If this were a typical press release, for a typical summer group show in NYC, we might pontificate about how the Art World is steadily failing, and give examples of its slow and embarrassing demise due to ruthless marketeering, commodity art trading, and corrupt price-fixing by the major auction houses. We would make clever references to The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, in film and book form, and liberally sprinkle in heavy quotes of apocalypse and doom from Nietzsche, Kazantzakis, and Homer's Iliad. We would further demonstrate how each artist in this exhibition portrays his or her own singular take on the Art Industry's Ruin with very personal, autobiographical references - battling substance abuse in a former life; shocking the public with certain kinds of chocolate-covered root vegetables penetrating certain orifices from another; wild professional jealousy, anger, passion, greed, avarice, and other assorted vices, and a host of other bad behaviors for others - and then long and painful rehabilitations into the public eye.
But this is no ordinary Summer show, and hence there will be no typical, CliffsNotes-style press release.
Instead, the work speaks for itself - so please join us at 530 West 24th St on Thursday, July 11th from 6-9 pm, grab a lobster roll off one of the food trucks rented for the 24th st block party, relax and take in the show. You can already smell the acrid fumes of the Art World's gradual self-immolation, so breathe in deeply. The show will deliver as promised, with highlights including Karen Finley's Interactive Complaint Booth; Alex Gingrow's faux-gallery provenance stickers; Loren Munk's large-scale art world conspiracy map paintings; Michael Scoggins' acerbic art world one-liner jabs; and last but not least, William Powhida & Jade Townsend's chalk vine animation. So enjoy the ride on the grand HMS Artworld, sinking swiftly into the shadowy depths of Oblivion. Women and children first, if there are any lifeboats still available. And The Band Played On.....!