The Alaska Pipeline, Artforum, and a case for spending less time on Youtube

So I knew I should have been reading Artforum at the airport, and not W Magazine. After posting on petroleum related art the other day, I finally got my hands on a copy of the November issue, where lo and behold I see a great project by the Center for Land Use Interpretation documenting "prime territories fo the American oil industry: Alaska, California, and Texas." Apparently the Alaska portion is on show this month at the center's HQ in Los Angeles, with shows to follow at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston and a show next year about the California portion at the CLUI center. The Blaffer Gallery show is called "Texas Oil: Landscape of an industry", and will include public events that are related. I'm excited for them.

Also in the Nov Artforum that's related (if, er, less polished) an ad for a show by Italian-born artist Mattia Biagi called "Black tar" taking place in the artist's Los Angeles studio (?) to Dec 7.

Finally, on my inaugural trip to the "finished" (though really, if the extruded electric plugs and humidity fogged windows be any indication, still unfinished) Art Gallery of Ontario the other night, I was reminded that Mark Dion also has some salient works on this theme. The AGO's got a good one of a stuffed polar bear sitting in a washtub of tar with amazon sounds playing on a bear-embraced boom box. Similar works showed Goodwater gallery earlier this year... I had just forgotten about them. Probably because I've been spending too much time on Youtube. Which I now know is wrong.

Image of CLUI's Texas oil project from the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston