Posts

Written in real time:

• What’s with the aluminum bunny ears?

• So strange that a show that has been so cloying up to now suddenly embraces “shocking” art as if it were an institutional imperative(like making book covers..?!). But it is the first current issue that the producers. have dealt with. I’ll refer the readers to a definitive examination of the subject by Natalie Welch right here in Stretcher in Controversy As Canvas: Critiquing A Dead Horse

• What would Sister Wendy think? If she met Andre Serrano she’d say “what a nice young man”. And I’m glad that came over because he was, hands down, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. And I loved the knowing wave that Nao imparted to the nice man.

• “Jackie has littlest feet”

• Steamboat Willie is going to be pissed.

• Self objectification? Is that a bit redundant at this point, Honey?

• What artist stops at midnight? That just when we’re getting started!

• I don’t want to let the guy down”

• Jerry Saltz is a good speller!

• The show is a little resuscitated by this episode and yet the obvious violation of the process makes it still, as the kids say, suck. It ended on such a reductionist note, especially with the conversation between the critics that was absolutely hopeless.

• 10:56 and Nao was just eliminated! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. Squares! Squares! L7 man.

Two quick questions:

• Where’s Carlo McCormick, apparently the only decent critic in New York City?

• And where’s David Ross? One of the few people in the art world that understands the importance of television.

• “China Chow Hoyt”. How does that sound?

- Dale Hoyt [Thursday, July 1st, 2010]

Written while watching the 1 AM broadcast:

Miserable, miserable ever more miserable depiction of the world we live in and not just art. The only one that appears to be above it all is host China Chow who seems to have a particularly good heroin connection. Nao continues to brave it out despite now knowing the true meaning of pearls before swine. She continues to be as lionhearted as she is photogenic but has been reduced to the David Letterman commentator. And Mrs.Howell actually might not win because she looks as if she is going to pass away.

1:15 am - The premise of the episode is that each artist is to create a book cover for a Penguin Publishing book (a rather obscure achievement that I know of no one who would want to conquer). Each artist is given a classic book title. Reading said book is optional.

1:30 am - It all seems to, again, come down to approval by idiots. Yes the work is weak but the “critics” are weaker. And what the fuck is wrong with Jerry Saltz and why is “minimalism and “conceptualism” dirty words all of a sudden? Did the the 70s and the 80s pass the dear boy by?

1:45 am - Mrs Howell is sent to her death panel. Everybody says goodbye with hugs.

Next week may be a bit more provocative: each artist will be challenged to do something shocking. Apply quotation marks where you wish. The guest artist will be Andres Serrano who usually livens up the party.

- Dale Hoyt [Thursday, June 24th, 2010]

“I have nothing to say, and I’m saying it now”
—John Cage

Prediction: Mrs Howell will win
Suggestion: Sararh Jessica Parker should be gelded

love,
Dale

- Dale Hoyt [Friday, June 18th, 2010]

“Reality”, Vladimir Nabokov said “is the one word that is meaningless without quotation marks”.

My friends call me Gary Gilmore because anyone can have my eyes. But I never watch reality TV because, as well as finding it sinister, cynical and sloppy, most of the shows are written by scab writers. Anyone with any pro-union and Writers Guild support should not be seduced by Reality TV’s meager mouth-breather titillations. It kills me even to use the term “Reality TV” and not only because of its obvious shortcomings. But here I go (as I suspect many Stretcher readers will) committing to watching the entire ten episodes of “Work Of Art: The Next Great Artist” and day after blogging about each of those installments, starting now:

The group of contestants are as withering and whimpering as any freshman interdisciplinary class I’ve ever taught. If they were my class I’d kill them. The tight focus of on the power grid is a little blinding. The one thing that they got is attention to the fact WE HARDLY NEED TO be reminded of—a small, powerful (not to be mention arbitrary) group tells us what pictures we’ll look at. The art world is all about approval. Life and art isn’t fair.

But it’s going to be a great show. And not only because Nao Bustamante is the star (or “villain” as Vanity Fair says). It’s television which means it never ends. Tune again next week. Same Bat channel…

- Dale Hoyt [Friday, June 11th, 2010]

Christopher Knight writes in the LA Times about the legendary Guiseppe Panza di Biumo (1923-2010,) “the Milanese businessman who was the first great international collector of postwar American art.”

- Cheryl Meeker [Monday, April 26th, 2010]

I thought the paper Rigo used for his new unmanned aircraft ink drawings was unusual, but I was too involved with the power of the text and imagery to pursue that tip. As always, Rigo’s work in the current show at Gallery Paule Anglim is timely, relevant, and important in that it addresses issues avoided by the mainstream in a manner that is accessible while managing to be fresh. Through May 1, 2010.

Rigo 23
Predator / Avenger / 10,000 Feet, 2010
ink on recycled elephant dung paper
31” x 22”

- Cheryl Meeker [Thursday, April 22nd, 2010]

From the editors