allows at the Walker Art Center

Sometimes it’s better to be succinct rather than garrulous. Here is my review:

Radiohole is Brechtian, but they’re trying too hard. Trying too hard, like my younger cousin in Connecticut who is already pretty, but aims at looking like one of those honey-tan girls on the Hills or one of those shows she watches and I just want to tell her, “Stop with the mascara! Your eyes look like spiders are crawling out of your pupils.” We all need an editor at some point.

the men i love

This series is inspired by Annette Messager. In the 1970s, Messager made a scrapbook called The Men I Love. She tore out pages of magazines that showed glamorous Hollywood stars and rough Marlboro men, all men who she had never met, but who she was “supposed” to swoon over. She also assembled a companion book called The Men I Do Not Love.

The artist H.C. Westermann was known for his acrobatic strength, seen on top. He also had Naval tattoos and drew a lot of “death ships.” Sounds like an adult-teenager, a type that I know too well.