Links, Tidbits, Morsels & Small Pieces

Jennifer Moon, Prison Relic #2: Typewriter, 2012, Framed photograph, book, cardboard shelf, chain, 50 in. x 20 in. x 9 in.


We don't do Tumblr, Instagram and other stuff like that at FBC! because it's full-time work that doesn't pay the bills if you join all those newfangled things on the internet. But once in a while there are some pieces and tidbits of news I want to lump together in a post, so here are a few things below.

I've just been made aware of this very long post about drugs, sexism, making a living etc. in the music world/industry. Lots of very interesting issues being raised.  Thanks to Fishrider Records in New Zealand for bringing my attention to it. I sometimes want to write a post about sexism in the creative industries but I often get discouraged because the problem is so huge.
It's not confined to the music world, as the art world and the literary world are rife with it as well.  Seriously, one female friend here in Belgium has been told by a local art world big shot "oh you know this is a very masculine milieu" implying she could forget about ever getting a job here. But I'm being heartened when I see male writers, musicians, artists, architects, etc. being supportive of feminist causes. A big thank you to them, there's a flicker of progress.

There's a King Krule LP coming out very soon. I've liked a lot what I've heard from him so far, so I'm eagerly awaiting the release. Now I was aware the kid was young, but Holy Mother of Belphégor! He's just 18.  There's an interview here, where you can spot pictures of him looking like he's in fact 14, and coming straight out of a "street urchin photorealist newsreel" of the 1930s. I wish him a long, happy, productive musical life away from self-destruction and things like that, that boy has too much talent. Sounds like he could have an interesting side career as a producer, too.

Congratulations to the happy recipients of the 2013 CCF grants, several of them being dear, dear friends of mine. Kudos Jennifer Moon, Vishal Jugdeo and Peter Wu, and also Rebecca Morris and Ruben Ochoa. Peter Wu would be my designer of choice if I can secure the funding for my Mike Kelley book, so I'm mightily pleased for him!

Still some musical news, this contemporary classical music festival is happening near London very soon. Top-notch bill, if I lived in the UK I'd go attend it for the entire duration.

Lastly, many music sites and magazines are publishing their "best albums of 2013 so far". Summer, slow news.

I'm not sure they were all issued in 2013, but my list is:
 Houses
Parquet Courts
David Bowie
Rachel Zeffira
Petula Clark (she has an album of cover out that *nobody* but me seems to like)
Hookworms
British Sea Power
Puppet Rebellion (they released a free 3-songs EP so far)
Wire
Foals
The Pastels.

I haven't heard the Boards of Canada yet. Also I like a lot Baltic Fleet but I have no idea when their music was released (I do not own it in physical form yet, I'm too broke).

Stuff that I found was a dreadful piece of shit: Kanye West.
Been told by someone I highly esteem (hi, John!) that it was "sonically innovative", er sorry, Scott Walker > Kanye West.
Plus Kanye's lyrics are the shittiest I've heard this side of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and that's a record.
While I'm at it:
Scott Walker > Matmos > The Knife.
Stuff I was told was good but I find super weak: These New Puritans.

Missed opportunities: Scott Walker, The Collection, a reissue of his 5 first solo albums that includes 'Til The Band Comes In.
 If you don't own any classic Scott Walker yet, for once I recommend you buy the CD boxset and NOT the vinyl one, as it is much cheaper.

The vinyl boxset was announced back in April as containing original mono mixes, an mp3 download card (which I like to have when I fork over the money for a vinyl because it's a back-up), etc.
 So I blindly preordered it as my birthday present to myself because one can never have too much Scott Walker original music in their life, ever.
Instead, it's all stereo mixes, no mp3 card, the vinyl sleeves came up with split seams inside the shrink-wrapped records, which for something brand new screams the absence of a quality control department. There's a photograph of Scott Walker in one of the record, which I don't really care about because I don't see the point, but if you gonna put in some extras, please print the pictures from an original negative or 4" x 5", because poorly printed scan photographs sucks and look cheap.
There are no extras like B-Sides from singles, which  don't really mind myself but I saw some record collectors bemoan the fact on specialized websites.
I'm glad some of my money will translate into royalties for Scott Walker so he can continue making his current innovative music, but I'd rather have invested in a good quality box set. Like the Beach Boys Smile one that came out about 2 years ago and was much more fun and interesting for about the same price.

 This boxset has been issued by Universal, not a small label without much capital and manpower.  I'm raising the point here because they just announced yesterday they were launching a crowdfunding site to reissue vinyl.
Gimme me a fucking break, Universal, if this is the piss-poor job you do with your own capital, I'm never going to blindly trust you again to reissue records. I'm all for supporting artists and paying for the music, in hard copies not only because they get more money from them than from mp3 and streaming (especially streaming), but  also because they're more archival. I
f you exploit the consumer like this, Universal, I'd rather spend my money on smaller labels and smaller acts than, er, future reissues of Pulp, Nirvana or Sonic Youth. All stuff that is super easy to find used!

Real Presences At Phantom Sightings

So almost 2 weeks ago I went with a very talented painter (Hi Ivan!) to the opening of Phantom Sightings at LACMA, the most exciting show I've seen in a long time at a Los Angeles Museum. And I don't say that because the lead curator of the exhibition, Rita Gonzalez, is a close friend of mine. I honestly was a bit weary before going, as I am with many identity-based show concepts ("Post-Chicano art"), and also because there were 3 curators involved (Howard Fox and Chon Noriega were the 2 other ones) and it's always difficult to find a good balance between several curators choices, tastes and interests. In addition, I know very little about Chicano/Latino art, aside from my occasional visits to shows and my already professed admiration for Ruben Ochoa (museums everywhere, collect this guy NOW). So I thought it was outside of my area of expertise, which was a totally stupid prejudice or stereotype, as it is a contemporary art exhibition, my chosen specialty.

So we walked into the exhibition space in what used to be the Anderson building, and wow! Weren't we blown away! I've come back to the museum again last week to see the show (re: wow) and BCAM, and clearly Phantom Sightings is a winner 9BCAM, on the other hand...). It's smart, beautifully, perfectly installed, there are many artists and works I've discovered, and the identity part isn't propaganda-like but functions in every single work as art, beautifully integrated and meaningful without being overbearing and aggressive or guilt-tripping. I'm waiting for my long-anticipated lunch and walk-through with Rita to really write a review, and I also want to get the press packet and read the catalogue so I don't write egregious mistakes about artists or dates. I also want to refute that stupid article: granted, no one reads City Beat (at least no one I know. Do you know anyone who reads it? Let's start a contest!), but it seems the person writing is well-known, if scandalously ignorant about art stuff. Very arrogant and condescending too: having gone on a date at the Norton Simon doesn't make anyone an art lover or an art expert. She writes well, much better than I will ever dream to, but wrong tooth to pick Honey! You're a bit late on the LACMA-bashing. I think what you need is take your dates to Disneyland, you would be more comfortable there, seeing that you come from the OC (yes, I'm in a bad mood too, it's IRS day today!).

[While I'm in a bad mood, I want to retaliate: one of my former colleagues scooped me at the opening and told a guard as I was taking pictures without flash, as is allowed and indicated at the entrance. I'm slightly pissed off you (because I know exactly who you are): a) didn't ask me directly to stop taking pictures. That was lame and cowardly. What were you afraid of? Did I ever bite you? and: b) got a guard involved: it's an impossible situation for them to have one of their superior telling them to prevent pictures from being taken while there are signs telling the public it is allowed and: c) you're not even the curator of the show, didn't bother to check whether it was OK or not, which is very condescending and arrogant. Next time, ask me directly, if it makes you uncomfortable I will stop. Mind you, I asked the curator if it was OK and she helpfully told me yes and I did read that sign, so I got my bases covered, and you did not. So, screw you.]

Meanwhile, you my faithful FBC! readers have all the time in the world to see the show, and you should really do it because it's one of the most intelligent show to end all the identity/post-identity politics exhibition concepts to come, and you will enjoy seeing some of my faves: Ken Gonzalez-Day (beautiful), Ruben Ochoa, Juan Capistran, Ruben Ortiz-Torres and the woman whose name escape me (I need that press package, dammit), who does role-playing B&W photographs. So more on the show later, and here are a few pics I took at the opening.
As usual, the vertical one is sideways, thanks to Blogger and its uploading pix tool.

Charles White Elementary, Mark Bradford and Ruben Ochoa

The post corresponding to these pictures can be found here.
Above, pictures of the installation at Charles White Elementary, Mark Bradford and Ruben Ochoa explaining to schoolchildren what an installation and appropriation are, and one of the school artists in front of her creation. I don't know the names of the students but I will be happy to add them if someone tells me who they are.
Thanks!


I apologize for the clumsy 2-posts thing, but Blogger seems at odds with both Firefox and Safari this week. I can upload pictures with one but not the other, I cannot link from Safari at all and links show up where they shouldn't with Firefox, when they show up at all. Style is beyond control. But I do claim responsibility for all the typos, as usual.

The Charles White Elementary School Project, Mark Bradford and Ruben Ochoa with LACMA

Aside from the WGA strike our cousins are waging in The Other Cultural Industry, last week has been truly wonderful on the art front here
in LA. It's not so often there are so many good things to see in town, but for once it all looks pretty good.
On Wednesday was the inauguration of the installation created by Mark Bradford and Ruben Ochoa at Charles White Elementary School, in collaboration with the school children and LACMA.
Charles White Elementary is located on the Westernmost part of MacArthur Park, on Wilshire and Carondelet St., right across from the American Cement Building (awesome architecture!). There are some great Deco and Spanish style buildings around, so I'd advise to go get some grub in either nearby Koreatown or on the other side of the park (Langer's maybe, if you like pastrami), stroll around and then visit the show. I'd strongly advocate a visit on the Echo Park side or even just going up and down Alvarado for people not familiar with the area, as the artists installation is very much referring to vernacular elements of the neighborhood.

Anyway, I came to the press conference (yay! bloggers are press for LACMA! Thanks, Allison!) not knowing much about the project itself since the press release detailed a lot of the initiative behind it but very little about the art. Nevertheless, I think Mark and Ruben are two of the best artists working out of LA right now (along with Edgar Arceneaux) so I blindly trusted the project to be at the very least interesting.

I sat alongside fellow press people (you have no idea how much this sentence makes me chuckle, dear extended readership!) to endure several introductory and vague speeches by Zev Yaroslavsky (he should rehearse his speeches more or get someone to write them more precisely) and such likes, which I don't really mind, but I just mention them because the schoolchildren who were attending were so well-behaved during what must have been very long and boring for them, they should be praised here.
Most of the press release and the speeches were about how Prop. 13 effectively killed public funding for the arts in schools, how good arts are for children, and how great it is that LACMA, through its Education Department, tries to remedy some of this by funding projects and exhibitions involving schoolchildren*.

LACMA's first project with Charles White Elementary is especially meaningful because the school is located on the former site of the Otis College of Art and Design. Ruben Ochoa is an alumni and so I think is Mark Bradford, making their selection as the first artists in this partnership all the more significant.
They have been selected by the Education Dept. which worked closely with LACMA's curatorial staff to select real artworks from the collection to be displayed in the school art gallery, all of this curated and arranged in a really smart and fun installation by Ruben and Mark. The selection had to pass a very tough test from the conservation department to be allowed to go out.
The artists worked for about 10 months and ended up with an installation that incorporates visual elements of the neighborhood, which you will see in the pictures here.
My little Frenchy self has a bit of a vocabulary problem as I don't really know the words for the moving inflatable thingies for example, or for the canopy-structure in the front room, so I'll refrain for describing them. Just wanted to let you know the first room is fairly impressive, with a fabulous hand-painted didactics/credit line/title wall I didn't photograph, but totally worth the detour in itself, as the Michelin would say.

In any case I was really impressed by how Ruben and Mark, whose visual "signatures" (let's not talk about style) are very different, even if their interest in the urban and social vernacular is very similar, managed to merge their own aesthetics to create an installation that combines art objects from various cultures, civilizations and eras (from Pre-Columbian to Indian to Contemporary Western art), various mediums (painting, prints, photographs, sculptures) as well as the elementary school students drawings.
The children drawings were also amazingly good, and the kids seemed extremely happy to be in the show and talk to the real artists.
One of the pictures in the previous post shows Ruben and Mark talking to these two kids who were so eager to meet the artists, and asked what their work was. Mark explaining the concept of installation and appropriation was to die for: he simply compared buying clothes and wearing them as an act of appropriation and curating/making an artwork and an installation. Smart, simple, effective, and Mark being Mark, very funny!
It's probably one of the best shows I've seen recently, really contemporary in its use of collaborative techniques, social intent, vernacular culture meeting groundbreaking contemporary art, while firmly rooted in a local context. It also proved educational doesn't have to mean boring, as the bright smiles of the kids testified, and that the product of a collective effort can be homogeneously combine to design an elegant exhibition.

Do I have anything to complain about? No, not about this specific project. It's beautiful, open for the next 6 months (in the afternoon mostly)and totally worth going to visit. If you go see a LACMA show, why don't you hop on one of the rapid buses and go East on Wilshire to see it?

If I have to drop my 2 cents and mix my metaphors (you know how I like to freely distribute my opinions, dear FBC! readers), it's just to express the following belief:
I don't think it's the museums role to remedy the critical lack of funding for the arts in schools. I command LACMA for trying very hard, but one sole museum cannot bravely substitute itself to the State and try to stopgap a mix comprised of the absence of political consensus, low taxes and therefore small public redistribution.
I'm glad someone is trying, and I'm even gladder the role of education in museums, which is usually invisible, is brought to the light at Charles White Elementary, but I'd rather the rich pay more taxes to let future generations discover art from an early age.







*About 2 years ago LACMA's education Dept. received what I believe is an endowment from the late Anna Bing Arnold to develop public programs geared toward children. Usually big donors like to put their names on buildings or donate part of their collection - and get a tax break - but very few are involved enough to donate toward more intangible programs. I wish more museum patrons would follow this example and give donation for conservations facilities or storage, scholarly lectures, and cutting-edge exhibition programming. All things which are not sexy but absolutely necessary to run a great and efficient museum.

Bulletin Board

Hi my devoted readership,

apologies for very light posting lately, and thanks for your kind inquiries regarding my health. I'm in fact much better if not 100% back to normal, since I've stepped up the physical therapy/neckbrace wearing/swimming regimen. I am now able to do more things and I have of course a backlog of errands/paperwork/real work to tackle and therefore less time to blog, plus I still get tired easily.

The Grand Tour post should appear tonight hopefully, and more art stuff later (my non-foodie readership has been protesting there wasn't enough art on FBC!).
So to make you patient a little bit, just a few openings this week:

. The Cosima von Bonin show at MoCA, curated by Ann Goldstein. Should be very, very interesting. Von Bonin is not as well-known here as she should, so please flock in mass to discover her work. As usual: VIPs on Thursday, hoi polloi on Saturday. I won't attend either (post physical therapy it's hard for me to stand up for too long) but please say hi to Ann for me. Thanks! There's also Gordon Matta-Clark opening at the same location. I love Matta-Clark's works, but after seeing the show at the Whitney this Spring, and reminiscing from the 1990s European retrospective (yes, in Europe curators are always 10 years ahead of the US, cf.Robert Smithson) I think now his work is better preserved in film and book form. It can only be experienced as a document, rather than as an artwork.

. Richard Hawkins at Richard Telles this Friday. I'm far from being a Hawkins fan (I do find his works derivative, though his painting is better than the collages/photoshop works he is mainly known for) but many of my friends like him, so go support him. The sculptures look interesting actually, but the collages, hmmm, despite his use of a great Kouros (you know I'm a sucker for Greek art). I also like Richard Telles programming a lot, but parking so definitively sucks there I wished he would move his gallery elsewhere. And close later!

. Lari Pittman at Regen Projects.

. It opened last week, but Ruben Ochoa's show is up at Susanne Vielmetter. Susanne Veilmetter currently represents Ruben as well as Edgar Arceneaux, two of Los Angeles most promising artists of their generation. I wish she would represent Mark Bradford too!

. And all these artists have already exhibited in some way or other at LAXart, where Michael Queenland is having an opening too this Saturday. LAXart has also shown my old friend Vincent Johnson this Summer, but I unfortunately missed his show as I was in Europe.

That's enough for your art social life of the week, no?

I've stolen that pic from another blog, you artsy-fartsy people will recognize a certain bar. Which I in fact dislike: too uncomfortable and noisy, and wine is unspeakable and expensive (compared to beer, which I dislike). And the crowd, arrgh. Art people are wayyyyy too serious and full of themselves.