“The young men and woman (that’s just one, designer/artist Dylan Kawahara) of the rotating Still House collective. Founded by artists Isaac Brest and Alex Perweiler, Still House’s collaborative structure isn’t so much about much protesting the fame-structure of the art market with anonymity as it is about encouraging collaboration and establishing a home base for a group of young like-minded artists. And young they are: the 12 artists in the current show at Lower East Side gallery RENTAL are almost all in their early 20s. Most are Los Angeles transplants to New York, and they’re remarkably savvy.

So what does a young artist look like today? Brendan Lynch shows a stand-out example in his untitled sculpture, comprising a rendition of Rodin’s The Thinker covered in a delicate tie-dye blanket, his beat-up Keds peeking out. In this show there’s plenty of homage to Still House’s elders, be they Rodin or contemporary artists working in image-conscious New York. There’s plenty of Oedipal strife, too: at the opening, Isaac Brest installed a replica of Julian Schnabel’s  roundly disliked pink house in the building’s small elevator. It was hastily dismembered by the hundreds of visitors to the opening, teenagers and collectors alike. [2]

“i really liked that one of the artist’s brothers who is not an artist did this to the gallery bathroom

and then a collector commissioned him to do it again for her down in florida because she loved the “piece”

i love when distinctions are absurd because they are and downtown i mean what is so romantic to me about that distinction?” [1]

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY DYLAN LYNCH AND STILL HOUSE VIA MYSPACE.COM AND RENTAL GALLERY; TEXT BY KATHY GRAYSON [1] AND ALEX GARTENFELD [2]

“Triple Canopy is pleased to announce the opening of an office space and venue at 177 Livingston Street, in downtown Brooklyn. The 5,000-square-foot storefront will be operated in partnership with Light Industry and The Public School New York and will regularly host artist talks, screenings, workshops, lectures, classes, and performances. 177 Livingston will also host a library of books, magazines, artist publications, and film, video, and sound work, which will be open to the public starting in March. (Visit the 177 Livingston website for more details and a calendar of upcoming events.)

On February 20, Triple Canopy, Light Industry, and The Public School will throw a benefit party to celebrate the opening of 177 Livingston and help the organizations cover the costs of building out the space’s interior, which was designed by Rachel Himmelfarb and Gabriel Fries-Briggs with support from Common Room.

The evening will begin at 8 p.m. with readings by Ed Park and Lynne Tillman. Next, there will be a rare stateside presentation of Lis Rhodes’s Light Music (1975, pictured below). Rhodes’s double projection is a seminal exploration of 16-mm optical sound—the on-screen abstraction is “read” by the projector as audio—and a classic of British expanded cinema. The “Anti-Matter Cabaret” of Ambergris and a set by the avant-pop ensemble Skeletons will follow, as will DJ sets by Josh Kline and Gary Murphy & Tim Lokiec.”

TEXT AND IMAGE VIA TRIPLE CANOPY

“In retrospect, it seems like destiny. ‘We were meant to be here,’ says Cole Nahal about the Broome Street apartment he shares with Garrett Bowser. ‘About a month before we found it, I took a picture of Garrett in front of the Houston Street Keith Haring memorial mural.’ Destiny because a few weeks later, the artists/designers were signing a lease on a slightly dingy two-bedroom walk-up they’d found on Craigslist, which turned out to be Haring’s former apartment. ‘I liked the space,’ says Nahal. ‘It felt sort of cavernous. And it’s a nice neighborhood.’ They barely clocked the exuberant eighties graffiti-style drawings covering the front door until the landlord told them those radiant babies were genuine works by the most iconic of eighties New York artists. Before they moved in, admits Nahal, ‘we weren’t terribly interested in him.’ But once there, ‘I think we started channeling or something,’ Nahal says. Haring became the guiding décor spirit, animating choices like the Pop-colored furniture, the DIY masking-tape wall—and, of course, the “barking dogs” decals Nahal and Bowser got from Blik.”

ALL IMAGES OF THE COLE NAHAL/ GARRETT BOWSER LOFT, PHOTOGRAPHED BY LEIGH DAVIS; IMAGES AND TEXT TAKEN FROM “IN THE HOUSE OF THE RADIANT BABY”, AS WRITTEN WENDY GOODMAN FOR NEW YORK MAGAZINE, VIA NYMAG.COM

“There are 2,556,596 faggots in the New York City area.

The largest number, 983,919, live in Manhattan. 186,991 live in Queens, or just across the river. 181,236 live in Brooklyn and 180,009 live in the Bronx. 2,469 live on Staten Island, substantiating that old theory that faggots don’t like to travel or don’t like to live on small islands, depending on which old theory you’ve heard and/or want substantiated.

Westchester and Dutchess Counties, together with that part of New Jersey which is really suburban New York, hold approximately 297,852, though this figure may be a bit low.

Long Island, or that which is beyond Queens, at last count numbered 211,910. (This goes all the way to Montauk, remember.)

Suburban Connecticut (not primarily of concern here, nor for that matter are suburban New Jersey or suburban New York—but you might as well have me advantage of all the statistics, since they were exhaustively collected), which includes the heavily infested Danbury triangle area, has 211,910 also, which makes it a sister statistic to Long Island, which is as it should be since the two share a common Sound.” [1]

“Approaching the Belvedere Guest House for Men by boat, you may think you’ve mistakenly boarded a Venetian vaporetto headed for the Guidecca, with Palladio’s Redentore looming mirage-like ahead of you. But it is in face Great South Bay that you are crossing, direction Cherry Grove, Fire Island, N.Y. A tribute to Italy, and more particularly Venice, this extravagant hotel, with its sprawling floor plan, dreaming spires, and antique-filled interiors, is the creation of artist, set designer, and baroque spirit of John Eberhardt. Since the Belvedere first opened in 1957, Eberhardt has expanded it into a renoqwned fun-in-th-sun palazzo for “men who prefer men.

The Belvedere is a hallucinatory architectural pastiche where nearly everything is familiar—sometimes beyond the point of recognition. Its towers (complete with cupolas made from wheat silos) hint of Seville as well as Venice; its lightness, plasticity, and texture recall Michelangelo Naccherino’s Fontana dell’Immacolatella in Naples; yet the hotel’s overall spirit suggests Portmeririon, Clough Williams-Ellis’s Italianate-inspired resort in Gwynedd, Wales.” [2]

“There are now more faggots in the New York City area than Jews. There are now more faggots in the entire United States than all the yids and kikes put together. (This is subsidiary data, not overtly relevant, but ipso facto nevertheless.)

The straight and narrow, so beloved of our founding fathers and all fathers thereafter, is now obviously and irrevocably bent. What is God trying to tell us…?” [1]

“There will be seven disco openings this holiday weekend. Though the premier palais de dance, Billy Boner’s Capriccio, is closing tonight for the season so that Billy can open The Ice Palace at Cherry Grove, its closest competitor, Balalaika, run by the inseparable Patty, Maxine, and Laverene, will remain open, to cater to the hot-weather crowd on those weekends they don’t make it to Fire Island.

Everyone wonders which of the newcomers will be the first to go under, because, ignorant of the above vital statistics, the fear is there’s not enough business to go round.

On Saturday evening opens The Toilet Bowl. But that’s meant to be more than a Disco.

Later, it would be recollected as the False Summer. Everything had bloomed too quickly. Fire Island, this Memorial Day, would be like the Fourth of July. Too much too soon. Everyone was caught in the never-never land of City? Capriccio? The Tubs? Balalaika? The Pits? The Toilet Bowl? Fire Island? All cups runneth over. The weather was no help either—the glorious summer sun now obviously out to stay—and thus useless in defineing and dictating destinations and activities, as it usually did when cold meant dancing and very cold meant television, joints, and bed.

And here it was only May.” [1]

“But Eberhardt understood theater well enough to leave the most dramatic moments for the interior. His delight in the eclectic and whimsical pervades even the most minor spaces. Mural-lined corridors with heavily patterned carpets flow past blind doors leading to stairs at the top of which, seemingly for lack of a better place, sit oversized cherubs in lieu of banister finials. Each guest room is designed around a style or period, and many have fantastical trompe l’oeil murals painted by Eberhardt himself. the Pompeii Room, with its terra cotta-toned scenes depicting the ruins of the ravaged Roman town, is located next to the Oak Room, with its intricately carved paneling—originally from England—salvaged by Eberhardt from a Long Island estate. The dining room and the adjoining grand salon are thoroughly over the top, the salon is where Eberhardt most lavished his love (and talent) for trompe l’oeil wall paintings, archaeological accretions, and wild juxtapositions of decorative styles. Off-limits because of the fragile hand-painted floor, the room is chock-a-block with a multitude of objects and furniture: statuary, including a bust of Apollo over the mantle and a bust of Hadrian’s catamite, Antinous; candelabra; Louis XIV-style chairs facing off a bright-yellow 20th-century demi-lune sofa with animal-print throw pillows; an oversized chandelier (of course); and a collection of artifacts—salvaged and bought—that defies categorization. In the window sits an elaborately sculpted gilt basin, which was purportedly once used by Marie Antoinette.

Amid all the decorative display hangs an easily overlooked portrait of a young John Eberhardt (today in his early 90s), a picture as proper—he is wearing a white cricket sweater and trousers—as the hotel is outré. Capturing a moment, authentic or staged, from a more elegant time, this handsome painting evokes with nostalgia the fleeting of beauty and youth, with which Fire Island has become synonymous.” [2]

ALL IMAGES OF FIRE ISLAND’S BELVEDERE GUEST HOUSE FOR MEN, AS TAKEN BY KT AULETA FOR PIN-UP ISSUE 7, FALL/WINTER 09/10; TEXT TAKEN FROM “FAGGOTS” BY LARRY KRAMER, 1978 [1], AND FROM PIN-UP ISSUE 7 [2], BY JOE ROUMELIOTIS AND JOE DISPONZIO

ALL SCANS TAKEN FROM “THE BUTCH MANUAL: THE CURRENT DRAG AND HOW TO DO IT” BY CLARK HENLEY, 1982; VIA RICKWAGNERTX.COM

THE NEW FUCKIN IDIOTS [DETAIL], 2009; JPG

SMOKE BOMB IN AN ELEVATOR, 2010; PERFORMANCE

“The internet has dramatically increased the availability of documentation of art produced and exhibited around the world. This increase has corresponded with a new reliance on images as a means of consuming art and art exhibitions. For many exhibitions, the audience for the installation views outnumbers visitors to the venue itself. As a result of this shift, the photographers who produce these images and the institutions that edit them mediate our understanding and experience of art.

Despite decades of art and criticism deflating the aura of objectivity surrounding both institution and photograph, they continue to wield substantial influence over how we see and read art exhibitions. What is the role of the physical exhibition venue in the era of immaterial reproduction?

This show subverts the traditional relationship between object, exhibition and documentation, a relationship built on the economic model of galleries and museums and objects for sale. Using photographs of the exhibition site empty and images of artworks photographed elsewhere, composite images are created as installation views of a hypothetical exhibition. These composited installation images are then distributed by the gallery’s website. The exhibit will culminate in a projection of these images directly from the gallery’s website within the gallery itself. This circular presentation is meant to challenge the boundaries of where we locate value in art. The institution, the first hand experience and digital documentation are all melted into one, leaving the viewer to decide where art took place.”

IMAGES OF WORK BY BRAD TROEMEL AND LOUIS SCHUMACHER, VIA THEJOGGING.TUMBLR.COM AND WORSE.TUMBLR.COM RESPECTIVELY; TEXT TAKEN FROM REFERENCE GALLERY; “MIRRORS” RUNS FROM JANUARY 23, 2010 TO FEBRUARY 6, 2010 AND FEATURES WORK BY BRAD TROEMEL, FORREST NASH, AND LOUIS SCHUMACHER

ALL IMAGES OF MICHAEL MAGNAN’S APARTMENT, ASTORIA, QUEENS; ROOM AVAILABLE MARCH 1, 2010; CONTACT WICKEDPHOBIC@GMAIL.COM FOR RENTAL INFORMATION

ALL IMAGES TAKEN FROM THE SERIES WWW.DOMAIN.JPG BY KARI ALTMANN, 2010; GUEST POST BY KARI ALTMANN FOR 2THEWALLS.COM

[1]

“In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening one new store per day. Green mermaid logos popped up on retail facades everywhere, sometimes within feet of one another, making the sameness from store to store all the more noticeable. But it’s not the ’90s anymore, and when Starbucks stock began dropping in 2007, the Seattle-based company realized, among other things, that the cookie-cutter approach to store design had fallen out of fashion. Last year, Starbucks announced it would renovate its thousands of company-owned stores, in 52 countries, to be more sustainable and to look, well, less global and more local.

In several Seattle neighborhoods, Starbucks’s design team — led by the company’s president of global development, Arthur Rubinfeld — has introduced the first of its revamped stores, testing concepts it will apply to locations around the world. If these stores offer any glimpse of what’s to come, the new Starbucks will be subtler, earthier and conscious of its surroundings.” [1]

[2]

[3L/3R]

“In neighborhoods teeming with hipsters, how does a Starbucks fit in when residents regard its opening as a sign that their neighborhood is turning yuppie? In this case, it starts by losing the Starbucks sign. 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea’s lack of obvious branding, aside from the curious “Inspired by Starbucks” on the facade, might lead passers-by to think that this is just another locally owned coffeehouse. Submerging the brand illustrates Rubinfeld’s experimental approach, but this otherwise excellent coffeehouse does offer a valuable lesson: No matter how quirky the neighborhood, Starbucks should not hide the fact that it’s still Starbucks. Otherwise, it feels like corporate trickery. With its variety of seating — from cupping tables to repurposed theater chairs — and pages of Plato lining the walls, the place lacks the consistency of the classic Starbucks experience. However, the espresso bar and ordering counter are Starbucks at its best — a warm blend of European mercantile and American modern that Rubinfeld has carried out in other locations (albeit with greater success). Likewise, the use of repurposed hardwoods and open-air displays of whole-bean coffees and full-leaf teas near the entry are fine examples of how sustainable materials reinforce the organic nature of the Starbucks product.” [1]

[4]

“Linda Derschang, owner of Smith, emailed earlier this morning to say that her blood is boiling about the faux-new faux-neighborhoody neighbor next door.

‘Have you seen the color of the new Starbucks on 15th? Noticed the salvaged wood wall outside which is the same as my salvaged wood planter box in front of Smith? Poke your head in and check out the salvaged wood frames on the walls, the vintage industrial light fixtures, and the old wooden seats. A friend asked me yesterday if I was opening a coffee shop next to Smith because it looked so similar—like a sister business. I was in there yesterday to see it. I asked the designer if she had ever been to Oddfellows [also by Derschang], and she said ‘Yes, of course.’ They have been in Smith almost daily. I can’t believe that anyone, whether a hair salon or a coffee chain, would just go ahead and knock off their next door neighbor’s exterior… We’ll see what the rest of the design looks like as they get ready to open next week.’ [2]

[5]

[6]

“If imitation is the kindest form of flattery, the restaurant and bar known as Smith is feeling … well … flat-out worshiped.

Located next to the Starbucks store that will now be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in Capitol Hill, Smith owner Linda Derschang said Thursday that everything from the paint color to the light fixtures inside the coffee shop have been replicated to match her rustic, mountaineer-like bar.

‘It’s got a lot of salvaged wood, it’s the same paint color inside as Smith and some of the wood framed chalkboards look very, very similar,” she said. ‘If they had decided to do that look in a different neighborhood or city that would be one thing, but trying to position themselves as an independent coffee house? Where’s the independent spirit in knocking someone off?’

The remodeled Starbucks store, which will serve beer and wine as well its usual caffeinated fare, is making attempts to reflect its neighborhood location, spokeswoman Anna Kim-Williams said. The 15th Avenue store was expected to close last year but is being remodeled instead.

‘We’re continuing our commitment to delivering specialty coffee excellence while refreshing our store design approach with an amplified focus on local relevance,’ Kim-Williams said, citing the earthy store at First Avenue and Pike Street as an earlier example of the guise. ‘Ultimately, we hope customers will feel an enhanced sense of community and a deeper connection to our coffee heritage.’

But Derschang said she wishes Starbucks Corp. had approached her to ask if it was OK that the store is painted almost the same deep woods brown color as hers. All five of her restaurants, bars and coffee shops throughout Seattle have a signature look Derschang designed. Managers at another bar of hers, Oddfellows Cafe and Bar, said they saw Starbucks designers frequent the store to observe its motif.” [3]

IMAGES [1] AND [2] OF 15TH AVE. COFFEE AND ROY STREET COFFEE, RESPECTIVELY, AS TAKEN FROM T MAGAZINE; IMAGES [3L], [3R], [4] AND [5] OF ODDFELLOWS, SOURCED NUMERICALLY; IMAGE [6] OF SMITH SEATTLE, VIA SMITHSEATTLE.COM; TEXT [1] TAKEN FROM T MAGAZINE, AS WRITTEN BY BRIAN JAMES BARR; TEXT [2] VIA THE SLOG, JULY 16, 2009; TEXT [3] BY SARA KIESLER FOR SEATTLE PI, JULY 20, 2009

ALL IMAGES AND TEXT CAPTURES OF THE ICE CAVE” AND “GREEN ROOM”; VIA NEWYORK.CRAIGSLIST.COM