Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.
— Adlai Stevenson

Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.
— Marcel Proust

Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
— Thomas Jefferson

It is absurd to say that the age of miracles is past. It has not yet begun.
— Oscar Wilde

above image via artnet.


Next Hallwalls Opening
TOMORROW NIGHT
March 1, 8 to 11pm
Beginning at 8pm with an artist talk (Christina West)
and a peformance (Tommy Becker)


Here is the Artvoice cover story on Christina West by Lucy Yau.

Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris

Conduction® #173 LEAP
TONIGHT!!

Friday, February 29 @ 8 pm

Asbury Hall at Babeville

$15 general admission, $10 members/students/seniors
conduction: con duc'tion (-duk'shun), n. 1. Act of conducting or conveying, as water through a pipe 2. Physics. Transmission through or by means of a conductor; also conductivity; —distinguished in the case of heat, from convection and radiation. 3. Physiology. The transmission of excitation through living tissue, esp. in a nerve.
"Conduction® (conducted Improvisation) is a means by which a conductor may compose, (re)orchestrate, (re)arrange and sculpt with notated and non-notated music. Using a vocabulary of signs and gestures, many within the general glossary of traditional conducting, the conductor may alter or initiate rhythm, melody, harmony, not to exclude the development of form/structure, both extended and common, and the instantaneous change in articulation, phrasing, and meter. Indefinite repeats of a phrase or measures may now be at the discretion of the new Composer on the Podium. Signs such as Memory may be utilized to recall a particular moment and Literal Movement is a gesture used as a real-time graphic notation. Conducting is no longer a mere method for an interpretation but a viable connection to the process of composition and the process itself. The act of Conduction is a vocabulary for the improvising ensemble. In the past fifty years the international community of improvisers has grown at such a rate that it has forged its own in defining its present future. The geographic exchange of musics (not category) has enriched this community and holds it steadfast in its mission to be the medium with an appetite for expressing the moment. It is this Collective Imagination that is presenting the new challenge to technology and tradition with the hope of helping in the humanitarian need to broaden the language of communication. Here and now we have the possibility of helping to open new doors of employment to a community that has patiently awaited its turn to pave the way to the New Tradition, a product equal to the challenge. Yours in Art, Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris
Composer/Conductor of Improvised Music"
Lawrence Morris Website

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Unhinged

Artists and Models Affair
Saturday, May 31, 2008, 9pm to 2 am
Central Terminal, Buffalo, NY

In the past 20 incarnations of Hallwalls’ Artists & Models Affair, a multitude of Buffalo sites have served as the locus for temporary artistic expressions and controlled insanity: the Broadway Market, abandoned factories, warehouses, auto showrooms, roller rinks, deserted downtown malls and department stores, the Tri-Main Center, and the Buffalo Convention Center.

This year’s event—officially the 21st version of A&M—will return to the Central Terminal, architectural landmark, emblem of Buffalo’s glorious past and its phoenix future. Visible from miles away, the Central Terminal will, for one evening, become the hub for Unhinged—a location, a state of being, a condition, an apparition, a temporary psychosis, an inevitability.

Hallwalls is currently accepting proposals from artists for temporary, one-night installations and performances to be a featured element of Unhinged. Only a limited number of installations will be included so preference will be given to the dynamic, the compelling, the arresting, the creatively deranged, and the thematically apt. Keep in mind that, because this is an event-oriented exhibition, more subtle works better suited for a gallery or installations that require controlled environments for audio are less effective.

Participating artists will have approximately 5-7 days of installation time.
Participating artists will have a minimum of 5 days to create your installation.

Submission Tips:
• LARGE-SCALE is good for the Central Terminal
• PERFORMANCE is good
• VIDEO PROJECTION is good
• ROAMING performance is good
• AUDIENCE-PARTICIPATORY works are good

Your Unhinged Proposal should include:
1) your name, address, phone, email
2) a detailed description of your proposal (250 words), with accompanying images/sketches, if possible. (This is NOT an artist statement. It’s a description of not only what you envision but also how you plan to realize your project.)
3) an indication of your minimum space requirements 4) a list of your technical/equipment needs (if any) and your available resources.

Participating artists will receive a modest honorarium.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday, March 14, 2008

Email proposals to EACH of the following:
John Massier, Visual Arts Curator, john@hallwalls.org
Carolyn Tennant, Media Arts Director, carolyn@hallwalls.org
Polly Little, Development Director, polly@hallwalls.org

Call 716.854.1694 for more information.


Opening Elsewhere
• Kurt Treeby at the Castellani Feb1—Apr 20, opening Fri, Mar 7, 5-9pm
• Cathy Pardike at NCCC opening Thurs Feb 14, 5:30-8pm
• Roberley Bell: Becoming Blurred at Pentimenti (Philadelphia) opening Fri, Mar 7, 6-8:30pm (thru April 12)
• The Urban Artisans at the Arts Council opening Fri Feb 29 6-0pm (thru Mar 21)
• 3rd Annual Staff Exhibition at Betty's opening Mon, Mar 3, 6-9pm (thru May 4)
• Sandra Warnick Holland at Cosmopolitan Gallery SDat Mar 1, 7-9pm
• Autistic Services Emphasis on the Arts at B. West (141B Elmwood) opening Sat, Mar 1, 5-8pm (thru Mar 30)
• Love, Loss, Betrayal, and Perseverance closing reception at Guerilla Gallery (1115 Elmwood) Sat, Mar 1, 8-11pm
• Jeffrey Swalnik at the JCC (787 Delaware) opening Sun, mar 2, 2-3:30pm (thru Apr 23)


Julian Hits the Big Time aka the Albright....ahh, we knew him when...

Julian Montague: Other Orders
Opening Fri, Feb 29, 5:30—7 (thru April 6)
Collectors Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Julian also has a blog.


Coming Up in Lockport



Read the bottom line of this announcement




Eric Gansworth Exhibition & Book Signing

Canisius College will host an art show opening, book reading and reception for Eric Gansworth, professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence, on Friday, February 29, 2008 at 5 pm in front of the Peter and Mary Lou Vogt Gallery of the Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will celebrate the publication of Gansworth’s two new books: Sovereign Bones, an anthology of New Native American writing, and A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function, a collection of poems and paintings. Gansworth will read from his works, followed by an audience question and answer period, book signing and reception. The art show, featuring Gansworth’s original paintings, will run from February 29 to March 28 during regular library hours. For library hours, visit the Web site here or call (716) 888-2900.

Gansworth, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, was born and raised on the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Lewiston, NY. He has published seven books, including Mending Skins, which won a 2006 PEN Oakland Award. Gansworth’s books are available at Talking Leaves Bookstores and from Amazon at Amazon.


The Burchfield Winds Down to Wind Up


Here are the final series of events at the Burchfield-Penney's Rockwell Hall digs, the second in the Rendez-Blue series of art, music, film, and performance.

Here is the link to Lucy Yau's review for the current Burchfield Members Exhibition.


Continuing Elsewhere
• Everyday Splendor at the Carnegie thru April 5
• Jackie Felix at CG Jung Center (408 Franklin) thru March 7
• Douglas Repetto and Shadi Nazarian at Ub Art Gallery thru May 17
• Art Dialogue Members Exhibition thru Mar 14
• Amanda Besl at Lyons Wier, NY thru Mar 8
• Cathy Pardike at NCCC thru Mar 13
• Pop and Punk Art Show at Hardware thru Mar 21
• Ani Hoover at Insite Gallery thru Mar 17
• Courtney Grim at Olean Public Library thru Mar 29
• CEPA Members Exhibition, Keith Johnson, and Colleen Cunningham thru Mar 15 Buffalo News
• Big Orbit Members Exhibition thru Mar 1 Artvoice Lucy Yau
• Scott Richter at Nina Freudenheim thru March 12
• Toni Pepe at Buffalo Big Print thru March 21
• Catherine Shuman Miller at Nichols School thru March 10
• Bingyi at Max Protech, NY thru Mar 15
• MIchael Rogers and Jack Wax at the RoCo thru Apr 6
• Jeff Sherven at Betty's thru March 2
• Bruce Jackson at CDS/Duke University thru April 6
• Julian Montague's Stray Shopping Carts at The Light Factory, North Carolina thru Feb 22
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)


On View Now, Opening Reception March 16, 3—5pm (thru March 23)



Artpark Sculpture Competition: Deadline March 31/08



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 C...

CANADA:
1. So complicated that nobody knows how it works, which causes Canadian social scientists to talk about it all the time, which causes foreigners to say it's boring because nothing ever happens.
2. The most decentralized country in existence, which causes Canadians to complain constantly about the power of the federal government.
3. Administered under the third oldest constitution in the world, which causes Canadians to insist that it has never worked and must be changed.
4. The only major country in which the two leading western cultures have managed to live peacefully together for several centuries, causing Canadians to insist that they cannot live together.
5. Burdened by the laziest elite of any developed nation; people who have made their fortunes by selling off the country's resources and by working for more energetic foreigners. They are most comfortable on their knees, admiring those from larger countries who have purchased them.
6. A country where 95 per cent of the land is north of the major cities, which causes its urban inhabitants to treat their hinterland as an embarrassing and backward region, while pretending that they themselves are situated hundreds of miles to the south, somewhere between New York and Florida.

CYNICISM:
An effective social mechanism for preventing communication.
Cynicism is found in people who see themselves principally as members of a class or ideological group and not as individuals. It indicates a lack of self-confidence. Through an appearance of world-weariness it attempts to suggest the possession of inside knowledge. The cynic knows and can't be bothered to tell those who are ignorant.
Since no real discussion is possible, the cynic's group-attitude cannot be questioned. Cynicism is thus an aggressively superior attitude which aborts debate in order to disguise inferiority.
As a result, the eithteenth century idea that wrongdoing was caused by ignorance has been reversed. Instead, the possession of expert knowledge is regularly used to argue that only the naive don't understand why it is necessary and even good to do wrong. This approach has been particularly popular in the Neo-conservative movement as a way of justifying economic policies which produce suffering.


"Art paralysis: It is a widespread and often crippling malady, striking everyone from the new college grad in his or her first apartment to the super-rich banker, lasting anywhere from a few months to a lifetime. How many are affected is not known, perhaps because the victims are often too embarrassed to come forth."

NY Times


"She had no experience to speak of — she had never even bought a photograph or a painting — but she did have two clear goals: to help emerging artists become more appreciated, and to encourage a broader swath of people to feel comfortable buying art."

NY Times


“Robbe-Grillet is important because he...attacked the last bastion of the traditional art of writing: the organization of literary space...the realm of qualification, for him, can be only spatial or situational.”

NY Times


“Wonderful collections can become a burden unless they are cleared of unused objects.”

NY Times


It's never too early to pine for spring training...

In February 1962, Sports Illustrated sent the illustrator Robert Weaver to cover spring training in Florida fora series of paintings in the March 5, 1962, issue of the magazine. Here are some drawings from his sketchbook.


Magda Cordell McHale 1922—2008

Buffalo News


Buddy Miles 1948—2008

NY Times


William F. Buckley Jr. 1926—2008

NY Times

Here is a really great discussion about Buckley on PBS' Newshour this week.


Baird Jones 1954—2008

artnet Finch


Something I listened to this week...

I've been catching up, as you all should, with Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. This Bob fellah knows a bit about music and pulls a lot of wonderful stuff from the long, deep past of musical history and chances are you will have heard very little of what he plays. He keeps his chat between songs short, pithy, and informative and that gravelly voice of his will quickly hypnotize you with its charm. The poster above is drawn by the great Jaime Hernandez and the throaty voice introducing each episode is none other than Ellen Barkin.

You can find the entire first season of 50 one hour shows archived here in zip form.

Second season here.






When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed.
— Horace

We're mortal – which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful – but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?
— Poul Anderson

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.
— Leonard Cohen

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
— Theodore Roosevelt

If you want to be happy, be.
— Leo Tolstoy


image above: NY Times


Time Changes Everything


When I arrived in Buffalo in 2001, Claire Schneider, then Associate Curator at the Albright-Knox, was the FIRST person in town to say, "Hey, you're new. Let's go have dinner!" She might have just been craving sushi, as we went to Kunis on Elmwood, but I'm pleased to say that evening began one of the warmest friendships I've had in my life. Claire turned out to be a close professional colleague and one of my best friends, in Buffalo or elsewhere. And I expect that to continue.

Claire and I do not always agree about art. Sometimes we do. But there have been more than a few times where I might express enthusiasm about something only to have Claire crinkle her nose with pointed uncertainty. It never made me second-guess my own instincts, but it's always given me added perspective and depth to navigate the space between our differing opinions. No matter our individual opinions, Claire and I have always shared a bottomless enthusiasm about art and that's a deep, satisfying well to get lost in together. In fact, I'm not sure I met anyone in Buffalo more overtly expressive about their passion for art. In a field where a "cool remove" is often the order of the day, it's fucking life-affirming that someone wear their art-heart so emphatically on their sleeve.

It really fills me with tremendous sadness that Claire will be leaving Buffalo, having accepted a position as Senior Curator at the SMoCA in Scottsdale, Arizona. At least it'll be a dry curatorial heat. Claire will, interestingly enough, be working for Director Susan Crane who herself used to be a curator at the Albright Knox. Claire is shifting gears after a long and productive career at the Albright, stretching over the course of nine years. It shouldn't surprise any of us that arts professionals need new terrain every once in a while, new grounds upon which to graze. Having cut her professional teeth at one of America's finest museums and finest collections, Claire is moving into a much different sphere—to a moca that is less than a decade old and which is closer to a temporary-contemporary model of venue than a collection-based museum. I have no doubt that Claire's particular brand of feverish energy is going to encounter fertile ground to flourish. The folks in Scottsdale will quickly realize how lucky they are.

I'm going to miss doing studio visits with Claire, and talking art, and having her smack sense into me when I say something stupid. I'm going to really miss her laugh (second perhaps only to Mark Lavatelli, in terms of Buffalo art world guffaws) I really wish she were staying in Buffalo and I certainly don't hold that sentiment alone. But that's just my own selfishness talking—I also wish that Home of the Hits and The Royal Pheasant were still open.



Time changes everything and people need to follow the trajectories of their own personal dreams. Plus, now I have someone to visit in the desert when that lousy Smarch weather hits.

Here is the SMoCA media release announcing Claire's appointment:

SMoCA Announces New Senior Curator
(Scottsdale, AZ) The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] is pleased to announce that Claire Schneider is joining the Museum staff as senior curator. Ms. Schneider will assume her position on site on April 21, 2008 but will begin working with the curatorial team beforehand on a major exhibition project for the Museum’s tenth anniversary year (2009).

Ms. Schneider comes to SMoCA after ten years as a curator at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, one of the nation’s oldest and most esteemed modern and contemporary art museums. She previously served as adjunct curator at the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland and also as a curatorial intern at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), North Adams; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. A native of Tennessee, Schneider received her B.A. in art history from Tufts University, Boston and her M.A. in art history from Williams College, known as a stellar training ground for museum professionals.

SMoCA Director Susan Krane stated, “I am thrilled to welcome Claire to SMoCA’s staff. She has a rare combination of creative vision and strong curatorial training—with especially impressive writing and research skills. Claire has consistently demonstrated an energetic commitment to both artists and museum audiences. She truly believes that museums are public educational institutions. Her innovative and thought-provoking approach to exhibitions, installations and interpretation is a perfect match for the Museum’s mission, as is her experience with architectural projects. She will be an asset not only to SMoCA but to the greater arts community in the Valley.”

Schneider has organized and implemented exhibitions of the work of Mathew Barney, Andrea Zittel, Jim Hodges, Paul Pfeiffer, Franz West, Julie Mehretu, Tashiko Mori, Janine Antoni, Kara Walker, Laylah Ali and Paul Noble, among many others. She co-curated Extreme Abstraction, 2005, a monumental international survey of over 150 artists that included twenty site-specific installations and commissions. Schneider is known for her collaborative approach and keen ability to successfully lead complex project teams and community partnerships.

ABOUT SMoCA: Mission: The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art champions creativity, innovation and the vitality of the visual arts. We seek to build and to educate audiences for modern and contemporary art, as well as to provide opportunities for the artistic community-locally, nationally and internationally. SMoCA provides a memorable experience of art, architecture and design by exploring new curatorial approaches and by highlighting cultural context. We interpret, exhibit, collect and preserve works in these media.


Next Hallwalls Opening March 1....

"We Do Not Remember, We Rewrite History"
An Evening with Brett Kashmere
Sat Feb. 23, 8 pm @ HW

Through intricate experimental documentaries and unadorned camera moves, the Canadian filmmaker Brett Kashmere explores the intersection of history and (counter-) memory, geographies of identity, and the politics of representation. His work, which has screened internationally at the London Film Festival, Made in Video: International Video Art Festival in Copenhagen, New York's Anthology Film Archives, the Kassel Documentary Festival in Germany, and The Images Festival in Toronto, combines traditional research methods with hybrid interfaces, handmade equipment, and materialist aesthetics. His most recently completed film-essay, Valery's Ankle, explores the spectacle of hockey violence in North American media. The film scholar Thomas Waugh writes that Valery's Ankle "may well give momentum (and integrity) to the discourses of sports, masculinity, and nationalism in Canadian cinemas."

Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris

Conduction® #173 LEAP

Friday, February 29 @ 8 pm

Asbury Hall at Babeville

$15 general admission, $10 members/students/seniors
conduction: con duc'tion (-duk'shun), n. 1. Act of conducting or conveying, as water through a pipe 2. Physics. Transmission through or by means of a conductor; also conductivity; —distinguished in the case of heat, from convection and radiation. 3. Physiology. The transmission of excitation through living tissue, esp. in a nerve.
"Conduction® (conducted Improvisation) is a means by which a conductor may compose, (re)orchestrate, (re)arrange and sculpt with notated and non-notated music. Using a vocabulary of signs and gestures, many within the general glossary of traditional conducting, the conductor may alter or initiate rhythm, melody, harmony, not to exclude the development of form/structure, both extended and common, and the instantaneous change in articulation, phrasing, and meter. Indefinite repeats of a phrase or measures may now be at the discretion of the new Composer on the Podium. Signs such as Memory may be utilized to recall a particular moment and Literal Movement is a gesture used as a real-time graphic notation. Conducting is no longer a mere method for an interpretation but a viable connection to the process of composition and the process itself. The act of Conduction is a vocabulary for the improvising ensemble. In the past fifty years the international community of improvisers has grown at such a rate that it has forged its own in defining its present future. The geographic exchange of musics (not category) has enriched this community and holds it steadfast in its mission to be the medium with an appetite for expressing the moment. It is this Collective Imagination that is presenting the new challenge to technology and tradition with the hope of helping in the humanitarian need to broaden the language of communication. Here and now we have the possibility of helping to open new doors of employment to a community that has patiently awaited its turn to pave the way to the New Tradition, a product equal to the challenge. Yours in Art, Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris
Composer/Conductor of Improvised Music"
Lawrence Morris Website

Opening Elsewhere
• Kurt Treeby at the Castellani Feb1—Apr 20, opening Fri, Mar 7, 5-9pm
• Cathy Pardike at NCCC opening Thurs Feb 14, 5:30-8pm
• Roberley Bell: Becoming Blurred at Pentimenti (Philadelphia) opening Fri, Mar 7, 6-8:30pm (thru April 12)


Pamela Enz at Squeaky Wheel

Friday, Feb 22, 8pm
Pamela Enz Homepage


Eric Gansworth Exhibition & Book Signing

Canisius College will host an art show opening, book reading and reception for Eric Gansworth, professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence, on Friday, February 29, 2008 at 5 pm in front of the Peter and Mary Lou Vogt Gallery of the Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will celebrate the publication of Gansworth’s two new books: Sovereign Bones, an anthology of New Native American writing, and A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function, a collection of poems and paintings. Gansworth will read from his works, followed by an audience question and answer period, book signing and reception. The art show, featuring Gansworth’s original paintings, will run from February 29 to March 28 during regular library hours. For library hours, visit the Web site here or call (716) 888-2900.

Gansworth, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, was born and raised on the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Lewiston, NY. He has published seven books, including Mending Skins, which won a 2006 PEN Oakland Award. Gansworth’s books are available at Talking Leaves Bookstores and from Amazon at Amazon.


The Burchfield Winds Down to Wind Up


Here are the final series of events at the Burchfield-Penney's Rockwell Hall digs, the second in the Rendez-Blue series of art, music, film, and performance.

Here is the link to Lucy Yau's review for the current Burchfield Members Exhibition.


Courtney Grim
paisaje de estructurales
a video installation of las llamas and costa verde

Olean Public Library opening Sunday, February 24, 2—4 pm (thru Mar 29)


Douglas Repetto, Shadi Nazarian, and Tangential Reform

opening at UB Art Gallery Thurs, Feb 28, 5 to 7pm
Repetto talk @ 5pm, Nazarian talk @ 5:30
thru May 17(Repetto, Nazarian) and March 22(Tangential)

Douglas Repetto’s two installations in the first floor gallery revel in madcap interactivity and DIY technologies. action at a distance is a bewitching tangle of motors and pulleys, zigzags of rope, an otter theater, jangling bells, fireflies, switches, breath activators, and rough steel. Small gestures made by visitors are amplified and transmitted via motors and rope, repurposed as the drivers of small dramas tucked into corners and nooks. everything, all at once is a sudden condensation of sound and reflections: a dense net of hundreds of bells, mirrors, motors, lights, and vibrations envelop the viewer. These immersive performance and listening experiences attest to how the visual arts are being revolutionized by new technologies such as sensors and interactive performance systems.

Repetto is an artist and teacher whose varied interests exemplify the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary art production today. His work, which includes sculpture, installation, performance, recordings, and software, is presented internationally. He is the founder of a number of art/community-oriented groups including dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity, ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, organism: making art with living systems, and the music-dsp mailing list and website. Repetto is Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center and lives in New York City.

Shadi Nazarian frames and choreographs an architectural experience as audiences are drawn toward a responsive minimalist structure, seemingly hovering in midair. Working in the fertile intersections of art, architecture, and emergent technology, she employs switchable Liquid crystal layered privacy glass to explore cognition and think about the ways in which we navigate the environment we live in. In the commercial sector, privacy glass has been used primarily for partitions, display cases, bank screens, and as enclosures for conference rooms, and provocatively, in dressing rooms and bathrooms. Presented in an academic and artistic context, Introversions seeks to discover how new materials such as privacy glass fundamentally alter spatial relationships and human perception. Nazarian isolates and enhances disorienting moments inherent to urban conditions that are triggered by reflections and other strange sights seen out of the corner of the eye by combining minimalist sculpture and architecture to generate uncanny optical effects.

Nazarian moved to New York City in 1989 to join I.M. Pei & Partners as an architectural designer, and then to Ithaca, NY to teach at Cornell University (1991-92, and 1999-2002). She has been teaching at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning since 1994.

Tangential Reform features the artwork of David Andree, Shelby A. Baron, Michael Beitz, Morgan Calhoon, Andrew Engl, Abigail Hendrickson, Nina Leo, Ryan Legassicke, Clayton Letourneau, Naomi Marine, David Munson, and Kara Newbauer. The dynamic exhibition will include a variety of mediums and styles including sculpture, printmaking, video, painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography.

above: Douglas Repetto, action at a distance (detail), 2008


Pop and Punk Art Show

at The Hardware Café
Opening Sat. Feb 23, 7—9pm
(thru March 21)


Continuing Elsewhere
(winding down/see em now)
• Everyday Splendor at the Carnegie thru April 5
• Jackie Felix at CG Jung Center (408 Franklin) thru March 7
• Art Dialogue Members Exhibition thru Mar 14
• Ani Hoover at Insite Gallery thru Mar 17
• CEPA Members Exhibition, Keith Johnson, and Colleen Cunningham thru Mar 15 Buffalo News
• Big Orbit Members Exhibition thru Mar 1 Artvoice Lucy Yau
• Scott Richter at Nina Freudenheim thru March 12
• Toni Pepe at Buffalo Big Print thru March 21
• Joey Buczek at Hardware thru Feb 23
• Catherine Shuman Miller at Nichols School thru March 10
• MIchael Rogers and Jack Wax at the RoCo thru Apr 6
• Jose Bello at El Museo thru Feb 29
• Philip Hendrickson, Stephen Houseknecht, Amanda Wachob at Buffalo Arts Studio thru Feb 22
• The Panza Collection at the Albright thru Feb 24 Buffalo News Cynnie Gaasch
• Jeff Sherven at Betty's thru March 2
• Bruce Jackson at CDS/Duke University thru April 6
• Julian Montague's Stray Shopping Carts at The Light Factory, North Carolina thru Feb 22
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)


Artpark Sculpture Competition: Deadline March 31/08



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. This week's selections are:

BANKERS:
Pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted.
All three Western religions have always forbidden the collection of interest on loans. When Samuel Johnson defined the banker in the eighteenth century his status was clear: "One that trafficks in money." Their venal sin of usury continues to sit high on lists of scriptural wrongdoing, which raises the question of why bankers tend to be frequent churchgoers.

BLUE JEANS:
One of the most successful impositions of voluntary visual conformism in the history of the world. Curiously enough, the primary attribute of this particular piece of clothing is meant to be a rejection of conformity in the name of individualism.


Who's That Girl?

In New York for her solo exhibition at Lyons Wier, Amanda Besl finds some quality time with Buffalo expatriate Artemis.


I Know It Happened And It Happened Like This

Rochester artist Heather Layton forwarded this image of her installation in front of the George Eastman House.


Will These Circles Ever Be Unbroken?

Buffalo artist Ani Hoover has loaded up a pile of paintings for viewing on flickr.


"When I awoke, I found cheese, two giant pretzels and a big bottle of beer mysteriously sitting outside of my door. Germans are awesome."

artnet Reverend Jen



"No rent is paid by the gallery. There is no sign. The door on 11th Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets looks a little like a breach in the wall. The gallery will generally keep Chelsea hours, open Tuesdays through Saturdays. But most of the time there will be no one attending it."

NY Times



Andrew Topolski 1953—2008

Andrew Topolski was one of four artists to exhibit in Hallwalls’ very first exhibition of visual art, Spatial Survey, which opened Jan. 22, 1975. (The others were Robert Longo, Joe Panone, & Roger Rapp.)
Buffalo News
Topolski homepage



"Your gonna need a bigger boat..."

That was the best line in Jaws, one of the best lines in 1970s cinema, delivered impeccably by the late Roy Scheider, though it was not necessarily my favorite Scheider role. See also: The French Connection (one of my all-time favorites), The Seven Ups (a lesser known cop drama with a SPECTACULAR car chase), All That Jazz ("It's showtime!") and the nearly-forgotten Friedkin epic Sorcerer.
NY Times



Alain Robbe-Grillet 1923—2008

NY Times


Dorothy Podber 1933—2008

NY Times


Something I listened to this week...

It actually sounds like "apples in stereo," all shiny and slick and sugary. It might be the finest pure pop album I've heard in a long time, but it took me a while to figure out what is was I really liked about it. There are an absurd number of irresistible riffs, hooks, melodies, and vocal lines, but that's not it. Just like Nick Cave's Grinderman, New Magnetic Wonder is concocted with all the instruments and all the vocals right up front in the mix. Every sound is completely in your face. That's something I love because it makes often albums that aren't recorded live in the studio sound like they are. If you're not sure you would like this, try downloading the instant classics Play Tough and Radiation, each worth a 99 cent purchase price.


Here's the story: "In 1966, a toy company in Newark, New Jersey released a children's record called Batman and Robin to cash in on the popular Adam West TV series of the same name. The music on the LP was credited to "The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale," but in fact the band was one of the greatest uncredited session combos of all time, including the core of Sun Ra's Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project. To keep the music licensing fees to a minimum, all the tracks were based on public domain items like Chopin's Polonaise Op. 53, the horn theme from Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and the love theme from Romeo and Juliet, and generic rock riffs."
It's a pretty super-cool album, with very little of it alluding to or reminding one of Batman. Download it FOR FREE here.


When you're getting over some heinous bronchial infection and you've got zero energy, the Reverend Al will lull you back to the land of the living. It's all good...





Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained.
— John Stuart Mill