Irony?

I'm participating in Art Table's panel discussion BLOG THIS! at X Initiative tomorrow night, representing artists who blog.  I've never been a prolific blogger, and I'm probably averaging about two blog posts per month.  Recently,  most of my efforts have gone into #class project with with artist Jennifer Dalton and our collaborative blog for the show.   As the panel approached this week, I felt compelled to update this thing and I probably should.

So what's been going on?

Jerry Saltz tagged me 2nd in his Best Art of 2009 in New York Magazine coming in behind Velazquez and ahead of late Picasso.  Say it.  "Picasso, Powhida, Velazquez."  It's one thing to write "Picasso, Pollock, Powhida" in one of my drawings and something else entirely to see something similar written by Jerry Saltz.  Jerry broke his silence on my NuMu drawing in rather spectacular fashion, and someone pointed out to me that he's willing to broker my participation in the L'Affaire Joannou.  I think I will be well represented, read on.

Ben Davis also implicated me in his Best of 2009 list on Artnet by saying that the best thing to come out of the New Museum affair was the profile boost it gave my work.

Stephen Kaplan shocked me senseless with his sharp and insightful take on my work, I mean it's Steve Kaplan.  His reputation precedes him.

Edward Winkleman, who now generally holds the opposite opinion from me on just about everything, offered Jen Dalton and I a chance to do something about the art market to possibly answer Damien Cave's questions in the New York Times piece. Amazingly, the Wall Street Journal was interested and interviewed us for an article on our show #class.

I've also started working in earnest on my residency for the Lower East Side Printshop.  I am working on a large silkscreen version of "Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell" and am starting a series of etchings. I'm all also finishing up a new drawing for the Brooklyn Rail, which will be the beginning of a monthly series for the Artseen section.  While the drawings are my own, they are also coming out of discussions with the Rail art editors, John Yau, Thomas Micchelli, Ben La Rocco, and Claudia La Rocco.  Ideally, at the end of the year we will be-releasing a book of all the collected drawings.  My co-conspirators also suggested the idea of doing a limited edition of 666 "Howdy Koonsy" t-shirts that we will encourage people to wear to the Joannou/Koons opening.  Tom Micchelli said the image called to mind "Rosemary's Baby."  I take that as a compliment.

Jade Townsend and I are working on the "ABMB Hooverville" drawing, a small snippet was shown in the NYTimes article, that we hope to exhibit during Armory.  The drawing is 60" x 40" and only a detail was presented in the paper.  It's far more ridiculous than you're probably thinking.

Finally, Jen Dalton and I are working daily on making #class happen, and we really welcome you're ideas whether you just plan to come in and hang out or do something fucking bizarre.   We want both/and.  Please email us at hashtagclass@gmail.com or post your thoughts on the blog.