“It’s his second solo show in New York, but his first solo show as a New York artist,” noted Jeffrey Deitch as he led a toast in honor of Matt Greene. JD helped Matt move from L.A. to NYC, where Matt now has a studio in Williamsburg. I got to meet Matt last summer, when we were both in The Left Hand of Darkness, a group show at The Project curated by Sarvia Jasso and Yasmine Dubois.

Opening night

Massive paintings on canvas and maple panel fill the main gallery at Deitch’s Grand Street space. We see apparitions of phantom women in dresses and heels, or mouth-watering bouquets of mushrooms, presumably of the genus Psylocybe. Friends and I looked closely: most seemed to be mixed media collage combinations of large scale photocopy, acrylic, oil, and varnish or resin. Matt probably has a tried-and-true system, though the variegated surfaces make the handicraft elusive. The glistening resin surface is suggestive more than functional. In different hands, it would “seal” the heterogeneous surfaces, it instead bubbles and drips at random, leaving too many untouched areas to actually be protective. Though Matt used this technique in Surrender, his previous show at Deitch in 2006, it is still a refreshing alternative to the skillful and demanding planes that seductively enclose work by Fred Tomaselli or Julie Mehretu. It’s cool, and I imagine a studio full of big jugs – jugs of polymer, PVA, and “Matt” medium – and an overworked mop.

Yipes, Stripes! Sue de Beer (with fur coat) and Matt Greene (right)

An neat arrangement of drawings in ink and acrylic depict ranks and files of Victoria’s Secret models who occasionally dogpile into a morass of stray body parts. The drawings dismember the bodies by selecting choice bits and cropping out others, and feel more seedy and sweaty than the starched, suburban donnas of elder ladies man John Wesley, an untouchable titan whose insurmountability nevertheless should not discourage imitation. And between both the drawings and paintings, we might think of Bellmer’s segmented bodies, not to mention Bellmer’s process of constructing, rather than hiring, a female body to be his model for a photograph.

Which would you rather take home?

Artist Matthew Ronay, one of my favorite sculptors, and a fierce drummer, is an exception, a hired (or at least borrowed) model who dazzles the camera in a dress, wig, and terrifying mask that makes Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley’s “Heidi” look like Miss Hawaii. “Who else would have arms that hairy?” quipped artist Jesse Bransford. Bransford’s ex, video vamp Sue De Beer, looked on, opped up in a striped dress. (She looks great, and I wonder if she uses the same Creme de la Mer that inspired one of the sculptures in Rear Projection, the new show by John Waters, Sue De Beer’s gallery mate at Marianne Boesky.)

John Waters at Marianne Boesky

IMAGES: Michael Bilsborough, Marianne Boesky Gallery

My stacks of Artforum back issues are as tall as I am. And though I have a complete collection, as continuous as my seamless run of The Punisher, I tend to read it sporadically. Sometimes, I’m dazzled by the ads and lose my place in media read. Other times, the slick cover makes my hand all sweaty, so I have to take a break. But I always read the New York reviews, the Top Ten, and the sex advice – er, that’s another magazine. (But don’t you wish? Hosted each month by a different “sexual” artist? Marina Abramovic, Jeff Koons, Andrea Fraser, Paul McCarthy, Marlene McCarty, Louise Bourgeois, and the Tom of Finland Estate…)

W, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Boxes (stacked, get it?), 1964

Of course, reading Artforum online relieves me of that problem, while saving me precious storage space for the grad school paintings that I just can’t throw out. I can see videos and bonus “500 Words.” And when I encounter a word, theory, or name I don’t recognize – which is often – then I can google it immediately. Incidentally, Jerry Saltz wrote in a recent Facebook discussion that “Scene and Herd” gets the most readers.

Cory Arcangel, I Shot Andy Warhol, 2002

My favorite online art publication is MUSEO, a quarterly contemporary art magazine. The newest issue, #11, was published just last week and features interviews with Dan Graham, Cory Arcangel, Paola Pivi, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and Jonah Freeman. We hear Freeman comment on “alchemy through consumption,” and Arcangel on “consuming as producing.”

Jonah Freeman, Justin Lowe, Alexandre Singh; Hello Meth Lab in the Sun, 2008

One year ago, the inaugural issue of MUSEO Magazine featured exclusive interviews with Taryn Simon, Tanyth Berkeley, Fawn Krieger, Tom Eccles, and SVA alum Phoebe Washburn (in video form). If you wonder how a quarterly could reach 11 issues in one year, it’s because MUSEO was rekindled by Editor-in-Chief David Shapiro after a stretch of hibernation. In its B.C. period, from 1997-2001, the magazine was an journal rounding up intercollegiate content from Columbia University (Go Lions!), Duke, and SVA. David took over the Editor position in 1999 and steered the journal toward contemporary art in New York. In 2000, he launched the online edition, which quickly surpassed the print version in readership. That inaugural online edition included an excellent interview with Jeff Wall, later to be republished by MoMA and in The Education of a Photographer, edited by SVA’s Charles Traub. Other notable interviews from that period included modern marvels Elizabeth Peyton and the Christos, and rising stars like Kevin Zucker, who found the Sublime in a summer blockbuster film.

Jeff Wall, After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the Preface, 1999-2001

Graduating from Columbia ended David’s reign at MUSEO. The journal continued in his wake, but only annually. Meanwhile, David began his art history grad program, started to exhibit his paintings, and later took on a hefty teaching schedule. After a messenger angel visited him one night, David cleared out his studio and began to plan to rekindle the magazine. In 2007, he resurrected it as a paperless quarterly with a makeover by Rare Gallery’s Jasper Pope. Anno domini: MUSEO has awakened, looking refreshed, cool, and timely.

MUSEO returns, like a Phoenix Rising From the Ashes (artwork: Olga Anikina)

I would write more, but we’re consumed by the MUSEO crossword puzzle. We’ll all have to wait for the MUSEO sex column.