A photographic tour of the powerHouse Arena.
Below are photos from the new book, "Fletcher Street" (Photographs by Martha Camarillo).

Charles Miller has spent a career detailing the lives and history of Jewish boxers, and here he presents a collection of nostalgic portraits of blue collar, knockaround guys with nicknames like "The Fighting Dentist". Miller implores the viewer to share his deep sense of respect for these men who were not just pioneers, but pioneering businessmen in an artform that is like few others - and in the process, our modern Jewish stereotypes are K.O.'ed as well.

from the Deitch Projects website:

January 06, 2007 - January 27, 2007 76 Grand Street, New York

Deitch Projects is pleased to announce a group exhibition of dangerous females featuring Julie Atlas Muz, Kembra Pfahler, E.V. Day, Breyer P-Orridge, Vaginal Crème Davis, Bambi, and Liz Renay. These artists utilize various media for their confrontational, edgy exploits but all share a background in cutting-edge performance. This exhibition will feature not only performance, but also all manner of media to give a truly three-dimensional view of the artists.

Taking on the title WOMANIZER, not in the sense of a womanizing male subject but rather to "ize" with or to saturate with femaleness, this exhibition will illustrate the unique vocabulary of these funny, transgressive, beautiful heroines. Horror, hedonism, pandrogyny and pussies will all figure prominently, as these challenging artists show sculpture, video, photography, and exploring couture.

As time progresses, I see women engaged in increasingly aggressive activities, and this is no exception. The pillows are swung like bricks, and the women do not hesitate to punch each other in the face through an inch of feathers. My own companion left with multiple bruises on her elbows (she got her ass kicked). Violent and satisfying.

We visited the BoConcept store in Soho recently to check out their holiday party. One could describe the theme of their marketing displays as "Design Without Apologies". This is a store that provides cutting edge furniture and interior design pieces, without wavering on the price or the perceived necessity of such items. Simply put, you came there to spend a lot, and you're going to get your money's worth.

http://www.boconcept.com/

Nigel Parry takes the modern concept of celebrity portrait and turns it into something much larger, much deeper. Such was the case that one did not need to see his portraits blown up to 20x life size, but maybe that's a fitting container for the work.

From the Deitch.com website:

Known for his ethereal landscapes of fleshy fungi and bushy bombshells, Matt Greene continues in this series an exploration of his favorite shelves in the library: horticulture, vintage pornography, horror films, fairy tales, 19th Century Symbolist art, and of course the history of Modernism. These disparate interests—and the weighty themes of gender, sexuality, and epistemology that accompany them—Greene masterfully approaches in a hallucinatory, visionary manner allowing them to come together in phantasmagoric splendor on his canvases.

Splendor is correct. But I wasn't observant of any weighty themes in these wonderful and engrossing pieces (most are large enough to not fit inside my apartment at any angle). I simply noticed that there was a common theme of a sort of playful sexuality, like pornography but without the cold faces. In these mostly party-themed paintings and sketches, you can feel the warmth and the joy of the female faces looking back at the audience. It's like a 1970's disco orgy on canvas, and everyone's having a great time.

The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that seeks to empower citizens to capture, post and share photographs of democracy in action. By documenting their local voting experience on November 7, voters can contribute to an archive of photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in America.

"Sam Hecht and Kim Colin formed design studio Industrial Facility in 2002 to explore the junction between product and space. Industrial design is about the object in relation to its landscape, spatially, culturally and performatively. It is the practice of understanding and often creating a context of use and meaning."