An Orchid Sale, Hedda Sterne, Cinders Returns, Okiishi, etc. [Collected]

Very fragrant: Orchids raised by Helen and Charles Hersh, of Mount Prospect Orchids, on sale at The Artist's Institute, alongside a show of Jo Baer works, April 17, 2011. Photo: 16 Miles

• Lower East Side alternative space The Artist's Institute held a sale of absurdly gorgeous orchids yesterday as part of its season of programming inspired by Jo Baer's life and work. It seems that Baer was an expert orchid cultivator and won an Award of Merit from the Greater New York Orchid Society in 1973 for the flowers she raised while living in Greenwich Village. Can we have more events inspired by artists' extracurricular interests? A feast of crisp Coca-Cola and fresh falafel at the next Robert Irwin exhibition? A dog show at a future Pettibon outing? [TAI]
  
  
• Laura Gilbert highlights the radical parameters — the re-creations, exhibition copies, and croppings — of Richard Serra's drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Art Unwashed]
  
  
• Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett reveal that, when they staged their Maurizio Cattelan retrospective at Triple Candie in 2009, "Maurizio Cattelan is Dead: Life and Work, 1960 - 2009," Cattelan actually came to visit the show and "generously arranged ... to ship it off to the DESTE Foundation in Athens," the nonprofit founded by collector Dakis Joannou. [Triple Candie in The Exhibitionist]
  
  
• "You know, artists are never close-knit. They are only close-knit for a while if it's necessary and helpful." — The late Hedda Sterne in a 1981 interview with Phyllis Tuchman that also covers her fights with Clement Greenberg, her interest in Surrealism, her adoption of spray paint, and more. [Archives of American Art, via Modern Art Notes]
  
  
• An interview with Pauline's proprietor Pauline Beaudemont. [Matilde Soligno]
  
  
• There is one week left to see a choice Hedda Sterne painting in MoMA's "Abstract Expressionist New York" show. Another is on view at the McCoy Gallery through May 20. [MoMA and McCoy Gallery]
  
  
• Cinders Gallery is reopening on Saturday, April 23, at 28 Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn. Its former Williamsburg location is becoming a bar. [Cinders]
  
  
• Ken Okiishi's very wonderful (Goodbye to) Manhattan (2010), which appeared last year at Alex Zachary, is having its theatrical debut on Monday, April 25, at Anthology Film Archives. Okiishi will answer questions after the screening. [AFA]
  
  
• Seven on Seven returns to the New Museum on Saturday, May 14. This year's artist participants include Michael Bell-Smith, Liz Magic Laser, and Rashaad Newsome. [Rhizome via Art Fag City]
  

100 Records, 100 Record Covers, and Ed Ruscha, in Brooklyn

Left: Sonny Smith and Chris Leon, Sonny's Cosmoramic Jukejams. Photos: 16 Miles [more]



It took a decade, but someone has finally put together a collection songs that makes Stephin Merritt's 69 Love Songs look a little bit underdeveloped. The man responsible for that feat is Sonny Smith, leader of the group Sunny & the Sunsets. Smith asked 100 musician-friends to craft album covers for a handful of fake bands that he created, and then recorded a song to accompany each cover. Those recordings are playable on a free jukebox at Cinders Gallery through September 5, alongside every one of the covers. The jukebox, loaded with all 100 original songs, is only $14,000, which is a bargain in my book. Truth be told, the presence of a piece by Ed Ruscha (which is not for sale) brought me into the show, but I stayed for the relentlessly inventive covers and the solid-gold jams. My personal jukebox recommendations: D5 (a tale about a man named Mario falling for another man) and C3 (by a band called The Happy Endings). Cinders has posted a complete compendium of all the covers in the show, but you have to visit the gallery to hear the hits.


Ed Ruscha, 1/2 Wayward Youth


Sonny Smith, Petite Lafitte, and Kottie Polloma, Happy Endings


Rebecca Miller, Hazel Shepp, and Grant LaValley, Wayward Youth


Teppei Ando, Earth Girl Helen Brown El Rincon; Eric White, Helen Brown & Versatile Kyle; and Rebecca Miller, Hazel Shepp


Teppei Ando, Earth Girl Helen Brown El Rincon

Sonny Smith, "100 Records"
Cinders Gallery
103 Havemeyer Street, #2
Brooklyn, New York
Through September 5, 2010