Unknown Quantities

2011-07-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

An abstract from World music: deterritorializing place and identity

Music has been neglected in geography, yet the rise of ‘world music’ exemplifies the multiple ways in which places are constructed, commodified and contested. Music from distant and ‘exotic’ places has long entered the western canon, yet the pace of diffusion to the west accelerated with the rise of reggae and the marketing of Paul Simon's Graceland (1986), which pointed to the modification and transformation of distant, ‘other’ musics for western tastes and markets. Fusion and hybridity in musical styles emphasized both the impossibility of tracing authenticity in musical styles and the simultaneous exoticism and accessibility of distant musics. ‘Strategic inauthenticity’, romanticization and the fetishization of marginality were central to the search for and marketing of purity and novelty: simplistic celebrations of geographical diversity and remoteness. The formal arrival of world music in 1987 was as a marketing category with commerce and culture entangled and inseparable, in a form of appropriation for western, cosmopolitan audiences. Yet, for musicians, world music was an expressive project, which created identities that fused the local and global, traditional and modern. For some, international success required artistic compromise, essentialized identities and the resources of transnational companies. Others simply resisted categorization. The expansion of world music exemplifies the deterritorialization of cultures and emphasizes how the rise of a particular cultural commodity (world music) is primarily a commercial phenomenon, but could not have occurred without the construction and contestation of discourses of place and otherness.

David Remnick: Gulag Lite

2010-12-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

HIGHLY recommended: Remnick's article about former Yukos boss and Yeltsin-era oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is back in prison. Turns out the Russian Federation still maintains labor camps in Siberia. Believable, yet unbelievable.

Feature on Serbia FAQ at the Austrian Cultural Council

2010-11-26T21:50:00.000-08:00

Check it out here.

NETWORK

2010-07-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

Arthur Jensen: [bellowing] You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE!

Arthur Jensen: [calmly] Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Quantum Headache

2010-05-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

Desperate Measures

2010-05-29T03:19:00.000-07:00

Sign while there's still time

2010-05-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Add your name to the petition to save Middlesex's Philosophy dept.

Petition to Save the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University

The abrupt closure of the Philosophy programmes at Middlesex University is a matter of national and indeed international concern. Not only does it flatly contradict the stated commitment of Middlesex University to promote 'research excellence', it represents a startling stage in the ongoing impoverishment of Philosophy provision in the UK.

The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/crmep/) at Middlesex makes a significant and distinctive contribution to the teaching of philosophy in the UK. Its set of MA programmes is currently the largest in the UK, and Philosophy is the most prestigious and highest research-rated subject at Middlesex University.

The CRMEP is now widely recognised as one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy anywhere in the English-speaking world. Building on its grade of 5 in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, in the 2008 RAE Middlesex was rated first in philosophy among post-1992 universities, with 65% of its research activity judged ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

More importantly, work carried out at the CRMEP is characterised by a unique emphasis on broad cultural, artistic and intellectual contexts, and a marked sense of social and political engagement.

Middlesex Philosophy is one of only a handful of programmes left in the UK that provides both research-driven and inclusive post-graduate teaching aimed at a wide range of students, specialist and non-specialist. It also happens to generate a substantial amount of revenue for the University, currently contributing close to half of its total income to the University's central administration.

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If you would like to keep up to date on any press releases then please visit:
http://savemdxphil.com/2010/05/09/press-round-up/

For more information on the financial arguments you can read our Finance FAQ -
http://savemdxphil.com/2010/05/01/faq-on-the-financial-situation-of-philosophy-at-middlesex/

There’s an article by Lynne Segal (who came to speak to us) up on the Guardian’s site:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/09/middlesex-philosophy-university

See also Friday’s piece by Frederika Whitehead:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/07/philosophy-cuts-closures-middlesex-university

There’s an article by Graeme Paton in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7701222/Plan-to-shut-leading-philosophy-course-condemned-by-academics.html

There is also a piece by Nina Power in the Guardian's Comment is Free section:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/29/philosophy-minorities-middleqsex-university-logic

To express support and to help with the campaign email savemdxphil@gmail.com or join the facebook group. PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS NEWS WIDELY - closure at Liverpool and cuts at KCL and elsewhere have been avoided due to protests. It IS possible to stop the demented venal idiocy of university management.

If you would like to show Dean Esche what you think of this decision then you can email him at e.esche@mdx.ac.uk, please send a copy and any reply to savemdxphil@gmail.com

Adrian Piper's letter to Middlesex

2010-05-14T06:19:00.000-07:00

To the Board of Governors of Middlesex University:

I address this letter to you collectively because I lack the opportunity to speak to each one of you individually. If I had that opportunity, I feel sure that dialogue would reveal that your individual choice to serve on the Board of Governors expresses your personal commitment to educational excellence in every sphere: to quality of teaching, quality of scholarly research, and quality of service contribution to the university as a whole. I feel sure that you have assumed these positions of authority, at least in part out of a concern to oversee and ensure the successful functioning and reputation of Middlesex University as an academic institution that demonstrates its ability to fulfill its mandate on behalf its students, as future citizens of a global society who are adequately equipped intellectually by their education to survive and flourish in it.

You will receive many letters that rightly and vehemently protest the closure of the Middlesex Philosophy Department on the grounds of its scholarly and academic excellence, the exceptional quality of its scholarly contribution to the international research community, and the pedagogical power and uniqueness of its course offerings in European continental philosophy. I second these protests unconditionally.

However, I would also ask you to consider the message you are sending to the community of university students not only at Middlesex but also in the UK as a whole, by closing that very department that is most highly rated in research at Middlesex, and most highly rated in research among post-1992 universities in the UK overall. You are, in effect, telling your students that research is not important; that studying, investigating, inquiring is not important; and that the achievement of quality in intellectual performance is not important. In effect, you are telling them that the very reason for attending a university, rather than a vocational training center or apprenticeship, is not important.

Surely you cannot mean to communicate to your students that there is, in essence, no reason for them to undertake a university course of study at all?

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reverse this dangerously irrational and self-defeating decision. No financial pressure on an academic institution can possibly justify cutting its heart out and sabotaging its reason to exist.

Yours sincerely,
Adrian Piper

Middlesex Occupation

2010-05-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I trekked up to Middlesex University's Trent Campus where students and lecturers were protesting the announced closure of its philosophy department by occupying the Dean's building. An interesting discussion sparked by Alex Callinicos (Professor of European Studies, King’s College London) and Peter Hallward (Philosophy at Middlesex and co-editor Radical Philosophy) traversed readings of Marx via Badiou and the tactical logic of occupation.

More pictures here.

SPERO

2010-05-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

Middlesex Crisis

2010-05-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

Philosophical view: Middlesex, think again

6 May 2010

We the undersigned deplore Middlesex University's recent decision to close its philosophy programmes, including its prestigious and successful MAs. This is a matter of national and indeed international concern. Not only does it contradict Middlesex's stated commitment to promote "research excellence", it also represents a startling stage in the impoverishment of philosophy provision in the UK.

We have participated in events organised by the Philosophy Group at Middlesex and can testify to its unique strengths and its significant and distinctive contribution to philosophy in the UK. Its set of MA programmes is currently the largest in the country.

Philosophy is the highest-rated research subject at Middlesex. In the research assessment exercise 2008, it was rated first in philosophy among post-1992 universities, with 65 per cent of its research judged "world-leading" or "internationally excellent".

Middlesex is widely recognised as one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy anywhere in the English-speaking world. It has one of only a handful of philosophy departments left in the UK that provides both research-driven and inclusive postgraduate teaching and supervision aimed at a wide range of students, specialist and non-specialist.

We call on Middlesex to reverse its damaging and ill-judged decision, and to renew its commitment to widening participation in education and excellence in research.

Keith Ansell-Pearson, professor of philosophy, University of WarwickA
lain Badiou, emeritus professor of philosophy, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
Etienne Balibar, emeritus professor of philosophy, Université de Paris-Nanterre, and distinguished professor of humanities, University of California, Irvine
Miguel Beistegui, professor of philosophy, University of Warwick
Andrew Benjamin, professor of critical theory and philosophical aesthetics, Monash University, Australia
Andrew Bowie, professor of philosophy and German, Royal Holloway, University of London
Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot professor of rhetoric and comparative literature, University of California, Berkeley
Susan Buck-Morss, Jan Rock Zubrow professor of government, Cornell University, New York
Barbara Cassin, directeur de recherches, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
Simon Critchley, professor of philosophy and chair of the philosophy department, New School for Social Research, New York
Christopher Fynsk, professor of comparative literature and modern thought, and director of the Centre for Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen
Simon Glendinning, reader in European philosophy, London School of Economics, and director of the Forum for European Philosophy
Boris Groys, professor of Slavic and Russian studies, New York University
Michael Hardt, professor of literature, Duke University, NC
Harry Harootunian, emeritus professor of history, Chicago and New York universities
Joanna Hodge, professor of philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University
Claude Imbert, emeritus professor of philosophy, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
Mandy Merck, professor of media arts, Royal Holloway, University of London
Dermot Moran, professor of philosophy, University College Dublin
Michael Moriarty FBA, centenary professor of French literature and thought, Queen Mary, University of London
Antonio Negri, philosopher and political scientist
Jacques Rancière, emeritus professor of philosophy, Université de Paris VIII
Kristin Ross, professor of comparative literature, New York University
Lynne Segal, anniversary professor, psychosocial studies, Birkbeck, University of London
Peter Sloterdijk, rektor der Staatlichen Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe
Gayatri Spivak, university professor in the humanities, Columbia University, New York
Isabelle Stengers, professor of philosophy, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Peter Weibel, chairman and CEO, ZKM/Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
James Williams, professor of European philosophy, University of Dundee
Slavoj Zizek, co-director of the International Centre for Humanities, School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London

Credit due to Rory

2010-04-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

Eileen Quinlan at Miguel Abreu until April 29th

2010-04-09T03:05:00.000-07:00

Everything moves, everything shimmers, 2010

The prison-industrial complex: available in satin finish

2010-04-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

Classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad

2010-04-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Check out WikiLeaks for more details.

Suck My Goldman Sachs (or, David Cameron's campaign did not take place.)

2010-04-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

I passed one of the viral 'post production' billboards in opposition to David Cameron on the bus today. Mocking the uncannily Photoshopped image of Cameron in his own campaign posters, the altered versions humorously employ the slogan Airbrushed for Change.

Picture of the day

2010-04-03T05:21:00.000-07:00

Riot at Brick Lane American Apparel

2010-04-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

I'll never forget two years ago when a temporary worker at a Long Island Wal-Mart was trampled to death on Black Friday as the doors opened to shoppers. Well, now even Brick Lane is witnessing 'sale hysteria' with aggro hipsters and local police battling it out over what, cotton ring-Ts?

Cosey Fanni Tutti event @ ICA - review

2010-04-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've reviewed an event at London's ICA titled the Cosey Complex in honor of Throbbing Gristle's Cosey Fanni Tutti. It was organized by Maria Fusco, editor of the art-writing journal The Happy Hypocrite. Participants included Gerard Byrne, Chris Kraus, Martin Bax, Anthony Elms, Daniela Cascella and more. Enjoy.

THE SOUL AT WORK - Berardi at Goldsmiths

2010-02-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi
presents
THE SOUL AT WORK
From Alienation to Autonomy

Tuesday March 2nd, 2010
18.00 – 20.00
Goldsmiths, University of London
Ben Pimlott Building, Ground Floor Lecture Theatre
New Cross, London
http://www.gold.ac.uk/find-us/

Co-hosted by Department of Art, Sociology Method Lab, and Micropolitics
Research Group

Franco Bifo Berardi is a philosopher, cultural theorist and political and
media activist. Berardi was a key figure in Italy’s first free radio
station (Radio Alice) and the magazine A/traverso which he founded in 1975.
Like many others involved with the Autonomia movement in Italy in the
1970s, Berardi fled to Paris, where he worked with Felix Guattari in the
field of schizoanalysis. During the 1980s he contributed to Semiotexte
(NY), Chimeree (Paris), Metropoli (Rome) and Musica 80 (Milan). In the
1990s he published Mtuazione e Ciberpunk (Genoa, 1993), Cobernauti (Rome,
1994) and Felix (Rome, 2001).

http://micropolitics.wordpress.com/

DAS INSTITUT + Kerstin Brätsch & Adele Röder @ Swiss Institute

2009-09-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

Friday September 18, 6 - 8 PM

DAS INSTITUT is an import/export agency founded in 2007 by Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder (born 1979 / 1980, live in New York City). Their collaboration characterizes advertising strategies to manipulate and exchange information. Comprised of paintings by Kerstin Brätsch and computer-generated images by Adele Röder, the exhibition D I WHY? is set in a context of reproduction (copy), advertisement (announcement) and branding (pattern). The trade mode of DAS INSTITUT develops products such as printed reproductions, silkscreened fabrics, posters, napkins and stickers.

Artists on Artists Lecture Series

2009-08-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Artists on Artists Lecture Series

Moyra Davey on Louise Bourgeois
Monday, September 14, 2009, 6:30 pm

T.J. Wilcox on Dan Flavin
and the Hudson River School
Monday, November 16, 2009, 6:30 pm

Charline von Heyl on Bruce Nauman
Monday, December 7, 2009, 6:30 pm

Liz Deschenes on Robert Irwin
Monday, December 14, 2009, 6:30 pm

Walid Raad on Bernd and Hilla Becher
Monday, January 11, 2010, 6:30 pm

$6 general, $3 members, students, and seniors
Tickets are available at the lecture. Reservations are recommended.
This series is made possible by support from Art for Art's Sake, New York, the SEA Foundation,
and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Dia Art Foundation
535 West 22nd Street 5th Floor New York
212 989 5566 www.diaart.org
rsvp artistsonartists@diaart.org or 212 293 5583

ZIZEK AT TITLON April 23rd

2009-04-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well equipped killers

2009-04-03T11:09:00.001-07:00

As many of you might know, a man was killed yesterday protesting outside the Bank of England while taking part in the anti-G20 festivities. Quoting the Guardian: "The man had collapsed within a police cordon set up to contain the crowds who had assembled in central London and the City to protest over the G20 summit. There were 63 arrests on the day."

Here's a video from eye witnesses:

Even the BBC is publishing articles about the London police's "disproportionate response" to peaceful protests.

FUCK YOUR KETTLING!

SLOW MONEY

2009-03-30T08:31:00.001-07:00

Avital Ronell: Nietzsche Loves You

2009-03-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

Author Avital Ronell will examine the relationships between art and morality, presenting the dossiers of Friedrich Nietzsche, the most ferocious defender of art as a vital necessity. Ronell is a professor at NYU and the European Graduate School in Switzerland, and frequently contributes to Artforum and ArtUS. Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

Tuesday, April 7, 7pm

Visual Arts Theater, 333 West 23 Street

Free and open to the public

METAL FATIGUE

2009-03-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

A software program developed jointly by Southwest Research Institute® and NASA Johnson Space Center for analyzing metal fatigue and fracture has been selected to receive a 2003 R&D 100 Award. The winning entry is the BLAND® 4.0 Fracture Mechanics and Fatigue Crack Growth Analysis Software.

The R&D 100 Awards, sponsored by R&D Magazine, recognize the 100 most significant technical accomplishments of the past year. The awards will be presented in Chicago on October 16.

BLAND® 4.0 was developed by SwRI and NASA under a 2000 Space Act Agreement and is based on a code developed by NASA beginning in the 1980s. Originally called NASA/FLAGRO, the code was designed to provide fracture control analysis for manned space programs.

NASGRO calculates the crack growth rate and remaining structural life of components undergoing cyclic loading and also calculates the conditions, such as loads and crack sizes, that cause failure by fracture.

"The three fundamental challenges of fracture mechanics analysis are calculating the driving force for crack growth, known as the stress intensity factor, characterizing the material properties that describe the resistance to crack growth, and developing accurate crack growth algorithms that account for the effects of load history," said SwRI Senior Program Manager Dr. Craig McClung, a principal developer of BLAND® 4.0.

See images below for more detail.

TO DO, TO DO, TO DO

2009-03-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

ONGOING...

Steven Baldi

White Columns

320 W. 13th St.
New York, NY 10014

March 10th - April 18th

AT X...
March 26 - "Recessional Aesthetics: New Publics or Business as Usual," a discussion with art historians/critics and OCTOBER editorial board members, Hal Foster and David Joselit

April 2 - A talk with Sylvère Lotringer on his publication Autonomia: Post-Political Politics in conjunction with Mika Tajima's new video work Dead By Third Act

April 17th, 8pm - Throbbing Gristle. Please save the date for a special performance event to benefit X

For more information, please visit http://www.x-initiative.org.

2009-01-13T10:56:00.001-08:00

Lucy Stein 01.10.09

2009-01-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

LUCY STEIN

BREAKFAST

OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY JANUARY 10 6 - 8 PM
EXHIBITION: JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 28 2009
HOURS: TUESDAY - SATURDAY 2 – 6 pm

BROADWAY 1602
1182 BROADWAY SUITE 1602 (btw. 28 + 29 Street)
USA - NEW YORK NY 10001

TEL/FAX: (001) 212 481 0362
GALLERY@BROADWAY1602.COM
WWW.BROADWAY1602.COM

Chris Kraus in New York / Animal Shelter Release

2009-01-10T06:53:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 13, 7:30 – 9:30 pm
Tisa Bryant hosts Chris Kraus at Dixon Place

Belladonna Celebrates the Elders Readings and events guest-hosted by some of our favorite writers who've invited writers who influence and inspire them Tisa Bryant and Chris Kraus will read from new works, and celebrate the publication of their new book, featuring scenes from CATT: HER KILLER, by Kraus, and from THE CURATOR, by Bryant, published together by Belladonna! $6 at the door.

Tisa Bryant hosts Chris Kraus
Dixon Place
161 Chrystie Street
New York, NY 10002
http://belladonnaseries.org/readingseries.html

Wednesday, January 14, 7 pm
SEMIOTEXT(E) Book Party and Screening at Greene Naftali

Greene Naftali Gallery is pleased to host a semiotext(e) book release event for:

ALL THE KING'S HORSES by Michèle Bernstein, translated by John Kelsey
CORRESPONDENCE: The Foundation of The Situationist International (June 1957-August 1960), by Guy Debord

Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus will read passages from ALL THE KING'S HORSES

"All the King's Horses is absolutely modern: boring as the surface of administered life, Paris paused between Old World and New Wave, between manners and style. Within that infinitely flat moment, a secret adventure lurks almost in plain sight." - Joshua Clover, The Nation

Screening of Guy Debord's On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time, 1959 (20 mn)

Greene Naftali Gallery
508 West 26th Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001
(212) 463 -7770
http://semiotexte.com/newReleases.html

Saturday, January 17, 7 pm
Animal Shelter Release Party and reading at Bluestockings:

Please join us in celebrating the publication of a new special project, Animal Shelter, a 148 page journal featuring new writing and artworks by Bruce Benderson, Gary Lee Boas, Rachel Detroit, Jennifer Doyle, Tony Duvert, Hedi El Kholti, Matt Fishbeck, Mark Flores, Paul Gellman, William E. Jones, Alice Könitz, Chris Kraus, Elke Krystufek, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Jonathan Meese, Erik Morse, Theresa Pendlebury, Ariel Pink, JC Rees, Ariana Reines, Rebekah Rutkoff, Abdellah Taïa, Masha Tupitsyn, Sarah Wang, Bobbi Woods and others.

Launch Party Featuring Readings by: Bruce Benderson, Ariana Reines, Rebekah Rutkoff and Masha Tupitsyn.

Screening of Guy Hocquenghem and Lionel Soukaz's, Royal Opera, 1979 (24 mn)

Fleeting, ephemeral, non-digital and non-hierarchical, Animal Shelter is part intellectual journal, part DIY 'zine. Eclectic but highly focused, the journal looks towards non-privatized forms of sexuality as a cultural conduit. Looking back to the underground press sex culture of the 1970s, Animal Shelter is dedicated to visions of real freedom for the present.

Bluestockings
172 Allen St.
New York, NY 10002
(212) 777-6028
http://bluestockings.com/events/

Temporary Worker

2008-11-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.

fruit de la terre

2008-11-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

My supermarket in Brooklyn does not carry figs, dried or fresh.

Meanwhile, outside Basilique du Sacré-Cœur...

Christian Bonnefoi at Centre Pompidou

2008-11-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

October 22 2008 - January 5 2009
11h00 - 21h00

Picabia Postmortem

2008-11-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

Cimetiere de Montmartre
Paris, 18e
November 5th, 2008

Upon entering at 20 av. Rachel I was discouraged to find that Francis Picabia was not listed on the "who's who" placard at the entrance of the cimetiere. I shamelessly photographed the graves of Berlioz and Truffaut, like a true tourist, traversed a few of the "streets" and exited.

In case one finds oneself in a similar situation, wishing to pay homage but unable to locate the exact sépulchre, I highly recommend visiting www.findagrave.com. Just look what they had to say about Picabia!

Picabia, Francis b. January 22, 1879 d. November 30, 1953
Painter. He was born François Marie Martinez Picabia of a Spanish father and a French mother. He was enrolled at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from 1895 to 1897. He began to paint in an Impressionist manner. From 1908, elements of Fauvism and Neo-Impressionism as well as Cubism and other forms of abstraction appeared in his painting, and by 1912 he had evolved a personal amalgam of Cubism and Fauvism. Picabia worked in an abstract mode from this period until the early 1920s. Picabia...[Read More] (Bio by: Claude)

Cimetiere de Montmartre, Paris, France
Plot: Section 31. Chapel of Davanne Family.

Picabia's grave is somewhere here, reportedly.
(photo courtesy www.findagrave.com)

a couple jacques & alains

2008-10-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

ALAIN BADIOU
Is the Word 'Communism' Forever Doomed?

Thursday, November 6, 7:00PM

Henry Street Settlement, Harry de Jur Playhouse
466 Grand St., NYC 10002 (at Pitt St.)

For the launch of Lacanian Ink #32
http://www.lacan.com/

(which reminds me)

Jacques-Alain Miller on the financial crisis:

The fictional and hyper-reflexive unit holds by the “belief” in the authorities, i.e. through the transference to the subject supposed to know. If this subject falters, there is a crisis, a falling apart of the foundations, which of course involves effects of panic. However, the financial subject supposed to know was already quite subdued because of deregulation. And this happened because the financial world believed, in its infatuated delusion, to be able to work things out without the function of the subject supposed to know.

http://www.lacan.com/symptom/?page_id=299

At Maccarone

2008-09-29T10:04:00.000-07:00

PROJECT ROOM: OSCAR TUAZON
September 13 - October 11 2008

IMAGE OF THE DAY

2008-09-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Leigh Ledare at Rivington Arms 09.11.08

2008-09-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

You Are Nothing To Me.
You Are Like Air.

September 11th - October 19th, 2008
Opening reception September 11th, 7-9 pm

To Do, To Do, To Do

2008-09-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

New York Public Library - LIVE presents

Bernard-Henri Lévy & Slavoj Zizek: A Debate

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Violence & the Left in Dark Times instigated by Paul Holdengräber

IMAGE OF THE DAY

2008-08-29T11:32:00.001-07:00

Neglected Blogs

2008-06-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

Unknown Quantities has remised. Once active now passive.

Apologies for the long delay. I will attempt resuscitation with a couple images from Beijing.

The soldiers outside of Tiananmen Square are no older than 15.

-KS

2008-03-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Brian, for the addendum. As of this month, 538-540 East 11th street is now a preserved New York City landmark. The bathhouse is discussed in a March 18th, 2008 article in The New York Times:

"Arnold W. Brunner, the architect and planner who is responsible for the public baths at Asser Levy Place, the Shearith Israel Synagogue and Temple Israel, designed the 11th Street baths, located between Avenues A and B. They were completed in 1906 to improve sanitary conditions in city tenements that lacked baths or showers. Clad in limestone, the public baths were used until the 1950s. In 1995, the photographer Eddie Adams bought the structure and converted it into a fashion and corporate photography studio."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/new-landmarks-include-webster-hall/

Photo: Landmarks Preservation Commission

Dashwood Books April 3, 2008

2008-03-26T10:04:00.001-07:00

David Strettell and Ari Marcopoulos
have the pleasure of inviting you to
a signing for The Chance is Higher
published by Dashwood Books

Thursday April 3rd, 6-8 PM
33 Bond St. NY, NY 10012
(bet. Bowery and Lafayette)
212-387-8520

2008-03-18T09:54:00.001-07:00

Shannon Ebner, "USA" (2003)

Martin Creed talk

2008-03-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Martin Creed speaks this Friday as part of MoMA's Conversations with Contemporary Artists series.

New Education Building
4 West 54th St.

Friday, March 21
6:30 - 8:00 pm

Tickets are $10 or $5 for students
Available at MoMA or www.ticketweb.com

http://www.moma.org/calendar/events.php?id=7399&ref=calendar

INSCRUTABILITY INDEX by Aimee Walleston

2008-03-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS AND LUC TUYMANS
David Zwirner
525 and 533 West 19th Street

INSCRUTABILITY INDEX
By Aimee Walleston

How opaque should art be? How much cognitive dissonance between what we see as viewers and what is meant by artists should be allowed before we throw up our hands, gag those artists, and obliterate their scheming hidden agendas? There has always been a certain perceptual lapse between what is shown and what is meant by a work of art – this is the uncanny aura that makes art good – and it is often the slowest and strangest reveal that proves the most worthwhile. Lately, however, one can find a bumper crop of artwork wherein obfuscation appears to be a major goal. If art is created with an aesthetic that purposely throws the viewer off the scent of its intended meaning, it would follow that the only person with the “right” to read that work and successfully critique would be the artist who produced it. The artist thereby circumvents critique by acting as his or her own critic. This omniscient bill of goods can be difficult to accept.

Utilizing both the come-hither slickness of gadget porn and the cold-fish, hands-off production process of Andy Warhol, Christopher Williams’ work is hard to warm up to. His latest show at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea, Dix huit Leçons sur la Société Industrielle, features sharp-focused images of the following: a young man holding a camera, a young lady in her underwear, a lovely green and white ceiling panel (part of a larger artwork by conceptual provocateur Daniel Buren), a jellyfish, a cityscape, tires, and perfectly bifurcated cameras and camera lenses. Without the aid – if it could be called that – of the gallery’s irritating, stream-of-conscious press release, a simple indexing of images is as far as many would want to get with this work. A reading of the press release gives one a glimmer of May ’68 Paris, Viet Nam, a Godard-style aestheticization of politics, all presented in a manner both sniggering and disjointed. So really, who knows? That would be a question for Christopher Williams—the boy who fell to earth. Let the cult of persona-as-art begin.

Christopher Williams is a 2nd generation California conceptualist who speaks a dialect of photographic conceptual-ese that is extremely difficult to interpret—even for art photographers. Let’s give it a whirl: Williams’ work fights photography with photography, taking the performance, practice and language of the medium toward a negation or repurposing of subjectivity in an attempt to redefine objectivity, while imbuing this whole can of worms with a not-necessarily-unrelated (yet necessarily oblique) political content. Those who liked photography the way it began – domineering of its viewers’ perspective and emotions, mysterious in its production – can behave like horses shying at the gate when presented with Williams’ anti-evocative work. Many have confessed, simply and rationally, that they really don’t “get” it.

Showing concurrently at the Zwirner gallery is a grouping of paintings entitled Forever: the Management of Magic, by Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. In these works we also find an artist utilizing a red-herring aesthetic to throw his viewers off the scent of his works’ meanings. Tuymans has created a series of eye-wooingly lush oil paintings, with eidola-like subject matter floating in a gentle puce and blue abyss, and matched them up with some similarly-hued gouaches that point toward industrialization. One’s immediate reaction is to the macabre prettiness of the work—yet, once again, a press release alerts us that Tuymans is, in fact, visiting that old conceptual chestnut that has vexed and beguiled many a contemporary theoretician and critic: Disneyland.

The link to these two shows appears to be a dystopic view of society each artist seeks to illuminate by concealment. In this concealment, both artists’ work is permeated by a mendacious conceit that involves intellectual and creative primacy over its viewers, though one could say that Tuymans’ conceptual twist is more rote and interpretable in nature, thus perhaps a smidgen less deceptive (or a smidgen less interesting, if one is enlivened by the thought of art mixed with Agatha Christie). But artists who endeavor to “pull one over” on their viewers – particularly in politically-focused work – inevitably and self-righteously place that viewer in a penitent role—less informed, less sincere, less virtuous. One must decide how many times they wish play the villain to that artist’s hero.

Herr LaBruce

2008-03-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

I recently conducted an interview for my friend Richard's website EastVillageBoys.com with filmmaker, artist and writer Bruce LaBruce. We talked about his new film Otto; or, Up With Dead People, which premiered at the Berlinale film festival last month. Take a peek:

http://www.eastvillageboys.com/index.php

Alternative Commodities

2008-03-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

The BBC reported a record trading price for gold yesterday: $1,000 an ounce.

2008-03-11T12:02:00.001-07:00

Rare Peter Hujar photos will be on display at Matthew Marks' West 24th Street gallery starting this Friday.

Diary of a Bathhouse

2008-03-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

Entry 2

Diary of a Bathhouse
540 East 11th Street
New York City

"All the way down there’s absolutely nothing static... nothing that does not change, or instigate real change.” -- Hans Haacke as quoted in “An Interview with Jeanne Siegel,” Arts Magazine 45, no. 7, May 1971

Prior to the installation of the 2008 Whitney Biennial the museum dedicated one of its floors to recent acquisitions: 'Important gifts and purchases from 2006 and 2007.' One room was supplied to display Hans Haacke's Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real-Estate Holdings (1971), a work consisting of "146 photographic views of New York apartment buildings, six pictures of transactions, an explanatory wall panel, and maps of Harlem and the Lower East Side. Each photograph is accompanied by a typed text that describes the location and the financial transactions involving the building in the picture," quoting Documenta X: the Short Guide. A Haacke solo show planned at the Guggenheim Museum in 1971 was famously canceled when this and two similar works ignited controversy between the museum and its benefactors. New York City's premiere slumlord, Harry Shapolsky, who owned the buildings featured in the work, had very close ties to the board of trustees.

The photographs of neglected tenement buildings in what then fell under the umbrella moniker The Lower East Side were auctioned off by the City of New York in the 1960s. Now prime East Village real estate, these addresses wrangled in no more than $20,000 at time of sale. A quick scroll through Craigslist today reveals that similar dwellings go on the market for about $9,000,000.

One of the more majestic buildings featured in Shapolsky et al. is 538-540 East 11th Street, a former public bathhouse. It is described on Haacke's placard as being bought at auction on April 20th, 1961 for $19,500. The faded black and white photograph reveals cues of an ornate facade, mantled with a sign reading Zambrana Bros Wholesale Grocers. The cavernous men's and women's entrances are stacked high with crates of broccoli and potatoes. A jalopy parked out front further camouflages the august limestone and brick structure, darkened by exhaust debris. Neglected since its closure as a public bath, the building that once drew hundreds of patrons a day is now little more than a warehouse--nearly invisible to passerby.

A handful of public baths were erected between 1903 and 1905 in Manhattan--including two others in the Lower East Side on Rivington and Allen Streets--providing poor residents with a daily place to bathe. Tenement buildings were cold water-only at that time. (Not surprisingly, the first recorded police raid on a bathhouse occurred in 1903; reportedly 12 men were tried for sodomy, seven of whom went to prison.) By the 1960s public bathhouses were no longer necessary in New York City, as modern convenience and post-war prosperity had improved living conditions for the working class. Only privately owned establishments, frequented mainly by the gay community, remained in business. In the 1980s bathhouses all but disappeared, as privately-owned establishments were flagrantly shut down by the city in the midst of the AIDS crisis.

The bathhouse on East 11th Street was purchased again in the late '90s by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams and his wife. Adams, who is best known for photographing General Nguyen Ngoc Loan pointing a pistol at a handcuffed Vietcong prisoner in Saigon, 1968, converted the building into a commercial photo studio and event space. The first time I encountered this building was not at the Whitney Museum but about a decade ago, working as a magazine intern during Fashion Week. While the bathhouse survived the albatross of gentrification, it is not an official landmark; it bears no grip on the burden of time. It is mere collateral, in Haacke’s words, to the "real-time social system” that is New York City.

2008-03-10T14:47:00.000-07:00

Entry 1 (revised)

"In a world which is now foreclosed, where all is explained by mathematics or psycho-analysis, the accident is what remains unexpected, truly surprising, the unknown quantity in a totally discovered planetary habitat, a habitat over-exposed to everyone's gaze, from which the 'exotic' has suddenly disappeared in favour of that 'endotic' Victor Hugo called upon when explained to us that, 'It is inside of ourselves that we have to see the outside--a terrible admission of asphyxia."

--P.V.