This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Please Fund The Penis Wall

If you leave now, 3 PM on Monday, you still have time to run over to e-flux for the symposium “Spectres of Communism: Contemporary Russian Art”. Reasons for seeing this should be obvious to anyone who’s been reading the news over the past few years. This show better explains how Russian artist-activists’ particular Leftist activist attitudes have been shaped by communist history. Says the press release:

On the one hand, [contemporary Russian artists] do not want to close the utopian perspective that was opened by the October revolution and art of the Russian avant-garde. But, on the other hand, they cannot forget the long history of post-revolutionary violence, where artists are haunted by these specters in the middle of reality that does not welcome them.

Among the list are artists who’ve been front and center in free speech battles: Alina and Jeff Bliumis, Chto Delat, Keti Chukhrov, Anton Ginzburg, Pussy Riot, Anton Vidokle, and Arseny Zhilyaev. The official opening is at e-flux tomorrow night 6-8 PM, and there’s already another part open at The James Gallery.

The IRL club meets again for internet-related commentary. We’ll get presentations “by people who make the internet a better”: Peiqi Su and Her Amazing Penis Wall, above; The Cool Freaks Wikipedia Club, a 33K-member Facebook archive of all the weird bloggy tidbits on wiki; Paul Ford, recently, of the savepublishing lit tweeter tool; Brian Droitcour, net art curator; the teenage “outlaw Instagrammer” Humza Deas; and Leon Chang, IRL Club regular/viral marketing mocker. Over 700 people RSVP’ed on Facebook, so get there early. No word on whether they’ve raised the $450 to transport Penis Wall, which was a problem last we checked the Facebook page. Fingers crossed.

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Not sure exactly what these two painters have to do with each other other than a tendency to paint light on dark, but Ross Bleckner’s darkly emotive paintings responding to the AIDS crisis are beautiful and tragic, and we get to see a mini review of his smaller paintings over twenty years. Volker Eichelmann will make text paintings respond to diary entries by the wealthy 19th century art collector William Beckford and 1920s fashion icon Stephen Tennant.

Recently, El Museo curator Rocío Aranda-Alvarado wrote about how large populations in the Bronx are entirely shut out of public view. This makes me want to see a talk/panel discussion about Latinos in the media by Arlene Davila and Yeidy Rivero, to mark the release of their co-edited book “Contemporary Latin@ Media: Production, Circulation, and Media”. They’ll be joined by media activists Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now; Jillian Baez, Staten Island University; and D. Ines Casillas, University of California Santa Barbara.

Famed video artist Nam June Paik has a show. There is no press release.

A welcome alternative to easy breezy provisional painting, “Flames on the Side of My Face” conveys silent, boiling fury. The title comes from the 1985 Hollywood comedy “Clue”, when Madeline Kahn admits she’s the murderer. Artists are Judith Bernstein, Sam Contis, Tony Feher, and Daniel Ingroff.

Aggro is cool again! Right down the street from Klaus, another show is inspired by “HOWL”. Like the poem, the show aims to encapsulate the state of American contemporary culture (in art) by combatting tasteful restraint. Rageful paintings by Alicia Gibson and Alan Crockett and miniature drawings/stage sets by Clara Crockett.

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a sexuality-themed show about how censorship continues to suppress gay and lesbian voices in art. Think Robert Mapplethorpe and David Wojnarowicz. We’re hoping for some all-out dick wagging, vagina splurting, and tittie juggling. Forwarding our nonprofit mission one sentence at a time.

For those of you who will not be joining us at White Castle (a romantic tradition brought to you by the marketing experts at the fast food purveyor), you can always spend Valentine’s Day on the High Line. You’ll get performances by DJs Andrew Andrew and Whoop Dee Doo’s Jaimie Warren and Matt Roche while getting match-made by Amy Van Doran and having your tarot read by Molly Burkett. Bring cash for sweets, meatball subs, and “broths”.

Another anger-related show: artists who make art about class and social inequality. Thank. you. Joe Amrhein, Rico Gatson, William Powhida, Rita Valley. Curated by Ellen Hackl Fagan.