Selasa, 13 Mei 2008

Pittsburgh art trip (including the International)

I spent a weekend in Pittsburgh recently. In my past life as a violinist, I lived in Pittsburgh for seven years as a member of the orchestra there. I always knew it as a vibrant community for the arts. While I lived there I was just finding my photographic legs, so I was exploring the galleries and museums in the area. There was always a lot going on. Pittsburgh has a monumental philanthropic history. Until not too long ago, Pittsburgh had the most millionaires per capita than any other US city and was the home to more corporate headquarters than any other US city. Though this has changed, the effect that the families named Mellon, Scaife, Heinz, Rockefeller, Frick, Carnegie, et al., combined with the corporate legacies of US Steel, Westinghouse, Bayer, Heinz, et al. has been to endow this city with a wealth of art and architecture few cities can match.

The 800 pound gorilla in this collection has always been the Carnegie Museum of Art; a huge and encompassing collection of institutions including the Museum of Natural History and the Warhol. Since 1896, there has been some kind of biennial or triennial at the Carnegie. I quote here from the website:

"In 1950 the exhibition, renamed the Pittsburgh International, became biennial, and in 1955, triennial. During the 1970s the name was changed to the International Series, and broke with tradition to present one- and two-person exhibitions. In 1977, the exhibition featured the work of Pierre Alechinsky and in 1979 that of Eduardo Chillida and Willem de Kooning. The show returned to the original 1896 anthology format in 1982, and the name Carnegie International was adopted. The exhibition was reestablished as the preeminent survey of international contemporary art in North America and has been presented approximately every three years since that time. "


Well, I don't know what reviews the Carnegie has been reading, but I think it has been some years since the International has been viewed as the "preeminent survey of international contemporary art in North America". And if this iteration of the survey is any kind of indication of future relevance, then David Shrigley's work included in this year's show can be used as a poster for all future Internationals.


In fact, to this viewer, Mr. Shrigley's works were part of the very small list of engaging and on-message works. It seemed to me that this International couldn't make up its mind whether it was a survey of well-known and recognized current art or a biennial on a particular curatorial theme. In either case, I was dismayed at how little of the work seemed new, "important" (a problematic term , I know), or communicative.

As is my preference, I will concentrate on what I found positive. One spectacular piece was Thomas Hirschhorn's "Cavemanman" - a post-apocolyptic view of where we might live if society reduces us all to living like street people. This is an overwhelming immersive environment that can only be hinted at in pictures. Mr. Hirschhorn has created a labyrinth of caves made of cardboard and packing tape, and festooned them with layer upon layer of images and detritus from consumer society. It was a virtuoso performance to create this space, it WAS on message to the theme of the show, and had power to speak in literal and implied terms. I loved it. A few inadequate pictures here.








Also impressive was Phil Collins video about the relationship between language and power. The video is about the struggle for independence in Kosovo and uses ordinary Kosovo people - speaking in Serbo-Croat - saying why they no longer speak Serbo-Croat. It is a wonderfully layered and complex picture. One sees the pain and suffering of the people in the stories, and yet no real answer or position is limned by the video. As much as I liked this work, it highlights one of my pet peeves about current "art" video. This video has a clear narrative thread. It is best to see it from start to finish. At least I think so. I think video like this is ill-served in a gallery environment. There should be posted start and end times so people can have the option to see the whole work. Other art video has no real narrative thread. It can be seen more like a painting, i.e. you stand there looking for as long as you need to "get it" or as long as it gives you pleasure to look. But seeing it from a predetermined starting point will not change your understanding. Mr. Collins' work is not like this. So many times I see video work in museum and in galleries that are really damaged by this perspective. I hope curators will move towards a more satisfying way of showing work like this as the medium develops.

Across town there was another group show survey. It was at a small museum and artist residency space called the Mattress Factory. (Mattress Factory website) The difference between the two shows could not have been more stark. In every instance where the International failed, the MF shined. Where the International had a roster that was long and dilute, the MF had a roster that was honed, tight, on message, and almost without fail, satisfying. The primary show on view there now is called "Inner Outer Space" and is curated by Dara Myers-Kingsley. The show explores the limits of the physical walls of the exhibition space. Some work explodes that wall literally by going through windows, walls and floors to the outside. Other work uses technology like wireless data transmission or faxes to "break" the walls of the museum. It was a fascinating and beautiful show. I encourage you to visit the website where there are far more professional pictures than mine of the works and a clear, easy-to-read essay on each work.

There are a couple of ways in which I think Dara's show is great. First, it meshed with the history of artist residency at the MF. James Turrell and Yayoi Kusama both created work there that is now in the permanent collection. Dara states that these works inspired the selection of artists for the show. Once you have seen "Inner Outer Space" you can move into other buildings that make of the MF complex which are showing current installations by artists working here. Some of this work was great. More on that in a bit, but I want to stress how cool it was to see a show so intimately knit into the fiber of the institution in which it was shown. This made my point #2 even more satisfying in that her theme was clear, clearly stated, and then actually realized. Why is this so unusual? So many curators seem to reach for the conceptual stars and end up pointing the telescope at their feet. Not here. We're engaged in Dara's idea from the beginning and finding our path is a pleasure of discovery. Third, maybe least important but nice that it's here, the work was beautiful. I mean visually satisfying and containing much for the eye to engage. I don't mean pretty. But beautiful it was.

A few faves: Luca Buvoli's wall-bustin' sculpture called " The Instant Before Incident(Marinelli's Drive 1908)"




Sarah Oppenheimer's vertigo inducing installation that breaks through floors and windows to invent new perspective.




Mark Garry's thread piece called "being here" was spectacular. Sometimes it was almost invisible - touching on the ineffable - and other times it sang with colors and richness. A revelatory piece. Make sure to see the additional pictures on the MF website, or better yet, go see it. It's amazing. There are wonderful echoes of Sandback, Turrell, and Agnes Martin here, but the voice is individual and assured.

almost not there.....


more present....



singing with color. Wow.

Last and not at all least are the installations of Turrell, Kusama, and Yumi Kori. All defy photographic represention, but are all worth the price of admission on their own. Some of you may remember Yumi's installation at the Japan Society Group show curated by Eric Shiner. This was every bit as good as that and more. If you're anywhere near Pittsburgh this summer, go see it.

And a last few notes on other artists at the MF.

HousePoem by Huang Xiang. An entire house has been turned into a work of political calligraphy.

William Asatasi's wall drawing which is located in Allan Wexler's "Sitting Rooms for an Artist in Residence"

A handrail permanent installation that was part of a larger installation by the artists Monica M. Bock, Mary Carlisle, Cathy Lynn Gasser, Melissa Goldstein, Sandrine Sheon, and Catherine Smith. the handrail has a small gutter running water between the handrail and the wall. When you grasp for the handrail, your hand is dipped in warm, running water. Really icky, but a wonderful, interactive work.

Last, Jean Highstein made a concrete over wood monolithic object that takes over a room in the way that the work of Monika Sosnowska does. This piece could have easily been in the "Inside Outside" show as it challenged the limits of the room in which it was housed. Yet another example of how synchronous and organic the various shows of the Mattress Factory presented themselves. This was a real treat and I look forward to future visits to Pittsburgh to see what's happening there. If it continues like it has been, MF won't be having any taxidermied kittens announcing their demise anytime soon.

Berlin/Leipzig, May 2008 part 1

In October of 2007, while on an ICP trip to Japan, talk turned to other interesting travel destinations. I mentioned that I like to go to Berlin. One of my friends on the trip suggested that we go together and let me show him the city. Thus was born a wonderful idea for a trip. Later, another friend expressed interest in going, so ultimately it was him and me plus the original friend and his girlfriend. We decided to plan the trip around something called "Collectors Weekend" that happens in Berlin every May. Dozens of galleries have special openings and parties. It's kind of a fair except that instead of booths in a fairground, each gallery gets to use their whole space as a special exhibit. We mentioned the idea to Joe Amrhein and Leif Magne Tangen from Pierogi Gallery. They told us that Leipzig has a parallel event that happens just before the Berlin weekend. It is centered around the former industrial site called Spinnerei that now houses dozens of galleries and artist studios. Remembering what a remarkable time we had at the Pierogi event at their rented warehouse during Miami/Basel, we knew this was when we had to go.

I'll leave the Berlin portion for last and start with Leipzig. I had been to Leipzig 15 and 20 years ago. 2o years ago it was still east germany. 15 years ago, it had just strated the post unification boom that is still going on today. Though it remains a gray former industrial city as evidenced with my "homage to Ruff",

it is a vibrant and art-filled place. It also has some quirky pleasures such as a absinthe bar with a truck out front that served as a mobile bar. The hood ornament on the truck was an elephant. I've never seen anything like it.


Spinnerei is a former cotton spinning plant. It is a huge, sprawling complex of buildings that house galleries, cafés, small businesses, and artist studios. It has somewhat of the feel of MassMoCA but much less polished and corporate. Though some of the galleries there are top-notch and well-known, the whole enterprise manages to keep it's underground feel.



The thing is, it seems like anytime, anyplace I have contact with an art event that has the hand of Pierogi in it, I have a good time. Those guys, Joe Amrhein and Leif Magne Tangen in Leipzig, just seem to know how to keep the vibe right. The art is good, people are serious about the art but relaxed, there's food and drink, the place they choose is funky and cool - I mean, it's just right. Hats off gents. They show a photographer I'm liking very much named Nadja Bournonville. (http://www.nadjabournonville.se/who.html) Leif showed me the work at Armory plus Nadja has her studios at Spinnerei. We got to see much of her current output and get to know her a bit. Check it out.

Dogenhaus Gallery was new to me at Spinnerei. They carry a young Leipziger photographer named Albrecht Tübke. The world has no shortage of portraits taken straight on with a subject looking back at the camera. There are thousands of Sander and Arbus wannabes. Yet, as similar as many of these portraits can be, the good ones do separate from the pack. I first saw Tübke's work in a book. I was impressed but I was concerned that the images wouldn't hold up in person. I sought out Dogenhaus specifically to see these portraits. Gallery owner Jochen Hempel could not have been nicer or more helpful. And the good news is that the work was very successful in person. I confess I've been slow to come to work like this; simple, frontal portraits. Suddenly, I can't get enough. Hiroh Kikai, Tübke, Annalees Louwen, Hendrik Kerstens......If you go to Basel next week, look for Tübke at the Dogenhaus booth at Volta. It's good stuff. (http://dogenhaus.net/)

Back to Berlin.

Hamburger Bahnhof had not one, but two of their massive shows. One was a retrospective of the conceptual, photographic couple Bernhard and Anna Blume. They are the teachers of an artist I like very much and have written about here, Thorsten Brinkmann. I mentioned them briefly in an earlier post after seeing a large installation in the Kicken booth at Art Forum Berlin. I just don't know what to make of this work. It seems witty, and it has none o the dead-on objective seriousness of the Bechers. But I'm sure the Blumes would argue that their work is every bit as formally and conceptually grounded as their better-known countrymen's work. The problem is, I haven't found it yet. I find their work remarkable for the scale they chose in a time when scale was not this heroic. I find the theatricality of their work engaging and thought provoking. But what else? I bought the catalogs and I promised myself I would do some reading. I'll report back. I guess if we accept one definition of art as something which compels us to ask questions or which questions us, then this work has succeeded in that. I am asking myself many questions and I'm curious to continue to explore the work. here are a few examples.




The other huge installation was an overview of part of the Christian Flick collection of photography. This was an embarrassment of riches. There was room after room of Bechers, room after room of Höfer, similar quantities of Struth, Ruff, Stan Douglas, and Rodney Graham, a few Gurskys for flavor and a great David Claerbout installation. Oh my god, it was overwhelming. That being said, it was not all what one would expect. The Ruffs and Höfers were very early series and the Stan Douglas was all small scale color work documenting urban decay around Detroit. The early Höfer showed a heavy debt to Louise Lawler without much of Lawler's cleverness and unpredictability. the early Ruff series was of motel interiors that I have always found to be inscrutable. The Stan Douglas series really popped out at me. Visually and philosophically this was compelling in every way. I was happy to see every one of them. Even though there were dozens and dozens it didn't seem like too much. Höfer and Ruff could have been halved to the same effect if you ask me.

Chapeau to Hamburger Bahnhof for being able to mount such ambitious shows. Sink or swim, it's wonderful to be able to see art on this scale and artist's work in such depth. As I have mentioned in the past, certain work just seems to have a "right" place to be seen. I spoke of the Turrell on Naoshima and Sandback and Serra at Dia/Beacon. Well, the Anselm Kiefers in the main hall here as part of their permanent collection are stunning and monumental. I cannot think of a better advocacy for this work than how it is seen here. Wow. I try to see it every time I go to Berlin.



Last in this chapter, I was pleased to see the work of Jörn Vahöfen at Kuckei & Kuckei. I had seen this image on the same day I first saw Thorsten Brinkmann's work at Kunstsalon art fair. I took a picture of my favorite image,

never imagining that I would see this same image in a prestigious gallery a few short years later. He has a small book out called "Disaster" that has a number of very fine images. Kuckei & Kuckei has an interesting program that also includes Barbara Probst. Well worth looking into. http://www.kuckei-kuckei.de/

Berlin, May 2008 part 2

One of the reasons for me to come to Berlin again at this time of year was to see the current installment of the Berlin Biennial. I had seen it for the first time 2 years ago, and found it to be a remarkable experience. There was such a quantity of unforgettable art placed in unforgettable spaces that I couldn't resist the chance to see the next iteration. Boy, did I get it wrong.

This has to be one of the most disappointing and completely forgettable art experiences I have had. The art on view was consistently un-engaging, unappealing, and un-......well, add your own negative adjective. They all fit. Rather than rant on how boring the high-falutin', off message art-speak was in the catalogue, or blather about how easy it was to walk past installations because they looked like recycling piles, I will rather focus on one artist whose work has stayed with me in a positive way -
David Maljkovic.

The work was a collage of vintage images from Soviet era trade shows in the former Italian Pavilion of the Zagreb World Fair grounds that experienced its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. He collaged contemporary pieces of photography onto the idealized communist architecture showing us how it was now abandoned and in disuse. Another example of simple technique serving to communicate powerful ideas with immediacy and grace.

Speaking of the last Berlin Biennial, one of the most talked about pieces back then was a one-to-one proportion re-creation of a Nazi boxcar prisoner transport made by Polish artist Robert Kusmirowski. Kusmirowski is interested in making models of things or events that allow us to travel in time by experiencing the object as we might have experienced it when it was new. At Zak-Branicka gallery (http://www.zak-branicka.org/ ) he has a new series of photographs that show him as the subject of experiments in a 60s era computer lab. The lab is fictitious, but it has the verisimilitude of an actual scientific environment. In this series, he engages a number of important photographic traditions - model making, false narrative, self-portrait - in a way that is completely personal, not at all pedantic, and highly communicative. Check it out.

It seems that there is a lot of really good work coming out of Poland these days and Zak-Branicka seems to get their hands on a lot of it. Readers of this blog will have heard me mention many of these names. Monica Sosnowska was my favorite at the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennial and was a hit for me at the Boros Collection as well(see below). Same for Kusmirowski who had a bicycle sculpture at the Boros. Szymon Koblyarz makes post-apocalyptic architectural models among many, many other art practices. Go to the Zak website and look at some of the work. It's one of the most exciting rosters around. Here is just a sample of my faves:

Robert Kusmirowski

Szymon Kobylarz

Tomasz Kowalski

Katarzyna Kozyra
(amazing video call "Rite of Spring" which I 1rst saw at Hoffmann a year ago)
Dominik Lejman

Łukasz Skąpski (homemade Polish tractor typologies that are fab!)


So, on to the Hoffmann Collection.
(Hoffmann Collection website with pics of past installations and how to reserve a visit
)
This was my third trip to this collection. It never fails to impress and to educate. Erika Hoffmann has a remarkable eye that always finds the juxtapositions among her art works that show some new perspective. She also seems to have an eye for very talented young artists to use as docents on the Collection tour. The last time I was there, I had the pleasure of being guided by noted video artist Peter Welz. (http://www.peterwelz.com/) This time, it was Ariane Pauls. She seemed like a smart, interesting, thoughtful young woman, so I can't say I was surprised when her website showed her to be a first rate artist with a good CV. But I was surprised at how, once again, Hoffmann Collection had an artist of this caliber leading tours. Maybe it's worth going to the Collection just to see who Erika Hoffmann is employing these days.....(http://www.arianepauls.com/)

Ariane figured again in our visit to the Boros Collection. (http://www.sammlung-boros.de)
We had been told that, though the Boros was officially open, there would be no public tours until after we were back in the states. Ariane said, no, there would be tours that weekend. Just show up and say we're from the US and we'd be let in. We did as instructed only to be told that the collection was not yet open. But wait! Just as we're ready to pack it in, Ariane shows up on her bicycle, explains that we're important collectors from the US, guests of Hoffmann Collection, and poof, we're in. Yay Ariane!!

The background of the building and the collection have been explained better elsewhere, so I include a few links:
article on the collection in Der Spiegel
a blog on the collection with good pictures
Wall Street Journal article
Pictures from WSJ article

My favorite work in the bunker was the Sosnowska sculpture/intervention. If it looks crowded in my pictures it's because it was. This piece takes over the space like a retrovirus. It goes through walls, goes into other rooms, and tails out to the edges of the spaces. You can also go into the piece walking through a dark maze of polished wood. My inexpert photos here:




And the entrance to the interior of the piece:


2 views of the outside of the bunker. More in the links above:



You can just barely see the 3000 sq. ft. apartment he built on top.


And finally there were two shows on Brunnenstrasse that I thought were great. I blogged on the booth of Nice and Fit from Preview fair in Berlin last year. She had a super show showcasing photogram and process including two favorite artists of mine, Walead Beshty (see Even More Creative Destruction), and Liz Deschenes. (http://www.niceandfitgallery.com/)

I thought the press release for the show was on point, so I reprint it here in bold:

Le Retour
MARKUS AMM

WALEAD BESHTY

LIZ DESCHENES

NATHAN HYLDEN


The title of the exhibition which focuses on contemporary artists experimenting with photograms, comes directly from Man Ray’s 3 minute film Le Retour á la Raison (1923) in which he applied and extended the principles of the photogram to a moving image, particularly in the first sequences.
Markus Amm, Walead Beshty, Liz Deschenes and Nathan Hylden are some among several artists working today in photography who have been engaged with this early twentieth century technique. The return to the photogram partly refers to some of the constants here –the absence of the camera, the element of action, the self-reflexive aspect and chance-but what is distilled on the photographic paper produces vastly different visual and conceptual fields.

Walead Beshty’s large scale hand processed photogram from a series he produced in 2006 relies on the effect of light and chemicals on silver gelatin paper. The textured surface of the work is both a consequence of the crumpled paper used as the means to cover, expose and register as well as the subsequent crumpling of the print. The emphasis on materiality notwithstanding, Beshty’s picture is also performative demonstrating an indivisible mobility, to borrow the words used by Henri Bergson to define his theory of Duration. Time, mobility, chance and self-referentiality are further explored in Fedex First Overnight Box, New York-Berlin in which the artist made and packed a glass box the exact dimensions of a large Fed Ex box and shipped it from his gallery in New York to the gallery in Berlin.

Photograms are presented in series that act as formal exercises in the case of Markus Amm. Representing just one aspect of his work-being engaged in various media including sculpture and painting-Amm’s minimal monotypic script takes issue with the possibilities of abstraction in photography. The exclusion of the apparatus forces photography to abscond with a few painting attributes. However, whatever the semblance might be (physicality, uniqueness) they operate within a different space which is both strict and accidental.

Nathan Hylden’s photograms are less about materiality and chance- like his sculptures and paintings they negotiate flatness, positive and negative space. The patterns that are prefigured and geometric slightly evoke mid Neolithic Greek pottery decorations –they also come across as proto-copying machine print-outs.

Of all the artists in Le Retour, Liz Deschenes is the one whose artistic practice, as she says,
“has been completely immersed in the photographic medium”. The Photographs which she is showing here, “are silver toned black and white photographs with no imagery or content. They look and function similarly to mirrors. Daguerreotypes, one of the initial photographic processes, are often referred to as mirrors with a memory. These photographs share the uniqueness of daguerreotypes, the silver reflectivity, and the mercurial viewing experience. The viewer activates the work, and becomes an integral part of a temporal, unrecorded representation”.


The other engaging show was at the project space, Artnews Projects. There was some truly subversive work here. The most terrifying was an actually illegal piece that showed how to make a dirty nuclear device that could be left in a purse in a public space. The purse on the floor next to the display case was enough to make you need a change of underwear. It was a group show chock-full of fine video and installation work. The link to the press release and pictures of the show are here:
The New World exhibit press release and artists list


Berlin never disappoints me in fun, artistic diversity, and wonderful people. If you've been thinking of going, don't put it off. Berlin is at a near perfect moment now between the new and the old. As I always say....check it out.

Even more Creative destruction

So, I have been really thinking alot lately about this whole Creative Destruction thing. The last time I posted, this was the list:

Robert Rauschenberg
Lucas Samarras
Gordon Matta-Clark
Marco Breuer
Douglas Gordon (the celebrity 8x10s with the eyes and mouths burned out and mounted on mirrors)
Chris McCaw
Felix Schramm
John Stezaker
Stephen Gill (Buried)
Helen Almeida (sewn photos)
Peter Beard
Ray K. Metzker (recent photo collages)

Since then, Ron Rocco has suggested Jon Kessler, and I suggested Kenneth Josephson's postcard collages. I haven't been able to find out enough about Kessler to decide whether to include him, but I'm starting to reject some of my own ideas. It seems core to me that there should be a real element of destruction to be included in the idea. I think this leaves out most if not all collages, so Mr. Rauschenberg and Mr. Josephson don't quite fit the bill, and I'm inclined to excude Matta-Clark, as well. Though he has destruction as a core idea of his practice, there doesn't seem to be any actual destruction happening to the print itself. The photos only document destruction. This is not what I'm going after.

But then, what if the artist is engaging in destruction of the print, but does not have destruction as a core element of his practice. I had an engaging discussion with a friend on this topic concerning the work of Walead Beshty. I argued that he's a lock for the list since he purposefully submits the print through all sorts of challenges that are specifically intended to mark them, mar them, and show the effects of their mistreatment. My friend argued that this was all a biproduct of a different artistic argument, and that therefore, the destruction was incidental. Hmmmm.....I think submitting film to travel, x-rays, and un-professional handling for the reason of documenting how the work will bear the scars of its travel qualifies him for the list. Plus, I love the art, so I wanted an excuse to talk about it.

Also new on my list are the folded, color abstractions of Wolfgang Tillmans.


I think they speak for themselves, though, as in the case of Josephson, it's hard to argue that something so clean and precise is destructive. I guess my argument is that, by folding, he is "ruining" the paper in a onetime creative/destructive act. Also, I am wondering about how the use/misuse of darkroom technique adds to the discussion. Is playing around with chemicals like Beshty, Tillmans, and Rossiter (see below) do really destroying anything or showing a creative destructive act? For now, I do include Tillmans. Adding up all of the various processes puts him on my list.

What about Miroslav Tichy? He often tears his sheets of paper and uses chemistry that is compromised. the results "look" damaged. But is his practice destructive? I have been told that he tore his paper to economize when he had little access to materials. Same deal on the chemistry. If he had access to pristine materials, would his art look different of would he still have chosen the look that he has. I'm on the fence here. I don't convince myself that he's truly in the category.

Another outsider artist that I think DOES fit is the Hungarian, Andras Baranyay. He disfigures his self-portraits with pen, and crayon, and felt-tip marker. Great and compelling work if you ever get a chance to see it. It's virtually unseen outside of Hungary.

Joachim Schmid is firmly on the list. His postcard collages firmly destroy an image and re-create it in a way that is not just collage. Also, his intent is to destroy the original.

Allison Rossiter is an interesting artist I found at the recent AIPAD. She uses expired film and paper stock and prints the damaged source material as photograms. The evidence of mold, expired chemistry, and handling creases all speak to a wonderfully subtle creative destruction. I like the work a lot. You can find it at Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto. She lives and works in NYC.

Here is my list as it stands now:

Lucas Samarras
Marco Breuer
Douglas Gordon (the celebrity 8x10s with the eyes and mouths burned out and mounted on mirrors)
Chris McCaw
Felix Schramm
John Stezaker
Stephen Gill (Buried)
Helen Almeida (sewn photos)
Peter Beard
Ray K. Metzker (recent photo collages)
Joachim Schmid
Walead Beshty
Allison Rossiter
Andras Baranyay
Wolfgang Tillmans (folded, color abstractions)

Thoughts.....?

The lazy blogger

I see from the date of my last post that it's been more than a month since I've sat my lazy butt down to type some thoughts here. Thank you faithful readers for continuing to visit the site though there's been no new content for awhile. Armory show has come and gone, AIPAD show has come and gone, and myriad other opportunities have passed since my last post. I hope to make up for it with some peeks into a few places that I think most of you won't have the chance to see. Upcoming posts will center on a recent trip to Berlin and last weekend's trip to the Carnegie International. Also, I want to continue the thread on Creative Destruction.

The next time I don't blog for a month, feel free to write in and leave a comment or two urging me to get it in gear. What was a thinking?!

And now.......