Chris Bors of ArtReview reports in on the Bad at Sports gallery show “Don’t Piss on Me and Tell Me It’s Raining” which has been up at Apexart Gallery in NYC since April 7th & will continue till May 22nd. In the review Mr. Bors comments on the relationship of the Art world to the internet & blogging especially. Pointing out Richard Flood’s recent statement at the Portland (Oregon) Art Museum about bloggers being prairie dogs; popping up one after another with no communication between themselves & no (editorial) oversight. A statement that one can debate the merits of but also one that Bad at Sports for over five years has been working to prove false.

In the review Mr. Bors recounts the history of Bad at Sports, the artists it has been lucky enough to work with over the years and the work they donated to be part of the gallery show. While also commenting on one piece in particular saying:

The liveliest work on view, however, is in apexart’s window, where a monitor shows animated credits listing Bad at Sports’s contributors. Created by B@S member Christopher Hudgens in the style of designer and filmmaker Saul Bass, well known for his masterful film titles, the retro graphics, limited animation and jazz soundtrack mesh seamlessly, while managing to get in a dig at Flood for good measure.

Bad at Sports would like to thank Mr. Bors for coming out to see the show and taking the time to review it. More so we want to thank every artist that was involved in the opening which in reality is nothing but an extention of the generous giving of time, ideas & energy those same people have shared with us for over 250 hours of interviews, talks, laughs & drinking since Bad at Sports first aired in 2005.

Maybe Hip which has been broadcasting from Chicago only since Nov/Dec of 2009 is already starting to find it’s feet successfully as the new independent pop culture-focused internet television network. Their stated goal, to be a place where original video entertainment centers on all things that may – or may not – be hip.

Be it music, film, TV, pop culture, news, events in Chicago or around the world the crew of Maybe Hip are successfully writing, filming, producing & creating high level content on a shoestring budget. It’s funny, driven and earnest in it desire to inform & entertain. Needless to say it reminds me of another group I knew 5 years or so ago.

The company, founded in 2009 by Patrick Lothian, Robby Silver, and Lexi Scherr looks to add to the growing internet television industry discussion by creating original content for Generation Next that is more mainstream then the work done by people like Revision 3.  It’s raw, it wears it heart on it’s sleeve & it wants to have fun and bring everyone along.

Time will only tell if the group can continue to refine their voice, onair chemistry & most of all get past the coming wall that is continuously meeting weekly deadlines for more then a year with no budget. So far though it looks to be a group worth keeping an eye on and more importantly, watching.
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I first heard about North Drive Press while working at Ooga Booga. It was selling well because it had been featured on Daily Candy, an insider newsletter on the “latest in fashion, food, and fun.” I think North Drive Press counts as fun. Daily Candy had pegged it as a tool to impress art snobs, a key to unlock the world of contemporary art.

Technically, North Drive Press is a cardboard box of artist multiples, interviews and texts. It was started in 2003 by best friends Matt Keegan and Lizzy Lee and named after the street that connects their childhood homes. The project was originally designed to function as a mobile exhibition for emerging artists, but quickly evolved into an annual non-thematic publication. Issue 5 is the final issue.

Like past issues #5 contains a variety of formats, from a Bart Simpson t-shirt to a photo of Damien Hirst’s penis. Although I don’t smoke I like handling Aurel Schmidt’s faux cigarette butt, a three-dimensional translation of her detritus drawings. For my fellow non-smokers there is also a mashed-up ‘no smoking’ sign by NY-based Nick Relph that would look amazing on an apartment wall.

Editions (clockwise) BY Aura Roseberg, Becca Albee, Mended Veil, Aurel Schmidt, B. Wurtz, Nate Hylden, B'L'ING. Photo by Susan Barber.

What I like best about North Drive Press is that it can act as both an archive and a fanzine. It’s as important as you want it to be. You could re-gift each multiple or earnestly collect each issue. In his recent documentary,How do you document a city?, Keegan interviewed archivists in San Francisco about their city and the relationship between objects and social history. With that concept in mind, North Drive Press could be called How do you document a scene?

All of the interviews and texts from issues 1-5 are available for free on the North Drive Press website. North Drive Press #5 is available at Golden Age in Chicago, Ooga Booga in Los Angeles, and Printed Matter in New York.

View Matt Keegan’s 22-minute documentary How do you document a city? here.

During a recent visit to Los Angeles I picked up the video compilation BLESS: Celebrating 10 Years of Themelessness at Ooga Booga. When I asked Wendy, the shop owner, about the dvd I was told “It’s not for people new to Bless. You won’t learn more anything about them. It’s for the true Bless fan.” For a moment I considered whether or not I was a true Bless fan and decided that I was.

Bless is a conceptual fashion house based in Paris and Berlin started by Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag in 1996. They release products designed to “make the near future worth living for.” They make thoughtful garments,  jewelry for electronic cables, hanging wardrobe mobiles, and other items intended to be used, lived with, and sometimes discarded.

BLESS: Celebrating 10 Years of Themelessness, released by Bureau des Videos, collects 15 short videos from the Bless archive. Many of the pieces are documentation from the public presentations of their varied collections. In N^o25, Uniseasoners, as people enter the dining area of a restaurant they are seated by servers wearing Bless clothing. The servers take orders, bring wine, and later bring food. Everything is normal, maybe even boring, except for occasional pauses to highlight elements of the clothing. A scarf turns into a hooded sweater. In another video, N^o13 Basics, a narrator lets me know that we’re in an apartment in Paris where several friends have spent the day together “wearing sweaters, bodysuits, trousers and customized Levi’s jeans” as if they were their own.

There is nothing precious about Bless. Bless is a project that presents ideas about living. There is no lifestyle to buy, you must bring your own. As their modest iWeb page says, FITS EVERY STYLE.

Apartamento Magazine #4

Apartamento Magazine, a bi-annual interiors journal, began in 2008, but seemed like folklore to most stateside bibliophiles, as it was incredibly hard to find. They had no known US stockist. Issue #1 was totally and completely sold out forever within months of its release. Post Poetics had Issues #2 & #3 for a while and I would frequently look at the page, tempting myself to buy the magazine, but the $30 international shipping permanently deterred me.

The first time I held Apartamento in my hands was just two months ago. A friend let me borrow a few of the past issues. It was as gorgeous in person as it looked in the photos I’d seen online. Thanks to art direction from designer Omar Sosa of Folch Studio and photographer Nacho Alegre, Apartamento is an object of immense beauty.

Interview with renowned designer Enzo Mari

Issue #4 features watercolors of artist studios (Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, Kiki Smith) by Grillo Demo, an interview with CFDA award winning jewelry designer Philip Crangi’s about his New York factory, an essay by Chloe Sevigny about her “70s preppy Connecticut” apartment, a photo tour of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore’s Northhampton home, and a kids supplement curated by Reference Library’s Andy Beach with contributions from Geoff McFetridge, Enzo Mari, and more.

With the tagline  “an everyday life interiors magazine,” I was expecting Apartamento to be a sneak peek into regular, real normal, everyday interiors. My tiny apartment, a bus driver’s home, the tenants who have lived in the same building for over 30 years. Apartamento is kind of like that, except if those things looked ten times better.

Issue #4 is OUT NOW and available worldwide through Bruil.