Outdated reference point or not, the anti-apathy sentiment on Superchunk‘s sophomore single “Slack Motherfucker” still seems characteristic of Mac McCaughan 20 years after he wrote it. The recently dormant Superchunk is moving again, and McCaughan also fills his time with Portastatic and co-ownership of Merge Records. As if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, McCaughan is guest editing magnetmagazine.com this week.
McCaughan: Amy Sillman is a painter. I was doing an Internet tour of an NYC gallery called Sikkema Jenkins & Co a few years ago, initially looking for the work of another artist, and I started clicking on all the artists they represent. When I got to the images from Sillman’s most recent show at the time, it was like finding my favorite art that I just happened not to have seen yet in my life. The colors, the gestures, the figures and animals and buildings and things that I could actually see, plus all the things that were just implied, plus the large scale of that work, I had to find more. Eventually, I found Amy herself at her studio in Brooklyn; she was gracious enough to allow a tour of her workspace and, more recently and more graciously, allowed me to use a work on paper for the cover of the Portastatic Some Small History CD. Even at shrunken CD size, it’s beautiful, of course. Her 2006 book, Amy Sillman: Works On Paper, is touching and gorgeous, too.
