Does it make sense to speak of free markets at all, when so many public and private institutions have a role in shaping what art, careers, and exhibitions? Does it matter that artists mostly never share the benefits?

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La Tomatina, Buñol (Valencia)

The sunny Mediterranean city of Valencia in Spain is world-renowned for its tasty and succulent oranges. And just thirty miles away is Buñol, another town just as famous for its produce. But its notoriety comes from the locals' habit of wearing the produce as well as tasting it: every year, Buñol hosts La Tomatina, the world's largest tomato fight. Situated only 30 kilometers inland from the Mediterranean Sea, and well-connected by motorway and rail to Madrid and Valencia, this charming town erupts into a fiery blaze of tomato-hurling on the last Wednesday of every August.

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"The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain....

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The 2009 winner of Europe's most valuable art award, the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, is the American artist Vija Celmins.

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An update on one of my newest paintings.

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Brandi Homan is the author of Hard Reds (Shearsman Books, 2008), and Two Kinds of Arson, a chapbook from dancing girl press. She is editor-in-chief of Switchback Books.

Poem in Which I Am My Own Porn Star

Most days I just want to live
in a Crate & Barrel catalog.
I can't stop watching Law & Order.

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One of those morph things, but it works beautifully with the art. I am feeling pensive and somber due to the nearness of too much death. This fits.

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Does President Bush simply affect the image of a thuggish ignoramus, who has wasted over a million lives, nearly bankrupted our economy, made our relationships with other governments sour, while continually threatening our ecosystem,.......or is he the most significant American Artist of the 21st Century?

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Brian Sherwin, artist and art blogger has interviewed me, the EuroShark for his website, myartspace>blog. Sherwin, originally from Illinois and now living in California, has conducted and published a series of interviews with visual artists including William T. Wiley and others. You can read his piece with me here.

Also new --- a short video interview with me in German on youtube here.

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"All modern art begins to appear comprehensible. . . when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world," José Ortega y Gasset wrote in The Dehumanization of Art, adding that "Europe is entering upon an era of youthfulness."(1)

This was written over three-quarters of a century ago. A century before that, in the "Squibs" section of his Intimate Journals, Baudelaire wrote that "nowadays. . . youth itself is a priesthood -- at least according to the young."(2) The cult of youth, even of childhood -- what might be called the regressive search for the original freshness of being, for the innocent spontaneity and playfulness of the child -- is a constant of the avant-garde outlook.

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All text from The Center for Biological Diversity A relative of the Greater Roadrunner, the Yellow-billed cuckoo is also called the Raincrow or Stormcrow because its call heralds the coming of summer rains....

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Hadara Bar-Nadav's book of poetry A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (MARGIE IntuiT House, 2007) was chosen by Kim Addonizio as the winner of the 2005 MARGIE Book Prize. Recent publications appear or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Chelsea, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, The Journal, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, Verse, and other journals. Born in New York, she currently is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She lives in Kansas City, MO with her husband, the furniture designer Scott George Beattie.

Loosening the House

The typewriter is feminine in French.
I grow larger every day.

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A Bad at Sports Basel Art Fair Overdose!

The intro and outro are extra creepy this week. Highlights(?) include Duncan talking about some fantasy involving wearing tight short shorts and Teena McClelland!!! Tom Burtonwood interrupts the recording by shooting rubber bands. Chaos!

After Richard and Duncan are done making a mess of things, the real pros come in and present a fantastic report from Basel.

Lamis El Farra, emerging artist, and the EuroShark Mark Staff Brandl, seemingly perennially emerging black sheep artist, traverse and discuss the entirety of the King of Art Fairs, Art Basel. Yes: the Fair Itself, Art Statements, Art Unlimited, Scope, and the Solo Project. They only missed Liste and Print Basel. Sorry, but all the rest was already enough. Of course they were at the VIP opening (ahem) and managed to talk to more people than you can shake a stick at: artists, gallerists, museum directors, curators, critics, art magazine editors, fair organizers, all the hangers-on, ...er..., important elements of the international artworld.

Link to the podcast on BaS.

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