Editor's Life Unedited

Dean Valentin Slams MOCA - w/ Update

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:29:40 GMT

UPDATE:
In case former MOCA-trustee and L.A. contemporary art uber-collector Dean Valentine is not your FaceBook friend, check out what he just posted on FB:

"Dean Valentine believes MOCA should have more respect for the truth. Phony PR and fake fund-raising numbers are not the way to a healthy museum."

When asked by his FaceBook friends for more details, Mr. Valentine responded:
"Because when you scrape away all the PR bull, the operating budget--which is the only one that counts--still has an $8 to $10m hole that has to be refilled yearly."

New Coagula Issue featuring FINISHING SCHOOL Free!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:53:05 GMT

The New Issue of Coagula Art Journal is available right now at COAGULA.NET as a Free Downloadable PDF and is also for sale as a color glossy book from a PRINT ON DEMAND site.

Issue #98 features a cover story interview with FINISHING SCHOOL, and artist's collective that takes activism and aesthetics to new territory... this time it is the food you eat that is being scrutinized and deconstructed. ALSO... commentary by publisher MAT GLEASON, Art Carer Advice by ALAN BAMBERGER, Prose by columnist GORDY GRUNDY, Poetry by GERALD LOCKLIN and cartoons by JIM CARON... PLUS a report card for recent Bergamot Station Art Exhibits.

LOCALS ONLY

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:03:02 GMT

The show I curated opens tonight. It was a lot of work but I am quite proud of it.

HERE IS A CARD SCANNED

The gallery is at the LA MART, it is LOOK GALLERY, free gated parking, 1933 South Broadway, just past Washington in Downtown. OPening is 6-9 tonight.

Culver City Artwalk Review

Sun, 31 May 2009 06:51:36 GMT

We went to the Culver City Artwalk and I was saying yeah that was all so terrible but then I think back to individual shows and it is like, oh yeah, that was good ... oh yeah, that was great... but in the moment, the walking around, the talking to lots of people, the seeing a lot of "product" art that is not bad or offensive but is not good or memorable in any way... there is a burnout.

At the core is the fact that it is pretty disrespectful and presumptuous to assume that an artwalk of this kind will deliver a memorable art experience to the viewer. The crowds are just too big and the art scattered among galleries of varying quality. So I hate to just dismiss the whole event with "It Sucked" so I guess I have to say there were good moments and some great pieces scattered about but ultimately it made me miss the ability to get intimate with an artwork and let it take over, comfortably and with no distractions. And that sucks.

There is a group show at Koplin Del rio. That is the best thing I saw today. The theme is billboards as inescapable component of landscape. It was an awesome show.

If you like Coop, his show at Corey Helford was overwhelming (in a good way). There were other moments out there in Culver City. I go mostly just because I know i will bump into people that I have not seen in a while. This was the case again. Long live Culver City, popular capital of the Los Angeles Art World.

The photo is of COOP eating Thai Food in the office at the Corey Helford Gallery while three gallery employees ran around writing invoices for the sales of his work. Coop cleaned up at the Art Walk!

Tightrope of tacky

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:07:59 GMT

So what really makes the art world go around is the use of the absence of marketing as marketing. Every dealer is cooler than the next or the previous, all pretending to be oblivious o wanting (or most terribly, needing) a sale of an artwork. The discussion of the market, the rice, the dollars is considered to be so gauche. Funny how the echelons of art commerce epicenters are quite similar to academic departments that convince art students to make art that has no value as a sellable object. I wrote THIS ARTICLE about it (even thought they spelled my name wrong).

Anyway, back to the art market... Those price lists, they are inflated. Because when someone is truly interested in the artwork and they are spending as much as one might on a Mercedes, they are haggling with a ferocity usually reserved for the wrestling arenas of capitalism.

I am curating a show with a lot of work for sale and a few pieces will be borrowed from collectors, not for sale, and yet... when I look at these artworks, they are pretty awesome, I can't help but think that everything has a price. Maybe when it is not for sale it is at its most attractive. Does one walk the tightrope of tacky in order to not appear to be doing exactly what one is doing? In a world with so many readily-replaceable art objects, apparently one does...

MY TAKE: The Dalai Lama's 18 Rules For Living

Tue, 26 May 2009 09:12:03 GMT

Someone posted this list on their livejournal and I REALLY read it and started to think... there is NO Way the Dalai Lama would say these things... Would he? Well, I had my say...

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
But we talk ourselves into superficial relationships and the illusion of accomplishment out of a fear of that risk kicking us in the ass.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
That lesson being that an ass-kicking is not fun, so next time go straight for an attempt to gouge out your enemy's eyeballs.

3. Follow the three Rs: 1. Respect for self 2. Respect for others 3. Responsibility for all your actions.
How the fuck did the Dalai Lama translate Tibetan into English and still maintain the consonant consistency? Was this even originally written in a phonetic alphabet? I'm not buying it.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
I too have found out that most hot chicks are high-maintenance. I wonder if the Dalai Lama and I internet dated from the same pool of L.A. actresses back in 99/00.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
This definitely stopped sounding like the Dalai Lama a few numbers ago, but now it is sounding less and less like a Tibetan Buddhist. What is this, Mister Rogers for Anarchists?

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
Hallmark Cards goes to Tibet for Nine bitchen' words!

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
How many people really do this, though? When you lose a hundred bucks in Vegas, the smart thing to do is walk away from the table, but the Dalai Lama would push you back with this rule and say "Correct it. Bet $200."

8. Spend some time alone every day.
Sure, that sounds like the Dalai Lama, but do you think this makes his Top 18? He takes it for granted that when he says "Get the fuck out of my room" that everyone else on Earth has the sense of mind to tell the nincompoops in their world to get the fuck out of their rooms...

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
Oops, i dropped my values, and seeing as they were hollow and fragile anyway, they have shattered completely, so in the midst of all this change, I am going to forge your signature on this power of attorney claim and siphon your bank account. The Dalai Lama didn't say anything about values that don't bounce back when they slip out of your hand...

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Einstein said this and the Dalai Lama would probably say that chuckling like a spider monkey until everyone nods along is better than silence.

11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
The Dalai Lama spells like a Brit? Next thing you will tell us is that he had an affair with Elizabeth II.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
Sounds like the Dalai Lama gave Pat Robertson's failed 1980s presidential campaign a donation or two...

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
I always had trouble telling Dear Abby and Ann Landers apart... but this has got to be one of theirs, the Dalai Lama isn't going to talk about the weather with Hu Jintao.

14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
This has self-impressed athiest Eurotard written all over it.

15. Be gentle with the earth.
Oh crap, everyone is on the green bandwagon... let me see, displace the native Tibetan population with a million Han Chinese, but throw in a solar panel on the roof at the Lhasa City Hall and we will call it even.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
The Dalai Lama successfully used this line on Julia Roberts, Princess Di and a couple hundred other hotties over the years.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
And who needs a quest for spiritual peace when codependency jargon fills the lecture halls.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
I had to give up being executed by Maoist thugs in order to drink champagne with Madonna in her prime. If that does not just stink of success, what does, baby?

Joshua Tree

Mon, 04 May 2009 08:02:01 GMT

We spent the weekend in Joshua Tree. I had never been there but I look forward to returning. I love the desert. We stayed at the Joshua Tree Inn in Room #8, which was where musician Gram Parsons died in 1973 at age 26. If his ghost is still there, he was quite well-behaved.

So we are getting coffee Saturday morning and we bump into an artist from LA - a good friend. The artist and spouse are in town for a wedding. We gossip, lots of art gallery closings, plenty to gossip about. We took it easy and went to a BBQ for a friend's birthday, they rented a cool house on a dirt road and bough the Manny PacMan fight on pay preview. I was kind of freaked out because the Brit that Manny was fighting looked... well, he kinda looked like me. And in case you didn't hear, there was a second round knockout that brutal. And I was for PacMan but all of a sudden it looked - just a little - i t looked like me laid out on the ring, gasping for air, out cold. The party was a good time. I don't bet on the fights anymore, and it is much more enjoyable, as long as I am not the one getting beaten.

We went to the Palm Springs museum on the way home. I have to confess that I have never been to this place and was quite impressed. They have a decent collection and had a good Wayne Thiebaud survey up. One thing they had ... they had Latin American art - Tamayo, Matta, etc. - with pre-Colombian pottery interspersed. At first it struck me as cool that they were avoiding the canon, but then I thought... well when they had the John Chamberlain Sculpture, why not have a european suit of armor form the 14th century? So I was ambivalent to the "ghetto" possibilities of this curation.

And of course, we bump into another artist form LA and gab about the goings on... funny. The Palm Springs museum, though, was a LONG visit, it is full of art. Some of it may not be the pinnacle of avant garde, but when you have Frank Sinatra as one of your museum's benefactors, you can have some Western landscapes, some glass sculptures and an array of cacti in your sculpture garden and let the art world know "I did it my way!"

Deborah Butterfield Horse and a Louise Bourgeoise Spider at the Palm Springs ~~Zoo~~, er... museum.

ART REVIEW: Kent Twitchel @ LOOK Gallery

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:11:40 GMT

Please visit this link, it is a video review of Kent Twitchell's recent solo show that I produced/Videographered. I made a video and mad it a review of a very cool show. ENJOY!

LINK TO NEW ART TV video review of KENT TWITCHELL

Coagula Issue # 97 - Get it TODAY!

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:11:01 GMT

AVAILABLE NOW as a FREE Download

DOWNLOAD IT AT THIS LINK ... or ... PURCHASE THE GLOSSY COLOR BOOK ISSUE AT THIS LINK

Coagula Issue #97 features an interview with artist Dan Graham on the occasion of his career retrospective BEYOND at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

Also featured in this issue:

An interview with artist Sigrid Sandstrom

A look at the Phoenix Art Scene with Amy Young of Perihelion Art

A visit to the New York Armory with Sophia Louisa Lee.

Gordy Grundy

Poet Gerald Locklin

Alan Bamberger

Mat Gleason

Cartoonist Jim Caron

plus other surprises as well

Mark Dutcher solo show at Steve Turner Gallery

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:54:54 GMT

This exhibit really inspired me to approach reviewing it in a new and different manner and now I have the urge to review every show in my newly-created method...

TOKYO! at NUART

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:45:59 GMT

Wow, a few weeks ago, they sent me a screener to this film TOKYO!, three vignettes that allow the great city to star alongside visions amidst the urban pace.

I don't discuss plot but the film delves into the psychology of being in a relationship that doesn't include you, delves into the dark demon of self-loathing pulsating in the postwar Japanese character and insists the country locked in its own domestic spaces come out and see the city. It is cerebral and sensual, creepy and courageous and is the most refreshingly unpredictable film in a long time.

HERE IS THE PRESS AND INFORMATION

Artist Classified

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:28:11 GMT

Absolutely spot-on Mock-Classified Ad about How Artists get used by companies:

Capitalist Endeavor seeking Poor Artist to be Taken Advantage of

New Business that paid market rate for RENT, EQUIPMENT, PERMIT, MERCHANDISE, and HOURLY WORKERS is looking for a marginalized local artist to give us something for nothing.

If you jump through the numerous demoralizing and moronic hoops we set before you while being dramatically under compensated we will surely spread the word to our other parasitic merchant contemporaries that you are willing to be treated like a sucker. As an American artist you better get used to it.

TWO GERMANYS at L.A. County Museum of Art

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:15:08 GMT

SHORT REVIEW, THEATRICAL TRAILER AND AN ANECDOTE

This was a chronological show that sanitized most of the angst and made absurdly false equivalences between the fascism of the east and the alleged excess "decadence" of the west. Despite some good paintings amid the cacophony, I am not going to let a scholarly poseur like LACMA curadoress Stephanie Barron (Barren of ideas) imply that West German artists suffered one iota under the Christian Democrats relative to the terrible lives of artists suffering under the East German Secret police - it wasn't, you dumb dabbler, and if this was your point it was lost even more in this excuse to make sure you stroke all the big names. Your crock of shit pretext didn't even try to adhere to its own premise in the search of star wattage. The wall text in this show is really something to behold in its pomposity and intellectually absent pretense. But it is always nice to see a couple of Baselitz paintings at soulless LACMA in its bloodless BROAD building.

BOTTOM LINE:
(Scene at the LACMA LUNCHROOM, Stephanie Barron has a light bulb go off over her head and announces her bright idea)
S.B: Let's get all the big names, put them in chronological order and call ourselves geniuses, what is the German word for genius? Anyone?
Voice in the Crowd: Cayete puta!

I saw Michael Dukakis and his wife Kitty walking through this exhibit. They really plod slow through shows. Wow, they took like seriously a half hour to get through half of this show - and the place was nearly empty despite it being FREE FRIDAY. I shook the former governor's hand in front of a Josef Beuys video. His wife looks quite hot all things considered, he's gotten gray and has that neck curve that academics get from reading too many books. But being by the perennially sickly-looking J-Jo Beuys perked them up, appearance-wise.

Llyn Foulkes Studio Clip

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:11:11 GMT

Artist Llyn Foulkes playing his one man band machine and discussing some of the instruments involved in playing it, specifiaclly his Octavin Blow Horn:

Jeff Koons Documentary Clip

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:58:13 GMT

I am in 25 seconds of this 3-minute clip at the 0:59 mark:

That is one of my better lines ever: "Do you see God at Wal-Mart?"

1969 Pop Art Pinball Machine Review

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:09:44 GMT

Coagula Art Journal FREE Download of Issue #96

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:10:28 GMT

So the new issue of Coagula Art Journal is available as a glossy, full-color book, but you can download a copy of it for free online at COAGULA.NET right now!

If you are a mac user, i recommend a firefox browser instead of safari.

After 95 issues and two months shy of 17 years, I have finally found a superior method of distribution - I don't have to spend two days going to every gallery in L.A. with a stack of magazines, and then spend two days shipping 300 boxes of magazines nationwide. And now the readers of the magazine don't have to get lucky and find it when its presence in a gallery coincided with their visit to a gallery.

I am interested in any feedback anyone might have about our new format - and i can handle negative reviews as I dish them out. Thanks!

THOUGHTS ON Brandeis University Rose Art Museum Closing, Deaccessioning

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:47:25 GMT

So in tough economic times, people sell their art to make ends meet. Schools are no exceptions. Brandeis University may be saving itself by selling the art from its museum's collection (Link to Report).

Okay, this is where your art world values come in - and there seems to be a deep disconnect between what art people advocate others do with their art and what those art people endorse in art.

Many people in the art world endorse the art of MIke Kelley. I don't really like his art, but I get what he is doing and understand his role, historically, et cetera blah blah blah. But I watch people who rave about him and we all really know they are just into him because he is a success in the marketplace. Mike Kelley's art is special because it is antithetical to 99% of art out there and yet it still IS art. This is quite a triumph - to make something that fulfills the criteria of art by espousing the values absent in art. The people who really get Kelley and dig him are people who fetishize banal evil and are themselves pretty icky fuckers immersed in a slow self-destruction anyway so why not laugh about the pain, cruelty and misery visited upon others. Jerks, frankly, but you gotta at least admire territory staked out on an edge if only to know what the heck to stay away from.

But this is not about Mike Kelley, this is about his success. See, people who DEMAND that Brandeis MUST maintain its collection and museum, well these are people who treat art and art collections like church. When I was a kid, you got communion and it was a big time sin to play with that bread wafer. You ingested it on your way back to your seat and then you prayed. So art Nannies want to tell us that art collections are sacred and that deaccessioning would be like pulling out that wafer and playing with it like a strand of spaghetti while the whole congregation watched.

They implore us all that the sacred must not be defiled. And that is okay - but only if they really believed it, they would not simultaneously approve of so much contemporary art that is inherently POSITED AGAINST THE NOTION OF THE SACRED - art that Mike Kelley's anti-aesthetic is emblematic of.

If you have approvingly reviewed artists whose fundamental aesthetic is a breaking down of barriers, a deconstructing of institutions, a rebellious gesture against the academy - any positive acclaim to these stances, these artists, these aesthetics and their influence, any support for the PROFANE while you simultaneously demand that institutions maintain their collections as SACRED means you want to rave about the trendy and exciting and pseudo-edgy as a commentator but you don't REALLY want the applecart upset.

You want your holy frickin' museums but you still want to hang out with the cool kids. And now the institution is up shit creek you have the audacity to demand it be held to a higher standard than you yourself hold art up to when you rave about the slacker, the terrorist, the political revolutionary, the cool outlaw... get it?

There is a long list of contemporary artists who I could have substituted for Kelley here. A long, unavoidable list of talented genius artists who embrace the insanity of boundary-free contrarianism as their only medium, implicitly free of values or conscience.

Dear Brandeis: Please sell your art, save your school and ignore anyone with a relationship to contemporary art who tells you otherwise. Contemporary art as it exists now is built on the premise of swindle, cajole, embracing the contrary and dissolving boundaries. The contemporary art world has no values or standards to be held as an example for your school to follow - you are free to deaccession in the name of preserving your values and institution. Nobody associated with the art world has any moral ground or basis of integrity or civility from which they can agree to operate and thus NONE OF THEM are in any position to offer an opinion about your behavior in these tense economic times.

Taxi in L.A.

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:40:56 GMT

I went to the convention center via the bus to speak at the L.A. Art Show and to hang out at the Coagula booth. My car got a flat last night and i didn't want to drive on the donut in the rain and I didn't want to rent a car.

So I took the bus. I took the bus a lot for years when I was a drunk. I can count on one hand the number of times I drank and drove. In my deepest periods of self-destruction, I avoided what was the ultimate roulette. So the bus doesn't intimidate me and I know a lot of the routes. It was 5 bucks for an all-day pass. I could have just paid a buck and a quarter but i wanted to have the pass in case I needed it later.

My girlfriend met me there. We had a full day, the talk was great, Mark Bradford and Kim Abeles and Renee Petropolous were on this panel with myself and others and those three were excellent, insightful and entertaining.

MORE COVERAGE OF THE PANEL HERE FROM THE BUSTARD

So then we go out to dinner with the ArtScene magazine honchos. Marlen Donaghue sits next to me and insists that students and teachers are barred from sexual relations at Otis. An Otis student at the dinner confirms this, noting that it would be impossible to hide something that hot and inspiring at the apparently sexless, dull bitchy gossip-filled campus that Otis has apparently been prozacked into.

So my girlfriend and I take a taxi home. 20 bucks. $5 tip. $5 busride for me. Girlfriend took the bus separately but only spent a buck and a quarter. $31.25 versus $12 convention center parking sounds like a rip off, but just sitting in that cab after a meal, laughing about sexless Otis students going thru art school never even once getting drunk and giving in to the advances of baby boom casualties bragging to their classes about having seen the Who while Keith Moon was still alive... it was a nice day and night.

Poetry at the Presidential Inauguration

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:33:58 GMT

Holy shit that was the worst poem and a lousy delivery - what is it like to get up to read your poem, stand up and see million people dispersing?

My complaint email to a web domain company

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:41:36 GMT

I just sent this to the pin-headed retards at cedant:

COULD you kindly give me just a tiny clue about WHAT this bill is for instead of threatening me over some abstract registration number that does not mean a thing to me?

This registration number is ALL YOU REFERENCE but it is a jumble of numbers that don't mean anything instead of a website that i owe you money for.

I don't work in the field of numbers like you computer kids, get it, i am the customer, i buy things from you and when you bill me for them you should kindly bill me for the THING I BUY FROM YOU.

I owe you money for something. TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE BILLING ME FOR.

Thank you.

Juried art shows, Renting Galleries, Art Groups

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:34:47 GMT

Advice for artists on self-promotion:

Press!

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:15:46 GMT

Link to a nice article previewing my first curated show of 2009 (co-curated with Marla Koosed) Self-Portraits in the Age of MyFaceSpaceBook.

Adios to 2008

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:57:09 GMT

So 2008 has come and gone. Every year I look back on what I did this year. I am packing right now to leave in the morning to spend New Year's Eve/Day in Las Vegas.

2008 was a depressing year but it had its moments. I lost a prestigious job and two dogs. All of my work in the art world have been deeply impacted by the economic pillage, er, crisis. Everyone in the art world got kicked in the financial groin this year and 2009 promises no relief. But no time to whine. You are either in this out of love and hoping the money follows or you are just trying it on for size until something else fits.

I adopted a 2-year-old Pit Bull/Catahoula mix and the territorial little fucker is watching my house while I am gone so that is protected. Two dogs (Snoop and Coco) that I inherited both died this year. I got them when my girlfriend and I moved into this house in 2007. I never ever imagined falling in love with a dog as deeply as I have with the spotted and tireless Aybar.

I published 6 issues of Coagula Art Journal, celebrated my 15th year of sobriety, curated some great art shows (8 Under 28, Animal Magnetism, The $2 Bill Show, Postcards from the Edge), appeared in the Ovation-TV Network's documentary on Jeff Koons (Beyond Heaven) voicing a critical dissenting opinion, taught a seminar on curating (Curators College) and wrote some published articles on art that I am proud of. I was a guest on a sports talk radio show for 2 hours in October because of the baseball blog (Halos Heaven) I have built. So there were highlights.

But losing my job as a gallery director because of the bad economy and then seeing real estate deal after real estate deal for a new gallery fall through was just depressing. Sissyphus and I were art world cronies, it seemed there was just nowhere to get traction this year as the whole art world slipped badly from its perch. And two lovely dogs dying sucks. Of course, the passing in 2008 of Coagula's New York editor Baird Jones reminds me that the alternative is far, far worse.

But we hit Vegas twice and that was nice. My girlfriend and I have now lived under the same roof for 18 months and it is great. I have a freelance writing job that pays some bills as well so there is a lot to be grateful for, but I will most be grateful to see 2008 go on Wednesday night.

Sculptor Robert Graham, 1938 - 2008

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:59:44 GMT

Cross Posted at COAGULA DOT COM

Artist Robert Graham in March, 2008 at Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills for the opening reception of some of his recent work. The artist died Saturday.

What I always appreciated about Robert Graham was his precision without caring about perfection. Working with the human form is working with an imperfect form and he knew it, but he endeavored to precisely render what was there and only to idealize it as it could possibly be - he took realism to the cliff of perfection but did not throw it off, he left it right there on the edge, as glorious and precarious as real life itself.

Graham's statue of an indigenous Latina representing the Virgin Mary at the entrance to the Queen of Angels Cathedral is perhaps the most politically radical sculpture on permanent display anywhere in Los Angeles. After the rich white bread conservatives built that palace, Graham installed the future of everything their institution is headed toward with a symbol of everything about their faith that they try to ignore, marginalize or gentrify.

May he Rest in Peace unless Bernini needs a studio assistant.

--Mat Gleason