Andrew Jeffrey Wright and friends are on on the road this week, taking their off kilter blend of art-comedy to several east coast galleries. Hopefully their jokes are better than our title puns. If you can make it out to one of these performances, don’t miss the chance. AJW’s own testimonials certainly have us convinced:

“It is going to be so funny you will forget to laugh!”

“So last night we performed at Thanky Space in Richmond VA. Great gallery and great people. One of the worst shows I’ve ever had ever. So obviously it has been the worst show of the tour, but so far it has been the only show of the tour, therefore it has also been the best show of the tour so far! See how that works? Stay positive!?! See you 2nite in Baltimore! love, ajw”

Here’s the remaining dates. See some of you in Brooklyn.

Thursday, August 6
Space 1026
1026 Arch Street, 2nd fl.
Philadelphia, PA

Friday, August 7
Cinders Gallery
103 Havemeyer Street
Brooklyn, NY

Saturday, August 8
AS220
115 Empire Street
Providence, RI

Blood of Two, the highly secretive collaboration between Matthew Barney and Elizabeth Peyton, was unveiled this past Tuesday as part of the inauguration of Deste Foundation’s Slaughterouse, a new satellite exhibit space located on the Greek island of Hydra. At dawn, a largely notable crowd gathered seaside and watched as local fishermen pulled a glass sarcophagus containing Barney and Peyton’s artifacts from the water, and slowly ushered it up the cliffs to its final resting place within the former slaughterhouse. As expected of Barney, the rest of the ceremony was drenched in cryptic symbolism, including a dead shark and goat herders. Check out The Moment for the full recap.

Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Swoon’s most recent traveling art armada, has nearly completed its voyage along the Adriatic, arriving at its final destination in Venice. Tomorrow, June 4, the crew will launch three days of Clutches of a Cuckoo, a variety show of sorts, including music from the band Dark, Dark, Dark and live theater performances. Back in New York, Honey Space will hold a silent auction and raffle benefit on Thursday, June 4, to help raise much needed funds for the project. 

For more info on the project, check out our previous coverage of Swimming Cities here

Yoshitomo Nara launched a new New York exhibition this past Saturday, at Marianne Boesky Gallery. As expected, the show serves up a playful mix of drawings and paintings at recession-resistant price points ranging from $18,000 to $500,000.  The most ambitious works are two large-scale sculptural dwellings, done in partnership with his design team, graf, who Nara began collaborating with in 2003. The evening was topped off with live music by Orutaichi, M.A.G.O., and a performance by Yo La Tengo side-project, Dump. Read on for our extensive photo recap and click images for larger views. On view till March 22.

Fun on the streets. We caught these pics down the block from TAC headquarters, NY.

The Influencers opens today at the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona. The three day project and performance based festival brings artists together across multiple disciplines, in the exploration of “unconventional weapons of mass communication.” This years curated contributors include street artists, Blu and Swoon, the robot wars of Survival Research Labs, Julius Von Bismark’s Image Fulgurator, Improv Everywhere, video artist, Wolfgang Staehle, writing collective, Wu Ming and culture-jammers, Ztohoven, who managed to infiltrate a televised Czech weather report in 2007 and broadcast an atomic bomb explosion.

TAC applauds this free and non-commercial event, whose sole purpose is to support “visionary projects aimed at the exploitation and distorsion of mass communication, global pop culture, technological propaganda and ideological fetishism.”

Program Schedule:

Donny Miller, notorious artist-provocateur extraordinaire, took the opportunity of staging his ‘bake sale’ on the final day of the Los Angeles Auto Show, just in time to save the automakers (who are in Congress again this week). In the video of the installation, there are a range of responses, but don’t miss the surprise ending that is particularly hilarious.

Big 3 Bake Sale from Donny Miller on Vimeo.

The artist’s own manifestation of the events that transpired:

This bake sale was held for the Big 3 American Automakers (Ford, GM and Chrysler) at the 2008 LA Auto Show. $4 dollars was raised. $2 for Ford, $1 for GM and $1 dollar was donated. The donation of a dollar was divided evenly between the 3 companies and sent by mail directly to the CEOs. Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, announced if the US government would loan Ford money, he would work for $1 dollar a year. If that’s the case, I have paid for 2 and one third years as this bake sale yielded $2.33 for Ford. All 3 CEOs announced they would be driving to Washington DC to ask for a 25 billion dollar bailout.

TITLE:
Big 3 Bake Sale
Donny Miller

This is fantastic. Spearheaded by artist Steve Lambert, a group calling themselves The Federation of Students and Nominally or Unemployed Artists handed out $1000 in on the spot, instant grants in NY’s Union Square. In the team’s own words, the FSNUA “aims to re-inspire creative thinking and action in everyday people be removing a small barrier and providing encouragement. We give small, unsecured grants in the form of $10-$60 for creative projects thought up on the spot by everyday people.” How does it work? Each of the 10 members raised $100 in cash and then convened with a makeshift grant proposal office in the park, where recipients lined up, proposed their ideas, and walked away with certificate and cash in-hand. New York needs more stuff like this…

Video via Steve Lambert on Vimeo.
News source via Urban Prankster

As an extension of her breathtakingly monumental installation, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, Swoon and co. will unveil three nights of music and performance, staged on the artist’s floating fleet, currently docked outside Deitch Studios in New York’s East River.  Collaborators include playwright Lisa D’Amour, the band Dark Dark Dark, and circus composer, Sxip Shirley. Performances run Sept. 11, 12, 13 at 8pm.

Image/Source: Deitch