See C

This afternoon we stopped by the Postmasters Gallery on 19th Street to see Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s “I’ll Replace You”, a photography and video exhibit exploring the business of exchanging viewers, artists and critics with themselves (the real McCoys).

I was eager to see this because C is featured in a large composite photo in which Jennifer poses with a number of people who are wearing Kevin’s orange vest and a wig/glasses/stashe combination that mimics his look. (In an adjacent piece, Jennifer is replaced by people who pose with Kevin.)




Can you spot the boy, even as he recreates his pose, albeit in mirror image?



Here he is.



At another gallery we saw this, for which there are no words.

A.G.A.S.T.

Last weekend, we made the trip to industrial Brooklyn to take in this year’s AGAST, (Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour).




We saw some unspeakably bad art but I amused myself with an examination of how the various artists kept their paints and brushes. Some neatly and some not.





C, however, was quite taken with an installation by Melanie Fischer in her workspace. She had fashioned twisty “plants” of green material and set them on the floor, creating an eerie little forest in which one finds a swing. I admire C’s willingness to enter into the enchantment of a stranger’s dreamscape but I wasn’t sure about the functionality of the swing.






We walked by three ladies laughing the day away in the tiny corral in front of their seasonally decorated home. The one in the middle urged me to take their picture. The one in blue wasn’t having it.

resined trash, painted paneling, purple pagodas, new york city art

C drags me to the Chelsea galleries with some regularity. There, I am subjected to much disgusting stuff sheltered under the tolerant umbrella of Art. I don't mind this experience because I have learned that seeing garbage passed off as art can scratch your mind in a good way and help clear your vision. The object is to learn to be the first to laugh at the emperor who has no clothes. Or, to learn to appreciate a thing just because it is pretty or delicious even when it has no depth. These four clips contain some of both.