Did you read nay-sayer Charlie Finch’s lusty defense of John Currin at artnet?
Finch is head over heels about Currin’s paint and his subject matter, which, every time I see it, gets to look more and more like Norman Rockwell-does-Mad-magazine schtick. Unreal, and I mean Finch and Currin.
…I went to Tin Man Alley last week in Northern Liberties to see the paintings by Chris Mars and Daniel Martin Diaz, which I recommend. Tin Man, which sells retro-toys and art by artists from the Juxtapoz Magazine stable had a sign on the front window saying excuse them while they expand the gallery space. I asked owner Jonathan Levine if he was moving and he said no. He was converting his basement toyroom into more gallery space. Seems the toys aren’t selling too well. But the art is. Many works, in Mars/Diaz show (range of $2,500 and up) were sold. Mostly to non-Philadelphia buyers. 
Levine’s clients for the West-coast leaning product line are mostly non-local, he says. (image, left is by Mars; right, by Diaz)…rhizome has an article about a new book published by MIT Press, “Women, Art and Technology,” edited by Judy Malloy, herself an internet pioneer and editor of the electronic publication NYFA Current (formerly Arts Wire Current). The book documents the importance of women working in new media — everything from video to interactive art to virtual reality and net art. Women…the mothers of invention.
