I went to Chelsea this week - didn't particularly want to, but what the hell. I saw a slew of shows and even ran into Donald Sultan who was checking out his piece in the BortolamiDayan gallery (the picture on the left is not from the other day - I just thought Sultan looked happy in this picture). The show is about the POMO minimal materialism that flourished in the late 80s and early 90s. Installed in a white minimal barn, interior designer-ie, black and grayish sort of work very much of its mercifully brief moment. To my eye it looks like someone tried to clean up Arte Povera for the equestrian set. Somehow though, Sultan's work doesn't fit in with this aesthetic. He was always about a certain kind of bourgeois pop pictorialism mixed in with a workmans' materialism - lineoleum and rubber. The other works in the show are distinctly about the materials, but in Sultan's work you can still see the poppies. The web page for this show looks surprisingly like a catalogue from the West Elm furniture company that I used to get in the mail. In fact the show kinda reminds me of the West Elm designer aesthetic. When art is presented in a way that makes it look like a home furnishings store it's time for a gut check. Spooky.

Roberta Smith gives a nice review for a show at Feuer Gallery. It looked like a combination of Cindy Sherman and Oliver Herring. These, however, have that quick, collaged, not so great, put it out there sort of look that defines the ZFExperience. I think Roberta finally owns it. We've said it here long ago - there is a definite look to the art at Feuer, and she describes the "it" in the context of his gallery program. Hey, I think it's great that a gallery has an idea of what it's about. You're gonna know going in what you're going to get. But how many Dana Schutzes do we really need?

Henry Darger's influence is HUGE in the art world at the moment. From paintings to photographs to installations to sculptures - everywhere you look there is that faux outsider hipster work detailing the warped/child aesthetic. It's like Leo Bloom in the Producers - "my blue blanket...where's my blue blanket...gimmegimmegimme." Or if you prefer it's like Western manga, and it is spun out from a generation raised on Cinemax fakeporn and Pokemon - cute little masterbators one and all. I want to jump out a window when this stuff is in the room. The rest of the shows were just a blur. It's summer and they (the art world) are off to the Hamptons for parties, charity events, backroom dealing and fuck all! I am finishing up the new painting and I'll post it soon.