Update: A friend brought it to my attention after some confusion that there are indeed three different covers for the November issue of the Brooklyn Rail. I spoke with Phong Bui, the publisher of the Rail, who told me he wanted to promote other artists featured in the issue and do something different with the publication. The issue was divided into thirds, and I believe my drawing about the New Museum can only be found on the cover of the 7,000 issues printed. They are currently available in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at Spoonbill & Sugartown as well as other locations on Bedford Avenue. It is also available elsewhere and I will see if I can get a list from Phong where those are. The fact that there are different covers came as something of surprise to me and with such a politically sensitive issue I think it may appear that the Rail may have hedged in their commitment to the cover. I’d prefer to think after knowing Phong for many years that he felt obligated to run the other potential covers as well, since my drawing was delivered two days before the current issue was finished and ready to be sent to press.
The fact is the drawing was originally slated to be an editorial cartoon in the spirit of Ad Reinhardt. For Phong to make the decision to use the image on the cover at all attests to the Rail’s commitment to critical perspectives on art.

High-Resolution

A shot of Submerged Artist and producer Craig Platt talking with friends. Thanks to Jade Townsend for helping make the artist’s leg.

Dealer Charlie James and a friend of the gallery.

My wife Kristen and an old friend from her days at Marc Jacobs outside the gallery on Chung King Rd.

Charlie James Gallery has published an online

catalog

for my new show, No One Here Gets Out Alive, available here. If you are in LA, please check out the opening Saturday October 24th from 6 - 9 at Charlie James Gallery, 975 Chung King Rd.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WILLIAM POWHIDA - No One Here Gets Out Alive
October 24, 2009 THRU December 5, 2009
Reception October 24 6-9p

Charlie James Gallery is well, completely fucked. After a run of solid, well-reviewed shows, we regretfully announce that is over with New York artist William Powhida’s first LA solo show No One Here Gets Out Alive. Admittedly, we agreed to give Powhida a solo show after seeing one drawing at Pulse in New York and thought his sense of humor about art world politics would make a splash in LA. This was a bad idea. Powhida came out here in the spring and presented some ideas about ‘destroying LA’ in his words, which we all laughed off as fodder for the voice of his first person, sycophantic, rage venting rants about perceived injustices in the art world. Or maybe we though Powhida was referencing the fictional perspective of his alter-ego, a coddled, enfant-terrible ‘art star’ also named William Powhida. We don’t know. We got really confused.
Then, we flew Powhida out to LA again to shoot a video for the show. He showed up looking exhausted and spent several days hanging out with some questionable people. At the end of the week he claimed to have produced some sort of ‘movie’ involving the decadent lifestyle of his petulant, narcissistic, and debauched alter-ego. The thing is, we’ve come to believe that Powhida did nothing but spend our money drinking, hanging out at strip clubs, and possibly doing drugs with the ‘actors’ and his so-called producer. In fact, we never saw him filming at all.
All summer we’ve nervously waited for anything from the artist, who dodged most of our calls and failed to reply to our emails unless we put ‘money’, ‘check’, or ‘sale’ in the subject line. Powhida sent us one drawing about how screwed the art world is and basically vanished. Since we couldn’t press another artist into filling the slot on short notice, we held out for some images, video, or correspondence from the artist’s Brooklyn studio.
Finally, we got a fucking leg (sorry) in the mail with vague instructions about installing it in a ‘filthy’ claw foot bathtub. We were frightened. Then a cardboard box showed up filled up with articles, press releases, lists, maps, charts, and letters documenting an insane narrative about ‘William Powhida’ being acquired by the Broad Art Foundation, destroying part of the collection, being impersonated by an actor, and then disappearing. The whole thing suggests something terrible may have happened to the artist, but we don’t really know. We’ve not heard from him since, except for a trailer about a film by Steven Soderbergh that showed up via courier a few days ago. Frankly, we don’t know what to make of any of it, and hope that you won’t take any of it seriously or judge us too harshly for fulfilling our agreement to exhibit the artist. His other galleries are_threatening_ us to go through with this. We are really sorry, in advance, for any trouble that this show may cause.

Special apologies to Eli Broad, Michael Govan (and everyone at LACMA), Jeff Koons, John Baldessari, Christopher Knight, Javier Peres, Steven Soderbergh, Mickey Rourke, New Line Cinema, The Sunset Marquis, Tony’s Restaurant, TMZ, 944 Magazine, the LA Weekly, and the City of Los Angeles.

If you are not comfortable with your comments being re-posted on Qi Peng’s blog please do not post them. I have been asked to remove comments related to my thoughts about Qi’s ongoing project which seems to involve appropriating anything that mentions him, which will almost certainly include this post. Qi is adding them to his next book as well.