Friday, October 03, 2008

Wall Rockets, Collecting Lenins, and Debate Re-ax

Inspired by the neoDadaist placards Greg Allen posts about, found outside last night's Vice Presidential debate, and realizing that any rational response to an increasingly absurd world must be irrational, I've given up sequiturial structure and thematic groupings for today and will make no attempt to find commonalities between the items below. (Eh, who am I kidding? It's just another hodgepodge of topics.)

Opening Today, 11 am - 3 pm
WALL ROCKETS at the FLAG Art Foundation

Our very own Jennifer Dalton joins an incredible line-up of contemporary artists responded to the work of living legend Ed Ruscha in this group exhibition curated by Lisa Dennison.

The FLAG Art Foundation is pleased to announce our third exhibition, WALL ROCKETS: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha, curated by Lisa Dennison. The title of the exhibition refers to a painting completed in 2000 by Ed Ruscha, arguably one of the most innovative artists over the past four decades. WALL ROCKETS: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha will include works by a large number of international artists whose artworks, whether directly or indirectly, have been influenced or inspired by Ruscha’s iconic style.

Ruscha’s oeuvre consists of painting, drawing (made in both conventional materials and others including gunpowder, blood, and chocolate), printmaking, photography, and artist’s books. One of the first American artists to consider the role of consumerism in art and culture, Ruscha references the American landscape—particularly that of Southern California—as a reflection on the urban experience, and explores the complexities of language as a form of visual imagery. Through photography, painting, and sculpture, WALL ROCKETS: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha will illuminate the effect of Ruscha’s legacy on both his peers as well as a younger generation of contemporary artists.

INCLUDING WORKS FROM THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS

Amy Adler
Noriko Ambe
Kamrooz Aram
Tonico Lemos Auad
Conrad Bakker
John Baldessari
Jeremy Blake
Mark Bradford
Delia Brown
Jeff Burton
Peter Cain
Ingrid Calame
Peter Coffin
George Condo
Will Cotton
Jennifer Dalton
Thomas Demand
Amie Dicke
Iris van Dongen
Sante D'Orazio
James Esber
Dan Fischer
Tom Friedman
Barnaby Furnas
Francesca Gabbiani
Kendell Geers
Ewan Gibbs
Joe Goode
Joseph Grigely & Amy Vogel
Nir Hod
Jim Hodges
Dennis Hopper
Roni Horn
Barbara Kruger
Cary Kwok
Inez Van Lamsweerde
Louise Lawler
Robert Lazzarini
Graham Little
Mads Lynnerup
Marco Maggi
Florian Maier-Aichen
Robert Mapplethorpe
Christian Marclay
McDermott & McGough
Jean Luc Moerman
Paul Morrison
Richard Patterson
Richard Pettibone
Richard Phillips
Richard Prince
Alessandro Raho
Charles Ray
Ugo Rondinone
Danna Ruscha
Ed Ruscha
Eddie Ruscha
Tom Sachs
Thomas Scheibitz
Michael Scoggins
Ken Solomon
Billy Sullivan
Juergen Teller
Yuken Teruya
Robert Therrien
Fred Tomaselli
Jim Torok
Rosemarie Trockel
Keith Tyson
Aya Uekawa
Julia Venske & Gregor Spanle
Mark Wagner
Lawrence Weiner
Terry Winters

____________________
Calling all Lenin Adopters
Today and tomorrow are your last days to collect the Lenin memorabilia from Yevgeniy Fik's solo exhibition, Adopt Lenin. According to the contract, any work not collected by 6:00 tomorrow is returned to the artist. Of course anyone showing up with your contract can collect your piece on your behalf.

UPDATE: Don't miss this great response to Yevgeniy's show by Catherine Spaeth or this wonderful review by Paddy Johnson.

____________________
Reactions to last night's Vice Presidential Debate
Weeks ago actually, I recognized in how Governor Palin's path to the debate was shaping up the same pattern the GOP handlers had used in 2000 with then-Governor Bush in lowering the nation's expectations about their candidate. It's virtually identical really and kind of brilliant. So long as the candidate doesn't self-implode on stage, the GOP hacks and pocket pundits can later declare the event a success. I told my friends to expect her to do well (anyone who had watched her gubernatorial debates would know Gov. Palin is good at them).

Having said that though, it still felt like I was watching a talking-points robot regurgitate, admittedly while smiling, the prepared speech someone else had written for her. Dotting her answers with folksy colloquialisms didn't make them any less vapid in my book. One answer in particular strung together just enough cliches to eat up her time without her having to actually answer the question. Asked "Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?" Palin answered
Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
What it demonstrated to me is that Palin reflexively tries to bluff her way through situations where she's not well informed. I know that during a debate she can't actually use one of her lifelines, but is it too much to expect someone running for an office to be able to talk intelligently about what that office is? Founding...Fathers...flexibility, huh? I know it sounds folksy, but it's gibberish. Biden answered the question plainly, so any American could understand: "The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress." But then Biden himself understood the question, which remains the key difference between the two candidates, and why one is remarkably more qualified than the other to be Vice President.

Labels: gallery artists' exhibitions, politics

23 Comments:

Blogger George said...

folksy?

How about a 1/2 hour at 7:30 sitcom bimbo, with her hand inches away from the nuclear button to Armageddon?

Foreign embassies all over the world are going nuts trying to parse what she said, what position the USA is signaling.

Very very scarey.

10/03/2008 09:09:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was actually, at times, sad how she kept trying to relate to the "joe six-packs" & "soccer moms" of the American viewers. It came off as more condescending than trying to find a common ground. I just hope people out there can see that...

10/03/2008 10:08:00 AM  
Blogger George said...

The Palin snippet Ed quoted, parses the same as many of her other remarks, she is literally babbling. There frequently is no content or continuity to her sentences, it's all double talk.

In the world of international diplomacy, every nuance in the text of a diplomatic statement is analyzed for its implied meaning. The stakes are high, and the language utilized is precisely crafted to achieve the desired end.

It's appalin

10/03/2008 10:25:00 AM  
Blogger david kramer said...

Ed-
You think that lowering expectations of Americans is a GOP strategy...? I think that they simply know how much they need to share, as they run rough-shot through
the constitution.
You are right... the GOP handlers know exactly what they need to be doing.
DK
http://toothlessalcoholic.blogspot.com/

10/03/2008 10:55:00 AM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

You think that lowering expectations of Americans is a GOP strategy...?

Only when they know the puppet they're putting up for office will reveal themselves as unqualified otherwise, yes...if the conventional wisdom going into the debate was that Biden and Palin had equal grasps on the issues, then the polls revealing he won would have been much much more in his favor, because she looked like she didn't have a clue most of the time.

10/03/2008 10:59:00 AM  
Anonymous Ken Hagler said...

"Founding...Fathers...flexibility, huh? I know it sounds folksy, but it's gibberish. "

Actually it's not, she's saying that she's never read the Constitution (as opposed to Biden, who apparently has but just doesn't care what it says). That's a bad answer from my point of view, but let's face it: the Constitution is completely irrelevant in the former America.

Probably 90% of the people who will bother to vote for President have never read it, and of those who have probably another 90% are glad it's dead.

10/03/2008 12:29:00 PM  
Blogger zipthwung said...

i read the constitution again. Its still as good as I remember it. A bit dry - and in parts ambiguous - all in all though, a credible document and summation of some interesting ideas of the time - Locke Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau.

How many people have read the Fedralist Papers? the collected letters of kafka? The emails of Jon and Jane Doe?

What is a "joe six pack?" WHat is a "hockey mom?" These are questions a politician can;t afford to ask in public lest they be revealed to be philosophical - namby-pamby wishy washy, flip floppers from Waffleton and Syrupville.

No, philosophy is best left behind the scenes in the green rooms of the double talkers and their minions.

The only person that knows for sure what is double talk and what is plain idiocy is an insider - and that is the genius of Palin and conservatives in general.

Either palin is a genuine literalist with a passion and belief in the moral pedagogy of hockey practice, or shes a cynical double talker with a secret rage she was ever branded a cardboard cutout hockey mom.

WHich is it?

10/03/2008 01:35:00 PM  
Blogger zipthwung said...

people must be really scared to be all bipartisan and shit. Maybe if the aliens invade we'll get better health care as the peoples of the earth unite bipartisanly against a common enemy.

10/03/2008 01:46:00 PM  
Anonymous Cedric C said...

++++tries to bluff her way through situations where she's not well informed.

Aren't most politicians like that? I'm not well-informed,
but I can tell when someone is not responding to my question.
She's just surfing through language-play like all the others. The question is wrether she's skilled or her choices of tactics matter to the tentative
masses that can vote for her.

It's irony that Hilary Clinton has been busted out and replaced by Palin in the medias. Maybe Palin is the fantasy girl in bikini with machine guns that the americans were all waiting for. Less talk, more trigger.


Cedric Caspesyan

10/03/2008 04:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Cedric C said...

Is Ed Ruscha "one of the most innovative artists over the past four decades"?

Just curious about the arguments,

Cedric C

10/03/2008 04:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Will America's hatred and fear of the black man bring the angry lunatic and opportunistic, religious nutbag into the "WHITE" House? Probably.

Eric Gelber

(nice try Ed)

10/03/2008 05:57:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eric Gelber

Sorry the link didn't work in my last post. McPain=McDoom

10/03/2008 06:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My favorite snippet was Palin during the education question saying hello to the third graders in the class he brother taught. She was treating the debate just like accepting an award.

But I am glad you had the same response that I did, Ed. Listening to the pundits talk about her command of the issues, I felt that I alone had not received the magic decoder ring.
ml

10/03/2008 06:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Jack Nicolson said...

Ed Ruscha!? LOL!!!

That says it all about the intelligene level of this blog.

You SURE you are not voting for McPalin?

10/03/2008 07:15:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

That says it all about the intelligene level of this blog.


[emphasis mine]

carry on...

10/03/2008 07:28:00 PM  
Anonymous Hemingway. said...

Dont you just love anal editors?
Wheres the beef? All bun and no substance. But bet you can count every single sesame seed.

Carry on.
Or better yet, jsut(sic) quit.

Contemporary art is dead, was actually never alive.

Art Collegia Delenda Est.

10/03/2008 08:14:00 PM  
Anonymous Cedric Casp said...

What do you mean, Jack?

That it's obvious that Ruscha is one of the top innovative artist of the last 40 years? Or that you think it's absurd to mention him?
Some here think we're all stupid for having glanced at anything past Les Demoiselles D'Avignon, so you have to be more clear (or maybe that was you).


Cedric Caspesyan

10/03/2008 08:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Cedric C said...

Oh, it was you.
Sorry for bothering you, Donald.

Cedric

10/03/2008 08:24:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

In all the years of running this blog I have never been anal about editing or pointing out other's errors, so you're clearly not even sure who you're addressing (the point this time [and this one time only] was the irony of the statement and I would guess everyone knew that), but that's entirely beside the point because I have asked you to leave and never return Donald.

I won't ask again. I'll simply return to moderating the comments and you can pride yourself on that if you like, or you can do one non-troll like thing here finally and simply respect that I asked you to leave and do so.

Please go away and don't return...not even to address this comment. Seriously.

10/03/2008 08:32:00 PM  
Blogger George said...

Everything You Heard Is Wrong by Steven Pinker in Fridays New York Times.

Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard, is the author of “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature.”

10/03/2008 10:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Nick said...

The upsetting thing is that "flexibility" is some kind of dog-whistle term for the Unitary Executive theory that Cheney promotes, wherein the office and the actions are not actually governed by the Constitution, because that office does not explicitly belong to the Executive Branch, in their reading.

So while it's obvious that Palin knows nothing of what she speaks, the one-word Pavlovian response (Vice President = flexibility) is not at all innocent or benign.

10/03/2008 11:12:00 PM  
Blogger zipthwung said...

even if it's wrong its Right

Not sure about Rusha - I don;t see his brand of concrete poetry as any mre influential than any other - say EE Cummings or Ad reinhart?

I mean really, most people exagerate an artists influence and significance - though I open to the idea that someone could idolize Ruscha - me im an iconoclast.

Course of Empire and all that, what!

10/04/2008 06:46:00 PM  
Blogger mute041 said...

CRI-TIC-AH!
Contemporary AAAArt Critics!

If you're an artist look around: they're the same all over the world.
The idiosyncrasies and tics of art critics in a gallery of cartoon characters! Here:

http://cri-tic-ah.blogspot.com/

featuring Stefania Rotolo - disco music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ZTEoDNCkk&feature=related

10/05/2008 08:22:00 AM  

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