The unfortunately titled Skin Fruit has already opened on the platinum coast of downtown Manhattan, formerly known as the Bowery. And guess what, not everyone is happy. I know, I know, you’re shocked.

Last weekend while avoiding the art fairs, I spotted a fantastic street poster in Chelsea that lampooned the New Museum and its newfound taste for caviar. Adding to the already hilarious poster was the fact that someone had slapped on a sticker of Hargo’s fantastic CA$H FOR YOUR WARHOL campaign on top so that it appeared as one of the blocks of the structure. It was the type of moment that made me realize how much I love the streets of New York, so full of life … and discontent.

Since my discovery I’ve been looking for the image’s source. I asked street art photographer Luna Park for a possible answer, and she was at a loss after pointing out the poster’s high production values (and no name attached to it) excluded the usual street art suspects.

The infamous poster (click to enlarge)

I wondered if the poster was the work of Bruce High Quality Foundation and their spoof culture, but those guys are so eager to be co-opted by the art system — oh wait, they already are — that I doubt they would flay such a powerful art institution publicly and with such panache!

I finally tracked down the image hidden on the website of Shellac, a New York-based company that does post-production for films.

After a quick phone call, I discovered the brilliant campaign was the brain child of three friends, Adam Wissing, Kenny Komer, and Boris Rasin. The same crew was also responsible for the fantastic wild posting campaign last fall that pitted incumbent New York mayor Michael Bloomberg against fictional millionaire Monty Burns of Simpsons fame.

“It was fun to run an out of touch millionaire against an out of touch billionaire,” Adam said during our phone chat about their first street project that garnered major attention and was part of the Art in Odd Places festival last fall. “We like Bloomberg but he’s changing the rules of the game [for better or worse] and we want to point that out.”

Their latest campaign is a dig at the New Museum and they use the museum’s own ad slogan, “New Art, New Ideas,” against them. “The New Museum says they are about new ideas, but Jeff Koons is the biggest artist out there and so establishment. He’s curating the collection of Dakis, who is one of the biggest collectors, and the value of his collection will go up. There are so many levels to this and it is all being shown in a nonprofit museum. I’m excited to see the show but it’s not ‘new ideas,’” Adam says.

Do the New Museum's pens lie? (image via newmuseumstore.org) (click to enlarge)

Like their previous campaign, the trio aren’t interested in politics as much as pointing out the obvious problems.  “It’s more about creating a dialogue and finding fun and interesting ways of getting people talking about things,” he says.

“Kenny and Boris are more involved in the art world, I’m more of an outsider,” he explains.

The group posted the posters across the city the day before the press preview at the New Museum. They thought about releasing a statement about their campaign but chose not to. “We want to create a dialogue, it’s not about ‘check out our work,’” he says.

If the campaign is obviously critical to art world insiders, the posters impact may be harder to discern for non-art world peeps. A friend of mine on Twitter posted a photo of the posters this morning. When I asked him if he knew the source, he responded that he “had assumed they were done in-house.” Adam wasn’t surprised when I told him that my intelligent Twitter buddy didn’t understand the spoof immediately. “We were debating if it was too similar to the New Museum’s own branding or not,” he says.

Part of me wonders if people simply think the institution has no ethics anymore and will do anything for splash and attention.

The Anti-Establishment poster mashes together the absurd coloring of Dakis Joannou’s Jeff Koons-designed yacht, the New Museum’s iconic (and expensive) structure with a sentiment many of us are wondering for some time now, “Oh, New Museum, when did you become so establishment?”

But even if people don’t get it, it’s really really funny.

Fuck Google, indeed.

5) F.A.T. Lab’s FUCK GOOGLE Week (2010)

Recently F.A.T. (Free Art & Technology) Lab held a week-long series of posts “themed around evil mother Google” during Transmediale10 in Berlin.  This included the now-infamous alleged GPS-bugging of a Google Street View car, custom Firefox themes, and even an instructable on building your own Street View car to fight back against the corporation.  (see also a recent Cargo Collective design campaign).

Vimeo link: Fuck Google Week roundup

Click here to view the embedded video.

4) Constant Dullaart, YouTube as Subject / YouTube as Sculpture (2008-ongoing)

In addition to having the best possible name for a digital conceptual artist, Constant Dullaart’s body of work consists of manipulating with contemporary methods of online viewing and production.

His YouTube works draw attention to the user interface that mediates the majority of Internet video traffic in the Western world, whether by sculpturally mimicking the effect of a loading video or by taking the “Play” icon to a rave.

3) Charles Broskoski, Films (2008-ongoing)

Broskoski’s Films is a daily streaming video program with a difference — there are no moving images to be found, only the subtitle tracks.

Broskoski’s film choices are suited to his audience and include new classics, such as Ghostbusters and Terminator 2, so that anyone who was young in the 1980s or early 90s may actually be able to identify by quotes alone.

Make sure to visit his paintings gallery while visiting the site.

The Internet's answer to the best items for contemporary assemblage: "tinsel, inflatable object, marble, hair, fluorescent lights, ball, water, image of a cat"

2) Ben Schumacher’s Portfolio

Fittingly hosted on a free Blogspot account, Ben Schumacher’s portfolio holds a number of gems situated right at the intersection of Internet art and contemporary sculpture.

He presents a number of clever conceptual pieces, from a contemporary assemblage sculpture crafted according to the specifications of a Yahoo! Answers query to an iStockPhoto image of pool water printed on top of a pool cover. Schumacher merges the preoccupation with the cheap and every day by fashioning a number of his sculptures and wall pieces out of materials from IKEA and Walmart.

A view of “www.fromthedarkpast.com” by Rafael Rozendaal

1) Rafael Rozendaal, COLORFLIP.COM, FROMTHEDARKPAST.COM, INTOTIME.COM, NEKROMISANTROP.COM (2008, 2009, 2010, 2010)

No conversation about contemporary Internet art is complete without Rafael Rozendaal.

Chances are even if you haven’t heard his name you’ve visited one of his websites in the last few years. His particular blend of pop aesthetics and flash animation have made his works popular, though how he treats each website as an individual piece adds an interesting layer.

Purchasing a Rafael Rozendaal piece entails purchasing the domain name as well as the art associated with it, and the website must remain visible to the public (the collector’s name is placed in the Title bar).

Dramatic decore is the best term to sum up Limbaugh’s aesthetic tastes (click to enlarge)

It’s always fun to scrutinize the private tastes of far right pundits who make it a sport to attack the art world or anything they don’t understand. So, it’s with great joy that we cast our eyes on the garish penthouse of the loudest right winger of them all, Rush Limbaugh.

Fit for a Robber Baron (click to enlarge)

With a weekly radio audience of 14.25 million listeners, Limbaugh regularly has the leaders of the Republican party genuflecting in front of him, so I guess it’s not hard to imagine why the talk radio host thought it was appropriate to deck out his 4,600 sq-ft condo with aesthetic delusions of grandeur. I find it curious that the wrap-myself-in-the-American-flag-and-pretend-I-can-relate-to-Joe-the-Plumber Limbaugh has tastes that are far more hoity toity and European than hoi polloi and American.

Like a robber baron-era remake of a horror flick called Attack of the Architectural Moldings, the conservative talk show host’s Fifth Avenue 10-room penthouse — located between 86th & 87th Streets — is the stuff of interior design nightmares.

A whiff of the colonial? (click to enlarge)

Why he prefers faux murals that compete with his 180 degree view of Central Park is beyond me.

According to the listing, the “renowned artist Richard Smith has hand painted mural ceilings and walls throughout” … a specialist in decorative painting and finishes, Smith has other examples of his fancy brushwork, including trompe l’oeil dumbells in a private gym, on his website.

The good news is that Limbaugh is selling his New York home because he’s relocating to Florida.

Check out the listing on Corcoran.com (PDF).

Via Curbed, which has more photos of the lunatic fringe spokesperson’s Manhattan pad.

A view of the “$ECRET$…” ballot box at the entrance of the #class show at Winkleman Gallery (click to enlarge)

When Edward Winkleman offered his new storefront gallery on West 27th Street to artists William Powhida and Jen Dalton to “consider ‘alternatives/solutions’ to the market” they decided to organize a show titled #class. The hashtag in front of the name is a reference to Twitter and the communal tags that help users find related tweets on a given topic, event or idea. Like the online service, the #class exhibition — is it an exhibition? — is composed of crowd sourced content.

The instructions for $ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD (click to enlarge)

@powhida and @jen_dalton understand that there is a beauty in knowledge culled from crowds no matter how random or tangential. The fact that Winkleman surrendered his space to Powhida and Dalton, and they, in turn, offered it up as a forum for the art community in general, is a pretty amazing thing. They placed a general call for submissions and the accepted proposals have included panels, tours, photo projects, and everything in between.

I’ve only attended the opening parties and part of two events, but I’ve watched at least three events online via their live web cam, which broadcasts whenever the gallery is open (find it on the #class blog). I’ve also followed C-Monster, as she attended artist Yevgeniy Fiks’ communist tour of MoMA (#commietour) — it was one of the most interesting things I’ve followed on Twitter.

From what I’ve seen so far, there are a lot of people with a lot to say. In regards to the results … well, the results have so far been mixed, but they certainly demonstrate the humor, intelligence, and concern of a community that would love to find a solution to the bigger questions the arts community faces.

What exactly is #class? The best description I’ve found, was articulated in the draft mission statement back on January 12, 2010, which is posted on the #class blog:

#class will turn Edward Winkleman Gallery into a ‘think tank’, where we will work with guest artists, critics, academics, dealers, collectors and anyone else who would like to participate to examine the way art is made and seen in our culture and to identify and propose alternatives and/or reforms to the current market system.

It’s ambitious to say the least, but not something people should ever shy away from tackling. #class has been a fully immersive experience, something I didn’t expect. It has consumed my life even though I’ve often tried not to let it.

Help Us With Our Project

When the buzz began, Hyperallergic decided to join the mix by submitting a proposal called, “$ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD,” which involved placing a ballot box in the gallery for the duration of the event that simply asked if people were owed any money from someone in the New York art world (artist, dealer, publication, etc.).

Where did the idea come from? Well, after hearing about all the heinous amounts of money that The Project and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries owed people before they closed up shop (or were forced to close, in the case of the latter), we guessed there had to be some doozies out there. While, I don’t expect that we will uncover millions of dollars owed to individuals, we want to document the stories that eat at us and frustrate us to no end. We want to hear from you about the $40 you were owed and never received. That artist who promised you an art work but never came through, or that critic who took a work from your studio with a promise of something that never happened. Consider this your confessional, and everything will stay confidential … unless you don’t want it to.

So, if you or someone you know would like to submit to our project, please fill out the form below:

DOWNLOAD THE FORM & SUBMIT YOUR $ECRET$ NOW

All submissions will be published April 1, 2010, in the form of a PDF which you will be available for download from this website.

By popular request, we’ve also added a fast & easy ONLINE FORM you can fill out.

We can’t wait to see what we will get.

I love this line in Leon Nefayk’s latest article in the New York Observer, “Don’t Call It An Art Fair!”

Welcome to the New York art world in 2010, where it’s never about the money, even when it is.

How very true. And my second favorite line is from and about Elizabeth Dee (of the Elizabeth Dee Gallery):

“Trust me, if you go to the Armory right now, it’s just like people madly throwing up stuff on shitty walls,” said Ms. Dee, who said she will have a booth at the Armory but promised that it would function as a critique of the fair system.

Yeah, yeah. Everything is trying to be a critique nowadays, maybe it helps us all feel less dirty. And what the hell is up with someone comparing Dee with Warhol? Someone will have to explain that to me.

Last thing, wasn’t Dee she part of the go-go gilded age of visual art she is now calling “intellectually bankrupt?” The article doesn’t mention if she regrets her role in making it that way, or maybe that was all a critique or performance piece she never let us know about? WOW … maybe she is Warhol … or something.

Don't demolish - a symbol of the anti-demolition movement in Beijing.

Artists jerked out of their studios, cast out onto the street by the government. Building complexes in art zones destroyed without notice, their occupants harassed by hired thugs. Little to no compensation offered for leases cut short, real estate lies, and lost investments in renovation and construction.

These images, formed from media headlines, blog posts and on-the-spot photos, all contribute to a shocking (and not unrealistic) picture of the displacement of artists in Beijing. Stuck between wanting to stamp out criticism and valuing art as part of China’s soft power future, the Chinese government has made the city an unstable place for the arts.

The scale has recently tipped against artists as police have put down protests over the destruction of several of Beijing’s nascent artistic communities, including the Zhengyang and 008 art neighborhoods.

But the problems at the heart of the recent real estate issues do not seem to me to be a result of artists’ political attitudes. Rather, what most coverage has not clarified is that this insane state of flux, neighborhoods there one minute, gone the next, is an inherent part of Beijing’s violent dynamism, top-down change driven less by gentrification or a desire to punish particular groups than by pursuit of strictly economic gain.

An abandoned 798 District gallery, victim to changing economic and political tides. (photo by the author Kyle Chayka) (click to enlarge)

It’s more efficient, not to mention safer, to corral artists into a small number of areas. Whether the process is organic, or produces great art, is clearly not the principal concern.

As the contemporary art community in Beijing has gained momentum and fame in the past two decades, Chinese artists have come to the city in droves. Yet as one of the most expensive cities in China, the cost of living in Beijing’s developed center is prohibitive to the vast majority of artists. So, as is the avant garde’s traditional modus operandi, Chinese artists have colonized the vague semi-urban areas on the outskirts of Beijing city, areas where rent is cheap, space is plentiful and oversight is a little less direct.

The 798 District, today Beijing’s largest, densest and most reputable art district (think Chelsea, but China), began as such a haven. As time has gone on, international renown has developed, rent has gone up, artists have been pushed out for galleries, shops and cafes, and the government has learned to keep hands off. So the city’s expanding artist population has moved outwards, to even less strictly regulated areas far enough outside the city to be zoned as “rural.”

A home and studio in Song Zhuang artist village. (photo by the author Kyle Chayka) (click to enlarge)

Song Zhuang is Beijing’s largest “rural” art zone, home to thousands of working artists. The village’s main street, a two-hour bus ride from the city center, is lined with galleries, art supply stores and the gates of studio complexes. The development’s scale belies its instability. Song Zhuang has been threatened with demolition more than a few times, according to its residents, and its future is still uncertain.

As commenter LostinWonder pointed out on the Guardian’s article covering the recent protests, rural areas like Zhengyang or Song Zhuang are often developed under the table, “built illegally on agricultural land.” Artists make a deal with rural landlords, knowing full well that long-term leases aren’t guaranteed on agriculture-zoned land.

The funny thing is that in China, you might own your house, but the government owns the land it’s built on.

So far, most Beijing art neighborhoods have gotten by on a mixture of tenacity, populist appeal, and flight under the radar. Now it looks like there is a consolidation underway as certain art zones are pushed into demolition while others, namely Song Zhuang and 798, are visibly backed by the government and are seeing expansion plans. New developments are announced every day; as one studio goes down, a complex of 16 arises miles away.

The difference becomes which area gets support and which doesn’t.

A fruit stand outside of the Gulou subway in Beijing is demolished. (Photo by the author Kyle Chayka) (click to enlarge)

This is not only relevant to artists and art neighborhoods. Last summer I paid witness to another violent “redeveloping” in Beijing’s center as a fruit stand was demolished to make way for a new subway line right through a historic neighborhood.

The occupant didn’t vacate immediately, but the police arrived, persuaded him off the pile of stock and belongings outside his store, and by nightfall the building was a shell and the owner and his wife sat on a steel frame bed propped up on the sidewalk. A crowd gathered throughout the evening and night, paying witness to the silent protest.

Real estate instability is an issue for the entire city of Beijing. It would be a nearsighted mistake to assume that the destruction of these art zones is purely a result of political judgment or government vengeance against Beijing’s artists. The incidents point to much deeper, more general problems of city infrastructure and the slash-and-burn method of Chinese urbanization.

Engraved ostrich eggshell fragments reveal a 60,000-year-old graphic design tradition (via Scientific American)

Archaeologists have discovered 270 pieces of engraved ostrich eggshell, which date to around 60,000 years ago, from a site called Diepkloof in South Africa’s Western Cape province. Why is this important? According to Scientific American:

The fragments constitute what the researchers say is the “earliest evidence of a graphic tradition among prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations.” As such, the finds help to illuminate the emergence of symbolic representation—a hallmark of modern human behavior.

Brooklyn-based artist/designer Roy Stanfield had an interesting comment on this news item, “Funny this is framed as graph design instead of art.” Very true, I wonder why.

AP photo makes sure that we think this is great for Muslims…um, how about the rest of us that LOVE Islamic art? (via USA Today)

USA Today reports that Detroit has a new Islamic art display and it’s about time. Home to the largest concentration of Muslims in the U.S., the Detroit Institute of Arts will finally open a new permanent gallery of Islamic art. Among the treasures that are on display is a:

… 15th-century leather-bound Quran, whose gold-flecked paper was given by the Ming emperor of China to Timur, one of the Mongol conquerors of the Middle East

Of course, AP decided to post a photo of a traditionally garbed Muslim, rather than a photo of a secular Muslim, which represents the vast majority of Muslims in America.

If you think that Detroit’s move is welcome by everyone, think again:

Most disturbing to [director Graham W.J.] Beal was a letter from a member who asked why the museum was “promoting godless Islam.”

“Nobody has said, ‘Why are you showing Native American art?’ I’ve never had that question in my whole career,” he said.

The carved-basalt Olmec colossal head dates to 1200-900 BC. (Courtesy LACMA via Christian Science Monitor)

Mexico is celebrating the bicentennial of its independence and the centennial of its revolution, and to celebrate the milestones art institutions in Los Angeles are revving up with shows — some major, some not — of Mexican art and culture. Home to the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico, LA is a natural place to showcase Mexican art.

Here are some highlights:

• The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will unveil a blockbuster show titled, “Olmec: Masterworks of Ancient Mexico,” later this year (opening September 26, 2010) which includes the renowned monumental head basalt sculptures;
• The Getty Villa will open “The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire” (March 24–July 5, 2010).
• At the UCLA campus, the Fowler Museum is staging “Fowler in Focus: X-Voto – The Retablo-Inspired Art of David Mecalco” (January 31–May 16, 2010);
• Autry National Center of the American West is mounting “Siqueiros in Los Angeles: Censorship Defied” (September 2010 – January 2011);
• Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California, will exhibit “Manchuria: Peripheral Vision – A Felipe Ehrenberg Retrospective” (May 22 – August 15, 2010);
• Getty Research Institute will show “Obsidian Mirror-Travels” (November 16, 2010 – March 27, 2011);
• And the Museum of Latin American Art – Project Room will have two displays focusing on Mexican artists, “Mariana Castillo Deball” (June 17 – September, 12, 2010); and “Jorge Méndez Blake, All the Poetry Books” (September 23, 2010 – January 3, 2011).

The Christian Science Monitor reports that one of the major works on display at the Getty’s Aztec show is the Florentine Codex, which is:

… a detailed journal recording the various cultural traditions the Spaniards encountered and attempting to contextualize and explain them to European audiences.

“It’s a fascinating document,” says Ms. Lyons, who points out that this is the first time in 400 years that it has returned to this continent. “It helps enormously to understand that this took place during the High Renaissance in Europe,” at the same time that Europe itself was deeply involved in a backward look at its own Roman and Greek cultural traditions.

There’s a lot of buzz in New York about last weekend’s P.S.1 event, Brooklyn Is Burning, which was curated by Sarvia Jasso and Andres Bedoya. Saturday night, artist Ann Liv Young took to the stage and lashed out at the previous performance by Georgia Sagri. According to Gothamist:

… [Young] viciously insulted Georgia, peed in a bowl, stripped, masturbated… and got into a shouting match with several people in the audience,” including Sagri—who left the room when Young began masturbating in front of her …

Art Fag City has more information and commentary:

• How Much Pee in Pan Will Prompt Museum Intervention?; and
• Brooklyn Is Burning Co-Curator Sarvia Jasso Responds.

And some commentary by Claudia La Rocco at WNYC’s Performance Club:

• Censored at P.S. 1; and
• P.S.1 Responds To Censorship Claims Following Incident.

#class Organized by Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida (web cam view) (via Winkleman Gallery)

#class continues at Winkleman Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and it has been getting a lot of traction on and offline. The latest news is that New York’s Pulse art fair has invited #class organizers William Powhida and Jen Dalton to mock-up a chalkboard at the fair and invite the fair public to contribute to the discussions. You can watch #class happenings live online at: hashtagclass.blogspot.com.

A view of the massive pharaonic head, after its excavation (via Independent)

Culture Monster lets us know that, “the remarkably well-preserved head of a huge 3,000-year-old statue of Amenhotep III — the grandfather of Tutankhamen (aka King Tut) — has been recovered from an excavation in Luxor, Egypt.”

A view of the fashionable protestors (HuffPost via Fashionista)

Huffington Post writes about a strange fashion protest during the Milan designer shows:

After Milan crammed its fashion week into several days to coincide with Anna Wintour’s visit, a group of protestors took to the Piazza Oberdan before Gucci’s show to demonstrate their discontent. Clad in bobbed wigs, sunglasses and t-shirts that said “I Will Only Stay 3 Days,” the ladies leered at press and buyers.

Ahh, the aesthetics of protest in the fashion world. Guess the art world isn’t the only place facing oodles of discontent these days.

Behold the wisdom of Mr. Wiggles (click to enlarge)

If you don’t know Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, you should. Its creator Neil Swaab is a genius … well, if you think genius involves illustrating a 3′7″ teddy bear who has been convincted of burglary, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with a meat product, assaulting a meat product, posession, intent to cause distress on a senior citizen, arson, kidnapping, extortion, conspiracy, light treason, illegal use of a contraceptive, vandalism, negligent homicide, public urination, public drunkeness, disorderly conduct, illegal disposal of a body, parking in a loading zone …

Swaab is an instructor at Parsons, the New School for Design, where he teaches in the Illustration department. He resides in Astoria, NY.

Can someone please do a Freudian analysis of this thing and tell me why layering a beatnik vibe, a cocoa bean castration scene, and what sounds like a 1950s voice over is just…mmmmmmm good?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thank you @jonnymoon for the link…WOW!

Jonathan Brilliant, "The Eternal Return Piece" (2010) (click to enlarge)

Repetition in art can be so juicy … when it’s done right. Second-rate minimalism has so deeply traumatized all us with its dull monotony and draining sense of sameness. Indeed, the fear that your favorite professor heard or saw you yawning after the 18th Judd slide in that dark lecture room binds us all together. However, there is another facet of repetition that minimalism’s fierce rejection of ornament and narrative has left un-explored. The show closing tomorrow at Nurture Art, titled Eternal Return, reveals a more vivacious take on recurring forms. The exhibition’s name is a reference to Nietzsche, but more on that in a second.

The magnum opus of the show is Jonathan Brilliant’s colossal site specific sculpture, “The Eternal Return Piece” (2010). It is made of 30,000 wood coffee sticks that are held together without any glue or adhesive. Shear tension binds these sticks together. You would think that the vortex-like sculpture would be as fragile as a deck of cards but it’s not. Ben Evans, Nuture Art’s gallery director, proved his point by brazenly pushing in on the sculpture while I watched and in the process demonstrated its resilience. It’s mind boggling how much can be achieved by contorting a stick over and over again. Brilliant’s work felt as much like a feat of engineering as aesthetics.

Elsewhere, Reuben Lorch-Miller’s video, “Nonterminus” (2002), of an endless tunnel really scores an aural bull’s-eye. It emits this haunting noise that fills the entire gallery. Most angsty video artists indulge in a heavy-handed approach to eerie sounds that it comes off trite and grating like nails on a chalk board. This noise had a subtlety that feels queasy and haunted. Sound remains the Achilles heel for many video artists who tend to myopically focus on the visual.

A view of Nurture Art's Eternal Return (click to enlarge)

Tara Parsons also uses one item over and over again – boxes of dental floss. Her neatly arranged grid, “Dental Records” (2005), invokes repetition on many levels. Not only does everyone have floss in their cabinet, but they are expected to use it every night. Although you wouldn’t exactly admit this on a first date, we can all fess up to the fact that every six months our dentists, who, leery of our real and not professed floss habits, lecture us about the benefits of flossing more regularly. Looking at the boxes of dental floss may very well evoke the dark realization that our broken vows to floss more will continue.

This recurring tooth floss scenario is an apt example of Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return of the same. As the old adage goes, history is doomed to repeat itself, but when we honestly examine our daily lives, we can likewise see so many repeating patterns. This gruff thinker was really trying to unpack why we can gain so much knowledge as humans, but still make the same typos over and over again, fail to floss our teeth after a thousand lectures, or keep forgetting that small detail you told yourself is really important five minutes ago.

Like most shows at Nurture Art, each work explores the common theme in a different manner. Some play more with the formal potential of recurring patterns, and others go for the jugular with a content that plays with Nietzsche. Such a wide spectrum — all with a language that appears informed by minimalism — creates a rich viewing experience which explores the beauty of repetition without becoming tedious.

Eternal Return is curated by Christine Spangler & Tyler Wriston and features the work of Jonathan Brilliant, Judith Braun, Joy Curtis, Thomas Lendvai, Tara Parsons, Reuben Lorch Miller, and Cody Trepte. It closes Saturday, February 28, 2010, (the website listing is incorrect) at Nurture Art (910 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY).