http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Wed, 1 Sep 2004 19:44:03 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/01/194403.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!Back in July Pouèt-cafëe launched issue 8 here at the gallery. During the proceedings they managed to write a collective poem that was based on the art work up on the walls here by Toly Kouroumalis. If you are interested in reading it click here.Be forewarned it is a French Poem, for those of you who are square-heads, I will get the blokespeak translation from Babelfish:Sensual and marvellous gallery the tables inspire an extraordinary basket to us d imagination. Let you go by l'imaginaire of l'au-beyond! * * * surrealist Rob Zombie was present it will remember this fellatio Christ gave her rod a feeling to however demolish bonds blood invites us to this ball of the waked up bodies... * * * Blood vibrates with the sound of the pain. Moments of be delirious colors, which howl: "C'est long, now! C'est when, death? C'est when, calms it?... " * * * These macabre faces with the hot colors look us with these eyes malefic which see us, see, see! * * * Death howls its desire with the life - Its desire of dance, of music of poetry, d'amitié. (JKB) * * * Red blood, demonic faces Here is, the black which circumvents Our beings and l'étourdissant In a bursting, a howl One sees strange Nuit blacknessVeiling my saddened face. (Cathou) * * * Suffering electric and sarcastic Reddish, scarlet, and almost Nothing, looks at there! the suffering Look at the evil censured dirtiness, listen to scarlet misfortune by-there for black. (Roger) * * * your narrow centres pour red équimauves on the children of Satan your crack succumb to sweats of craters. * * * hard to find its own color in the cacophony of the refusal * * * Contrasts s'épousent on a Prismacolor furnace bridge * * * But my torpor excels in ambiguities which puent blood and j'y am even accustomed * * * I m'habille then of my favorite skin and, always hesitant in front of l'acte, launches me against the likings of the wind. * * * Windows which relate to the effect penetrating * * * Overpowered human weakness; bestiale! * * * The human bestiality, That which counts so much, which m'empêche to live to breathe, dirtiness... Directions. Without defense Vis-a-vis with human bestiality. * * * Do art is life is art poetry coil truth speaking of truth my life is youth & air what's to fair? Only poetry. (Ci) * * * L'espoir, hope... is underestimated. * * * The group we call the architects sits down in the corner counts of the smoking section, the senior architect with his grey to hair, length, and glasses, penguinlike in his formality, his rumpled grey follows. They flourish unthinking mechanical pencils, ever-replenished At the waitresses who live gold die by to their singular precious pens, without which food will not arrives, half-liters of wine being uneasy treasures when solely entrusted to memory. * * * half pitch of fucks itches the world broad At small flightless birds dressed in tuxedos serf half-baked pumpkin black and white and glitter with chilly mirth -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 9/1/2004 07:35:53 PM Culture19349@blogcritics.org Wed, 1 Sep 2004 19:44:03 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/01/194154.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!Mr. Delgado writes a straight news story on the variety of moves being done by some of the galleries in town. It is a 828 word piece, that if my memory serves, means that absolutely every media outlet in Montreal will have covered this story. Hmmm, does this mean that it is easier to write straight news than it is to write good criticism?He gets some good quotes, does a nice overview, and only misses one thing. Contrary to what he writes the new space being occupied by Sylviane Poirier on Amherst street is not the only, nor is it the first Art Gallery on Amherst. Back in November of 2003 Galerie Dentaire opened up at 1239 Amherst.Ain't nothing like shoddy research from a professional to get my dander up. -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 9/1/2004 06:30:56 PM Culture19348@blogcritics.org Wed, 1 Sep 2004 19:41:54 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/30/183930.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!Back in January I wrote about attendance figures here at Zeke's Gallery in comparison to those of the Musée des Beaux Arts. Well, now the CBC's Arts Report is reporting that because the Beaverbrook Art Gallery is in the news they are getting more people in the door. In fact it looks like they are (if I read the article correctly) that they get about 120 people visiting per day after the lawsuits made headlines. If my math is good, this means that they used to get about 100 people per day.Hmmm, looking at the Canada Revenue Agency's Annual Information Return for 2002 for the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, it appears that they received $1,150,319 from a variety of sources. Back in January I compared the square footage between Zeke's Gallery and the Musée des Beaux Arts. This time I'll keep it simple, it looks to me, that Zeke's should be able to get $115,032 without doing anything more than I am already doing. Or for the math challenged, Zeke's Gallery does about 10% of the attendance of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, hence the 10% of the funding.My guess is with $115,032 per year, Zeke's Gallery could outdraw the Beaverbrook. -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/30/2004 06:10:53 PM Culture19240@blogcritics.org Mon, 30 Aug 2004 18:39:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/29/140457.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!Way back at the beginning of the month the The New York Times reported that Condé Nast Publications was planning on publishing a new magazine devoted to Visual Art. Now the focus of the article was pretty much, "Condé Nast publishes magazines devoted to expensive consumer culture, so it seems reasonable that they do one for art, right?"Then, two bloggers, decided that this wasn't a good idea. Quoting from Modern Art Notes, "So Conde Nast is going to launch an art mag... good. Gawker nails it." Moving over to Gawker (not a regular read for me) "Conde Nast's recent principle has been to celebrate the attainable -- give the people magalogues! Buy some shoes! You'll look and feel like you have a bigger dick if you wear these pants!... But what Truman [the editor of the unnamed magazine] really smells, beyond the cred of a "serious" publication and some personal satisfaction? How sexy those high-end, Fendi-glasses-wearing eyeballs are to his advertisers."Umm, not to belabor the obvious, but I wonder how Jessica Coen, Elizabeth Spiers, Choire Sicha, Nick Denton or Tyler Green would feel if the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Architectural Digest, or GQ wanted to publish something that they wrote? (All of the previously mentioned magazines are owned by Conde Nast.)I subscribe to the idea (not any of the above mentioned magazines) that there is no such thing as bad press. I adore it when an artist performing here gets a write up in the Journal de Rosemont, I equally adore it when an artist exhibiting here gets a write up in Canadian Art Magazine. And I have said it in the past, "I would love to see more slams in the paper." -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/29/2004 01:53:39 PM Culture19195@blogcritics.org Sun, 29 Aug 2004 14:04:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/21/152455.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!M. Hellman, of Le Devoir, and Mr. Cotter of the New York Times, both decided to review "Seurat and the Making of 'La Grande Jatte'" at the Art Institute of Chicago. As Le Devoir is a Montreal newspaper, and the New York Times is a New York newspaper (duh!) I'm not certain as to what suddenly made Chicago the new black, but at least for this weekend it is.To get some easy stuff out of the way quickly, M. Hellman writes 346 words, and Mr. Cotter writes 1,919 words. Hmmm, what can be made of that? Maybe only New York thinks that Chicago is the new black, and Montreal knowing better realizes that Chicago just might be the new orange.M. Hellman writes a general background to La Grand Jatte, and given the space restrictions imposed upon him, I would guess that I should be thankful that his editors even let him write that. (For those of you not familiar with La Grande Jatte, you might want to click here, or here). He then goes on to be very impressed with the "new" technology aspect, and the thoroughness of the exhibit. There is a limit to what can be said in under 400 words. For comparison purposes, the Art Institute's website uses 219 words just to the describe and analyze La Grande Jatte.Mr. Cotter, on the other hand is given lots and lots of room to stretch out (for comparison purposes, the museum's website uses 2,071 words to describe the exhibition. So much so, that he even makes jokes!George Seurat was from outer space. One day in the mid-19th century, he was beamed, fully formed, down to Paris with a few cryptically perfect paintings and some of the most beautiful drawings you'll ever see. Later, age 31 in human years, he was beamed back up to wherever he had come from, leaving behind a few letters, a new kind of art and a big, spacey picture called "La Grand Jatte."I don't know if you got a belly-laugh, but I did. He then continues on to give a pretty much enjoyable art history lesson on the painting. Nothing too strenuous for a summer weekend's reading, for those with short attention spans early on (the second paragraph) he says that the exhibit is "a wonderful one."The one thing that struck me (as it is impossible for me to go see the show) is the similarity to it and the Pet Sounds box set that Capitol Records made back in 1997. Why is there a fascination with taking one really kick-ass thing and expanding it to monstrous proportions? -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/21/2004 02:53:00 PM Culture18912@blogcritics.org Sat, 21 Aug 2004 15:24:55 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/21/151821.php Zeke's Gallery, MontrealHowdy! M. Lamarche writes 701 words on the latest and greatest exhibit to grace Rene Blouin's gallery. By way of introduction, he uses the first paragraph to describe the invitation to the exhibit. Not as bizarre as it sounds, if you are familiar with M. Blouin, which most of Le Devoir's readers will be. Bizarre as all get out, if you're not. He then goes on to describe and analyze the pieces in the exhibit, no surprises there. I obviously gotta go and get myself a better French dictionary, because he uses words like "tiges," "squelette éventré," "friables," "figés," which just ended up making me stop, blink twice, and go "hmmm." From the words that I did understand, he did make the exhibit sound interesting, and as Michel Hellman mentioned at the begining of the month, M. Blouin "has a really good eye." --Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/21/2004 03:15:21 PM Culture18911@blogcritics.org Sat, 21 Aug 2004 15:18:21 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/18/192426.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!La Presse got Ms. Leduc to talk to, and follow up the Canadienne Presse article about the various lawsuits Guy Cogeval has been served with that they ran on the 12th of July. She writes 586 words based on an interview she had with M. Cogeval that was requested by the Museum of Fine Arts. As anybody who reads this regularly knows that this is old news, I figured that I would use it as an opportunity to lay out the timeline of the coverage. Also, as I have mentioned before, it looks to me like Annette Leduc Beaulieu and Brooks Beaulieu are doing what is technically called in the Art World as a "cash grab." August 16, La PresseAugust 4, LiberationJuly 13, Radio CanadaJuly 13, Le DevoirJuly 13, Canoe [via LCN]July 12, La PresseJune 17, Globe and Mail - Profile of M. Cogeval, but no Mention of the lawsuits.June 2, The Gazette - Not available on lineUndated, The Art NewspaperMay 28, Washington City PaperIf anybody wants a copy of the lawsuit and the other papers that have been filed, email me, I have copies, be forewarned it is 57 pages of dense legalese. -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/18/2004 06:05:21 PM Culture18801@blogcritics.org Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:24:26 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/18/192203.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!On Monday, Le Devoir, in an article without a byline reports about the "International Graffiti Convention" that took place here over the weekend.198 words that would have been better if it had been published on, say, Friday or Saturday. -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/18/2004 06:10:18 PM Culture18800@blogcritics.org Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:22:03 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/18/191922.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!Le Devoir finally decided to unlock an article about visual art (yay!) and it turns out that Michel Hellman wrote 727 words on a current exhibit at what they call the Darling Foundry, but also could be called Quartier Ephemere. For those of you with short memories, it was only 12 days ago when I published the interview I had with M. Hellman. The first thing that jumped out at me, was that there are in fact two exhibitions happening at Quartier Ephemere, I wonder how Jean-Pierre Aube is feeling now? Or is M. Hellman planning on writing another review, next week about his exhibition? Or are we supposed to read something into the omission? Or something else?As there are only three pieces in the exhibit, M. Hellman gives each one a full paragraph, and use his words well to describe them, he also gives a short bio of the artist, and overall gives a good impression of the art. -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/18/2004 07:02:11 PM Culture18799@blogcritics.org Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:19:22 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/17/122242.php Zeke's Gallery, Montreal Howdy!Run, don't walk to "Real" Art by Peter Bagge which is up on line now at Reason Magazine. I got the link from Caryn at Art.blogging.LA, super special thanks to her. -- Posted by Chris from Zeke's Gallery to Zeke's Gallery at 8/17/2004 12:04:30 PM Culture18752@blogcritics.org Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:22:42 EDT