THE PIT

We *heart* trees (and Smolinski)

Next time you stop by Mixed Greens you should check out Joseph Smolinski's drawing on the chalkboard in the foyer (that we share w/ George Adams Gallery).

1. We love trees.
2. Joseph loves trees.
3. Steven and Courtney loved watching Joseph draw this tree stump this morning.
4. Obama likes trees (and the environment in general).
5. These people REALLY love trees.
6. Wellesley College has a lot of trees. But they are still minus one Leger.

Whaaaa??

If Michael Phelps could paint and (here's the kicker) lived in the 1920s, well, he might have captured another 8 medals. You've gotta read this article to believe it. I'm still not sure if I believe it. HDB doesn't believe it, so I've done further research here. Fascinating.

Big Oops

Derek Fincham's Illicit Cultural Property and the Art Law Blog both report on the news of Wellesley College's Davis Museum mishap. Seems they lost a Leger. [full disclosure: I went to Wellesley and my heart will always belong to it. This is sad though.]

Most Dangerous Job

We might not be fishermen, military servicemen, or timber workers (#1, 2, + 3, btw, on the Top Ten List of Most Dangerous Jobs), but Steven, Heather and Courtney discovered the dangers today of working for a gallery. I now refer you to the "drawing" above (you can see why I decided to switch from Studio Art to Art History major.) The following actually took place (and sadly, I did not have a camera to capture Heather's Look Of Fear):

1. Steven, Heather and Courtney attempt to move a large collection of boxes from 26th to 25th street. They decide to use 11th Avenue to do this.

2. There is construction on the Southeast corner of 26th + 11th Ave, reducing the freeway-like avenue to 3 lanes of traffic (with no eastern sidewalk)

3. Rather than cross the street to proceed safely, the Mixed Green-ers took over the far left lane (also known as the "fastlane").

4. Miraculously we all survived.

5. I'll admit, today was a slow day at the gallery. HDB suggested I find an audio clip of chirping crickets to be my blog for today, but I thought a bad Post-it sketch would be much more fun.

Get over the back to (art) school blues

Reinvigorate your interest in art, performance, the outdoors and '80s icons by participating in the following:

RUSHMORE at McCarren Park Pool TONIGHT.

Lots of art to see in DUMBO.

Calling all Ferris Bueller fans. Leave it to Deitch to put this one on.

Get "warmed up" for this Dance party for art lovers hipsters.

Even if you don't participate, at least you'll understand why everyone on the L train has a super-soaker under the jacket.

For those of you in the East Village.

This is more for the art students out there, but I liked the idea of "a walk"--and the nice map that's provided.

The description of this adventure-land begins, "... used to be a hotbed for prostitutes, junkies and glory-hole seekers". I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that this link gets the most hits.

Friday is Fun Day

Here are the week's most ridiculous pics (from installation):

Rob tries not to get electrocuted as his drills through the wall of the Glow Room to install a flat screen TV. Nice gloves, RC.

HDB really likes lunch options. This lunch came with about a dozen of them.

SHOUT OUTS to...

Time Out NY for their awesome review of Accident Blackspot, curated by Jim Lee and Rob Nadeau.

Adia Millett's Week 26 installation.

Humble Arts Foundation (this cool site was brought to my attention by AA Rucci)

AA Rucci for bringing Humble Arts Foundation to my attention. Check out Rucci's blog here.

The next VP?

"summer (installation) madness" at Mixed Greens

I was going to post a bunch of installation pics, but then I realized that it was going to be a series of photos of Heather and Joseph moving the same 3 framed drawings around. This in no way accurately captures the feeling of today's installation efforts. Instead, I'm turning to the Fresh Prince for help, because it occurred to me that the following lyrics from his 1991 hit "Summertime" apply to this picture, umm, perfectly. sort of.

School is out and its a sort of a buzz

A back then I didnt really know what it was

But now I see what have of this

The way that people respond to summer madness

(1) The weather is hot and girls are dressing less…

(2) …Yeah I got on sneaks but I need a new pair
Cause basketball courts in the summer got girls there…

(3) …Everybody come lookin real fine
Fresh from the barber shop or fly from the beauty salon…

…Theres an air of love and of happiness
And this is the fresh princes new definition of summer madness…

Rob, I'm sorry there's no arrow pointing to you. Will Smith's song lacks any reference to an English gentleman. But you do fit in with the whole "summer (installation) madness" theme.

Deinstall/Install

Sadly, Paper City has ended, however we enjoyed the fantastically fun run. Don't get too sad though--installation pics of Joseph Smolinski's upcoming After the Fall solo exhibition will be posted later today and tomorrow. The show will open to the public tomorrow, but the opening reception will be held September 4th, 6-8pm. See you there!

MASSive SHOUT OUT

MASS MoCA has a blog, and they were kind enough to blog about Joseph Smolinski's upcoming solo show at Mixed Greens! (earning their blog a MASSive SHOUT OUT)

Joseph's work is currently included in the awesome MASS MoCA exhibition Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape

You can check out Joseph's Tree Turbine video (still shot above) beginning this Thursday at Mixed Greens. Opening reception is September 4, 6-8pm.