Street Smarts

Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars

A good song about letting go of the people and things that don't really belong to you anyway

Life

Life is short,
Break the rules,
Forgive quickly,
Kiss slowly,
Love truly,
Laugh uncontrollably,
And never regret anything that made you smile.

elliott smith - colour bars live

is this guy known in Brazil?

Beau Brummelstones

Which version is better, ?? real or cartoon?

Beau Brummels - Laugh, Laugh

Peter Coffin's Color Bars made me think of Elliot Smith which made me think of this

James Siena at Pace

Amazing that this artist who makes lots of small, labor intensive pieces could fill this massive space, but James never fails to surprise....I could have spent all day there.

Jeppe Hein at 303 gallery

This photo is of a reflection of me in a revolving circular mirror....cool that when the mirror moves it dosn't affect the reflection. I imagine that this phenomenon is probably taught in physics 101 but I was never allowed to take physics as I barely passed high school level algebra at Columbia.

Color Bars

Olaf Nicolai (bottom) and Peter Coffin (top) have 2 similar pieces up now in chelsea...it always blows my mind when something like that happens...like they have both latched on to something thats in the air.

Jim Hodges at CRG

It's always a pleasure to go into CRG gallery, Carla, Richard and Glen have a really rare passion for what they show, they are very accessible friendly and open , I always come out of there having had an interchange of some sort. They really are an artist's gallery. Today they were showing 2 new, very weird pieces by Jim Hodges. Both of them were rooms of some sort. One is a circular room made of vertical white canvases , each with an image made of gold leaf. The second is made of raw wood with saloon - type doors...it smelled great inside of there .One wall is made of steel dagger type pieces and the bright light of the inside makes a shadow into the darkness outside. It immediately made me think of being in my Dad's cabin in the north woods of Minnesota and that feeling of waking up in the middle of the night, turning on the lights and looking out into an inky darkness scared and thrilled at what might be out there...just like every day of my life..when I am lucky, and that's most of the time. Jim is one of the most amazing artists of my generation.

Marc Swanson

Bill is in town for all th art fairs and luckily I got to go around to galleries for a bit with him this afternoon. Bill always turns me on to something or someone new, today was no exception...Marc Swanson's show at Bellwether, titled "The Saint at Large" is filled with very personal references to the artist's intersections with culture. Here's Bill with a piece made of a collection of the artist's t shirts.

Remy & Stephane From Paris

Remy and Stephane arrived last Friday, just in time for my opening. They have been going out almost every night in NYC and leaving a trail of broken hearts everywhere they go. We finally got to have dinner last night (at Le French Diner ) then we went to Pheonix and Spit. This morning I'm dealing with the mails and texts from my friends...most of which are along the lines of " Those french guys are so hot and nice and ....etc etc.." It's true! Remy and Stephane, New York Loves You!

Fischerspooner - Never Win

I know that this video is 2 years old, I just saw it at the gym, for the first time. I loved this album, its as good as Dare or something, every track is great, but why didn't it become a big hit?

Fred and Gary From London

This is always a great week in new york. With all the contemporary art fairs happening there are so many people visiting, any where I go I run into people I havn't seen in a while. Sunday I ran into Fred Mann at the dugout and met his foxy new boyfriend Gary. Yesterday they came to my studio then we went to happy hour at the pheonix, till the pool table broke, no fault of theirs, which promted them to re-enact one of their favorite porno scenes....something about a biker gang in a roadhouse....(see above)... Then on to Nowhere where they took on all comers. I don't really play pool but I love the way it looks.

What Bands Wear

The Easter Bunny Hates You

Thanks to Eduardo for this one

Shoes

My friends Mark and AA are in Tokyo right now, they celebrated easter by shopping! (Actually they said that Easter has no presence there at all). Mark got these amazing hand painted shoes at Issey Miyake. There are only 20 of them in the world!

The true Meaning of Easter

Peter Coffin at Andrew Kreps

Peter Coffin's show at Kreps looks amazing, there's a conveyer belt with ballons, concert posters without the info and a wall of tvs with animal planet footage...keep it up!

Donald Moffett and Alexander Ross at Marianne Boesky

Alexander Ross' new work at Boesky looked fantastic, he's really expanding and trying out new things, new colors, new ways of putting down the paint...I loved the ones that have odd fleshy parts. Don Moffett's new paintings in the front room were weird in the best possible way with glory holes and zippers, and one that reminded me of Don's bowling ball pieces of the '80's.

Lauren Wittles and Wayne Gonzales

You've heard me refer to Lauren before, the publisher of my book on regency arts press. I caught Lauren and Wayne going out to openings tonight and they win the award for best dressed couple in Chelsea tonight.

Keltie Ferris and Molly Larkey at Sunday

Another awesome pairing took place in a lower east gallery last night. Keltie Ferris' paintings and Molly Larkey's sculptures look great together at Sunday, Sean Horton's gallery on Eldridge street.

We Are The Champions

Amazing night on the lower east side! The opening at 11 rivington was a blast! Packed! One of the big surprises was that Lauren showed up right at the beginning with copies of my book, which looks amazing! Remy and Stefan arrived from Paris just in time, lots of people who I haven't seen in ages were there, we had burgers and cotes du rhone afterward at Le French Diner, then a big party at marshall stacks afterward with the gang from Sunday celebrating the Keltie Ferris and Molly Larkey show, which looks amazing! Then a party at Patrick Callery's loft to celebrate his Michael Billsborough mural and got to see Po the Poodle. My only regret is that I didn't take enough pictures!

Neopolitan Pizza with Vinnie

Last night I got to hang out with my friend Vinnie, one of my favorite ways to spend time. We have very similar taste in Men and Food, and a lot of overlap in our taste in Music and Art. But what I like most about Vinnie is his infectious enthusiasm, he never complains about how great the east village was in the '80's (or '70's or '60's) and how lame it is now. He's always on top of what is new, high and low ( I still haven't thoroughly investigated High-School Musical), he has a considered opinion of whatever music is current and he was in college when Bob Dylan was playing coffee houses.

We finally got to try "Una Pizza Napoletana" on 12th street and it was great, 4 different personal size pies at $ 21.00 ea. so the menu was pretty easy to navigate. Then we went back to Vinnies and made imaginary magazine spreads. A perfect night!

Miami Ice Machine and Dynasty Handbag

Weds night, I made it out to Williamsburg to see my friend Graham's band, Miami Ice Machine. They sounded great and looked great too. They are like the straight guy bear band. Graham is one of those people who is really comfortable being on stage and a really crazy singer. Dynasty handbag I had never seen before but I really enjoyed her performance. She is like a midwestern Peaches with a little bit of rec-room Laurie Anderson thrown in....Hilarious!

Wall Street

Where can I get one of these amazing cellphones???

Chris Caccamise and Erik Hanson opening friday 3-21

-8





I'm doing a project room exhibit at 11 rivington street gallery, opening this friday, 3-21 from 6 to 8. No invite needed, bring friends...it should be packed!!

I have 30 paintings, of various sizes, in the back, project room. I'm excited as this is my first show of just paintings. In the front is painted paper sculpture by Chris Caccamise, thats one of his pieces on my head, Chris took the photo, it's an awesome show!

Samba - Greatest hits v.2

Prince Lumber

This is My favorite sign In New York.

MGMT - Time to Pretend

These guys have just enough irony to make them cool and enough sincerity to make them compelling. I love this song!

Asbury Park and Ocean Grove New Jersey

I spent the weekend in Ocean grove , NJ. My best friend Van has a house there and it's great that I get invited out there sometimes. The big event this weekend was Vans first carbs in over 6 months! Van had changed his diet to exclude carbs but had a craving for a particular pasta dish so he had a little dinner party on Saturday. Van made pasta with a meat sauce, no tomatoes, just Meat with a mirepoix and a tiny bit of cream...it was heavenly!

We started the day at The House of modern living in Asbury Park, where Billy showed us his Wall of Dansk serving pieces. Pretty impressive.

Today we went to Robert Melee's studio to see some new curtain paintings and other stuff he was working on. The flesh colored one pictured here was amazing

Analog

I was playing pinball tonight and I forgot how much fun it is, it was a great machine that really allowed me to get physical with it without tilting and I kept winning more and more games and it got me thinking about how much more fun pinball is than a video game.....all the nuances and information that's lost when we rely too much on digital information and communication..that pinball game snapped me out of a weird place I was in.

Smashing Time 1967

Unfortunately this dosn't have the DIRECT ACTION! perfume ad but if you like what you see here you might want to rent the DVD

Lisa Kirk

Lisa Kirk's show at participant was a launch party for REVOLUTION PIPE BOMB a perfume packaged in a precious metal pipebomb. I love how Lisa finds a place to function in the art world without making traditional "Art Objects". I first got to smell this perfume in an installation at P.S1, where Lisa imagined the perfume lab as a revolutionary's kitchen turned upside down. It reminded me of a fictional perfume called "Direct Action" that appeared in a movie called "Smashing Time" The perfume was advertised with footage of the 1967 Paris riots. Regular readers of my blog might remember a pregnant Lisa at Vince Aletti's Male opening a few weeks back or the upside down kitchen at PS1 from a dec 24th 07 posting. Lisa looked very pregnant and smashing last night in a gown and stole.

Matt Connors

Matt Connors opened a really cool show at Canada last night, he had told me a little bit about the installation when i ran into him earlier in the week and i was surprised, his paintings are so perfect in and of themselves that they don't need any kind of installation, I thought, sometimes I surprise myself at how conservative a thinker I can be. Well the show was awesome and of course Matt totally knew what he was doing, there were a few colored walls and the whole thing was logically illogical. There was one piece consisting of two paintings on a shelf, one obscuring the other that I can't get out of my mind. I can't wait to get back and see the show without any people, but of course, it was great to see so many great people there and Matt looked amazing in his Raf Simons suit.