Watch a Movie with Joe Macca

*UPDATE: The movies have been postponed and location and titles have been changed due to weather and what actually arrived from Netflix. Tonight, Thursday and Friday will have Pink Floyd: The Wall, Lie with Me and the Last Picture Show. Reservations are limited to 3-4 people-it's in his bedroom now-not the gallery. Call 503 771 5003 for more information.

This week marks the second week of Joe Macca’s residency at the Autzen Gallery. Last week there was a garage sale - Mr. Macca was unloading goods to fund a scholarship for needy PSU art students.

This week brings an opportunity take in a movie with the artist. Tuesday at noon has Brazil. Wednesday at 3:30 has Time Bandits.

Next week: psychiatric evaluations. Check your schedule. Available times are: January 22: 3:00-5:30, January 23 12:00-2:00 and January 24 3:00-5:30. The gallery will maintain it’s regular schedule during the run of this residency.

Joe Macca Needs Attention
Autzen Gallery • Portland State University
Neuberger Hall • 2nd Floor • 724 SW Harrison St
M – F • 9-5

Blah, no thanks. Joe Macca's schtick makes Red 76 seem like geniuses and Sincerely, John Head like GODS.

that is pretty amazing Jersey Joe ... so it seems Macca's actions have effectivly raised the levels of all other conceptual participation art in Portland?! Or maybe it is a critique?

The thing with Macca is... you cant tell. Very Yves Klein meets Kurt Schwitters? With him I sense it's a game of chicken in terms of cynicism and genuine response (in part to that cynicism). It's kinda refreshing, instead of passive agressivly exploiting the old "give em the the benefit of the doubt" routine for this kind of stuff he outright exploits the exploitive nature of it all. Funny stuff.

I think you're giving him too much credit. Yves Klein jumped out of windows (or at least made it seem like he did), orchestrated a grand spectacle in order to suggest that a gallery full of people and no art was art, and got the rest of us to believe the International Klein Blue is a new color. Awesome stuff. Macca is a fine painter and I think if he approached this work with the same determination than something interesting might come of it.

I think that could be said of most of the conceptual participation work I see around here.

Agreed, Klein had amazing determination... it sets people like him and other giants apart.

I wouldn't be so quick to lump Macca or Sincerely, John Head into the category of "conceptual participation". SJH isn't really asking the viewer to do anything more than consider their propositions. Macca seems to be mocking the work of Harrell Fletcher or Red 76, by making it explicitly about himself. Which leaves the viewer in a postion of consideration rather than participation. If you want to have a successful garage sale you do it the way everyone else does. You advertise in the classifieds and on telephone poles in your neighborhood. If you want to talk about garage sales, you put in a gallery. Do a google search on "garage sales" + art and in a short time you'll find dozens of examples similar to what Macca is doing no better or worse here. Fletcher + Rubin, Christoph Buchel, and Christian Boltanski are just a few to come to mind, and there's still the "garage sale" installation that was famously noted in Dave Hickey's "Air Guitar".

So what I am saying is that I place the same expectations on these kind of projects as I do on painting or sculpture. That the artist push the medium in such a manner that I temporarily think never encountered something like this before. If that happens, I'm all ears.

I have been riding the fence on Joe's work for some time now. I know there is something interesting there, since I am always interested in his work. I really think Joe's art, involves him seeing how far he can push people into believing that something is in fact art. I think he still needs to have his one really big "show" that "sings" (as Jeff puts it). I think Joe is close, and I have confidence that we will be seeing it in the not too distant future.

Joe Macca was aware of all of those examples before he embarked on this. Also SHJ definitely invites participation... they invited visitors to climb into the "Foghat Live" sign and have fan pictures taken, eat food in the incontinental breakfast, etc.

The fact that Macca is both a formal, process driven painter with an incongrous "wildman" performance and conceptual art side with its own merits makes him very interesting. He seems to be highlighting the lack of warring camps in the art world by creating them in his practice.

Even Schjedahl recently noted the lack of warring camps in Miami. Somehow Macca is presenting the conflict as artist's persona... and that is where he's getting my attention. On paper It shouldn't work but it does... still I dont consider these happenings to be a major Macca event, I suspect that is yet to come.

Rauschemberg, Gontcharova, Millais and Delacroix. So there! (not) The first four names I opened up to in "The Art Book" (Mr. Macca would understand) blah blah blah? I do think you all should get evaluations from the man himself, then we'll see! "Conceptual participant"? are we totally behind or do we not care? His collages at NAAU were good, knowing that they were made from some art rag, bad. Is that your "conceptual participant"? I DO expect a 2500 word essay from each of you on the subject. I will be grading these and involving them in my next "conceptual participation".

p.s. is joey doing Timed Based Art the fourth week?
p.p.s get it? TBA

Now who is taking this overly seriously?

Just a reminder to everyone, rules on PORT are "no personal jabs". Critical or art historical ones like weve seen are fine. But personal attacks will be removed ...etc.

I suspect there is a lot of cabin fever going on because of the snowstorm.

What would Macca wish for us to take seriously? His labor intensive color-field, spot, and "breath" paintings? Collages made from art magazines, Joe Macca's Correspondence School, or the video where Macca is interviewed by Charlie Rose? If one is a pathetic, self-effacing, and self-aggrandizing joke, what is the other one?

He's going to have toanswer that but I took his tantric breathing show at PDX seriously as acritique of instant gratification western culture. The NAAU show seemed to be levied at the omnipresent entertainment and culture building process.

Three cheers for cabin fever! The condition, not the bad Eli Roth movie.

Thanks JJ, although i do prefer "personal full-nelsons". I suspect that humor, satire and sarcasm are at the root of Macca's latest schtick, maybe it's bad humor and thus inspires bad humor in kind? (most likely inside jokes that are shared with no one) hmmm...? Cabin fever? I would prefer to blame things on cigarette hangovers and a bad cough!

p.s. also, I rely on my 36 sided die to tell me what and when to write in!
p.p.s. are the essays on the way?