A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.
— Stephane Mallarmé

Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion.
— Thomas Hobbes

Western art is built on the biographical passion of one artist for another.
— Jim Dine

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
— Mark Twain




Next Hallwalls Exhibitions
OPENING TOMORROW
SAT. APRIL 19, 8—11pm
Artists Talks @ 8pm

Buff News Dabkowski Preview

Barbara Weissberger
Are we just going to stand and watch this?



Chambliss Giobbi
Time and Again



TONIGHT, 8pm
Winston Choi solo piano
Asbury Hall at Babeville
$15/$10

Winston Choi website
Buff News Mary Kunz Preview


Tues, Apr 22, 8pm
Peter Brötzmann/Han Benninck Duo
$10 sugg don



Thurs, Apr 24, 8pm
BABEL: KIran Desai
Asbury Hall at Babeville
$25

author of The INheritance of Loss
2006 Man Booker Prize & National Book
Critics Circle Award for Fiction
Kiran Desai Interview


Hallwalls in APRIL
Apr 18 • Winston Choi (music)
Apr 19 • Barbara Weissberger, Chambliss Giobbi opening (visual arts)
Apr 22 • Peter Brötzman/Han Benninck (music)
Apr 24 • BABEL: Kiran Desaimation (literature)

For times, ticket prices, and futher details, see Hallwalls April Calendar.


May 31—Mark Your Calendars




Opening Elsewhere
• Geoffrey Alan Rhodes at Big Orbit opening Sat, May 3, 8—11pm (thru June 28)
• Michael Veit at the Castellani opening Fri, May 2, 5-9pm (thru Sept 14)
• Nancy Treherne Craig at Meibohm (E. Aurora) opening Fri, May 2 6-9pm (thru May 31)
• Jennifer Contini, Amber Maida at Redfish Studios (E. Aurora) opening Fri, May 2 (thru May 26)
• UB Dept of Visual Studies grad show at Central Terminal Sat & Sun. April 19/20, 1—5pm
• Amber Sharlow at College Street Gallery opening Fri, Apr 18, 7-9pn (thru Apr 20)
• Dawn Exton at Cosmopolitan Gallery Fri, Apr 18, 9pm


Kiseub Shin, Beth Tsai @ Squeaky Wheel

Friday, Apr 18, 7pm


Beth Hintermeyer @ Hardware

opening Thurs, Apr 24, 7pm (thru May 16)


"It opens Friday night, April 25, from 5:30-8PM, with hours 1-4 Saturday and Sunday, then it's over."

Tom Hughes @ 218 Grant Street
Exhibition announcement also arrived with three warnings:
"My studio is in an unfinished building. No bathrooms—the building is under renovation. There is a chance one may be finished. No kids—really. There is an element of danger to some of the art. I'm keeping my kids at home, please do the same."
Autocrat


Rita Argen Auerbach, George Palmer

opening at Insite, Fri, Apr 25, 7-9pm(thru May 27)
Artist Talk, Sunday, Apr 27, 2pm


Robert Schulman at Betty's
opening Mon, May 5, 6-9pm (thru June 27)



Collage Archive Project @ Anderson Gallery


Call for Work • May 5 Deadline

The Olean Public Library has a 30-year history of exhibiting the work of established and emerging artists of New York State and beyond, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.

The Olean Public Library is currently reviewing proposals for the 2009 exhibition program, which will include six solo exhibitions. The Library's visual arts program focuses on artists in Upstate New York, with particular interest on artists living in Western and Central New York. Emerging artists are encouraged to apply. Visual art in all media is shown in the space, including painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, video installations, etc. The 2009 exhibition program will include 1-2 video installations. Honorarium and travel costs provided.

Submit by May 5th: 10-20 images in slides or digital format (approx. 1 MB size each, no larger than 2 MB each), resume, artist statement, and SASE to Cynnie Gaasch, Visual Arts Curator, Olean Public Library, PO Box 284, Buffalo, NY 14205. If sending digital files, please enclose hard copy print outs of thumbnails or larger images.


Continuing Elsewhere
• Eric Jensen at NIchols School thru May 5
• Mark Lavatelli at Insite thru Apr 20
• Jennifer Steinkamp at the Albright thru June 29
• Edollia at Quaker Bonnet thru Mar 31
• (In)visible Cities by UB School of Architecture at UB Gallery thru May 17
• Kate Kennedy at El Museo thru May 24
• Shadi Nazarian at UB Art Gallery re-opens to the public July 1—July 25
• Foad Mozaffari at Big Orbit thru April 19 Arvoice Lucy Yau
• Starlight Studio: Hue Should Value Our Intensity at Albright Knox (Education corridor) thru Apr 20
• Jeffrey Vincent at Hardware thru Apr 18
• Mark Freeland at Lagniappe's (Allen St) thru May 5
• Tony Paterson at the Center for Inquiry thru May 31
• Peter Caruso, Phoenix Hawelu, Caim Hedland, Scott Klaurens, Daniel Rodgers,
• Lurie Tanner at B. West thru Apr 27
• Len Rusin at Partners in Art Gallery thru Apr 25
• Errol Daniels at Olean Public Library thru May 3
• Peter Caruso, Phoenix Hawelu, Caim Hedland, Scott Klaurens, Daniel Rodgers,
• Lurie Tanner at B. West (148 Elmwood) thru Apr 27
• Len Rusin at Partners in Art Gallery (Tonawanda) thru Apr 25
• Errol Daniels at Olean Public Library thru May 3
• James and Catherine Koenig at Meibohm Fine Arts (East Aurora) thru April 26
• Sam Francis at UB Anderson Gallery thru May 25
• Robert Swain at Nina Freudenhem thru May 14
• Diane Baker at Globe Market thru May 31
• Donna Fierle at Buffalo Bi Print thru Apr 30
• Elizabeth Leader at CG Jung Center thru May 23
• Chris Stangler at Insite thru April 20 Buff News Dabkowski review
• Douglas Repetto Colin Dabkowski review Artvoice Albert Chao and Shadi Nazarian at Ub Art Gallery thru May 17
• Art Dialogue Annual Juried Members Exhibition thru Apr 25
• Queen City Gallery First Anniversary Party with New Work by Michael Mulley thru Apr 30
• Dave Buck, Thomas Kegler at the Kenan Center thru Apr 23
• Kurt Treeby at the Castellani thru April 20
• William Cooper at Starlight Studio & Gallery thr Apr 25
• Jeffrey Swalnik at the JCC (787 Delaware) thru Apr 23
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)


Your Guide To Aggressive Common Sense
For the next several weeks, we'll continue to work our way through the alphabet and consider some definitions extracted from The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense by John Ralston Saul. We're up to the letter J...

JOGGING
An urban sport whose principle long-term effect is to cripple middle- and upper-class professionals. Enthusiasts include orthopaedic surgeons and running-shoe manufacturers.
se who have a direct impact upon reality.

JUDGE
Modern form of the word "Prince" as originally conceived by Machiavelli.
Given a choice over the final seat of authority, our public and private technocracies prefer a disinterested personage appointed for long periods of time, unattached to the daily reality and limited to passive intervention triggered either by disagreement among experts or by the shortfalls in legal clarity.
The natural and continual desire of the corporatist technocracy is therefore discreetly to remove powers from elected assemblies, governments, juries and other public bodies in order to transfer them to legal texts dependent first on administration and second on judges, who will arbitrate when required.

JURY
A body which demonstrates the inherently incomplete nature of law and fact.
Law guides. Fact illustrates. The jury then considers the best possible truth. Its work is an illustration of humanist balance, which explains why the profession of lawyers and judges is constantly reducing the type of cases and the conditions in which juries can be used.


"It’s hard to think of a political candidate in recent memory who has, in real time, inspired so much creativity, exercised free of charge and for the campaign’s benefit."

The Art of Politics


"But copyright was not on Mr. Simon’s mind when he was conceiving Captain America. He didn’t even begin with the hero. “Villains were the whole thing,” he said. And there was no better foil than Hitler. Who better to take him on than a supersoldier draped in the American flag?"

Creator of Captain America


"If an artist makes art intended to function outside the confines of an art museum, does it make sense for an art museum to present a retrospective exhibition of that artist's work?"

LA Times Christopher Knight



"What's passing into history is an aesthetic that matured in the 1970s, produced by Mexican American artists with an eye toward articulation of Mexican American experience. A full generation later, what has arrived on the scene is something different -- an aesthetic produced by Mexican American artists with an eye toward articulating whatever they darn well please."

LA Times Christopher Knight


Joseph Solman 1909—2008

NY Times


Something I listened to this week....

Over the past twenty-five years, I've listened to Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde somewhere between fifty and a hundred times. Over the past few weeks, I've been listening—over and over and over again—to the eleven minute opus that concludes the album, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Blonde On Blonde was recorded in Nashville with Robbie Robertson, Al Kooper, and a bunch of country session musicians and it's the stark simplicity of the music—and the insanely imaginative tangents that music traverses—that continues to stun me. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands—in 1966, certainly one of the longest songs in the history of popular music—exemplifies the uncharted terrain Dylan was hacking and gnawing his way through with such glee, in search of what he once referred to as "that wild mercurial sound." There's nothing trippy about the music, no sonic embellishments, and the lovely drum beat tumbles alongside an equally lovely piano riff, a quiet hum of organ, and some acoustic guitar—on the surface, a bare bones country arrangement. Layered on top is a languid, expressive vocal performance, one of the finest Dylan ever recorded. His measured, earnest and emotional delivery of lyrics that are eloquently strange, but not as half as ethereal as when you hear Dylan sing them. With all its spare, direct elements, I never fail to marvel at its cumulative, hallucinogenic effect. A great example—though there are many—of Dylan's own remark in his autobiography Chronicles Vol. 1 that people always exalt his lyrics, but he gets little credit for the melodies he's created. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands is is almost quaint in its construction, but, as Joan Baez said of Bob, "goes way deep." Go to iTunes and download the French version of the song, Trista Dama de Les Valls by Gerard Quintana and Jordi Batiste and and you'll hear what an etheral craftsman Dylan is.

The other thing I listened to this week is a mix of country music I made for a friend driving cross country...
!. Dwight Yoakum • Wheels
2. Carl Smith • If Teardrops Were Pennies
3. Patsy Cline • Walkin' After Midnight
4. Hank Thomspon • Teach Em How To Swim
5. Gram Parsons • Cry One More Times
6. Kitty Wells • It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
7. Moe Bandy • I Cheated Me Right Out of You
8. Loretta Lynn • Don't Come Home A Drinkin (With Lovin On Your MInd)
9. Merle Haggard • I Threw Away The Rose
10. Alice Gerrard & Hazel Green • Tiny Broken Heart
11. Hank Thompson • The New Green Light
12. Loretta Lynn You're Looking At Country
13. Elvis Presley • Blue Moon of Kentucky
14. Ramblin' Jack Elliott • Dark As A Dungeon
15. Dolly Parton • Jolene
16. Merle Haggard • Every Fool Has A Rainbow
17. Tammy Wynette • One Of A Kind
18. Charlie Feathers • Defrost Your Heart
19. Dolly Parton • MIssion Chapel Memories
20. Hank Thompson • On Tap, In the Can, Or in the Bottle
21. Patsy Cline • Sweet Dreams
22. Dwight Yoakum • It Only Hurts When I Cry
23. Hank Thompson • Breakin' the Rules
24. Gram Parson • In My Hour of Darkness
25. Emmlylou Harris • Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Dawn
26. Hank Thompson • We've Gone Too Far





I Am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
— Martha Washington