2009: Best of (in no particular order)

X Initiative- If no one writes a book about the importance of X in the coming year, I am going to make it the topic of a dissertation. Meant to exist for exactly one year from it's conception, X has offered excellent exhibitions and even better spontaneous performances, lectures, and events. It has easily been the best DIY space I have ever been a part of...This is how institutions should be used in this day and age.



Performa 09(in general-- a whole best of Performa list could be generated here) It was so amazing that I had to up the zoloft dosage after it ended. A special shout-out to RoseLee Goldberg's leather pants!
Mike Kelley (and co.) events around town- There were so many great Mike Kelley related events this fall in NYC, that I feel almost guilty. Any one of them would have made the best of list, but there were multiple! Can this man do any wrong?
William Powhida's cover for the Brooklyn Rail- It was poignant, it was timely. A fucking plus, guy.
Creative Time Summit at the New York Public Library- Despite the time limits cramping many of the speakers' "flow," the ideas proposed but not answered are what I found most useful from the conference. I want more.

Joan Braderman's- The Heretics- The documentary about the infamous feminist zine, "The Heresies" and the second wave of feminism in general rocked m'socks off. It was only at the MoMA for a few screenings, hopefully it will be put in better circulation in 2010.

Thomas Hirschorn 'Universal Gym' at Barbara Gladstone Gallery- In this large-scale DIY installation, Hirshhorn combined found imagery, obsolete consumer products and constructions made out of cardboard, foil, and packing tape constructing a gym-like site that forced social critique. If the gymnasium represents a place for interaction, learning, and physical exercise, as well as the desire for physical well-being and longevity, Hirshhorn used the gymnasium as a filter to examine communal notions of long life through physical upkeep, discipline, and logic.
Allora & Calzadilla, Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on “Ode to Joy” for a Prepared Piano (Gladstone Gallery, New York) For this ongoing, in-gallery performance, six pianists traded shifts playing the theme over and over—while standing in a hole carved in the middle of the instrument, so they faced the keys backward. The piano was fitted with wheels; while playing it, each musician wheeled it around the gallery.

"Curating" article in the New York Times- Even though purists might say that the word has been somewhat bastardized, I think this article points to the fact that curating, while it has ascended in rank within the artworld during the past 10 years, it is now working itself into mainstream culture--to the extent that you have people like Todd P integrating it into their vernacular. Interesting to see it in print, anyway.
Ryan Trecartin I-BE Area- At both the New Museum in the Generational Younger than Jesus exhibition and at the Fabric Workshop. Mentalfragmentationmindfuckadhdtotallyfuckingawesome!?

Bruce High Quality Foundation University-
As they describe it, the unaccredited BHQFU is a "university, a space for higher education and research, a community of scholars; an expansion of the BHQF practice to include more participants (that's where U come in); and a "fuck you" to the hegemony of critical solemnity and market-mediocre despair." As students of Hans Haacke, coming out of Cooper Union, BHQFU believes in the artistically educational possibilities of collaboration, and that income shouldn't preclude education or cultural participation. At Bruce-U, students are teachers are administrators are staff; they believe in the value of shared creative experience and responsibility. Bruce meets every Tuesday, alternating between Open-Critique, and B.Y.O.U. (Build Your Own University), a class to discuss and develop admission procedures, rubrics of success, governance, etc.

Marcel Duchamp- Étant donnés at Philadelphia Museum
Recess Art- This brand new DIY space on Grand St., ran by the brilliant Allison Weisberg is devoted to rendering artist's residencies visible to the public, fusing public space with exhibition space-- killing two birds with one stone, much? Also, she has an impressive line-up of artists practicing in this space, like Corin Hewitt and Molly McFadden in 2009, and Bruce High Quality Foundation slated for 2010. Can't wait for more programming!

I don't feel like writing blurbs about these things, but they were cool:
Lars von Trier's Antichrist
The Third Mind- Guggenheim
Teching Hseih- MoMA
Bernadette Corporation exhibition at Greene Naftali
The Generational Younger than Jesus- New Museum

Music
Fresh and Onlys- Grey-Eyed Girls (Woodsist)
TNV- Born Again Revisited (Matador)
El Jesus Klip Aught 7" (CDR)
Hunches- Exit Dreams (In the Red)
Eat Skull- Wild and Inside (Siltbreeze)
Zola Jesus- New Amsterdam CDR
Nothing People-Late Night (S.S.)
The Mantles- The Mantles (Siltbreeze)
Dan Melchior and und Das Menace- Thankyou Very Much (S.S.)
Tyvek-Tyvek (Siltbreeze)
Blues Control- Local Flavor (Siltbreeze)

Reissued Music
Bill Fox-Shelter From the Smoke (Scat)
Raincoats (KillRockStars)
Spiritual Singers, Ntsamina (Mississippi)
Axemen, Scary Pt. III and Big Cheap Motel (Siltbreeze)
Jim Shepard 7"- CDR

The Suck List
New Museum trustee stuff- I mean, come on.
Lady Gaga- what a turd/dunce
Metropolitan Museum- The Pictures Generation
Shaq: Size Matters exhibition at Flag Art Foundation
Roman Polansky stuff