Paper Monument

	*September – October*


			Chuck Webster “Devotional Pictures” Salander O'Reilly Galleries, LLC September 6 – 29, 2007 God damn it. With Salander–O'Reilly's collection as my point of departure, I painted a bunch of good-looking stuff, you know, benches, frames, and sleeves, abstracted? Some of them are really pretty nice. I'd invite you to come up and see them, I mean, the show’s down, but they’re probably around, and we could take them into a viewing room, but under the weight of all of those lawsuits (thanks, John McEnroe), Justice Lowe closed the gallery, Larry Salander is splitsville, the website is defunct, and now I'm hoping ZieherSmith got the paintings out before the place was shuttered. Purgatory with Caravaggio—just what I always wanted.

			Friedrich Kunath “Twilight” Andrea Rosen Gallery September 7 – October 13 Desperately seeking: Piano-bisecting, Malcolm Lowry-reading, jacket-on-staff-paper-hanging man. Should be a watcher of TV in a room-temperature bath. Should like beavers, kaleidoscopic altars, and pictures of friends at their best. Major plus if into perspective, the death of the American West, and beautiful drawings. Friends first: we can start with a few furniture repair projects, maybe switching out some incandescents for new, environmentally-friendly compact fluorescents. Please contact me through Paper Monument.

			Peter Schuyff Nicole Klagsbrun September 7 – October 13 How ya livin’ Peter Schyuff? East Village—Amsterdam / Dropping color on my friends and it feels stupendous / Tremendous white lead, fuck a drawing and a dream / Still tote Blockx strapped with NeoGeo schemes / Ringing eyes, drawing lines, and deep shadows / Trompe grids, dots, and O’s / all a painter knows / A foolish pleasure / whatever / I had to drop the opaque treasure / so frames I had to measure / (Honey, check it- Tell your friends to get with my friends / And we can be friends / Shit, we can do this every six years / Aight?)

			Huma Bhabha Salon 94 and Salon 94 Freemans September 12 – October 26, 2007 Corpses uptown, feet downtown, burned-looking polystyrene everywhere. Big windows uptown: daytime corpses, and, well, they're standing, so maybe they're alive? No windows downtown: a place to hide the dismembered parts. Clay and sarcophagi, sticks and mud, possible histories, and I've never understood love spent on Anselm Kiefer.

			Aleksandra Mir “Newsroom 1986 – 2000” Mary Boone Chelsea September 15 – October 27 This show is a Matryoshka doll: a newsroom in a studio in a gallery in a warehouse. But which object is the last, irreducible doll: the Sharpie pen, or the studio iPod attached to the boom box marked (in Sharpie) "SVA Print Shop"? A nice oral history.

			Sharon Louden “Hedge” Oliver Kamm 5BE October 11 – November 19, 2007 Gesture. I want to believe that gesture bears some connection to a maker and her intention to order space, or that it carries the trace of her body, moving through an implement and against an object. Gesture should hold meaning and be declarative. It can be deliberate or tossed off, instantaneous or languorous, but gesture, so my fantasy goes, is about communication, and not about stylish figures who fall silent in the space of their flawless surfaces, waiting for recognition before considering whether or not to convey a message.

			“Agro Bongo” Rivington Arms October 19 – November 21, 2007 Trenton Duerksen's sculptures, those gorgeous instruments of Jerry Sizzler–like rapture, peacocking their exquisitely–colored and –balanced waxy smarts, God, their glory, and this one, the rigorous Bouquet—beautiful! Michael Smith's fetid hat aquarium—sensual! Petrova Giberson's delicate pants rack, Forget Yellow—so temporarily stable! Is this Culver City on Second Street? Material and formal intelligence this far from Compton? Maybe global warming and the Al Gore Nation will be good for New York. Keep your cars running overnight.

			—Jessica Slaven