I Just Can't Pretend

I Just Can't Pretend (west view)

I Just Can't Pretend (northwest view)

I Just Can't Pretend (northeast view)

I Just Can't Pretend (south view)

A 2002 group show which I organized at Derek Eller Gallery.

This is from a Rush song on the radio at 4 AM Sunday morning in Pennsylvania. I'm sure it's from other things, too. Besides obvious pathos, I like it because it's a bit of an evil reference to the whole staged narrative thing. I'm trying to work both ends of this: things totally genuine and from the heart, and things with layers of artifice which are true.

Sort of at the last minute I'm putting together a July show in a gallery (a bit rarified and not air conditioned) in New York this summer. It has a title "I Just Can't Pretend", a subtext (models of grand projects) and a main purpose (emotional/internal realities transformed into the visible world with the marks of the transform visible).

The title is "I Just Can't Pretend" and I imagine it as dealing with w/ internal/emotional states which are represented through synthetic/artificial means.

It seems I'm putting together July group show at Derek Eller. I have title "I Just Can't Pretend" and some artists, and a subtext (models of ambitious/impossible projects) and a main text (emotionally rooted art and its transit to reality).

Here is the "I Just Can't Pretend" checklist as of Monday evening, 7/8. Should be fairly final, though Todd might name his pieces... Each entry is artist/title/year. I'm leaving out edition/price/materials info as that is incomplete.

Large room

(clockwise from stairs)

Reuben Margolin
The Wind-powered Wave
2001

Alex Forman
Woodrow Wilson
2002

Jessica Jackson Hutchins
untitled
2000

Kevin Landers
Chickens
2000

Reuben Margolin
Dragonfly
2001

Todd Knopke
untitled
2002

Matt Ducklo
One Life to Live
2002

Leo Villareal
Bulbox 2.0
2002

Jennifer Bornstein
What It Was
2001

Whiting Tennis
Some postcards sent from Whiting to friend Steve
1990-2002

Todd Knopke
untitled
2001

Adam Putnam
Factory
2001-2002

Noah Albert
Lamp
2001

Hans Soderquist
Battle Scars
1999

Lansing-Dreiden
L-D Chandelier
2001

Small room

(clockwise from window)

Adam Putnam
Ziggurat
2001-2002

Adam Putnam
Corner
2002

Jessica Jackson Hutchins
I am the Cosmos
2002