In mid-September, Greely Myatt was the focus of a citywide, 8-venue exhibit celebrating his twenty years of service teaching sculpture at the University of Memphis. More recently Myatt exhibited at Mississippi State University, a school he briefly attended on athletic scholarship in the 70’s. After the accompanying panel discussion, I had a brief  chat with Greely. Among other things, we discussed our mutual admiration for Dave Hickey’s essays and pondered what Hickey would think of Damien Hirst for working over the art market, rather than letting it work him (conclusion: Hickey would love it).

Greely grew up in tiny Aberdeen, Mississippi in the 50’s and 60’s. There was little exposure to “art,” but there were Biblical illustrations, paintings in history textbooks and best of all, comic books. His childhood sounds idyllic: jigsaw puzzles, erector sets, homemade tree houses and go-carts, laying the foundation for a lifetime of making things.

Sometimes I like to poke around and see what the world-at-large thinks is "newsworthy" art. This was something I did often in grad school, but I'm way too lazy to do it regularly now. But occasionally, I do geek out, and I think Obama's State of the Union speech kind of inspired reflection...or something.

Anyhow, a summary of last week's art news, minus the Met's Rose Period Picasso fiasco, because that's hardly news at this point...

With the unfortunate incident at The Met this week, Picasso's name seems to be on the tip of our collective tongue. All too often in recent history, seems someone finds themselves saying,  oops, I punched a hole through my Picasso--what should I do? And I wondered, what should they do? While researching the matter, I came across animation artist Lena Gieseke's amazing 3-D exploration of Guernica...wish someone would make this as a HUGE sculpture...

This year's art films that interest me:

1) Pepperminta. Video artist Pipilotti Rist’s first feature. Her 2009 exhibit at MOMA was magic, but I’m curious as to how she’ll do with plot. The Sundance synop makes the whole thing sound corny, and the trailer makes it look like a cross between Science of Sleep, Teletubbies on speed and a Deee-Lite music video. Sign me up.

Two things.

1) I started a daily photoblog, which means I'll try to post a photo I took THAT day, everyday...which I think I can manage with minimum effort.

2) And this, from the 2009 winner of Ukraine's Got Talent...