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One more cool thing... for the Year's END...

I love Carsten Holler. I know as a curator, someone once told me that if I wanted to be taken seriously, that perhaps doing a show with this artist wasn't going to put me there. But I think he's awesome, and he does show with Gagosian. And this is at the Gugg. Not bad for not being serious. Here's to Realness in '09 and planning for futures. xo FP Betty, thanks to everyone coming out and picking up our issues, for all the contributors and folks doing rad shit who inspire us. I've always felt inspiration comes from leaving my comfort zone. This hotel room could be that place. Happy Holidays, rest up for the big one...

Wrap it UP.

We're working on a new blog that will link directly with our firstpersonmag.com site. It will be full of goodies that you will want to hit almost as much as yr facebook / myspace pages, wittled down to just our pick of events, shows, reviews, and faves weekly. An online version of the magazine will feature interviews with bands, artists and all of the cool above once we get live for '09. Thanks and we'll be sure to post once we juice IT UP.

Happy New Year, already.. phew!

Love this cartoon.. kinda says it all for me on a personal and biz level. xo

Inspiration.

Sometimes it's hard to find it... sometimes there's not enough time in the day...in this cold weather season, when opportunities like Miami Basel come around, and I find myself on the West Coast feeling so far away from the day to day interaction with the art world, I have to just look harder. I want to take the time to go to Mollusk soon to check out their new gallery show. I want to see new bands like Jonesin' at RVCA do their boombox jam, and then sometimes I just wanna swim in that social pool. Through the First Person Magazine publication and this blog, I want to give back all the radness that folks have taken the time to make so that people like me, who are looking for it, can be inspired. Communicating this world inside of us to the outside world, and showing this keeps me going and the magazine. Tonight I went online instead after indulging in my weekly television show, which is starting to feel like a trailer for its upcoming episode without having any guts in the current viewing but I was happy to find interviews online with curators like Francesco Bonami whom I've always admired. I guess when I was living in Paris, and I was feeling noncommunicative at breakfast time, I read the entire back catalogue of the old Index magazine online, and I felt as if I was eavesdropping on some great conversations, which is what I'd like to continue to do with First Person. To generate an interest in creative diversity and global communication of music and arts that I find inspiring. So, when yr cold and run out of books to curl up with, just fiddle with some photoshop, garage band, surf online a bit, and call your loved ones. It's weird, but my two fave shows have narrators in them, and maybe I'm beginning to sound a bit like one myself. When in doubt, check the moon.

Get Over It and LIVE

The new-ish Martin Puryear show at the SFMoMa is awesome. And in these grey times, waiting out the recession or any other crappy situation you might be experiencing this time of year, here's a perfect chance for escapism: An art show that is just a feel good inspiration without sex, collage, or penis all over it. Puryear was about removing himself as much as possible from the equation and letting the object be the center of attention. Although his work was full of emotion and ideas, he had this total adoration for the craft of working with wood. In contemporary times of computer manipulation, a million assistants and casting objects by high end shmancy industries and factories, this dude took the time to study since a very young age the craftsmenship of working with his hands, and later transcending his learned skills from the top furniture makers and electric tool-less dudes in Africa who made things stick together the old fashion way of notching, etc. into creating objects that inspire, might I suggest going in the daytime, having a fucking fresh juice and just going for it balls to the wall straight to the top floor of the SFMoMa? It's free on first Tuesdays, but I think you'll find this exhibition worth every penny. This dude even took young green saplings and shaped them together while they matured. I mean, who does that? Maybe someone in Africa, and maybe he learned a staple or two from his time in Stockholm. Anyway, they look like huge old tinker toys, but a bit more whimsical and well, shit at least go step into the SFMoMa atrium if you don't believe me and get a free peak at the 60' branch ladder that points to the Matthew Barney Drawing Restraint remnants. And I think you'll want to see more.

Le Croc Monsieurs

Fuck yeah..
last night i saw some San Diego bands and thank gawd, they still have it going ON. the Crocodiles singer of previous band, "the plot to blow up the Eiffel Tower" was fucking hot hot hot amazing. from the land that invented skinny pants 15 years ago, duh, the sex, raw, mod shit was making me HIGHER. and the Dum Dum Girls they played with were like seeing Debbie Harry except with masks and of course, black clothes (another SD band). And their DJ was this dude from the all boys highschool brethren to my all girls highschool who had a mushroom haircut back in the day and "got together" with my best friend. Oh, those shoegazer boys with their shoegazing bands.. used to run around the tunnels late at night drunk thru the tunnels underneath our campus and write our names in their undies and hang em in the courtyard the next day... and Michael would print fake Morrissey tickets for all of us to go to the Arena shows and we'd follow their cars to their hotels and strewn them with gladiolas and hang out.

anyway, Crocodiles rule. fucking HOT. Back to my roots. Thank. You. Boys!


Crocodiles - Refuse Angels from christin turner on Vimeo.

Congrats, OMG.

No one's really mentioned this to my knowledge, but like has anyone noticed how like every top designer or every other at least is Asian American??? From our darling Alexander Wang, who just won the most coveted $200,000 New York designer award from the CFDA to Michelle Obama's fave scandalous or deemed rather "unconventional" dress for the acceptance speech at the DNC by Thakoon? Well, here it is folks .. from Doo.ri, Richard Chai, Philip Lim, Vera Wang, Derek Lam, so on and so forth, I just wanted to say, congrats on being awarded and recognised based on merit, like President Elect Barack Obama, not just having your ethnicity at the forefront of what you do. But what you're doing and how. Much love to everyone sweating out this fucking recession and keep on trucking!

This Saturday! in the BK. Fuck the Police.

Jason Yates is a subversive artist, like a bunch of genius folks who can't get their head around the industry and want to pave their own ways, stuck between the aisles, is again coming out of the woodworks. He's in our current issue compared to Raymond Pettibon in a sense that one of his formats is making posters for music bands. And like the raw energy and signature style of Pettibon, Yates owns his own aesthetic identified from miles away - stickers, glitter, mylar and fucked up drawings of animals morphed into characters.. with various meaning and non-meaning when trying to interpret them. Like elephants with penis trunks and cracked out acid werewolf faces representing Ariel Pink or not, we enjoy them just fine. Here's rooting for an artist dipping back into the art world. He never left his own art world, but hey, we've all cut our teeth at some time or another, and well, shit, if we all just stopped fighting for what we believed in and making what's inside outside in fear of a corporate planet ripping us off in one way or another, we'd be in Shitsville. Here's to renewing good faith and ART uncensored. Pictured here is the artwork he graciously donated to our FP Art Benefit to keep our magazine going! We love your work and hope that it keeps on existing, man.

THIS IS OUR JAM RIGHT NOW!!!!

i loveeeeeee margaret tedesco. she's the shit in SF as far as Gallerists go.

Arthur Russell. Calling all heartfelt "weirdos"

This movie has come and gone and came and went... but seek out this film, it will keep you interested til the ticking end. Not only was the film footage from the 80's in New York super intriguing but the commentary by David Toop was my favorite. All the directorial choices were really enjoyable, informative, personal, and entertaining. Arthur Russell reminded me of Henry Darger, in a sense that he made such a vast amount of work for himself because there was this world inside him he created. Despite all his killed opportunities or whatever, he made like hundreds and hundreds of tapes, which I have a feeling are all incredible or at least pushing something around that's his own and interesting. It's like you gotta just admire that he fucking put cello to house music and embraced his individuality as a singer with a distinct style unlike anyone else at that time or even to this day.. I think that the Hercules and Love Affair production on their album must have been definitely influenced by Arthur Russell, their choice to have Antony and the Johnson do vocals, for sure. I like them both, but he's the maverick. RESPECT.

Yemen Wed Opens this Week NYC!!!

Shawn Mackinnon, part of the Yemen Wed artist collective is the real reason I started this blog and First Person magazine. He asked me, "How do you know about all these art openings?" So, I started this blog while I still lived in NYC and was working with a gallery. Then when I was art editor for another magazine, he was like, "You're too creative for them". So, here I am... and Shawn, who, has contributed generously to every issue of First Person along with collaborators Jay Farrer and Gloria Maximo and Paul for this and FP magazine, what seems to me like one of the most anticipated art pieces since like the dawning of some experimental new genre shit going down. Their visions together seems scary like super hero powers. I'm so glad their my friends! Thanks for all your support and good luck w. your video and site specific architectural installation at this new gallery. I'm secretly hoping to catch it and the EP show before they close. Sorry if this reads weird. It's late, and I wanted to post this now...

Go Family. FP loves you. Always.

We Heart EP

Elizabeth Peyton is having her first ever survey show hosted and curated by the New Museum in New York. I was recently out there to launch and distribute the current issue of First Person, while I was in what felt like the Palais De Tokyo bookstore downstairs, as it is defined by a kind of aluminum free standing wall, I was hoping to catch this show... but it was still being installed. She is my most favorite contemporary painter as her work, despite the subject matter of grunge celebrityism, seems timeless. Those red lips and romantic tattoed boys sleeping... omg, how I used to stand and stare at the acquisition at the SFMoMa in my early twenties... sigggghhhh.... I'd consider flying back out to NY just to see this show. It takes up two floors and comprises not only paintings but also her photo studies of I'm sure a promisingly romantic mural of English boys, half awake half asleep, flowers, sunlight, cigarettes and tired eyes... and more. Catch it before it closes and travels on to Europe. Im sure it will be worth it. Like being in love with a painting. And all it should be. Total Gift.

YSL

We're going to check out the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the De Young Museum that opened this week and catch the documentary film made about the designer and his atelier the same evening. I've seen a few costume shows now at the De Young, from Vivienne Westwood to Comme Des Garcons and although the exhibitions haven't been as thrilling as the Victoria and Albert program or the Met's, I'm glad that San Francisco is interested in hosting fashion exhibitions. This is the only US venue for this special retrospective and I'd like to come with no expectations. Hopefully, I'll be surprised.

A Touch of Class

It's cuddle season, as things start to chill a bit and we pair off for the Winter as mother nature intended. So, as we tire of the political rhetoric or Madonna's divorce, why not go out for a bit and support our once forgotten indie movie houses. This institution the Red Vic, was where I once volunteered. After my eyes kinda popped out at age 18 over their plentiful condiment section, they offered me a gig. And as a teen, I smoked in the back garden discovering for the first time wild Jasmine growing all over the fences, learned how to project massive plates of film, and even did a little film programming. Come have a bowl of popcorn, in a wooden bowl, of course, sip on a grape soda, and get stoned for this masterpiece. "Film", indeed.

San Francisco. Please register to vote!

Park Life Gallery

Our friends at Park Life have put together a much anticipated show.. by me, mostly, but it will be rad. Curated by Don, it includes new works by these emerging artists including some by one of my faves Ben Jones (paperrad?).
I was once invited to go with Taylor and Misaki Kawai during Art Basel Miami to one of her collector's homes far out with another awesome Japanese artist, whose shoes I bought at the Mori Museum earlier that year in Japan... it was pretty memorable as we drove out with a tailgate party of artist friends into a gated community ended up having a black out and the host showed me her collection by candlelight. She had this awesome Kawai piece in her living room which was like a Pee Wee's Playhouse meets early George Lucas Chewbacca tree house type sculpture with vidoes in the consoles of the spaceship mountain. Later on that evening we cosied up in the guesthouse. While the collector was giving me the dish on her divorce, I looked around and all this miniature art was hanging by this knockoff artist that I was having a dilemma with at Aqua Fair - Christopher Wool's, and I can't remember what else but a few in the room. But whenever I go to Miami, I always want to buy something at Aqua and this year, it was a tiny Elizabeth Peyton painting.. but it was a knockoff. I knew I loved her work and I think I had heard of this guy being like yelled at at Chelsea openings for being a total con... but thinking I could never afford the original and feeling like Miami is a foreign country I tried to compare it to like buying some weird knockoff in Nam or something like an Aphlex Trin record or something. Was this unethical? Complimentary? Anyway, I didnt get it because the work was covered in gel medium, which was kinda funny, but I thought I could do better.
Back to the show..., good folks, good artists. And the notorious Kathy G. will be in town wreaking havoc no less! Kathy is a curator at Deitch, whose got a competitive edge.. but I guess in NYC, who doesn't? Congrats to PL on this show and I think they are making a catalog to go along with it. CHECK IT OUT!! THEY ARE TOTAL FP FAMILY...fpxbn.

Albino Crocodiles

Well, now I know from where those Martin Margiela wallets come from... there's an unbelievable white crocodile at the entrance of the well-raved about Academy of Sciences that just opened last Saturday in SF's breathtaking and breath-inducing Golden Gate Park. It's the first thing you see when you walk in, and I don't recall it being there at the last aquarium before they renovated, so I'm going to assume this is a new rare edition. Along with an insane looking "Dinosaur Fish". This thing doesn't even need to swim. It just floats and swear, to god, looks at you and prolly completes some thought. This species is endangered and lives to be 100 years old. They had a few fish in their aquariums that looked like if they had legs, they could totally walk ashore and be the first reptiles. I was pretty stoked on their new species. Of course, competitive now with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I'd say the one in GGP is well of course, closer to the City, doesn't have as many large tanks - big enough to fill a great white shark, or any adorable sea otters paddling about, but I think it's definitely worth a visit.
They also boast a 4 story rainforest which I wasn't too impressed with. Yes, there are cute butterflies in arresting colors sipping on halved oranges, tiny venomous tree frogs and a few Geico lizards, but overall I guess I wanted to really hold a baby orangutan's hand or something more exotic.. kinda fucked up. But the overhead fish tank on the bottom is pretty nice. The benches provide a good lil' chill zone for watching massive catfish hover over the glass and those big silver fish you might have seen during the 80's at the entryway of a lot of Chinese fancy restaurants as a sign of luck and prosperity.. or show offiness.
Don't wanna give it all away.. you should just go, once at least. Admission is a whopping $25 for the public, but I'm going to go again this Wed. Oct. 15, as third Wed's of the month are FREE and I missed the planetarium.
Happy to hear Hilary Clinton was in town for the groundbreaking. And hope to meet w.some of the researchers to do a more in depth interview for Issue 3 of First Person Magazine.

Lydia Fong

The Barry McGee show at Ratio 3, delivers wall to wall eye installation, painting and video in the new space. This is the first solo show that I feel really fills the space with multimedia. Although it offers the usual Barry runnings, spray graffiti, and abstractions, the piece that I mostly enjoyed was the animatronic hand tagging the wall out of a tree and whiting out. Check it out before it ends Oct. 18.

Man on Wire

I'm excited to see this new film about Phillip Petit, the tightrope walker who had a vision to cross the Twin Towers and did it. Late in the evening they shot an arrow with the metal cable attached at at 7:15am the next morning he crossed 1300 feet above the Manhattan sidewalks. I first read about him in an interview in Acne Paper and thought it was so romantic. He reminded me of a real life version of Baptiste from the film Children of Paradise, whom I might be for Halloween. The beauty of his falling in love with a woman who resembled the moon, forever constant in his mind and heart, but unattainable in his complex world. "Love can be so simple" she said. I haven't seen it yet, but know I will be moved and inspired. It's playing at the Sunshine Theatre in NYC where I'll be to launch the current issue of First Person mag and excited to see all NYC has to offer, and there is always plenty, and all my great ambitious warm friends. Here's to having a passion and vision in life and carrying it out in reality.

fpxbn