John and DeWayne : What one might call a review

John and DeWayne

by Rachel Shine

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/pragues_franz_kafka_international?utm_source=a-section

Maybe you’re at a gas station in Wyoming.  That you’re out of gas means nothing to you.  You’re quite sick of that old Saab story anyway.

Behind the general store, full of fishing lure and pop in glass bottles, you think you could camp here – write, paint, sing, whathaveyou – forever.  Thus inspired, you sit down in a sunpatch and take out a book but the man who runs the store and, incidentally, lives in the back with his rotweiler, emerges to hang a raccoon skin in that same spot of sun and tells you he is a chicken and offers you a sandwich.  He tells tales of when he was human while the two of you eat your p.b. and j’s.  That is John Bellows.

When you’ve finished your sandwich you bid farewell to your new friend and start hoofin’ it.  Not too long after, a van pulls to a stop.  The driver greets you warmly, happy to offer a ride.  Encouraged to sit in the back and enjoy the trip – not just anticipate the destination – you read one of the Greek tragedies sliding around back there with you and the driver sings songs from our country’s days of infancy.  Soon you and DeWayne Slightweight reach the Rocky Mountains, better humans for eachother’s company.

As the sun sets and the bends in the mountain roads become more threatening, your small company looks for a place to bed down.  A neighborhood bar appears around a bend and the sweet bartender who serves you Pabst offers her couch to the two of you.  You close the bar and shuffle to her small woodland home  and fall asleep with thoughts of the Ramayana as she practices cello until the sun rises.  Thank you, Helen Money, your dream gnomes chime.

Without You I Am Nothing

The Green Lantern Gallery & Press is pleased to announce a group show,

03.27.09 – 04.25.09

“Without You I am Nothing,”

curated by Anne Elizabeth Moore

Featuring work by

Andrew Oesch, Angee Lennard, Agata Michalowska, Dan S. Wang, Myriel Milicivic, Kevin Haywood, Delia Kovac, DeWayne Slightweight, Karin Patzke, Heather Ault, Jason Tranchida, Jean Cozzens, Laura Szumowski, Matthew Lawrence, Meg Turner, Rob Ray, Sonnenzimmer, Xander Marro
In conjunction with the Southern Graphics Council, the opening will be held on Friday, the 27th of March from 6-9
with live musical performances provided by Helen Money, John Bellows, and DeWayne Slightweight from 8-11 pm.
A donation of five dollars is suggested to watch the music

In late capitalist America, we’ve become a bit too used to dealing with our visial culture in a certain way: by viewing it, memorizing it, consuming it. But intrinsically, we know that there are other, more fair ways to respond to the images that mediate our world. Without You I Am Nothing explores two distinct and vibrant worlds of mass-produced, artist-created prompts for cultural democracy, in Providence, Rhode Island and Chicago, Illinois.

These cities, which contain two of the most vibrant screenprinting scenes in the nation, have developed distinct languages for interactive poster-making. Artists in both locales mass-produce (or, sometimes, produce on only a small-scale) images and information that can be manipulated, or shifted, or changed. They are intended not to speak to an audience, but to be susceptible to audience response as well. Without You I am Nothing: Cultural Democracy from Providence and Chicago contains only posters that have one or more of the following elements: stuff that falls off (on purpose), windows, parts that move, space for new information, dials, buttons, removable elements, or other user-controlled, four-dimensional aspects of awesomeness. Simply put, these posters cannot exist without viewers’ input.

By linking the poster-making scenes of two different cities, Without You I am Nothing underscores the distinct visual languages developed for each community: Providence’s tight-knit group of experimental music-influenced, art-educated poster fans, and Chicago’s internationally renowned rock fans used to pristine lines and funny animals.

The print medium is neither site specific nor intrinsically democratic: freedom of the press, after all–the earliest form of mass communication–belongs only to those who own presses. Still, the print medium is the one on which democracy in the US was founded; print-makers have pushed the limits of their medium with innovative design and contents since ink was first put to paper in a desire to communicate with “the masses”.

Without You I am Nothing displays a wide collection of new, recent, and downright old works on paper that require more from the viewer than merely reading about, memorizing information on, and attending the event described in the poster. These may be malleable, 3-dimensional, tactile, transient, or somehow otherwise inclusive of elements that can move, deteriorate, or be removed; or bits that must be rubbed, poked, ripped, pressed, wettened, prodded, or yanked to achieve full poster satisfaction. Full poster satisfaction need not be guaranteed each viewer.

You can see more about this show by going to this link.

–

Phonebook Release Party & Live Music Afterparty

posted by Caroline Picard

2 things: Book Release & Live Music Afterparty

This Thursday @ threewalls : PHONEBOOK 2008/2009 Release

119 N Peoria #2D
Chicago,IL 60607
p:312-432-3972
www.three-walls.org
threewalls & Green Lantern Press announce:
PHONEBOOK 2008/09:Compadres Amores
Release Date and Party:October 23rd,2008,6-9 pm
Held in conjunction with threewallsSALON,Enablers and Platformists:turning the content over to participation

CHICAGO:Back by popular demand,PHONEBOOK,the essential travel guide to artist-run centers,small not-for-profit,fringe galleries and other exhibition and presentation projects,will be released October 23rd at threewalls.

This new edition adds over 50 news spaces in the United States and over 40 Canadian centers alongside updated entries,periodical listings,a series of essays from across the
country and some road-trip tips from the editors.PHONEBOOK is a valuable resource for artist and audience alike,connecting a web of makers and projects while acting as an archive of work by smaller organizations and groups throughout the visual arts community. Use PhoneBook as a research tool,as a travel guide to the visual arts,for networking, for exhibition proposals or to facilitate artistic exchanges.

Please join us for PHONEBOOK’s release party,held in conjunction with a special threewallsSALON,”Enablers and Platformists:turning the content over to participation,”an open discussion about artists working as presenters and enablers of other creative and intellectual projects.

PHONEBOOK is published by threewalls and Green Lantern Press.PHONEBOOK
will be available at your local artist-run and NFP art spaces,on the threewalls website and on Amazon.com for $15.00. For review copies and pre-orders please contact Nick Sarno,Editor ofThe Green Lantern Press at sarno@thegreenlantern.org
or go directly to www.spdbooks.org.

with an afterparty @ The Green Lantern
Live Music Event : Helen Money & Bruce Lamont
doors open at 8pm

Helen Money is Alison Chesley, a Chicago based cellist who has become known for her unique sound and compelling stage performance. Using the tools of a lead guitarist, she channels her sensibilities and experience as a rock musician through a classical instrument. A founding member of Epic Records recording artist Verbow, Alison has opened for bands as diverse as Shellac, Earth, The Bad Plus, Hunn Huur Tu and KTL. She has also worked and recorded with musicians such as Bob Mould, Disturbed, Frank Orrall, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Mono, among others. In addition to her solo work, Chesley has composed music for film and dance, including the soundtrack to the award-winning documentary “Indestructible” and two major works for Chicago based Mordine and Company Dance Theater, “Quest” and “Time Stilled”. She also recently completed the full-length album Aural Anarchy with poet Krista Franklin, exploring the life, work, mythology and influence of Jimi Hendrix.

Bruce Lamont joined Yakuza in February of 2000.  The group has since recorded 4 full lengths, including their latest release “Transmutations.”  His other projects include Forced Transcendence (rotating members.. saxophonist Dave Rempis, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm
(Brutal Truth) and sometimes Painkiller vocalist Kevin Sharp, Buried at Sea/Minsk mastermind Sanford Parker, and Jim Yakuza), Moment of Inertia ( guitarist Jeff Parker, bass player Nate Mcbride, and drummer Frank Rosaly), Mahj (featuring members from Behold the Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, and Day Without Dawn/ex-Postman Syndrome). Bruce has recorded with the Japanese black metal turned space-prog band sigh,east west blast test (on ipecac), Ken Vandermark for one of the next Dalek records, Jai-Alai Savant (out now on GSL), Cephalic Carnage (Relapse), Minsk (Relapse), Nachtmystium, and others. In July of 2006 he made is debut solo performance using a looper pedal and effects along with saxophones, guitar, voice, harp, and percussion. He has performed along side Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Battles, Toby Driver(Kayo Dot), OM, Daniel Higgs (Lungfish), Lichens, and appeared at the Relapse and Furniture record showcases @ the sxsw music festival.  He
has also jammed with Stooges sax man Steve Mackay, The Akron Family, Midnight Snake, Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), Borbetomagus (recording out there somewhere), and teamed up with Mark Solotroff (Bloodyminded, recording also out there somewhere).  In June 2007 he made his first official solo debut (recorded by Sanford Parker) entitled “Feral
Songs”.