A few nights ago I watched American Hardcore, a documentary film about the hardcore scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I didn’t ever consider myself a hardcore fan but did listen to the Circle Jerks, Black Flag, and especially Bad Brains. I just didn’t know they were a scene, or what it was about - I listened to it after it was over. The film is good, and gives a nationwide perspective on the nuanced scene - from San Diego to New York and Boston to Washington. It even credits Vancouverites for coining the term “Hardcore” - go Canada!

Somewhere along the line was a 6-second or less spot featuring artist Matthew Barney as himself, who as far as I can tell was not in the hardcore scene (he was 16 when it pretty much fizzled out in 1983). He is given billing as one of the film’s stars, and his reason for being in the film is strangely not explained via Lower Thirds. Band members, their friends, promoters, journalists, and a photographer who documented the scene all figure prominently. Barney seems plopped in without any context. He grew up in Idaho, a state which didn’t figure prominently in Hardcore, and the scene’s violence and angst seem at odds with Barney’s public profile of football player - turned J. Crew model - turned sculptor. As far as I can tell, his only relationshp with it is from Cremaster 3’s scene in which 2 hardcore bands battle while Barney climbs through the Guggenheim. Frankly his entrance into the film was so distracting that I didn’t pay attention to the next few minutes while I waited to comprehend what had just happened. Once a star, always a star.

Speaking of Matthew Barney, New York artist Eric Doeringer has a funny mock fan site called Cremaster Fanatic which I always secretly want to call “Cremaster Fantastic”.

My solo show in Vancouver opened at Third Avenue Gallery on May 1, and will run through May 31. Minutes by foot from Granville Island, Third Avenue was awash in pink from blossoming trees all last week.

Including work from the past five years which can best be described as culture-jamming, the exhibition also features 2 new videos, Superfan and Staring Contest with Brad Pitt. I finished editing the latter a couple of hours before the show opened, the video equivalent of hanging a wet painting. The sweat was dripping from my brow.

From the press release:
“Superfan stars Jillian Mcdonald riding in vehicles with costars Billy Bob Thornton, Vincent Gallo, and Donald Sutherland. Despite their attempts at conversation, the trio of male leads cannot shake her concentration on the Superbowl game. Staring Contest with Brad Pitt finds Mcdonald and Hollywood’s leading heartthrob locked in an endless gaze of a familiar childhood game. In To Vincent with Love“Mcdonald inserts herself digitally into scenes from Vincent Gallo’s film Buffalo 66” playing the ingénue opposite his socially awkward male lead. In Me and Billy Bob, she digitally manipulates romantic scenes from Hollywood films starring actor Billy Bob Thornton, creating a soft critique of celebrity obsession.”

Thank you to Michael Bjornson and Camille Graham for all their support and hard work on the installation!

Here’s a still from my new video, which is in progress for my show opening May 1 in Vancouver. It’s a Staring Contest, between Brad Pitt and yours truly. Brad’s performance as Death Incarnate from the film Meet Joe Black.

Josie McCoy is a painter who divides her time between London and Valencia, Spain. Beckley and I met her in 2006 in Valencia when she introduced us to far better cuisine than we were able to find on our own, and a deceptively alcoholic orange cocktail called Waters of Valencia. Her paintings are stunning, beautiful, and eerily unsettling - watery cyan flesh mimics the haunting glow of the TV screen. They memorialize the glamourous beauty of screen actresses that seems at once temporary, translucent and as artificial as painting itself. These perfect close-up moments where ripe red lips, expression-filled eyes, and flawless skin prevail is how the star struck remember their screen idols - far from the trashy paparazzi shots in supermarket tabloids.

Visit Josie’s website for more images. The recent painting above, of Sun Kwon, from ABC’s “LOST”.

Between a long train ride to Baltimore’s MICA yesterday, and today’s fog-delayed flight to Chicago where I’m working at Three Walls Gallery, Beckley and I saw Nick Cave perform last night in New York. After a week of 5:30am risings, and on the eve of another, I literally dragged myself to the event, but Cave’s performance was rousing and super fun. Nick’s sporting a 70’s moustache these days, which you can see in the stunning detail rendered by my cellphone. In the photo the spectacle looks like Niagara Falls at night - both astonishing forces even after all these years.

I really hope BB is playing the role of a Vegas performer and isn’t on the Las Vegas circuit himself. I’m not sure what to make of this photo, grabbed from the interwebs, it’s too disturbing.

>>update, February 24: This is a photo of Billy Bob in his new band The Boxmasters which in live performance conjures television variety shows and electric hillbilly music.

Hey it’s Valentine’s Day. If you don’t love someone, make it up - they don’t have to know about it.

…another still from Superfan. That Vincent Gallo always causes me trouble, like the endless hours I spent today and yesterday and the day before trying to match the colour and grain of his film stock. Don’t get me started.

Here’s a still from a new video I shot and am now editing for an upcoming show in Ottawa, called Superfan. It is short and features “found performances” of Billy Bob Thornton, Donald Sutherland, and Vincent Gallo.

After many days of installing my show at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, we had an opening reportedly attended by some 3,000 people. Many of them lined up to share the Billy Bob love by getting tattooed, including the little one pictured here. Billy Bob fans come in all sizes. Thanks so much to all the fabulous people of Richmond who spent endless hours with me on the installation and planning. Especially Brad Birchett, Vaughn Garland, and Diego Sanchez. Also Ron, Alison, Katherine, Matt, Garth, Curtis, Justin, and Jessi - you guys rock! If I am forgetting anyone, thank you thank you. It is great to come to a city like Richmond and find such a generous and vibrant art community that is this welcoming and that much fun!

See more at 1708 Gallery’s blog!

Images of the exhibition: