EWW

Is it what our friend saw? Because if it is, than you saw three drunk young professionals engaging in heavy petting in the closet by the elevator.

Apparently First Fridays’ slutty reputation is perceived as an asset, not a liability by the MCA. If obnoxious drunk girls with whiney cigarette-raped voices and the noxious cocksure assholes who love them weren’t enough, the MCA’s First Fridays have color coded stickers to wear, so you know who to hit on. The lighting is also dim and there is plenty of thumping dance music, too. There might be art around too, but no one is sure.

First Fridays usually mark the opening of the monthly 12x12 shows, probably one of the best sort of programs around. Roughly each month a local emerging artist (there is no good way to word that) gets the opportunity to do a solo project in a small (12'x12') gallery on the main floor. But you wouldn’t know anything about that from this ad. It actually doesn’t even mention any art at all. But, dude, it is one wild club atmosphere.

Conversely, The Art Newspaper reports on Miguel Zugaza, Director of the Prado, and his complete disinterest in the public:

Mr Zugaza is ambivalent about attracting huge numbers of visitors to the enlarged museum. “Nearly all the important American museums have had extensions built recently. However, I am convinced that in the not-so-distant future people will stop going to museums as much as they do now.”

He criticised the trend for gigantic installations, saying: “This year I saw the Rachel Whiteread show (Embankment) in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London which was a colossal sculptural installation. It made me think about museums as spectacle and the need to generate expectation. This is something that comes naturally to contemporary art museums but not to historical museums. It has produced a very commercial climate in museums, whereby an exhibition’s success is linked to the number of visitors. This will never be one of my aims.”

There must be a way to get the public interested and not completely give yourself up like a Christian virgin on prom night. Except the general public, as long as people have made it, has been extremely resistant to the appreciation of art and culture. After walking through art museums accompanied by the constant musical soundtrack of “that’s not art” and “I could do that” from people who still aren’t ready to accept Picasso, even though he died around the time they were born; it is nice to hear Zugaza being so dismissive and elitist.

Yay elitism!
Miguel Zugaza: 
hot enough to be a First Friday-goer,
elitist enough to be European.

This may seem a little hypocritical for Art or Idiocy?, your window to the art openings world. But there is an important distinction to make. Art or Idiocy? isn’t against parties and art , or even art-parties. We are just against LAME parties. We are also game from elitism now and again. Art or Idiocy? proudly supports heady art reviews, name dropping and use of complex descriptors in the discussion of art. The writing on here may not always be of the topest notch in the MFA in Art Theory & Criticism sense, but we salute those who do it that way. You see, we here at Art or Idiocy? are proponents of heady artspeak meeting conversational humor and shaking hands.
And then conversational humor reaches around and squeezes heady artspeak's butt.

Art-Stuff to do this weekend in Chicago

BEFORE IT CLOSES

This is the last weekend of The Art Institute’s all-too-short-running Drawings in Dialogue curated by Suzanne McCullagh. It is an amazing survey from the Renaissance through early Modernism and surely is not to be missed. On view is selection of 166 of the huge number of 240 works on paper gifted (& to-be-gifted) to the museum by Dorothy Braude Edinburg. If you have art at home that you are thinking of donating to a museum, see this show, and then go back and look at what you have before you consider calling.


Emil Nolde • Portrait of Mary Wigman • circa 1920 • The Art Institute of Chicago

Many of the works are worth discussing in depth, but in particular, is one of Emil Nolde’s notorious “unpainted pictures” created with water color on a tiny 4x6 piece of card and painted on both sides. Here displayed on a pedestal in a two-sided frame, like one of the precious icons elsewhere in the museum. One of the most harrowing and heartbreaking stories in art history is how Nolde, an early party member, received special punishment from the Nazis for being a “degenerate” artist. Belief in romantic notions of race, history, heritage the primitive & the folk obviously differed between Emil Nolde and the Nazi theologists. He was forbidden to paint, and guards were placed outside his home to make sure. Nolde couldn’t resist the artistic urge and created these tiny works in secret.

There is a great quote about them from Nolde:

“Only to you, my little pictures, do I sometimes confide my grief, my torment, my contempt.”

(Source: Degenerate Art PBS documentary, 1995)

The works in Drawings in Dialogue can only be described as a treasure. The Art Institute, and by extension the city of Chicago, is very lucky to be receiving these. Drawings in Dialogue is on view through July 30, THIS SUNDAY.


Otto Dix • Old Woman • circa 1923 • The Art Institute of Chicago •
We were forced to photograph these nice postcards from the show since the AIC site only has a bland detail of an Ingres.

And steps away, also in Regenstein Hall of the AIC is Casas Grandes curated by Richard Townsend, which closes on the 13 of August. Even for thouse who are not the biggest fans of pottery, this show is very worth seeing. From the physical lay out to the onjects themselves, it is simply grand. Normally, a wide opened space with vitrine after vitrine of objects would mean disaster, but here it feels like you are gazing into an architectural dig or looking through a window to the past. The works themselves prove how sometimes a limited palette and humble means can lead to the greatest visual effect. The earthenware pieces are in earthen-tones, but the soft whites and dull grays look like no other pots and vessels seen in museums. The imagery is also fascinating, from stylized figures and animals that some how resonate with a lot of recent trends in painting and drawing, to intricate and mesmerizing patterns of pure abstraction.


After looking at pottery depicting “figures coupling with a stags” you can find a dirty stag party at CvD...

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents DIRTY FOUND LIVE!

Items in italics are quoted from the press release
'Dirty Found is art-filth folk art that proves everybody's sex life is secretly touching.'
-John Waters

'You can take everything ever written about America or Americans by natives or visitors whether fact or fiction since the first pilgrims landed here, and they will all pale as illustrations of the American psyche when held up to these genuine and perfect examples of pathos, anger, longing, and heartbreak (and how stupid and inane we can be), located within these pages.'
-David Cross

Dirty Found Sullies Chicago
Saturday, July 29, 7:30PM at Corbett vs. Dempsey
1120 N. Ashland (just get off Division & head dirty south)
corbettvsdempsy.com

Join Dirty Founders Jason Bitner, Arthur Jones, and special guest star David Wilcox as we celebrate the best lost-and-discovered smut from around the world. Witness a pervy Powerpoint presentation, experience the lewd Dirty Found XXX Survey, and share your smutty finds. For adults only!

And while you're at it, if you haven't seen the current exhibition 'FULL FRONTAL the dirty, lewd, erotic show,' here's your chance. featuring work by Roger Brown, Philip Hanson, Margot Bergman, Robert Lostutter, Tom Van Eynde, Robert Amft, Jim Lutes, Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson and many more.

OR you can stay in and see what happened at the trifling affairs on Art or Idiocy?s Openings Flickr Photoset. Up now are images from last weekend, and there are always more parties to attend, wines to drink and cigarettes to share.

Art Attacks

Yesterday was news of art being attacked, today, the art is the one wreaking havoc. (But vandalism still plays a part).

Now artist Maurice Agis can join the likes of Richard Serra in the most exclusive art club in the world, the killer art club. There is nothing more serious than death in art, especially when people actually die as a result of viewing it. Via Artforum, via The Independent, we learn of a disaster in Durham County England.

Reading the descriptions it is apparent that what happened to the victims of the accident is quite brutal, as several were wounded with neck injuries, broken bones and punctured lungs.

The sculpture called Dreamspace is a multicolored bouncy castle type network of rooms where visitors pay 5 quid (ten bucks) to put on a cape and wander around listening to music in an experience described as "very womb-like and trippy. It's dreamy, a really nice vibe" (Source: The Independent)

Just a day after opening, disaster struck, the huge structure was caught by a gust of wind and blown away with people inside. It flew through the air, 70ft high, until it was stopped by colliding with the pole supporting a closed circuit surveillance camera. 13 people, many children, were injured. Sadly two women died as well.

Agis has been showing variations of the piece all over the world since 1996 and this is the first such incident. But of course: “Last month, while [Dreamspace was] in Liverpool, knife-wielding vandals slashed three of the PVC pods.” (Source: The Independent)

Workers fold up Dreamspace in an image from Agis' website
detailing how the work is de/installed.

You have to love the language news media uses:
“The end of a dream: Dreamspace turns into a nightmare
When Maurice Agis created his inflatable installation, little did he suspect that making art more accessible might have fatal consequences”
(The headline from another Independent article)

Some quotes pulled from The Independent:

Chloe Wilson, a seven-year-old girl who witnessed the inflatable soar into the air, returned to the scene yesterday to lay flowers. She said: "There were loads of people running about and we tried to run towards it after it came down on the ground. Lots of people were trying to rip it open with their hands and little knives and I was asking if I could help," she said.

"It was very scary and people were screaming. I saw a lady clinging on and then falling out and she was lying on the ground with people around her. I think she died. I really wanted to come here today and put some flowers down."

...

After the accident, Mr Wright dashed to the scene to discover what he described as a "disaster zone" with "bodies everywhere".

People's descriptions of what happened call to mind the Hindenburg crash. The Dreamspace piece sounds like it would be pretty cool to see, and fun to walk through. It is unfortunate that such a popular, whimsical and interesting work has led to such real disaster. Perhaps one of the worst details is that the artist was there when it all happened. It is impossible to imagine what it feels like for someone in a situation like Agis.

• The artist’s somewhat cheesy website is HERE

• Also on The Guardian Two women killed after inflatable artwork lifts off

Art Attack

Photo by Jim Robinson from Tribune website

Today Deborah Horan reports in the Chicago Tribune of vandalism against public art in Evanston Art Center’s sculpture garden. The sculptures, interestingly titled Calm Before the Storm, were first attacked on the 12 of July, and then again on the 17, making the final toll 8 of the 15 works by artists Micki LeMieux damaged.

In a truly professional tone, Executive Director of the Evanston Art Center went on record:

"We intend to reinstall every one of these pieces," Leder said. "But if these mindless, malicious malingers want to knock things down, at some point we're just going to stop."

Attacking public art is on the evildoer scale of warning signs. Especially when multiple attacks occur. That’s assuming both incidents were related. At any rate, defacing public art is not the same as tagging a building or a train car. It is symbolic, and it is an insult to the community the artwork is made. Sure, a lot of public art isn’t the greatest, but it should be respected. Especially since those commissioning the work do it as a gift or a sign of good will towards the public. Public art serves the noble goal of making a city or town a community, and aims to uplift the residents through giving them culture and beauty in their everyday spaces. These romantic notions don’t always succeed, but they are signs of a healthy city. So to do something like deface or destroy something made for people to enjoy is a blatant insult.

It says something about your character when you attack a work of art the way vandalizing a religious/community building, or abusing animals does.


• Full Tribune story

• Evanston Art Center's Sculpture on the Grounds webpage

And the Band Played on

You might as well visit the Art or Idiocy? Art Openings photo set on Flickr. Newly added are the COMA gala and the 40000 opening, along with some dreamy shots of the West Loop corridor. Engorge.

Just Collateral Damage

So has anyone else been troubled by world events lately? Away from the constant crises in far off places it is strange to do things like shop at Target. It is also weird trying to think of “newsworthy” items for Art or Idiocy? Things like the director of the Smithsonian, Lawrence M. Small, being declared unfit to serve by Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, on The Art Newspaper register. But still seem rather trivial as a new crisis in the Middle East escalates.

I don’t know about others, but that has been what I have mainly been focused on. Not the terrible opinions, though. With all the “experts” offering their ideas, not one seems logical. It is also kind of troubling to become accustomed to living in crisis mode. Not the constant fear of terror attacks the republicans encourage to win votes, but that uneasy feeling when you are buying groceries, and you are thinking of the images of Beirut blown apart. “Over there” they are shelling eachother, and “over here” I am trying to decide which type of lunchmeat to get and what to put on my art blog. But now we are so used to holding those two concepts in our consciousness at the same time that you pause a minute and carry on.

I have also been thinking about the crisis of war, especially in terms of art, since beginning to read The Rape of Europa by Lynn H. Nicholas. The detailed accounts of museums and collections all over Europe being mobilized and carted around during WWII are unbelievable. Places like the Louvre seem eternal, so to read detailed accounts of the Mona Lisa being carted off, or the Winged Victory being roller coastered down a wooden track are stunning. The collection of England’s National ended up in a slate mine in Wales. In Spain Las Meninas escaping mortar and heading to the hills. Perhaps most compelling is the photograph of a niche; in it a wooden, casket-shaped frame containing a rolled up cylinder, held tight by a large screw. It looks like maybe some bilge pumping system on an old sailing ship. It is actually Rembrandt’s Night Watch, removed from its stretchers and rolled up.

The book contains account after account of museum staff escaping with priceless treasures of art. Unfortunately along with Nazis looting everything that didn’t find safe passage. It makes me wonder about today, what sort of policies and strategies museums have for the crisis of invasion. Clearly things went horribly awry in the case of the Baghdad Museum recently. I wonder how museum staff today would react. Imagine America suddenly becoming so unsafe that you are fleeing for your life. What do you do with all your stuff? All the art you own? If you leave without it, the pieces will be destroyed, looted, sold or simply disappear. Or the museum you work at will be destroyed by bombardment. How do you organize the evacuation of an entire collection? How do you know which pieces to save, and which to risk leaving behind?

Press clipping about the damage inflicted on the Tate Gallery in 1940 from the Tate website

Take for instance the Art Institute in Chicago. If America were to face bombardment by enemies, North Korean ICBMs for example. Chicago would be a major target. Kim Jong Il wouldn’t say, "wait, don’t bomb Chicago, it is third place in a contest where only 1st and 2nd count, just hit NYC an LA." No, all the major cities would be bombed. So how would a painting like La Grande Jatte be taken to safety? It is never moved do to its fragility. Or imagine a missile striking the warehouses where all the art not on display is held? Add to that concerns that contemporary works present, much more difficult to quickly move than a painting. At least Sol LeWitt wall drawings only need to have the instructions, you could carry that in a folder in your bag. But what about the Robert Smithson mirror and rock piece? These are the very real scenarios playing out at cultural institutions in Israel, Lebanon and what is left of Iraq.

2 + 2 = 40000

Check it out, more accurate, and with links! Also, please direct your attention to the updated departments on your left. More FUN, and new Resources and a few things like that.


Drawings from early 2006 in Erik Wenzel's sketchbook

Although both parties announced changes in their exhibition strategies and locations, until just recently there was no official link between 40000 of West Town and Bodybuilder & Sportsman of the West Loop. But judging by the new locale listed on 40000’s slightly revamped site (red & grey instead of aqua & grey, vampirish) the speculations everyone has been talking about are true. 40000 has taken up residence in Bodybuilder’s old space. BB&S is currently on appointment-only hiatus while building out:

“The new gallery space will be designed as two contiguous cubes resulting in a four-walled, 2:1 proportional rectangle. This fully versatile exhibition space, uncompromised by columns or obstructions, is perfectly suited for all media from painting, photography and sculpture to video installations.” - via BB&S website

40000’s debutant coming out ball is tomorrow night. This gallery is probably the fastest rising star in the city. It hearkens back to Apt. 1R/1R/Van Harrison going from Pilsen to challenging Kavi Ghupta. Similarly Bucketrider. It will be interesting to see where things go. Also, although now technically in the West Loop, 40G will still remain a member of the West Town Gallery Network.

New members include 65GRAND, run by Bill Gross. And Duchess, run by Katie Rashid and Kat Parker from Rhona Hoffman. Booster and Seven has dropped out due to their ceassation to exist in the physical realm. B.S. (sorry, couldn't resist) will continue as "an active project as they continue to curate and facilitate select exhibitions and events" from the æther they now live in.

Area Man Believes Everything He Reads

Virginia – Local blogger and hateful religious zealot out to rid the world of free will, particularly women of the governance of themselves, believes everything reads. This has made him an easy convert to Christianity. And a shoe-in for extreme fundamentalism, since other branches of the religion allow, and sometimes even encourage, the use of one’s own mind. Judging from his abortion-themed blog, Pete X has mainly read flyers passed out by other closed-minded hateful people in favor of making sure every pregnancy comes to term.

Pete’s inability to take the written word as anything other than absolutely literal has made him the most humiliated man in the history of the internet. Pete recently came across an article by a woman proclaiming her happiness in having an abortion performed on her. The woman even went so far as to exclaim, “I am totally psyched.” This was just the sort of article Pete had been looking for. He promptly laid into insulting her on his blog with every stock phrase the pro-birth supporters love to use. The only trouble is that this article appeared in The Onion, a humorous newspaper. Perhaps you have heard of it.

Literally, and this is the correct use of the word, hundreds of people found it too hilarious that Pete had himself become a living Onion article. Comments poured into the blog informing him that he was an idiot. Comments also informed him of his douche-atude, assholiness, and of the sad, but amusing, fact that he had mistaken a satirical work of fiction from a world-famous publication as reality.

Not satisfied to simply delete the post and never speak of it again, Pete decided instead to post some more on the subject. “I had a feeling it was satirical,” he admitted. He then went on to deride the woman further, claiming that even if she was being sarcastic, she was still an evil pro-murder woman spewing her liberal agenda. And so on. “No,” said hundreds more comments, “There is no woman at all. The Onion is a fake newspaper. All the writers are made up. They don’t exist, this was a piece of fiction.” Many posts, from both sides of the issue, derided Pete for his exceedingly thick blockhead. “I’m pro-life, but Jesus you are a fucking idiot,” said one.

Feeling the opportunity to call out all these liberal hate-mongers on their poor grammar and excessive use of the F-word, the S-word, and the J-word, Pete responded by calling out the fools. The comments, he postulated, were a perfect example of liberal “intellectualism.” IE, liberals are rich, elite snobs with degrees in things, and yet can only swear and speak in sentence fragments. The research Pete conducted is highly suspect, since it is assumed it was all gleaned from comments left on his blog. On his side, though, several prominent liberals, leftists, philosophers and progressive innovators did identify themselves in the comments. For instance, a comment that read “fuck you, you fucking fuckety fuck, fuck. Nuts, twat, balls, Jon Stewart, First Amendment.” Was written by someone identifying themself as “Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter, and this is the greatest thing I have ever written.”

After convincingly disarming the redirect of liberal thought, he laid any other doubts to rest and revealed that he, uh, had actually done the initial post as a joke, and um, like thousands of people had been fooled by him. Thus making the world safe and peaceful, now that women are free to be forced to have children.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper was granted an interview to ask Pete about his summary defeat of reproductive rights, choice, feminism, and all women in general.

Anderson: “So, once the woman gives birth, according to your wishes, and the wishes of those on your side… then what? Do you offer to help feed, cloth and educate the child? Will you help with healthcare? According to the Bible, Christians are called to be Christlike and take care of the less fortunate, put others before themselves and so on. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t stop with making sure a woman gives birth, does it?”

Pete: No, it does. It stops with preventing abortion. There’s free healthcare and welfare out there. If these blessed new mothers pray, it will all work out. Besides, if something bad happens, it is God punishing them, or testing them. Oh, and we hand out buttons when they leave the hospital. They say, ‘NO CHOICE IS THE RIGHT CHOICE.’ So you can see, we do a lot for those innocent pure little babies.”

Obviously, this article is oozing with sarcasm. But Pete and his blog really do exist. And this all really has transpired after the past few days. If you really want to visit his blog, you can. The Choice is yours. [sic[sic[sic]]] I'm going to pray for your forgiveness and for the suffering which you will endure when you realize what you have done. Every baby you see from that moment on is going to wake you up to the realization that you killed your child.

My Art, Domestic & Abroad

I want to tell you about two shows that I am in, currently on view in far off lands. Indeed, the reach of Erik Wenzel, Artist Extraordinaire, is ever expanding and solidifying.

artLedge has mounted an exhibition with London’s i-cabin gallery. It opens tonight, and I am so jealous about not being there. It is called To London from Chicago, with Great Love. And it is indeed true, since of all the cities I have been to in my life, London is my favorite. Or should I say, favourite?

Clarendon buildings, 11 Ronalds road, London, N5 1XJ WEBSITE



Also is Contemporary Art Month in San Antonio, and for it Stella Haus Art Space is mounting a T-shirt show. Last year the theme was napkins. It follows a rubric of functional cloth art. I think the image speaks for itself and happily so, it does its speaking in Texas. This is my first T-shirt show. Wait, I did one for Milhaus at the Stray Show in 2003. I never saw the shirt, or any cash for it. So if you see Scott Reeder let him know that I am looking for my shirt or my ten bucks. Yes, I have made some T-shirts in my time, but they are usually for me, not sale.

Opening receptions:
1st Friday 7/7/6 6-9P • Saturday 7/15/6 6-8P
(Other days and times by appointment)

106a bldg B @ THE BLUE STAR ART COMPLEX • San Antonio, Texas
• 210-316-9391 • stellahaus1@aol.com

Contemporary Art Month



Also on the 15th of July is COMA 5 in Chicago. It is going to be featured on Flavorpill, which will surely catapult all involved to super-stardom. The California Occidental Museum of Art is located next door from the North Hotel, a juke joint flop house inn which I am told is to be the site of the first ever Ye Olde COMA Youthful Arrt Fayre next spring. Incidentally, July 15th not only marks my quarter century of existence, but also the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt van Rijn. Sorry if the news is all me. But there is absolutely nothing else at all going on in the art world right now. Nothing.

COMA, NOMA, BMOMA, BLOWMA & BUGINAMA (aka MoMA)

Yern,
Erik

IMAGES:
Erik Wenzel (Carl Baratta Helped) • Chillin' Nerdy Batman • Cameraphoneograph • 6/19/6
Erik Wenzel • DON'T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR THE TERRORISTS • Edition of 5 T-shirts, puffy paint • 2006