Wow. I just learned via Tyler Green (Modern Art Notes) that Adam Weinberg, the new director of the Whitney, gave an interview to The Art Newspaper in which he throws into doubt a 2006 Biennial.

While Mr Weinberg has not decided how to organise the 2006 biennial, he is giving serious thought to “an installation of the entire museum top-to-bottom with the collection”.

Later on in the article, after talking about the museum's lack of space, we also read this:

Mr Anderson had investigated the possibility of mounting the Biennial and other exhibitions in the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue, but Mr Weinberg has not formally explored that possibility as yet. Meanwhile, he intends to reclaim for exhibitions part of the indoor/outdoor gallery on the lower floor of the building which currently houses the restaurant and shop.

I just noticed the use of "Mr" (no period) rather than "Mr." Is that a new trend? Are periods passé?

In an earlier post I mentioned that the Rivington Arms people didn't think they needed a website.

I once asked whether they were going to get one, and they said, "that's not really the audience we're aiming for." This comes from people who were chatting with trucker-hatted visitors who were explaining that one simply cannot live comfortably in NYC with an apartment worth less than $1 million.

Now I understand why, but I still think it's cheesy to act as if they're demeaning art by making it easier for people to find the gallery or learn more about their artists. The Friday NY Times, in its article about young art dealers, tells us that one of the partners is the daughter of Brice Marden.

On a more upbeat note, read the happy aspects of the article over on jameswagner.com.

I updated my earlier post about this Target Margin play. They have been extended for a week.

My cold is back, and I'm busy, so no brilliant write-up for you, just a recommendation. Go see These Very Serious Jokes, the beginning of Target Margin's Faust project. They are doing their own translation, by Douglas Langworthy, and it is beautiful. Plus: David Greenspan plays Mephistopheles!

The run (at HERE) ends February 1:

Sun Jan 25 @ 7pm
Tues Jan 27 - Sat Jan 31 @ 8.30pm
Sat Jan 31 and Sun Feb 1 @ 4pm

Target Margin and The Civilians (mentioned a couple of days ago) are two of the most interesting theater groups out there. I go see almost everything they do (exceptions only for scheduling, not aesthetic reasons) -- in the case of TM since 1991!

Update: See James's take on it.

Our friend Yuval Pudik (see the illustration above) is doing the costumes for "Just an Old Song", a dance piece by Fabio Tavaresone that is of the works in the latest Food for Thought event at Danspace at St. Mark's.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Curated by Wally Cardona, Heidi Latsky, and Susan Osberg
January 30-February 1
[Fri-Sun] at 8:30 PM
Admission: $5 + 2 cans of food or $10

I recommend going on the 31st, and then heading out to Williamsburg for a party where you can also see an installation by him:

After party & art exhibition
Featuring "Untitled No. 2"  A drawing installation by Yuval Pudik
@ NAR, 152 Metropolitan Ave.  (corner of Berry)  
Williamsburg, Brooklyn  
Tel. 718-599-3027

Tom Moody has a post about a novel that sounds like a possible precursor to The Matrix: Wolfbane by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. Go read his description.

While you're there also read what he has to say about the sculptures by Ross Knight at the entrance to the Sculpture Center. I loved those when we went to the opening of the Kabakov show, plus the In Practice Projects group show, featuring a lot of good and fun art, including an audio piece on personal hygiene by Nicolás Dumit Estévez in the restrooms.

I wrote about this play after we saw it a year ago.

You now have another chance to see it, February 6 – 29, 2004.

The Civilians

To buy tickets

Here is another post I did on The Civilians and their show "Gone Missing."

Their fundraisers are always fun, and I'm on the benefit committee, so if you want to hear about the next one, please send me your mailing address.

--

Update: We're going on the 14th. It's $25 instead of $15 on that date, but it's a benefit for Dixon Place and there is a reception afterward. What, you think we would eat out on V-day in this city?

Jeffy Whitty (of Avenue Q fame) has a play, The Hiding Place, at Atlantic Theater (the 16th Street location) through January 25. He manages to be very funny plus put in some very smart commentary on theater, the visual arts, and the literary world. The whole cast is great, but I really loved Susan Parfour, and I would go see Kate Blumberg in anything.

For my readers in Miami, here is a recommendation. My friend Sharon Louden has an installation at Ambrosino Gallery:

Sharon Louden

Glow Room
site specific installation,
project room exhibition

January 23-February 29, 2004
opening reception: Friday, January 23, 7-10pm

Franklin Einspruch, of artblog.net fame, has a new project: Artsfeed. It's sort of a portal of weblogs that he watches (including mine!) that shows recent posts from all of those sites. It can take a little while to load, but it's very handy.

What is wrong with this world? La Dolce Vita is not available on DVD?

Yeah! The Arts Journal blogs now all have RSS feeds.

We saw this painting at the Metropolitan Museum's El Greco exhibit yesterday. Among the best works in the show, this was one of the few I had never seen before, even in reproduction. It's haunting and so human, not "iconic" even though it was inspired by his early career as a Byzantine icon painter.

The show ends on the 11th, and is definitely worth a visit. Take a day off and do not try to go on the weekend. It was pretty crowded even on a Tuesday afternoon with a crowd of all ages. I really liked hearing all of the secular Jewish New Yorkers asking each other questions. Given that El Greco's career was mainly spent in Philip II's Spain, it is mostly religious and filled with Catholic themes. Not exactly the area of expertise for a lot of people in the crowd. I wasn't raised Catholic, so most of what I know about Catholicism is from European art too.

Go read what James had to say on the exhibit.

The Morning News has a sweet interview with Witold Riedel, accompanied by a gallery.

We went to a preview today of Big Art Group's House of No More at P.S.122. Disclaimer: I got comp tickets from Andy at P.S.122, as someone who attends a lot of shows there. It was sort of a friends/press/tastemakers kind of preview event.

I chose my post's title from the fact that Big Art Group uses technology in a way that makes me think of the Wooster Group, but their work is even more about mediating reality. You can see the actors working on stage, doing what you watch on the three screens, but you're supposed to watch just the screens, sort of. In a world where New Yorkers used TV to confirm what was happening before their eyes on 9/11, it's an approach that makes sense. I referred to the Glamericans, with whom I marched on February 15, 2003, because some of the them are involved in the production, including Machine, who did the costumes.

Like Wooster Group, and many other interesting theatre groups, their works are "works in progress" basically forever. When I asked a question about one of the more baffling characters in the talkback afterward (moderated by the lovely Mike Albo), I was told, "she'll make more sense on Thursday." As in a lot of theatre that interests me, I was confused by the disjointed aspect of the work for the first third or so, but I was really into it, and the mystery of the plot, by the end.

I've been known to go to Wooster Group productions more than once during a run to watch how things evolve. I suspect Big Art Group warrants a similar approach.

When I mentioned Godard's Contempt in my earlier post, I forgot to say the reason we watched it recently was to be prepared to see Javier Cambre's show of the same name at *sixtyseven. It was a cool show, but it's closed now. Cambre was the one that did that wonderful beach shack in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

On an unrelated note, I love the new awning at Foxy Production.

I've been doing more work on Meredith's web page as the "guinea pig" for my artist web hosting business. Now that she can add her own stuff, there are a lot more images.

lisa + robert at black betty
c-print, 2002

That image is from her Williamsburg/Greenpoint snapshots. It's Lisa Schroeder of Schroeder Romero gallery, plus one of their artists, Robert Boyd.

I really love her latest series. She has been taking photos of her mother's Beanie Babies collection. They are all wrapped in plastic bags, to preserve their market values. I think they are quite beautiful, and the background information about her mother and the perversely commercial aspect of the items only makes them more interesting.

b.b.#1 (blue bird)
c-print, 2003