blog.jasonconny.com

Over the weekend I installed four recent paintings in my little corner of the 2008 Graduate Exhibition. All are watercolor on paper (or Yupo in the case of the top two). My space was only eight feet wide (I’m standing in front of the piece of tape that demarcated the boundary during installation), but I think I made pretty good use of it. The people on either side of me each have one large painting which creates a nice contrast with my smaller pieces.

The opening is this Friday and, from all accounts, it’s going to be a pretty big deal. It coincides with Art Chicago, NEXT, and a few other art related happenings in Chicago this weekend so there will already be a fairly large buzz around town. The first two hours are only for participants and invitees. Not sure who exactly is on the school’s invitation list, but I imagine there will be a fair amount of gallery owners and collectors in attendance. One student from the post-bacc program last year got a show at a gallery in Chelsea. I’m just hoping to sell a piece so I can make back the money I spent on framing!

Stopped in last week to see if they had the new Soundway Nigeria Special comps and they did. They were a little pricey, but after the first couple listens generally seem worth it.

My only gripe is that each side only contains 2-3 tracks totaling 14-15 minutes of music. Without getting into the minutiae of vinyl mastering and production, they could have easily fit an additional track on each side to and make it one 3-record set instead of two 2-record sets. Is this a gambit to get me spend extra money on the vinyl releases in order to get all of the tracks on the CD version?

Soundway does such a great job otherwise that I don’t want to harp on them too much for this. Maybe it just annoys me because I’m broke and have no spine when it comes to not buying Afrobeat comps. At least it’ll make it a little easier to rip these to digital files since there are so few tracks to a side.

I can’t seem to find these on allmusic.com, so in lieu of my usual links there these point to Soundway’s site.

• Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6 part 1
• Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6 part 2
• Nigeria Disco Funk Special: The Sound of the Underground Lagos Dancefloor 1974-79 - didn’t even know this was out so I was a little surprised when I saw it. It’s also the one I’m liking best.

This semester I’ve been collecting portraits of myself done by fellow graduate students in the painting and drawing department. All portraits are executed in Sharpie on bar napkins over beers at a bar. Anyone that’s a graduate student in the painting and drawing department that has a drink with me at a bar has to make a portrait in Sharpie on a bar napkin.

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