Art Superman...
1. Jim's first solo art show in NYC - Gavin Brown Gallery, July 7th - 29th, 2005
UPDATE: View show/reception invite here.
UPDATE: Here's a "nicey nice" version of the invite here.
UPDATE: The opening party/reception/bar-b-q/blowout-bluegrass-jamboree (on the roof) for Jim's art show will be July 7th, 6-8pm. The reception and show and everything is an open one. Jim's show itself opens that night, and runs about a month. Contact gallery for more info.
Pre-UPDATE info: so anyway, Jim has ended up with his first solo art show in NYC at Gavin Brown's Enterprise Gallery, this July. Everything Jim has been touching has been turning to gold lately. I'm considering following him around and capturing his breath in little glass jars and selling it as a talisman for good fortune. I mean jeezuzfuckinchristonnacraka'!
His show will be a kind of all-over-the-place extravaganza, with "educational" interactive sculptures, and bizarre Coney Island-ish, carnival attraction-esque, interactive paintings by him in the gallery area (bring a camera!), and video projections of his strange homemade films on the walls. Come let yourself be hypnotized in person by the "Ro-Gina." And More! The opening night reception will be a party and bar-b-q, and feature a blugrass blowout jamboree with Jim and all his upstate hoe-down friends (all on the breezy, deliscious high roof of Gavin Brown's Enterprise). Prepare to be sizzled!
See you there!
Excuse-ay?
2. I now have
my own show on WFMU.org
I now have my own weekly
show on WFMU, and I am vomiting rainbows - indeed. I'm
thrilled
to be on the zombie graveyard shift (spooky!) for the new
WFMU
Summer Schedule.
Once again, I cannot
tell you how shit-my-pants-fantastic-spazzed I am to be involved in what
I consider to be one of the most important cultural institutions in our
dimension, something I have been flat-face awed by for over a decade. And
once
again, I must tell you that every pore on my epidermis has been pried
open, all of them gaping like little baby mouths (It's like 50 billion
hugs for your skin) in reaction to finding the crew at the station to be
totally great, warm and fuzzy... like a whole new kind of family.
Since I know most people
(or most people reading this) listen to WFMU
on the web... the zany twilight hours won't matter as you will probably
be listening to the archives...
which I'm kind of designing the show for... somewhat. The show air time
is late Wednesday nights, 2-6 AM. As each show occurs, you can see the
playlists (which may go up as the show is happening, or if not, then maybe
about 6 hours afterwards). You can activate the audio archives after each
show occurs - they usually go up an hour or two after broadcast, and they
stay up forever. I imagine most of my listeners, in this time zone at least,
will be tuning in on Thursdays to the archive.
Again...
WFMU site
WFMU Summer
schedule
Mark Allen's show
page (activate playlists, real audio or mp3 links)
And if you're new to
WFMU, browse around... I promise you'll be impressed. My fill-in
shows leading up to this have been pretty conservative, just playing music
and announcing it... as the studio is very intimidating. It's freeform,
listener-sponsored radio so I can really do almost anything I like
at this point.
I have no idea what
my show will be like. Just like I had no idea what this webpage would be
like when I started it six years ago and it was just one little live cam
image in the center of one page. Maybe...
Did you ever ride the
bumper cars at an amusement park as a kid? And maybe you were the first
person out on the floor with your bumper car and you were all alone and
just kept skeeting around the floor like an air hockey puck and you felt
really free? And then all the other cars entered the floor and you started
laughing and bumping into them? And your car started spinning... and then
it started sliding towards the left side of the floor because you didn't
see that large indent on the left side of the ride... and you keep trying
to steer the car but it won't go the way you wanted... and then your car
starts to swoosh at and angle down a slide that was hidden on the extreme
left side of the bumper car floor... and *oh no!* you fall out of
the bumper car and fall down a tunnel... and there's razor wire and barbs
*ouch!*
...and you plop out of the tunnel onto sand and you stand up and realize
you're alone in the middle of a vast desert ...and you look over and see
growing out of the sand are all these little shrunken heads of old women
with little Margaret Thatcher hairdos poking out of the ground like potatoes...
and you know one of them is your mother but you can't figure out which,
and then all the little heads start making out with each other, like french
kissing, and then and a tumbleweed blows by .and you have an overwhelming
sensation that your sphincter is suddenly made of gouda cheese ...and in
the distance you hear a cellphone ringing and someone crying ...and then
the sky opens up and it starts raining green blood?
I don't think my show
will be like that.
"The guys at work are against
me, they want me out... and I don't blame them!
It's just the waaaay they're
going about it... their eyes... and their little... games..."
3. My unstable,
insular, socially retarded, way unhealthy obsession with the film "The
Machinist"
I have of late been
completely obsessed with the totally great film THE
MACHINIST (dir: Brad Anderson, 2004 - website here).
I saw the film in the theater when it came out last year, and liked it
a lot. I had actually gone to see he picture to witness actor Christian
Bale's remarkable physical transformation from his normal body weight
to that of a human shell. Amazing! I discussed all this before I even saw
the film, here
(scroll down - Top Ten for October 11th, #2).
But now that my first
viewing is in the past, and it's out on DVD, I have the ability to up-root
and re-seed those original memories as I watch it in the embryonic confines
of my living quarters, where nobody ever questions me, I have no human
interaction (read: conflict), am always a hero and everything revolves
around me and resolves itself into nifty little packages of perfection.
I find great works of art, when experienced alone, can only enhance the
insular sense of bliss one achieves from solitude (that is, for people
who enjoy solitude - read: dorks). I have probably watched the film now
about 18 times, and each time it's even better. I get lost in it, and when
its over, I'm sad... not because of the end... but because it's ending.
The film possesses elements that are akin to a virtual/electronic embryonic
fluid for me, and does something that church, art, love and books are supposed
to do but often never achieve: rectify, resolve and inspire (and teach).
Nuts? Me? Yes... but
only on the outside.
Who are you?
You know that experience
when you go through a brightly lit revolving door made of glass and chrome,
on a bright sunny day... and when you go through the door and it goes *whish!*
*swoop!* *whish!* ...and if the light hits it just right, you catch
all these multifaceted, mirrored reflections of yourself in the glass and
chrome ... and you see your own image looking in a million different directions,
just for a fraction of a second ...and as you go through the door all these
images refract into your retinas and get processed by your mind and nervous
system... and your id goes "Ewww..." at one of the reflections of
yourself, and then maybe "Oh my ears look good from the back!" about
another one of the reflections of yourself from another angle ...and the
other 998,000 reflections are all seen (even though witnessing some are
more obvious to your conscious mind than others), and are processed really
fast, subconsciously ...and to be honest you didn't like most of what you
saw of yourself ...and it was a little painful, but it was all very thrilling
in this micro-second inner-world way... and whether you like it or not
in that one split second you feel just a little bit re-born as you step
out of the revolving door cylinder and into the air-conditioned hotel lobby,
or wherever you just entered, maybe to greet other civilians, which you
can't have id-like expressions around... and the whole thing was like having
gone on a little itty bitty re-birth journey? That's what a good film does.
Each time I watch it.
My obsession with my
DVD copy of THE MACHINIST is really getting out of hand. I have only been
speaking in lines from the movie to people for the last several days (this
is particularly interesting in bed with Jim) and the film's entire plot
line has been refracted in my day-to-day experience to a wince-inducing
level.
Who are you?
Who am I? I know who you are! I'm the guy loudly quoting film lines at
a party or social gathering, no matter how inappropriate or ridiculous...
that's who you are! Or is that... that's who I am?
Sounds dreamy!
I had a similar experience
a few years ago when I purchased the DVD of FIGHT CLUB, I literally sat
watching it in my apartment, over and over and over... with the blinds
drawn, wrapped in a blanked with just my head poking out... alternately
sobbing and laughing hysterically and talking to the screen. I got over
the immediate insanity and simply worked the long-term neurosis into the
fabric of my everyday life. My day-to-day coping mechanism in a nutshell.
Is THE MACHINIST a
great
film? It's a pretty damn interesting one. Whereas FIGHT CLUB (which I think
it's kind of related to) was an epic, this is a mini-epic. The sum of it's
whole is the equivalent to one of the sub plots of FIGHT CLUB. It's a "Twilight
Zone"-like story expanded to film length, with the usual Polanski/schizophrenia
overtones.
And the script (written
by Scott Kosar) - brilliant! Subsequent viewings have revealed the perfection
of the economical dialogue, which all fits together like the pristine pieces
of a puzzle, and must be viewed both from the front and from behind, in
order to catch all time-stepping references and meta-references signified
within the picture's reality, forwards and backwards.
I'm so obsessed with
the film (and see no end in my repeated viewing of it), that I was thinking
of building a giant headset that has a rectangular perspex shield extended
about a foot in front of my face, and held in place small poles attached
to a neck brace. This would be connected to a white motorcycle helmet (like
those siamese twins babies wear) that has headphones in it next to my ears,
and a tiny digital projector on the top of it that would run a DVD of the
film onto the side of the perspex shield that is facing me, allowing me
to be able to watch and hear the film but still be able to see through
the perspex shield so I could go about my day to day existence and still
be a normal person.
That would a good look
for Summer, don't you think? For walking around the sunny sidewalks of
Manhattan? "Giant Passive-Aggresive Luminous Cinema Head." What better
way to usher in the season than another fashionably excruciating development
in my quest to escape reality by obnoxiously (aggressively) drawing the
attention of strangers while simultaneously (passively) being forced to
not have to interact with them?
But then again, don't
get me on the subject of the difference between fashion and style.
No, it says "How To Cook
For
Forty Humans"
4. I've translated
your franchise... IT'S A COOK BOOK!
Most Hysterical Photographs
Of The Year Award goes to The
Billboard Liberation Front, who yesterday altered a billboard in San
Francisco to feature an obese child (probably a leftover from The Maury
Povich Show) in sick Ronald McDonald make-up, an alien, a McDonald's golden
arches logo, and the words "TO SERVE MAN." The clincher was the animatronic
Ronald McDonald feeding a cheeseburger to a mannequin of the enthusiastically
wide-gomped fat child, both sitting right in front of the billboard. The
perpetrators then dressed as screaming versions of Ronald McDonald and
Hamburgler, and celebrated with chants and helium balloons of Ronald's
head. Turns out the plan for McDonald's take-over of the eating habits
of the planet was nothing more than an extraterrestrial domination and
enslavement plan lifted right out of a "Twilight Zone" episode. After the
celebration in the park (in which some great photos of gasp-inducing Ronalds
being cuffed and hauled into squad cars were taken) the BLF then moved...
like an undulating sea of yellow, red and white vomit... into a nearby
McDonald's location, where the nightmarish reverie commenced. These photos
literally had me laughing so hard I spilled my piping hot morning McDonald's
coffee into my lap and I'm getting my lawyer on the phone right now!
Eat your mail! EAT IT!
5. Letters! I
get letters!
Re: your postsDear Stan: the only thing "giving" here is me (and I mean that in every way it can be interpreted,
-hi mark. i've noticed your top ten is now usually just your posts on the wfmu blog reposted onto your site. and these postings are sometimes just rewritten or expanded writings from your site itself. what gives?
-xo stan
Fell on black days... and
roofs...
6. "...a somber
shower"
I don't know why, but
this
article about a giant bridge in Cleveland that has been a constant magnet
for suicides (and the community who's target-like rooftops are directly
below it), had my laughing hysterically. Am I a horrible person? Who
are you?
"You're
probably so illiterate you can't even hear me! You illiterate!"
7. We had joy,
we had fun, we had pages blinding our eyes in the bright sun...
Before you read this
you should know that people bragging to you about what they're reading
lets you know that they want you to know what they're reading and maybe
that's all they want you to know and may not have anything to do with actual
reading. See how so much bragging... I mean reading ...has helped
my wordsmithian super powers?
Do you think I should
read more books? Well guess what three books I'm in the "process" of reading
right this very minute? The latest translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Notes
From Underground," Alex Zwerdling's "Virginia
Woolf and the Real World" and Eric A. Johnson's "Nazi
Terror; the Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans." Great, sweltering,
sweaty, woozy Summer reading! All three were loaned to me by a very nurturing
friend.
I was reading the "Nazi
Terror" one (which has a big red and black cover) on the train the other
day and this group of black kids in baggy T-shirts started talking to me
about Nazis and video games... which is weird because the distance between
black kids and older white people on the subway is usually an ice wall
one thousand years wide. After I stopped clutching my purse (rude!) they
just continued talking me up about Hitler and some video game that was
about hunting and killing the Gestapo. It's like an appreciation for the
history of fascism was melting the racist ice wall! Then after that, we
all went outside up onto the street and bought ice cream cones (flavor:
beige) and fed them to each other while sitting in Sheep's Meadow in Central
Park... then we hugged and danced until rainbow lasers came out of our
eyes and we farted waterfalls of lilting daisies, then our skins all melted
together into one light brown color and we all melded into a hovering ball
of flesh that was perfectly in tune with the universe and rose over new
york like a tan ball of sunlight that shot rays of hope and love into all
the five boroughs. Then Dick Cheney exploded.
8. Abu Ghraib - is it torture or is it art? You decide! (see also here)
|
Conceptual surrealistic photography through the ages: (left, figure 1.a) U.S. soldiers make a point by photographing themselves with naked Iraqi prisoners' bodies stacked in the form of a human pyramid, Iraq, 2004. Contrast this with (left, figure 1.b) famed photographer Philippe Halsman making a point of complimenting Salvador Dali with naked women's bodies stacked in the form of a skull, in his portrait "Dali's Skull," New York, 1952. |
|
Photo documents of avant garde performance art through the ages? Case in point (left, figure 2.a), a photograph of U.S. soldiers psychologically torturing an Iraqi prisoner with crazy costumes and imaginary electricity, Iraq, 2004. Compare this with (left, figure 2.b) an early photograph of Dada-ist Hugo Ball psychologically torturing audience members with crazy costumes and imaginary poetry at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, 1916. |
|
United States government funded homoerotic, sadomasochistic photography through the ages? Consider the controversial photograph (left, figure 3.a) of U.S. soldiers urinating on an Iraqi prisoner, Iraq, 2004. Placed next to (left, figure 3.b) a photograph of two men urinating on each other, as documented in Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial "Jim and Tom, Sausalito, 1977." |
|
U.S. government funded performance art depicting symbolic forms of perverse degradation and exploitation, through the ages? Take this document (left, figure 4.a) of U.S. soldiers smearing an Iraqi prisoner with his own feces and parading him around in front of them, Iraq, 2004. Next to renowned performance artist Karen Finley (left, figure 4.b), smearing herself with chocolate and parading herself in front of everybody, New York, 1982. |
 |
Government clampdowns on inappropriate subject matter through the ages? Is it redundant to mention the controversial 2005 Newsweek reportage (left, figure 5.a) of the flushing of the Koran in toilets at Guantanamo by U.S. interrogators, and Marcel Duchamp's controversial, riot-causing 1917 sculpture "Fountain" (left, figure 5.b)? |
Copyright 2005 Mark Allen
go to past "Top Tens"