Orange Crush is now available

February 7, 2010 11:18 AM

Dear Sharks, the new book from Sarabande is now available! Graced with a painting by Yves Tanguy.

You can order here

Read poems from it here and here

"A sweet fever of a voice lures us into pictures of bone bonnets, whip stripes and dead girls. These poems freeze time. Simone pulls absolute beauty and light from these dark moments. I'm in and hooked."--Tim Rutili of Califone

Portrait of my Mom

Posted by Ursula Sokolowska

January 23, 2010 6:17 PM

Alicja Czuchajowska, Woodridge, IL, 2009

Altermodernism, etc.

Posted by Mark Staff Brandl

January 19, 2010 1:44 PM

In my opinion, 'Altermodernism', like Nicolas Bourriaud's other word coinage, 'Relational Aesthetics,' sounds great, but is, when elucidated, too much of a collage of ideas others have been presenting for some time. --- And I see none of it in the art he chooses. The art in the shows he curates is always the same-old-same-old: Consensus Correct 'trendies.' So it comes down to an attempted, forced, reactionary return to Modernism at best and a fashionable neo-PoMo at worst. Neither possibility is promising.

Poetry of the Week: "The Door" and "Voting Weather" by Ed Roberson

Posted by Simone Muench

January 18, 2010 7:13 PM

Ed Roberson is the author of eight books of poetry. His most recent book The New Wing of the Labyrinth was published by Singing Horse Press, 2009. City Eclogue was published spring 2006, Number 23 in the Atelos series. His collection Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In was a winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. His book Atmosphere Condition was a winner of the National Poetry Series and was nominated for the Academy of American Poets' Lenore Marshall Award. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, 1970, where while an undergrad research assistant in Limnology, he traveled across Canada through Alaska, Kodiak and Afognak Islands and later Bermuda with research expeditions. He has climbed mountains in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes, motorcycled across the U.S. and traveled in West Africa .Roberson currently lives in Chicago, where he has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College and Northwestern University.

THE DOOR

It's never at the door
to leave but it's always at the door
the way the wolf is,
not just on the other side, everywhere
you go the wolf is.

Poetry of the Week: "Swearing by Effingham" and "I'm Charlie Tuna" by Jason Koo

Posted by Simone Muench

January 10, 2010 9:31 PM

Jason Koo is the author of Man on Extremely Small Island, winner of the 2008 De Novo Poetry Prize, published by C&R Press. He was born in New York City and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his BA in English from Yale, his MFA from the University of Houston and his PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri-Columbia. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, he has published in The Yale Review, North American Review and The Missouri Review. He currently lives in New York, where he teaches at NYU and Lehman College and serves as Poetry Editor of Low Rent.

SWEARING BY EFFINGHAM

Effingham, IL, let's just let it all out.
Sometimes you need to call a fucking ham
a fucking ham. As I drive home past
your road signs toward the tranquillizer

Stephen Hicks: Why Art Became Ugly

Posted by guestblogger

January 9, 2010 12:57 PM

"The heyday of postmodernism in art was the 1980s and 90s. Modernism had become stale by the 1970s, and I suggest that postmodernism has reached a similar dead-end, a What next? stage. Postmodern art was a game that played out within a narrow range of assumptions, and we are weary of the same old, same old, with only minor variations. The gross-outs have become mechanical and repetitive, and they no longer gross us out.

So, what next?"

Poetry of the Week: "Redbird," "Charity" and "Dream of the Last Shaker" by Damian Rogers

Posted by Simone Muench

January 4, 2010 6:29 PM

Damian Rogers was born and raised in suburban Detroit. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a graduate degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars in Bennington, Vermont. Her first book Paper Radio was published by ECW Press in 2009. Her poems have appeared in Brick Magazine, The Walrus, Salt Hill, MoonLit, and This Magazine. She lives in Toronto.

REDBIRD

It's the middle of the night.
I've set the house on fire
with those matches I love,
the ones in the kitchen
with the red bird on the box.

Images: Chicago Openings September 19 - December 19, 2009

Posted by Paul Germanos

January 3, 2010 7:10 AM

Wesley Kimler: Open Studio
2046 W. Carroll, Chicago IL
December 19, 2009
artnet.com/artist/21755/wesley-kimler.html
wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Kimler
wesleykimlerstudio.com

Adam Ekberg @ Thomas Robertello
In the between
December 11, 2009 - February 6, 2010
939 W. Randolph, Chicago
"Born in 1975, Adam Ekberg resides in Chicago and graduated the School of the Art Institute's MFA Photography program in 2006."
thomasrobertello.com
adamekberg.com/home.html

2046: Sharkparty

Posted by Ray Pride

December 28, 2009 6:57 PM

Poetry of the Week: "Amputee Etcetera" and "The Abuelita Poem" by Paul Martínez Pompa

Posted by Simone Muench

December 28, 2009 4:41 PM

Paul Martínez Pompa has lived in the Chicagoland area for most of his life. He studied at the University of Chicago and at Indiana University, where he received his MFA in creative writing. His chapbook, Pepper Spray, was published by Momotombo Press in 2006, and his first book My Kill Adore Him was selected by Martín Espada for the 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). He currently teaches English at Triton College. His writing has appeared in After Hours, Borderlands, Locuspoint, and Rhino.

AMPUTEE ETCETERA

Nothing cuter
than a war amputee.
His limb not as fleshy ruin
but as fresh bouquet
of soft tissue, blasted with love
through desert air.

Nothing prettier
than a deserted semi-trailer
loaded with dead Mexicans.
How their mouths fall
open like little brown orchids
thirsty for a breath
of hot air.

Artists Write: IDEAS DON'T MATTER: "How Literary Ideas Subvert and Vitiate Art" by John Link

Posted by Mark Staff Brandl

December 28, 2009 2:12 PM

Artists Write: Thinking While Making Things is the column of art theoretical writings by practicing artists, edited by Mark Staff Brandl, in Proximity magazine. This issue, Number 5, features "Ideas Don't Matter: How Literary Ideas Subvert and Vitiate Art" by John Link.

IDEAS DON'T MATTER: How Literary Ideas Subvert and Vitiate Art by John Link

The dirty little mandate of our "anything goes" art scene is that "everything" must revolve around ideas, must ultimately emulate some sort of literature. The connection between visual art and the literal can be obvious or it can be contrived or it can be plain silly, just as long as it is "there."

...

Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posted by Mark Staff Brandl

December 23, 2009 9:26 PM

A truly inspirational essay for artists at this time, although it was written in the 1840s. Read it. Although the language is dated in some ways ("man" not "person," etc.), you will be amazed at its current importance. The description of the real American religion, as Harold Bloom described it. It even begins by mentioning an artist. We need an explosion of these values and interests in the artworld. A New Year's wish.

12/19/2009

Posted by Ursula Sokolowska

December 22, 2009 9:47 PM

J.A.M. Whistler - A Proto-Shark ?

Posted by Mark Staff Brandl

December 22, 2009 3:43 PM

Whistler enjoyed baiting the critics. He began his Ten O'Clock Lecture, a public manifesto of his artistic ideas, in London in February 1885, with a sarcastic dig at John Ruskin, the most powerful art "authority"of his time. Whistler counted on many artists to take his side but they refused fearing damage to their reputations. Besides his long libel suit against Ruskin, Whistler frequently wrote letters to daily newspapers ridiculing art critics. He believed that only artists had a right to criticize other artists' work. In 1890 he published The Gentle Art of Making Enemies a collection of writings.

This self-portrait also bears his famous signature logo, a butterfly with a scorpion's stinger for a tail.

Carter Ratcliff Comment on Facebook

Posted by guestblogger

December 21, 2009 7:04 PM

"... About the power of the October crew--there are the practical, effective maneuverings that Rob Storr describes in his Frieze essay and then there is the much more important power the Octoberists wielded by offering such a seductive model to the inhabitants of art institutions everywhere. ... See, more seductive because it offered clear guidance to the exercise of art-world power--the power, first, to define the canon, to write the list of relevant artists, and the power, second, to establish the "correct" interpretations of these artists. Many critics, curators, and historians resisted the October model. But many did not, choosing, instead, to embrace it with the grateful relief of those who had been looking for guidance from an overbearing authority and, in the October dogma, found it. ... Just so that there is no confusion on anyone's part, I am against the October dogma--"painting is dead" and all the rest of it."

Latest Entries

Recent Comments

Orange Crush is now available

February 7, 2010 11:18 AM

Portrait of my Mom

January 23, 2010 6:17 PM

Altermodernism, etc.

January 19, 2010 1:44 PM

Poetry of the Week: "The Door" and "Voting Weather" by Ed Roberson

January 18, 2010 7:13 PM

Poetry of the Week: "Swearing by Effingham" and "I'm Charlie Tuna" by Jason Koo

January 10, 2010 9:31 PM

Stephen Hicks: Why Art Became Ugly

January 9, 2010 12:57 PM

Poetry of the Week: "Redbird," "Charity" and "Dream of the Last Shaker" by Damian Rogers

January 4, 2010 6:29 PM

Images: Chicago Openings September 19 - December 19, 2009

January 3, 2010 7:10 AM

2046: Sharkparty

December 28, 2009 6:57 PM

Poetry of the Week: "Amputee Etcetera" and "The Abuelita Poem" by Paul Martínez Pompa

December 28, 2009 4:41 PM

Artists Write: IDEAS DON'T MATTER: "How Literary Ideas Subvert and Vitiate Art" by John Link

December 28, 2009 2:12 PM

Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

December 23, 2009 9:26 PM

12/19/2009

December 22, 2009 9:47 PM

J.A.M. Whistler - A Proto-Shark ?

December 22, 2009 3:43 PM

Carter Ratcliff Comment on Facebook

December 21, 2009 7:04 PM

By Ray Pride