Ryan Schneider and I are traveling to Copenhagen for a show that Ryan organized and we are both showing new paintings in at Gallery Poulsen:

The Irascible Assholes – New Paintings from New York

Vernissage and opening party friday June 18 from 5 to 10 pm

Gallery Poulsen Contemporary Fine Arts
Flæsketorvet 24, Den hvide Kødby
1711 København V.
Tlf.+45 4015 5588

The Irascible Assholes are: Ryan Schneider, Tom Sanford,  Aaron Johnson, Daniel Heidkamp, Van Hanos, William Powhida, Jamison Brosseau

There is a press release for the show, but a brief summery of the conceit of the show might be: The Irascible Assholes: A bunch of new paintings by some dudes from NYC who make bad ass paintings.

Ryan and I will be in Copenhagen for about a week leading up to the June 18th opening and are hoping that Morten Poulsen will allow us to make a few collaborative paintings in the space, we will probably also spend a good amount of time at the world’s coolest dock bar, Halvandet with our pal Jens-Peter Brask.

Exhibition: Currents
Sunday June 13, 2010 – Monday September 20, 2010 from 11:00am – 4:45pm
Nassau County Museum of Art
One Museum Dr.
Roslyn Harbor, New York 11576
Currents showcases three exciting artists working today: Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Benjamin Edwards and Tom Sanford. All three artists have been shown widely in group and solo exhibitions here and abroad. Hutchins’ sculptural work was seen in the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Benjamin Edwards reflects contemporary society in hallucinatory and visionary landscapes. Tom Sanford paints vibrant representations of pop objects and celebrities. The exhibition is organized by Elaine Berger for the museum’s Contemporary Collectors Circle.

Alas – That God Damn Icelandic Volcano messed it all up for me. My flight was pushed back over two days due to the mystery dust cloud. It ended up that I would not only miss the opening, but have only about a day and a half in Barcelona and spend more time in the air than I would in Barcelona due to a crazy itinerary that involved five connecting flights over the course of the round trip. So the executive decission was made to skip this. What a shame, I was really looking forward to this one and I feel bad for poor Lizzy who will have to handle the booth without my charming banter!

Here are just a few of my new paintings that will be shown at the SWAB Fair this weekend. If you happen to be lucky enough to be in Barcelona this weekend (May 13-16) please go visit Lizzy at the Leo Koenig Inc booth at the SWAB art fair and say hi from me!

Kamrooz Aram
Dike Blair
Holly Coulis
David Humphrey
Deborah Kass

moderated by Tom Sanford – painter & Bad at Sports correspondent

These “Painters of Painting,” representing various generations of New York painters, are all prominent voices among their cohort who enlist a wide variety of approaches to the medium. They will discuss the current concerns in painting as well as painting’s enduring relevance as a humanistic and idiosyncratic antidote to the prevailing corporate culture of consensus and commoditization.

In conjunction with the exhibition Don’t Piss on Me and Tell Me it’s Raining curated by Bad at Sports & will be recorded for podcast on an upcoming edition of the Bad at Sports Podcast (AKA the Amanda Browder show).

Kamrooz Aram was born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1978, and received his MFA from Columbia University in 2003. Aram’s works bring together traditional, modern and contemporary cultural references to create images reflecting the complexity of contemporary life. His work has been shown in museums and galleries around the world and featured and reviewed in numerous publications. In spring 2010 his work will be featured in the group exhibition Self-Consciousness in Berlin at VeneKlasen Werner, co-curated by Peter Doig and Hilton Als. Aram lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Dike Blair is a painter and sculptor who lives and works in NYC and Hortonville, NY. He teaches painting at RISD and has contributed articles to a number of magazines.

Holly Coulis lives and works in Brooklyn. She was born in Canada and received her MFA in Boston. Her work can be seen at Cherry and Martin Gallery in LA.

David Humphrey is a New York artist represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co. An anthology of his art writing, Blind Handshake, was released by Periscope Publishing this year.

Deborah Kass’ paintings examine the intersection of art history, popular culture and the self. She received her BFA in Painting at Carnegie-Mellon University, studied at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, and the Art Students’ League. Her work is in museum collections throughout the U.S. and numerous public and private collections and has been shown nationally and internationally. She is a Senior Critic in the Yale University MFA Painting Program and is represented by Vincent Fremont and the Paul Kasmin Gallery.

In an effort to bring the broadest possible array of art practice to #class, William Powhida and Tom Sanford have come together to host and underwrite an afternoon of the sometimes-overlooked art of book making. Through this event, (the artists’ first venture into book making), Tom and Bill (or T-Bill Gaming) hope to use this medium to make the world of contemporary art auctions more accessible to the Average Joe on the streets of Chelsea. This highly educational afternoon promises to teach all of us a little about the auctions while having some good fun and maybe making a little quick cash***.

The live video feed of this exciting and important auction will be projected at the gallery. Gallery visitors are invited to watch the excitement unfold as shadowy and anonymous international art patrons determine the actual market value, not only of the works, but also of the hundreds of artists themselves!

As if that is not excitement enough, T-Bill gaming will allow you, the little guy, to get in on the action and ride these fat cats tails to fortune at the expense of the blood, sweat and tears of the artists at auction. T-Bill gaming will take bets on any and all lots taking place during the afternoon sale. Bring your money and a little bit of lady luck ‘cause “all you need is a dollar and a dream!”

*** T-Bill Gaming would like it to be clear that this event is a relational aesthetics art project and not a real gambling operation!

Check out James Wagner’s blog post about the Auction OTB.

Artists with work in the Phillips de Pury Now sale on the auction block are (in order of appearance):

DAVID LACHAPELLE, ROBERT AND SHANA PARKEHARRISON, VIK MUNIZ, GREGORY CREWDSON, LISA OPPENHEIM, ALEX HAAS, MARILYN MINTER, LISE SARFATI, DAVID DREBIN, ERWIN OLAF, KIM JOON, NOBUYOSHI ARAKI, REGINA DELUISE, KATY GRANNAN, NAOMI HARRIS, ANN WOO, NICHOLAS PRIOR, GÖTZ DIERGARTEN, ALEC SOTH, STÉPHANE COUTURIER, SIMON NORFOLK, ROBERT POLIDORI, WENG FEN, JIN SHAN, WOUT BERGER, EDWARD BURTYNSKY, EVA HILD, AYALA SERFATY, JULIAN MAYOR, CHRIS RUCKER, JOHANNA GRAWUNDER, ATELIER VAN LIESHOUT, JURGEN BEY, KIKI SMITH, ALEX ROSKIN, KELLY MCCALLUM, CARLOS MOTTA, ROLF SACHS , PHILIPPE MOREL, RON ARAD, ELENA COLOMBO, JULIAN MAYOR, FRANÇOIS AZAMBOURG , FABIO NOVEMBRE , PETER TRAAG , GEOFFREY BRADFIE , SCA GREENFIELD-SANDERS , ELIZABETH PEYTON , ELLEN GALLAGHER , LISA YUSKAVAGE , MARLENE DUMAS , ROSANGELA RENNÓ , CHUCK CLOSE , LAURIE SIMMONS , THE CLAYTON BROTHERS , GILLIAN WEARING , WILHELM SASNAL , JAN TIMME , SHEPARD FAIREY , MARTIN PURYEAR , CHRIS BALLANTYNE , LISA RUYTER , THOMAS EGGERER , PETER DOIG , MARCEL DZAMA , BARRY MCGEE , MEL BOCHNER , JACK PIERSON , CHRISTOPHER WOOL , DAMIEN HIRST , KEHINDE WILEY , TAKASHI MURAKAMI , RYAN MCGINNESS, JEFF KOONS , YOSHITOMO NARA , ELLSWORTH KELLY , MONIQUE PRIETO , TIM EITEL , SUZANNE LAFONT , ED RUSCHA , LARRY JOHNSON , TIM DAVIS , STEPHANIE CINELLI , CANDIDA HÖFER , EBERHARD HAVEKOST , THOMAS STRUTH , THOMAS RUFF , CHARLES LUTZ , GREGOR HILDEBRANDT , DAVE MULLER , WILLIAM CORDOVA , CHEYNEY THOMPSON , FRANCIS ALŸS , JON PYLYPCHUK , CHRIS JOHANSON , CHRISTIAN SCHUMANN , ERIK PARKER , RITA ACKERMANN , MARTIN EDER , RYAN MCGINLEY , PAUL RUSCONI , LEANDRO ERLICH , JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER , EILEEN QUINLAN , JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER , KARA WALKER , SIOBHAN LIDDELL , MICHAEL JOO , HOPE ATHERTON , TOMORY DODGE , AMELIE VON WULFFEN , MATTHEW MONAHAN , JOHANNES KAHRS , MONICA BONVICINI , LERONE WILSON , RAFAL BUJNOWSKI , WILHELM SASNAL , JONATHAN MEESE , GEORGE CONDO , DAVID RATCLIFF , TERENCE KOH , BRIAN KENNON , ANDREW GUENTHER , AGATHE SNOW , CANDICE BREITZ , THOMAS RUFF , PAUL PFEIFFER , KIM MCCARTY , BHAKTI BAXTER , KAREN KILIMNIK , CECILY BROWN , JÖRG LOZEK , SARA VAN DER HEIDE , JESUS DIAZ DE VIVAR , RICHARD LOUDERBACK , CHARLES KARUBIAN , HÅVARD HOMSTVEDT , BRIAN FAHLSTROM , CHRISTOPH RUCKHÄBERLE , CHRISTOPH SCHMIDBERGER , MUNTEAN & ROSENBLUM , CHRISTOPH SCHMIDBERGER , SHAY KUN , STEPHEN BUSH , STEFANO ARIENTI , SAM SALISBURY , JAY DAVIS , DAN KOPP , OLEG TISTOL , AYA UEKAWA , MR. , SHINTARO MIYAKE , GAIJIN FUJITA , LEE DONGI , RICHARD ALDRICH , MAGNUS SIGURDARSON , MARK DI SUVERO , LIONEL ESTÉVE , LIONEL ESTÉVE , ALLAN MCCOLLUM , MARK MANDERS , JAMES WELLING , COSIMA VON BONIN , OLAFUR ELIASSON , GREGOR SCHNEIDER , DAVID DEUTSCH AND PHIL GRAUER , HIROSHI SUGIMOTO , YANG FUDONG , CUI XIUWEN , CARLOS AMORALES , JENNY SAVILLE IN COLLABORATION WITH GLENN LUCHFORD , NAN GOLDIN , HELMUT GRILL , ANNIKA LARSSON , SCOTT PETERMAN , GERARD BYRNE , PHIL COLLINS , ERWIN WURM , MARIAH ROBERTSON , ANDREW MOORE , JESSICA BACKHAUS , KAMRAN DIBA , ZHANG HU , ANTHONY BURDIN , SU XINPING , RAY SELL , ASON MEADOWS , JENS LORENZEN , DAVID SHAW , ABETZ/DRESCHER , HENNING KLES  , KEVIN APPEL , DELIA BROWN , JON FLACK , DAN ATTOE , BIRGIT MEGERLE , FARIS MCREYNOLDS , THOMAS SCHEIBITZ , IVAN MORLEY , GERALD DAVIS , WILL COTTON , KELLY MCLANE , ALLEN RUPPERSBERG , GILLIAN CARNEGIE , TIM STONER , GRAHAM GILLMORE , WILLIAM POWHIDA , JASON MCLEAN , BENDIX HARMS , THOMAS ACKERMANN , UWE KOWSKI , GREG HABERNY , TIM LOKIEC , KENNY SCHARF ,  BRIAN LEO , ANNA SEW HOY , OS GEMEOS , GHOST , COPE 2 (FERNANDO CARLO) , T-KID , KATOPE , ARBITO , STEVE MERRILL , DANIEL GOFFIN , EMMETT POTTER III , BLOBPUS , KEN AKAMATSU / MARMIT CO. , KYOKA IKEDA / GARGAMEL CO. , EECIFER

I won’t be able to make it out to LA, so I sent my painting of “LA Tom Sanford”, a painting from a series of several other Tom Sanfords whom I have met and then painted. I had hoped that LA Tom Sanford would be able to attend the opening as my surrogate. Unfortunately he is currently busy in northern California doing a bid as a organic farmer and will not be able to get away from his crops long enough to make it downstate to the opening. This is a shame as I got on famously with my LA namesake over many beers at the Red Lion when I met him back in August of 2008 and very much wanted to have him stand in for me on this one. I would have happily given LA Tom Sanford license to act on my behalf at the opening and probably all matters art related on the left coast.

Below are the details included in a very lengthy press release. If you are in the area please stop in and let me know how it came out, maybe even take a photo and send it to me, I’m very curious to know what exactly Qi Peng is up to!

WEST LOS ANGELES

COLLEGE ART GALLERY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

West Los Angeles College Art Gallery
9000 Overland Avenue
Culver City CA 90230
Tel: +1 310 287 4200
maarata@aol.com or qipengart@gmail.com
http://lagroupshow.weebly.com/
Exhibition dates: February 10-March 18, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 20, 6-9
Gallery hours: Monday-Thursday, 9:30-4, Friday, by appointment

The West Los Angeles College Art Gallery is proud to present “The Artist’s Guide to the L.A. Galaxy,” a group exhibition curated by Michael Arata and qi peng featuring work by William Brovelli, Kadar Brock, Vincent Como, Jon Coffelt, Eric Doeringer, Julie Dunker, Emilie Duval, Jeff Faerber, Daniel Heidkamp, Megan Hildebrandt, Joelle Jensen, Matt Jones, Mindy Kober, Shay Kun, Amy Lincoln, Jenny Morgan, Jenny Morgan + David Mramor, Tom Sanford, Dannielle Tegeder, Dave Thomas, Leah Tinari, and Jeremy Willis.

INTERVIEWER: Hello there, Michael and qi. I just heard about this new show called “An Artist’s Guide to the L.A. Galaxy.” Sounds like a crossbreed between Douglas Adams and David Beckham’s soccer team. So what is going on in this exhibit here at West Los Angeles College?

CURATORS: This group show is a critical dialogue about the idea of portraiture, including self-portraiture, in the age of new media such as the Internet and social networking particularly with Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. We decided to focus particularly only on “traditional” media and exclude video and internet art because we are interested in presenting the strong impact of our Internet-based lives on these “traditional” forms such as paintings, sculptures, installation art, photography, and works on paper. This group show is pretty extensive, including both emerging and established artists, in looking at how artists who do not work specifically in new media are influenced by the shifting of the Internet as a portal for mostly getting information online during the early 2000s towards a virtual medium for people interacting with each other in a parallel universe through social networks during the late 2000s. Also we felt that focusing on the theme of portraits would give us an overview on how human identity is perceived and constructed in the postmodern era.

INTERVIEWER:. There does not seem to be a common language by which these artists explain their own version of what human identity is. So what is the underlying thread amongst all of these seemingly different works?

CURATORS: These works are significant innovations because they are all about painting/photographing degree zero. They are subject to endlessly open interpretation and all attack human identity as a closed set of qualities. Whereas the mainstream media depict people within preset stereotypes, the artworks in “The Artist’s Guide to the L.A. Galaxy” present an alternative view of human identity as a set of shifting constructs. This continual refusal to pinpoint who the “characters” within these pieces beguile the viewers who see these works in its remixed context. You can think of this show as an ambiguous cross section about who we are today.

INTERVIEWER: Does this allusion to Barthes suggest that the artist is constructed by how their works are created rather than the other way around? For example, will the viewer figure out who the original “Shay Kun” is based on the two paintings that exist now here in Los Angeles?

CURATORS: Yes, we invite the viewers to recreate a “Shay Kun” of their liking based on how they interpret his works in person. It’s like becoming a detective who is not interested in solving a crime but making up fictional ghost-like criminals to catch based on their intertextual fantasies of who they want to be the opponents.

INTERVIEWER: Can you give us an overview on who are participating in this visual mixtape of the past decade?

CURATORS: Okay, let us head to the breakdown:

Within illustrative caricatures, Faerber, with his acerbic wit, attacks the secretive and dictator-like tendencies of Karl Rove as a bespectacled bandit or the Patriot Act-era satellite peering into our personal lives within his explicitly political depictions of the Bush administration during the 2000’s. Tinari’s gentle yet sharp humor portrays Edith Wharton-like characters who seem to be celebratory and optimistic against all odds while living in idyllic beach resorts. Her gouaches examine a cultural fin de siecle where slogans such as “White Tail” or “I Heart Sex” become acts of defiant self-expression in the repressive culture of conservatism. Are Tinari’s works a satire of an age where economic hoodwinking and materialistic excess were predominant or affectionate character studies of people who act as if they really knew how to love their lives in the American spirit? She provides no answers for the viewer. Finally, Sanford’s portrait of his “surrogate Tom Sanford” whom the artist had discovered and met through Google suggest that the uniqueness of any person’s identity is subsumed by our ability to find other versions of ourselves in parallel universes such as New York City and Los Angeles. These political and sociological works examine how we are a tenuous constructs of double or multiple fragments of how others see us.

Other works contain more postmodern and conceptual methodologies or viewing angles. For example, Jensen’s photographs apply portraiture as a framing device of our own personal histories, in this case, one’s high school years. Like the images in Proust’s novel, her memories are vague recollections of the ghost of her early years within these photographs of photographs like doubled identities. Heidkamp’s neo-expressionist painting of a photograph or the act of photographing using a digital camera is intellectually playful. Is he suggesting that our culture of YouTube and Flickr where people pose for seemingly throwaway snapshots is becoming our more democratic historiography? Como’s ability to use a single color black as his signature arrives in his dark humor whether he offers the viewer mass-produced editions of monochrome paintings or a thoughtful self-portrait in the form of a parody of the Guinness World Records. Kober’s pieces reflect her own take on commonplace historical and cultural images that are remixed into new contexts that subvert the images’ original meaning.

Other portraits represent a deliberate fragmentation of the human identity within dual or serial formalism while exploring how artworks gain cultural and economic value. Doeringer’s brilliant remix of an obscure Charles Ray piece taken from a Christie’s auction lot using his own clothes and his own body is not just another piece of appropriation art. Here is a direct confrontation of basic assumptions about how we value art. For example, why would the Eric Doeringer version of this concept be valued less or more than the Charles Ray if the idea is what forms the artwork? Can art be separated from its sociological context? Brovelli’s offering of an Etch-A-Sketch with apropos documentation of its creation is not only completely self-referential in which receipt and purchased object become the completed piece but also a ruthless probing into how consumerism became an art form during the 2000s when the art market become a high stakes game. Jones’ “ghost” drawings can be read as profound explorations into the complex nature of communication and expression and as metaphor for human identity as a form of Schrodinger’s cat (where identity is not a fixed concept but a complex set of possible interpretations). In addition to adding an allusion to one of the exhibit’s curators (qi peng), this set of drawings show that mark-making combine to form complex drawings as individual characteristics combine to form one’s personality.

Some of the portraits have the strong roots in traditional painterliness of the individual while reflecting the themes of social networking, the conflict between the personal and the public domains of life, and the artist’s concern with the art historical context. For example, Lincoln’s subtle portraits are firmly modernist in its outlook with references to outsider art whether it be her exquisite depiction of the painter as the subject in the vein of Picasso’s theme of artist and model or her subjects within a reflective mood that captures the inner essence of her sitters. Hildebrandt’s self-portrait takes a distinctly more feminist slant with her subversion of the blonde stereotype as a cultural artifact to be struck down by social judgment of women by character rather than physical appearance. Morgan’s seemingly photorealistic nude studies of her female subjects in regal, fleshy contrapposto are interrupted by the Renaissance era obsession with anatomical studies and the corporeal attention to tight detail of blood and lighting. Thomas’ cartoon-like self-portraits gently mix expressive gestures of the artist as a provocative minstrel with obsessive graffiti and stencils like Pensato crashing into Twombly. Willis depicts a colorful portrait of a terrified male that mixes up horror and insanity to suggest the madness of our fast-paced lives today. Brock’s examination of the spiritual conflict between the abstract pattern of the magical diamond and the figurative self-portrait of himself as an alligator derived from a dream becomes an universal archetype of an artist as a restless wanderer always looking for that elusive chord of resolve. His paintings express an innate freedom of the artist to use whatever tools he or she has on hand ranging from oil to spray paint to flashe for the building of self-identity. Like Brock’s works, Morgan and Mramor’s collaborations also explore the conflict between the figurative and abstract worlds within a painter’s vocabulary. In a creative homage to the Surrealist movement, the duo mash up graffiti stencils with precisely rendered photorealism while illustrating the linguistic pun of eye/I as the epitome of self-creation.

Various portraits focus on the unit of society beyond that of the single individual, particularly on how one person relates to the environment, within conceptual landscapes impacted by the human touch even though humans seem to be mostly absent. Kun’s fascinating paintings of a man dwarfed by his placidly rustic landscape interrupted by the absurdity of human or animal activities whether it be nuclear explosions or parachuting soldiers or mutant reindeers. He allows the viewer to ponder how humanity perceives and controls Nature. Is an artist a shaman over a fictional Nature in a parallel universe? Duval’s pastel-hued wallscape depict a world of interrupted boundaries where political identities are defined by our global dissolution of nations into a new world order threatens to erase our cultural uniqueness. Even though Kun’s and Duval’s portraits seem to be more environmental and political than the previous set of portraits of single individuals, these pieces study the way that our single identities are molded by external cultural or scientific factors that surround us every single day.

The final set of portraits delve into the world of pure abstraction where the artist attempts to translate his or her innermost thoughts of his or her personality into a formal language of abstract marks on the work itself. Dunker’s painting is a literal depiction of a geometric composition derived from her own psychology merged into hard-edge brushstrokes that masks her own identity rather than a landscape as a translated form of an actual scene in reality with the touch of personal effects. Coffelt’s complex abstractions combine his own fascination with electrical circuit boards infused with a personalized color scheme and a mechanical symphony of synthetic patterns reminiscent of Halley’s work. Tegeder’s installation of an encyclopedia of her drawings deploying a collision between lines and shapes into balanced forms (of which the original version had these drawings translated digitally into sonic landscapes played over speakers) reflect her own love of classical music, particularly Scriabin, as well as reflecting on art history tied into musical composition, particularly the Suprematists and Kandinsky, within the context of our era of seemingly random information where a tidbit of Paris Hilton’s life is equal to an axiom of Wittgenstein’s book. Tegeder’s work reminds us that refined draftsmanship is the basis for the portrait as a philosophically viable idea rather than simply a straightforward portrayal of a human being. One could argue that her piece is a scalpel into the human soul that is part of the inexpressible.

INTERVIEWER: Whew, this is a lot to take in! I really cannot wait to see this exhibition soon. Any final thoughts?

CURATORS: We are excited to see how the public responds to our comprehensive survey of portraiture and self-portraiture during the past decade that extends on the human subject as depicted by Currin and Yuskavage during the 1990’s. Hopefully all of you can check out our new media portrait of the exhibition at http://lagroupshow.weebly.com/ and also there will be a physical catalogue/artist’s book for the show as well with introductions by Matt Jones, New York painter who is featured in this show, as well as Brian Staker, art reviewer for the Salt Lake City Weekly and freelance journalist. PROST!

For further information or visual information, please contact the gallery at (310) 287-4200 or at maarata@aol.com or qipengart@gmail.com.

I am in a group show of several generations of contemporary painters:

The Antidote
Claire Oliver Fine Art
513 West 26th Street, NYC 10001
January 28th – March 6th, 2010
Opening: Thursday January 28th, 6-8PM

The photos shows the three small paintings that I will be exhibiting in the Antidote: Susan Boyle (2010) , The Salahis (2010) & Tiger Woods (2009).

Artists: William T. Wiley, Herb Jackson, Ulf Puder, Rina Banerjee,
Jessee McCloskey, Aaron Johnson, and Tom Sanford

In the 160 years since French painter Paul Delaroche
proclaimed “from today painting is dead”, many scholars
and critics of art have echoed his sentiments. As each new
concept or movement in the visual arts comes to the fore,
judgment is passed on all that came before it. In
Delaroche’ time, the advent of photography changed the
usefulness of painting as documentation, in the 20th
century, modernist painting transitioned paint from a
representational two dimensional medium to art grounded
in codes rather than images. In our contemporary culture
of instant access and short attention spans, painting has
once again reinvented itself.

By examining the validity and variety of painting in the post-modern era, The Antidote shines light on paint’s continued potential for innovation and influence. Uninhibited by traditionally expected technique, these artists have developed their own processes in order to best execute their
contemporary concepts in this historically rich medium. The Antidote features new works painted for
this exhibition by three generations of artists embracing paint as their medium of expression: William T.
Wiley, Herb Jackson, Rina Banerjee, Ulf Puder, Tom Sanford, Aaron Johnson and Jesse McCloskey.

Joann Moser, Senior Curator of the Smithsonian American Art Museum says of William T. Wiley’s work: He has created a distinctive body of work that addresses critical issues of our time. Art, politics, war, global warming, foolishness, ambition, hypocrisy, and irony are summoned by Wiley’s fertile imagination and recorded in the personal vocabulary of symbols, puns and images that fill his objects. His wit and sense of the absurd make his art accessible to all with multiple layers of meaning revealed through careful examination. Wiley’s works employ a playful treatment of language and image, producing a nonlinear mix of words, gestures, and figures to convey his concepts.

William T. Wiley is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. and many other important museums and institutions. Wiley was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2004.

Herb Jackson’s paintings are built up in many layers which are scraped off as they are being applied. Shapes and marks come and go as the painting develops to a hundred or more layers. There is an unmistakable dissonance between the luminous, often pearlescent colors and the raw sense of corrosion and violent gesture which Jackson’s compositions and surfaces combine to convey. The final outcome is the result of a process of discovery Jackson says is similar to the life experience itself. Herb Jackson has had over 150 one-person exhibitions and his paintings are in the permanent collection of over 100 Museums including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. Jackson’s work was included in the first exhibition of contemporary American art, curated by Donald Kuspit and presented in the former USSR in 1989.

Ulf Puder belongs to the first tier of famous graduates of the Leipzig’s Academy of Visual Arts. Along with his peer, Neo Rauch, Puder has created a new vocabulary that combines the neo-realism prevalent in the former Eastern Germany with a surrealistic bent. The artist skillfully balances comfort and ruin as well as reality and abstraction. His assemblage of squares, symmetrical triangles and rectangles each add a different texture to a controlled sense of imminent disaster. By locating his scenes on smooth, sandy plains or glassy lakes and recording them in soft grays and purples Puder’s orderly chaotic world is both two and three dimensional, constructed and deconstructed, present and imagined.

Tom Sanford says of his work that he “hopes the subject becomes dated even before (He) finishes the painting”. Using painting, a “slow food” visual medium, the artist creates advertisement like posters of the latest tabloid gossip. By juxtaposing tradition and our throw-away contemporary society, Sanford has created his own Modern-day history paintings.

Rina Banerjee is an Indian born New York based artist whose work explores the aesthetics of exotic beauty, physical illusion and ornamental object. Her imagery stems from her dual cultural history of both eastern and western art. Banerjee seeks to transform everyday objects (and their cultural identity), recreating their identity as a thing of beauty cultural gap. Says the artist of her work: The global place is a garden made out of travel – both real and imagined – and is my illusionary world. Banerjee has exhibited her works in the Greater New York Show, PS1 MOMA, and at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.

Jesse McCloskey’s work is certainly representational, yet he considers himself and abstract artist. He begins each work by making several large colorful abstract paintings which he then cuts into hundreds of exacting abstract shapes. These small pieces of painted paper are then painstakingly applied to a stretched canvas, layer by layer, building up dimension, color, impact and design. Influenced by a childhood full of gothic New England legends, the final work is representational, haunting and mysterious and can be twenty to thirty layers thick.

Aaron Johnson’s frenetic patterning, drips, psychedelic swirls and iridescent globs collage to create a singular apocalyptic universe of grotesque figures and carefully controlled painterly excess. Johnson creates a strikingly effective fusion of paint, process, and image that oozes evil. In his latest series of works, the artist takes on the old masters, reinventing an established vocabulary of imagery while creating a dichotomy of old/new, east/west, painting/design. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith says of the work: if you look carefully it is all there in works that are visceral, beautiful and flamboyantly timely, which is saying a lot.

Aaron Johnson’s work has been exhibited at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO, Art House Texas, Austin, TX and the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY.

For more information:
www.ClaireOliver.com
Tel:212.929.5949

No Longer Empty is putting on a show called Never Can Say Goodbye at the (now defunct) flagship location of Tower Records at East 4th street and Broadway in money makin’ Manhattan. I am excited to be collaborating with Brent Birnbaum in the show, as part of Ted Reiderer’s NEVER RECORDS installation.

Ted will be realizing a grand, multi-artist installation in which he will create a simulation of a long forgotten relic of the 20th Century: the record store. Ted’s project, called NEVER RECORDS, will include work and merch from a whole bunch of artists:

Richard Hambleton | Ted Riederer | Josh Shaddock | Stephanie Syjuko | Brent Birnbaum | Shane Caffrey | Nicholas Brooks | Ryan Sullivan | Doug McQueen | Allison Hester | James Rubio | Richard Barnes | Ted O’Sullivan/Rebecca Potts | Michelle Matson | Brendan Carney | Arturo Vega | Tom Sanford | Johnny T. Yerington | Chris Yerington | Jay Ivcevich

Where I come in is in collaboration with Brent Birnbaum. During the opening reception for the show, Brent will appear dressed as Vanilla Ice (c. 1990 of course) and do a performance which he calls ICE ICE MAYBE. The performance will resemble an “in store appearance,” where Brent will assume the character of Rob Van Winkle’s 1990’s cross-over hip hop villain/scapegoat Vanilla Ice, and he will autograph some ICE ICE MAYBE merchandise, which I had a hand in creating. I am not exactly sure whether or not he will spit some white-boy flava, but I guess there is a chance, depending on how “full of 8-ball” he is. Either way, I know for a fact that Brent has a full array of V.I.P. Posse dance moves.

For my part, I have made a couple of my poster paintings in support of Brent’s vanilla vision. One of the posters is to publicize the performance (pictured above) the other will be reproduced in 8X10 form and autographed for fans willing to wait in line and thus “participate” in Brent’s Rob Van Winkle re-awakening. Those who do cue up to meet ICE will not only have the opertunity to have a brief chat with with the pseudo-star, but will get the chance to purchase his autograph on a LIMITED EDITION ARCHIVABLE* BRENT BIRNBAUM/TOM SANFORD PRINT FOR ONLY 5 DOLLARS!

Brent and I have produced a very limited edition print of one of the posters that i painted for his performance. The print will be signed by both of us artists and numbered one of two hundred and fifty. In addition ICE ICE MAYBE will autograph every print bought to the lucky fan on the spot and personalize it with an ice cool vanilla message. If you bring a camera you will even be allowed to take one photo with ICE ICE MAYBE with each print purchased. So get to the opening early so not to miss your chance to get you print and photo op.

* These prints are archivable in that one can archive them. We make no claim that the paper is in any way archival, in fact it was selected to approximate the quality of the pages of the Tiger Beat magazines that inspired Brent’s performance. Anyway they look great and judging by Brent’s collection of Tiger Beat magazines they should hold up for at least 20 years with absolutely no quality issues.

Never Can Say Goodbye will open on January 15th from 6-8PM, and be open for at least a month. No firm end date has been established as of now. The show will be in the old Tower Records location on the northeast corner of East 4th street & Broadway.

In addition to the artists participating in NEVER RECORDS, the following other artists are also contributing to Never Can Say Goodbye:

Ryan Brennan | Joe Diebes | Luke Duboi | Richard Garet | Nir Hod | Josh Jordan | Kaz Oshiro | Ted Reiderer | Naama Tsabar | Meredyth Sparks | Seibren Versteeg | Paul Vilinski | Invader | Bob Gruen | Dario Robleto | Jason Farrell | Brandi Merolla |Arturo Vega/DeeDee Ramone | Exene Cervenka | Olaf Bruening | Jake Berthot | Jeff Beebe | Marylin Minter | Jason Losh | Evan Gruzis | Damon Locks |Steven Bindernagel | Ethan Minsker | Mike Egan | Mathew Bradley | James Woodward

Curated by Manon Slome, NLE; Steven Evans, Dia Art Foundation; and Asher Remy-Toledo, NLE.

well first off i dont know how you can call your self an artist painting stuff like that…being a dime bag fan and him being my idol i find that piece of “art” i find it very offensive…even if you are trying to show your respects to him it is still wrong..did you even stop to think what dime bags fans would feel seeing something like that..his death hurt so many people and changed the music era for ever…he is a amazing respectable person and that piece of “art” to me is disrespectful…in the future if i where you when i wanted to paint or draw a respectable musican or celeb dont show the way they died…do something peaceful something people would love to have on their wall or computer. You Should be ashamed of yourself and that piece of “art”. and i am not the only one who would feel this way about it. Amanda Mollica

Thanks, Amanda. I am really glad that you enjoyed my painting, and enthusiastic responses such as yours confirm my feeling that it is one of my best. I think of it as a history painting that attempts to depict one of the more bizarrely tragic moments of the past decade. Dimebag’s death was certainly a great loss to the music world and a truly poignant cultural event – a real rock hero slain on stage by a seemingly psychotic fan. A horrifying symptom of the kind of cultural malaise that permeated  Bush II era America. In a way this painting is my answer to Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. One of the things that interested me about making a painting about this event was that as there was almost no visual documentation of the event, just some very unclear security camera footage from the Alrosa Villa. Thus, there was little to get in the way of my imagination of what this might have actually looked like and I was able to base my painting on the oral reports from witnesses of the four murders as well as Nathan Gale’s eventual death. As you probably know, these gruesome accounts were all over the news and the internet in the following days and months.

Btw Amanda, I tried to look you up on facebook to friend you, but your address is attached to the profile of an Amanda More – cookie monster 69, huh? I’m not sure if I want to even consider what this implies – a bit much for my delicate sensibilities!