Having dreams about flying.... think I might have to wait for the leaves to change and go for a biplane ride....

Yesterday was an art day.....went to Greensboro & Winston Salem with friends to look at art all day. Usually I am bored by looking at prints, but loved the Kiki Smith prints at the Weatherspoon....luscious, visceral. I am also usually bored by quilts, but I thought that the quilts of Dorothy Caldwell at SECCA were incredible... some of the most beautiful drawings I have ever seen. Finally, also at SECCA, were large scale photos by Dutch artist Erwin Olaf. I just finished reading Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity, but I have to say, many of these works left me cold with their commercial smell and slickness. They could (and some actually have been) printed on the pages of an edgy magazine to sell the designer clothes pictured in the image. They possess the over produced "look it's art! no, it's advertising!... it's whatever you want it to be!" quality of David LaChapelle's work, with a different sensibility. There were two exceptions for me: First, the amazing "Blacks" series was a perfect combination of that sexy photo-back-mounted-to-plexi thing combined with the lo-tech technique of painting everything in the picture plane black before photographing it. His films were also amazing... palpable repression, almost unbearable... fabulous.