Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Art Basel Miami 2012

Let’s begin with the facts. This year’s 12^th annual installment of Art Basel Miami Beach featured 257 exhibitors (excluding publications, institutions, or bookstores). This means 257 booths spanning the floor of the approximately 500,000 square foot bottom floor of the Miami Beach Convention Center. If you walk all eight north-to-south aisles (one way), you will canvas a little over two miles of carpeted ground. This does not include the shorter east-to-west aisles (of which there are six), or offsite partnering venues (of which there are three). Add to the mix the record attendance numbers (50,000 visitors) over a short period of time (four days) at the pricey cost of participation ($35,000 on average), and you have a bona fide contemporary art circus. At $42 a ticket, the show better be worth the cost of admission.

Photo by Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images

Needless to say, the costs associated with exhibiting in one such fair are astronomical. Beyond the cost of the booth itself (which runs $52 per square foot in the fair’s main section), a gallerist must consider packing, shipping, flights, meals, staff hotel accommodations, promotional expenses, possible furniture rental, client entertaining, and the omnipresent “unanticipated expense.” Need an extra light bulb in the booth? That’ll be $150 each. Lunch for the staff of four? $96 a day. Needless to say, the pressure to (at a minimum) break even on the expenses of participating in the headlining mega-fair oftentimes results in high-ticket inventory from high-ticket artists, leaving little room for the mid-career, emerging, or unknown set. So when a gallerist decides to feature the atypical – potentially, unsaleable – artists of his/her program, it can often be considered a bold, magnanimous statement. Moreover, to hold the attention of a collector is challenging enough when sensory overload is a fated plague, but to also attempt to capture their focus through an unorthodox sensory faculty requires certain panache. Enter: sound and video art; the conceptual, disenfranchised cousins of Basel’s long running triple feature, starring Koons, Murakami, and Warhol. This is not to say that presenting sound and video art at a venue like Art Basel Miami Beach is easily done, or even encouraged, by participating dealers. All signs typically point to “easily overlooked,” especially when competing with more commercially digestible works like the colossal Roy Lichtenstein in Gagosian’s booth, or the hustled parade of hip hop moguls weaving through the masses. However, a select few of these ambitious projects managed to cut through the white noise of the fair’s inner murmur, and conduct an alluring opus for the observant few.

Video Still, Courtesy of LeapLeapLeap Magazine

Shanghart Gallery’s (Shanghai, Beijing) presentation of Zhang Ding’s “Buddha Jumps over the Wall” (2012) offers a two-minute video tucked behind several lengthy tables of red-stained plaster fragments, as if the removal of a body cast has gone horribly awry. Set to an incongruously elegant soundtrack of soft classical music, the video’s explosive gunshots lure the viewer in to a staged annihilation of white plaster animals. Filled with red paint, the bleached creatures in the video are disturbingly-yet-gracefully pierced and dismembered, the illusion of blood flowing from their figures causing simultaneous agitation and intrigue. The push/pull revulsion and curiosity evokes the kind of tension associated with romanticized reality, as we dissect the parts we long to keep and discard those less appealing – precise like a butcher in his shop.

Courtesy Galeria Laura Marsiaj

Galeria Laura Marsiaj (Rio de Janeiro) transformed their booth into a sand-filled dune for the installation, sound, and video-based work of Paulo Vivacqua, “Desert” (2012). Projected upon the back wall are the summits of a tawny mountain ridge against a slate sky – unspecific to any one region. Buried in the sand are several glass columns – in which audio channels and speakers are housed – that emit ambient, meditative sounds. Wind rushing, cicadas hissing, and voices whispering meld into a hypnotic sibilance, and are carefully interwoven with the artist’s own atmospheric compositions. Meant to represent the lapse of a full day within eight minutes, the installation is haunting and tranquil – a nod to the lost repose in our increasingly harried lives.

Courtesy Krome Gallery

Just around the corner, Raebervon Stenglin (Zurich) presents a solo booth of paintings and sound by Ivan Seal. Painted from memory, his still lifes appear evocatively disjointed – and are accompanied by a matte black boom box resting on the floor. Much like the spacing of his works on the walls, Seal’s irregular beats hiss from the speakers like a misfiring audiocassette. Though acting as the wholly recalled memory of one painting’s subject in particular, the abstracted autobiographical track emits a guttural, throbbing pulse every few seconds, preventing the viewer from having a singular sensory experience through its comical diversions. The cadence of the work mimics the meter of Seal’s erratic reverberations – imprecise, authentic, and constantly shuffled, as no two viewings will ever be the same.

Courtesy Cherry & Martin

“Stars Stairs Ptemkin Exorcism” (2012) by T. Kelly Mason absorbs much of Cherry & Martin’s (Los Angeles) booth. Like a makeshift abode born of speedrails and packing blankets, the environmental installation consists of two darkened enclaves – both of which are illuminated only by lightboxes. Like stained glass windows, they depict a starry night sky and a dimly lit staircase – false vistas narrated by hushed voices, footsteps, and musical snippets emitting from the speakers overhead. As the title suggests, the installation bespeaks the shoddy illusions of a Potemkin village, and the expelling of our disenchantment – Mason’s eerie din further recalling the incessant thrumming we endure throughout our days. Not the least of which resonates throughout these vast halls in Miami Beach. Will you stop to listen?

KATSU ISHIDA, BUDDA, mixed media on handmade paper, 2011 72 x 60cm

At Aqua Art Miami, Japanese artist Katsu Ishida‘s primarily black and white drawings on paper were filled with tiny faces, reminding me of writhing souls in hell piled up on each other. Ishida told me that he makes all his paper and brushes himself, and the forms are dictated by the materials; he sees faces in the paper.

Richard Nesley, Untitled.

Later in the day at the same fair, Haitian art collectors Spiralis Ventures presented works associated with the Center for Art in Port-au-Prince, the only art school in Haiti, and the Saint Soleil style. Richard Nesley’s river-like intertwined humans conjure up spirits, connected with animals in a mesh of existence. Richard is the son of Antilhome, one of the leading Saint Soleil painters.  Jean-Daniel Lafont, ambassador of Spiralis Ventures, explains this painting as a mother tree or mother nature, saying: “The multiple spirits that inhabit earth both on the inside and the outside are shown moving up an down and around the sacred ‘Poto Mitan’ or sacred trunk three. This is where the spirit rest peacefully.”

David Douard, City Sickness, 2012
Ground, metal, motor, straw, toys, rope, plaster, wood, paint, 270 x 100 x 100 cm.

As I continued to think about figuration in contemporary art, two kinetic artists caught my eye in the main convention center. Lacking citizens in a miniature world, David Douard‘s City Sickness show the relics of the human ecosystem and an underworld with ladders to climb the social strata. Squeaking as the object spins, positioned high above the viewer, the piece resembles a game or playground ride.

Jon Kessler, photo by Celie Dailey.

John Kessler‘s strange machines utilized skinny, pale children in a way that addressed concerns about our mediated world its relationship to the human body. His bubble-blowing machine housed a stagnating youngster in a box that is only seen after moving around the sculpture.

Nelson Leirner, photo by Celie Dailey.

A collection of figurines from Nelson Leirner paired husbands and wives of all sorts on a layered platform. Upon closer glance, the male/female dichotomy was not so clear, with angels, soldiers, and apostles pairing up. It reminds me of the kind of games that girls play when imaging their future roles with dolls, but also the fight scenarios that little boys situate.

And finally, I spotted these elegant fine line drawings of hair, mostly views of the back of the head. Shortly after viewing, I found that the work belongs to a beautiful tall person whose gender pronoun preference I would like to have asked. Instead, I asked “why no faces?” to Jono Vaughan. And, I received a reply that these works are about the ambiguity of identity. According to Vaughan, the works allow the viewer to impose their own concept of identity on the art. A highlight of Vaughan’s bio printed in the Art Pages program guide (called “The Triumph of Medocrity”) tells of a previous performance project where Vaughan “invited members of the public to become clones of the artist through hair cutting and makeup application”. An artist, especially in our reflective post-modern world, must deal with identity presentation, heightened by facebook and internet anonymity. It feels nice to stand face-to-face with Vaughan and hear the quality and sincerity of voice.

By Rebekah Drysdale:

Design Miami, Elisa Strozyk & Sebastian Neeb, Miami 2011. Photo by Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images.

At the entry of the Design Miami tent, an impromptu atelier welcomed visitors to the installation performance created by Elisa Strozyk and Sebastian Neeb. Fendi, the Italian luxury fashion house, provided the opportunity for these artists to showcase their work. Fendi also provided the leather that was woven into the 18th century furniture on display.

The simple workspace was surrounded by decorative objects and antique furnishings which the artists had modified using the materials at hand. Strozyk’s sewing machine seemed to be a very early model, reinforcing an awareness of the historic continuity of methods, techniques, and materials in noble crafts. Strozyk and Neeb’s collaboration achieved an elegant, subtle exhibit.

Retna: Wynwood Walls, Miami 2011

Retna‘s distinct, over-sized calligraphy graced numerous surfaces throughout Miami. His mural at Wynwood Walls was poignant and precise. The L.A. artist (real name Marquis Lewis) began painting murals in the mid-1990s and has since had many highly acclaimed gallery exhibitions, most notably his 2010 exhibition at New Image Art.

Visually influenced by writing from around the world, Retna invented his own alphabet. His calligraphy recalls Old English and Arabic scripts, drawn with an oversized brush as if with a nib. The artist encourages viewers to interpret their meaning and clarified in a recent interview, “They all say something.” Retna’s installations transcend the street artist vs. gallery exhibition debate. His imagery and symbolism are eloquent and exacting.

By Carmen Winant:

Across the fairs — though predominantly at Basel and Nada — mirror art loomed large. From Brock Enright at Kate Werble Gallery, Heather Rowe at D’amerlio Terras, Douglas Gordon at Dvir Gallery,  and Sam Durant at Sadie Coles…the list goes on and on. I spoke to one gallerist who believed that mirror art was so popular this year because artist finally caught on that collectors just want to see themselves reflected back. I’m not sure if she was kidding or not, but the speculation is telling. If that is the case, what they saw reflected was strange and fragmented; the mirrors tended to be scratched, burned, painted over, rubbed and otherwise sanded away, obfuscating — and perhaps refusing — a desperate view back onto the spectacle around them.

Silverman Gallery, NADA Miami, 2011

San Francisco’s Silverman Gallery gallery took an unconventional route this year with their booth featuring the work of Hugh Scott-Douglass, Susanne M. Winterling and Christpher Badger. The booth was quiet and strong, not overcrowded . Good thing, because the series of large, blue abstract cyanotypes on muslin, and, elsewhere, delicate cutaways made directly in raw, stretched canvas required some contemplative space. I stayed in the booth for some time, and found the work to be delicately mesmeric, undulating before my eyes.

The entire booth was also considered — a welcome trend, catching on with some galleries this year — as Silverman considered not only the work on the walls, but the ground beneath our feet. The booth’s floor was covered in neat, slightly foamy, white tiles to walk upon. It was three sides of the perfect white cube, and the effect made the booth hard to walk by.

Sandbar Lounge, Miami, 2011

Did you know that you can smoke in bars in Florida? That part was not a highlight, and my eyes are still burning from the smoky experience. However, converging in one place with so many friends (and friends of friends) from near and far was exciting, and could only happen in a place, and event, like this. The drinks where overpriced, the music was pretty bad, and there actually was sand on the floor. But somehow, it was all perfectly fitting with the aesthetic hedonism down here, the total playful, if expensive, abandon of that this place offers its annual visitors. This is my second year in a row here. I loved it, and I think I’m never coming back.

On Saturday in Miami, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov announced the first North American version of their Ship of Tolerance project, taking place in March of 2011 in Florida. The collaborative couple, who currently live and work in Long Island, New York, invite local schoolchildren to contribute drawings that are then sewn together in the formation of a ship’s sail. The seaworthy vessels are at once powerful and poignant. Previous iterations of the project have been completed in Siwa, Egypt; Venice, Italy; and most recently in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Crafted out of bamboo, wood, and cotton, the designs of the vessels have been guided by an ancient aesthetic which “performs and embodies a message of universal goodwill, friendship and hope,”(as stated in a publication by Wolfgang Roth & Partners Fine Art). The Floridian ship is scheduled to launch in the waters of Miami next spring.

Currently on view at Wolfgang Roth in downtown Miami is Someone Under The Carpet, an exhibition of previous works by the Kabakovs, along with textual and video documentation of past projects. In the second floor gallery, the viewer encounters what appears to be a human figure trapped beneath an expanse of carpeting. The trapped figure moves subtly, in a non-threatening but somewhat eerie manner. Adjacent to this installation are simple tables with the artists’ notes and drawings, catalogues of the Kabakovs’ prior works. The library-like settings offer an opportunity for the visitor to become more familiar with the vast oeuvre of this distinguished pair.

Someone Under The Carpet, which opened on December 1st during Art Basel Miami Beach, will act as the initial phase of Miami’s Ship of Tolerance, generating greater awareness of the ongoing project. The exhibition will remain on view until January 15th, 2011.

We continue this week’s coverage with Benjamin Bellas’ review of the experimental projects at SEVEN.

William Lamson. Photo courtesy of the artist.

In the process of trekking from one designated fair to another during Art Basel Miami Beach weekend, one encounters a litany of individuals, vendors, and spaces trying to grab your attention from amongst the morass.  In the Wynwood District situated along the walking path, (for those who hadn’t the patience to wait for the shuttle from Scope to Pulse), was one such space that was the gem of all of Art Basel.

Since 2006, Pierogi Gallery, Hales Gallery and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts have presented a special exhibition during the art fair week in Miami.  This year BravinLee programs, Postmasters, P•P•O•W, and Winkleman galleries have joined the original three in a new 24,000-square-foot space in the Wynwood Art District. Entitled SEVEN, this expanded project looks beyond the art fair model to create an alternative platform for presenting and experiencing contemporary art.   Defined by large installations and collaborative curatorial projects, SEVEN has been conceived to provide an exhibition experience defined by the needs of each artist’s work.  The viewing experience is much more that of a biennial than the one we have grown accustomed to at the traditional art fair.

Amongst the numerous large scale video projections presented within the cavernous exhibition space was William Lamson’s A Line Describing the Sun. An exquisitely documented land art installation/performance whereby Lamson uses a mirror and Fresnel lens, mounted to a wheeled device, to harness the sun’s rays in order to melt the mud of a dry lake bed into glass-like arcing line.  The video, having recently been on exhibit at Pierogi’s Boiler space with a 23-foot scale model of the line created, lacks nothing without it’s sculptural counterpart.

David Herbert, Monarch, 2008. Chicken wire, spray foam, plaster bandages, chrome paint, plywood, hardware, colored paper, steel 8 x 8 x 12 feet. Photo courtesy of the artist.

On the other end of the spectrum, in terms of process and content, was David Herbert’s Monarch.  The work is doubly hilarious in it’s would be life size depiction of The Alien seemingly napping in an over-sized rocking chair while a monarch butterfly lands on its wrist, and in its impressive use of foundation level materials: chicken wire, spray foam, plaster bandages, chrome paint, plywood, hardware, colored paper, steel. Other standout works from a strong field of contenders included Kelly Heaton‘s The Fashionista, and Sam Van Aken‘s, Oh My God.

Asked why they were expanding the effort this year, Pierogi Gallery’s Joe Amrhein replied, “Why not? We are not challenging the ubiquitous tradition of the ‘Art Fair’ but think we can improve upon it, especially in Miami with its unique possibilities. If you feel that most people who visit the fairs really want something that allows for a different, more comprehensive interaction, it shouldn’t surprise you that artists and their dealers feel the same way.”  Now let’s just all hope that the fair organizers feel the same way.

We continue this week’s coverage with John Pyper’s Today, we are all VIP’s.

Julie Mehretu- Bayreuth All photos courtesy John Pyper

It seems most other art journals had an exceedingly different experience than I did in Miami. I don’t have photos of “famous” art people or authentic celebrities to report back with. It may have been my fault, as I didn’t care about going to an island, the various strippers-as-art events, or being tightly packed into small spaces with ivy-league frat boys on the prowl and calling that dancing.

There is a huge outpouring of money to entertain the numerous “+1’s as VIP’s” at these fairs. There were interesting art works all over town but people who wanted to find Will Smith’s “Dominican women with cinnamon tans” had an equal number of options.

Somehow I knew that I’d find that out when I got back. I heard too many people talking about everyone rather than everything. Focusing on who rather than the what seems like an issue that will always be part of art sales. The economics of shame: buying the right thing from the right artist at the right gallery in the right fair, so that everyone sees you doing it. The things surrounding the art should be a secondary issue though, so let’s get back to the art:

Julie Mehretu “Bayreuth” An delicately lined painting of the architectural elements found in the famous opera house. A vivid  explosion from the mundane to the fantastic. Having a real world reference to compare this work to allows for a grounded understanding of how wild her mind really is.

Robert Watts- Addendum to Pop, 1964

Robert Watts “Addendum to Pop, 1964″ 60 patent documents including the word pop in them. This is from the same era as “American Supermarket.” It rings with the comedic spirit of fluxus that I love from this era. It is so obvious how the pop artists were light years past the Greenbergian Abstract Expresionists understanding of what was possible in art.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer- Pulse Index, 2010

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer “Pulse Index, 2010″ Quite the opposite of Watts, but still an archive. A 220x microscope captures your pulse and fingerprint. The 500+ fingerprints recede back into smaller and smaller displays on the monitor like a landscape of individuals who took the time to interact with this installation.

Gregory Euclide- Take it with you. At least my camera's view of it.

Gregory Euclide “Take it with you” Blown out 3-d landscape dioramas. Though everything on the wall was excellent, what enthralled me was that they left one in a crate and you could use your camera to see inside via a small hole. It was like a reverse pin-hole camera that could only be found through technology. This type of playful presentation is one example of how landscape is emerging as a significant subject at the nexus of optics, technology, and subjectivity.

Nic Rad- Taking my Talents to South Beach (Good Night, Cleveland, We Love You)

Nic Rad “Taking my Talents to South Beach (Good Night, Cleveland, We Love You)” This performance at #rank, part of Seven, conflated the Miami Heat’s big three with Jeff Koons’ “Three Ball Total Equilibrium.” Rad voiced the personalities of the three balls in Koon’s sculpture, each expressing something different about the art fair system, being a basketball, talent, potential, and team chemistry. One of the more memorable moments is one basketball explaining the difference between value and money and this quote: “I remember the time that I was proud to be a ready-made.”

*Just for full disclosure: I spoke about criticism during the critic’s round-table at #rank and exhibited a little of my own work.

We continue this week’s coverage with Benjamin Bellas’ review of some of the works on view in Aqua Art Miami.

Megan Whitmarsh. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Concurrent with Art Basel Miami Beach and located nearby the main fair was the Aqua Art Miami contemporary art fair. This year the fair returned to its original location at the Aqua Hotel where its first incarnation was presented in 2005.  Situated firmly in the realm of the “hotel room as gallery” model,  Aqua’s organizers have stated their mission is “to promote innovative programming from the west coast as well as the greater USA and abroad, with a particular interest in young dealers and galleries with strong emerging artist programs.”  This year’s rendition was no different with a heavy emphasis on west coast galleries with a sampling of east cost and Canadian spaces.  As with anything that embraces the terminology “innovative programming” the results of this conglomeration of galleries in this context were mostly uneven.

Among the more accomplished work on view was Megan Whitmarsh’s showing at the San Francisco gallery Michael Rosenthal’s space.  In this assortment of pieces, Whitmarsh is working primarily with embroidery thread and spraypaint on fabric.  In them, Whitmarsh co-mingles large abstractions with small figurative elements to create her colorful and textured canvases.  House plants, bipedal primates, robots, and various individuals dressed ready for the clubs find themselves dwarfed by the geometric abstractions that serve as their stage set.  Whitmarsh focuses her wide net of playful figuration and abstraction by stating:

Lauren DiCioccio, 17JAN10 (reggie bush), 2010. Photo courtesy of the artist.

“I am a child of the 70s whose sense of futurism is informed by Star Wars (fucked-up dusty robots) instead of Tomorrow Land. A future with entropy and drug use and weeds growing in the cracks between the scratched plexiglass windows of the geodesic domes. Bits of yarn and dusty houseplants. If this sounds bleak, I don’t mean for it to. Perhaps the healthiest kind of futurism is one that admits entropy and flux. Perfection is suspicious; worn and dusty can mean well-loved, too.”

Another bright spot happened to be the work by Lauren DiCioccio in the space occupied by Jack Fischer Gallery.  Here DiCioccio embroidered over various pages from the New York Times.  The various colors of threads are left loosely flowing from the imagery that has been stitched over, while showing through the vast empty space of the cotton is the rest of the newspaper page’s original elements.  DiCioccio’s interest in these works of the physical/tangible beauty of commonplace mass-produced media-objects is reinforced to good effect both through her methodology and subject.  Although DiCioccio’s use of  embroidery differs from Whitmarsh’s in approach and effect, the result is no less satisfying.

We continue this week’s coverage with Rebekah Drysdale’s review of Rainbow City.

Art Basel Miami Beach invades the shores of Dade County each December, bringing its legion of satellite fairs, pop up shows, performances, and, of course, parties. The overwhelming amount of activity can create cultural conflict for those who strive to see it all; dissecting the extensive programming is a waste of time. This year, I spent less time perusing the booths at the Convention Center and worrying about which satellite fairs to attend. Instead, I opted to embrace whatever came my way. Traveling with friends helps assuage my own art fair anxieties.

I attended Design Miami/ for the first time, due to its new and imminent presence on the P-Lot of the Miami Beach Convention Center, directly behind Art Basel. As noted by the fair’s acting director, Wava Carpenter, “There’s something magical about placing high quality design in such close proximity to high quality art; it’ll make for a very interesting conversation about the nature, boundaries and overlap between them.” Carpenter’s comment transcends this immediate comparison.

After touring the Design Miami/ tent designed by Moorhead & Moorhead, I took the shuttle downtown, where I encountered FriendsWithYou‘s environmental installation Rainbow City, a idyllic realm of childhood sounds, imagery and attitudes. Inspired by the Hindu festival Holi, Rainbow City consisted of forty inflatable characters, ranging in height from ten to forty feet. Their simple geometric design, pleasing primary palette, and repetitive sonic elements awakened a juvenescent spirit within observers of any age.

It is important to move past analysis of accessibility of these fair(s) in order to enjoy the present experience, for there remains some intrinsic connection amongst it all. As FriendsWithYou states, “Rainbow City invites spectators to participate in a responsive environment, offering an opportunity to connect physically and psychologically with an energetic yet ephemeral setting.” After all, is this not what we are all here to do?

We kick off this week’s coverage with John Pyper’s Fear and Sacrilege in South Beach.

Edgard de Souza Untitled (Mesa Ninho). All photographs courtesy of John Pyper

Sometimes I feel bad for right wing politicians. So much smut in this world and so little time to rail against it. They have to spend their time fighting for tax breaks for the type of people who can afford to buy the offensive art from the secular temple of economic gluttony that is the December art fairs in Miami. The heathen fairs all have their own heretical personalities and yet its easy to glaze over and think that they all look the same. White walls, no ceilings, tired smiles on gallery employees dressed in nice suits wishing they could sit down and eat something.

The mental state that visitors bring to these fairs matters quite a bit. I entered the week thinking about the controversy surrounding the removal of “A Fire in My Belly” by David Wojnarowicz from Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, and it colored my view of what I saw exhibited at the fairs.

Which of these works are offensive enough to be the next banned work? Are there any that the Portrait Gallery should replace Wojnarowicz’s video with? Here is a short list of available candidates that the Catholic League can pick on next:

Edgard de Souza’s untitled sculpture of two tables in physical relations. Is this the hope that Obama voters fell for? Anthropomorphised tables having at it?

Andres Serrano–  Baby Black Jesus. Seems inoffensive and even pretty, but who the hell knows anymore.

Jenny Holzer– These Enhanced Techniques. In the age of Wikileaks, we have to worry about lefty art types leaking classified information?

Wim Delvoye-- Double Helix Crucifix Alternating Current

Wim Delvoye– Double Helix Crucifix Alternating Current or Cement Truck (maquette 1:6) One offends the Christians and one offends good blue collar workers.

Allora & Calzadilla– Petrified Petrol Pump. Gasoline is the life-force of capitalism. Fighting against it is anti-American.

Kris Martin‘s untitled sculpture of a catholic saint holding a burnt cathedral in his hands. This throw away work would probably be fine if a protestant saw it, but the Catholic League would have a kitten.

Li Zhanyang-- The Goat Fucking the Dog

Li Zhanyang– The Goat Fucking the Dog. I’m not sure why the goat and dog are having sex, but they have to be some form of coded meaning against baseball, apple pie, and/or mom.

Mounir Fatmi’s entire existence and body of work. This time he was showing a group of prayer rug collages and skateboards covered with prayer rugs. It’s like cartoons selling cigarettes. It’s a gateway drug to Jihad.

Malia Jensen– Salty. A video of cows licking breast sculptures made of salt? Repugnant liberal media.

Malia Jensen-- Salty

John Waters– Rear Projection. This sick homosexual ruins everything.

Sandow Birk– American Qur’an. I’m sure that the American Qur’an will be an official book for students now that Obama is in the White House.

Al Farrow‘s sculptures of synagogues and mosques made of bullets and guns. This seems to fit the messianic war that the right wing is waiting for in the Middle East.

Michael Scoggins‘ gigantic notebook paper attacks against Christianity. Christianity and Islam are not the same thing and this guy is just starting religious conflict for no reason.

Michael Scoggins

Steve Mumford– Empire. Again, the era of wikileaks.

Spunk & the Orange Kittens‘ installation of a couch and photographs of people have sex on it. Disgusting. Who would buy a couch that has documentation of people having sex on it?

Paul Chan– The Body of Oh Girl (truetype font). It starts with “fuck me Jesus so hard there, yes more keep going…” Is someone calling out to Jesus, or is Jesus doing the fucking? It’s hard to tell, and luckily this wasn’t for sale.