Fair Enough

A look back at the weekend of Artropolis and all the events around the art fairs:

Suggestions for people titling articles they’ve written about art fairs: No Fair, Fair to Middling, Fair Play, Unfair, All’s Fair in Love & War & Art Fairs, Fair Weather, Renaissance Fair, Standard Fair, Fair Warning, Fair Trade, Fair Use, Fair Reporting, Fair Grounds, I Hate This Art Fair & It Makes Me Want to Stab Myself in the Face

Having not been contacted by NewCity I am lead to believe yet another year as an artist in Chicago has passed & I have failed to "break out".

Putting on my "Fuck you, you fucking fuck" t-shirt & heading to the Artropolis preview party.

"You know, I really have enough contemporary art in my collection. I'm looking to acquire a new lover."

"You are absolutely beautiful, you look like a Mary Heilmann wrapped in a Judy Pfaff!"

There’s a video installation in the Art Chicago cafe of a montage of kids' studios & with that Sigur Ros song “yooo-ooo-00000” playing.

Waiting for the right situation to say, "This makes me want to set fire to my eyeballs and bury them in manure."

"I can't even see what's good anymore." David Bowie as Andy Warhol

Gold painting with one drippy white cloud and another painting by someone else of a lady's head on a sloppy yellow & orange & black pattern.

Nice little shiny old oil painting with rectangles of mud maroon and cold cream.

Cardboard stapled frames, shirt sleeves, Kippenberger.

The guy who does dripping corporate logos.

The mirrored fountain parking garage bottomless shaft.

Those bowls of fruit are unforgivable.

This booth smells like plastic because all the art is plastic. This booth is playing smooth jazz on a boombox to go with the art.




That woman's dress shamefully, artfully, presents her breasts.

Extra long exposure photos of people fucking in a blur. Required to make this work: light kit, tripod & a "lover".

So I've seen the exact same Sigmar Polke & some palace interior photos that I saw two years ago.

Wolf Kahn has owned sexy neon garishness for decades. And he's not even ironic about it.

Peter Plagens' painting looks like a glowing review of a show of work by Carroll Dunham, Willem deKooning & that one New Order album cover everyone always cites as brilliant design.

I thought it was about what it looked like it was about.




Mr. Burns: "Oh, yes, sitting–the great leveler. From the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?"

Michael Ian Black: “The point of jigsaw puzzles seems to be to spend hours and hours assembling an image you can already see on the box.”

"He would go to the opening of a drawer" – often remarked among Andy Warhol's friends.

Sol Lewitt Merzbow Pulse Demon wall mural blowing the eyes out the back of my head like yellow hyper balls.

Not to worry. I'll kill the lot of you. Shut your gob. Stop crying, you're getting on my wick. Who were you talking to?

"Man Walking" a Chuck Close Ab Ex style painting from his Jr. college days sold for $8 to make rent in '60 now $100-150K on Antiques Roadshow.

"This has been a complete disaster.”

I can't believe I went back a fourth time but I needed advice.




"The fair was good for us. It was fun.”

"Thank you for shopping Art Chicago, the floor is now closed."