View current page
...more recent posts
This is an odds and ends post, where I talk about all the half-finished projects I'm working on. First, I direct your attention to my slightly juvenile defense of Jason Little, an amazing graphic novelist who got semi-slammed by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) in the New York Times. In his stuffy discourse on the immaturity of the graphic novel as an art form, Hornby sounds nervous, perhaps looking at the rise of a post-literate generation that doesn't have the time or patience to read his comedies of manners but has turned graphic novels into a burgeoning medium. Plus, it's possible he doesn't get Little's work, fretting that the cartoonist's material is potentially alienating when to many of us a "Nancy Drew mystery told in the style of Brian De Palma" is, um, good. Dissing Little's genre-bending suggests Hornby's own bias for the linear--or the old, like Louis Armstrong calling bebop "Chinese music."
I did a round of gallery & studio visits this past fall and wish I could write them up faster. An interesting range of work: Robert Boyd, Eric Heist, Carl d'Alvia, and Cory Arcangel. I've got notes and am hoping to get something readable posted soon.
I also have a review in progress of one of my current favorite musicians, Adrien Capozzi (aka Adrien75), whose work emerges from the late '90s ambient drum and bass scene but incorporates aspects of much earlier styles--'70s "jazz fission," RIO (rock in opposition), and Canterbury stylings. He released two superb, and very different discs this fall: 757, on Worm Interface, and Coastal Acces (sic), on Source. The first is kind of bouncy and melodic with warm analog synth melodies and nods to the early '80s, and the latter is a slow, tripped out series of impressions of the California coastline, with understated but intricately programmed rhythms and washes of industrial sounds. I first discovered Capozzi's work hearing "Smack Rabbit" on a NY radio show, a gorgeous instrumental that could have been a combination of the early Mothers, Milton Babbitt, and Bill Evans (if that makes any sense); subsequently I tracked down his amazing work with Doron Gura, under the names Unagi Patrol and Microstudio, among other aliases. He's an American Original who deserves a lot more attention.
I have a series of photographs I'm calling the New Jersey Wasteland Tour, in the tradition of Robert Smithson and Michael Ashkin but with no pretensions to being art. I took the pics with my digicam in a panic that the little "zone of rot" I frequently walk through was about to be beautified by the city or state. They include shots of the Morris Canal at its toxic/fecal best, the Statue of Liberty with a "No Trespassing Hazardous Materials Area" sign in the foreground, and some documentation of the parking lot that was hastily put in and removed by the Junior Soprano Paving Company in the patronage free-for-all that followed 9/11 (as described here). Eventually I'll have a slide show up. [Update: it's here.]
The Xtreme Houses book mentioned earlier was reviewed in the New York Times on December 19, 2002, in the house & home section. It's selling well, and has recently acquired a stroke-and-slap review from a reader on amazon.com. Slap because the writer feels the book needs to separate its artists-engaging-in-Marxist-agitprop from its shelter mag "livestyles of the cooler than you" spreads. I see the book's political and artistic non-hierarchical-ness as a strength. Also, the book is not "typographically cute" or Webby. It has text on the left, pictures on the right, and clear captions; Wired circa 1994 it's definitely not. The amazon writer's credibility is dicey, too, because in another review he says he has "nothing but respect" for MIT designer/programmer John Maeda, whose work, in the art field at least, still has a ways to go.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to all.
Quick addendum: Someone told me they saw my byline in the current issue of Flash Art. This is strange because I've never written for Flash Art. They do, however publish a lot of press releases that look like they might be articles, so maybe someone ripped some copy from a review, or this log, and stuck my name on it? I don't guess I care much. If anyone runs across the mag and can enlighten me further about this I'd greatly appreciate it.