Sunday, February 15, 2009

Death Does Dallas


Eric the Trick



Gerald Peters Gallery in Dallas is taking the long walk out of town, but not without a little kerfuffle along the way. Titus O'Brien has railed against the stupidity of the gallery's worst artists since last year when some of the shit blew up, but he takes a parting shot at Eric Trich (aka Eric the Trick) this weekend with a little recap and some disturbing news about the lengths that the Trick's manager went to in order to somehow keep credibility:




Months after my initial post on Glasstire about Trich, Siros appears out of nowhere, going nutsoid on the phone with anyone he could think I might be associated with, including galleries, the paper, the university where I was teaching, on and on. I really got under this guy’s skin.

...

The more I looked into Siros and Trich’s claims, the more bullshit I found, till I felt I was nearly suffocating in it. I documented all this thoroughly in blow-by-blow daily reports on Glasstire.com. Gerald Peters Gallery was clearly complicit in this not-very-well-crafted con. I guess none of them ever thought anyone else would look carefully enough to sus it out. “Spend money on the printing! It’ll look so slick, who would question the claims of genius, or that Elton John is a collector?” If only they had just kept their claims a bit more modest…


By the way, you can no longer find those stories in their original context on Glasstire (though they are still here, on this site.) After those letters threatening legal action, not much was heard from them 6 months later, when Siros called Rainey Knudson, Glasstire founder/owner, last November and said my (admittedly pretty pathetic) investigative reportage had cost him “millions of dollars” [if true, which I doubt, justice lives], demanding once more that the stories be removed. She refused. Then, losing his cool, he shrieked he’d kill her if she didn’t comply. She hung up and called the cops, as I once had. Once more, they said there was nothing they could do.

So she took my posts down (this one too, which was briefly posted [on Glasstire] by another editor there before being pulled).




FYI- to any artists out there who have never had a show and are thin on talent, here's how you write a press release to fool the masses in Dallas, who are stupider than the average bear (via Art&Seek) "[Insert prestigious org. you've made a large donation to] will present "[your name]: omg!" a collector's art exhibition. [you, the artiste], a 21-year-old native of the Dallas area, is an extraordinary contemporary artist who debuted in October 2007 with his sold-out show "I Do Not Exist." [note: show doesn't have to exist]

"[your name]: omg!" will feature paintings and sculptures created under his mentor, [insert sugar daddy]. [The artist's] work is included in the collections of numerous prominent art patrons, including Barbara Hunt Crow, Margaret Crow and Priscilla Beshears, all of Dallas, as well as collectors in Iran, Dubai and Japan. Works for "[your mane]: omg!" are on loan from the collections of Bill and Heather Esping, Brad Johnson, Mark Murphy, R. Keith Nordin, H.I.H. Princess Sarvenaz Pahlavi, and Jeff and Jan Rich, as well as the private collection of SGA Enterprises and a private collection in London. [The artist's] second solo show, "[some combination of patriotic and populist themes] held in July 2008, was also a sellout." [note: None of the collectors actually own any of your paintings, the show never happened either]


Now, I may be inviting some fat fuck to send me death threats by posting this, and so is Titus. Then again, I have been through the Fire Swamp.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. kera, that's Dallas's PBS, so they are just posting a press release made to them..they do curtsy art announcements on NPR and the like for the city of Dallas...

2. Titus was an idiot for ever getting up in arms over a 19 year old's show at a fucking jr college. wait..wait..he didn't even get upset about the show..no...it was the print material. It is like Titus woke up one blessed morning, was to lazy to write real art review for glasstire..so he just reviewed some bad print print materials he received and didn't think twice about it till he got a whole bowl of crazy. Titus should have done what the rest of the city has done about this Iranian con man and his little pet artist. IGNORE THEM. Titus even had the nerve to go after Richland (JR COLLEGE!'s) curator, Randal Garret, who has done more for Dallas's art scene in the past 20 years, then Titus did for the maybe 5 he lived in the city.

3. Titus lives in Chicago now...isn't it time to get over shit? He has a whole new big city to go alienate himself from.

4. SO that Trich Kid is 21 now and showing at a Super Church... and this is a sign his career needs mentioning because? I can't think of any major artist who's career launched out of the hollowed doors of a Church...matter of fact, I'd think showing at low brow places like that would kind of hurt your career..so why not stop stirring up shit and just let it go? wouldn't accepting the present and allowing it to move on be lets say...Buddhist? oh, snap...Titus...oh, snap.

4. anyone worth a shit in Dallas did double check this kids wild claims, and he hasn't done very well, has he?

5. Gerald Peters has done some half way decent things for Dallas. Like most of the stuff that exists on Dragon Street, (interior design district) Peters gallery shows mostly decoration. I don't know if you can hold that against them, and like it or hate it Peter's gallery in New York isn't closing. But then maybe Titus will pull his pants up and impress us with some of his own work, really show Gerald Peters what they should have been showing. Come on Titus..i mean..you made work like what...a decade ago..I'm sure...oh yeah...haha...

6. Maybe Titus should just stick to giving galleries he/his wife/his friends own and show at positive reviews, really focusing on everything they do, and you know, just let nepotism float him through life..i mean... it's worked out so well so far.

b.s. said...

Well, Tilde- all good points.

Titus said...

I WILL KEEL YOU TILDE, I WEEL KEEEL YOU!

put it in a little context already. its just the capstone to that goofy story arc - which started as you say because I was too lazy/agoraphobic/busy in the studio/whathaveyou to leave the house (though my mandate was not to write reviews, but to blather about whatever I wanted to.) I thought it was worth mentioning that death threats were happening n stuff. Posterity demands completeness.

I only lived in Dallas for I think 3 years, which felt like about 2 too many. I wrote about some of my friends because there are only 12 artists in Dallas, and the blog was a blog, not Artforum - though if you look at the whole arc of the writing (which I just did the other night) those mentions are few and far between. You make it sound like I had some kind of influence. No one ever made a buck, got a show, got a step up off my say so (least of all me; quite the reverse) - duh. Get real...

And I'm happily plugging away in the wintery northlands, continuing to plot all sorts of artistic disasters, none of them in Texas. You stay there Tilde and keep appreciating art in the Design District (which I often did, in fact). And Randall is a fine, upstanding citizen - and wrote a really stupid essay about Trich, and gave him a show. I said so. Big whup.

And being a "Buddhist" (as if I were one) is not false piety and precious do-goodism. Its just this.

Anonymous said...

talk about boring