Miniscule News Items!

MOCA is clearly ripping us off.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, has a myspace profile. You can see it here.
The Andy Warhol Museum has long since had one, which is here
And of course Art or Idiocy?s is here: http://www.myspace.com/artoridiocy

As you will see, we are friends with no less than 5 Andy Warhols, Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Warhol & Basquiat, Jackson Pollack, Marcel Duchamp, Rrose Selavy and Damien Hirst. There are real people in there too. It is pretty eenteresting who you’ll find on myspace if you wonder around long enough...

Blowing Bubbles in the Tub

Yesterday Modern Art Notes reported that AIC has a new acquisition, this piece by Jeff Koons. Full Story

"Ad nauseum"?!

Check out this week’s issue of TimeOut Chicago. It features a letter to the editor our dear genius Erik Wenzel wrote. It compares the weekly’s new design to American Apparel ads. And everyone we’ve shared it with thinks it’s funny, not nauseating. Oh well, you can’t control what they say about you. Also, just so you know, Erik Wenzel, Artist Extraordinaire has abandoned all other forms of art and now exclusively works in the medium of complaint correspondence.

It is OK to like nice paintings

Be sure to listen to this week’s Bad at Sports, because they say something like “That Maureen Gallace show sucked. You know who liked it? That Art or Idiocy? guy. Oh, Erik. Dammit, Erik.” It’s true, the Art or Idiocy? guy likes the Maureen Gallace show (pronounced Gayless, as in Now that Tucker had left town, and before him her friends Chip, Stuart and Timothy, Maureen found herself gayless.)

Here is why the show is good: The paintings are tight little objects of art. The small scale, and loose and brushy use of paint facilitates this. Gallace’s sense of color is great, large passages of subtle whites are punctuated by bits of intense color. Allow yourself the time to look at them. Gaze into the tiny little world, and walk around in them with your eyes. You become lost in the pure pictorial elements, it ceases to be "boring paintings of barns." Viewing the show involves moving from each small window to the next and doing this. Just enjoy the experience of looking, enjoy the colors and how they play off of eachother. Notice all the different ways the brushes have applied the paint. It is relaxing and lovely. And there is nothing wrong with that. Hers are paintings that non-ironically engage in the pleasure of painting. Yes, and orgasm. So fµ¢k off.

It’s also funny because the “uninitiated” public will look at this show and say, “now this is nice. What can’t more people make more art like this?” And at the same time all the "initiated” will get pissed off that it is not only another show of paintings, but a show of paintings that are sincere and believe in stuff. And apparently that is the last thing art should be. These paintings won't save the world, but I really liked looking at them. And that is totally valid. It doesn't make me a doofus or a luddite. Is it OK to just like some art? YES, as covered in the line above. And besides, these paintings are completely devoid of taxonomy, so Bad at Sports should at least give them that.