I went to Chelsea and Greenwich today to check out some shows with Chris, Emily, and Pam.

Urs Fischer, You at GBE
Our first stop was to see Urs Fischer at Gavin Brown. The show was made up of one intsallation entitled You which has left the gallery itself as one large pit of dirt and ruble. In order to enter the main space you had to duck through a small doorway which lead you into a smaller version of the next gallery space. This room had small light fixtures and mini outlets that were rather adorable. Once you got past that you entered the larger space that was pretty much the same thing but to full scale. I was really into the scale change once you re entered the smaller version. It actually was really cleverly done and took a bit to notice the shifting of scales.

After that we went to Maccarone who was showing Paul McCarthy's chocolate Santa's with butt plugs. I had already checked the show out online and the experience was just about the same. The only exception was that you could sample the chocolate which I must say was rather rich. If your interested you can order your own Paul McCarthy chocolate sculpture online for $100 here.

Yasumasa Morimura A Requiem: Where is the Dictator?
We then proceeded to several other shows including a group show at Casey Kaplan entitled This Winter. I was kind of stoked to see my current art crush Trisha Donelly's piece Untitled which consisted of two photographs of swords. Mathew Marks had work from Charles Ray, and we also saw David Zwirner's massive installation of the late Jason Rhodes, Black Pussy. But of all of them the show I remember most fondly was Yasumasa Morimura's Requiem for the XX Century; Twilight of the Turbulent Gods at Luhring Augustine. I enjoyed the show but I was more captivated by a piece titled,A Requiem: Where is the Dictator? The photograph, a parody of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, shows "Hitler" in front of a group of press mics, and a dildo. If you look closely you will notice that he has in fact wet his pants.

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I have to say that my time in New York is now winding down. With only three weeks left I still have no idea what I am going to show for our final exhibition, which is currently untitled. At the end of every semester at the New York Studio Program the students in residence put together a one night only show. So, I'm a bit stumped as to what I should show. Above is a drawing entitled Haunted by My Past which is part of a series that I am currently creating. Most of my practice consists of endurance work that last between 30 days to a year. I still need to update my website but I promise that it will be up before the new year, hopefully. Although I have the exhibition on my mind I am also attempting to spend some of my time seeing everything in New York I've wanted to see before I head back to Los Angeles for Christmas break.

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I went to MoMA today in search of the film Helvetica. I had the chance last spring to see the film at the Gene Siskel Film Center and see the director Gary Hustwit talk. I have always been a rather large fan of typography and really enjoyed the film. Unfortunately, it has become hard for me to get my hands on a copy of it. I know I could just order it off of Amazon, which I am about to do in a moment, but I really just wanted to pick up a copy. I though MoMA would be a good place to find it since they currently have an exhibition about the typeface. Helvetica aside I check out some of their new shows. Multiplex Directions in Art 1970 till Now had work from Rodney Graham, Jenny Holzer and Mike Kelly, just to name a few. I walked through the show briskly and noticed some purposefully awkwardly hung work. The show itself is rather large and for the most part I only approached work that either caught my fancy or that I recognized. I'll probably head back when it is less crowded to get a better look.

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Well, I hope all of you reading this had a wonderful Thanksgiving, if not for the food for the break, and if not for the break for the overtime paycheck. As stated in my previous entry I had the chance to spend the past 10 days in Chicago. Being with my best friends and girlfriend was really comforting after spending several months in New York. I got a chance to see the William Pope L. exhibition at the Art Institute. Pope L. is one of my favorite artists and I rarely get a chance to see his work in person. Drawing, Dreaming, Drowning mainly consists of drawings from his Failure series. I was not really drawn to the physicality of the works but more of the idea of failure . I've become increasingly interested in the notions of failure particularly in performance based work. In another part of the museum is the work Relational Painting aka If Black is Beautiful... The installation consists of of a large painting and sound.

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0100101110101101.ORG reenacting Chris Burden's "Shoot"
I am heading back to Chicago for Thanksgiving vacation today, which is a bit early, to catch up with friends and professors and have some work printed at the Service Bureau. Since I am heading out so soon I decided to catch one last performance for Performa 07. I went to Artists Space and saw Ava and Fracno Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG perform their Synthetic Performances. According to them the performances are "a series of reenactments of historical performances inside synthetic worlds such as Second Life. All the actions are performed by Eva and Franco Mattes through their avatars, which were constructed from their bodies and faces. People can attend and interact with the live performances connecting to the video-game from all over the world. The series started in January 2007." The first performance was of Gilbert & George's "Singing Sculptures", which you can watch at SAIC's Video Data Bank. The best part of the reenactments was when an avatar dressed in a superman shirt, white leggings, and a deer angel hovering over his head pushed Eva off of the table in which they were standing on. All and all I had a really great time. About 150 people showed up and I had a chance to hang out with my friend Kevin Stanton who was my neighbor in Chicago and after graduating from SAIC in the spring of 07 he moved to New York. Well, I'm about to board my plane so I'll check back in from Chicago.

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Pam Norrish, a Canadian, in front of PS1

I normally don't see this much work in one week but I wanted to share some of the opportunities that are available when studying in New York. After Dia:Beacon Pam, Emily, Zoe, and I went to Long Island City to visit PS1which is one of the largest and oldest not for profit spaces in the United States. Although I wasn't crazy about the actual exhibitions the space itself is really great. The museum is housed in a school and they use all four floors including the boiler room. One of the highlights for me was seeing a video of Vanessa Beecroft's performance for the 52nd Venice Biennale entitled "VB61Still Death! Dafur Still Deaf?" The performance consisted of 30 to 40 Sudanese women laying on a white canvas that simulate dead bodies, red paint was then poured on top of them to simulate blood. The piece lasts for 3 to 4 hours. I was also really smitten with Brazilian artist Tunga's "À la Lumiere des Deux Mondes (At the Light of Both Worlds) " The installation reminded me of old fables where a person stumbles upon a giants abode where there are skeletons strewn about. I was also surprised to see Chicago owns Tony Fitzpatrick with his own show on the first floor. Tony also has a movie review for Jodie Foster's The Brave One in the latest episode of BAS.

I also had to include the photo above of Pam demonstrating how she won the lead role of Peter Pan back in her native land of Canada.

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The full month of November in New York has been the location for Performa 07, which is a visual art, performance biennial. I wished I had more time to see more of the performances but I did get a chance to see Xu Zhen's piece "In Just a Blink of an Eye".

" ...at first sight, this work by leading conceptual artist Xu Zhen seems to defy possibility. In an empty room at the gallery are people completely tilted, as if ready to topple, but frozen as if in time or in space. Although the optical illusion can be surmised to be accomplished through a metal frame upon which the model lays upon, the work nonetheless serves to create an anxiety within the viewer that is at once exhilarating, as if the viewer has been liberated from the constraints of time and physics, as well as debilitating, in the failure to see the action resolved.

The work is performed by migrants recruited from Chinatown, and other communities within New York, pointing at their liminal status within an undefined space. Their migration has been frozen and trapped, at the same time, the relationship of the viewer is also called into question; their subjectivity both exercising the power to freeze and create a snap shot, as if in the blink of an eye, at the same time, filled with an anxiety with the need for resolution. Will the person stand up, or will they fall over - or will they remain stuck forever?"

When I arrived at James Cohan Gallery the performers were actually on break. We were informed that every hour the two performers break and then have to be re harnessed. Once I ventured into the small room I can see why they break so often. The male and female performers suspended in space create this awkward environment. They are hard to watch. The female would spasm about every minute or so.

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Robert Smithson's Map of Broken Glass (Atlantis)

I took a train out to Beacon NY to check out Dia:Beacon. The museum itself is in a former Nabisco factory looking out onto the . If you haven't been there before and are in New York the hour and a half train ride along the Hudson is worth it. The museum houses an impressive collection of minimal and conceptual work from the 60s to present. The bottom floor consists of several Bruce Nauman installations. One of the more impressive installations is Michael Heizer's "North, East, South, West,"which consists of four geometric shapes cut into concrete that go about 20 feet deep. Some of the other highlights are several Robert Smithson pieces including the one pictured above a few installations from Joseph Beuys.

Zoe Blackwell, Me, and Emily Davidson in Beacon New York photo taken by Pam Norrish

After the museum we walked to main street in Beacon. There were a lot of antique stores and several small galleries. We walked around and had caught some dinner before catching the train back into the city.

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Detail from Kurt Kauper's show poster at Deitch Projects

So yesterday some of my studio mates and I went to Chelsea to check out some shows. All in all we saw 21 shows, which is nothing compared to all of the galleries that were open. I was really surprised to like just about everything that I saw. (Sometimes I can be rather hard to please) But of them all these four, in order that I saw them, are my top picks of the day:

Postmasters show “If Then Else End If� by Kristin Lucas appeared to be almost two shows in one. One part, located in the back room was documentation and drawings of her name being legally changed from Kristin Lucas to Kristin Lucas in what she called “in the spirit of refreshing yourself as though you were a web page." The front part I was not as interested in, although I did enjoy the installation itself. Lucas had videos projected and photographs in light boxes portraying a “virus� appearing on her face that was in reference to viruses in cyberspace.

In “A Roll in the Hay� at Bellweather, Daphne Fitzpatrick continues her study of the flâneur in a contemporary urban setting. The show itself feels like one large installation. When walking into the space the viewer is first greeted by two baguettes leaning on the outside of the galleries doorframe. Once inside one must first walk up a weathered wooden ramp where the first piece, a wooden sculpture of Moby Dick is seen. The first several pieces set the pace for the rest of the show, which consists of “sexual puns and dick jokes.� I was really into this show and I’m not doing it much justice in the description.

Moving right along. Kara Walker has new work up at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. I’m not going to go into detail of the show because it would be beating a dead horse when I say how spectacular she is. Check the site for show images. And if you have a chance, catch her retrospective.

Kurt Kauper’s show “Everybody Knew Canadians Were the Best Hockey Players� opened at Deitch Projects. Other than the it being so packed one could barely see the work I found the painting rather enticing. Four of the five were monumental painting of hockey players like Bobby Orr in both the nude and in day to day scenarios. Kauper using hockey players as a stand in for American males subverts his subject matter with homosexual overtones.

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Jeff Koons, Diamond (Blue) courtesy of Lauren Vallone

Jeff Koons has a sculpture up in front of Christie's right now in Rockafeller Center. (You can see me in the photo taking a picture with my camera phone but I can't get them off my blackberry for some odd reason.) Koons, a former SAIC student, appears to be the headliner for Christie's contemporary art auction this fall. The sculpture is up until November 13th with the auction commencing on November 16th. You can also check out other works up for auction from, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Damien Hirst, Lisa Yuskavage, and Andy Warhol to name a few.

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My girlfriend came and surprised me on Friday with a visit. I must say that I have been a bit lonesome lately. But being in New York and having the chance to see so many art shows and the experience of new people critiquing my work seems to be worth it. Anyways, Lauren and I went to the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, which I had been planning on attending since I arrived but never got around to it. It was so really awesome. We spent 3 hours there just checking out their exhibits. I was really into the diorama's, which makes up about 70% of the museum. There is a weird split between the museum which is hard to explain but it appears that half of the museum appears to have the same content from the 70s while the other half feels really recent. I actually prefer the installations from the 70s which generally characterizes the ethnicities of the world.

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Hey, My name is Meg and I am a senior currently attending the New York Studio Program. Which means I get a studio in DUMBO and have professors and visiting artists check my work out once a week. I’ll probably talk more about the program in the coming weeks. We are already halfway through the semester and have a show up of our work in Parson’s MFA space if you’re in the area. As for my work, I am usually in the photography department but I make mostly conceptual performance work. I’m in the middle of updating my website so I’ll post a link when I’m done.

I’ve been lucky to take part in a lot of activities around campus. Last year I was one of two installation directors at the Student Union Galleries, aka SUGS http://www.sugs.info/ .If your interested in putting together exhibitions around campus I would encourage you to check them out. I am also part of a Chicago based podcast called Bad at Sports, http://badatsports.com/. We interview and review both local and international artists.

Okay I think that’s enough about me for now.

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