Paranoia means having all the facts.
— William S. Burroughs

When I invite a woman to dinner, I expect her to look at my face. That's the price she has to pay.
— Groucho Marx

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.
— Benjamin Disraeli

The young always have the same problem: how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
— Quentin Crisp




@ HW continuing thru Dec 20
gallery hrs Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 1—4pm

Jesse Webber
"You can't smoke in here, Mr. Corbusier, you'll burn this mother down."

"Jesse Webber’s new series of prints is an homage to the historic trip made by Le Corbusier to the industrial area now known as the American Rust Belt in the early 20th century. Le Corbusier, as well as other modernist architects, were drawn to these buildings as they exemplified the spirit of modernist architecture in it's purest sense. Form derived from strict function—the building as a living machine. At the time of this trip, these areas enjoyed a boom of economic expansion at the top of newly emerging global markets. Upon seeing the grain elevators, Le Corbusier is reported to have exclaimed "The fruits of the modern era are upon us!" Corbusier did not forsee the depression and late-century decline that would eventually occur, nor could he have known that the particular open celled forms of these structures combined with grains that were stored in their interiors, and the gases and dust that they released, literally turned many of these grain elevators into architectural time bombs."


Kara Tanaka
Pining Wind

"Pining Wind is a communications satellite designed to eliminate the boundary between the illusion we know as reality and the reality of illusion by fracturing and multiplying the events of two lovesick lives. A video housed in the satellite tells a cyclical story that begins in the 9th century and ends in a century far in the future.

"The video Pining Wind (Fragmented on the Night Sea of Eternity) tells a mutated version of one of the most intimately human dramas, Matsukaze, a tale of pain and desire spurred on by the profound connection to illusion. Two spirits are trapped in the world of the living, enslaved in the ghost realm because of their longing for a lover who disappeared centuries ago. Their steadfast devotion to the impossible return of the lover repeats itself with every reincarnation of the spirits, and every subsequent punishment only invigorates their passionate crime."

Here's an exhibition review by Colin Dabkowski in the News.

Opening Elsewhere
• Kara Daving, Scott Bye, Viktoria Clostek, Oreen Cohen at Artspace op Sat, Nov 29, 6-9pm (thru Dec 20)
• Nancy Treherne Craig @ Viridian Artists Inc. (NYC) op Fri, Nov 28, 4-7pm (thru Dec 20)
• Artful Gifts @ Art Dialogue op Fri, Nov 28, 7:30—9pm (thru Dec 30)
• Beth Munro and Robert Ivers @ Nichols op Fri, Nov 28, 4-6pm (thru Jan 16)
• Becky Koenig Open Studi SAt, Nov 29, 10am to 5pm, 1413 Hertel Ave

Tim Leary @ Burnwood Studios (885 NIagara)

op Friday, Nov 25, 7-10pm (thru
Bryan Lohr writes: " We'll also have tables set up for various local artists and artisans

with a different featured artist every week throughout December. On top of that, we'll be liquidating much of the contents from the former Antique Architectural Circus that used to occupy the premises. Something old, something new, something unexpected."

Channels: Storeis from the Niagara Frontier 2008

@ Market Arcade Sun, Nov 30, 3pm FREE
w/ films by Brett Williams and Scott Murchie, Ruth Goldman, Holly Johnson, Carl Lee

Amy Luraschi: Apt. Noir

@ Big Orbit op Sat, Dec 6, 8-11pm
thru Jan 17

30 Days To Shop and Save The Economy

Continuing Elsewhere
• Bruce Adams @ the Center for Inquiry thru Dec 24
• OP Art Revisited at the Albright thru Jan 25
• LInda Gale Gellman, Nancy J. Parisi, Robert Schulman @ Studio Hart thru Jan 3
• Noncommittal and MicroCosmic @ UB Art Gallery (thru Feb 7)
• Harvey Breverman, Bruce Jackson, Terri Katz-Kasimov at UB Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Catherine Parker @ Indigo (74 Allen) thru Nov 30 Samuels' new digs
• Richard Huntington, Max Streicher @ the Castellani thru Jan 18
On the one hand, thirty years of paintings crunched into an intensely swift mini-retrospective. On the other, a gigantic inflated dung beettle. Win/win!
• Andrea Ruggieri @ Olean Public Library thru Dec 3
• Buffalo Arts Studio Annual Artists Exhibit & Sale thru Jan 3
• A Holiday Bizarre at Grant St. Gallery (216 Grant) thru Jan 17)
• Mary Weig at Betty's thru Jan 11
• XIVth Fall National Show juried by Holly Hughes at Impact • Joey Buczak at Buff State thru Dec 5
• Julian Montague @ Armand Bartos Fine Art (NYC) as part of Sign/Age Pt II: Lost in the Supermarket thru Dec 19
• Rebecca Smith @ NIna Freudenheim thru Jan 13
• Sonia Peñaranda-Taggart @ 27 Holboro Dr (Orchard Pk) thru Dec 20
• Gene Witkowski, Glenn Murray, Robert Schultz, MIchael Mulley, Tim Raymond, Evan Everhart, Jeannine Swallow, Nick deMarchi, Jerry Greenberg @ College St. Gallery thru Nov 30
• Bruce Adams at the Center for Inquiry thru Dec 31 Buffalo News
• Mark Duquette @ Alleyway Theater thru Nov 30
• Trans-Evolution: Examining Bio Art @ CEPA thru Dec 20
• Bruce Adams & Richard Huntington at the Carnegie thru Dec 13
• Michael Goldberg @ Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Geraldine LIquidano, Alan Larson @ Galeria Blanca (4222 N. Buffalo Rd, Orchard Pk) thru Dec 14
• Adele Cohen @ Buffalo Big Print thru Nov 29
• Adele Becker, Susan Budash, Susan Copley, Jason Klinger, Ginny Lohr @ Amherst Jewish Center (Getzville) thru Nov 30
• Michael Goldberg @ UB Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Rita Argen Auerbach at The Mansion on Delaware (until daylight savings time ends)
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)

The Sunshine of Your Ginger Jesus
When I go shopping with someone, I have this preternatural ability to never find what I'm looking for while the person I'm with (who is never looking for anything) finds their own version of what I want. It happened in Toronto this summer as I scoured the town for new running shoes, found nothing while Carlo "Imelda Marcos" Cesta found his dream pair, on sale no less, within fifteen minutes. More recently, I was complaining to Buffalo Arts Studio curator Cori Wolff that I have never managed to find a cool painting at a thrift shop or flea market. Of course, shortly after my complaint, Cori scored this ten dollar masterpiece:

At first, I thought it was the world famous lord and savior Jesus Christ and had that been the case, we might have had to arm-wrestle for it. But it was actually a 1967 painting someone had done of Cream drummer Ginger Baker. Cori explained how she grew up listening to Cream because her mother always played them. I could not top that sentimental rationale. It's disturbingly hilarious and, I might add, very painterly, with thick, visible brush strokes. Best of all, the artist took the time to hand-carve the title directly into the frame. I think I speak for both of us when I say Ginger Jesus made our day.

Clough In The House

Hallwalls co-founder Charles Clough, in town for the Burchfield opening last week, stopped by to visit Hallwalls.

Official Website

"At a time when oil prices and oil dependence are forcing us to rethink the wisdom of suburban and exurban living, Buffalo could eventually offer a blueprint for repairing America’s other shrinking postindustrial cities."

I kept forgetting to post this piece because I knew everyone in Buffalo had already read it. So, for those of you located Elsewhere...
NY Times

"We were excited to work on the logo and energized by the prospect of Mr. Obama’s campaign. However, we didn’t pursue or develop the work because we were motivated exclusively by ideology. It was an opportunity to do breakthrough work at the right time in what’s become a predictable graphic landscape."

NY Times

Eavesdropping in Toronto

@ YYZ, Toronto, thru Dec 13
John asked myself and the great Steve Reinke to write a couple of texts for his current show Eavesdropping On Objects, which you can read here.

É un magnete di frigorifero!

Carlo Cesta at Fly Gallery, Toronto, thru Nov 30.

Betty James 1918—2008

NY Times obit

Something I listened to this week...

I'm still fully locked into Bob Dylan's Tell Tale Signs, but the ageless sound of that record—and Bob's version of Miss The Mississippi—has led me backward in time and I've been playing the shit out of this splendid piece of 1958 vinyl by Jimmy Rodgers, his first album. Interesting in that it doesn't sound exactly like a country album, though Rodgers does employ some deft yodeling trills here and there, and it doesn't exactly sound like a rock and roll record, even though Rodgers was recording during the birth of the genre. And despite the ultra-pleasant album cover art, there's always a dark edge to Rodgers. Voice of a sad, beautiful angel. This may be the vinyl that prompts me to use that usb cable that came with the turntable.

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again. Because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, he who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt

Men have become the tools of their tools.
— Henry David Thoreau

Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day.
— Mickey Rooney

A credulous mind...finds most delight in believing strange things, and the stranger they are the easier they pass with him; but never regards those that are plain and feasible, for every man can believe such.
— Samuel Butler

I'm not a malcontent.
— Lee Harvey Oswald


The Player and The Player Hater

Tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Had he lived, JFK would be 91 this year, likely with a full head of gray hair and groping his private nurses. Instead, he has spent the last four decades in that freeze-frame of sudden death that lionizes those who die in a violent, unexpected moment by their own hand or someone else's. And while JFK might have preferred to reach a ripe old age, he has "enjoyed" a second, albeit perverse, lifetime in the annals of popular culture and mythology. There have been almost 1,000 books written on the Kennedy assassination, more than any other single day event. If you include books that feature a chapter on the subject, you're looking at closer to 2,000.

Over the last 35 years, since I was 10 years old, I've read just over 50 books on the subject. All but six of those have foisted the notion of a conspiracy in the death of JFK and ALL of these have monumentally failed to support their speculative assertions. When I was younger, I read about the subject because I wanted to know "what really happened." As I got older, it became much more about the malleability of narrative, just how many ways one could tell a story. This enabled me to continue reading the most outrageous theories for the sake of pure storytelling entertainment. It is, after all, the ultimate tale of American Pulp Gothic Noir. In more recent years, the stark banality of the crime—the ordinary parts that comprise an extraordinary moment—has become ever more clear to me. I've found NOTHING to substantiate anyone's claim to conspiracy and have instead concluded that the JFK assassination was the most successful crime of opportunity in the twentieth century.

I want to write a bona fide stand-alone post on the subject, but whenever I try, I find I can't decide which rabbit hole to dive into first, at which point to start, or where to take the narrative. There are just too many ways to tell the story so for now, for the sake of blogtainmentucation, let's try this...

The story of the JFK assassination is the story of The Ultimate Player who charmed the ass off a nation with a flashing smile, rapier wit, calculated humility and, as author James Ellroy once put it, "a world class haircut." He duked it out successfully with Cold War commies, shagged just about everything in a skirt that entered the White House, had Elvis-level good looks, a George Hamilton tan, yet spent much of his time hopped up on speed and cortisone and wearing a back brace for a body too fragile even for touch football. He sent the National Guard into the South to subdue segregationist uprisings, meanwhile plotting to overthrow, even assassinate, Fidel Castro. He was slow to support civil rights, then went on tv and called it a "moral issue." He had to climb a steep hill of public opinion to overcome suspicions that his Catholic background would mean he was papally-infected then named his brother Attorney General.

It's also the story of Lee Oswald, the Ultimate Player-Hater, whose favorite tv show was I Led Three Lives, who joined the Marines—like his brothers before him—to get away from an overbearing and self-centered mother who had spent his entire life explaining what a burden he was to here. He spent his entire tenure as a Marine acting the contrarian and espousing the virtues of Communism and revving up his adoration of Fidel Castro. In trying to defect to Russia, he clumsily attempted suicide to force the Soviets to let him stay, after which he became disillusioned with life there and came back to America with his Russian wife and proceeded to despise every job he ever had. He made up aliases for himself and tried endlessly to ingratiate himself to the American Communist Party by making himself out to be a political agitator and propagandist. He attempted to assassinate a famous right wing zealot six months before his menial job as a stockboy would lay the perfect crime of opportunity before his feet.

Make no mistake, JFK was loved, revered, and admired, but he was also dissed, punked, capped and finally pimped into eternity. An unremarkable man made a remarkable man his bitch. And the saddest part of the tale is that thousands of people spent the next several decades cobbling together the most imaginative tales of absolution for the man who actually did the crime.

Don't believe the hype, kids. The actuality of the event is far more banal—and in that respect, FAR more interesting, as real life usually is.


@ HW continuing thru Dec 20
gallery hrs Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 1—4pm

Jesse Webber
"You can't smoke in here, Mr. Corbusier, you'll burn this mother down."

"Jesse Webber’s new series of prints is an homage to the historic trip made by Le Corbusier to the industrial area now known as the American Rust Belt in the early 20th century. Le Corbusier, as well as other modernist architects, were drawn to these buildings as they exemplified the spirit of modernist architecture in it's purest sense. Form derived from strict function—the building as a living machine. At the time of this trip, these areas enjoyed a boom of economic expansion at the top of newly emerging global markets. Upon seeing the grain elevators, Le Corbusier is reported to have exclaimed "The fruits of the modern era are upon us!" Corbusier did not forsee the depression and late-century decline that would eventually occur, nor could he have known that the particular open celled forms of these structures combined with grains that were stored in their interiors, and the gases and dust that they released, literally turned many of these grain elevators into architectural time bombs."


Kara Tanaka
Pining Wind

"Pining Wind is a communications satellite designed to eliminate the boundary between the illusion we know as reality and the reality of illusion by fracturing and multiplying the events of two lovesick lives. A video housed in the satellite tells a cyclical story that begins in the 9th century and ends in a century far in the future.

"The video Pining Wind (Fragmented on the Night Sea of Eternity) tells a mutated version of one of the most intimately human dramas, Matsukaze, a tale of pain and desire spurred on by the profound connection to illusion. Two spirits are trapped in the world of the living, enslaved in the ghost realm because of their longing for a lover who disappeared centuries ago. Their steadfast devotion to the impossible return of the lover repeats itself with every reincarnation of the spirits, and every subsequent punishment only invigorates their passionate crime."

Here's an exhibition review by Colin Dabkowski in today's News.

Derek
@ HW TONIGHT @ 8pm

"A collaboration between British artist Isaac Julien and actress Tilda Swinton, Derek is a moving tribute to a friend and an intimate portrait of the artist, painter, writer, gay activist, gardener and filmmaker. Featuring rarely seen home movie footage, interviews, and excerpts of Jarman's feature films, pop promos and super-8 work. A fundraiser for Life Memorial Park (at the corner of Porter Avenue, Normal Avenue, and Jersey Street in Buffalo.)

Opening Elsewhere
• Julian Montague @ Armand Bartos Fine Art (NYC) as part of Sign/Age Pt II: Lost in the Supermarket op Fri, Nov 21, 6-8pm (thru Dec 19)
• Rebecca Smith @ NIna Freudenheim op Sat, Nov 22, 6-8pm (thru Jan 13)
• Sonia Peñaranda-Taggart @ 27 Holboro Dr (Orchard Pk) thru Dec 20
• Nancy Treherne Craig @ Viridian Artists Inc. (NYC) op Fri, Nov 28, 4-7pm (thru Dec 20)
• Artful Gifts @ Art Dialogue op Fri, Nov 28, 7:30—9pm (thru Dec 30)
• Beth Munro and Robert Ivers @ Nichols op Fri, Nov 28, 4-6pm (thru Jan 16)

Burchfield Ascendant

If you've often thought that you can never get enough Burchfield Penney the way Christopher Walken can never get enough cowbell, this is the weekend for you. The museum with the blingiest, most pimpin' signage in Western New York will open tonight for members and to the rest of the world at 10am tomorrow for 31 staff-killin' hours of art overload. Wait til Hour 27 and see if the staff is punchy enough to lend you money or confirm that retrospective exhibition. It should be gratifying to everyone that our regional museum, after so many years on the third floor of Rockwell Hall, finally has a home with some serious elbow room.

Friday 11/21 • Members preview 5:30—9pm
Sat 11/22 • opens to the public for 31 non-stop hours of poetry, music, artist talks, panels, and 12 exhibitions with work by over 100 WNY artists
All Grand Opening events are free.
Your New Burchfield Penney

Gellman, Parisi, Schulman

Sean Madden

30 Days To Shop and Save The Economy

Christmas On Mars

ONE NIGHT ONLY @ Squeaky Wheel
Fri, Nov 21, 8pm
LImited Seating • $6/$4


Continuing Elsewhere
• Bruce Adams @ the Center for Inquiry thru Dec 24
• OP Art Revisited at the Albright thru Jan 25
• Noncommittal and MicroCosmic @ UB Art Gallery (thru Feb 7)
• Harvey Breverman, Bruce Jackson, Terri Katz-Kasimov at UB Anderson Galelry thru Jan 18
• Catherine Parker @ Indigo (74 Allen) thru Nov 30 Samuels' new digs
• Buffalo Society of Artists 112th Annual Catalogue Exhibition @ Art Dialogue thru Nov 21
• Richard Huntington, Max Streicher @ the Castellani thru Jan 18
On the one hand, thirty years of paintings crunched into an intensely swift mini-retrospective. On the other, a gigantic inflated dung beettle. Win/win!
• Cynnie Gaasch @ Studio Hart thru Nov 22
• Andrea Ruggieri @ Olean Public Library thru Dec 3
• Shawn Fintak at Starlight Studio thru Nov 14
• Buffalo Arts Studio Annual Artists Exhibit & Sale thru Jan 3
• A Holiday Bizarre at Grant St. Gallery (216 Grant) thru Jan 17)
• Mary Weig at Betty's thru Jan 11
• XIVth Fall National Show juried by Holly Hughes at Impact • Joey Buczak at Buff State thru Dec 5
• Gene Witkowski, Glenn Murray, Robert Schultz, MIchael Mulley, Tim Raymond, Evan Everhart, Jeannine Swallow, Nick deMarchi, Jerry Greenberg @ College St. Gallery thru Nov 30
• Bruce Adams at the Center for Inquiry thru Dec 31 Buffalo News
• Mark Duquette @ Alleyway Theater thru Nov 30
• Sam Van Aken @ RoCo thru Nov 23
• David Mitchell @ Big Orbit thru Nov 22 Buffalo News Eisenberg

One of the least honored of Buffalo art traditions is the experience of heading over to Big Orbit, entering the space, checking out the show, and leaving without ever seeing anyone. It's pretty great that you can have that strange, intimate moment. I'm sure someone was around somewhere, but I didn't hear a sound and never saw anyone. Michell's astutely-installed mis en scene with colliding automobiles and spit-swapping deer sits there like an artifact, well-placed and quiet, just long enough for the viewer to question the status of the gallery equipment. Then...well, you'll see. Love found, love lost, tragedy, a great subwoofer, and very savvy use of lighting. Eloquent, sad, funny, could very well be the best thing in town right now. I'm going back.
• Trans-Evolution: Examining Bio Art @ CEPA thru Dec 20
• Bruce Adams & Richard Huntington at the Carnegie thru Dec 13
• Michael Goldberg @ Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Geraldine LIquidano, Alan Larson @ Galeria Blanca (4222 N. Buffalo Rd, Orchard Pk) thru Dec 14
• Cynnie Gaasch @ Studio Hart thru Nov 22
• MIchael Mulley @ Chow Chocolat thru Nov 25
• NCCC Faculty Exhibition thru Nov 21
• Adele Cohen @ Buffalo Big Print thru Nov 29
• Adele Becker, Susan Budash, Susan Copley, Jason Klinger, Ginny Lohr @ Amherst Jewish Center (Getzville) thru Nov 30
• Michael Goldberg @ UB Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Barbara Tanke, Ann Margaret Munley, Jennifer Seth-Cimini @ redFish thru Nov 15
• Rita Argen Auerbach at The Mansion on Delaware (until daylight savings time ends)
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)

"A man leaps across my shoulder from the sunken center of the huge blue sofa and over the white carpet to grab his shoes, as everything around me drips into the present tense. All is relaxing and resigned to its fate. Walt Whitman sings in my ear, "This is the best show you have ever experienced." Walt Whitman is a giant piglet rambling along the wall, orange tulips bleeding through the wall in stunned, morphing bliss."

artnet Finch

"The fake paper itself is an impressive piece of work. Sharply written and stylistically acute, the 14-page special issue breathes a sense of defiant idealism that is largely missing from the fake news industry these days."

artnet Davis

"I have always wanted to have sex in a museum. To me museums are ecstasy machines, places to experience rapture and the real thing is the real thing."

artnet Saltz

Something I listened to this week...

Wow, this was freakishly great. I shouldn't exactly be surprised. Thompson is the sole offspring of the deeply talented folk duo Richard and LInda Thompson—long divorced now, the Thompsons have a stupendous body of work and if you know them at all, it should startle you a bit to hear their son. You can EASILY hear both mother and father in Teddy, which is strange, reaffirming, and plenty of fun. Musically astute, with a killer voice, and his parents' droll, dark humor, he has all the requisite components for super-stardom and longevity. Unlike some famous offspring—see Julian Lennon—Teddy has made the most of the genetic materials bequeathed to him. This album is rock-solid evidence that extraordinarily talented people should definitely fuck each other and make babies.





Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
— Will Rogers

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
— Cecil B. DeMille

Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
— Bertrand Russell

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
— Albert Einstein

Life is something like this trumpet. If you don’t put anything in it you don’t get anything out. And that’s the truth.
— W.C. Handy




@ HW continuing thru Dec 20
gallery hrs Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 1—4pm

Jesse Webber
"You can't smoke in here, Mr. Corbusier, you'll burn this mother down."

"Jesse Webber’s new series of prints is an homage to the historic trip made by Le Corbusier to the industrial area now known as the American Rust Belt in the early 20th century. Le Corbusier, as well as other modernist architects, were drawn to these buildings as they exemplified the spirit of modernist architecture in it's purest sense. Form derived from strict function—the building as a living machine. At the time of this trip, these areas enjoyed a boom of economic expansion at the top of newly emerging global markets. Upon seeing the grain elevators, Le Corbusier is reported to have exclaimed "The fruits of the modern era are upon us!" Corbusier did not forsee the depression and late-century decline that would eventually occur, nor could he have known that the particular open celled forms of these structures combined with grains that were stored in their interiors, and the gases and dust that they released, literally turned many of these grain elevators into architectural time bombs."


Kara Tanaka
Pining Wind

"Pining Wind is a communications satellite designed to eliminate the boundary between the illusion we know as reality and the reality of illusion by fracturing and multiplying the events of two lovesick lives. A video housed in the satellite tells a cyclical story that begins in the 9th century and ends in a century far in the future.

"The video Pining Wind (Fragmented on the Night Sea of Eternity) tells a mutated version of one of the most intimately human dramas, Matsukaze, a tale of pain and desire spurred on by the profound connection to illusion. Two spirits are trapped in the world of the living, enslaved in the ghost realm because of their longing for a lover who disappeared centuries ago. Their steadfast devotion to the impossible return of the lover repeats itself with every reincarnation of the spirits, and every subsequent punishment only invigorates their passionate crime."

Nmperign
w/ Whitman/Sack Duo
@ Soundlab TONIGHT 8pm

"nmperign has been hailed the world over as the leading purveyors of whatever that strange thing they do is. Their palette of sounds makes laptops seem as flexible as doorbells, and their precise but wildly unpredictable improvisations would have you at the edge of your seat if you weren't so afraid of the noise you would make getting there. Fierce and fragile, lush and fractured, nmperign is tough to pin down and all the better for it."

Derek
@ HW Thurs/Fri Nov 20/21, 8pm

"A collaboration between British artist Isaac Julien and actress Tilda Swinton, Derek is a moving tribute to a friend and an intimate portrait of the artist, painter, writer, gay activist, gardener and filmmaker. Featuring rarely seen home movie footage, interviews, and excerpts of Jarman's feature films, pop promos and super-8 work. A fundraiser for Life Memorial Park (at the corner of Porter Avenue, Normal Avenue and Jersey Street in Buffalo)."

Opening Elsewhere
• Buffalo Arts Studio Annual Artists Exhibit & Sale op Sat, Nov 15 7-10pm (thru Jan 3)
• Julian Montague @ Armand Bartos Fine Art (NYC) as part of Sign/Age Pt II: Lost in the Supermarket op Fri, NOv 21, 6-8pm (thru Dec 19)
• A Holiday Bizarre at GRant St. Gallery (216 Grant) op Fri, Nov 14, 5pm (thru Jan 17)
• Sonia Peñaranda-Taggart @ 27 Holboro Dr (Orchard Pk) op Fri, Nov 14, 6-8pm (thru Dec 20)
• Nancy Treherne Craig @ Viridian Artists Inc. (NYC) op Fri, Nov 28, 4-7pm (thru Dec 20)
• Artful Gifts @ Art Dialogue op Fri, Nov 28, 7:30—9pm (thru Dec 30)
• Beth Munro and Robert Ivers @ Nichols op Fri, Nov 28, 4-6pm (thru Jan 16)
• XIVth Fall national Show juried by Holly Hughes at IMpact op Sat, Nov 8, 1-4pm
• William Hutchinson at Quaker Bonnet op Sat, Nov 8, 4-6pm
• John Farallo and Sonny D. Sun at Rust Belt op Sun, Nov 9, 2-5pm

Buffalo Art Studio Show & Sale TOMORROW

Women's Gifts TOMORROW

Burchfield Rising

Friday 11/21 • Members preview 5:30—9pm
Sat 11/22 • opens to the public for 31 non-stop hours of poetry, music, artist talks, panels, and 12 exhibitions with work by over 100 WNY artists
All Grand Opening events are free.
Your New Burchfield Penney

Christmas On Mars

ONE NIGHT ONLY @ Squeaky Wheel
Fri, Nov 21, 8pm
LImited Seating • $6/$4


Continuing Elsewhere
• Bruce Adams @ the Center for Inquiry thru Dec 24
• OP Art Revisited at the Albright thru Jan 25
• Noncommittal and MicroCosmic @ UB Art Gallery (thru Feb 7)
• Harvey Breverman, Bruce Jackson, Terri Katz-Kasimov at UB Anderson Galelry thru Jan 18
• Catherine Parker @ Indigo (74 Allen) thru Nov 30 Samuels' new digs
• Buffalo Society of Artists 112th Annual Catalogue Exhibition @ Art Dialogue thru Nov 21
• Richard Huntington, Max Streicher @ the Castellani thru Jan 18
On the one hand, thirty years of paintings crunched into an intensely swift mini-retrospective. On the other, a gigantic inflated dung beettle. Win/win!
• Cynnie Gaasch @ Studio Hart thru Nov 22
• Katherine Sehr @ Nina Freudenheim thru Nov 19
Sehr's fields of minutely-drawn, colored webs, which manage to be simultaneously enormous and intimate, have been seen frequently the last few years. With work so specific and laborious, one prevailing question is how will it change over time. Or will it? How long can you make—not just Sehr's but any—formally-specific work before you approach the territory of shtick. (Not that there's anything wrong with a well-wrought shtick.) In Sehr's current show, what keeps the work interesting and engaging are the burgeoning hints of looseness. In a few drawings, her controlled fields of color have begun to merge. To great effect. And in one large work, Sehr's tight version of the grid breaks loose and she lets the lines curl away in gestures that appear wildly spontaneous. Installed in the back, it was one of the last works you would look at. Nice.
• Andrea Ruggieri @ Olean Public Library thru Dec 3
• Shawn Fintak at Starlight Studio thru Nov 14
• Mary Weig at Betty's thru Jan 11
• Joey Buczak at Buff State thru Dec 5
• Gene Witkowski, Glenn Murray, Robert Schultz, MIchael Mulley, Tim Raymond, Evan Everhart, Jeannine Swallow, Nick deMarchi, Jerry Greenberg @ College St. Gallery thru Nov 30
• Bruce Adams at the Center for Inquiry thru Dec 31 Buffalo News
• Mark Duquette @ Alleyway Theater thru Nov 30
• Sam Van Aken @ RoCo thru Nov 23
• David Mitchell @ Big Orbit thru Nov 22 Buffalo News Eisenberg

One of the least honored of Buffalo art traditions is the experience of heading over to Big Orbit, entering the space, checking out the show, and leaving without ever seeing anyone. It's pretty great that you can have that strange, intimate moment. I'm sure someone was around somewhere, but I didn't hear a sound and never saw anyone. Michell's astutely-installed mis en scene with colliding automobiles and spit-swapping deer sits there like an artifact, well-placed and quiet, just long enough for the viewer to question the status of the gallery equipment. Then...well, you'll see. Love found, love lost, tragedy, a great subwoofer, and very savvy use of lighting. Eloquent, sad, funny, could very well be the best thing in town right now. I'm going back.
• Carrianne Hendrickson at Shy Rabbit (Colorado) thru Nov 15
• Trans-Evolution: Examining Bio Art @ CEPA thru Dec 20
• Bruce Adams & Richard Huntington at the Carnegie thru Dec 13
• Michael Goldberg @ Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Cynnie Gaasch @ Studio Hart thru Nov 22
• MIchael Mulley @ Chow Chocolat thru Nov 25
• NCCC Faculty Exhibition thru Nov 21
• Adele Cohen @ Buffalo Big Print thru Nov 29
• Adele Becker, Susan Budash, Susan Copley, Jason Klinger, Ginny Lohr @ Amherst Jewish Center (Getzville) thru Nov 30
• Michael Goldberg @ UB Anderson Gallery thru Jan 18
• Barbara Tanke, Ann Margaret Munley, Jennifer Seth-Cimini @ redFish thru Nov 15
• Rita Argen Auerbach at The Mansion on Delaware (until daylight savings time ends)
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)

Noncommittal

w/ Chris Bettencourt, Christine Goerss, Colin Griffin
@ UB Art Gallery thru Feb 7

"You won’t be sorry. The art is a perfect excuse to tour the city, which Hurricane Katrina has made into a showplace of the kind of dilapidated industrial and urban architecture that has great appeal to art lovers."

artnet Walter Robinson

"Seen from afar the piece does suggest an expanse of ocean waves that have been frozen in place, as well as many other things: snowdrifts, a Zen moss garden, perhaps a cluster of the American Indian burial mounds that can be found in the hills of southeastern Ohio, where Ms. Lin grew up."

NY Times Kino

"Loot is an ugly word. Derived from ­Hindi and Sanskrit, it emerged in British India, where it no doubt proved useful in describing some of the more sordid transactions of empire....Most recently — and perhaps most provocatively — it has been wielded against well-to-do American museums whose pristine specimens of ancient civilizations have with shocking frequency turned out to be contraband."

NY Times Eakin

"Amputate tradition, torture the past, terrorize the present. The impulse to destroy was part of what made early Modern art the guerrilla movement it was."

NY Times Cotter

The Fate of the $5 Pollock

artnet Thomas Hoving

"Ms. Makeba collapsed as she was leaving the stage, the South African authorities said. She had been singing at a concert in support of Roberto Saviano, an author who has received death threats after writing about organized crime."

NY Times obit

"Mr. Mitchell did not expect much from the job. 'I’ll give it a crack,' he later remembered telling Mr. Chandler, who became one of Hendrix’s managers. 'I’ll have a go for two weeks.'"

NY Times obit

Jimmy Carl Black 1938—2008

NY Times obit

Something I listened to this week...
New mix:
Jimmie Rodgers • Miss The Mississipi
The Beatles • Tomorrow Never Knows (unreleased)
Bob Dylan • When I Paint My Masterpiece
Led Zeppelin • Travelling Riverside Blues
Otis Redding • Pain In My Heart
Ike Turner • The Way You Used To Treat Me
The Flamingos • I Only Have Eyes For You
M. Ward • Girl From The North Country
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys • Time Changes Everything
John Mayall & Eric Clapton • Bernard Jenkins
Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five • I'm Gonna Leave You On The Outskirts Of Town
NIck Cave • I'm Your Man
Bettye Lavette • When The Blues Catch Up To You
Hank Thompson • Breakin' In Another Heart
Leonard Cohen • Hallelujah
Ry Cooder • Dark End Of The Street
Jimmy Lafave • Emotionally Yours
Bob Dylan • MIss The Mississippi
Ramblin' Jack Elliott • Dark As A Dungeon
Bob Dylan • Red River Shore
NIck Cave & Shane McGowan • What A Wonderful World

Never resist an idea
Never say no to a contradiction
They have come to help you
smash the ego
which always reconstitutes
(and if it doesn't, well,
Your worries are over)
— Peter Schjeldahl