thoughts on Jeremy Blake

I've been thinking a lot about Jeremy Blake ever since I saw the Wild Choir show at the Corcoran in December. If you haven't been, you should go. Blake was really onto something with his combination of still media and video (he edited every frame of his 9-12 minute videos in Photoshop). And I'm partial to his themes: sixties Swinging London decadence, punk impresario Malcolm McLaren, the poetry of David Berman (who will be reading at the Corcoran in February)....and there's the heavy back-story too, with his slide into paranoia and death. But I think people should be remembered for the beautiful stuff they create, not for their messy lives. So check out Jeremy Blake- some of his videos are on the web (as well as Theresa Duncan's The History of Glamour) but you really need to experience his stuff on a big wall in a dark room.