The most recent edition of THE MAT GLEASON SEVEN (click that link) is up at the ArtScene Visual Radio Site. The show has my reviews of Robert Wilson at Ace GAllery, Damien Hirst at Gagosian Gallery, Carol Es at George Billis Gallery and many other deconstructions and digressions about seven things going on in and around the Southern California Art Scene.

Coagula Publisher Mat Gleason is hosting an episode of YOUR L.A. this Friday (April 28) on KNBC Channel 4 at 3 p.m. (yes, opposite Oprah, time to take her down).

We’re asking if you have any way of recording this digitally that can be transferred to a disc, the Coagula archives would be grateful for a copy. We were told that told the episode looks good - the producer asked Mat Gleason if he had done this before. He told her, “No, I am a writer.”

Set your TiVo and enjoy!

I am hosting an episode of YOUR L.A. this Friday on KNBC Channel 4 at 3 p.m. (yes, opposite Oprah, time to take her down).

IF you have any way of recording this digitally that can be transferred to a disc I would be totally grateful to you. they told me it looks good - the producer asked if I had done this before. I said, “No, I am a writer.” Should be fun. Set your TiVo and enjoy!

Day one of the Spring ‘07 Artwalk was fine. The parking lot was at capacity midafternoon. Some sales, too. Depsite so much else going on in Southern California on a Spring weekend, the Artwalk still proves to be the 800-Pound Gorilla in drawing a crowd. The fact that the event is free and has free parking is probably a lot of the draw, but the crowd this time seemed well-heeled, even a little leery of any art that was not gallery-ready.

It continues Sunday from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. Website: Brewery Artwalk

The big shindig at LACMA was visited by swirling wind gusts upon the patio, distracting the proceedings, but host Richard Montoya kept it together and chaotically well-paced, accompanied at times by Llyn Foulkes on his legendary one-man band.

The three awards:
Lifetime Achievement went to Josine Ianco Starrels
Veteran Artist Award went to June Wayne
Young Artist Award went to Andrea Zittel

The sea bass entree was excellent. The panel discussion moderated by Ruth Weisberg and featuring the 4 voices of the ArtScene Visual Radio hosts (Marlena Donohue, Peter Clothier, Mat Geason and Hunter Drohojowska-Philp) was well-received. Congratulations are in order to ArtScene Publisher Bill Lasarow for 25 years of publishing the go-to-guide for the Los Angeles Gallery Scene.

Despicable talent-hog Gerhard Richter is not immune from the taunting pitches of wannabe European curators… In this audio project, the artist and his wife are peppered with requests to join an exhibtion. Why is it so satisfying to simultaneously hear the famous harrassed and the aspiring rejected?

At the KS art gallery exhibit of his collages Sonic Youth?€™s Thurston Moore told me,

I am 6?€™ 10″. When I was growing up people called me Lurch but I liked it. I thought Lurch was the coolest guy on The Addams Family. He seemed like he had his shit together and I related to his deep voice because I sort have the same tenor in my voice. Lurch was cool. He was centered, he knew more than everyone else around him. He was the only person that the Thing respected. He got respect from the hand. Lurch was a role model for our times.?€?

Painter Marion Peck opens her solo show Soft Paintings for Gentle People at Billy Shire Gallery in Culver City on Saturday Night.

I had a preview of the exhibition at a Friday evening soiree and was impressed with it. The 20 artworks are numbered with red dot pins - everything has sold out, including an eight-foot-tall painting entitled Young Lord Oliver priced at $100,000. Many $20,000 oil on canvas works followed. The cool, conservative oil paintings were joined by Sweet Wishes a small collage/video/installation/sculpture/environment that was a collaboration with artist Mark Ryden.

Few painters have Peck?€™s technical skill. She merges that with a popular sentiment of creating uncertainty in how one should be viewing the artwork?€™s mostly pre-pubescent subjects ?€“ as innocence or flesh. See for yourself ?€“ she is one of those artists that a critic can write about and end up revealing a little too much about the mind behind the pen.

Thru May 19 at Billy Shire Fine Arts

We are going out of town for three days. I have to pack right now, but today is the fifteenth anniversary of picking up the first copies of my magazine from the printer’s (it was a newspaper then) and I did not want the anniversary to go by unnoticed.

That’s all, I work hard publishing and some days it is nice to reflect on actually accomplishing something in a world of lazy bastards and shit-talkers who drag everyone else down without ever contributing.

Like a bird on a wire
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free
- - Leonard Cohen