press and post show

Shout Youngstown

Valley 24

Downforce: Tony Nicholas

Vindicator

 

Governor Ted Strickland enjoying the show

jaime martinez asks to be heir apparent

jaime martinez declares the boldest and most definitive blur of video and photo of the digital age and proposes a new way forward for the image. will anyone listen? maybe they shouldn't. martinez has teamed up with m.i.a. and is intent on being the musician's visual priest. while martinez work is surely stunning and boundary shaking, he risks falling into/ capitalizes on a strengthening trend - female pop stars moving into the realm of high art. martinez is trying to link m.i.a. with a groundbreaking technical manipulation and a potentially potential new artistic medium in the hopes that the star herself can be the piece of art. in such a process, "the artist" is the designer, the celebrity and even the innovative technique. the goal is to replicate andy warhol, jeff koons, and damian hirst's trademark move in reverse. whereas these artists moved from gallery success and art world acclaim to pop culture celebrity, the likes of m.i.a. and gaga seem determined to come in the back door. it is not so unfathomable to imagine martinez's moving pictures and gaga installations against the white walls of berlin and chelsea very soon.

this blog can't support this type of work. only checking out the link will bring you these amuse bouches

http://www.thefader.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/3.gif

http://fuckyoudraculas.tumblr.com/

http://www.brightlightbrightlight.com/series/2009-animated-gif/

http://fuckyoudraculas.tumblr.com/post/110228100

http://fuckyoudraculas.tumblr.com/post/133372068

check out the animated gif series on brightbrightbrightlight.com for the best collection of martinez's non-mia work.

Rust__ Rococo

My show this Friday at the Lemon Grove in Downtown Youngstown.

The Lemon Grove Café will be unveiling a new space inside the establishment dedicated to the display of rotating art exhibitions. The Gallery Lemon Grove’s first show, Rust__Rococo, will feature the work of seven local artists who undress a sensual aesthetic from the ruin around us. 

Their work unearths the lush, the curvaceous, the vibrant, the smooth, the solid, and the sexual from apparent barrenness. They indulge. What these artists create is a new aesthetic of abandon. Rejecting the macabre pantomime of aimless nostalgia and refusing to be overcome by the heavy shadow of memory and doubt, these artists invigorate and reconquer how we understand our wasted landscape. By doing so, they expose how our rust can empower, not suffocate, our future.

                                                    Jimmy Hagan and Leslie Cusano

 

Steve Poullas

 

Don Attenberger

 

event poster

jason van hoose at the lemon grove

new job downtown as the manager of a budding art gallery provides intimate access to some truly spectacular stuff.  to me, one of the most sensational artists is jason van hoose.  a self-proclaimed "country boy", jason enjoys the benefits of a cosmic imagination and rustic charm.  his paintings are technically brilliant, yet unpretentious and folksy.  rural life reappears time and again in the form of tornadoes, animals, and fields of grain.  in these implicitly american icons lurks fiery passion and hints of psychosis.  it is pastoral work that avoids the bear traps of norman rockwell and "american gothic" and falls somewhere closer to the dreamscapes of david hockney.  Then, on top of all of this, van hoose introduces us to otherworldly symbols, mystical signs, and the possibility of aliens.  Swirls, eyeballs, creatures and disasters fuse with the hefty simplicity of their "americana" vibe.  Religious in its treatment of its subjects, van hoose's paintings act almost as Byzantine icons. they present us, in flat frontal views, with the gloriously divine and give us reason for veneration.

arriving in istanbul

at about 4 am we crossed the border into turkey.  by 8:30 we were lost in the outskirts.  mysterious and largely undiscussed, the art of turkey has yet to reveal itself.  here are some slices from last year istanbul biennale. more to come on turkish art when i figure some of it out.