Allison Hester, "Michael Lorenzo Urie 1980" (2011), pen on Arches (all photos by author)

Walking into the Marianne Boesky Gallery’s summer exhibition I Bleed Black, the first work I saw was a small drawing of actor Michael Urie, best-known for his role in the television series Ugly Betty. I knew I was in trouble.

However, the art was not even the most worrisome part of the exhibition. The bizarrely academic language in the gallery press release made me want to tear up the sheet of paper in front of the sweet-looking gallery assistant.

Maybe its just me but I feel like recently there has been a rash of press releases from galleries that are so academic that they are barely comprehensible. I think galleries need to reevaluate what they want visitors to get out of their press releases.

Made up of mostly Marianne Boesky employees from art handlers to registrars, I Bleed Black features a range of artistic mediums and focuses such Elizabeth Miseo’s ceramics and Nicholas Brooks’s installation of a video of a woman masturbating that is housed in a black plastic tent inside the gallery with a sign “Adults Only.”

I was at first curious about the origin of the seemingly goth title “I Bleed Black.”  Some googling led me to a song by the LA doom metal band Saint Vitus. It also led me to countless sites declaring “I Bleed Black and Gold,” which being Pittsburgh-born and-raised made me wish the show was about Pittsburgh sports fanaticism.

Ted Riederer, "The Collectors" (installation shot) (2011), oil on canvas

Even though it was not about bleeding black and gold, I’m still not sure what “bleeding black” has to do with any of the works in the show. The press release is no help, reading as one of the most confusingly academic press releases I’ve ever come across.

Originally, I was supposed to review the actual art in the I Bleed Black exhibition but being fairly unremarkable, the totally irritating press release overtook the show.

Having spent two years in an interdiscplinary Master’s program, I can recognize when the writer is using terms like “societal pressure” and “societal norms” to cover the fact that they’re not saying much of anything. The press release reads:

Emphasizing the power of the individual, I Bleed Black suggests the working artist’s struggle to overcome or transcend the outside factors inherent in society, religion and politics. The individual, steadily seeking an evolved state of being, attempts to create only for himself and deny the influences of the outside components that are inherent in the duties or responsibilities of the day to day.

Um … what?

Stating nothing about the art itself or the artists involved, the press release has paragraph after paragraph repeating the same thing about the artist’s struggle between personal expression and everyday social norms.

Having written a few press releases in various internships, I question who this is written for. The collectors? Art historians? Art critics? I have no idea.

Ethan Minsker, "Rich Boy Cries for Momma" (2010)

As shown in other articles I’ve written, I don’t particularly like when the art in the exhibit can’t back up the lofty language in the press release but this is just absurd, considering I’m not exactly sure I understand what is meant by “steered by an ambition that manifests itself in the routine of the everyday.” I’m also not sure what it has to do with Ethan Minsker’s book Rich Boy Cries for Momma.

In the end, I became so frustrated with trying to figure out the meaning of the show that I walked out of the gallery and began to explore the street art surrounding the closed Chelsea galleries.

Works by street artist RAE on 22nd Street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

One work that caught my eye were these works by RAE on 22nd Street, reminding me of two-dimensional drawings of Alexander Calder’s wire sculptures of faces. More exciting and even more art historically relevant than the works in I Bleed Black, RAE’s multiple drawings did not need an unintelligible press release to promote their worth.

So to all the gallery press release writers, please stop the overly academic language that sounds like you are trying to up your word count for a college essay.

Marianne Boesky Gallery’s I Bleed Black closed on September 1, 2011. Lucky you.

Paddy Johnson wins the day!

Paddy's web juice put her over the top. Which goes to prove, don't fuck with an art fag.

After hundreds of votes and dozens of comments on the post, on Twitter & on Facebook, we are happy to announce that Paddy Johnson has been declared the official winner of the first ever Worst. Press. Release. Ever. competition. The press release for Olivier Zahm’s exhibition at New York’s Half Gallery is officially the worst press release.

The art blogosphere’s favorite art fag has crossed the finish line victorious with a whopping 72.3% of votes. Congratulations, Paddy! Today is your day in the sun and drinks are on us tonight!

We asked Paddy Johnson for comment on her victory and she replied, “I feel great. I think this is the art world taking a stand against Oliver Zahm.”

Lyra Kilston was unavailable for comment and did not return our calls.

Today, we announce that our quest to find the worst piece of art PR in the universe has become a contest decided by our loyal readers and fellow netizens. For the first ever Worst.Press.Release.Ever. match up we’ve called on two friends of Hyperallergic to battle it out in a contest that will bestow on the winner bragging rights for eternity.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce the luscious Lyra Kilston, who is no stranger to Hyperallergic fans, and the ambrosial Paddy Johnson, aka Art Fag City, to rumble it out in a contest decided by your votes as to which is the WORST.PRESS.RELEASE.EVER!?!?

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Lyra Kilston calling someone who cares ... her mother?

CONTENDER #1: Lyra Kilston

I chose this based on the extremely poor quality of the writing. It reads like it’s been fed through Babelfish, but I received it through an “international” source that should, one would hope, employ a proofreader for such things. But I guess not. My major problem with this is that you have to read each sentence about three times to understand what it’s aiming for — and even then it’s unclear. I also dislike statements that say things like how an artist’s work “confronts us with the reality of the banality that surrounds us.” I mean, how stupid are we that we need a bird sculpture to tell us that? Banality we can glean from a quick trip to the nearest Applebees. [Bold & colored text mine.]

*   *   *

Peter Rogiers, "The Governess" (2009-2010)

Peter Rogier is toiling through the matter with synthetic resin and cast aluminum attempting to generate an oblique and “different” imagery out of sync with what we recognize in “our” world. Therein lies the core and essence of real artistic production – the desire to mould into a plastic shape undermining visual recognition and shunt man onto the track of imagination. Peter Rogier recently created new so-called “bird sculptures” where the bird is barely an echo of the verbal reference and has become the alibi to freely conjure with abstract forms visually varying according to the place and viewpoint of perception.

The new ‘colourless’ sculptures with an elegant silhouette withstanding the resemblance of a bird transform and “peel” within the sculpture to an abstract skin reminiscent even of the perforated canvas of Enrico Castellani; the Italian artist who in the wake of the zero movement attempted to escape the obligation of formal categories and labels.

The new white “bird sculptures” are less “attractive” than the recent white palm trees: the “birds” are crippled deformities leaning towards Jeroen Bosch where the beauty is hiding in a bolster of artistic recalcitrance. Not the reference is the criterion but rather the full and expansively creative composition of an image not “inspired” by gratuitous feelings, corny moaning or transparent mimesis.

Peter Rogier is and remains one of those sculptors who averse from all personal interests is stuck with his art in brave stubbornness to (certainly) not give into creating any form of languid art whatsoever. In other words, art which does not brighten up but cheers up through the adventure in the form through which Rogier pleases and confronts us with the reality of the banality surrounding us.

His new drawings can further be considered catching thought-moulds where worlds tilt and imagination chases off the grimy reality.

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Paddy Johnson thinks she’s a superhero

CONTENDER #2: Paddy Johnson

Olivier Zahm’s absurd claim that amateur porn cannot be found via Google did not appear in the press release for his solo show at Half Gallery this December. It also didn’t mention his predilection for wearing prescription sunglasses indoors, or his life as a socialite, (though it does hint that the dude might be a bit of a dog). Zahm’s show text earns my recommendation in Hyperallergic’s Worst. Press. Release. Ever. challenge not just for its indecipherable art speak –indeed this release is best characterized by its failed attempt to employ it — but for its utter vanity and vapidity. If there’s a part of the art world out there grosser than this, I don’t know what it is.

*   *   *

Olivier Zahm’s exhibition at Half Gallery, NYC

A few of Olivier Zahm’s photo show at Half Gallery.

…Spending his time between New York and Paris, the man behind Purple Fashion magazine has published, in [his blog] Purple Diary, pictures that read like a guide to some of his favourite places: the Montana, the brasserie Lipp, and the Café de Flore in Paris, Standard hotel and the Omen restaurant, among many others, in NYC^[1]. His diary develops an imagery [sic] which transcends the original magazine. Thanks to the new digital support, Zahm’s life is now the very material of this new medium^[2]. In this sense, his site is like some sort of^[3] immaterial^[4] ID card of the artist as it chronologically reveals what he is producing and with who, as well as the creative process at work^[5]. Through the representation of a specific microsom [sic] and its codes, he paints a dense social fresco^[6], a fictional document^[7] appropriate to the end of the 00s^[8]. Always navigating between private sphere and public sphere^[9] he’s purposely getting us lost through a maze of multiple indications^[10] that only reveal the surface elegant and opaque^[11]. It all leads to his obessional [sic] paths: bodies of naked and tantalizing women^[12], socialite life^[13], architecture and contemporary still lifes [sic]^[14]. An autofictional picture^[15] as a matter of fact^[16], disclosing [sic] a form of romanticism and mania that show as much in his luxurious approach to aesthetics^[17] as in his view on intimacy^[18].

1. So many places to list, endless space to do it in!
2. In other words Zahm uses a camera to take pictures of his friends, and then posts them on the internet!
3. some sort of = not sure what I’m describing
4. immaterial = web based
5. Long story short, Zahm has a personal blog…
6. Ooooh, old mediums in new forms!
7. posing as a personal diary or immaterial artist ID card
8. and the dot com boom
9. Wait, the Internet is a public space?
10. Indications of what?
11. Zahm is a beautiful enigma!
12. Soft-core pornography
13. classism
14. naked women
15. Not a real word, but if it were it would contradict the release’s earlier description of the work as documentary-style self-portrait
16. The whole project is a ruse charading as a documentary
17. And class
18. aka quest for tail

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So, which is the Worst.Press.Release.Ever?
(Vote until 1 pm EST on Friday, when we will announce the winner.)

Diagram illustrating "Emergency Room Hanoi/Vietnam" at the Vietnam Academy of Fine Arts, which runs October 28 to November 20, 2009.

Ah, the e-flux email list, ever full of surprises. One day it might elicit a cri de couer of indignation (“really?”), and the next day just a dramatic eye-roll. Sure it’s a very useful tool, but it’s also chock-full of self-important curatorial jargon, exaggerated claims, and overblown PR-ese. One has to try hard these days to catch the attention of the art world, especially when they’re receiving thrice-daily email blasts (and when you’re paying $1,200 to buy yourself into the privileged coterie of e-flux approved participants, you’d better get more than a glance).

Which brings us to Hyperallergic’s new semi-regular feature: Worst. Press. Release. Ever.

Sent out on November 1 and forwarded to me by a friend in Austin, Texas, who added his own unbiased editorial notation to the top: “Seriously. Shoot them all,” this e-flux blast, titled “Emergency Room Hanoi at Vietnam University of Fine Arts” is one of the most mind-boggling examples of misguided curatorial pomp I’ve ever seen. To wit:

Artists are thermometers that can measure and perceive dysfunctions in our society. Artists are experts of all perceptions. What they know or feel must reach the public opinion immediately:
Now
- before it is too late.

These pronouncements raise interesting questions: Are artists more sensitive than say, swimmers or sociologists? Are they really experts of all perceptions? Do they know what I’m thinking right now? Are the rest of us just stumbling along blindly to the dysfunctions of our society? And is this why I’m JUST SO HAPPY every day?

The social utility of art remains a murky realm, and that’s fine (we’ve seen what happens when it serves ideology). While plenty of arguments have been made for art’s ability to enhance, complicate, transgress, upend, beautify, or mystify life, it’s not usually called upon in moments of emergency — unless you agree with Paul Villinski’s “Emergency Response Studio” (2008) I guess. Yet, the press release continues:

Through Emergency Room, artists can react to reality every day. In Emergency Room the public can have access to the artist’s premonitions, suspicions, visions and collected evidences before it is too late. In Emergency Room artists evolve and develop new unexpected methods and forms.

Artists, burning to express themselves about the emergencies of today, join each other daily to display their work in the circular Emergency Room. Punctuality and deadlines are fundamental when yesterday’s artworks daily at 12.15 pm is removed from the Emergency Room to give space to the artworks of today. This ritual of changing the exhibition is called: ‘The Passage’. The artworks from yesterday and previous days are then exhibited in the ‘Delay Museum’ beside the Emergency Room.

Artists, are you burning to express yourselves about the emergencies of today, but only until 12:15 tomorrow? If so, you are in luck, because guess who’s coming?

The Queen, Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark will attend the Passage on November 3rd and engage in the following discussion with the artists.

Hyperallergic is accepting submissions for Worst.Press.Release.Ever. Please email them to worst.press.release.ever@hyperallergic.com.