from New York Magazine: Israeli Journalist's YouTube Mockery of Qadaffi Rant Goes Viral in Libya.

from the New York Times: Arabs Embrace Israeli’s YouTube Spoof of Qaddafi

Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist, musician and Internet buff, said he saw Colonel Qaddafi’s televised speech last Tuesday in which the Libyan leader vowed to hunt down protesters “inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway,” and immediately identified it as a “classic hit.”

Changing the World through Art/Auction and Gala
to benefit The Time In Children’s Arts Initiative

Haunch of Venison
1230 Avenue of the Americas
Between 48th & 49th Streets
20th Floor
New York City

^ Fred Tomaselli ^

For further information and tickets:
917-318-9499, 212 209-1552 or
http://hiartkids.com/auction2011a/index.html

LEE WELLS: ACTION FOR FREEDOM
ROOSTER GALLERY, 190 ORCHARD STREET, NYC
FEBRUARY 17 – MARCH 12, 2011

Pirate Flag #2, 2010, HD Video, 10 minutes

Wikipedia: Blowback is the espionage term for the violent, unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civil population of the aggressor government. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as “random” acts of political violence without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name the intelligence agency acted—are ignorant of the effected secret attacks that provoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.

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February 22, 2011. What's in a name? "Action for Freedom", the generic, boosterish title of Lee Wells' new exhibition of paintings and recycled digital video, at first sounds like a grassroots community organization, a vigilante committee, even a policy wonk's think tank. But those two fully loaded buzzwords, which might suggest engagement or advocacy in another context, are defused here, rendered open-ended and non-specific. Like other bland amalgams which tend to litter the political landscape - could Wells have titled his exhibition "New Republic" or "National Review"? - the connotation is intentionally ambiguous.

Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
February 10–May 1, 2011

February 10, 2011. In a bit of serendipity that is hardly lost on the Whitney Museum itself, the exhibition they just opened, of work from the collection of Emily Fisher Landau, is mounted in fourth floor galleries that already honor her name. The estimable Fisher Landau collection, totaling over 400 works, was pledged to the museum in May 2010 by their longtime trustee, who has also established an endowment for continuing support of the Biennial. The show currently on view, comprising just over 80 pieces, is assembled by Whitney curators Donna De Salvo and David Kiehl, and ranges from signature work by Andy Warhol, Edward Ruscha, Richard Artschwager and John Baldessari to a vintage 1980 Susan Rothenberg new image painting, a wealth of Jasper Johns screenprints, pristine early 60s works on paper by Agnes Martin, Carl Andre concrete poetry on typewritten sheets, Felix Gonzalez-Torres jigsaw puzzles, assemblages by Nayland Blake, photo portraiture by Peter Hujar and Nan Goldin, and an early Richard Prince nurse painting, to name but a few.

December 27, 2010. On Christmas night, in the freezing cold before the blizzard hit New York City, crochet artist Olek and her band of enablers managed to fully clothe the famous bronze statue of a charging bull that stands in Bowling Green Park in downtown Manhattan. A potent symbol of Wall Street capitalism, the bull wore its crocheted "cozy" for two hours before the caretaker of the small triangular park arrived and confiscated the work, cutting it up and depositing it in the garbage. But first this photo was taken.

You Killed Me First, installation view, 1985.

James Romberger - artist, gallerist, writer and collaborator with David Wojnarowicz during the salad days of the East Village - was prompted by the current censorship of "A Fire In My Belly" to pen an eloquent analysis and remembrance of his friend. Wojnarowicz’s Apostasy http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/2010/12/wojnarowiczs-apostacy/ is an essential read.