“All non-EU visitors now must apply for a visa in person, and supply biometric data, electronic fingerprint scans and a digital photograph. The Home Office’s 158-page guideline document also outlines new controls over visitors’ day-to-day activity: visitors must show that they have at least £800 pounds of personal savings, which have been held for at least three months prior to the date of their application.”

What?! £800 amounts to over $1,300 USD. It would be nice if all artists could maintain a little nest egg, just for their own financial security—however, to maintain it for the sole purpose of entering the UK for a residency program or art exhibition seems ridiculous. The rate of exchange is not really favorable for Americans — imagine the challenge for artists from developing countries. There must be away to keep the country safe, without making England seem so Orwellian to its own highly-surveilled citizens and unwelcoming to potential visitors.

Some art organizations are getting organized and have posted a petition aimed at Parliament here.

LA. Traffic.

Just got back from Los Angeles, where I de-installed my work at Tarryn Teresa Gallery. A few notes from my mental scrapbook:

Packing up mailinvoicegetcarsmogged, 2006, plastic and ink on paper, 48 x 66 x 12 inches

Packing tools? I’ll never doubt you again, needle-nose pliers and extension cords! I should expect map pin heads to come clean off by now. I should know better than to rely on the palm sander’s cord. Thankfully, I erred on the side of caution, and it paid off.

NPR and classic rock. Apparently there’s no public radio along the I-5 in Fresno and Merced Counties, or they’re all run by evangelicals. Sans audio books, my substitute of choice was a Bakersfield-based classic rock station. If you could forgive the gratuitous misogyny, you’d discover a playlist spanning Zep, GNR, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Metallica, and Journey. Those bands once inspired repulsion in me, but I think we can all agree now that hair bands made some pretty great pop music. Last week, I heard Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” on an early morning grocery run, and it instilled a good mood that lasted hours. So I’m reclaiming this music from the heshers/burnouts/metalheads/bullies who gave it a bad name in high school, and you’re welcome to join me. For those about to rock…

Charles Burchfield, Glory of Spring, 1950, Watercolor on paper. Collection Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Corning Clark, 1959.6.6. Photo by Gary Mamay. Image source: Hammer Museum

“It seems to me, more than ever, imperative that I somehow get these fantasies into finished concrete form even tho there is not sale for them. How we will live, I do not know.”

Burchfield’s final paintings are really tremendous pictures. Some of them are breathtaking. The show is accompanied by extensive notes which provide welcome keys to the artist’s process, thoughts, doubts and motivations.

Nic Hess’ Hammer Project. Pretty great too. Masking tape drawings, a ton of vinyl decals. The placement of imagery in the space was cheeky and unexpected.

Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis at the Hammer. I always feel the same way after viewing Crumb’s drawings: slightly dirty and tawdry, like I’d stayed at a cheap motel and watched Entertainment Weekly. More of my base self and less of my ideal self. It’s brilliant for Crumb to do a literal interpretation of the first book of the Bible in all its wretched, meaty drama. Of course Crumb can draw like no other, and there’s something vaguely appropriate, like Chick Tracts, to visualize this content in a sensational manner. The curators took pains to point out Crumb’s attempts at historical accuracy in regards to robes and architecture, but his comically zaftig female figures seem excepted from revision.

The historical exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum. I went for the Giant Robot Biennale, but two items from the historical exhibit were like punches to the stomach. First: a small girl’s cape. An internee mother modified a disused Navy peacoat for her daughter. It makes tangible the completely deranged skewing of context (where giving old military coats to forcibly-relocated families is like compassion; where modifying said coat is an act of love and resilience). Second, a massive diorama reified the scope of the internment camp at Manzanar. It was conceived and created by Robert Hasuike, a Mattel Toys model maker. It was effective and, by extrapolation, nightmarish.

Exhibition in Pasadena featuring some high-profile artists from the past 20 years of the institution’s programming. Ambitious show, disappointing reality. Only a few works emerged unscathed from the poor presentation and compromised spaces. I think the less said about this exhibition, the better. So I’ll pose, then, a series of questions:

1. When you’re an artist, and have identified artists you admire who embody rigor, quality, thoughtfulness and professionalism, and you see their work suffer due to poor presentation, how does that make you feel? Do you have similar experiences in your own history so that you can relate to these established artist’s possible regrets? And does this make you hopeful (that you’re not alone) or sad (that even established artists can’t avoid partnerships with presenters who don’t deliver)?

2. Is it the artist’s burden to accept the limitations of a non-commercial presenter? Or is it the artist’s responsibility to push them to expand their capacity and raise the level of exhibition installation and management towards professionalism?

3. When you’re a viewer and your expectations of an exhibition are raised by professionally-produced promotional collateral, who is at fault when the actual show’s installation reads on a lower level of quality, like student-grade?

—
On Whinging. This post is a bit more critical than usual, but I do grapple with these questions and criticisms wholly. I’m invested—I drove all over LA on a beautiful holiday afternoon and selected a a few shows to focus my attention on. I don’t set out to be critical of these shows—I try to keep an open mind and hope to be surprised for the positive.

Happy Halloween!

–Peeked behind the scenes of a down-low James Turrell light installation. Don’t ask where, because I won’t say!

–Experienced Richard Serra’s monumental Band and Sequence steel sculptures at LACMA for the first time, and in near solitude, to boot. I was really grateful to get them both to myself, as the experience was sensory and meditative. I was baffled, though, when I encountered an LED light piece in the corner. It was completely lacking wall text. I knew it was a work because its perimeter was demarcated with vinyl commanding, “Please do not touch,” and when I entered the throw of light, I set off a high-pitched alarm. Yet I’d never known Serra to do light-based work, and I’m sort of keen on these things. A new museum mystery remains unsolved.

–Upstairs at LACMA were a massive Barbara Kruger vinyl installation and a Koons, Warhol and Baldessari group show. The dude show was great, if not especially urgent (in fact, it was scheduled to close a year ago). Still, I hadn’t seen one of Koons’ balloon animals in the flesh in a while, and it was totally and surprisingly effective, accomplishing what I think the provocateur meant to do. That taut, shiny sculpture sort of turned me on. Awkward!

–In the other huge wing was a large survey of Beuys’ multiples. Shows of multiples, esp those tangential to Fluxus, can be wonderfully curio-esque or miserably archival and academic. I’ll admit, my art stamina was no match for the massive scope of this survey. I also had a hard time turning off my preparator brain, noticing the grey-vinyl-on-grey-paint instead of synthesizing the text, and being bothered by the lack of didactic texts in the vitrines. Still, it was cute to see Beuys’ famous sled sculpture, which Stephanie Syjuco is re-creating for 1969, a show at PS1 this fall.

–When you like a gallery, and their shows keep exceeding your expectations, you start to worry about becoming biased. This is what happens to me at Marc Foxx Gallery. I loved the Anne Collier show the last time I was in town, and I loved the group show with Jim Hodges and Frances Stark the preceding visit. This time round, I was slowly but surely impressed with a solo show by Matthew Ronay, who crafts fictionalized juju capes, hoods, staffs and other ritual objects. They’re completely engrossing.

–Joel Kyack’s Knife Shop at Francios Ghebaly’s Kunsthalle LA in Chinatown was pretty great too. It’s a theatrical installation in the vein of low-brow, folky, male juvenile art, but it worked for me because it was hokey but believably dangerous. I mean, there’s a table of dozens of hand-made shanks. Anger at the world seems less pathetic (even if the work is in a ‘pathetic aesthetic’) when the artist has ground metal license plate holder and other bits of metal into long blades. These aren’t Nut N Fancy tactical knives; they’re fetishes of obsession and rage.

–The recession seems to hit Chinatown galleries especially hard, with many shops folding or moving, so it’s fantastic to see an example of rigor over sell-ability in this ‘hood. Rachel Khedoori’s installation at The Box is timely and political, and its visual interest is minimalist but nightmarish. It’s a museum-quality show at a small commercial gallery. Not sure how that happened, but it’s cool.

St Georges flags still up in Essex. I did my bit and ate a hot cross bun.

LOVE IT! Calligraphic letters cut from cardboard. Mason's Yard, London.

The type of British commemorative badges that inspired my Sorted badge.

Love this silver, mirror-finish shop sign using an inline typeface on high gloss black paint. Hot!

I see my future, and there are macaroons in it.

Royal Academy of Arts. On a personal level, this trip has really inspired me to think about what I want in life. And I want to do more travelling.

Underpainting / works in progress by Mediha Ting in her studio near Bow Road, London. She's got a show opening in Manchester this weekend, and one in Shanghai later this summer.

Mixed media on slate by Tom Barnett, from the exhibition, To Paint is to Love Again: Painters from Peckham. Hannah Barry Gallery, London.

Sculptural painting by Edward Wallace of stretched, striped lycra, also at Hannah Barry.

Tala Madani's paintings at Saatchi Gallery, South Kensington, were pretty great. I saw them in NYC before, and still don't really get them, but I sorta like them.

This neon chandelier made from glass and rapid-prototyped hardware, at the Taschen shop in South Kensington. Brilliant art, brilliant curation!

Really, nothing beats a fresh, not-too-sweet pear cider over lots of ice on a hot day in London.

Traveller's luck -- finding friends from near and far, like Steph and Maria (Yason too).

No pics, but also great:

Tom Friedman at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Isa Genzken retrospective at Whitechapel.

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Waiting for Godot at the Royal Haymarket Theatre. Brilliant. So witty, so poignant. Delightful existential aches.

Cindy Sherman at Monica Spruth Philomenes Magers. Good and terrifying.

Flowers bloom in a distant field. On the rail from MCR to LDN, journal resting open, collecting my thoughts after three months of living in England.

Last week, the Breathe Residency concluded. I de-installed the works from the Open Studio, packed my bags, boarded a train for a weekend in London, and cried when I saw the farm fields covered in yellow flowers. It was May; I had been in Manchester for three months. My time was filled with travel, meeting people and so much generosity.

I’ve documented my development as an artist on my website. Read Everyday Ambition, Forays into Optimism and Pessimism.

But the experience was intensely personal and emotional too. I think the most honest way of sharing my post-residency thoughts would be to post a few passages from my journal, below.

Reception at Chinese Arts Centre

Visitors look at my work in the residency studio/gallery.

Last Thursday’s Open Studio reception at the Chinese Arts Centre went great! It was terrifically organized and very well-attended. I appreciated the format: Before the galleries were opened, attendees gathered round in the shop, where Sally Lai (CAC CEO) and Yink Kwok (CAC curator) introduced myself and Ed Pien, the fantastic installation artist whose solo show is now on in CAC’s gallery. We both had a chance to speak and invite guests to ask us questions, which I think really helped people engage me, my work, and the organization. It’s a smart format.

Detail from a series of drawings on display at the Open Studio. Christine Wong Yap, 2009, glitter pen on gridded A4 paper. Text: Happiness, pleasure, absence of displeasure, satisfaction. Inspired by Paul Martin, Sex, Death and Chocolate: The Science of Pleasure, 2008.

CAC did a bang-on job, making the galleries look fantastic, and hosting a wonderful party. There was a post-reception gathering at Apotheca, the gorgeous lounge/bar across the street. Apotheca has demonstrated generous support for CAC and other local art events; it’s really great to see a private business so involved in the local community.

My Sorted badges for sale at the CAC front desk, with a special reception offer.

I had heard that Chinese Arts Centre’s known for putting on strong previews, and this one did not disappoint. The turnout was amazing (interestingly, many people were not fashionably late — maybe 50 people arrived within the first half hour? But the flow of people throughout the evening seemed continuous). It was also really nice that some of the local MA students stopped by, even though the closing of their show at the Triangle was concurrent. I felt really happy to hear Stephen Ashdown’s comment about my commemorative badge:

SORTED is a first-rate emblem of Manchester pride!

Ed Pien Lecture at Whitworth Gallery

Ed Pien presents a slide lecture at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

Ed’s show at CAC is a finely tuned installation of netting, video, sound and mirrors. It’s dark, kinetic, immersive, and deeply affective. Ed talked about his work in a Tuesday Talk at the Whitworth and I really enjoyed hearing about his arc — his past drawings, paper cuts and installations seem to truly lead to his current installation.

I especially enjoyed hearing about an installation comprised of dozens of two-layer drawings of ghosts: the top layer was on a lightweight, semi-transparent paper, which floated upward revealing the lower layer when viewers triggered a motion sensor. Brilliant!

Dinner at Islington Mill

Islington Mill is super cool. I knew it as a building converted to artists’ studios, rehearsal space for bands like The Ting Tings, the site of an experimental art academy, free library, gallery and performance venue. If that’s not enough the proprietors, Bill and Maury, are starting a B&B. And, if that too is not enough, they’re also starting a series of artists’ dinners, in which artists or curators create an art and dining experience for about 25 people.

Ed and Johannes' dinner at Islington Mill

Ed Pien and Johannes Zits served an artists’ meal last night. I helped out because cooking is rad: teamwork, collaboration, being in the zone, etc. Ed and Johannes presented a carefully crafted menu that was in dialogue with a series of videos of their past performance work. For example, the salad’s baked goat cheese mirrored the moon in Ed’s animation of dancing silhouettes. The Greek goat stew went along with Johannes’ performance with a goat. The food was very high quality, and the artists, arts presenters and arts supporters in attendance made a beautiful cross-section of the Manchester arts scene. It was all sort of made possible with the hard work and vision of Bill and Maury (Maury’s out of town so Bill had to do everything from setting up tables to mounting the projector to serving the beer and making coffee.). These guys are the indefatigable cornerstones of the community here — I really admire that they can achieve so much, and still seem like friendly, relaxed people to boot.

I felt really privileged to be part of it — to squeeze in this happy experience before I left, and to feel like there’s so much more potential collaboration and goodness here that I have to come back.