As Someone Who Has Hit A Barn Door With a Car

The only moment of rest I got last weekend (blogger was broken recently so I apologize for the lack in posting/post disappearance) was when I made it out to the far reaches of Queens, across from "Food Dimensions" Supermarket to my pal Kevin's gallery, Famous Accountants. Named after a Warhol quote about how famous artists are like famous accountants, no one knows who they are, Kevin's space (which he runs with the wondrous Ellen who surpassed the awesome niceness I had heard rumor of!) has had some pretty great shows from "Untitled (The Jetway)" that recreated the pathway from airport to jet stretched through the length of the gallery which I can almost feel the eerie, tense rickety-ness of to the  Genesis P. Orridge Tag Sale selling off the wares of the industrial music genius (a movie about the legendary P. Orridge was actually the only movie Brent was able to see at IndieLisboa last week which he loved, "both weird and great"-more later!). I've been to F.A. before but descending into the dark, cool space and being confronted with the current show is a really wonderful feeling, much like entering the stone studio basement of our own rural barn. Which, of course, is fitting given that the show is titled the magic black of an open barn door on a really sunny summer day, when you just cannot see into it and features a series of self portraits by the painter Matthew Miller, born and raised a Mennonite in nearby Lancaster PA. 

The portraits are just spectacular: the perspective is jarring with strong soft lines making flat images that almost seem to levitate away from the stark black backgrounds, all of the artist in different stages of a non-existing self. Matt was saying that he feels painting self portraits is almost like a disconnect. By painting yourself you are abstracting yourself to just a picture, shapes, and that the soulful ideas some project onto them, and that critics like to project onto them, are not necessarily real- a very fitting take from an artist with an intense religious upbringing. After sitting in lawn chairs on the concrete stoop in the perfect summer breeze outside the gallery, I realized that things might be shapes and people might talk about these shapes and criticize these shapes but there is a simple yet deep connection that people can feel to art- a connection that is at the heart of sipping warm coffee in the cool basement of Famous Accountants. I wish them all the luck in keeping their vision alive for years to come! Next up for our own vision....official opening in Kentucky this Friday (poor broken blogger, the opening just happened- update soon).