11/21/2006

Nigel Cooke

65 comments:

Painter said...

Nigel Cooke
Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 W. 24th St
NYC

Joseph Ferriso said...

A vague map to many emotional conditions. Personal Rosetta Stone.

zipthwung said...

its surrealist automatic writing type stuff. Like it better than the last show. But the surface seemed lame, sort of stucco via a fresco wall at a tapas bar.

zipthwung said...

The agnes martin in back is great if you read into it, which I charitably did. Im so giving.

Sven said...

Havent seen this show in person yet but from this image it looks vaguely dissapointing. He had some real nice watercolors in the back of Andrea Rosen over the summer, which gave me a lot of hope for him, but this just looks like late Sue Williams mixed with Matta, which seems like a step back for him. I hope it looks better in life.

Mark Barry said...

zip, your so sensitive today, is it the holiday of giving?

no-where-man said...

far more engaging in person the brightly washed areas pop.

youth--less said...

like kramer, charlie's over on artnet trying a little penance. very little. as one black guy on tv last night said, the apology needs to be as passionate as the offense...

zipthwung said...

The drawings were stupid. Like you need studies for a fresco. That and they suck formally. Graphite on toothy watercolor paper. It must be some conceptual joke I dont get because I self smarted myself.

Its so phoney. Phone it in. Why bother actually making it? (send cash c/o my unimpeachable intermediary Carl Marx).

Make Concrete poetry. Everybody can. Its ok. Its been done before. Do it now.

Whats more interesting is the surreal automatic writing sort of dealio. Its ritualistic, self revealing and romantic (romance makes you seem human, fellow robots). You can be a svengali or some shit. Like you make a ground of some sort, then that influences what you see - a crack becomes a penis or whatever. Reflected mediterranean water becomes line drawings of reflected mediterranean water. A tea leaf becomes a crystal ball. Sheeps guts become a message from god.
I allways thought that was what painting was good for - whatya call reading the bone fire. Tossing the Yule log. Kookies and Kream for Krampus.

Apparently Agnes Martin read the inside of her own forehead - she had the second sight as far as the market went. The supply and demand chart is off the hook. If you are in finance you owe it to your kids to buy it, if only to explain what it is exactly that you do (take your kid to work day is just going to confuse them with details).

I had a dream I was levitating right into he path of a white (UN) Hummer piloted by arabs or mexicans.

youth--less said...

David Bradbury HÅning is the presumed author of a series of photocopied broadsides that began appearing on lamp-posts all over San Francisco starting in February, 2006.

Haning typically tapes these broadsides to utility poles and lamp posts with duct tape while wearing a white T-shirt inscribed with similar writing. The broadsides have been found in the Mission District, the Financial District, the Haight/Ashbury district, the Marina district, and Civic Center and have been known to change on a daily basis. The hand-written sources for the photocopies are typically written in differently-weighted ink on lined paper.

The themes of the broadsides are of a paranoid/delusional bent, with striking delusions of grandeur (“I imagined everything you know and my faith controls everything”, ”I’m the real Jesus Christ“), a radical philosophical idealism, claims for the miraculous healing properties of HÅning’s blood, and a fierce dislike for the police and the government. Among the characteristic turns-of-phrase are “Blood is the only technology”, “I predicted my whole life”, “Shoot our Blood”, “Hells Ångel”, “The Only News”, “CU-DE-TA” and “One Mind in Hell” (which seems to be how he signs most of his work). Occasionally the anarchy symbol or the logo of the punk band D.R.I. makes an appearance.

The love interest in HÅning’s broadsides is “PiÅ” or occasionally “PiÅHitler”. When her name is used, the “i”s are typically dotted with hearts. He sometimes refers to himself and to PiÅ as “Chief Federal Officer”s, or as King and Queen Crimson.


A picture of David Bradbury Haning (right) alongside D.B.H.- blog-author, Nathan Maas (left).HÅning sometimes requests that his readers stab him, perhaps as a way of verifying his immortality (“You must Stab me. No Sissy Pocket Knives. Use large Kitchen Knife, or anything longer than 3". Warning Don't Stab PiÅ.”). Or it may be to unleash his curative powers ("If you haven't tried to squeal on me I can help you. I cure Osteoperosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Retardation, Aids, Cancer, Any Disease. I get people out of Wheelchairs even replace limbs...Yes, I can give a three legged dog a fourth leg. My blood can even heal Dutch elm Disease. Stab David Bradbury Haning (Osama Bin Laden) The REAL Jesus Christ for Blood").

The broadsides often refer to the C.I.A., King Crimson, Jesus Christ, the Koran, 911 and Hitler. HÅning often writes the capital letter A with a halo around it, much like the logo of the Anaheim Angels.

HÅning may be becoming the latest of San Francisco’s beloved eccentrics, in the tradition of Emperor Norton and Frank Chu.

As of June 21st, 2006, a weblog has been established to archive all of Haning's fliers. Although the blog is not run by Haning himself, the idea and subsequent execution was given the go-ahead by David.

zipthwung said...

SOCIOLOGY

CULTURAL VALUES; NORMS AND SANCTIONS

Many of the rules of our society we abide by subconsciously Wearing clothes, stopping at lights, etc. Why do we "agree' to these rules?

Cultural values = shared assumptions about what is good, right or important What is considered good, right or important in one culture may be considered bad, wrong or unimportant in another.

Cultural values may change over time. In a complex society this may happen relatively quickly.

Med School changed to COPS: women in the workforce, small cars instead of big ones.

Values of Americans?

1) Individual endeavour - the most "respected" are often the money-makers.

2) Education

3) Bigness - homes, businesses building, stadiums, planes, etc.

4) Spatial movement - cover long distances for movies, work, etc.

5) Time - time is money. Computers make things happen in less time. “Get here On time!'

6) Technology - invention/advances are continuous

7) Physical comfort - Lazy-boy chair, work overtime to get more money to make our lives more comfortable

8) Self-improvement - physical, educational (foreign languages, correspondence courses).

zipthwung said...

im going back to college

foodie

zipthwung said...

mash it up

youth--less said...

For n-w-m:

Watching ruffle-shirted fops in Louis XIV wigs and white face powder march through a 99-cent-store parking lot in East Hollywood, scaring the bejezus out of the local street homeless as they go, is just one of the many fun things about Club Dandy. Along with the chance of finding a topless organ player, a live mermaid revue or, if you’re really lucky, Prince Poppycock, a 6-foot-tall singing aristocrat-androgyne in brocade, silk and pantaloons.

When cabaret dancer Kitty Diggins started Club Dandy back in June, she knew the eyes of the dandy community would turn upon her — a daunting prospect to say the least. “There is a large network of people who take dandyism very seriously, and who consider themselves to be dandies every day of their life,” she explains. “They were partly excited, and partly skeptical of a woman running a club that was devoted to the dandy. But I don’t call myself a dandy — I call myself the enabler of the dandy.”


Kitty Diggins wants you to join her club Diggins doesn’t expect everyone to come in haute couture. “All I ask is that people put some effort into having a good time,” she says.

This month’s spaghetti-Western-themed dandy event at Safari Sam’s, “Dandies of the Old West,” features prizes for best handlebar moustache, a performance by psych-rockers Spindrift, and opera tenor Jesse Merlin, star of The Beastly Bombing (now playing at the Steve Allen Theater), who will be singing and telling tales of Oscar Wilde’s visit to America. “The whole idea of the Dandy and the Old West is interesting to me,” says Diggins. “You had these Europeans who came over here and tried to maintain their customs and cultures in a very brutal environment. I am always interested in people who are unique or unusual, but are stuck in a place where they don’t really belong.”

sloth said...

I didn't expect to like these, and at first look I didn't, but they grew on me. He's doing something interesting with very shallow space, & they reveal themselves gradually. They're not FANTASTIC or anything, but they have a slow burn & long finish.

Sven said...

@Painter, if you have time it might be interesting to post the figurative works by Kusama at Robert Miller now.

flesheater99 said...

holy matta!
go go go
go go
go

need more
but good.

zipthwung said...

Fake it till you make it

-Lacan

The varnish on these bugged me too - i prefer slate and chalk. Stone on stone. The gloss reminded me of urethaned plaster - where you hit the surface with a wash and rub off the xcess to bring out the form. Like a set or a prop or a casino foyer or like I said, a tapas bar. hey senior, give me a marguerita and dont be stingy with the cointreau. Id like an authentic mexican umbrella nd a lime skewered witha plastic saber too. Give me three limes on the side. Oh, and more chips.

poppy said...

wonder if painter knows the size and support medium etc... can she post? or too much trouble at times.. could be.
sometimes its good to know..
thought oil on canvas first...
before enlarging the thumb nail it looks somewhat metallic...
also reminds me of that technique in photoshop where you take a line drawing apply a filter and get this almost.. insert a layer of translucent color somewhere and you could have this..
this doesn't look unconscious to me...
well the look but not the process..

jpegCritic said...

(lacan to wahl): Look, the main thing is that I don't come a cropper!

jpegCritic said...

does that make me a bad jedi?
-Lacan

Sven said...

I think the Bleckner comparison is valid, evident quite away in the shines and sheen of his highlights. That nice sheen that one can achieve working this way seems to be a little too easily seductive, and that is what turned me off a ittle in this show; at times the means somewhat outwieghed the ends for me. Bleckner can have the same problem, but with him I mind it less, as his impulses perhaps seems a litlle more heartfelt.

zipthwung said...

were going to rock on down to electric avenue and then were going to go all abstract.
Never can get to the one, said Paramenides, out in the streets, out in the playground.
Art is the shape of thought, not communication but a medium for communication, a way of the way. Tao, if you will. meta if you must. But thats just a word, bird. Flowing downward like water but not electricity but not water but electricity. Ontologicly speaking a web, but meaningless. Of what do I speak? I dont know, but I am speaking. Thats the message.
Likeness, muchness, guiltless, rebellion. These are qualities, with varying degrees of abstraction or "meta," as you say. I say. You plural, me unity.

Musk, music, masks. We all wear them like badges. Under our armpits, on or in our chests.
Breathing is easy if you know how. I do, do you? I order you to breathe my soporific now you recalcitrant metonym.

Flow is where you go. then you edit. i dont edit because i
dont
know.

im a motormouth, a machine, a hallucination, a fever and a theme. Tone. Ring. bell. Done. Dong. The london bells are ringing, brother. St. Francis chardonnay is tres jolie pour moi et non plus cher diner.
Murrays Cheese. Fiduccos meats. Astors Wines. Treats!


Is art its own punchline? An army of one?

Emotions are a dime a dozen. Theres nothing new under the sun. All that glitters is not gold. I get more sublime feeling out of a glass of wine than most art. That makes me an epicurian. Appolonian.

But art is not a feeling. art is medicine for the soul! A purgative, salve and palliative! A snake for the plumbing! Oil for the bowels!

We could all be Nazis at the drop of a pin. We could be reflecting pools for sin. one inch wishing wells.

The gallery system is a model concentration camp, a hairshirt to be worn by window shopping, should one choose. many do, and get nothing but a painfull rub down. No happy ending just ersatz absolution.

Whos inner Mowgli will be unlased, ferile, like the new moon? Life is banal, and so too are taboos.

Life is stupid brutish and short.
-Larry Gagosian.

no-where-man said...

it is quite a bold move.

"Dead Painter"
November 10 - December 9, 2006

Ill/Health, 2006
Oil on canvas
86.73 x 145.83 x 2.8 inches
(220.3 x 370.4 x 7.1 cm)
ARG# CON2006-014

zipthwung said...

I just read the statement (1:30p.m. EST). Apparently He's a genius. Im glad they feel that way, because that reflects well on paintersnyc. Rock of ages man, Im into this social contract thing, too. I was reading and, apparently, whats good for the goose is good for the gambol.

Ignorance is strength.
Happy Gristle.

zipthwung said...

Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: Then what do they call it?
Vincent: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.

Im going to go get some fucking gourmet coffee.

poppy said...

what is wrong with the andrea rosen gallery site... me screen isn't wide enough for it...
yes bold move for nigel
i would like to see these in person

Sven said...

I thought this show was decent, I liked the one by the entrance best, and have kept up with NIgel's work out of real interest. But why do you guys feel this show is bold?

no-where-man said...

with in the context of Nigel's personal vinacular - growing a great deal yet maintaining a vantage point.

Sven said...

I buy that, yet somehow I find this easier to pin down than the previous work.

poppy said...

a bold break, to switch it up with such success of previous? he is successful right? yes, he must be...

no-where-man said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
no-where-man said...

well it works perfect in the field of graff..

Sven said...

he also has a show up at MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FORT WORTH.

no-where-man said...

i mantain that it has a sense of internal logic si good

Anonymous said...

Ok, gentle spam...

Zip says... Emotions are a dime a dozen

A.C.T.U.A.L.L.Y,
they're a dime and a half--you pull your hair out trying to make two.

You could look at Cooke's stuff all day. Intriguing!
I liked the earlier stuff, and starting to like this too. Any more images of the stuff up at AR's?
三角形

zipthwung said...

who shall cast the first stone?

Probably I did. THats the punishment. See Shirley Jackson's "the lottery" thats the way the world ends - with a malthusian nightmare, not with some sort of class on drawing for modern anthropology.

This IS a bold move, one that catapults Nigel into the realm of Ozzymandian contemplation. Look ye uppon these works and despair, indeed.

I trashed Alexis Rockman for being a populist poseur puff pastry socialite - who propagates my inner despair - by contrasting his images with David Macaullay, who doesnt have any museum pretentions but who would be at home in a hot sheets gallery if he included something like "valorizes the worker in his hybrid books"

"Why did Rockman reject the opportunity to uplift people's spirits? He explains, "I noticed there was a niche available for paintings that concern ecology. Especially a political image that needs a broad audience. This is a populist project. I want people from different demographics to be aware of global warming."

In a way this ties into that whole "making the old new" by "making strange" sacredness through ritual. SOmething borrowed, something blue.

Nigel is missing the cave people - thats your job - just show up with some hey.


ooga booga.
Nacirema anyone?

Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanish-influenced cultures, "face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacirema society.

I like the gallery showing laquered shinto shrines or liquor cabinets, I cant tell, but Chelsea looks like SOHO more n more.

zipthwung said...

sensible train spotting

Anonymous said...

In the Bay of Hong Kong to this day there are junks. The support life! They are a very important part of the Hong Kong island.
Now Hong Kong is not so different to the different parts of the globe: The globe is supported by junks. Junks is the plural of junk. Junk in our society referred to a thing, to things, that don't last. Back in the 60's junk electronics came from Japan. They lasted!
Now junk end-product technology doesn't exist unless it's made in the U.S of A, or Australia, or Canada. That's why the 'WE' who are frightened by post junk junks, who deliver junk, are very strict with places and wages including those whose islands support junks!
Funnily those who support junk grow strong: JUNK is for everyone, and supports us all>

After-all, junk lasts forever, which I'm quite comfortable with, AS A SMELL!

Perhaps Nigel is Nigel on this!

Anonymous said...

It's a pleasure to visit this site!
Congratulations

zipthwung said...

Welcom amigo!

Toledo Steel

This interweb community stuff is great. Im enjoying the new transparency, and the the new sincerity. Thats just the way my boat floats, as they say in Norway.

Fjords!

no-where-man said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
no-where-man said...

here r a few pics from opening



no-where-man said...

humm that didn't work.. lets try that one more time....

NC1

NC2


NC3

Anonymous said...

thanks NWM

zipthwung said...

I can almost see some detail.

zipthwung said...

I mena besides the detail.

zipthwung said...

I tried doing some interpretation in an anthropolo9gy class and I was told I was flip. But if you are an authority itys ok:

"Finally, there is speculation that the rock represents early money, or even more speculatively a primitive form of banking. It has been pointed out that a credit card slips neatly into the deep groove, suggesting an early form of merchant identification or approval.


here

youth--less said...

that was a great thanksgiving

zipthwung said...

tastycakes are better than krispy kremes, because krispy kremes are overpriced, small, and inferior to the real donut. KKs are for chicks who want to eat donuts but donut have the guts to purge. I know I did. it was the water, not the wafer thin dinner mint.
I thought of sending my puke to the AIDS children of Sudan. I do have a heart.

Il brilgue: les toves lubricilleux
Se gyrent en vrillant dans le guave.
Enmimes sont gougebosqueux
Et le momerade horsegrave.

zipthwung said...

“I really got slaughtered,” he said. “When you show the real chaos, people cannot take it. If you try to show how we are bombarded by things, everyone says that’s too much information.”

here

Ah chaos theory, its so awesome. Total infomation overload - thats the future. Deal with it or get off the fucking porch.

youth--less said...

marginalia is the message

Anonymous said...

Arshile...my beloved...the yellow..snug snug...the yellow...I will place it....HERE.

Anonymous said...

Zipthwung....ohhh Zipthwung.

youth--less said...

One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrent of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

zipthwung said...

Ad lib bibles babble canonicly trilling; Line!

Oh!
Donder und Kunstwollen
Unausprechlichen blitzen!
Cupid is stupid and Love is snow blind!

Air conditioned nightmares Four abreast,
each anarchy branded best!
Chicken livers indian givers do da doo da doo dah day!
Store bought indians play their clay pipe fuges:

row row row your stream merrily merrily; boat.
Mice blinded by their tails!

Smell my feet!
its a trick?
No, its a treat!

red roost hood boost
Wolfs at the door
Huff Puff
Blow me.
Thick brick.
Pull Tull google goggles.

Burn!

Wicker is cut to the quick tock!

Spring has come in,
Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
Seeds grow and meadows bloom
And the forest springs anew,
Sing, Cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf.
The bullock jumps, the billy-goat farts,
Merrily sing, Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo, well you sing, cuckoo;
Nor cease you ever now,
Sing cuckoo now. Sing, Cuckoo.
Sing Cuckoo. Sing cuckoo now!

zipthwung said...

yeah, blowin up the outtside world, one dinner mint at a time.

zipthwung said...

Roughin' it in the great outdoors
Guidebooks tell us where to go
Winnebago Warrior

Slow down traffic climbing hills
30 gallons to the mile
Honey, quick, the polaroid

[Chorus]
Winnebago Warrior
Brave as old John Wayne
Winnebago Warrior
A true yankee pioneer

Stop at Stuckey's for a meal
Blab all day on the CB
Winnebago Warrior

Littered campgrounds, folding chairs
Feed Doritos to the bears
Honey, quick, the polaroid

[Chorus]

Kill some fish down by the creek
Hang their picture by the sink
Show your grandson who's the boss

Tie your two toat-goats to the front
U-Haul trailer full of souvenirs
That you buy along the way

zipthwung said...

No man, its like Currin =Demoiselles d'avginon meets transparent sincere recherche. Where DO you get your IDEAS from J.C.? Are you the son of a carpenter? Indeed.

And THis is also like some sort of temporal time warp where "cave" + "painting" is the trend du jour.
Like a New Yorker Cartoon chestnut about modern art. Some cave peopel standing in front of a pollock and talking about the hunt for meaningfull food. Sacred medicine brah. I know you know, you know?

I mistook Plato's cave for the light. Face forward and all you see is reality.

Tense and nervous, cant relax, But Im clawing my way out cuz NO JAIL CAN HOLD ME.

zipthwung said...

is the inscription on my shelf, you know, the one in the crypt.

zipthwung said...

My blood is tobacco and alcohol, sorry Nigel.

Blood from a Turnip

French researchers have figured out how to splice human genes into tobacco plants, which could lead to the plants’ producing human hemoglobin. “We hope such transgenic plants will in the future provide an inexpensive and uncontaminated source of a variety of human proteins,” lead researcher Michael Marden said. (UPI)

zipthwung said...

de la smo0000oth

Anonymous said...

The battle lines are drawn.

ad3pt said...

saw the show. didnt do much for me. I gave the work some time too. I actually saw agnes martins name on the wall and proceeded to the back gallery. maybe i didn't give them enough time.

just seems like his well is empty and he's reaching for something. like theres nothing left for him to do except make these images. i don't know. it seems to me that theres a lot more doubt in these paintings than should be alloted for with someone who supposedly is showing with a blue chipper. i mean, im down for doubt, its a part of the game. but hell man, you get your show in the big time, and you do your thing, but then your next show is a complete digression? im not buyin it amd cant back it.

zipthwung said...

NOn sequitur or tangent is not a bad strategy, nor can I fathom a mentality that requires the hobgoblin of mediocre minds, consistency, if I were me I would paint differently, but chicks dig michaelangelo, dont you know.
What about the Snow white and the seven dwarves fairie tale thingamabob? I saw the lady that lives in a brain, some trolls turned to stoen and as was mentioned abouve, the hamburglar. I think its wish fulfillment or something. Fantasy allows you to escape the symbolic fast food numbers.