Now showing

I decided I needed a lift this afternoon, so I decided to take in a couple of gallery shows that had been on my to-do list.

First stop, Artists Space in SoHo for the Log Cabin show of queer counter-representations to Bush's America. In the last few months I've been feeling a lot warmer about transgressive art, and I have to say that all that erect cocks and smeared this and that did me some good. The artist I was most taken with was Scott Treleaven, whose black and white collages sprout colorful buds, like twigs in spring.

Next stop, Chelsea, to Perry Rubenstein Gallery to see Fergus Greer's photos, and Charles Atlas's videos, of the infamous Leigh Bowery. Bowery's image is immediately recognizable, and his twisted presence lives on in performers like Kevin Aviance. What struck me about the gorgeous photos, especially, was the sculptural quality of Bowery's creations, which reimagined the body's contours in ways that fashion so often promises and so seldom actually delivers. Freedom from the imperative to produce a male or female or even sexy silhouette, Bowery's body becomes: a peanut, a bodice, a balloon, and a tulip.

Finally, I tried to go see Kent Henricksen's show at John Connelly Presents, a gallery I love, but I was a couple days too late. Luckily, on the way back down the stairs I remembered that Rush Arts Gallery (anyone know why they are not listed in Time Out?) was in the same building, and ended up seeing a crazy concept show featuring black abolitionists (well, Harriet Tubman) as blaxploitation stars. Never mind that Tubman was not precisely an abolitionist (she preferred direct action to the kind of political work Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass engaged in), the faux posters for films like Dirrrty Harriet Tubman were a real hoot. The real treat was Michael P. Britto's short film realization of this conceit, which features Roi King as Dirrrty Harriet Tubman guiding slaves along the Underground Railroad. When they break out into a choreographed dance to Britney Spear's "I'm a Slave 4 U" I really lost it. Its exactly what I've always thought about that song: what a ridiculously offensive thing for a white girl from Louisiana to be singing. Someone had to do it.