Untitled (We are going to make it through this year if it kills us) by Mike Monteiro

Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow) by Mike Monteiro

Untitled (I told my therapist about you) by Mike Monteiro

Untitled (I’m an island of such great complexity) by Mike Monteiro

Merry and hurried Wednesday greetings collectors! I have been looking forward to today's editions for weeks; the timing of them is perfect, yet, I am quickly running out of time for this newsletter! As I write, the lovely host for this evening's Dot Dot Dot lecture, Liz Danzico, is patiently awaiting my very late slides that Youngna Park is hard at work on now. Youngna and I just got done mapping out the talk and I'm very excited!

Tonight's lecture, entitled The Curators, has me feeling very connected to the time in my life when I wasn't a curator at ALL. It was also a time when I thought of today's artist, Mike Monteiro, primarily as a designer not as an artist. Now, I'm pleased to feature four smart and sportive editions from Mike: Untitled (I told my therapist about you), Untitled (I'm an island of such great complexity), Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow), and Untitled (We are going to make it through this year if it kills us). They comprise our first 20x200 AAA since the holidays.

Mike and I met in San Francisco during the web 1.0 boom that subsequently busted in a manner that seems like child's play when compared to the Current Economic Climate (heretofore known as the "CEC"). We've stayed in touch over the course of a good number of years, thanks in large part to the wonders of the interwebs. We connected, in person, last year at SXSW, so heading there (bright and early tomorrow morning!) makes me think of Mike too. I was looking forward to seeing him THIS year because the last time around, he was mad at me; anyone who knows and loves Mike like I do knows that is an uncomfortable thing indeed. (Maybe if we sell lots of his prints he'll change his mind and come! Let's go people.)

Anyway, Mike's long headed up his design studio, Mule Design, but I was really excited when he started making art again and I LOVE his first edition with us. I have a print of it hanging right by my front door and it still makes me laugh. It's a print I've enjoyed sending, on occasion, to some of the most exasperating yet beloved people in my life.

What I love about these new prints is that they're so essentially Mike — they're heartfelt sentiments that are barely concealed beneath a layer of snarkery. Mike's humor is biting and occasionally downright obnoxious (forgive me for saying that Mike, but c'mon: ADMIT IT). As with a lot of humor of this nature though, it's an attempt to put some armor over someone who has the soul of an artist. It was really hard to choose which paintings to do editions with because there are SO MANY that I love. But, I'm really happy to be presenting these four because they're a good representation of the work overall and each one has its own special resonance, whether it's making plain something that's totally true but rarely said out loud, Untitled (I told my therapist about you); providing us with a mantra to help us face the CEC, Untitled (We are going to make it through this year if it kills us); reminiscent of a lyric that we love, Untitled (I'm an island of such great complexity); or offering some optimistic advice with words that, at first blush, seem sort of negative, Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow).

As I must prepare for tomorrow, not to mention for today's later events, I'll leave you with these words for thought. But not before I remind you about Greg Lindquist's opening for Brooklyn Industry tonight, at BAMart, which I will sadly miss since I'm so behind on preparing for the aforementioned Dot Dot Dot lecture. Jeffrey Teuton, Associate Director of the JB Gallery will be there to see Greg's gorgeous and monumental paintings in person. And you should too! I'll have news on a few more upcoming events, including our San Fran Collector's Confab, the gallery's six year anniversary (!), and a bonus edition, tomorrow! Till then!