Out to a series of exhibition openings on Thursday and Friday night, to practice being social and to definitively refute the rumor that I'm physically anchored to the store by a sophisticated psychic restraint. Lots of lame work on display, leavened by a few well-conceived and crafted works that made me happy, among them Corin Sworn's small colored pencil crayon drawings of objects built from cut construction paper, and Kristan Horton's Dr. Strangelove Dr Strangelove (above), which pairs black and white stills from Kubrick's film with reconstructions built in the artist's studio using whatever came to hand (styrofoam; felt-tip markers; teriyaki sauce bottles; cotton batting & etc.) Endless substitutional invention, leavened with wry humor and, as my friend Claudia Beck pointed out, the accurate emulation of Kubrick's complicated lighting, which makes the piece right off. I'm writing a review, despite my more and more frequently broken promise not to write, or to write much less, and more carefully. A promise largely facilitated by twelve and fourteen hour days in the shop, by the end of which I want to leave as quickly as possible, walk home, and try to finish my microeconomics homework before toppling into bed, worn out. "If Robinson Crusoe can catch 2 fish or collect 5 coconuts in 4 hours, and his friend Friday can catch 4 fish or collect 3 coconuts in the same time, who has absolute advantage in fish-catching? In coconut collecting? Who has a competitive advantage in each? Illustrate your answers with diagrams." Blue summer sky, Jens Lekman's swooping horns and strings on the deck. I saw the light in the end of the tunnel...and the whole song rotates in midair, counting down through a chorus of changes. Oh, you're so silent, Jens! Maybe I am, maybe I am...(A different song now, ticking along as the shadows stretch across the front room carpet, over the plastic rats and the big yellow letters in the windows).
- posted by cjb @ 6:46 PM