After stewing for ten hours over the Kraftwerk debacle, I was happy to indulge in some steam-letting at Wednesday night’s W∆TT▼R (“whatever”), a performance event and party at the legendary Pyramid Club, organized by artist Jory Rabinovitz.  Man, I needed it!  And Francis Heinzfeller’s ghoul-drone menace hit the spot.

Chris Kachulis, who is one-third or one-half of Blanko+Noiry opened the night, after months of “creative hibernation” with showtunes and standards over spooky synth tracks.  Dressed in leather and cast in colored light, he was a Kenneth Anger apparition, though autonomous and living with sympathetic eyes and a loveable voice.  A treasure.

Skint was on next.  I’ve wanted to see them for years, and member Jessie Gold has appeared on this blog, as the muse and model for Frank Benson’s Human Statue (Jessie).  Feline, lissom, and lithe they were, clad in black leggings, metallic lamé blouses, and floral accoutrement.  Easy on the eyes, though not so on the ears.  Still, their formless, provisional micro-rep evinced a type of feminine anarchy, liberated from the patriarchal authority of melody, structure, setlist, etc.

And then Francis Heinzfeller, another one-third or one-half of Blanko+Noiry, terrorized/blessed the stage with chanting, hissing, gurgling, and fa-fa-fa-ing over a synthesizer drone that sounds like chords from the most irretrievable depths of doom.  To see how it looks in sculpture, check out his work (aka Frank Haines) at Lisa Cooley, who opens her capacious new space next month.

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No, you didn’t get Kraftwerk tickets (I know) and no, you don’t know anybody else who got them (me, neither).  Blame scalpers (or terrorists)?  But tickets are only valid with a photo ID.  Blame MoMA?  Sure, if it makes you feel better.

But some people really do blame MoMA for choosing ShowClix, which proved about 15 minutes into the ticket sale that it wasn’t fit for the task.  Though you might have felt alone yesterday – staring at that spinning wheel and confused by the red-on-red banner, waiting 45 minutes for Captcha clearance, or worse, getting dropped while paying for tickets – you weren’t alone.  And if their “Auto-refreshing won’t help u” sounded like “resistance is futile” hubris, then I’m with you.  We aren’t showroom dummies.

Ultimately, Showclix failed so miserably that its CEO had to issue a public apology.  The apology offers little comfort except the assurance that you aren’t dumb and that 98% of users had trouble.  (And Showclix botched the initial apology, too).   And you’ll never recover the lunch hour you sacrificed while staring at a spinning wheel and getting booted off the server.

Selected tweets (not actually in this order)

So blame Showclix for ruining your chance to see the second most influential band ever, outside of the Beatles, and the band that transfigured your headphones from appliances to portals, and the band that propelled you through techno, raves, ecstasy, and a better-living-through-robots alternative to Isaac Asimov, because Asimov was never really your thing, though that’s not to knock Asimov.

More tweets

But honestly, if MoMA is really getting into show biz, then it can’t let itself be vulnerable to loser ticket sites like Showclix.  Showclix is a bad friend, MoMA, and we don’t want anything to happen to you. And remember that MoMA staffers got screwed, too.

More tweets

But if we hear that Kim Kardashian really did get tickets, then we’re throwing acid all over your Vir Heroicis Sublimis.

Local art hero Keith Mayerson brings it all out with Dana Schutz, Ann Craven, Joe Bradley, and several other artists in this series of interviews. Each is recorded by Tom Powell, on the occasion of the 8 Americans exhibition Keith curated at Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery in Brussels. Three are embedded below; you can find the rest at Keith’s excellent website.

Dana Schutz – 8 Americans from Tom Powel Imaging on Vimeo.

Joe Bradley – 8 Americans from Tom Powel Imaging on Vimeo.

Ann Craven – 8 Americans from Tom Powel Imaging on Vimeo.

For The Bronze Project at SVA, select students received a grant to study closely with Ben Keating of Keating Studio. In less than one semester, undergraduate students created a digital CAD file, an ABS plastic prototype, and a bronze cast sculpture, all under the guidance of Keating, an artist whose Trenton-based foundry has produced large-scale, material-intensive sculptures for some of New York’s biggest galleries, artists, and estates. (I’m happy to know Ben personally.) Students even visited the foundry to watch the bronze-pouring process.

(l-r) Ben Keating, Suzanne Anker, and Sabine Flach

Ben Keating, "Love Hate," 2001-present

3D rapid prototyping technology is accelerating so quickly that consumer systems are increasingly approaching affordability. Art students will have to contend with this technology. Best is to immerse themselves in it and learn how to “scale up,” both in physical dimensions and materials, while learning what’s required to deliver a bronze sculpture in time for a show. And anyway, it usually takes a patron with deep pockets to cover the production of bronze projects. That means it could be years or longer before art students get hands-on access to bronze.

Next stop: NYC Affordable Art Fair: Laura Murray, "Inheritance," 2012

The Bronze Project sculptures are now exhibited at SVA’s Visual Arts Gallery in Material Magic, curated by BFA Fine Arts Dept. Chair Suzanne Anker.  Photos here are from last week’s packed opening.  Watch for predators!

"I'm a shark, I'm a shark!"

Michael Joaquin Grey, "Autonomic Mother," 1992

Rachel Mason performance at Queens Museum. Filmed by Michelle Leftheris and featuring choreography by Curtiss Wesley, Jesse Lawyer and Asanti I (dancers), Michael Durek (theramin), Hugh Ash (trumpet), Amadis Dunkel (trombone), Chris Barick drums and costumes by Heather Quesada. “With A Song in My Heart” by Rogers and Heart

Check out the new W.A.G.E. survey, available here as a google doc:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6mn22ba

Marianne Vitale’s solo exhibition at Zach Feuer Gallery is called, What I Need to Do is Lighten the Fuck Up About a Lot of Shit.  Not sure how this title relates to the sculptures here.  I also wonder it seems naïve for many people living today; though it might work for her, and who am I to judge?

Marianne Vitale, "Burned Bridge," 2012

The primary work, Burned Bridge, is a charred foot bridge that she actually built and actually burned.  Though sturdy, it seems impractically narrow for vehicles and short for people on foot.  Behind that is Hammered, a wall (on a wall) of aligned planks battered by hammers, nails, and weather.  In the rear gallery is Outhouse, which Vitale attacked with a shotgun.  Each work is built by hand and then damaged by hand.

In this show, Vitale’s distressed sculptures embody instruments of exchange – or lack thereof – between rural communities and the technological cities that forget them.  We may characterize this relation with a dystopic outlook: the damaged and decayed objects bespeak the crisis and malaise of a dysfunctional society.  Through this channel of pessimism, the bridge suggests flight (refuge from the city) or invasion (pillage by the city).  The wall mimics barricades, encampments, and provisional security – and maybe even paranoid militias.  The outhouse invokes infrastructural alienation while opening up the vulnerable connections between people, their food, the environment, and even the globe-spanning weather.

Marianne Vitale, "Outhouse," 2012

If the nation’s economy is perilous, it looks worse for rural communities.  Hydraulic fracturing will disproportionately
subject them to unprecedented water pollution.  It might bring jobs to these communities, though sustainable jobs will require more and more fracking wells – thereby increasing the risk of pollution.  Rural communities have less access to broadband technology than their urban neighbors.  This stands in the way of education, employment, and even health care.  From the NY Times,

“You often hear people talk about broadband from a business development perspective, but it’s much more significant than that,” Mr. Depew added. “This is about whether rural communities are going to participate in our democratic society. If you don’t have effective broadband, you are cut out of things that are really core to who we are as a country.”

Marianne Vitale, "Hammered," 2012

Finally, America’s taste for coal is in decline.  The Economist (Jan 28-Feb 3, “A Burning Issue”), cites regulation as one reason, though in this article, the magazine ignores the environment benefits of reducing air pollution.  EPA regulations increase costs of production and increase risk to investors.  Who knows how this reduced demand will affect Appalachian coal miners?  Maybe they will be retrained to perform fracking jobs.  Of course, that means more water pollution and toxic exposure to rural communities.

If this is a bummer, Vitale’s show still makes room for optimism.  All of these objects are battered and distressed, but they are still upright.  This says something about durability and survival.  Maybe that harmonizes with the relief suggested by her show’s title.

From the NY Times multimedia on Super PAC election funding:

And speaking of SuperPACs, here is a Wikislip.

“…Mr. Kelley’s art inscribes an enormous universe of good and evil, nature and culture; no fact of life or train of thought is beyond its ranting yet mystical reach. American history, psychology, yoga, scatology and bad jokes are just a few of its subjects. They are usually broached in terms that stridently question the complacency and hypocrisy of both High Art and High Morals, and side with the young and the restless and the mistreated. One of the show’s strangest works is a dresser so densely collaged with magazine images of women’s eyes and lips that it seems alive with barnacles, not to mention adolescent anxiety of both the male and female variety.” -Roberta Smith, “Mike Kelley’s Messages: Mixed and Mystical,” NY Times