Post-Hotdog, Sober, Mr. Lee
Linh Dinh05.12.11
Decorated with fake skulls and Phillies pennants, Linh Dinh’s favorite dive bar Dirty Frank’s is, in truth, not so much a drinking establishment as an elaborate shrine to a pair of twin lost causes—art and picking fights with bouncers. Here, Dinh explains the similarities between the two and, like a series of snapshots of a night when you were blackout drunk, reminds you of mistakes you didn’t know you’d made.
Welcome to the Predatorium (or Kim Dorland’s Creepy Copse)
Derek McCormack04.25.11
Author Derek McCormack writes of artist Kim Dorland that his “ideas of nature come from horror movies. More than that: it’s like they come from watching horror movies on a VCR in a rec-room in Alberta in the 1970s…Look at his use of rhinestone eyes for owls: very macramé. Look at use of nails and string for the wolves’ teeth and drool: very string art. Look at the trees: they’re painted on wood, so that grain is visible beneath." Fanzine gets the goods, an essay from very limited edition catalogue based on a show at Mike Weiss, NY. P.S. – look for work from McCormack’s publishing house Book Bakery in the near future. All Images here courtesy of Angell Gallery, Toronto.
Sponsored in Part
Malina Saval03.26.11
Malina Saval is the author of The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw Emotional World of Male Teens. She is also a member of Al-Anon. A sponsor-less member, much to her desperation, as she struggles alone with her husband’s addictions, her family life, her own anxieties and moments of self-doubt. As someone once said, "I’ve been out to sea a long time." This is the first column of Malina’s that will chronicle her search for an Al-Anon sponsor.
Pull of the Pond
Tom Flynn03.06.11
Following the recent success of the NHL’s experiment with outdoor hockey—this year featured two outdoor "classics"—Tom Flynn reminisces about a simpler attraction to the game, one that probably every professional hockey player experienced: that of pond hockey. Although "pond hockey" usually conjures up a fast and loose (read: no defense) iteration of the game, the term is usually used derisively in pro-hockey speak, there’s an irresistable allure to being on crisp natural ice in the great outdoors.
Fanzine Does New York Art Week 2011 (day 4 finale)
Bradford Nordeen03.06.11
Bradford Nordeen traipses through his last day of NYC art fair coverage at Pulse, gets mired in the "absolute purity of vision" of the “bro” art at Scope (even if it’s coiffed dudes making rim job jokes). He finds solace in Beka Goedde’s abstract paintings at Christina Ray, and a carnival-essence at Microscope Gallery, with Nick Zed fanzines, Cindy Sherman’s visage as ex-wife on someone’s balls…later there was the "exciting retort to the Independent" group called – guess? The Dependent. Read on. Collapse. Get ready for another fair in some other cultured metropolis in this smaller & smaller world.
Fanzine Does New York Art Week 2011 (3)
Bradford Nordeen03.04.11
Day 3 sees Bradford Nordeen at Volta, The Independent and The Moving Image Fair. Standouts include Elisabeth Subrin’s film and stills at Volta amidst a lot of synchronistically not-very-original international critiques of American foreign policy, filmmaker great George Kuchar in snap shots from all over the place, and a Jack Hanley presents Martin Kaltwasser "Thunderdome-like" Saab 900, wrecked of course. I predict tomorrow Bradford writes a book at this rate. Check in again.
Fanzine Does New York Art Week 2011 (2)
Bradford Nordeen03.03.11
Bradford is keeping on keeping on, this 2nd day out defining what an Armory show is and manages to cruise the piers without getting physically nauseus (over the ostentatious moneyflow, like he did at Miami Basel a coupla years back). In fact he likes quite a lot about this day, Adrian Ghenie, Ivan Navarro, and Moyra Davey to name a few. Stayed tuned tomorrow for more.
New Poethic Folk Cultures of John Cage Go Large
David Berridge03.02.11
David Berridge is: "trying to hold in mind the experience of viewing Every Day is a Good Day, the show of John Cage’s visual art, first seen at BALTIC in Newcastle last summer, and now touring the UK. Or, rather, keep some memory of the show in dialogue with the reproductions in the catalogue; hold to its distinctiveness whilst seeing it alongside Cage’s music and writing; unfold its specifics without losing sense of the contemporary. A relationship to Cage in 2011, as always, is a shifting, complex thing."
Fanzine Does New York Art Week 2011 (1)
Bradford Nordeen03.02.11
Here’s the first installment of Bradford Nordeen’s coverage of New York’s “Art Week” for Fanzine. He starts with a ‘“mini art fair” that showcases the “accessible & impressive”’ that began two days before the Armory and especially enjoys work by Audio Visual Arts (AVA). Check back on this link daily for the next few for updates, Armory, Volta…
Love and Tranquilizers in Madagascar
Michael Thomsen02.07.11
Michael Thomsen’s rough transition into life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar was punctuated by pine cone braziers, snorted barbituates, mistaken-identity cunnilingus, the terror of isolation and, of course, zebus. Accompanying photos of Madagascar courtesy of Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak, Simone Giovanelli and Massimiliano (Nacchia).
