Art stories in the New Haven Advocate

I'm doing some freelance writing on visual arts again for the New Haven Advocate. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an exhibit at Yale's Beinecke Rare Books Library on the collision of post-World War II avant-garde art and radical politics in "The Revolution Is Curated:"

Were the revolutions of the 1960s — and 1968 in particular — just a dream (or nightmare, if you were part of the ruling class)? Based on evidence presented in a fascinating show at the Beinecke Library, the revolutions were both real and surreal.

The Postwar Avant-Garde and the Culture of Protest, 1945 to 1968 and Beyond tracks the influence of a generation of artistic rebels in Europe. These artists/activists sought not just to change art but to change life.

According to curator Kevin Repp, 2008 — the 40th anniversary of 1968, when the globe convulsed with multiple upheavals — would have been the ideal year to mount the show. But Beinecke was undergoing renovations at the time.

Meanwhile, the collection has been further fleshed out. The library purchased more than 240 posters produced during the May 1968 uprising in France when students occupied the universities and some 10 million workers went on strike.

"Rather than focus solely on 1968, the focus here is to put 1968 into the larger story," Repp says.

You can read more here.

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In the issue of the paper out today you'll find "The Gods Must Be Freaky," an article on Bill Saunders' (aka Volonté Morceaux) show at Hull's Gallery at One Whitney.

At the opening of Forces de Nature, Bill Saunders, aka Volonté Morceaux, told me his paintings were informed by mythology and postmodern fiction.

I'll admit it: I thought he was just tarting up already fine work with pseudo-intellectual bullshit. But a couple of trips back to Hull's Gallery at 1 Whitney Ave. — and further discussions about the paintings with Saunders and gallery director Barbara Hawes — changed my mind.

This is farce, yes, but serious farce.

Read more. There will be a second artists' reception for this show—this time under Saunders' real name—tomorrow, Thurs., Dec. 3, from 5—8 p.m. All New Haven's freaks will be there.

Pseudonymous artist to debut new paintings at Hull's Thursday

Hull's Gallery One Whitney
1 Whitney Ave., New Haven, (203) 907-0320
Volonté Morceux: Forces of Nature
Oct. 22—Nov. 14, 2009.
Opening reception: Thurs., Oct. 22, 5—8 p.m.

Press release

Fait Vrai presents...

Forces of Nature: Nine New Paintings by Volonté Morceux

About the Show:

(Translated into English by Wang, the Human Unicorn)

Feeling unnaturally selected?

Is genetic modification leading to your intelligently designed extinction?? If so, Forced Adaptation camp will be just what you need....

Winged Monkeys! Human Dodos! Two-Faced Pigs! Man's tinkers. Nature fights back with the weapons left in its Evolutionary Arsenal. Bear witness to extreme biological warfare! Be warned, the crock is ticking. Better will triumph.

Consider most famous High Coup by Sun Sue:

Oh population,
Oh Man-Oh-War, Oh ruined
Racehorse named poison.

About the artist:

Volonté Morceux is a self-taught painter, internationally recognized performance artist, outspoken social critic and post-modern surrealist provocateur. Morceux was once banished from Cannes for screening provocative film strips en plein aire and for libel. He is also widely attributed with starting the new neo-fluxist revolution; however, he decries that movement as a hoax extraordinaire. The scientific establishment has lauded Forces of Nature, Morceux's first exhibition in this country, as "a powerful force of nature and a harbinger of things to come". Some critics disagree.