JIMMY LO & letters from Hong Kong

The womb, ancient wriggling scales, through water or air, a luck dance clangs through the giant origin of all, through a market place capturing a very common place, a feeling of careful observation of the every day. As a hybrid beast, a dragon dancing, and then what looks like maybe wing chun being observed in a circle of humans, so accustom and comfortable with tradition as to allow a practitioner to swing a blade within inches of their face. The dragon dance trails away, setting up for a strange subtle kind of touch Lo seems to have. For a split second, after seeing a band of animated talented performers, we see a trailing follower or shopper, just somebody -anyone in a frumpy daze of their any day of their life, an odd looking shuffle and an endearing gate this straggling weirdo, and then the glimpse is gone.
The scene cuts to another careful moment of nothing, one that recognizes a specific beauty in the moment, and almost is part of it, were it not for the delicate involvement, the awareness of an eye picking and framing this scene. It is the perfect "barely enough" and often seems to catch interesting quirky happenings.
Often obvious throughout the soft visual journey is the realization that it is from the perspective of a member of a group. Following family members. A person part of something quite normal. It is the choices of moments- and keen awareness of color. In one scene, we see from over a boat railing, a smaller boat, a sort of slate grey junk ship hustling against misty waves and fog. Looming behind it, buildings with colors matching that of the little boat's sail seem to be noticed by the person filming. In another a funny faced man smiles as he slurps up noodles that match the color of his shirt exactly. Background warm reds, just a part of the environment, cannot be orchestrated but are there perfectly.

review aint done like it wld seem the film continues like normal like i am writing this. im going for a walk and will finish this later for whoever notices. hope yr having a good evening. i love you.

jeff d

SEEPAGE at Whitespace gets a formal structured shit smear.

everything comes to the surface eventually. everything always has to make some kind of acceptable sense. doesn't it? the final presentation of something that is specifically drawn attention to. I see grids on top of shit. I see the shit- unminded with a life of its own- seem suddenly that much more interesting. and then...what happens? i want to draw attention to it.
the things we present to ourselves as givens, as ways to exist and the necessities of life. The shit built on top of shit. The beauty that effortlessly rumbles to the surface in its unkempt and perfectly unfettered way. Ignored and insignificant, time shows its measure, it is a form of truth that is not anything anyone can dodge.
we requests pretty packages and punctuation- and bows and ribbons, frames and price tags. the need to make something valuable, all the procedures and processes and proper faces to say phony scary cash-cow phrases, and paperwork- ultimately rips the floor open and out come all the thick endless shadows, a never ending trail of our exact pattern. our footprints and echos. we clean the lives up and edit on the fly. while money'd man thinks because it is unseen and beyond others they control, it itself becomes cocky to that which is even bigger.
Grids command a weak veneer. see them network across a surface. seem them with their mitered edges and pretty ways.
Cute is the way into the face of the senses of our collective selves. Even in moments of honesty, in places that can only be reactions to life anyways-like art galleries- the art itself jabs crudely and filled with hypocrisy at commentary. jabs at life and then finds a need to hide it if it does create a clunky raw setting of a kind of refreshing real. that kind of investment that only time passing over not the neglected palaces in life, that presumes a sort of consciousness of activity, but in ways that truly are hiding in plane sight. the fundamentals, like a stretch of road with graffiti and palimpsest weathered scratches and stains of layers of those no longer present. rotting memories and marks. put it behind the seen because why? it's just too damn real.

So we apply structure in the form of clean lines and two by fours. and silly as it may seem and insignificant and sobering, a saturation that was once flush with tilted life-drunken intrigue. is now a cloth of happy and the pretty, covering vomit with a thin tissue that soaks thru. -i saw a corpse covered in the road after a traffic accident one time. the haunt of its truth it hid was just as powerful as the visceral reality of what caused an end. was to the biology of consideration that direct route to the sense-of the flesh, versus that fantasy or creative or imaginative rambling giant cloud that is so much bigger. try to cover up the truth. try to make it decent.
a month ago, new orleans for the first time since 1996. even in 96', a seepage from beneath was as much a truth in physical swampy bedding as it was in the phantom idea of unseen influence. of powers ancient and lush with memory, coming out in sounds and rhythms and tastes and desires, pushed through the flesh of bodies existing there. they writhe and celebrate.
a place for actual observations in this. it finds no place and is shoved out. importance pushes and contracts the bowels, it produces and then polishes and pilfers for nutrients, restructuring their own standards for so long as to be a double blind study of their own single blind game. the value of an art experience.
a maddening fractured massive presentation of the automobile perspective. mechanized and broken down, powered by the logo and the pretty color of its exterior. the fossils fueling what we call pure intentions and simply accepted as part of the day to day routine. faux smoke is actually a pattern left by the real thing. a useless endeavor into stabilizing that stank black smear. it becomes a cute thing to have.
its not any city its in the satellites and ocean floors and pipes and wires. the organic globs are colorful and charming one day and the next they are ill, seeping dank and sour death. it knows of neither and doesnt have partiality to its phases. the passage of this thru human bodies and the actions it reveals. fuck art. it's a big damn lie. the only position is in this idea that editing is not about intentions. it is in constantly reacting to now without definitions. without expectations. and without senses of investment. seeing what is healthy and pure in that desire and that moment.
reality has a darkness unleashed in a very raw physical form now. it circles a weird beacon consistently from our southeast. the art here in this particular area is so silly in its freedom, and so careful to try to turn that freedom into a thing of expectations. and those expectations try to create myths while beneath it, slippery shit soaks the souls and slithers up the leg.
walking along with itself now, sentient and attached to art, it finds a way- ultimately. certain humans' minds become burning unstoppable conduits for transferring and staying in that place. seeking constantly a generalized open feeling to- what the fuck is going on. it devours from within and warps as it churns out a perspective so needed. it makes artists who come as close as possible to pointing at a life source and observation of ourselves and now without doing so. fucking artists. they're so full of shit. and the perspective shit itself has- as it rests soft and cooling on its personally owned and stained floor space, it has an endlessly intriguing kind of perfect observation.

that show at whitespace

i think the damage done to the art on the beltline was an inside (the closet) job.
it seems to me that those inclined to know about the art on the beltline , care enough to go see the art on the beltline, bring what appeared to be a weapon/tool..looked like an axe to me... (premeditated? and requiring a return visit?) why not just destroy the whole thing? --it just seems to uuum...appropriate, convenient- reeks of desperation for discussion. which is sorta great, but in this case it's like the rejected nerd kid that tries to start selling drugs so he can have at least a partial conversation with the assholes he thinks are cool. the assholes in this case are an imagined audience..the reality is "we" as artists are the audience- so spare us the empty gestures to "them" let's play to each other. we know the parlour tricks. the theme is important, the technique is about original as anything on tee vee at 8pm. moving on, okay?

im all for discussion of art, tho. i just find the art on the beltline thing to be kinda funny. it's more about the path than the goal itself to me. meaning, screw the beltline itself...whatever. if many of the artists scrambling for a funded opp and supposed attention stopped and looked at the deal itself (the "affordable workforce housing authority of it all, the crock of shit that this thing is, if they were truly principled about their art, many wldnt want shit to do with this giant liposuction recycle gesture. we'll see it in 30 years or whatever. the beltine. meh.i dont think many of the artists gave a shit about it itself. i truly do hope it helps the layout and connectivity of the city, so far, i see miniature arch de triumphs and mock brownfields turned into sets for plastic fast paced sales lifestyles that are reinforced by big glowing billboards of useless self-images. mirrored buildings crammed between curved lifeless asphalt roads braiding into bigger expanses of interstate. one way frenetics adorned with beige concrete. keep moving. homeless people. stretches of industrial boring business blocks of gook interpolated into interesting places effectively fucking both. ikea. little fucking orphan annie? greasy ghetto meat for 8 bucks in yr gut and the wrapper rattles down the street... on the beltline itself tho, of the art ive seen..the piece by mensoff, cipcic, drouett..is the most amazing. it truly is a beautiful balnced delicate thing. being loosely aware of all three's work,the combo itself just seems enticing. i saw it and liked, it stopped me, and then was told who had done it- and just stood their enthralled.
as an artist i am paying attention to what other local artists are doing. on a local level, it's fun to isolate that focus as much as it is to ..well, not. to consider the entire planet. i just get a kick out of all the local saps thinking they can and need to educate "the public". all the starry-eyed kids with their 8th grade health book definition of community. all the washed up old-timers strutting around with their imaginary paths of glory behind them. some of them do inspire and carry a myth thats worth floating on, tho...
i love how local grassroots organizations get lost in the details, get lost in The Idea they bring of something good to meet with others' Idea of it AND SILENTLY NOT BLEND AND NOT CREATE DYNAMIC ENERGY, allow scary shallow evil fucks to plant themselves in the middle of a situation and rot while they cockroach rattle on and on about what a bunch of gold nuggets they've planted in nothing, and gosh i know its necessary...but... money. i'd like to dream that ART can find a place to actually experiment and focus on each other as friends and artists and thinkers, without egos and care on that level enough. to be free of worrying about straight up kuhniving bullshitters without a creative bone in their body, no ideas, all of its intentions (tho they dont matter) reveal shallow thought products incessantly slathered on gallery walls of vanity -with thick knee deep willpower that pushes their hideous face into stubborn firm place, hustling out a shitty yawn of an unimaginative no originality addict's living, with a nasty sneering raunchy gross humored base-level laugh and a warehouse redneck's bravado- and compromising the whole damn thing while everybody sits by and watches. free us of board up the asses bored meetings for meetings. free us of well-intended pc'ers thinking they need to not be themselves and suck every art events asshole clean just to be the nice face on the scene. is there a common denominator?
i was going to write about the show at whitespace. maybe next time. you guys need to go see it.