Issue No. 224: EXTENDED! Curated by Allen Vandever (9/22/2012)

All photos: Erik R. Peterson

Issue No. 218: (Tranny) Napoleon Bonaparte Turns 243 Today!

Napoleon on his Imperial throne wearing his laurel leaf crown.
Painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1806.

b. Ajaccio, Corsica, 1769. Believe what you will, but stories to the effect that the emperor of France was not the man he was cracked up to be have circulated for more than a century and a half. The basis for these stories seems to have been the post-mortem report of one Dr. Henry, revealing the "progressive feminization" that Napoleon's body had undergone through the years: "The whole surface of the body was deeply covered with fat. Over the sternum, where generally the bone is very superficial, the fat was upwards of an inch deep and an inch and a half or two inches on the abdomen. There was scarcely any hair on the body, and that of the head was thin, fine and silky. The whole genital system (very small) seemed to exhibit a physical cause for the absence of sexual desire, and the chastity which had been stated to have characterized the deceased [Napoleon had been kept prisoner on St. Helena for seven years]. The skin was noticed to be very white and delicate, as were the hands and arms. Indeed the whole body was slender and effeminate. The pubis much resembled the mons vernis in women. The muscles of the chest were small, the shoulders narrow, and the hips wide." So much for 19th-century science.

From The Gay Book of Days by Martin Grief. 1982.

Issue No. 213: TITS! Lucia Martinez de la Rosa Trickles Down.

 

Advert. Circa: 1970s.

Lulu Martinez & Duggie Fields. Circa: 1970s.

Lulu & Fields' Painting. Circa: 1970s.

Duggie Fields, Companions & Vivienne Westwood

[Boy] George O'Dowd & Lulu Martinez. London.

Duggie Fields' Reference Photo of Lulu

Duggie Fields with Painting of Lulu in Living Room. London.

Oscar Suleyman 1999

Lulu in New York Apartment

Lulu in her New York Apartment with her Paintings

Danielle Scutt S/S 2007

Danielle Scutt S/S 2007

Most images courtesy of Blitz Kids.

Issue No. 183: Pouring Paint in The Hole (NYC)

Holton Rower
Pour Paintings
April 28th – May 26th, 2012
Opening April 28th, 7-9pm


The Hole is pleased to announce the first New York solo exhibition of pour paintings by Holton Rower. Filling all galleries at the Hole with nineteen enormous pours, Rower will present the variations in technique that produce wildly different effects. From the entrance to the gallery featuring small pours with “hats” as the artist calls them (wood protrusions on which the paint is poured and flows down); to the medium-sized works with hats, some of which flow onto the floor; to the rear gallery where large works both with and without hats feature “exclusions” (where the artist placed obstacles that the paint was forced to flow around then removed); to Gallery Three where he shows five tectonic pours: the variety and intensity of the exhibition is assured.

Rower makes these paintings by pouring fantastic quantities of doctored paint onto plywood: however, the simplicity of this description belies the shocking and unexpected results. The paint flows slowly and determinedly over the surfaces he creates, timed to dry and spread at just the right rate, in color combinations both highly premeditated and fancifully spontaneous. The sloes of paint often fracture, vacillate, clump up, and extrude. Fissures and zigzags abound, as do waterfalls, U-turns, and smears, but always the flow triumphs. The textures of paint, mixed on occasion with reflective elements, opalescent admixtures, and spicy sparkling polishes, vary widely and behave differently. Paint here is truly on parade.

The works have a relationship to color field painting and other formal explorations of abstract and minimal legacies—the most superficial relationship perhaps to Morris Louis’ “Pour Paintings”—but instead of seeking the autonomy of color, these works are physical, aggressive, literal and muscular. They, of course, are process-driven as the paint is given free reign to be itself, and like the heroic works of the last century do pursue the sublime; but there is nonetheless something else happening here. Rower deals not just with gravity but gravitas.

Rower’s pours come closer to the abstracting nature photos of Edward Weston than to the works of De Kooning or Pollock, painters who, even when most abstract, always left behind traces of the movement of their hands. Meanwhile, the breadth of suggestibility in Rower’s hands-off works spans such a huge range: from the geode-type pieces to the brain scannish works, from spaceships to vertebrae to Northern Lights, lace antimacassars, ghoulish masks, surfaces of distant planets, adipose tissue, underwater mollusks, dendrites, coral, sexual bodies, Christian relics, mitochondria and Golgi complexes: it’s hard for the poetic mind not to run amok.

Rower was born in the psychedelic 60s and grew up working in his father’s construction business, where he learned about heft and weight and managing teams of people to do massive undertakings. The grandson of Alexander Calder, Rower was surrounded by a culture of art making and the influence of amazing cultural figures. He has been developing and perfecting these pours in seclusion over the past five years. Recent shows at Pace last summer, John McWhinnie in New York and forthcoming projects at Shirazu in London are just the beginning of sharing these important works with a broader audience. A catalogue will accompany this exhibition.

Issue No. 97: Lucien Freud Died Wednesday 20 July, 2011. Aged 88.

• Please follow the following links to read some of the obituaries.
• “Lucian Freud, Adept Portraiture Artist, Dies at 88,” New York Times
• “Lucian Freud dies aged 88,” The Guardian
• “Painter Lucian Freud dies at 88,” BBC News
• “Realist painter Lucian Freud dies at 88,” Associated Press
• “Lucian Freud, Portrait Artist, Dead at 88,” Atlantic Wire
• “Lucian Freud dies at 88,” The Telegraph

Issue No. 70: People Are Talking About Christopher Wool, AGAIN!

Untitled, 1995. Enamel on aluminum, 84 x 60 inches.

Because he is showing this weekend at the Venice Biennale.

ISSUE No. 1: Ghost-Written Artists' Statements.

Today I ghost-wrote an artists' statement for a sculptor. I am not going to tell you who it is or show you an image of the piece, but this is the text I wrote about it....

Magic Potion by Scooter LaForge*

Is My House a Home?

Due to the conditions imposed by life in the new Depression compounded by all the financial constraints that come with being a professional artist, I have had to allow manditory household repairs to lapse. The mortar between the bricks on the upper part of the chimney has been chipped and worn away by the elements. We now await the first strong winds of autumn to topple it sending stray bricks through my and my neighbor's bedroom windows. The trees and the root systems growing in the gutters causes the rainwater to back into the attic. Now the ceilings are caving in. The paint on the shingles and doors has almost completely cracked and chipped off. Black mold lives on the bathroom ceiling. Kitchen floor tiles stick to the bottom of bare feet. Most of the interior walls need to be repainted and windows need to be replaced. Something in nearly every room is in need of a costly repair. Does "Grey Gardens" come to mind?

We inherited several large boxes from my grandparents containing "important papers". For the last decade or so, they have awaited sorting as they completely fill two of our nine rooms. The passing on of the dysfunction of saving boxes filled with scraps of paper with old phone messages and "to do" lists scribbled on them mixed with an occasional oil well deed has caused us to unwittingly take on the sickness of hoarding. Another two rooms are devoted to the storage of unsold artwork. They should serve as colossal reminders of the ugly nature of the anti-individualistic right wing culture I have been somehow misplaced into. But, have wound up becoming private chapels devoted to the worship of my own frustration, disappointment and sense of self-doubt. I just wish I could abandon this place. 

Here, I present a composition of both found and manipulated ready-made objects meant to suggest the structure of a place of dwelling. Is my experience reflexive of a collective cultural anxiety regarding our relationship with material possessions or is it merely a reflection of my own? 

* http://www.scooterlaforge.com