I don't really actually go to a lot of websites outside of my obsession with checking my email and social networking tools, but regardless, there are things out there,  I like these ones:


1. Folk streams, a really amazing documentary site. Check out the lizard swallowing frat house with sexual undertones, the pentecostal church documentary, and the Amish video. Maybe even watch them at the same time in different windows and relish in the fact that all these things are real and probably still happening somewhere in America today.


2. Holy Shit. I think i watched this video a million times in France - it felt, essential.


3. http://www.studioxo.com/sideproject.html I met this guy by walking into his gallery in Nancy, France and making a fool out of myself. We ended up going to Poland together, which was life changing. He is pretty incredible -you should add him on Facebook: Morgan Fortems.


4. I want to be her. I want to be him holding her. I want her amazing underwear.  I want to run in the warm sea water and flick my long wet hair back and forth in my fantastic underwear. I want to make out on a beach and be super unhappy about it. I want to sing that close to somebody else's face as they look unhappy about it. I want eyeliner that doesn't run. I want to fall in love, but not exactly with you, Chris Isaac. Pipolotti Rist is totally on the same page as me about these feelings.


5. Gallerie Studio St. St. Berlin. The website is kinda beside the point, but is the only connection i have to the most amazing performance space I've ever been to. Juwelia is one of my all time favorite artists ever.


6. Sam Finn's blog: total bold class.


7. This magazine did a really nice article about a project I was doing a little while ago.


8. Finishing school for boys who want to be girls. Used this video as a reference for a research paper. Weird though, in France this same video was longer, in two parts, and had WAY more juicydetails.


9. Fecal Face: yea yea yea, its sooooo fuckkkkkinnnnng cooooooooool.


10. Mika Rottenberg documentary.


/Elizabeth Jaeger (hard J, not like the booze) is a freelance whatchumacallit living halfsies in Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California. She is the proud founder of the slightly outdated club, Do it Together Projects. She also partakes in Homeschool Art Shop shows, which she is totally excited about. Before returning west, Elizabeth lived in Chicago, one block away from us. She makes beautiful artwork and intricate hand-sewn sweaters that are 50% off this month!

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In remembrance of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Harrowing Pepsi Shoot of 1984, the Tragic Heat Wave of 1995, and that August '09 sweat on your Midwest brow; in honor of the public swimming pool around the corner, the names of various Midwestern sports teams, the ice cream truck that is actually probably not a drug front, and the sweet rattle of window-mounted air-conditioning units; in praise of art and summertime and the rapid rise in regional mercury, BEN RUSSELL presents its third show in just as many months - BEN RUSSELL : BURNS

Following (hot) on the heels of last month's (smoking) success, an opening that was made complete with the romance of a simulated Mars-Moon eclipse in the cop-infested alleyway (via artists Roxanne Hopper and Julie Rudder), this month's scorcher features two artists and two artist duos of international persuasion.  Break your sunglasses, skip the tanning salon, throw that 60SPF sunscreen in the trash and let the BURNS at BEN RUSSELL char to a crisp your inner and outer cultural selves.  From the language-branded cowflesh of Chicagoan Diana Guerrero-Macía to the glow-in-the-dark smokebomb abstractions of Matt Hanner, from UK team Semiconductor's sun-flared NASA video grit to the campfire-replacement sculpture and damsel-in-distress performance of CamLab, BEN RUSSELL : BURNS will demonstrate unequivocally that, at least in Pilsen, the heat is on.

In keeping with the by-now time-honored BEN RUSSELL custom, opening-night attendees are invited to feel the (afore-mentioned) heat of the barbecue and bask in the chill of mild inebriation, while supplies last.

1716 S Morgan #2F (Pilsen)
Chicago, IL 60608

August 2 to August 30, 2009
Opening reception: 6-10 pm, August 2, 2009
Private viewings by appointment*
*The performance of "Things That Have Once Been in Contact" by Camlab will be presented at approximately 7:15pm.