Works on Paper by Audra Graziano

As the art world burns its dreary conceptual fuse down to the bitter Duchamp-ish end, we will perhaps one day get back to writing about the artists that actually have talent and skill and imaginations twisted and vast enough to blow your mind if you're not too busy trying to "get" the new dust mop exhibition at the Whitney or whatnot... Actually last bienniale (c'est vas?) was full of great paintings, but that was, when, wait...where can we go now for good painting?

Like former NYC resident, abstract expressionist Audra Graziano, we can go to Los Angeles, of course. As seen above and below, the rockin' Graziano has created magnificent color-drenched ribbons which weave life into three-dimensional existence using nothing but fire and the void of jet black oil. Her "Monster Hole" seems a sun beaming through storm clouds or a birth canal, coming to a tunnel! Go into the light, my boy! Take me to my final destination. Or girl. Abstract surreal intensity such as this generally comes from those twisted geniuses who've undergone major illnesses, such as Sarah Manguso, who caused me instant panic attacks with her harrowingly vivid new book, The Two Kinds of Decay.  Graziano's life must be as rife with shamanistic (in the context of using illness as a means of transcending the duality of life and death) strangeness and you can feel the fingers all over pulses you didn't even know you had. Like the above work on paper,  Go see it, at the Muerner Gallery, 1018 Madison Ave, Thurs 7+ --Shelley Jackson library project copy pamphlet #48302 1967 Du bist frei!