Iceberger Gallery, San Francisco

By the way, you can have a look at a few small still life studies of mine that are on exhibit at the following address, until the following date (which is tomorrowish):

For The In(ter)dependence of Ideologies

This is an irregularly produced etching depicting a cowboy wearing none but chaps and a noose riding a bear with a star on it's forehead, captured at the cowboy's point of climax. The etching is irregular first because it is crude and seemingly unfinished, and second because the technique used is unconventional - canvas board was gessoed and sanded and then covered in India ink, then pulled away with an exacto or safety pin or needle. What I think is precarious and likeable about this little etching is that without the rope round Marlboro Man's neck, the piece is propaganda (Caps over Commies and cum in your eye forever! Big Choice takes No Choice for a joyride); with the noose, which isn't all that obviously a noose but I drew the thing so I know it's a noose and I'm telling you so you'll know it's a noose, it's critical commentary and an ode to backhanded cooperation (Now Cappy's got good reason to keep riding, and now he's busted his nut not because he's a simple high-energy domineer, but cause he's all that and also he's into being left w/o a choice, which bodes well for any fatalist. He's balls-deep in a bronco-bear bustin loop of a relationship and it feels good!). Cap's fate lies in his rodeo skills - just how burly is he? How good is his grip on that mangy old fur, now that the fur's been greased by a few decades of private industry negligence because someone forgot to hire back the guy who shampoos the bear after perestroika? If this were an illustrative comic I'd have stuck an Obama in the back with a bow ready to pierce the rope, but it's not a comic, it's a bestial romance, a marriage without choice; a never-ending battle where Caps are always cowboys and Commies are always bears, and there's no compromise. This means I'll never have to submit it to the economist, and I feel good about that, because it leaves open the potential for further realizing the sketch (though perhaps the economist would appreciate it as is, seeing as to how as a comic it gives credit to the ball-busting antics of Buddy Bush and Jetman McCain, and even though some of them pretend not to those black-bitten pushovers in Britton love American Gall! Whipcrack!)

Studio exit: Final Performance

This Tuesday May the 13th I invite you to join me and my friend Robin Cameron for a last little happening at my Dean St Studio here in Brooklyn. There will be a music(al); there will be black blood and free whiskey. I am shipping upstate for the summer to begin my MFA studies, and so I urge you to stop by and have a look if you haven't yet. Please see the image above for further information.

Robin Cameron and Lukas Giniotis are Shooting and Drinking
Tuesday May 13th
7-10pm
964 Dean St 2nd Floor Front
Musical Performance at 8pm

Drawing the Game: NCAA Final Four Finals 2008

These are seven drawings tracing the game play during the NCAA Final Four finals, wherein The mighty JayHawks of Kansas University ousted the undefeated Memphis Tigers in an overtime end-of-the-bracket thriller. Sports are the modern-day civilized version of the old-timey game of war, right? A contest between the most skilled representatives of rival states, vying for ownership over the outcome of the game, which bears much significance among those participating in the 'thing'? Which is perhaps why we see so many of our fellow citizens concentrate much of their time and feelings, their joy and pain, criticism and applause and the space on their shirts and hats and jackets on the team they support? The human condition forces an aggressive set unto average Jim and Mr. Bill Regular, but progress has blessed their constitution with the desire to achieve victory without bloodshed. There is honor in the game, much as there used to be honor in battle. Todays wars, however, are an abstract lot - I heard we are currently experiencing the 4th generation of warfare; everyone is suspect, and the field of battle is global. Strategy is complex and theoretical at best. There is no theatre; the general isn't reacting to the play-by play; it's in the hands of bureaucrats, and it plays out on their timeline, which doesn't relate to average Jim and Mr. Bill Regular, because they like to see a charge, to feel momentum building on one side or another, to draw the line and understand the statistics and obtain closure within the hour. I think, though I wasn't alive back then (but I've seen the movies and read the books), that war used to be more like that sort of game - you picked your side, you put on your jersey, got your pep-talk, took to the field and set your line according to coach's strategy, then you did your best to execute, and maybe you got took, or maybe you did the taking, and you won or lost based on geographic gains and casualties. And the news made sense. Perhaps professional sports have become so popular because war isn't something we can get behind - first since, apart from the orthodoxy
(aka the fellowship of degenerates), we all agree that killing is bad, and second because democracy lets us speak out, to an increasingly greater critical degree than ever before probably, against our country's military efforts, or your country's efforts. Sports are a game, and there are rules, and there ain't no democracy, and so you really can be with us or against us (us being any of the teams you choose to support, which I would hope are the teams that you have some sort of a cultural or geographic tie to - anyone who picks a team at random is, in my mind, a loser. I would say with conviction that you need a pretty good reason not to support your home team. Logos aren't the best reason to pick your favorite team. I guess that is the democratic part, picking any team you please, but I don't like it, and I digress). With this in mind, this opinion that sports are significant because they are the new violence, and as such indicate our progress as a kindlier people, I decided that mapping the big game was a good way to take relational aesthetics to a new place - to humanize a statistic, and to give reason to making squiggles.
I have not fully developed this whole idea.








I was rooting for KU, btw, because I've been to Lawrence Kansas and have fond memories of the special night I spent there with three close friends en route to our second year of college in Vancouver, and I've a past history with KU alumni.

A Short Glide, A Zero Gravity Moment

In Orderly fashion, in pairs or alone, skaters take to the languid glide in clockwise rhyme, and heaven shine down does it ever seem like the greatest stunt we've managed. A slow-going circle of bundled sticks, gleefully entranced by every allusive push towards freedom from the doldrums of friction. Skating on ice! Knives on boots, tied to feet, attached to thin legs thinly clad, attached to bodies layered like puffy onions, attached to smiles wide and warm; so many smiles, so warm it's a wonder the ice remains firm. Some of these revelers traverse the plain with ease, on a single blade - what strong, thick ankles they have. Others shake and stammer, stuttering forward awkwardly, crippled by their tools and well aware of the distance from head to toe - but oh how they manage to keep at it. I pray those cripples persevere and enroll the pleasure of effortless gliding before they give up. All this for a spectator to consider, plus the serene backdrop of Central Park's model nature and a Manhattan skyline hit smack in the nose by the sun's rays. And a warm coffee. And friends come from afar, and a camera to keep my words from the burden of painting their own picture. I'd call this a weightless moment, and I'd advise you to agree.

*sponsored by TRUMP

Invitation: Freedom Bell - Ghost Mountain

You, reader, are cordially invited to a showcase of new work at my studio this Friday. It all revolves around the performance of a song I composed for bass guitar, which climbs frantically through serial riffs towards the tolling of a bell, rung at three stages of an ascent. Key descriptive words include emancipation, flotation and new action painting. Come over, even if we're not acquainted. There will be whiskey. Bring beers if you're not going to drink.

A Happening:

Freedom Bell: Ghost Mountain
February 29th, 2008
Performance at 8pm
964 Dean st #2F,
Brooklyn, NY

Illustration: Black Bads Mix Tape

Here is a quarter page collage Niall and I did for Nylon magazine, the guys edition (clean and naughty versions). Along with the original (the one with more skin), the editors asked for a version without a nude, so we splotched her up with ink and gave them that as well, although they ended up using the original, complete with black cock writing and rats out the pudenda, so that was really nice of them. Please go ahead and flip to page 107 if you are bored and somehow find yourself staring eyes-to-tits with Hayden Christensten, who's boyish metroness graces the cover of this issue. This mens fashion shit, it is too much for me. Hairspray!!