Keep on Truckin’. . .
seems, Everybody got to walk through life deflecting . . arrows.
VIVIAN LE . . ‘Chang’e No.2’
image via VIVIAN LE . . VILE / portfolio website
def, check out: VIVIAN LE, born 1992 /Chicago-born & based – PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
~VIVIAN LE . . Chang’e No. 2 | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 15th, 2018, 11:30am
update: yesterday, FEB 14th later would become a day sadly marked by a high school massacre in Florida.
the 19 yr shooter a former student, turned on the fire alarm to cause more panic.
what ? are we gonna have contests now ?
body counts ?
I thought Bloody Valentine’s Days . . were for Depression-era mobsters.
this artist is 26 yrs old . . she is speaking to something, something hard, real & sad . .
a fissure . . in her cultural reality.
in a very gentle, the line work (!!), girly (no diss !!) graphic way, that sadly, makes for an ironic, yet solid . . twisted-out / connect.
VIVIAN LE, b. 1992 Chicago – ‘I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU’
check out: VIVIAN LE – PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
~VIVIAN LE . . I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU !! | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 14th, 2018, 9:38am
just because . . .
wip / work in progress by JOEY D, for the GALERIE F, DEC 2017 group show . . .
‘You Are Beautiful Billboards’, mini billboard – group show.
Image via Instagram @galerief
JOEY D. , ‘Beautiful Insides’, 2017
acrylic paint & custom cut wood embellishment – on YAB miniature billboard kit for 2017 / Galerie F FAB group show.
size: 17 x 8.5 x 7 in.
image via Galerie F / Beautiful Insides
see: Galerie F / YAB Billboards
~JOEY D . . MINIATURE BILLBOARD / YAB, GALERIE F, CHICAGO | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 12th, 2018, 8:53am
I’ve been fascinated by ‘miniatures’ ever since I can remember.
I collect them from random places, mostly thrift shops and the odd flea market.
they are actually pretty hard to find.
my greatly prized . . butcher’s block !!
a few more of my most recent finds.
lol . . yes, that’s tiny dog bowl, on the right !!
one of my best finds, ever. great graphic.
unbelievably contemporary color hues.
Kate recently scored the tiny black sewing machine for me . . in Door County, Wisconsin.
the one behind it, in a slightly larger scale, too big for a dollhouse !! / is actually a vintage Christmas ornament.
ornaments: that’s actually – a whole other subtext of . . tiny.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~SPEAKING . . miniatures / replica spaces / dollhouses & YEAR OF THE DOG !! | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 12th, 2018, 7:08am
of course, one of the earliest ‘tiny’ art shows, in the current art cycle (!!) . .
was the RED ENVELOPE SHOW at GRUMPY BERT, the first one happened in Feb 2016.
artists are asked to submit original art work on lucky red, Happy Chinese New Year (money) envelopes, with the loosely held theme – based on the celebration of the whatever Year of the Animal it is, in the Chinese horoscope – which is based on the year of your birth.
the envelopes are: 3.5 x 6.5 in.
& they are usually priced well below $100 / though you’d prob want to keep them out of direct sunlight, as the red envelopes do fade in hue, after time.
but maybe for some that is the . . . point.
longevity – being a factor of ‘scale’ – as well.
this year – is the YEAR OF THE DOG !!
and it looks to be . . outrageous !!
‘RED ENVELOPE SHOW’
OPENS FRI FEB 23, 2018 / 7 – 10 PM
the show runs thru MARCH 11, 2018
GRUMPY BERT, 82 BOND ST, BROOKLYN
see: GRUMPY BERT, RED ENVELOPE SHOW, YEAR OF THE DRAGON / OPENING PIX / ARTLOVERS ARCHIVE
here are some previews from . . this year’s event.
what’s really great is, you get to see alot of really off-the-wall, illustrators work, which you normally don’t get to see too much of in New York, on ‘exhibition’ walls.
‘YEAR OF THE DOG’ – RED ENVELOPE by . . MARK WANG (@ouch_you_slouch)
originally from Tucson, Arizona, now based in NYC.
see: MARK WANG – ILLUSTRATOR PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
‘YEAR OF THE DOG’ – RED ENVELOPE by . . HELLEN JO (helllllenjjjjjo)
L.A. based
see: HELLEN JO – ILLUSTRATOR PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
all images via Instagram @grumpybert
~RED ENVELOPE SHOW . . ‘YEAR OF THE DOG’ / GRUMPY BERT / PREVIEW | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 9th, 2018, 9:05am
OLIVIA SWIDER . .
might not have had ‘scale’ in mind as a priority, when she made this symbol-loaded, fade-out . . but, though she is talking ‘want’ (emotion), and ‘texture’ (plasticity) . . she is playing with everyday ‘scale’ signifiers / ordinary shapes & things, whose size we are all familiar with, and which really do the heavy lifting – in terms of our coming to grips with the piece.
esp as to . . .’how big is that ‘teen-age crush’ lush, plush soft pink carpet triangle ?’
esp as to how, it is presented: solely, as a digital photograph, with no other clues – as to size. no background, no dimensions in the accompanying text.
which is the way most things are presented now, btw.
it is a ghost . . in our comprehension of its reality. an ‘advance’ image. digital, published on the gossamer walls of social media – way before, we have ever even seen it.
we are only doing our best guessing, when we try to process it /shake it down.
we see it as ‘life-size’ / keyed to the ‘rosary’ and the 2 other clues . . the tiny plastic rosary sleeve, & the must-be tiny trophy. we are already evaluating dimension. from the get-go.
because . . .
that is . . unless.
unless . . it’s a replica. mini-me. miniature . . ‘dollhouse’ rosary, a necklace for a Barbie type doll (?) in which case – that will be, quite the surprise.
& which somehow, I highly doubt.
esp with regard to the length of the chain.
the trophy, on the other hand . . is more curious.
it must be a ‘tiny’ souvenir bell, or a paper weight ?
after the past few weekends, I’ve been through, I’m def NOT taking ‘scale’ – for granted.
starting with the startling ‘The Big Short’, and ending in a glorious cathouse free-fall, the NICHOLAS SULLIVAN pieces were made to fit the catbox, yet at ‘The Big Short’ ELIZABETH FERRY’s tiny bronze-like ‘matchbox’, hanging on the tiny wall . . of a teeny tiny Water McBeer ‘gallery’, with immaculate mini white walls, & even with tiny floor trim, and imposing miniature wood floors, called all things ‘scale’ into question.
replica of a larger piece ? illusion ? or, real matchbox – tiny gallery ?
tiny sculpture ?
while at the ESSEX FLOWERS presentation . . MARGARET LEE produced 2 tiny perfect potatoes, that look real, and big / life-size, even in photos, but are not so much, on a tiny bathroom shelf !!
these things have me . . all . . size-spooked out !! tread lightly.
is it for real ? is it an illusion.
does it matter – in context ? yes.
and then, there’s the size of the venues, themselves.
tiny apt / living room gallery . . to tiny Catbox platform, in a living room, is apparently not that far-fetched.
it’s some kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ meets ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ . . moment.
get that art up, and out there . . is the only rule.
OLIVIA SWIDER. image via Instagram @mountain.bushwick
SAVE THE DATE !!
OLIVIA SWIDER & DALIA AMARA – ‘THE TEXTURE of WANT’
OPENS . . SAT FEB 24, 2018 / EVENING
MOUNTAIN (APT) GALLERY – BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN
~OLIVIA SWIDER . . ‘THE TEXTURE Of WANT’ / MOUNTAIN GALLERY / PREVIEW (with a side of ‘The Big Short’ & Catbox Contemporary) | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 7th, 2018, 8:20pm
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN , ‘O’
thru MARCH 11, 2018 – BY APPOINTMENT
CATBOX CONTEMPORARY
Q: I wonder if you want to buy some of this work, if you can just buy the whole install as is, with the incorporated, site specific . . . ‘O’ catbox as a collector Catbox ‘Catellite’ / i.e. off-site . . satellite ??
I mean, how else ???
image via Instagram @catboxcontemporary
SCALE . . is a such a many splendored thing.
it’s so relative. it can be so illusion-ary, esp in the digital age.
it so depends on your past experiences for . . understanding.
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ . . installation shot
image via CATBOX CONTEMPORARY
see: more photos of the installation – NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ / CATBOX CONTEMPORARY
~NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ . . CATBOX CONTEMPORARY / INSTALLATION SHOT | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 7th, 2018, 8:15am
MR. UN-HINGED !!!!!!!!
the race to be the smallest & most inventive . . is on !!
or: the tiny canary that ate, the . . big cat !!
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN . . . O
OPENS TODAY SUN FEB 4 2018 / 3 – 6 PM
the show runs thru MARCH 11, 2018
CATBOX CONTEMPORARY, RIDGEWOOD, N.Y.
contact the gallery for exact address
after the opening reception, viewing is by appointment only
artist PHILIP HINGE . . runs CATBOX CONTEMPORARY.
it seems to have started up, just about this time last year.
“The gallery is located in my cat’s cat-tree in Ridgewood, NY. The unique size circumstances make for some really inventive and exciting shows.”
Mr. Hinge . . appears to be quite the conceptual goth, zany lyricist & way whacky pictorialist, himself. not to forget . . super challenging of convention, by the way !!
It seems only (non)logically right, then, that in his desire to up-end the art world shopping ‘cart’, he would arrive at some kind of very equally zany, provocative, contrarian & absolutely original, self-proclaimed exhibition venue, with which to stake a claim, for his serious, art world ambitions.
the strange part: he seems to be succeeding !!
I saw my first Catbox outing, last weekend . . at ‘The Big Short’, a group show of 9 very very different alternative curatorial projects / presented in the Hunter hunting grounds uptown, by artist curators: EMILY JANOWICK and PATRICK MOHUNDRO.
it sounded kind of iffy on paper, and didn’t really strike me as more than ‘too cute’, upon first sight. but close-up was – the epiphany !!
m-e-o-w.
the artist CATBOX presented, MIKE LINSKIE . . rose to the challenge, with a teeny, tiny one man show that fully celebrated what is not only a micro-space, but . . a curvaceous one, at that !!
the postage stamp size drawings (3 x 3 in.) were a delight, and the magic only kept on growing, in tiny increments . . with the ‘wall-sized’ murals, (watercolor, 11 x 14 in.) the hand-painted hermit crab shell sculptures packed a totemic punch, despite their tiny, DIY ‘beach souvenir’ stance.
totemic . . which also brings up the deeper philosophy of the Catbox – as art venue. under Philip Hinge’s guidance, not only are the artists asked to innovate, and switch up the scale, but ‘meaning’ is just as important, as plasticity, or art for arts sake.
see: MIKE LINSKIE,’Morning Sand’, CATBOX CATELLITE, for ‘The Big Short’ – CATBOX CONTEMPORARY WEBSITE
see: PHILIP HINGE – ARTIST PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
from the gallery press release:
For, O, Sullivan transforms both the upper and lower galleries (!!) into incubators for visual and formal oddities, creating an observed stasis for the characters and objects contained within. His use of familiar objects and pop-icons like Snoopy, the Pink Panther, or a bar of butter allow the viewer to assert their visual and emotional response into the space. An overarching narrative about personal and collective experience is given a coded history through the mixed means of Sullivan’s installation . . . . .
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, (b. 1987) lives & works in Brooklyn. He is an assistant professor in Studio Foundations at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
see: NICHOLAS SULLIVAN – ARTIST PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘Upsidedown Dog’, 2016.
Steel, Magic Sculpt, flashe
image via: NICHOLAS SULLIVAN WEBSITE
~NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ . . CATBOX / w MIKE LINSKIE & PHILIP HINGE side notes / OPENS SUN FEB 4, 3-6 PM | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 4th, 2018, 11:32am
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – SAT FEB 3 / 12 – 6 PM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
def, GET YOURSELF T-H-E-R-E.
THIS IS THE LAST DAY !!!!!!
CURATED BY: EMILY JANOWICK & PATRICK MOHUNDRO
THIS SLIVER of a SHOW . . is a KEEPER.
about the size of a glass shard,
compared to . . . ‘QUIET’ and ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ (!!),
this artist-curated show, and the 9 ‘alternative’ gallery-indie curators it presents,
are examples of how underground ‘projects’ have to work now.
just literally get your foot in the door, and put up a show.
‘THE BIG SHORT’ – CURATED BY EMILY JANOWICK & PATRICK MOHUNDRO
FEATURING . . . 9 INDIE / ALTERNATIVE CURATORIAL PROJECTS:
75 CELL, CATBOX CONTEMPORARY, CUSTOM PROGRAM, ESSEX FLOWERS, PAY FAUXN, PLUG DUMPSTER, TETE-A-TETE, WATER MCBEER, & HELPER
‘THE BIG SHORT’ . . WILL BE OPEN THIS / SAT FEB 3, 2018 / 12 – 6 PM / FOR ITS VIEWING.
THE ARTISTS INSTITUTE BASEMENT – IN THE DIRECTORS ‘CLOSET’ OFFICE / 132 E.65th Street at Lexington
“No one can see a bubble. That’s what makes it a bubble.” -MARK BAUM, THE BIG SHORT, (2015)
~gallery press release
the show’s artist curator producers . . . EMILY JANOWICK (@cyclone_bomb) & PATRICK MOHUNDRO (@mo_hun_dro),
are 2nd year MFA grad students at Hunter. I guess they could be anywhere, from this angle.
but here they are, in a small, tiny closet of an academic’s office, in the low-ceiling basement, of a grand old brownstone-type building. their show’s entire area looks to be 200 sq. ft. , if that.
including a tiny bathroom to the right, & a small couch to the right of that.
and a desk or two. a back wall lined with bookcases.
behind them is a found piece by . . . PAY FAUXN.
Pay Fauxn couldn’t exactly drag in their actual venue, which is an abandoned pay phone box, so in came the next best thing: a ‘distressed’ urban cardboard sign, which was then enshrined in a vacuum seal baggie.
very raw, Pay Fauxn is the project of . . MARY KOSUT.
“PAY FAUXN is an obsolete pay phone on the grounds of a defunct nursing home at a bus stop in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.”
the best way to follow them, besides just walking by, would be by IG / @payfauxn
or via the website: www.payfauxn.com/.
yes, definite hit – that link.
JULIE MALEN . . . soft sculpture, looking very bloody, bad meaty !!
in the small bathroom’s exhibit curated by ESSEX FLOWERS.
JULIE MALEN.
scale is a whole other ‘bag’ of body parts, in the digital age.
what can be big can be made small, and what is small . . can seem large.
look at that, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ . . still relevant.
ESSEX FLOWERS . . put on a tiny show called ‘Please Mister Postman’, last April 2017 . . with tiny reproduction paintings by 5 contemporary artists, displayed in the gallery hallway mailbox, curated by NICHOLAS MOENICH.
referenced to, in passing conversation by ‘THE BIG SHORT’ curators, it seems to have set the bar / for mini shows, in very small & off-the-grid . . places.
still in the ESSEX FLOWERS bathroom, the back wall:
painting by . . JASON STOPA.
the black vase with the strange green plant, is also by . . JULIE MALEN.
NICKOLAUS TYPLALDOS made . . the surreal BANANA.
the set of very real looking potatoes are by . . MARGARET LEE.
curiously, they are made of plaster. strange, how compelling they were.
the Essex Flowers display even has a title: ‘Watch Out For the Water’.
it’s about . . “the etymology of 2 terms: gare a l’eau and trompe l’oeil”.
it also serves:
“as an exercise in provisional curating as it was organized from idea to installation in 72 hours.”
JULIE MALEN . . black vase and flowering cactus.
MARGARET LEE . . 2 potatoes, plaster.
I found these such compelling objects, just something about them.
CATBOX CONTEMPORARY is a gallery space run by PHILIP HINGE, “in his cat’s cat-tree in Ridgewood, N.Y.”.
‘Catbox Catellite’ – is their ‘visiting’, off-site platform.
the low fi light provided by this flood lamp, casts a dramatic spell on the tiny totemic sculptures & paintings.
miniature offerings by . . MIKE LINSKIE.
the tiny ‘Untitled (Starmen)’ drawings are 3 x 3 in., pen on paper, 2018.
the little sculptures sitting on the floor, are ‘Hermit-Man Remains’. 4 x 4 x 3 in., hand-painted hermit crab shells, plaster and sand. 2014.
a tiny mural.
MIKE LINSKIE, ‘Palm Grove’, 11 x 14 in., watercolor on paper, 2016.
the WATER McBEER install, on the couch.
“Water McBeer presents a selection from his private collection.”
the 2 framed pieces: CHRIS MARKER in ‘Nanomuseum’ curated by HANS ULRICH OBRIST; the electric naked woman painting is by JAMIAN JULIANO-VILLANI. the strange concrete circle on the floor is by IGNACIO GATICA, and the even weirder 3 prong piece is by BRENDAN LYNCH.
also, in the tiny Water McBeer gallery:
a wonderful, teeny tiny bronze-looking book of matches, by ELIZABETH FERRY !!
or, is that a real book of matches, painted to look bronzed – I asked myself later.
and, check out the detail on that miniature wood floor.
CUSTOM PROGRAM, an alternative gallery space in Brooklyn . . presented ‘The Active Denial System’ by MEGAN SNOWE.
“The Active Denial System (ADS) is a less-than-lethal, millimeter-wave direct-energy weapon developed by the US military for the purposes of perimeter security and crowd control …”
tucked in a bookshelf a tiny, but radical . .
Rasta tableau by . . HELPER !!
less scary tech !!
more Rasta magic !!
57 CELL . . an alternative publishing / curatorial project, had a retrospective of all 4 booklets to date, offered up for browsing. interestingly, 57 cell publications are only offered as hard copy, there is no online digital archive available.
57 CELL is a GREGORY KALLICHE PROJECT, see: 57 CELL
each ‘booklet’ presents the work of one artist, this is a page from:
‘ALEE PEOPLES / DOWN THE DEEP’. you would want to flip through all four.
while TETE-A-TETE had its many digital projects playing . . on multiple laptops, around the room.
see: tete-ahh-tete.net
perhaps most ethereal,
PLUG DUMPSTER . . presented a performance by EMIL BOGNAR-NADOR on the opening night.
‘Listen To The Space / An Invitation To Hear Listening’
@plugspace . . is a CRAIG MONTEITH project.
PHOTO COURTESY: THE BIG SHORT – CURATORS
leaving behind . . the infinite world in a closet of an office,
that was ‘The Big Short’.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH – unless otherwise noted
~’THE BIG SHORT’ . . . 9 ‘ALTERNATIVE’ CURATOR-PROJECTS / HUNTER BASEMENT OFFICE POP-UP / OPEN SAT / 12 – 6 PM | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 2nd, 2018, 1:59pm
ALFREDO . . wants BENICIO DEL TORO to play him in the new ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ flick.
APART FROM from his huge & fully functional shooting gallery installation at ‘QUIET’, Alfredo is also famous for his real . . ‘FAKE BASQUIAT’ caper, which merited him 2 years in the ‘THE BIG HOUSE’ / Metropolitan Corrections.
this is a recent one, from late last year 2017.
he’s just born that way. he can Basquiat standing on his head.
he can do Basquiat better than Basquiat can.
ps: if you look at the ‘texts’, swirling around in the background, though . . you will see references . . . to stuff that is happening now, so they can’t possibly be . . by the real Basquiat.
except now, he signs them off as his own, as the ‘REAL FAKE BASQUIAT FORGER’, instead of pasing them off for the real goods – to unsuspecting big ticket collectors, phony artist ‘certificate’ and all.
This is one of Alfredo’s newest pieces of his own . . work.
a portrait. he usually does guns, but he’s actually a wild portrait artist & he takes great photo head shots.
it is done in the collaged / hand-made Elmer’s white glued paper diy technique he perfected in prison, because he wans’t allowed to have any drawing or painting materials. he did portraits of the mobsters & con men around him, using coffee packages and jello as pigments, apparently he was a huge sensation.
they are quite lifelike.
Alfredo has this portrait, and maybe more . . in a show opening tonight.
FRI FEB 2, 2018 / 8 – 10 PM
‘PROJECT GHANA’ / ‘BEAUTY FOR FREEDOM’ at THE FLAT NYC
23 W 24TH ST, NYC, NY 10010
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC ‘ / ‘PROJECT GHANA’ OPENING TO-NIGHT FRI | Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 2nd, 2018, 12:26pm
