Some memories from WizardFest, an open desert music, art, magic, and puppetry event held last month in Locomotive Springs, Utah:

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From a review in The Guardian of The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning by “Gaia” hypothesis originator James Loveock…

[T]he concept of Gaia has slowly gained popularity over the decades and is now grudgingly accepted by many biologists and physicists as a true vision of our planet, a place that has been kept in decent ecological nick by the behaviour and variety of its many lifeforms.

Unfortunately, Gaia is in trouble today, says Lovelock. It is infected by a virus called Homo sapiens. Humans are destroying ecosystems, killing off species in their thousands and destabilising climates. “We became the Earth’s infection a long and uncertain time ago, but it was not until about 200 years ago that the Industrial Revolution began: then the infection of the Earth became irreversible,” he says.

Lovelock names this illness polyanthroponomia, a condition in which humans are so plentiful they do more harm than good. More to the point, the condition is untreatable. Renewable energy projects, cutting carbon footprints and promoting sustainable development and other green ideas are no more than the posturing of “tribal animals bravely wielding symbols against the menace of an ineluctable force.” In short, we are heading towards a climate catastrophe that will leave only pockets of humanity left alive, says Lovelock.

Jordon Wolfson, The Forest From Above in Reverse, 2006 (Image courtesy of Johann König, Berlin)

MERMAIDS VERSUS UNICORNS
Curated by Byron Coley and Jo Robertson
June 25 – August 14, 2009

I-20
557 West 23rd Street in West Chelsea

http://www.i-20.com

Opening: Thursday, June 25, 6-8pm

Rachal Bradley
Peter Coffin
Byron Coley
Martin Creed
Cyprien Gaillard
Manuela Gernedel
Celia Hempton
Shana Moulton
Sav X
Jo Robertson
Eduardo Sarabia
Lucy Stein
Jordon Wolfson

In the Year of the Swine Flu, this Decade of the Cur, there is no longer such a thing as Good Taste. Even things that please the semiotic tongue are rank. If that’s even possible. And it is.

Over the last several years, Jo Robertson in London and Byron Coley in rural Massachusetts have kept up a running dialogue discussing what happens when you get beyond Good. They have found that that we seem to ache for art that creates and fulfills a person narrative, no matter how fractured.

A conversation about the girlish swagger of Ted Hughes and the nawhale-like compression of Sylvia Plath acted as the driving force behind the evolution of Mermaids vs. Unicorns. This idea recurred and eventually developed into the explorative concept that would facilitate this show to venture across geographical and stylistic borders.

On June 25th, I-20 debuts their second collaborative exhibition. The show is comprised of thirteen artists from Berlin, Guadalajara, London, New York and Paris. The artists all contribute an open dialogue between archetypes, relating to the differences between earth and sea.

Mermaids vs. Unicorns presents the viewer with a number of mediums ranging from photography to ceramic installation to oil painting. The theme allows for a variety of interpretations, from the literal to the extreme. Frolics are enjoyed, identities are stolen or obliterated, communication breaks down, and the mammals will lie down with the fish.

– Byron Coley