American Madness

I’ve always been interested in the strong connection between marketing and art. That’s why I started Market Anomaly a marketing shop that helps artist and others get themselves noticed. My career has since evolved and Market Anomaly is now more of a side business.

My full-time job is located in Chelsea where the art season is in full effect, so I guess it’s time for me to start taking lunchtime strolls through some galleries. I’ll try to give you an idea of what is compelling and what is crap.

Also happening here… look out in the next year for Chelsea to go through another transformation as Google moves in and Apple builds another Store. There goes the neighborhood! Hell, it was already gone, but these developments are kind of exciting. It’s a little Frisco on the Hudson.

Anyway, here are the highlights of today’s wanderings.

Bellwether
Adam Cvijanovic: Love Poem (Ten Minutes After the End of Gravity)
08/09/05 - 15/10/05
Exceptional frescos of destruction and the end of things.

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Bortolami Dayan Gallery
?CLOSING DOWN?
Opens Sept. 21. (510 W. 25th St. 212-727-2050.)
The two upstarts from Gagosian, who ran away to start their own gallery debut a group show of Gagosian favs. The show is a mixture of awesome stuff like a full sized guillotine and other mediocre pieces. Many of the artists have been seen before at Gagosian. They don’t seem to have a homepage yet.

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Cheim Read
Lynda Benglis: The Graces
09/10/05 - 10/15/05
Great Polyurethane structures. The rest of the exhibit is questionable at best.

The PRSA annual Thoth Awards Gala is coming to Washington, D.C., and I?m sorry to say, there is nothing you can do to stop it.

The PRSA D.C. chapter defines Thoth as the Egyptian god of communication:

Named for the Egyptian god of communication, the Thoth (pronounced ‘Tot’) Awards annually recognize the most outstanding strategic public relations campaigns and tactics produced in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
-from PRSA release

However, the Wikipedia gives us a more complicated tail of Thoth, the moon, and ?eye of Horus, the sky god, which had been semi-blinded in a fight, the other eye being the sun.?

Also famous is the Thoth Tarot card, which many politicians will be saddened to find was consulted often in determining the fate of their public relations campaigns and their political careers.

The PRSA certainly has reason to summon up the great Thoth every year, as the god appears in many myths as the wise counseler and persuader.

Still, of Thoth?s many incarnations, my favorite is ?Scribe of the Underworld.?

In regards to my Darth Vader reference, Thoth actually has nothing to do with Star Wars, but the image of Darth Vader was the first thing that leapt to mind as the word Thoth crossed my lips. This is probably because it sounds a bit like Hoth when pronounced phonetically. Hoth, you?ll remember, is the ice planet where Darth Vader unleashed scores of imperial walkers on an unsuspecting rebel base. One of the coolest scenes of the entire Star Wars series.

Say it slowly with me now. Th…aww…th… Doesn?t it just sound so richly evil and imperial. One would think that the masters of America?s branding and image creation could come up with a better name.