Germans... check, Fishes..check, smoke machine... check

The scene was pandemonium on Stanton street. We needed a red carpet, a velvet rope and somebody with a microphone to criticize everyone's outfits. My studio mates Adele and Kerstin's show at the tiny Amy Stewart Smith gallery really needed a bigger venue as the absurdity of the performance was in neck-and-neck competition with the absurdity of a throng of wet art-fans getting rained on while climbing over each other to get a peek inside. I decided to go get a beer and wait for the crowd to die down. When I got back I was able to see the installation inside- a large scale painting on paper, photographs of Kerstin and Adele dressed up as various characters that are beautiful, funny, weird, slightly disturbing all at once in a way that is really hard to explain. The are in between seeming like real characters and seeming like a silly dress-up game, and like the performance seem self-mocking but not entirely so. I really like the whole thing together. I might be biased because the painting is so good. Kerstin can really paint, so i'm inclined to be willing to go pretty far in believing in the photography, a medium i claim more ignorance of.