John Lennon stand by me

happy birthday john lennon (and sean)!!

this past summer i got into a heated argument with michael gibbons of bardo pond when i said that my favorite beatle was paul mccartney. we eventually made up and in some ways i should have clarified my point better. most of my gripes with john have to do with how he treated julian on one hand and wrote a song like 'mother' on the other. also i am a pop music fan and paul along with the bee gees and bjorn and benny of abba is a true true master of pop. yet i have a special feeling for john i was born 5 days after sean and i remember watching television with my mother when john's death was announced. i also got a chance once to spend the night at my friend's parent's apartment in the Dakota and i had such goosebumps being in the building he yoko and sean called home. on an october 9th eight years ago i left my apartment in brooklyn and walked a few short blocks to an opening at Momenta Art. I was desperately in love with a french/japanese woman who lived in la and i remember recounting that day to her later on the phone. my freshly washed hair blowing in a beautiful fall day, the sound of 'midnight train to georgia' slipping through an opened window and the sight of 'happy birthday john and sean' spelled out in smoke in the sky 'love yoko' but really love from all of us.

i spent the last two days in the studio and today in particular it was thrilling to work alongside the sound of all of the john lennon dedications. his version of stand by me is one of my favorites.

also if you are in philly tomorrow night or before december 6th do stop by Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. I have two drawings in this show and I am very honored to be included in this great group of work. ok happy birthday john lennon (and sean) and let's go Phillies!!!!!!!!!!

CASTLE IN CONTEXT
OCTOBER 10 - DECEMBER 6, 2008
OPENING RECEPTION ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10 FROM 6PM TO 8PM

James Castle, untitled (figures sitting), n.d., found paper, soot

Fleisher/Ollman Gallery is pleased to announce the first exhibition of it's 2008-2009 exhibition, Castle in Context. As a counterpoint to norms of categorization and distinction, the exhibition places James Castle in the context of art historical discourse by enabling the viewer to connect the artist's soot-and-spit drawings and found-object constructions with the work of contemporaries, many of whose practices were (or are) firmly rooted in the art world. Castle, who was born profoundly deaf and never learned to speak, read or sign, remained isolated from these mainstream communities.

The show will include: James Castle, Forrest Bess, Marvin Bileck, Pearl Blauvelt, Oscar Bluemner, Charles Burchfield, Anthony Campuzano, Joseph Cornell, Philip Guston, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Tristin Lowe, Agnes Martin, Native American art, Emily Nelligan, Jim Nutt, Christina Ramberg, Ann Ryan, Donald Sultan, John Walker, Terry Winters, Grant Wood and Joseph Yoakum.

Castle saw a surplus, a mid-century excess of stuff, and he reversed it. His articulations of ecology and economy were entwined. To him, the 'natural' (over-determined) relations between things-environmental things, cultural things, word things-demanded a perspectival reconsideration, a reevaluation of every artifact, relic, or fossil as potentially gut-punch personal, containing a mine-able truth value and an emotional ore inside the dull, scavenged stone. What could be more political than that? What could be more punk? He retrofitted the obscure, cocksure language of commerce and classroom, a language probably mostly mysterious to him, into lovely private codes at once arcane and transparently poetic. Here's an idea close to the hearts and minds of all those youngers: coding, the idea that what we do--what I do--is secret. OK, but make it matter to us; give us a map to how it means, or risk-dissolving into belly-button wankery. Look at the Castles. Think collectively and privately; temper analysis with innervisions (good Stevie Wonder record, that one). Make things that change minds.

-excerpted from a tack-sharp epistolary exchange between William Pym and Brendan Greaves, which
will be available in its entirety in a limited-edition publication created to accompany the show

Fleisher/Ollman Gallery | 1616 Walnut Street | Suite 100 | Philadelphia | PA | 19103