Read Part I here.

Read Part II here

Here is a note on the Fifth Floor Mezzanine Biennial subshow, “Down by Law“: Yeah, yeah, America (oh yeah, Amerika with a ‘k’) is a terrible dark place of torture, etc. Tell me something new, enlighten me. One piece that really deserves attention, though, is Kerry Tribe’s video of transferred 16mm film, “Untitled (Potential Terrorists).” Riffing on Warhol’s screen tests, she has ordinary folk (actually actors who responded to a casting call) staring into her lens, revealing faces that are more typical of America than those who ran through the Factory. This was a particularly subtle and beautiful portrait of potential: that any one of these people could be a headline or a mug shot some day reminds us that no one is entirely immune from their shadow.

Another highlight is a cool little illustration by Fred Tomaselli, titled, “Self-Portrait,” which presents a constellation of all the bands he has seen (including the Minutemen!).

The show, curated by The Wrong Gallery, is very cluttered, which is fitting since it mimics the small, paranoid feeling one gets while absorbed by fear. I guess I’m tired of feeling crappy about the world.

“Day for Night,” Whitney’s Biennial, is now available for scrutiny.

Unfortunately I saw the show in reverse, starting at the first floor and moving up, which is like starting in hell as opposed to getting there last (I suppose that actually is easier on the stomach, but sadly it didn’t work out that way because I had an art allergy attack instead). Anyhow, within five minuets I formulated a little haiku in my mind that is really a fake haiku, but I wanted it to be a haiku because that sounds smart. Then I thought, this haiku is really going to mess with search engines, so now I’m thinking this is the “Mindpuck the Search Engines Haiku Based on the First Five Minutes of the Last Floor First at the Whitney Biennale”:

death
sex
Satanism
bestiality
quite boring

Then I encountered puppet psychedelia in the installation by DTAOT: Combine, “Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty, All Over Again,” and things got more interesting (especially for search engines). My initial haiku assesment, thankfully, was wrong. Instead, I decided there is a new art movement afoot and am coining the term for the first time ever: dadadelica (quick search on Google reveals no other mentions in the netverse).

We can start by saying what dadadelica is not: no clowns or macramé. Instead it’s a kind of absurd liminal space, a transition zone of the real with the unreal, becoming the “hybridreal” (this is not a typo of hyperreal). I shall explain: if you have ever lived in southern California you will know that metropolitan LA (“metrocenter”) is ringed by desert burbs and of course desert, then prisons and military bases and then Mexico and beyond (keeping in mind of course that “Mexico” is a transient fact and is more a fluctuating wave pattern than political boundary). These various outer layers can be thought of as like the rings of Dante’s hell. And of course Hollywood is at the center (and very bottom) of this hell. But the outer rings are transition zones of information that flicker like datafire on the distant horizon. Here you will find various elements warping in and out of reality (and attention), such as aliens: terrestrial and others (use your imagination).

FYI, the primary sponsor of the Biennale is the pleasant sounding Altria, AKA tobacco giant and dispenser of evil, Philip Morris. Just for fun, someone should complain to Altria about the exhibit’s short film ” Gore Vidal’s Caligula,” which depicts all kinds of contemporary taboos any good ol’ boy would deem, well, take my word for it. Just a thought to stir the pot a little to get tobacco companies out of the art world.

To be continued….

(I will post in snippets in various succeeding sub-posts as ideas emerge).