Monday at the Home

Long time, no see

So mad props to Raymond for keeping us alive here on the YR blog. Elaine, Seth, Gene and myself - huge slackers. Plus, I have to say that Raymond is a pretty good writer and has kept me current.

But nonetheless, I have something to add! One of the most influential professors I had in undergrad at the University of Texas, Mel Ziegler, is doing a project here in Houston with BBAP. There's a description of it on the website there, but in short Mel is getting non-art types that work in those glass boxes downtown to share some of themselves. How? They are asked to blow into a balloon and draw a self portrait on it once inflated. These will then be displayed all over downtown. They are still asking for volunteers to collect the balloons and I'll be there, so should you! It'll be fun and I'll post here my volunteer experience.

If You Dare

I'm talking about my work at the Austin Museum of Art on Thursday, April 24th at 7:00 pm. You can come listen to me tell you why I made the work I did and then throw banana peels and lettuce at me while I tap dance into your dreams. There's lots of other stuff going on that same night, but you should come and listen to me because you're my friend. (Warning: you have to pay museum admission to get in: $5 [I think it should be free, but they need financial support to stay open. PPPFFFFTT.])

Firepower

I usually don't read letters to the editor, but a very lengthy response by Robert Storr in the latest Artforum caught my eye. Apparently, Storr has been trading blows with Okwui Enwezor, Francesco Bonami and Jessica Morgan over the latter three's reviews of his Venice Biennale.  The disagreement is the fiercest between Enwezor and Storr, with both parties essentially calling each other racist bullies.   I guess the big power battles can be just as fierce as the little local ones. What's more interesting, however is that this one is playing out on a very public stage. I tend to think of these feuds as boiling behind closed doors, or the back of a bar.

(Sorry, no links to the letters. You have to pick up a copy of the mag to read for yourself)

Exploding Impacting

A two pound, Yoshitomo Nara ashtray rolled off a shelf and fell on my head last night. For the second time in my life I felt the almighty power of the concussion. Last time I got a concussion I was a teenager. I tripped in my backyard and my head hit a tree root. That one was severe enough I began to believe I was in a movie my brother was watching on TV, and forced him to turn it off so I wouldn't be trapped in it anymore.

This one wasn't as bad, but I did get disoriented and a little irrationally irritated at everything. After searching various medical sites for warning signs of imminent death, I determined I could probably make it through the night without dying. Fortunately, I woke up this morning and everything seems to be working normally. No hemorrhaging or convulsions.

Protect your heads people, you can't make arts with brain damage.

Roy Lichtenstein. Explosion (from Portfolio 9). 1967. Lithograph. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. Courtesy of the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

University of BOOYAH

I'm at the University of California - Santa Barbara this weekend checking out the place at which I will most likely being going to grad school. Santa Barbara is both retardedly beautiful and retardedly bougie. All the faculty and grads are engaging and super friendly, though and it would be a good place to make a lot of work, with a lot of freedom to do what I want (i.e. the turning of things up to 11). I will also get to shape the minds of impressionable undergrads. I'm archly gleeful about this prospect.