nina katchadourian

The family field trip to see the Nina Katchadourian show at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College was a resounding success, especially the sounds from the elevator and from the video monitors and in the dark room and from the mouths of siblings. It was so great to share her work with other people who enjoy postcards, words, games with words, nature, books, and other themes that appear in Katchadourian's work. And they had a wonderful panoply of works, many of which I had seen before (and it was wonderful to see them again).

Downstairs, there was a show of more than 100 drawings, part two of "Twice drawn." There were several drawings that were especially enjoyable and each of us -- Dad, Bert, Doug, Carol, Barb, Bruce, Cathy, and me -- had particular favorites. I had fun telling Carol and Bert about the Mark Tansey drawing of Duchamp and Rrose Selavy in passing trains. I have a poster of the Tansey work of Indians looking at Spiral Jetty and that poster is in the room Carol used to occupy as her bedroom at 33. There was also a Smithson drawing of a corner sculpture, and Carol had an art class experience with Smithson years ago at Alfred University. And there was an Oldenburg or two. I saw Oldenburg in Oberlin when I was in grad school and got his signature in one of the little Dutton paperbacks of his work. The title of the show comes from the vintage of the works which dated from some time ago or recently, not a survey of drawings but a look at resonances.

The looking at resonances is playing out in the call for participation in the February-April 2007 show of the Queer Caucus. We officers accepted an interesting curatorial offer from Sheila Pepe which she called "Mother, may I?" Rather than looking at simple artistic precedence (precedents), the entrants are challenged to come up in pairs wherein an older artist granted permission to a younger artist (I don't think the older/younger need be merely chronological, not probably even being dyads). A couple people have criticized the theme on the list, and I sure wish their energy went into creative challenge of the theme rather than confrontation.