FANZINE

1/27th of a Love Letter: Reflections on art from the mailbox

02.11.11

Jennifer Gustavson’s 1/27th of a Love Letter
 

Howdy. I’m here to write a few words about a mail-art project called…

The Marvelous Museum – Orphans, Curiosities & Treasures: A Mark Dion Project

12.21.10

Artist Mark Dion’s work takes the form of some combination of curatorship and archaeology. I first heard about his exhibit at the Tate Museum, in which objects that he and a team of volunteers found along the banks of the Thames were displayed with equalizing reverence, including evidence of early Roman settlements, a fossilized sea urchin and unusually shaped disposable soy sauce bottles. The exhibit emphasized their shared current context in the river, rather than stratifying them based on perceived importance. The Oakland Museum has recently reopened in the midst of a major renovation and Dion’s project that inaugurates its return examines that museum’s unique, almost haphazard origins and collection, as well as the role that public institutions take in shaping knowledge and history. Artist Emcee C.M. reviews the accompanying collection of essays published by Chronicle Books in partnership with McSweeney’s The Believer. Fanzine contributors Peter Jacoby and Andrew Leland were both involved in the project.

Assume Vivid Astro Focus: Chaos Bound

12.02.10

Try and judge Assume Vivid Astro Focus’ first monograph by its cover and you may be falling for an old adage which instructs one not to bother. Instead start flipping. Flip, then focus. Then go back and read the main essay and appreciate the fact that it’s gonna be a bitch to put a hardcover lid on an art collective that is heir to the Situationists International. Artist Gean Moreno tackles that notion, and all this movement, color and vivacity, but sets off on a different tack, one tinged by say… Caribbean Carnival?

Some words for Harvey Pekar

07.13.10

It seems like every time I go to write something for the magazine these days it’s because somebody died. Today (6/13)…

When Marina Abramovic Dies

05.12.10

Okay so you’ve just read about Marina Abramovic’s ongoing performance at MoMA here on Fanzine from Olena Jennings. Meanwhile, Art Fag City has pondered what she does with all that pee everyday (my bet is Chris Burden is the one changing the catheters nightly, but then that’s whimsical thinking); and now we have take 2 on the artist, from the perspective of a fellow performance artist, Alexandro Segade (himself interviewed on Fanzine recently), focussing on a biography about what will be Abramovic’s last perfomance.

A Jungle of Signs – Lecture and Discussion

05.08.10

A Jungle of Signs – Lecture and Discussion

Rituals of the Body: Marina Abramovic and Yara Arts Group

05.08.10

Olena Jennings recently attended two performances, Yara Arts Group’s Scythian Stones at La MaMa E.T.C. and Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present, which is still running at New Yok City’s MoMA until May 31st. Viewers flocked to Abramovic’s show to witness the arduous physicality of her task (and perhaps some to experience a titillating squeeze through a couple of live, naked, statuesque women). Jennings, whose work focuses on Ukrainian tranlations, explains some of the ancient ritual body symbolism in the the two pieces that are culled from various ethnic origins, from Abramovic’s native Serbia to Turkey and beyond.

A Real Boy At Last: A Discussion with Artist Oscar B. De Alessi On Youth Culture, Representation, and Suicide

05.02.10

Baudelaire once claimed, "Woman is the opposite of the dandy." Artist O.B. De Alessi begs to differ. By combining figures like Oscar Wilde, Goethe’s Werther, Michael Jackson, Hamlet and a cat with the ability to predict death, De Alessi has crafted herself into a highly accomplished dandy with the added modern accoutrements of internet celebrity and suicidal ideations.

Art: Jesse Bransford : The Jungle (for Norma), works on paper

04.30.10

Am stoked about this show. Two favorite persons and artists, Jesse Bransford and Karsten Krejcarek, made a journey together to the jungles of Peru…

Impermanence Opening at Hendershot Gallery

04.30.10

Former Barcelona resident, Fanzine contributor and Fanzine buddy Jess Shaefer just got a new gig as gallery director at…