Save the date – Nov. 20, 2009

Invitation -- New York & Adjacent Canada - Photographic installation by Robyn York

Too bad, Rochester

If only Rochester landlords were this forward thinking…

Landlords Turn to Artists to Fill Empty Commercial Spaces – NYTimes.com.

Here is the Craigslist ad I posted at the beginning of September:

“Difficulty renting your storefront? Call me to help — for free!
Rochester, NY, downtown/NOTA, etc
Hello realtors and building owners,

Are you having trouble filling your rental space? Does it have a street facing storefront? You need to give it some curb appeal!

I am a student and artist who makes photographs of vintage, historic, interesting architecture and social landscapes.
I am available to cover your rental space walls with professionally framed photography while the property waits for a new tenant. For no charge. Yes, I said no charge.

My only request would be to hold a small opening reception in the space and have it open to the public for 5 days. I would sit in the space and show it off to anyone interested, in the art or the square footage.

I could install the work anytime after November 1st.”

I received no responses. None.

Maybe if I was tacky Kenny Scharf…

What would Adrien Brody’s mom say?

“Would you rather hear me talk, or listen to Al Green?”

On Al Green, playing on the Dryden loudspeaker:
“Isn’t he wonderful?”

On homeless men, hired to be Santa Claus for the weeks preceding Christmas:
“But basically, they are sad lonely people. They’re not Santa Claus. Santa Claus doesn’t exist.”

On photographing bars the morning after:
“I guess I should have done more of that. [Sigh] I should have done more.”

On this photograph:

“They must have thought I was crazy, running like that. Stones don’t run away. But some stones do.”

On selling her student project to the MOMA:
“They offered me $25. I said, “That’s ridiculous,” so they offered me $50 and I took it.”

On some audience-douchey question as to which camera she uses:
“I can’t tell you.”

On colour or b&w:
“I cannot make up my mind, which camera to use, which film…”
“I’m promiscuous in my photography but very loyal in my family life.”

From lecture at the Dryden theater, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, Oct. 8, 2009.

As we moved out of the farmlands into the grid, the plan of a city was all that you saw

Awesome site overhaul of Touching Harms The Art. It looked great before, and now it looks even better. The NYT/New Yorker convergence post is nice — here is my THTA grids ‘n’ edges reply.

Title credit: Liz Phair, Stratford-On-Guy

I know we’re gonna meet someday in the crumbled financial institutions of this land.

galerie loevenbruck online.

Growing up in a small town in a bilingual land means learning most of your french from the backs of cereal boxes (Flocons de maaaaaize! Capitaine Crouche!), canned and pacakged goods (champignons! d’anananas! pamplemousse!) and various signage seen out and about (go on, say it). So… “sortie de secours” in this work by Werner Reiterer made me a little homesick. I know I say it wrong (“sortee day secoors” ) – but I don’t even pretend I can speak French. Don’t worry. Bien luh.

Title credit: Andrew Bird, Tables & Chairs

Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels, and your telephone. Got your plates and stainless steel. Got that way of never saying what you really feel.

Gotta admire this kid’s good-naturedness. Gotta admire Richter’s anti-bravado.

Title credit: The Weakerthans – Anchorless

Koh projects > MAINstREetBUS

Insanely great. Germaine Koh is one of those artists that just keeps churning out amazing things.

I saw Self-portrait at the Ottawa Art Gallery in 2003/4 (?) and almost cried. Self portraits rarely have that effect on me, but the idea of all self-portraits layered onto one panel. Effing perfect. Sightings is funny and weird and makes my archive+collecting+travelling urges make a little more sense. Pledge (and other currency projects) is so simple and so smart, it frustrates the bejeezus out of me.

Yay for mid-career artists!

If you can hear a piano fall, you can hear me coming down the hall

By the man who first brought us Every Building on the Sunset Strip. via NYTimes

Yes, they do.

Title credit: The White Stripes, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground

Yeah, we are proof that the heart is a risky fuel to burn

One of my classmates from undergrad has a great looking show up at Karsh-Masson Gallery in Ottawa. Those photographs make me awfully homesick. I used to live in The Kimberly. It had a lovely wood-panelled entrance-way.

Nice work, Mr. Stewart. Bien. Can’t wait to see what’s next.

Title credit: Songs:Ohia – Being in Love

Too cool for school…

Goddamn it Mr. Coupland – does everything you touch turn to primary-coloured-gold?

The giant Downy bottle… the white miniature replica CN Tower… Mousetrap as sculpture, for chrissakes? Even your pizza box looks intentionally brilliant.

I’m almost as excited about your new book as I am about the Mad Men season 3 premiere.