Pangea Day

Yu Xiao

Yu Xiao was born in Zi Bo, Shandong, China. She received her M.A. in Photography from China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. In this work, Never Grow Up, Yu Xiao digitally created child versions of herself as a commentary on China’s one child rule and the intense focus on childhood that results. Read more

Tyson, hard-hitting documentary by James Toback

If you haven’t already seen Tyson, James Toback’s documentary of Iron Mike, do so immediately. Toback’s lack of editorial lets one of the most fascinating athletes ever speak in his own surprisingly introspective and articulate words. Toback heightens the manic contradictions in Kid Dynamite’s personality with schizophrenic, split-screen editing, creating a film that has a profound impact both emotionally and aesthetically.

Chrissy Angliker

At the beginning of last year, I was doing a lot of relatively large-scale, drippy paintings. I did one based on a photograph I took of a slaughtered donkey in China that looks remarkably like one of Chrissy Angliker’s paintings. I had never heard of Angliker before, and it’s funny how two perfect strangers working in complete isolation can come produce such similar work. I’d like to believe that our work has nuances that differentiate us, but that’s for the viewers to decide. My piece is at the bottom of this post. Read more

Hooded Menace

I had to put up with some seriously obnoxious jocks and drunken highschool kids at a recent show featuring flavor-of-the-moment acts that did the whole ecstatic, 80s electro thing that’s so popular these days. Lots of fluorescent colors. I had to blast some death freaking metal when I got home, and Hooded Menace fit the bill perfectly with their doom-leaning, aural assault. Nothing pisses me off more than tepid, uninspired music, and nothing makes me feel more alive than real, gut-wrenching, skull-pounding, giddily sinister heavy metal.

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Anthony Lister

The bad boy persona in the art world is still alive and well in Australian-born painter and installation artist Anthony Lister. Posing for most photos slumped below his work, cigarette dangling from his lips, Lister is the latest in a long line of somewhat deviant figures in the art world. His work, which generally features superheroes — ‘misguided role models,’ as Lister puts it — has a jerky geometry to them, yet simultaneously a gestural quality reminiscent of 80s art deco, fitting with Lister’s ‘impulsive genius’ image and suggesting a bit of a nod to the cocaine-dusted, heroin-soaked downtown New York scene of 30 years ago. Read more

Hipsters on Food Stamps

Heeb magazine founder Jennifer Bleyer recently interviewed me for an article about young creative types on food stamps. The editors at Salon.com decided that I am a hipster. I don’t really know what that means. Judging by the comments that the article generated, I’m some sort of lazy bum who can’t give up my artisinal chevre. I don’t need to go into detail defending my food choices, but all I’d like to say is that I try to buy healthy foods at the lowest prices. I never eat out. I love to cook, and I really need to control what goes into my food, so I cook every meal for myself. I often share with friends. I want to be healthy and I want my friends to be healthy because none of us have health care. Read more