Corcoran: Jeremy Blake show will go forward

Expect this fall's Jeremy Blake show, Wild Choir: Cinematic Portraits of Jeremy Blake, to continue more or less as planned at Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art. That's the word from the museum and from the show's curator, Jonathan Binstock (who recently left the Corc for Citi but who is moving forward with the show). This will be Binstock's second Blake show: He curated "Jeremy Blake: Digital Projections" at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. Blake is missing off the coast of New York City.

The show is scheduled to open on Oct. 27. Blake was to have been an artist-in-residence at the Corcoran this fall. (The museum says that Blake, who grew up in Washington, took his first art classes at the Corcoran College of Art and Design.)

It is not clear how the show will differ from the original concept: The presentation of three of Blake's 'cinematic portraits' and many of his chromogenic prints. It is possible, even likely, that Blake did not complete one of the works scheduled for the show, a 'portrait' of Malcolm McLaren titled Glitterbest. (Two other 'portraits, Reading Ossie Clark, sequence at left, and Sodium Fox are complete.) People involved with the show stressed to me that it is too early to know what happens next in regards to their expected future communications with the Blake family and so on.

I'm told that Blake finished work on the show's catalogue several weeks ago. It includes a Q&A between Blake and Binstock, an essay by Glenn O'Brien, a poem by David Berman, and many images from Blake's Glitterbest project. The Corc's releases ends by saying: "Further details of this project are pending."