Prepare to be seduced by Isabella Rossellini and her glorious new web series for SundanceChannel.com, SEDUCE ME. Very much the spawn of her multiple Webby Award winning series, GREEN PORNO, SEDUCE ME continues Isabella’s explorations of the wild kingdom, only this time concentrating on the courting rituals of nature’s quirkiest, from bats to bed bugs. Isabella once again directs and stars, while her trusted cadre of creative geniuses serves up the jaw- dropping papier-mache.

Season 1 of SEDUCE ME (Duck, Salmon, Bed Bug, Cuttlefish and Snake) will premiere on SundanceChannel.com on April 20th and Season 2 (5 episodes, titles to be announced) will premiere on SundanceChannel.com in August 2010. SEDUCE ME will also run on-air on Sundance Channel and its VOD platforms.

In addition to the SEDUCE ME shorts, SundanceChannel.com will also premiere several behind the scenes videos and interviews along with exclusive photo galleries. Make sure to visit SundanceChannel.com on April 20th to watch!

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23-year-old artist Alexa Meade applies her background and training in politics and communications (intern on Capital Hill, political science degree from Vassar, and a press staffer on the Obama campaign) to her art where “…what one experiences cannot always be interpreted at face value; seeing is not necessarily believing.” Meade gained a lot of attention from the blogosphere recently for her body painting technique that transforms her subjects so they look like walking paintings. The effect is almost like an illusion. View more of her striking paintings on her Flickr site, or see it live at her next show in New York City on April 2.

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Lies Maculan has built the shop of our dreams, literally. Her Chelsea-based Dream Shop puts over 100 of our most common dreams on shelves in a 3,000 sq. ft retail-like space, as if they were available to purchase. There’s a trompe l’oeil at work however – the shelves and everything on them are 2D, Maculan’s specialty being photo-installations. At first glance, however, they’re convincingly real. The pile of bricks looks poised to topple over and the man with the briefcase and mop bucket looks as if he could walk right out of the walls – if that unfortunately hokey grin glued to his face didn’t give the illusion away.

But of course the illusion exists only to be discovered, and as your peruse the shop the shelves become less real and more like props, like the movable cardboard cut-out scenery from those early Disneyland rides. Considered as a complete exhibition the execution is, I think, successful. The space opens up before you like a great big cabinet of wonder. But the way the individual items work as symbols – the bricks are for building your dream house, the man is the dream husband, he works and cleans – is where the concept falls flat, perhaps because Maculan seems to only offer up the objects themselves without much interpretation from her end as the artist. But like dreams what matters here is that they feel good and they’re nice to look at, and The Dream Shop is at least that: a welcome reprieve from our real, waking life on the other side of its doors.

The Dream Shop, 30 West 21st St. open until March 30, Tuesday – Sunday, 3-11pm

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Lady Gaga ascension to pop’s super stardom was cemented even more last week with the debut of her video “Telephone,” a nine minute movie honoring Quentin Tarantino and homicide. It also stars Beyonce who adopts the curious wardrobe and dance moves of Gaga. After watching, many were left repulsed. Many more, inspired.

One such Gaga-inspired artist is the photographer Jesse Freidin. Jesse photographs dogs and has started The Doggie Gaga Project, a series of pup portraits in the spirit of Gaga. They’re too cute. And they show the ridiculousness, and ultimate humor, of Gaga’s persona.

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This street art spotted in Toronto offers some cheeky advice with a sense of humor for these difficult economic times, although I’m not sure if laughter is the best medicine for people whose savings are running on fumes and rent is due. At least in Canada the unemployed don’t have to worry about health insurance.

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After 44 days of work and using 4,051 decks or 218,792 playing cards, Bryan Berg broke his own Guiness World Record for the world’s largest free standing house of cards. Although this is clearly a publicity effort for a Macau casino, the effort is impressive nonetheless especially since yours truly’s last futile house of cards efforts involved no more than 9 or so cards. View more photos here.

[Via]

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The fact that Ryan McGinley’s latest show, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” involves candidly photographed young naked people will come as a shock to no one, though there is one major departure from his previous work in that this series is shot entirely in black and white in a studio. Far from the carefree waifs running through fields or having a ball together in a crowded bathtub, these b&w portraits are more serious, for the most part, and more intimate. The gallery’s statement remarks that “there is is joy as well as uncertainty” in the photos and sure, I agree. Some subjects are nervous and awkward, but they’re happy, or at least they’re smiling. These images, I’m thinking particularly of “India” and “Larson F” are really quite charming. Some are beautiful and composed, some look like American Apparel ads, sans clothing, some could double as anorexia PSAs and some are, frankly, kind of boring. “Hari” and “Louis” summon forth memories of undergrad senior art shows – there’s always that one photography major who coaxes his or her friends to pose naked. McGinley’s been at it for about a decade now and I have to wonder, can he do anything else?

“Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” at Team Gallery, March 18 – April 17, 2010.

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As its name suggests, Letterheady is a website devoted to collecting and sharing the blank correspondence letters of various notables. I suppose the letterhead belonging to Theodore Geisel aka Dr Seuss isn’t to most imaginative, however seeing it reminded me of my favorite “fact” regarding this genius children’s book author and illustrator. He was voted “least likely to succeed” by his (totally encouraging and supportive) fellow members of an honor society at Dartmouth. Also, his first book was rejected by twenty-seven different publishers before it was accepted.

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If you’re wondering why this picture above, an untitled photograph from Shirin Neshat’s “Women of Allah” series is the only picture you’ve been seeing to advertise the upcoming BAM Silent Art Auction, it’s probably because she’s the event’s Honorary Artist Chair, but it may also very well be because this year’s auction is slim pickin’s. Even with over 160 artists on the roster, there are only a handful worth bidding on. Before getting to the bad, allow me to first mention some of the better pieces up for auction. Aside from Neshat, there are some good photos up for grabs by Ian Baguskas, Chuck Close, Sally Gall and Christoph Draeger. Lawrence Weiner and Marcel Dzama are offering some nice prints and I have my eye the red desk lamp by David Weeks. Notice that I haven’t (unfortunately) mentioned any of the paintings.

I might say there’s no accounting for taste, given the penchant of some pulling in the best of the bizarre/worst a la Regretsy style. Ikea art-influences appear in pieces by Julian Jackson, Rob Wynne and Deborah Kass. There’s a beyond disturbing self-portrait by Terence Koh, a nifty little drawing by Daniel Davidson who apparently got bored in class and drew 3 TIE fighters and a painting by Leah Tinari which is like iPhoto effects gone terribly, terribly wrong. At least it’s all for a good cause, right? If you’re brave enough to bid, you can do so online on March 18.

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