Ed Ruscha, Public Stoning, 2007 (commissioned by James Frey)
8/15/10
chemical portraits
Portrait of Bill (1994, gouache and prismacolor on paper)
Portrait of Kathe (1995, gouache and prismacolor on paper)
Portrait of Laura (1995, gouache and prismacolor on paper)
8/6/10
I’m the ‘i’ they failed to dot
I’m the ‘i’ they failed to dot,
From the land that time forgot.
I just lost my train of thought.
I saw someone sitting on a rock.
(Rodney Graham, 2002)
8/2/10
Halcion Sleep
"I was consciously doing a play on a film-noir trope of being drugged and being removed to somewhere on the outskirts of town and interrogated." (Rodney Graham)
7/29/10
Weyburn Mental Hospital photographed by Peter Fraser
"After the war, Humphry Osmond and his colleague John Smythies perceived a similarity between the effects of LSD and the early stages of schizophrenia. In 1951, Osmond and Smythies moved to Saskatchewan, Canada to join the staff of a large custodial mental institution in the southeastern city of Weyburn, Saskatchewan. At Weyburn, Osmond recruited a group of research psychologists to turn the hospital into a design-research laboratory. There, he conducted a wide variety of patient studies and observations using hallucinogenic drugs, collaborating with Abram Hoffer and others. In 1952, Osmond related the similarity of mescaline to adrenaline molecules, in a theory which implied that schizophrenia might be a form of self-intoxication caused by one's own body. He collected the biographies of recovered schizophrenics and held that a psychiatrist can only understand the schizophrenic by understanding the rational way the mind makes sense of distorted perceptions. Osmond is also known for a study in the late 1950s in which he attempted to cure alcoholics with LSD, claiming a fifty percent success rate."
7/28/10
7/27/10
Devil's fountain
"Moth collection uses a common entomology setting, to lay bare the hubris of narcotic use. Using the shade of night the moth and the addict share their obsession of getting closer to the light, that light which can on occasion eradicate."
Stephen Shanabrook, Devil's Fountain, 1997
Stephen Shanabrook, Heroin Shroud, 1996
Stephen Shanabrook, Moth Collection, 2001
Art or Drugs?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 1995
"GALLERY RAIDED, SCULPTURE SEIZED BY CHICAGO POLICE. DIRECTOR JAILED & WARRANT ISSUED FOR ARTIST’S ARREST."
Press Release, Kinz and Tillou Gallery, 1995
"Have you heard of the white light?"
"Once you've lost the fear of death it doesn't matter" (Larry Hagman, 2010)
7/26/10
LSD and cheap champagne
"There were always a few people living there with me, they floated in and out, but a pretty lesbian named Babette who never wore a shirt indoors, and a homeless philosopher hippie named Nash were permanent fixtures on the sofa. We lived primarily on LSD, poppy seed buns and cheap champagne. Nash sold LSD from the place, so this paid the rent." (Cookie Mueller)
Operation Midnight Climax
"In another experiment, labelled Operation Midnight Climax, CIA agents rented an apartment in San Francisco and hired prostitutes, who picked up citizens and brought them back to the space. The subjects consumed drinks spiked with LSD and tried to have sex while agents filmed the proceedings through a one-way mirror."
"Mind-Bending Disclosures" Time Magazine, 1977
"Mind-Bending Disclosures" Time Magazine, 1977
7/23/10
I am not a demon, I am a lizard
"I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion." (Nicolas Cage)
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