xox, C-Mon + Celso (with apologies to William Holden)
Tag Archive for 'C-Monster'
William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton organize a month-long lab — and I’m part of it. (Image courtesy of Winkleman Gallery.)
Needless to say, the last few months in the art industry have been highly entertaining. There was William Powhida’s Brooklyn Rail cover last November, which picked apart the internecine machinations of a buncha high-powered types at the New Museum. Then, there was the announcement that a major commercial gallerist has been named director of a super mongo museum in L.A., an institution whose obscenely-rich trustees saw fit to spend its endowment into the ground. And then, of course, there’s Jerry Saltz’s Facebook, which is keeping the art establishment’s hairs on end wondering who the heck he’s gonna call a ‘dick’ next. In other words, there’s been a LOT going on. And most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Which means that #CLASS — a think-tank about the art industry — organized by artists Powhida and Jennifer Dalton and hosted by the Winkleman Gallery, couldn’t come at a better time. This special project will turn the city’s artistic gaze from its navel to the art industry through a month-long series of events that will include a raft of insightful happenings: guerrilla gallery tours, frank Q&As with established art dealers, work sessions, panels, beer-drinking, chalkboard-writing, art-shredding, motivational speaking and even art yoga (led by me). In other words, the plan is to terrorize Chelsea for a month. (I’m not positive that this is indeed the plan, but it’s certainly my plan.) The best part: anyone is welcome to be a part of this. And it’s all FREE.
You can find the entire schedule of events at the dedicated #CLASS website. But here is just a taste of what’s to come:
- Sunday, Feb. 21, 4pm: The party gets rolling this weekend, so peel your ass off the couch and get down to Chelsea for the first official #CLASS social. An Xiao will serve as social media paparazzi paparazzo. :-p
- Friday, Feb. 26, 6pm: A session on ‘Bad Curating‘ by Stamatina Gregory and Jovana Stokic. (I believe that attendance is required if you work at the New Museum.)
- Saturday, Feb. 27, 2pm – 6pm: All kinds of juicy stuff is going down on this day, including a guerrilla gallery tour being led by William Powhida and a how-to on collecting by blogbuds James Wagner and Barry Hoggard.
- Sunday, Feb. 28, 5pm: Debbie Ainscoe leads a session in Second Life — from the UK. Nerdarrific!
- Wednesday, March 3, 2pm: ART SHRED is an on-site shredding service that will help artists and other participants liberate themselves of important works of art, meaningful love letters and one-of-a-kind photographs. This session will be led by my partner-in-crime, Celso. If you have something of consequence that you would like to have shredded, e-mail him at celso[at]elcelso[dot]com. Walk-ins welcome.
- Thursday, March 4th, 4pm: A discussion/rant/12-step program about art school and the ivory tower, organized by Sharon L. Butler.
- Friday, March 5, 2pm: Art Yoga with C-Mon: Bow to the Art Industry. Get body and mind ready to navigate the hazards of the art world with a 75 minute yoga class geared at those who want to re-contextualize the nature of liminal space while remaining lithe enough to be considered for possible art/fashion spreads in T Magazine. Class will be led by yours truly, a certified yoga teacher (Om Yoga Center, class of 2003 — seriously). The session will begin with sun salutations to Marina Abramovic and quickly spiral downwards from there. Bring a mat and an open mind. Class capacity 18; first come first serve. Later that same evening, at 6pm, artist Nic Rad will present his ‘Celebritist Manifesto,’ a defense of celebrity culture that will make clear that James Franco is the most important artist of the decade.
- Saturday, March 6, 6pm: Rod Verplanck, a motivational speaker who, among other things, will teach you that “the very smallness of your ideas is the key to wild success.” Sounds like a must-do. (Courtesy of Schroeder Romero.)
- Wednesday, March 10: Again, all kinds of good happenings will occur on this day, including balloon-popping with Man Bartlett, a kindergarten class tour of Chelsea with Jennifer Dalton, a feminist tea party and a merciless ask-the-dealer session with Postmasters gallerist Magda Sawon in which she vows “to truthfully answer any and every question posed to her as long as it does not involve her weight, social security number or other people’s money.”
- Wednesday, March 17, 4pm: Art World as High School. Which class of retainer-wearing nerd are you? Find out with this helpful and informative session.
- Saturday, March 20th: Another full roster on this day, including art gift wrapping with Zoe Sheehan Saldaña, assessing assessments with important-sounding people from Princeton, and a closing-night event that’s all about ranting!!!
There’s much much much much more going on, and it’s all listed HashTagClass, so get over there already. Plus, you can read more about it at Art in America and the Wall Street Journal. Update: And ArtNet!!
Here’s a story you’ll never see on C-Monster. And thank god.
If you’ve been reading C-Mon for the last 24 hours, you know that the L.A. Times just debuted a brand spankin’ new arts and architecture blog called Culture Monster, which needless to say, smarts. In thinking about the whole ridiculous situation this morning, I realised that either one of two things happened:
- The L.A. Times is trying to achieve some measure of blog credibility by coming up with a name that echoes my ridiculous online enterprise. If they were really smart, however, they woulda ripped off the names of blogs who have been doing this way longer and way better than me: AFC, Looking Around, MAN, Art to Go, Winkleman, to name but a few…
- The L.A. Times didn’t know that C-Monster.net existed when they decided it would be a good idea to have an arts blog. Which leads me to believe that finances are so bad at the Times that their reporters don’t have access to the Internet.
In the interest of helping the Times fix this terrible oversight, which I’m sure they will remedy very soon (as in any minute), I’m hoping that everyone can pitch in and help them come up with a new name for their blog. C-Monster.net Rome correspondent San Suzie has already come up with a couple of suggestions:
- LALApalooza
- Culture Impostor
My two cents: anything that doesn’t involve the letter “C” closely followed by the word “Monster.”
Post your ideas in the comments section below. I’ll make sure that my colleagues at the Times hear all about ‘em.
xox, C.
Culture Monster, the L.A. Times’s new blog.
Proving that there’s no such thing as an original idea, the L.A. Times recently debuted an arts and architecture blog called, ahem, Culture Monster. It’s been around for approximately five minutes.
I mean, really, people. I know you’re just hoping to ride C-Monster’s coattails out of dead-tree obscurity, but did you have to be such flagrant biters? I’ve been toiling for more than a year now. I’ve even covered stuff in your home turf. So, don’t even try to tell me that you didn’t know C-Monster.net didn’t exist. Besides, my Statcounter tells me that there’s someone over there at the Times who Googles “C-Monster” on a semi-regular basis and then reads the blog. And I’m sure it’s not the mail guy, because if you’re anything like the rest of print media, corporate has already fired them all.
All I know is that if this isn’t remedied somehow, I’m gonna go all Sarah Palin on your asses. And you guys are gonna be the moose.
xox, C.
Unfortunate discovery made via Modern Art Notes.