Passing the Bar, artforum.com, 5/11/11 (click here for full article)

Skidding off with some fellow scribblers to the Jack Smith opening at Gladstone Gallery, I found a pair of arch critiques sharing a wall: Steiner’s text-scrolling video screed inveighing against the art-world establishment, capitalism, etc.; and Ryan McNamara’s video of a pre-opening he had thrown a few nights earlier. “I think Jack would have hated this opening,” McNamara explained, “so I wanted to create one he would have come to.” In the video, a band of fabulous young creatures batted glitter-heavy lashes, licked nipples, nuzzled, hogtied one of their tribe on the floor. “We made the place as dirty as we possibly could for four hours,” McNamara recounted, as his on-screen image pulled a very Smithian mournful skyward gaze. “But they cleaned it up so fast! By the next morning, it looked like nothing had happened in here at all.”
-Sara Marcus