I caught this in an e-mail from Jeffers.  Nofziger is worth checking out.

The UML Art Department, Web Art & Design Area is pleased to have

Ritual ideas relativety
Only buildings no people prophecy
Timeslide place to hide nudge reality
Foresight minds wide magic imagery

Space guy fell from the sky
Scratched my head and wondered why
Time slide into time
Across international dateline
Scientist eats bubblegum
Hall of fame baseball
Senators a Hoodlum
Big chiefs in the hall
Ritual ideas relativety
Only buildings no people prophecy
Timeslide place to hide nudge reality
Foresight minds wide magic imagery

Lyrics from “E=MC2″ by Big Audio Dynamite

Bucky ROYGBIV by Matthew Day Jackson, 2007

Matthew Day Jackson, now playing at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center (May 8th-July 12th, 2009), sets fire to the place.  He knows we know he knows, and he goes there.  For example, in Lonesome Soldier (2008) one is instantly reminded of Charles Ray’s Plank Piece (1973), which was a humanized performance riff on Richard Serra’s Prop (1968), but Jackson’s is not a sheet of lead, or his own body, but rather a felt space man, oh Beuys!  We are in the presence of greatness, all the time.  But, at times it feels a little bit like the Leonardo DiCaprio / Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet, in that Jackson brings guns instead of swords, or carbon fiber instead of marble; but is it still Brancusi?  I guess as much as that movie was Shakespeare.  We know, the permission for this work was hard fought, it takes guts to place a Hemi drag racing motor on rod power pyramids (like my parents picked-up at the crystal-hopped new age store when I was a kid) as Jackson does in Heart of Prometheus (2009).  There are themes here (racing, space chasing, atom bombing, geodesics, so on), but I can’t help thinking Jackson’s meta-story is getting thick like another Matthew, Barney.  This is not bad, and in fact maybe the saving grace of Jackson’s work, his earnest sincerity.  For no matter how many layers of great artists (and thinkers, and, and, and) he can stack like a Dagwood, I believe Matthew Day Jackson believes in this work.  And faith goes along way here, even tangled in the miasma of testosterone-fulled modernism on fucking atomic-powered Red Bull.

Go see it before it comes down, and check out Duncan Campbell’s film Bernadette in the other gallery, but bring a hoody it’s cold in there.

Chariot II-I Like America and America Likes Me by Matthew Day Jackson, 2008

P.S. I thought about just leaving the B.A.D. lyric quote as the review, I heard it on the radio on the way home, and thought it summed up the exhibition well.  But, ElPezCore would have none of it!

Last night in Lowell, MA - Something was happening at 119 Gallery, there was cooking smoke, a belly dancer, porn from the advent of moving image, and fuck-an-A, ART!  I cruised by the opening of Seduce Me curated by Setheyny Pen, and featuring the work of: Ebenezer Archer Kling, Anthony Palocci Jr, Christopher Eastwood, Hali Vik, Christine Tuccelli, and Timothy Goguen. And was pleasantly surprised to find an elegant show of thoughtful work by a crew of smart young artists.  Concurrently, was “Improvised Comfort Device (food) (Superhero Action)” a performance by relative old-timer, Jim Jeffers: “as a piece [sic] offering to swine 40 pounds of chicken will be grilled and eaten” (from a flyer at the event).  Where, Jeffers dressed in a red jump suit, and partially covered by a blue tarp strung off the back of a hatch-back, grilled chicken and served it up to the tentative audience.

Standing out were the tightly crafted 40’s (40 oz. beer bottles) with sexy lesbian silhouettes, both clearly celebratory but evoking some sad alcoholic fantasy of lesbian prosthetic copulation, black & white and cracking, by Timothy Goguen.  Also, Ebenezer Archer Kling’s drawings, abstracting images pulled from ukiyo-e Japanese erotica, are quirky, smart, and delightful.  Jeffers, who was not on the bill for Seduce Me, must have crashed the party, but at least he brought beer and chicken…fucking good chicken, served on a blue blanket (like my little brother sucked his thumb through until he was twelve), evidently these “Improvised Comfort Devices” are a series, can’t wait to see what’s next!
(Jeffers, has a solo exhibition coming up a UMass Lowell this Fall: http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Art/galleries/university-gallery.htm)

Check out Seduce Me curated by Setheyny Pen, at 119 Gallery up now until July 11th, 2009, worth the trip to Lowell, MA!
(and check out the kick-ass Cambodian restaurant on the corner by the gallery, so good).