Author Archives: michael andre

Line on Vasquez

By michael andre | January 18, 2010 | 0 Comments

The photographer Victor Vazquez makes a virtue of his defects. His nudes, for example, are not erotic. Yet as photographs they carry potent ideas. A lady in feathers, for instance, only evokes Santeria. Alas, poor chicken! Vazquez is a Puerto Rican nationalist. But his political views are neatly disciplined by a potent witty formalism. In [...]

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Triptych – Life, Art, Death

By michael andre | January 3, 2010 | 5 Comments

1. NORTH BAR & NEEDLE
From the window of an elevated train I scout North Philadelphia. Topless bars. Beer and shot bars. “Police” equipment: handguns, rifles, shotguns. 99 cent stores. Pawn shops. Guys congregating on corners drinking beer.
I wander a neighborhood at random. The consolidated library is empty and forlorn. The cashiers in the convenience stores [...]

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Magicians of the Earth

By michael andre | October 26, 2009 | 5 Comments

John Baldessari that bastard, the late Jimmie Byers, the late Nancy Spero, august Louise Bourgeois, Claes the great Oldenburg, and Alighero e (and) Boetti are International School artists sharing space with Third World or “marginal” or “vernacular” or “outsider” artists in Back to the Earth: Revisiting Magiciens de la Terre at Fleisher/Ollman through December 5.

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Book Review: Games and art

By michael andre | July 23, 2009 | 2 Comments

Cage and Duchamp utilized chance in their art. Cage was less competitive than Duchamp. He loved casting yarrow sticks and reading the I Ching.

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Book review — Dead tree alert

By michael andre | July 6, 2009 | 2 Comments

Michael Andre edited with Erika Rothenberg The Poets’ Encyclopedia so he knows some things about reference books. Here’s his review of the Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists

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My heart belongs to DADA

By michael andre | June 2, 2009 | 3 Comments

Dada for Andrei Codrescu was not a style but a movement.  Movements are  part of  life. Dada reminds Codrescu of chess; chess is for the most part either war or a preparation for war. Chess, indeed, was once a war game. Aristocrats played it to get ready for the next fight.
 

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A poet, a priest and a political activist walk into a room…

By michael andre | April 21, 2009 | 4 Comments

Religion distorted late twentieth century New York culture. For instance, I hosted a dinner party, and among the guests were the poet, priest and political activist, Daniel Berrigan, and the literary agent and retired epistemologist, John Brockman. John spoke nary a word. Afterwards I asked him about it, and he confessed: “I can’t help it. [...]

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Death and Stan the “Man,” or, the Gross Clinic in 2009?

By michael andre | April 5, 2009 | 2 Comments

My doctor back in New York was a D.O. rather than M.D. Doug Koch is a biologist at PCOM. That’s PCOM.edu. I thought it should be PCOM.com. It’s the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Doug says they’re stuck with PCOM. edu
Whate’er.

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