2/5/13

Punk Rock Cabaret


Ponytail

Saw Sascha Braunig's fantastic show WRISTER, BLISTER, PLASTER at Foxy Production. On a fucking frigid Saturday afternoon, it was absolutely worth the trek to far Western Manhattan. The show is so good! Leaving me with only the merest soupçon, the smallest mouthful of bile at reading that Braunig is only one year older than I am. Her work is great. Technically scintillating, and at least a little bit perverted. Psychedelic, sexy, and crafted in such a lovingly obsessive way. It made me think a lot of the Bay Area, but for no good reason. Braunig is a Canadian and has had a mostly New York-centered (and quite successful) career. What is it about her work that made me think of the Bay Area? Psychedelia, sure. The press release's very nite description of her work as "an ambivalent nod towards Dali". That seems about right. There's a kind of anxiety produced by the work, but not a wholly unpleasant one. It felt very Oakland, or sort of post-Mission School-y. I liked it tremendously. The show is only up until 2/9/13, so if you're in New York please go see it right away.


Claude


Untitled

Meandered over to Matthew Marks to see Nayland Blake's new exhibition What Wont Wreng. Blake is of course an icon of contemporary queer art. I love his work and so should you. You probably already love it, maybe without knowing it. Discovering Nayland Blake's artwork when I was in college was so exciting for me. He traverses worlds of which I do not necessarily consider myself a citizen. I want to make it plain that the reason I enjoy his work is not because I feel like it affirms something about "me". I think a lot of times certain viewers of certain types of work fall into this trap.

ASIDE: in college I studied studio art with the infamous living artist Robin Winters and it totally changed my life. One assignment was that everybody had to draw names from a class, of artists currently showing in NYC, and go to the galleries and ask for more information about the artists. I got Nayland Blake and I didn't know who he was, so I went to Matthew Marks gallery when i was 19 and asked about him. And the administrative worker I met was totally rude, and actually incredibly uninformed both about Blake's work ("Well, he's biracial and gay, so the work is about that") and about the gallery in general. I asked why he showed at Matthew Marks, and the lady said that of course Matthew chose Blake, and left it at that.  Anyway then I found out about Nayland Blake's work and I really liked it.

His new show at Matthew Marks was kind of subtly genius for me. The installations and sculptures use found objects but in a highly restrained way. It's a kind of kinky minimalist play, for me. Like, out-jocking Jock art. My favorite piece is the one above, Buddy, Buddy, Buddy an assemblage of strings of keychains and action figures, figurines. Of all sorts of different cartoon and pop culture Bear figures, strung across a mirror. It was sort of sexy/sexual, all these beefy action figures. And the thing of collecting them, right? Of gathering and arranging them. And you caught bits of your own reflection in the mirror behind the sculpture. I stood in front of it for a long time, admiring it, picking out which of the figurines were characters from The Simpsons. As soon as I walked away I realized that the collective shape was that of a beard. It's like a beard of kids' toys. I thought that was pretty genius too.


Buddy, Buddy, Buddy

I came home and took a nap and met up with Jiddy No-No at the opening for NEVERMORE at On Stellar Rays. It was a dark and gorgeous show. Les Jiderables and I took the train back to Brooklyn, where went for happy hour at the Metropolitan, which I basically never do. They were doing craft night, I forgot they did craft night, and had 2 for 1 drink tickets. Who knew? This is what you get when you start drinking at 7:30.

We took cute photos at the photoboof

Ben and Maggie came and we hung out for a bit, before they all went to dinner. I was too tired and it was snowing and although it was, in fact Saturday night, I went to bed early. I'm not ashamed. I've been really into watching these kind of dumb MOR b-comedies in foreign languages. I can't explain why.

Sunday I rehearsed my music for the Pussy Faggot performance this Friday at Public Assembly (RSVP FOR CHEAP DOOR PRICE HERE) I'm doing a cover of a Helium cover I'm kind of excited about, maybe a Huggy Bear one too. Punk Rock is my Cabaret, guys.



New Shirt, New Roisin. New Days! I've been wildly unproductive. I have a lot I need to DO.

Hey this new bar opened in Bushwick and evidently they serve CLUB MATE. I want to go there right now to get it. WHO WANTS TO COME WITH ME. It's the best. It'll be the best.

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