The simple answer, according to Duchamp, is … an artist. Fine, but who decides who’s an artist? Easy: Larry Gagosian, Sotheby’s, and, here in town, Modern curator Michael Auping. If you’re an artist and you’ve either “lost” Larry’s and Michael’s cell numbers or have been thrown out and banished from Sotheby’s, you’re pretty much SOL. Don’t worry. You’re in the same boat as pretty much everyone else not named Richter, Tse, or Currin.
The good news is that tomorrow night (Saturday) you’ll be in the proverbial driver’s seat. Local art impresario and past Best Of winner for best artist Christopher Blay will present his fourth? fifth? sixth?! annual Thrift Art Gallery Show and Auction in which you’ll be able to bid on ultra-kitschy painterly delights unearthed by Blay from thrift-stores all over North Texas over the past year. Think Elizabeth Peyton is a total hack? (You should. She fucking sucks.) Well, she ain’t got nothin’ on some of the “artists” who’ve created some of the pieces that will be up for the a-biddin’ at the auction (at 207 E. Broadway St.). A year or two ago saw a bidding war for an earnest painting of a deformed unicorn ramming through a rainbow. Bidding starts at 50 cents. There’ll also be a screening of “a short film about art,” according to Blay, and music by the appropriately named DJ Lo-Rez. Proceeds from auction sales will benefit future Thrift Arts. The fun gets going at 8 p.m. Good times, good times.
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