Artist Organized Art

2010-04-26T12:24:00.007-05:00

The Rise of Art World 2.0
by Ted Mooney

Two years into what we seem to have agreed, in full supine position, to call the Great Recession, it is clear to almost everyone that something has indeed taken its course, and that in many respected fields of endeavor things will never be the same. As someone who has pursued with equal commitment two parallel careers throughout my life─one in the art world (as an editor, a writer, and now as an educator at Yale’s graduate School of Art), and another in the literary world (as a novelist, essayist, and short-story writer)─I am struck, if not exactly surprised, by the similarity of the changes the recent financial meltdown has wrought on both fields, changes long in development but only now openly validated. I say changes, but in fact they are paradigm shifts, since both the art and literary worlds are undergoing transformations that will prove to be game-changingly radical. This much is certain: what was before, will be no more. The sooner we realize this, the more options we will have in the future.

Talking about this paradigm shift in regard to the art world is strangely difficult, for the very reason that the term “art world,” so casually bandied about by almost everyone, is most often used to refer to something that is at best a suspiciously convenient myth. No such all-encompassing art “world” exists. Most likely it is this misuse of the word “world” that has left the term “art world” itself open to such a wide range of misunderstandings. But in fact “art world” does have a very specific meaning, one quite different from the fuzzy globalist entity most often summoned up by those who use it so indiscriminately. Simply put, the art world consists of all those involved in the commission, creation, valuation, promotion, presentation, sale, criticism, documentation, and preservation of art. And with that established, many other matters grow a good deal clearer.

While we have always had artists in the U.S., for example, the American art world─one including all the elements listed above─is a much more recent development. Borrowing from the nomenclature of the software industry, I will call the U.S. art world’s earliest incarnation Art World 1.0 and locate its emergence somewhere in the mid- to late 1930s, when a number of forces came together in New York to create it. These forces included the sudden arrival here of European artists fleeing the onset of World War II; the convergence in New York of other European emigré artists who had moved to the U.S. much earlier but now joined their fellow exiles in the nascent art capital; and a similar movement of American artists away from the heartland to the growing artistic ferment in the East. In addition to these historical migrations, the federal Works Progress Administration, at that time the largest employer in the post-Depression U.S., provided substantial support for the arts, allowing, for example, Willem de Kooning (who had reached New York in 1927) to earn more than three times the salary of a typical Macy’s employee of the same period, all while painting public art works for which he was paid with federal dollars. What’s more, several other elements of the art world as I have defined it were already in place: among them Alfred Barr’s then artist-friendly MOMA, such prescient commissioners of art work as Peggy Guggenheim, a handful of important galleries, soon followed by art and culture periodicals like In the Tiger’s Eye, and View—enough of the necessary elements, anyway, to give critical mass to the first genuine U.S. art world.

Money was certainly made within this self-contained enclave, but not very much, and the institutions and collectors who acquired the art works emerging from these artists’ studios did so mainly out of their acute awareness that this was a historic moment, unprecedented in the U.S. Few if any of these collectors imagined that the works they were buying would in a very short time increase astronomically in monetary value, so speculation was a negligible factor. It was sufficient that enough money be circulated through the art scene to keep the artists alive and productive. And with only short periods of stasis, indirection or revolt, the New York art world evolved from that first iteration into what we know today, its characteristic elements continuously shifting in relative importance as the art eco-system grew in volume and self-confidence.

I will leave the reader to decide when exactly the art world’s incremental upgrades occurred─when 1.0 became 1.1, and so on─confining myself instead to a few obviously watershed moments. By the late 1940s and early ’50s, the Abstract Expressionists had became pop-cultural stars whom the average American saw in equal measure as perplexing oddities (“My kid could’ve done that”) and gratifying emblems of postwar American dominance (“Take that, Europe”). Indeed, they became such accepted emblems of a newly prosperous U.S. that the federal government (in the form of the U.S. Information Agency, now known to have functioned abroad as a propaganda arm of the C.I.A.) sent their works on extended worldwide tour as a potent psychological asset in waging the Cold War.

In the late 1950s and early ’60s another major change occurred, as the soul-baring feats of the Abstract Expressionists and their progeny gave way to the cool ironies of artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and all those other artists so hastily lumped together by the media under the rubric of Pop art. I’ll call this moment the arrival of Art World 1.5, since, in my opinion, it brought us halfway to where we are now. With it came a shift in sensibility that suggested a new detachment of artist from artwork, one that allowed the expansion into that same ironic distance of the other art-world elements, those that till now had usually played a secondary role. The valuation, promotion, presentation, and sale of art began to take on more weight, and the normative practices in these areas showed signs of changing and evolving in ways till then unforeseeable.

Simultaneously, a new breed of collector emerged, exemplified by people like Robert Scull, who made his fortune from a Manhattan taxi fleet inherited from his father-in-law, had no real background in art and simply bought what he liked—in quantity. Pricing became more aggressive, promotion took on a glamour of its own, and the social aspect of the art world veered increasingly toward spectacle. Not only did this period mark the peak of postwar prosperity in this country, but it was also a genuinely thrilling time for U.S. art, one as innovative in its way as that ushered in by the Abstract Expressionists. What’s more─and here Warhol is the obvious example─the subject of much of this art was commerce, money, glamour, and popular culture. So for the first time the economic elements of the art world were unapologetically accorded billing equal to the art and the artists themselves. And with this acceptance, the ethos that has brought us to our present pass was unequivocally established.

To be sure, there were those who worked in explicit rebellion against the overall commercial trend of the art world─the Conceptualists, the Earthwork artists, performance artists, and others─many of whom produced art that, though intended in part to be “uncollectable,” must be accounted major work by any standards. But the expansion and increasing commercialization of the art world─punctuated by the booms and busts intrinsic to any market-linked community─continued apace. Among the innovations that contributed to the art world’s rapid development from the 1960s on were the decreasing cost and consequent proliferation of color reproductions in art magazines, the rise of graduate art-school programs (which implicitly presented art as a solid career path, comparable to, say, dentistry, in the security it offered), the increasing acceptance of the nakedly commercial art fair as a legitimate forum for presenting art, the ascension of the artist super-stars of the 1980s, the exploding resale market for contemporary art at venerable auction houses, the construction boom for contemporary art museums as they became more and more widely perceived as tourist magnets that no respectable mid-sized municipality could do without, and, finally, the vastly accelerated exchange of ideas and images that the Internet allowed. By the time the Museum of Modern Art reopened its doors after its lavish renovations of 2002-04, it is safe to say that Art World 1.9 had reached its apotheosis and begun its ongoing decline. Art World 2.0, a complete reset of the original, with consequences only beginning to be known, was taking shape.

Why do I locate this changeover at that moment? It’s tempting to point to the example of the newly expanded MOMA, a grotesquely misconceived distortion of its former self. As far back as the 1970s there had been talk, both within the museum and outside it, of declaring MOMA a historical museum, a museum precisely of modern art, which is generally seen as having come to a triumphant end with Minimalism. Watching MOMA continue to show contemporary art in its ostentatiously corporate, quintessentially modernist quarters seems to many like watching a 75-year-old man (the Modern opened in 1929, the very year the Great Depression began) attempt a kickflip indy at the local skateboarding park─a sight unseemly at best, but in any case a clear indication that all self-awareness has long since departed the scene. That may sound like a cheap shot, but within it lies a kernel of ineradicable truth. Every three generations (and I’m using “generation” to mean the traditional 25 years, not the five to ten years implied by advertisements and over-wrought publicists) the living memory of how the world was “back then,” what its inhabitants at that time aspired to and how they went about getting it, begins to die off. The number of eyewitnesses rapidly diminishes until we become reliant on second-hand accounts, self-serving memoirs, and conflicting rumor to summon up a vision of the original. Soon nothing can be verified with certainty, the “real” past is lost, and it can only carry on as a simulacrum of itself. Not until then, paradoxically, can the genuinely new, brought into being of its own necessity, be born and thrive on its own terms. Now, for the American art world, that time is upon us.

While it must be emphasized that Art World 2.0 remains in its earliest stage of development, it currently seems characterized by a studious rejection, quiet but steely, of the corporatization of art so enthusiastically and profitably pursued during the Art World 1.9 years. Among my grad students and many of their confreres in their mid-thirties or younger, there is a strong preference for art that in one way or another emphasizes “secrecy,” subversion, withholding, ephemerality, word-of-mouth invitation, sub-visible presence, intimate one-on-one interaction between artist and “viewer” and strong artist-to-artist dialogue. Where there’s institutional critique (and there’s a lot of it) it’s unlikely to be cast in the flamboyantly confrontational style of, say, Hans Haacke. Instead it might take place within a chosen “major New York museum”─the default term proposed by some leading museums after the almost Talmudic deliberations of their legal departments─among a group of invited participants, the results to be documented, if at all, by the museum’s security cameras. (It seems significant in itself that “surveillance”—both inside museums and elsewhere--is a hot topic among Art World 2.0 artists, who are acutely aware of the demise of privacy and ingenious in their attempts to resuscitate it.)

In addition, widespread revelations about the recent criminal activities of respected banks and international corporations, crimes that have almost without exception gone unpunished, have made virtually all corporate practice suspect to a sizable proportion of Americans, and to many of the Art World 2.0 artists it is, at least for now, anathema. As they attempt to reclaim for artists the freedom and respect once naturally accorded the best art work, independent of the by-now customary financial indices and career-path signposts, they have begun to seek alternative ways of structuring their art world. And they have learned how to adapt for their own purposes the near-universal corporate response to the recent financial meltdown; they have developed ways to eliminate (or at least minimize) the middlemen.

This strategy is only possible because the old Art World, as well as modernism and the various morbid offshoots that followed its demise, is dead to them. They accept this as a fact, but don’t dwell on it, since the corporatization that marked Art World 1.9’s endgame is of little relevance to them, except as a warning. What most concerns these emerging Art World 2.0 artists from a practical standpoint is regaining control of how their work is presented and, given the ever-greater importance of the Internet, how the reproduced images of that work are disseminated. To those ends, many prefer to avoid long-term gallery affiliation altogether, seeking instead the most suitable venue for each new project as it is completed. By stringing together a series of one-shot appearances in places of their own choosing, they are better able to maximize their freedom and shape their work’s development. This may be seen as a direct response to the financial hysteria of the Art World 1.9 years, which led to the virtual extinction (though always with magnificent exceptions) of long-term, even life-long relationships between gallery and artist. In times not nearly as distant as they now seem, galleries saw it as their role to nurture and develop their artists, eventually to arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome through patience and hard work. But the frenetic financial pace of Art World 1.9─whereby new artists would typically be given two or three shows to demonstrate their financial viability before, if their work failed to sell impressively, being summarily dropped─did away with these nurturing relationships, and Art World 2.0 artists have quite sensibly concluded that their best option is to nurture themselves. This shift in thinking explains the primary emphasis Art World 2.0 artists place on building and maintaining their connections with other artists; they want a mutual support structure that they can depend on. Not only does this preference mirror their widely shared interest in reconnecting with their audience personally, in many cases on an intimate one-to-one basis, but underscores their deep-seated resistance to any form of outside control whatsoever, from any quarter. This insistence by Art World 2.0 artists on setting their own terms is yet another bit of bad news for galleries, who have already begun to see their high-end artists’ new work bypass them altogether, going straight from studio to auction house, where a successful sale can establish an artist’s financial worth much more effectively than a sold-out gallery show, which is by nature not at all transparent. The gallery dealer can and does make use of a whole range of tricks to achieve the desired public perception of a given show’s outcome, including under-the-table discounts, non-existent waiting lists for a particular artist’s work, failure to disclose the prices at which works really sold, and many other sleights of hand. At auction, the process is far more transparent: a work is sold to the highest bidder, conferring on the artist a more certain status and financial validation. Foreign collectors, especially from emerging markets such as Asia, are far more comfortable buying the work of an artist with whom they may not be familiar if that artist has already received the imprimatur of a respected auction house.

Obviously, auction houses are unlikely to accept a consignment from an untested artist, and that fact, along with the innate predisposition of Art World 2.0 artists to avoid entangling commercial alliances, assures that there will be many more artist-organized shows in the future. This polarization of sales venues corresponds, interestingly enough, to the drastically increased concentration of U.S. wealth into far fewer hands, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 and grossly accelerated during the Bush years. I have heard more than a few highly informed art-world players speculate pessimistically about the continued viability of art galleries in Art World 2.0. Personally, I think this is more a form of complaint than prognostication, but the possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. At the very least it is a recognition, however indirect, that the reset implicit in the arrival of Art World 2.0 has already occurred.

What direction Art World 2.0 will eventually take cannot, of course, be known at this early date, but its initial aspirations are clear. Precisely because the monetary valuation of art, while based on some established indices, is at base irrational and subjective to the point of arbitrariness, the artist who is alert to these matters can work with a freedom unavailable to virtually all other workers in all other professions. This freedom was highly valued in the early stages of Art World 1.0─not only by artists but also by those composing the other necessary elements of the art world eco-system. Somewhere along the way, however, that freedom was lost to many artists as the art-world “support system” arrogated to itself more and more power, which came to influence artists themselves to an equally inflated degree. Those days may not be entirely over, but Art World 2.0 has arrived with the express intention of reclaiming its freedom and resisting outside influences, especially institutional ones, with all the energy and inventiveness its members can bring to bear.

They have already dismissed any notion of a master scenario for art’s development, simply by virtue of their arrival. They have the tools and weapons to take back their freedom, with its mix of blessings. Now we will see if they have the will.

Author: Ted Mooney was a senior editor at Art in America magazine for more than 30 years and now teaches a graduate seminar at Yale University’s School of Art. He is also the author of three award-winning novels, as well a number of essays and shorter works of fiction. His most recent novel, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf on May 11, 2010, is titled The Same River Twice. A video trailer for this book was created in collaboration with new-media artist John Gara and can be found at http://tiny.cc/TSRT-video .

2010-03-25T11:47:00.007-05:00

Mark Bloch at Emily Harvey Foundation
New York's SoHo, 03-25-10

correspondence: in the Artists' Voice
photography: Tom Warren for Mark Bloch
at Emily Harvey Foundation

The Art of Storàge
by Mark Bloch

Storàge is a new art form for our times in which artists will prevent at all costs, their work from seeing the light of day. Artists must conceal what they do, make sure no one finds out that they are brilliant. If an artist must show someone something they have created, they should show another artist so as not to upset the art markets. Other artists do not really count as human beings so there really is no harm in telling them. That is how art continues to thrive. Artists are sequestered from the rest of humanity. But one should proceed with caution because occasionally artists know actual people and the news of what kind of work the artists are producing must not spread to civilians.

Storàge is an art form like many others: collàge, assemblàge, frottàge. The accent is on the second syllable. The emphasis is on the storing of important information and objects--preferably one of a kind objects, although the storing of multiples is also encouraged--until a great deal of time has passed and the ideas and images contained therein, hidden from public view, have been discovered and explored by other, less talented individuals. This is bound to happen while the work is rotting under lock and key, no matter how advanced the work. Even the most vanguard artist will be unable to stave off the advancing future which will soon provide the unique conditions necessary for the artist’s work to be removed from Storàge without consequence.

Once a work of art has been rendered culturally feckless, Storàge is no longer necessary. The work can now be trotted out into the marketplace where it will no doubt have to endure other types of packaging, wrapping and covering which are part of the Storàge process when enacted by a Storàgist but in these new contexts the accent in Storàge is removed and it becomes simply storage in which excessive packaging and hygienic germ free protection is always considered good for business. Of course any work of art or other consumer item, no matter how processed and "valuable," always remains in danger of being placed on dusty shelves in the forgotten back rooms of galleries or museums by art professionals. This is where the nuances of Storàge and storage are revealed--for it is these very art professionals who are uniquely qualified to determine whether or not an artist’s work is any good. During the interim period when the artists are left trying to make this crucial decision for themselves, their work must be safely hidden from view while these art professionals are courted at the artist’s expense without causing too much of a fuss, for it is the artist’s passion that must also remain in the limbo of Storàge, not just their output.

Sometimes fear of the art professionals will cause an insecure artist, one prone to alarmism and in constant dread of being accused of being labeled an exhibitionist, to send works into hiding early, thus risking beginning their career as a Storàge Artist prematurely. But there is nothing to be alarmed about here. Fears about these types of fear are only a waste of time. Any uncertainty at all must always be acted on immediately. To err on the side of invisibility is never a mistake. If an artist has any doubts at all about the worthiness of what has been created, they should simply place the work in a secure area, free from intellectually curious intruders where no one can see it. In fact experience has shown that no work is too ripe to entertain misgivings about its readiness for public consumption. Any suspicions at all should be indulged whole-heartedly and enthusiastically by the Storàge Artist.

Mark Bloch

More on The Art of Storage (.pdf)

The Art of Storage was recently seen as part of Mark Bloch's one man show "Secrets of the Ancient 20th Century Gamers" at Emily Harvey Foundation in NYC March 18 through April 2.

2010-03-10T20:16:00.001-05:00

NEW WORKS • NEW VIEWS • NEW MINDS: Stage One: KATYLAND live at Artist Organized Art Benefit Launch

by Jessica Higgins and Erika Knerr
photography: Denis Luzuriaga

Participating artists: Aimee Xenou, Alicia Renadette, Andy Laties, Andrew Greto, Ann Lewis, Barbara Neulinger, Beth Lawrence, Carl Caivano, Christin Couture, Christine Tarantino, Christopher Blair, Dave Gloman, Dean Nimmer, John Landino, Denis Luzuriaga, Dwight Pogue, Erika Knerr, Fletcher Smith, Jessica Higgins, John Romanski, Joshua Selman, Kathleen Trestka, Katie Richardson, Katy Schneider, Laurie Goddard, Maggie Nowinski, Matt Anderson, Matt Anderson, Nancy Natale, Ninette Rothmüller, Pablo Yglesias, Rosa Guerra, Sarah Valeri, Sue Katz, Susannah Auferoth, Tracey Physioc Brockett, William Hosie, Luzuriaga video includes Ursonate Urchestra

February 20th was an auspicious date for the arts community! That Saturday night, was the first of three parties to benefit Artist Organized Art in which A.O.A. threw a community outreach event, arts network builder, exhibition, performance…did I forget to say fundraiser?

Northampton's Katy Schneider, a guitarist, singer, songwriter and painter, accompanied by Julie Starr and Caitlin Bosco on back up vocals, Jason Smith on drums and Bruce Mandaro on guitar and mandolin. http://www.myspace.com/katyschneider. Also see Katy's work at www.katyschneider.com

The event featured large projected images by local artists of the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts and hard and soft indie music by Katyland along with some great cover songs, a regional progressive music favorite.

Denis Luzuriaga, a painter and video artist, compiled the projected images: in the dead of winter the crowd was treated to a colorful array of visual artworks, documents and pleasantly dated black and white photos of beach scenes.

The overall effect; "a swirling sound stretched out on the night with projections of art interfacing the viewers” Jessica Higgins

Each element of the event reflected a key component of the AOA mission to support creative independence in the form of self-supporting and self-generating exhibitions through artist organized media, events and cultural education.

The festivities took place at Eastworks a converted warehouse on the river at 116 Pleasant Street in Easthampton. Artists of all kinds and their allies came from neighboring towns as well as the studio and residential community of Eastworks, a loft building community founded by Will Bundy.

The social and experimental quality of the event recalled important artist communities associated with the avant-garde: Black Mountain College during the 1940s and 1950s, the Village and SoHo in the 1960s and 1970s, and California in the 1970s and 1980s. Why not Massachusetts as an internet hub brought together by AOA in the 2010s?

The event represents a significant group effort organized by artists: Susannah Auferoth, Jessica Higgins, Erika Knerr (also representing New Observations, the seminal New York arts magazine that was recently acquired by AOA), Denis Luzuriaga and Joshua Selman. Artist Organized Art is working to improve the quality of life through community culture.

The event isn’t over yet. If you were there and have pictures of the event, send them in to be a part of the record! If the event sounds like fun and you’re bummed you missed it, keep your eyes out for more. AOA is ever eventful.

The success of A.O.A. comes from community support (cultural, logistical and financial), which means everyone is invited to be apart of it, enriching our world by organizing its culture as artists. Benefit parties for Stage Two and Stage Three will be forthcoming.

Hannah Higgins a Professor of Art History at University Illinois, in Chicago working in DC this year at the Phillips Collection comments on the Artist Organized Art Facebook page: "Fan-freakin'-tastic! I want one in DC!" (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Artist-Organized-Art/52223923322)

If you'd like to contribute to Artist Organized Art visit: http://giveback.artistorganizedart.org
Or print out the form below and mail it to us with your kind donation.

2010-01-26T14:15:00.005-05:00

FREESPACE IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS
Freespace Exhibition and Performances
59 Rivoli Aftersquat, Paris, December '09

'Do you have a square penis?' By Swiss-Morrocan

Paris correspondent, participant artist, Angie Eng

The romantic vision of the artist in his solitude, poverty-stricken, hyper-intelligent delusional world, the tabloid reader may even imagine him living and working in a graffitied, Lower East Side 80's freezing cold moldy squat next to the crack queue. Those were the days, they say… before the real estate boom and diamond skulls. Don't panic, there are still freezing cold, stinky albeit renovated spaces to produce art for little or no rent (in Paris, that is.) Last December (In the aftermath I refer to as my 'temporary creative masochistic state') I plunged myself into heading two weeks of artist organized art in a former squat in Paris.

To rebel against the Christmas consumer rush on Rue de Rivoli, I recruited my most faithful to help run Freespace a series of free concerts, performances, readings and an exhibition based on the theme of public space.

Even though this is rumoured to be the 3rd most visited cultural venue in Paris, I stumbled upon it during an artist tour, 2 weeks after its re-opening as an official, legal space for artists to work and play. This 6-story building sandwiched between the Louvre and Hotel de Ville, includes a dazzling storefront gallery space, 30 open artist studios and a micromuseum. I have to admit my original intent was not to organize a series of art events, but to do a site specific window installation of a faux travel agency selling public space. My arm was twisted and it had been a while since I organized some art events. Et voilà…

Freespace Exhibition and Performances December 8-20, 2009, 59 Rivoli Aftersquat, Paris

Participating artists: A-li-ce, Cecile Babiole, Luc Barrovecchio, Christiane Blanc, Nina Canal, Steve Dalachinsky, Angie Eng, Elizabeth Gilly, HeHe (Helen Evans, Heiko Hansen), Kentaro, Stuart Krusee, Cecile Le Combe, Les hautsdeplafond (Pierre Lutic & Philippe Gautier), Thierry Madiot, Agathe Max, Mectoob, Yuko Otomo, Margarita Papazoglou, Plectrum, Claude Parle, Atau Tanaka

Grace à the city of Paris, the former Bank of Lyon known as Chez Robert on 59 Rivoli was 'regulated' and renovated after years of squatter status. Listen to the interview with Swiss-Morrocan one of the head chiefs of the 'Aftersquat'.

Angie Eng interviews Swiss Morrocan

After my eye-opening experience with 59 Rivoli Aftersquat, I decided I would write this article and do a Q/A with 2 other artist run spaces where I had presented work in the last year: La Générale en Manufacture, Sèvres and Les Voutes (affiliated with Les Frigos). I found it would be impossible and almost suicidal to make my own art and even fathom running an artist run place all year round. These artist/organizers are definitely a special breed, a rare species in a time when the collective body decomposed decades ago.

All three spaces are artist collective run, currently government owned, legalized spaces for artists to work and organize events and artists' residencies. All of them pay for electricity, insurance, water. (In some cases, 'rent' and also former collective debts from either unpaid utility bills or renovations) Although they share a similar paradigm of alternative art space, each is unique in their intent and vision of being on the periphery or even outside the inside art world.

I consider Les Voutes to be one of the more beautiful places to make art in Paris, 59 Rivoli to be run by the most friendly and unpretentious artists I've ever met and La Generale at Sevres too new to say NO.

On the side, France still has one of the largest cultural art budgets in the world (2.8 billion in 2009 or $622 per person per year). By the way, the 2009 NEA cultural arts budget in America was 265 million or 86 cents per person per year. However, politics and administration goes hand in hand with government funding. In France, wanting a piece of that pie, artists are suggested to create associations or mini-non profit organizations, sign contracts abiding by city legislation and regulations in order to plan their artistic activities around 'festivals.' Count the logos at the bottom of the invites to get an idea of the size of each slice. With these figures, doing independent events 100% artist run in government owned buildings, is to put it frankly, an illusion. Be that as it may, I'm grateful that these spaces exist grace à the Ville de Paris and have not been burned down or sold to luxury housing developments like the City of New York. I'm still not sure if larger cultural budgets change the quality of art, but we can all agree its better to have more than less in the diffusion of cultural practice.

"In my opinion, the art market is a dead donkey covered with flies.
It's made for a bunch of rich happy few.

We always see the same ridiculous official artists
promoted through these kind of private circles
with no hope of seeing something new...

We do not want to be a part of this private joke.

We expect nothing from others
(governement, official organizations, etc.)

We do what we have to and want to do."

-Pierre Wayser, Les Voutes

Les Voutes, photo by Pierre Wayser

Les Voutes

Building: 19 rue des Frigos 4 underground train tunnels approximately 1000 sq feet each and a garden
Established: 1998
Owner: former owner was SNCF then, le Réseau Ferré and then City of Paris since 2003
Regulated: 2000
Purpose: 'We decide to create a cultural association (and a garden) to rule the place. First to show our work, then the one from friends...'
Website: http://lesvoutes.org http://les-frigos.com
Les Voutes Artistic directors: Bruno Herlin and Pierre Wayser
Contract terms:
We do not receive any kind of funds or money !
We do not ask for money !
We do not want their money !
We do not have to say "thanks"!!
We just use some differents networks of international artists and share the expenses.'
Information provided by Pierre Wayser

59 Rivoli Aftersquat

59 Rivoli Aftersquat

59 Rivioli Aftersquat

Building: 59 rivoli, 6 stories, plus storefront gallery
Squat established: 1999
Owner: Bank of Lyon and then bought by the City of Paris
Expulsion by court of law: 2000
Regulated: 2001 (renovated and closed during 2006-2009)
Purpose: open studios to public everyday (except Monday) exibition space, artist studios, temporary residencies
Association: 15 core members, around 30 artists working in building
Website: http://www.59rivoli.org
Contract terms: all artists are door greeters for 1 hour /week, each artist pays $160 for utility bills, building closes at 8pm
Information provided by: Swiss Morrocan

La Générale, Sévres

La Générale, Sévres

Building: original building on rue du Général Lasalle Paris Belleville new location: 60,000 square foot
Squat: established in 2005
Owner: National Education Ministry
Expulsion by court of law: 2006
Regulated: 2007 relocation to Sévres
Purpose: exibition spaces, wood and metal workshops, photographic studios, temporary residencies
Association: 15 official members
Website: http://www.la-g.org
Art Residency directors: Sylvain Gelinotte and Jerome Guige
La Générale profile: Painters,VJs, scupltors, conceptual artists, performers, photographers, musicians, video artists, poets, drawers, young or older (mostly in the 30s), french and foreigner nationals (mostly are french speakers), somewhat famous and also perfectly unknown.
Contract terms: With the Regional Minister of Cultural Affairs (DRAC): 'they pay the rent and we run the space for the benefit of our work and visiting artists. Using the space to run a company or renting it forbidden'
Association Rules: $70 per month membership fee to pay for power, internet connection and the insurance that covers everyone
Information provided by: Jerome Guige

Angie Eng, Paris, January 26, 2010

2009-12-24T08:04:00.017-05:00

Bonnie Marranca of PAJ Publications
PAJ Founder interviewed in
Germantown, New York

Artist Organized Art Interviews Bonnie Marranca, Founder, Publisher and Editor of PAJ Publications/PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. The interview occurred in August of 2008 in Germantown, N.Y.

Bonnie Marranca, with Robert Wilson drawing behind her, Berlin, 2009

interview by Joshua Selman

JS: How did you start PAJ logistically and why did you start it?

BM: PAJ (www.mitpressjournals.org/paj) was conceived in 1975 by Gautam Dasgupta and me while we were studying in the doctoral program at CUNY-the Graduate Center, in New York. We were also critics for the SoHo Weekly News at that time. We had the academic background, but this very lively time in the 70s was a great period for video art, the beginnings of performance art, experimental theatre—such as the work of Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman, Mabou Mines. There were many so things going on . . . Meredith Monk’s work, Philip Glass, new playwrights. We were seeing all of this work, while at the same time having a very traditional theatre background in graduate school. In effect, we had both the traditional grounding and the new aesthetics that we were grappling with as critics. So you could say that we were studying the history of theatre and the repertoire at the same time that the new work was offering its critique.

It also gave us the possibility of having, at our fingertips, the scholars and translators who were really knowledgeable about the dramatic repertoire and the history of theatre. At the same time we came to be friends with several generations of artists in so many different fields. We were not happy with the criticism that was in the major theatre journal of the time, The Drama Review, because it was very descriptive and not analytical. The coverage in The New York Times and comparable magazines and newspapers wasn’t very challenging. There were new art forms, and new ways of making theatre that were really not sufficiently understood or addressed.

left: Drawing of his play Maria del Bosco, by Richard Foreman from PAJ’s Performance
Drawings portfolio series. right: PAJ publisher with the playwright Maria Irene Fornes, 2009

We had a different vision of theatre and of criticism at that time. We thought we could make a journal that could become involved with new forms of writing and could deal with the new performance aesthetics as well as having the commitment to dramatic literature. Between the two of us, Gautam and I found a printer, learned editing, production, and worked on marketing, sales, and distribution. We quickly had our own typesetting equipment and did everything in-house. So, from the start we were pretty self-sufficient. We began to hand out flyers at theatres, and worked on getting mailing lists and subscriptions in the universities and in libraries. That’s essentially how we started. The publishing house was never part of any university or organization that provided money or staff.

JS: Can you describe the development of PAJ, and its later involvement with Johns Hopkins University Press and MIT Press?

BM: We began to publish the journal and set up a non-profit 501(c)3, by the time we had published the first issue, in May 1976. Then, three years later, we began publishing books, and called the publishing house PAJ Publications. The journal was then known as Performing Arts Journal (the name was changed in 1998 to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art) We went along this way for quite a while and continued to publish books of plays and books of essays; the journal featured international coverage in essays, interviews and dialogues, new writing, performance reviews and festival reports. There was simply so much material and so many interesting things to cover that we felt we couldn’t contain it in a journal three times a year. So, we started on books and we had many of the same authors move from the journal to books as well.

left: At JFK Airport with German playwright Heiner Müller.
right: In London, 2009, at a PAJ event featuring Meredith Monk.

About ten years later, in the late-eighties, we made an agreement with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the very highly regarded literary publishers, to distribute our books. That lasted for three years. One of the reasons we went to them was that we wanted to start publishing fiction. We tended to do fiction of the playwrights we knew, like Ken Bernard and Harry Kondoleon. The late-eighties was a period of great difficulty, with the so called “culture wars” and funding controversies. The tide had turned against heavy support for experimental theatre and the downtown scene, so we knew we had to figure out a way to safeguard the press.

Eventually we made an agreement with The Johns Hopkins University Press, around 1991, and PAJ became an imprint of Johns Hopkins. They distributed our backlist as well, which was about eighty-five titles by this time. PAJ Books became a series under this imprint, and JHUP financed the new titles. We commissioned forty books, including the Art+Performance series for performance and new media (with volumes on Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk, Bruce Nauman, Gary Hill and others. The journal was published in their journals division, but we always maintained control of our name and always owned the journal. That agreement lasted for about ten years. Then we went to MIT Press, around 2001. That’s where we remain, though MIT Press has no involvement with the books. PAJ went back into financing and publishing its own books in 2006. We have about sixty titles now in print, distributed by Theatre Communications Group (www.tcg.org)

JS: What is the editorial premise of PAJ?

BM: PAJ Publications was founded to publish, promote, and support new work, lost or forgotten works of the past, and to develop a very rigorous idea of criticism. By that I don’t mean theory, but criticism and fine critical writing—that’s what I think PAJ has been known for. In addition, there is the publication of new American drama and works of translation.

left: Living Theatre artistic directors, Judith Malina and Hanon Resnikov with the PAJ
publisher at her New York City apartment. right: PAJ publishers, Bonnie Marranca and
Gautam Dasgupta, visiting French author Marguerite Yourcenar at her
home in Maine, a few years before her death in 1987.

Looking back over three decades of books and journals, by now we’ve published over one thousand plays and performance texts, translated from twenty languages. We’ve published about one hundred and forty books and ninety journals so far. PAJ Publications is one of the major play publishers in the English-speaking world. We’ve always held the line when so much of academia and the world of the arts moved strongly toward theory. I believe very much in the primacy of the artwork, and the experience of the writer or critic, so I am not interested in applied theory. I don’t consider PAJ an academic journal. I believe it should be a kind of fine literary writing grounded in knowledge of the field and the experience of individual works. That’s been true for most of the history of the journal. Our format has been a combination of essays, interviews and dialogues, plays or performance texts, festival reports, reviews of performance.

When Performing Arts Journal changed its name a decade ago to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, it was because I wanted to have theatre and visual arts move closer together in the journal. The art world was continuing to do more performance, there were installations, video, media, photography, and all kinds of things that could be looked at in terms of performance and spectatorship. We were already covering, theatre, dance, and music.

left: Cover of Performance Histories (2008), featuring Alison Knowles performance sculpture,
Book Jacket. right: Cover of New Europe: plays form the continent (2009),
featuring artwork by German artist Bernd Trasberger.

When we started the journal, what constituted theatre or performance was rather a small world considering where the notion of performance went in thirty years. Dramatic literature is no longer the center of study in theatre. People don’t have the same interest in playwriting, but are more interested in performance. In the twentieth century, there are two histories of performance, one from the theatre world, and one from the art world, so that if you are in an art department, you study a history of performance that’s entirely different from what you would study in a theatre department. I’m trying to bring them closer together within the journal. A larger, more comprehensive history of performance ideas, that’s my main goal, and it has been for the last ten years.

Bonnie Marranca standing in a Richard Serra sculpture.

Read the full interview.

Included in the full interview, Bonnie Marranca speaks to the following:

Bonnie Marranca (www.bonniemarranca.com) is publisher and editor of the Obie Award-winning PAJ Publications and PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (originally called Performing Arts Journal), which she co-founded in 1976. She has written three collections of criticism: Performance Histories, Ecologies of Theatre, and Theatrewritings, the recipient of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. Among the many anthologies she has edited are: Plays for the End of the Century; American Dreams: The Imagination of Sam Shepard; and The Theatre of Images, one of the seminal books of contemporary theatre. Her writings have been translated into fifteen languages. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright Senior Scholar who has taught in many universities here and abroad, including Columbia University, Princeton University, NYU, Duke University, the University of California-San Diego, Free University (Berlin), and Autonomous University/Institute for Theatre (Barcelona). She is Professor of Theatre at The New School/Eugene Lang College for Liberal Arts.

PAJ (www.mitpressjournals.org/paj) is admired internationally for its independent critical thought and cutting-edge explorations. PAJ charts new directions in performance, video, drama, dance, installations, media, film, and music, integrating theater and the visual arts. Artists' writings, critical commentary, interviews, and a special review section for performances and gallery shows are highlighted along with plays and performance texts from around the world. New features include Performance Drawings portfolios and the Art, Spirituality, and Religion ongoing series. In 2009, the journal celebrates its 33rd year of publishing.

2009-11-01T20:14:00.012-05:00

WONDERLAND Exhibition
San Francisco Tenderloin, October 17, 2009
Curated by Lance M Fung

City of San Francisco, streets of The Tenderloin

by Joshua Selman
photo: Bay Area Event Photography

As a participating artist in the Wonderland Exhibition, I'm asking myself why a large scale contemporary art exhibit opening in The Tenderloin in San Francisco and curated by one of today’s most respected and publicized curators, Lance Fung, is titled, of all possible titles, “WONDERLAND?” The Tenderloin is a neighborhood marginalized to the point of reputation. Yet surprisingly, the title “Wonderland” correctly identifies and responds to a hidden cultural dilemma facing any group of artists approaching this historic community.

City of San Francisco, streets of The Tenderloin

Our cultural institutions often rejuvenate themselves at the expense of the disempowered. The avant garde often exploits fringe neighborhoods, brokering between corporate and vernacular cultures. This opens the door to gentrification. Yet, we find ourselves sympathetic to the impact of local material conditions. In The Tenderloin these include homelessness, joblessness, illiteracy, crime, disease and epidemics such as AIDS, hunger, poverty, drug addiction, alcoholism, lack of health care and environmental decay. In short, the untidy social effects of the “advancement” we call globalization. Locals are explained away.

Site of Wonderland Neighborhood Association (WNA)
"Block Party" event, October 17th, 11 - 5 pm

Wonderland seems to take on a particular challenge, namely how to take local culture seriously when the dominant culture precludes difference, cultural, racial and sexual as an insidious evil. The challenge for Wonderland is to be locally inclusive and to negate the attraction/repulsion process of the global art market. Using the title “Wonderland” the dominant strategies, such as exploiting minority artists by insisting they source local street violence as their unique selling point or that they themselves signify misery remarketed, are surprisingly countered.

"Fear Head" by Roman Cesario and Mitsu Overstreet
Wonderland Exhibition in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco

The Wonderland Exhibition also speaks to the need to reform dominant culture institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art or Lincoln Center, to artist spaces and organizations based in ethnic communities that alone address a lack of multiculturalism and tolerance. A lack which has grown since Ronald Reagan left the office of Governor of California to become President of the USA and allowed a twenty year surge of neo-conservative intolerance, which in the past eight years has become extreme in the dominant culture. Wonderland is an attempt to signal the way back to a positive progressive footing, to organize beyond the survival tactics of the past twenty years and to pick up where others left off before the heterogeneous world was cast in gray.

A resident follows the exhbition "Wonderland"
in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco

Instinctively, the artists, organizers and partners of Wonderland Exhibition, all volunteers, follow early signs of change in the air. They are taking to the streets of The Tenderloin, to engage local community, to make work which is a synthesis by artist and community. The opportunity is to finally truly turn outward, to engage with the larger society, to work with social creativity and invent new forms of organizations that suit ongoing needs of creative synthesis. They are picking up where we left off before the blight of the NEA led to the cancerous growth of the commercial gallery and auction houses. The exhibition is to push the boundaries of local culture as far as it can.

Perhaps it’s time for Wonderland. The growing weight of the nation’s social problems were paid for by independent local communities, while the nation’s prosperity accrued to the establishment arts and the military. As artists, we’ve played along with a prestige game and lost. We’ve been robbed of our social imagination, served as an inoculation against awareness and have done the hard work of self censorship to the point of obscurity. Count the projects left unproduced, the low birth rate of institutions and a general lack of experimentation as the cost of the Reagan/Bush/Helmes/Bush era. This shadow over what was once our cultural community chills us even now. But, the Wonderland Exhibition funnels volunteerism with multiculturalism allowing artists back into local community culture.

in performance: Night At The Blackhawk
Wonderland Exhibition in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco

Wonderland celebrates the recent gains made at the NEA with a new attitude, an attempt to live, work and make art in a flamboyant and joyful Tenderloin community. During the twenty year neo-conservative era, the NEA used the Chair's veto to publicize censorship. Neo-conservatives condemned the Endowment for its attention to public impact, social need, tolerance, experimentation and a support of “public service” concepts. By contrast Wonderland celebrates the evolution of new and existing organizations, such as the Wonderland Neighborhood Association, as necessary to a fuller cultural life. The volunteer Exhibition remains nimble rather than being bogged down attracting funders.

Wonderland Symposium, with Lance Fung at the Warfield Theater, Oct 18, 2 - 4 pm
Wonderland Exhibition in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco

Artists have an unusual potential to exercise social imagination. From Fluxus of the 1960’s to The International Artists Museum and its connection to the Solidarity Movement of 1980’s Poland, the Artists Space movement in the USA from the 1960’s to the 1980’s, the ability of artists to impact and innovate the organization structure itself has been remarkable. Wonderland celebrates a return to this type of artist collaboration in the structure of organization and is turning away from an era where the drive of existing corporations to perpetuate themselves has choked off all creative options.

Visitors at the "Block Party" event by WNA
Site of Wonderland Neighborhood Association (WNA)
October 17th, 11 - 5 pm

The project is coming out of the closet creatively, socially and culturally. In the past eight years a majority of Americans were forced to give up their own liberties even if they were willing to risk allowing those liberties to others described as terrorists, dangerous people of color, people with aids, homosexuals, illegal aliens, foreigners, feminists, community organizers and those criminals, the artists. Disempowered communities have found themselves profiled and marginalized, excluded, undercounted, prosecuted, silenced, bashed, spied on, controlled, unemployed, underemployed, defunded, put out of business and run out of town by a growing corporate elite. Yet, Wonderland’s agility lets it by-pass corporatism’s attack on community content and public funding using volunteerism and public service.

Visitors at the "Block Party" event by WNA
Site of Wonderland Neighborhood Association (WNA)
October 17th, 11 - 5 pm

Despite an era of intolerance, racism, greed, religious fundamentalism, homophobia, rabid patriotism and media based brain washing we are picking up where we left off. Wonderland is a signal from the Tenderloin community to the established art world to return to supporting difficult and challenging art and to enlarge art audiences and art concerns by engaging wider publics through their collaboration. Ahead of the curve, the exhibition calls out directly to multicultural reality.

Thomas Kosbau interaction for "Stake"
Wonderland Exhibition in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco
Photo: Wonderland Exhibition

As artists we know we have to earn public recognition of our significance. Communities are still untrusting of what we do. The stigma that artists are fooling the public persists. For a change, this effort includes transparency, sharing power and information with The Tenderloin community.

Visitors at the "Block Party" event by WNA
Site of Wonderland Neighborhood Association (WNA)
October 17th, 11 - 5 pm

Wonderland is happening at a time of great chaos inside our corporations. As our infrastructure sustains shock after shock, many corporations, such as banks, insurance companies, governments and educational institutions are manipulating facts, ignoring inquiries, blaming, scandalizing and creating the false impression that things are fine while hoping they don’t get worse. For this reason the artists have chosen a new path of reliance and affiliation based on volunteerism, truthfulness about capacity and relevance to the Tenderloin community. We know we will be doing without the resources available to established art institutions, what is amazing is how much we’ve been able to do without those resources and how little compromise we’ve had to make to cultural conservatism because of it.

Chris Burch, Niki Shapiro, and Lance Fung at Boeddeker Park
Site of Wonderland Neighborhood Association (WNA)
"Block Party" event, October 17th, 11 - 5 pm

It is not the support that makes art and art making itself is not a business. This opportunity is for nurturing young artists and for engaging works that champion those who have been discounted in their communities: the culturally diverse, feminists, gay men and lesbians, the disabled, the upstarts and those with ideas that challenge the social fabric. We simply must put an end to the corporate ice age in the art of our communities. It's an experiment that asks the public to revalidate the relationship between creativity and social change.

Lars Chellberg interaction for "Stake"
Wonderland Exhibition in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco
Photo: Wonderland Exhibition

I've known Lance Fung for a long time. As a curator Lance is dedicated to ideas and ideals far outside the mainstream, possibly dangerous to the well being of the institution and possibly to the artist community as a whole. While the NEA was backing away from its once strong commitment to challenging work, Lance crossed sides from commercial dealing to the non-profit world of art out of a need to put experimentation ahead of survival. It is interesting that with Wonderland he has proceeded with a nearly wholesale disengagement from support funding in an effort to rekindle a call to social change at the earliest moment possible.

Layman Lee interaction for "Stake"
Wonderland Exhibition in The Tenderloin, City of San Francisco
Photo: Wonderland Exhibition

One of the benefits we hope to achieve is a mechanism to keep community support of art close to its makers of art. Because Wonderland’s projects vary specifically by the community served, by the type of art presented and by the in-kind/volunteerism pledged, they are not as easily spotted as say a "museum" or "theater," but perhaps their impact will be far greater.

Joshua Selman, Participating artist, Wonderland 2009

Participating Artists at the "Block Party" event by WNA
Site of Wonderland Neighborhood Association (WNA)
October 17th, 11 - 5 pm

The exhibition is free and open to the public from October 17th, with a symposium on the 18th, and will close November 15th. www.wonderlandshow.org

The exhibition Wonderland is a large, multi-sited event born of, and responding to the rich diversities of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The tenor of this project is truly unique, and will call upon the collaborative efforts of the neighborhood’s residents, city organizations like the North of Market Community Benefit District the exhibition’s sponsor, and a large number of cutting edge artist teams from the Bay Area and around the world. As in his previous internationally recognized projects, the exhibition’s curator, Lance Fung is dedicated to the ideas of collaboration, community and social engagement as a means of bringing the highest level of contemporary art to audiences from all walks of life.

Participating Artists: Per Åhlund, Barry Beach, Ken Beasley, Alex Beckman, Brian Bixby, Charles Blackwell, Alex Braubach, Britteny, Christopher Burch (WNA,) Roman Cesario, Lars Chelberg, Colby Claycomb, Sydney Cooper, Rick Darnell, Jaine Dickens, Christian Kurt Ebert, Jonathan Fung, Kaif Ghaznvi, Geoffrey Grier, Doug Hall, Melkorka Helgadottir, Malak Helmy, Jessica Higgins (WNA,) Noritoshi Hirakawa, Monika Jones, Mathias Josefson, Erika Knerr (WNA,) Thomas Kosbau, Layman Lee, Mark Lee, Agustin Fernandez Mallo, Lauren Marsden, Jeff Marshall, Mike Maurillo, Lynne McCabe, Andrew McClintock, John K Melvin (Project Director), Regina Miranda, Ranu Mukherjee, Patricia Niedermeier, Erik Otto, Mitsu Overstreet, Kara Pajewski, Txutxo Perez, George Pfau, Leif Percifield, Christophe Piallat, Rex Resa, Brandon Robinson, John Roloff, Kit Rosenberg, Jeff Roysdan, Jorge Satorre, Niki Savage, Joshua Selman (WNA,) Stix, Owen Takabayashi, Kristin Timken, Brandon T Truscott, Thomas Watkiss, Wilton Woods, Izumi Yokoyama, Steven Zettler, and others...

2009-09-22T16:26:00.005-05:00

Shake Out - End of Summer
Art/Music in Rockaway
Curated by Shaun Kessler, Patrick Walsh and Olivia Wyatt
Saturday August 22, 2009
192 Beach 96th street, Rockaway Beach, NY

by Taketo Shimada

During the weekend of epic waves courtesy of Hurricane Bill, surfers weren't the only ones in the part of Rockaway Beach I've come to call MoSh FroP (Middle of Shore Front Parkway - a patch of Rockaway shorefront between Beach 90th and 96th street.) Shaun Kessler, Patrick Walsh and Olivia Wyatt organized the second of their art/music shows this summer in the part of Rockaway Peninsula that is experiencing an influx of surf/hippie/art/music culture hybrid; an endearing work in progress that I love to see mature to its full potential. The show occupied a building that is going through a gut renovation adjacent to Rockaway Taco. All through the day people went back and forth from the show to the beach, which is less than a block away.

the Rockaway surfing beach is just steps away...

you can surf or swim

then get back to eat some tacos

and see art and listen to bands

The work of 11 artists were spread throughout the second floor, while 6 bands played through the evening in a small room on the first floor.

partial view of the 2nd floor, What a Feeling,
a hanging chain motif by Cat Chow in the middle

polaroid grid by Grant Worth

collage by Alex Miller

black abstract canvas by Wyatt Kahn

a Dana Bell painting Broken Leg (from a photo of Paris Hilton)

a painting by downtown music staple MV Carbon

candy wrapper Rockaway landscape by Taketo Shimada

floor installation by Robbie McDonald

a pair of twig constructions Stick Chart by Bridget Donahue

an Olivia Wyatt video Seeking the Spirit
shows little known facts about Rockaway

all through the day Blain Vandenberg and friends
took pictures of visitors in her custom photo booth

photos from the booth

It is easy to file this show away as another DIY art/music show that evokes such words as Noise or Institutional Critique, but it was much too disparate and instinctive to be pigeonholed into a curatorial schtick. For Shake Out - while also escaping the fuzzy New Age togetherness - contents were secondary to the phenomena of the series of collective action it generated, from curating to participating to spectating. This serial Summer group art shows with post-dusk performances by the ragtag lineup of NYC bands drew an astounding amount of spectators to the point where some had to wait to get inside. Considering the location and stigma attached to the Rockaway (it's faraway, has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the U.S., high crime rate) this is quite a feat.

Amidst this context, What a Feeling by Cat Chow, and Stick Chart by Bridget Donahue seemed at home and uniquely site-specific. Both employed semi-discarded material to construct loose geometry and presented casual sophistication that resisted being wall display (a la the artist-alchemist Arte Povera experiments of the 60s). Together, the artworks created an out-of-focus portrait of a future tenant.

Lazaro Valiente and his toys. He might still be playing there.

messages starting their set,

while SKINT get ready outside.

SKINT followed right after messages

As we are all aware, the fabric of NYC commercial art activity reaches far beyond Chelsea - new annexes come and go in a dizzying pace because infusions of capital come faster nowadays than the speed in which culture can grow. This pattern of gentrification known as the SoHo Effect is getting shorter and shorter. While gentrification of most of the neighborhoods in short distances from NYC is inevitable, the compression of time negates a kind of collective unfolding which SoHo of the early 60s was able to afford. It is important to note that the curators are year round residents there, and that all summer long they also organized and helped out at the organic vegetable stand that's open every Sunday.

Next morning, Shaun was busy at the organic vegetable stand
run by Elizabeth Gilchrist of Blooming Hills Farm.

Elizabeth Gilchrist and Taka

The stigma attached to Rockaway, with its proximity to the surfing beach, is what gives MoSh FroP its potential - and what differentiated the Shake Outs. They weren't statements, but more like snapshots capturing enormous cultural potential from the neighborhood.

Taketo Shimada

Artists: Alex Miller, Blain Vandenberg, Cat Chow, Dana Bell, Grant Worth, Kyle Field, M.V. Carbon, Robbie McDonald, Scott Hug, Taketo Shimada, Wyatt Kahn

Bands: Skint, Wet Ropes, Revival Times, Little Wings, Lazaro Valiente, messages

2009-08-17T14:27:00.003-05:00

Sudden Fluxus Summer ( Soudain l'été Fluxus)
Passage de Retz

by Angie Eng

Curated by Valerie Maffioletti, Vincent Normand and Jacqueline Frydman
July 13-September 20, 2009
Passage de Retz
9 rue Charlot du Calvaire, Paris
www.passagederetz.com

It's been a while since I contributed to AOA. I waited until I found the right event that would correspond with a video letter. What better project than a Fluxus exhibition. Moreover, the first historical Fluxus show in France, ever. The organizers embarrassed to admit such a fact, explained in the press release, the reason lie in the fact that the two main French Fluxus artists, Ben Vautier and Robert Filliou were little exhibited and therefore, why showcase a movement which excluded the French? Hmmm, I'm waiting for my Carte de Sejour (or 'green card') so I will not publicly comment on their reasoning.

'Soudain l'été Fluxus' (A Sudden Fluxus Summer) on display at Passage de Retz in Paris until September 20, highlights a great movement in art making and another boat I missed.

In the spirit, I respond.

Angie Eng

The many exhibiting Artists include Eric Andersen, Ay-O, George Brecht, Philip Corner, Jean Dupuy, Robert Filliou, Henry Flynt, Ken Friedman, Al Hansen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Ray Johnson, Joe Jones, Bengt af Klintberg, Milan Knizak, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, Jackson Mac Low, George Maciunas, Richard Maxfield, Charlotte Moorman, Yoko Ono, Robin Page, Nam June Paik, Dieter Roth, Takako Saito, Carolee Schneemann, Daniel Spoerri, James Tenney, Yasunao Tone, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Yoshi Wada, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, La Monte Young and many others such as John Cage, Allen Kaprow, Joseph Beuys and Henning Christiansen

2009-07-26T17:42:00.008-05:00

Andy Laties on Kurt Schwitters & Dada
Interpreting Ursonate

Lynn Book, Andy Laties and Jeff Beer interpreting Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters
at Cabaret Voltaire, Chicago 1988

by artist: Andy Laties

"In 2002 I was once again in crisis. I started writing a memoir to try figure out what had gotten me into such trouble, and I guess I was looking for an escape hatch too. This essay is an excerpt from the manuscript that was finally whittled down to my book, "Rebel Bookseller: How To Improvise Your Own Indie Store And Beat Back The Chains." The essay was written rapidly, and I didn't do proper fact-checking--I certainly wouldn't trust it on art-historical issues. At the time I didn't know about Nam June Paik's performances of "Ursonate" in the early 60s, or the influence of 19th century Romanian-Jewish culture on Tristan Tzara's invention of dada. But, for what it's worth, here's a slice."

-- Andy Laties, 2009, for Artist Organized Art

The following is excerpted from the Essay "Interpreting Ursonate" by Andy Laties:

read the full essay

...Theatrical performance demands a willingness and capacity to abandon personal identity: to place oneself at the service of the script. But every performer, in practice, produces a unique performance. Authors sometimes revolt against these arbitrary outcomes. Most authors do not attempt to rein in the performers and directors who decide to produce their scripts: it's impractical, at best, and counterproductive as well, leading generally to simple non-presentation of the work. Some, though, like Samuel Beckett, are fanatically precise and performances are strictly regulated and prescriptive...

Andy Laties interpreting Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters
Chicago, 1988

read the full essay

...Schwitters was an oddball even for a Dada. He wasn't actually admitted to the Club Dada. As I found out later, he showed up in Berlin in 1918 to demand admittance to the Club, and George Grosz opened his door to find Schwitters standing there. Schwitters said, "I am Kurt Schwitters and I've come to join the Club Dada." Grosz said "This is not the Club Dada," and slammed the door. Schwitters knocked on the door again. Grosz opened. Schwitters said, "I am not Schwitters," turned around and left.

Schwitters then formed his own art movement, which he called Merz. He was the only member...

read the full essay

...I learned afterward that Schwitters had developed Ursonate over a period of 10 years, between 1922 and 1932, and then spent the rest of his life performing it throughout Europe. The Peter Froelich show exactly followed a program Schwitters had presented in London in 1945. Schwitters had published extremely exacting specifications for how the Ursonate was to be performed. The rights to all performance were strictly controlled by his son, who generally refused permission to anyone requesting to perform the piece, on the basis of these strict performance specifications. That is: the piece had really been written for sole, solo performance by its author. A performance like the Peter Froelich one, which essentially channeled Kurt Schwitters, was acceptable, but only this approach would be permitted by the family.

A year after the Froelich performance, when I was living in Chicago, I received a letter from my high school newspaper editor friend, Laura Kelsey. She was spending the year in Munich. I wrote back, asking her if she could check in the library there for any copies of Kurt Schwitters' poetry. I didn't know if Ursonate was in print, but I did know it wasn't available in the United States; nothing by him was.

read the full essay

She sent me a complete xeroxed text of Ursonate" she'd found Schwitters' collected works in three volumes in a public library.

It wasn't until four years later, in 1984, that I actually did anything with Ursonate. Working as a children's theatre actor and improvisor--and as a jazz musician with several bands and under a number of teachers--had helped me learn how to inject my own ideas into any text, even ones like Ursonate with no coherent linguistic meaning. That is, I was interested in using Ursonate for my own purposes: as a framework for expressing my own ideas; as a template for the integration of jazz improvisation and theatre improvisation.

read the full essay

My friend and musical partner Rob Metrick was running a Time Arts performance series at Chicago Filmmakers. I asked him if he could put me on his schedule to do a performance of Ursonate, and he finagled this.

Lynn Book and Andy Laties interpreting Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters
Chicago, 1988

Ursonate was written as a solo performance piece. But I developed an arrangement for five performers: three voices and two musicians. Art Institute of Chicago instructor Lynn Book, Chicago Chamber Orchestra cellist (and classically trained vocalist) Philip Hart Helzer, and I handled vocals. Professional jazz musicians Johnsee Holt and Jeff Beer played guitar, percussion and trumpet. We arranged for Rob to rent three Dada Films: Anemic Cinema by Marcel Duchamp, Ghosts Before Breakfast by Hans Richter, and Emak Bakia by Man Ray. We planned to extend the Ursonate evening by interspersing free-jazz improvisations accompanying these films.

Brenda Webb, the founder of Chicago Filmmakers, decided to call the program "Evening of the Bearded Heart," after a famous program at the original Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916...

read the full essay

...The show was a huge success. We had a standing room only crowd, and we repeated the program a month later with similar overflowing attendance. The most exciting thing was that after the first show, a distinguished gentleman emerged from the audience and introduced himself as Dr. Hans-Jurgen Kienast - a friend of Richard Huelsenbeck, who was one of the founders of the Dada movement.

Dr. Kienast asked me a provocative question: Why had Dada become popular, now, in America? I wrote him this letter a week later (looking back of I understand there was a lot I didn't know about Dada's history in America; still I present this letter unedited to show my thinking in 1984, at age 25):

Dear Dr. Kienast...
read the full essay

2009-06-29T07:04:00.011-05:00

Berlusconi Meets Marinetti:
Notes From the 53rd Venice Biennale

"Swoon took her boat show to the LIII Venice Biennale Opening,
where it became invisible: so little visual impact looking out
on the open Adriatic Sea from the Giardini"

by correspondent Sante Scardillo
assisted by Leslie Hirst

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Ki11 The Bienna1e: Some years ago, Quentin Tarantino successfully challenged the notion that a movie has to last 90 minutes...not for the first time; the industry simply went back to the roots of film as an art form, and only because it seemed profitable. From a narrative point of view, I think it is better to have a story broken down in installments rather than successive installments posthumously added on to try to cash in on a franchise because people want more of the same, which isn’t always true… But I am getting carried away here: after all this is supposed to be about the LIII Venice Biennale and this is to say: the story is being parceled in different installments.

Swoon's Descent Down the Hudson

I already wrote 2 years ago about the mirthless anachronism biennials incarnate: after all, Venice invented the franchise, in the year 1895. Now, in the dim light of the financial crisis, megasurveys seem even less pro-active (or pro-creative, to make an etimologically accurate joke, no double-entendre meant) while their bent toward pro-fit seems even less probable for two reasons: the high cost of the productions, both of the event itself and the pieces produced seems an insult to thrift the times call for, while the possibility of return for the investors who foot the bills are less secure.

Unknowingly, I started writing this piece last fall. I was struck by how not one, but two shows were entitled simply: Shit. They were reportedly (and coincidentally) completely different shows and concepts. Soon afterwards, Swoon’s Descent down the Hudson on a flotilla of Coast Guard-wise unworthy ramshackle vessels and trailing multi-artist, multimedia collective in tow docked at the Trump City Piers and by contrast offered a fresh, ingenuous approach to art and art making: quite the opposite, I posited, in a piece that I never finished.

Comorans on Display Outside the Giardini Entrance

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Swoon supposedly took her boat show to the LIII Venice Biennale Opening, where it became invisible: so many boats, boat shows and showboats, so little visual impact on punters looking out on the open Adriatic Sea from the Giardini. Swoon’s was just another MIA exhibition, whereas the boats taken from the Comores Islands, in spite of being mostly a feat of cultural entrepreneurship by a former unknown vying for attention, rather than expressing true creative energy or questions of re-contextualization, had at least a visual impact. These were traditional cargo boats outlawed by the Comoran government in a radical effort at modernization, disassembled, shipped to Venice in containers that were then placed inside the re-assembled boats. And the unknown Japanese gate-crashing the wet center stage in front of the Giardini Entrance, tentatively governing his paper-made (apparently) boat complete of paper made giant red goldfish, made a comedic counterpoint, with real rescue boats falling for his antics and stopping to offer help, before realizing none was needed. It must be remarked, though, that the visual impact of a succession of battleship-size yachts walling off of the waterfront immediately following the entrance to the Giardini (and its implied display of vast economic power) takes another lion’s share: anybody walking to or from the Biennale can’t avoid it, just like in New York one has to walk through the Midtown skyscrapers to get to MoMA.

In art, like in war, today commercial battles are fought donning the cloak of defenders of ideas and civilization, and often it is a war of preemption. For weeks prior, Italian magazines and dailies had been awash in ink baptizing the new bi-yearly art caravanserai that just opened in Venice, trumpeting more shows, more celebrities, more, more… just more. The extensiveness of the media campaign is unusual, but consistent with the ethics and practice of the government in power now. Of course the media-saturation strategy is preemptive: flooding the media creates a buzz of expense account paid journalism, which creates the impression of critical acclaim before critics have even seen the show. Acceptance seems established, so the impact of negative criticism will be minimized, since it will be in dissonance with the predominant discourse. If you are well versed in Italian politics and culture, the motive is easy to find: the Venice Biennale is deemed a propaganda project of great importance and as such is being made resonate with the echo given to important government projects. Italy’s current Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi knows how to do one thing and that is to stay in the eye of the media. Berlusconi, who is also a media publisher, was an Italian Socialist Party member in more recent, much less militant times, though he never was in jail, yet. Mussolini must have been consumed with envy when Marinetti, up to then a war correspondent for aesthetic reasons, scored the ultimate media coup: through his working knowledge of journalistic procedures, he landed his Manifesto Futurista on the front page of Le Figaro, The Parisian Daily, and The New York Post of its day, who published it because of the shock value of its proclamations. And that is how Futurism began. This year the centenary of this event is being celebrated, and the crypto-fascists in power now in Italy have decided to go for a second milking of Italy’s main artistic contribution to the XX century.

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So, dear reader, suspend your disbelief and journalistic expectations: what follows will be more an Alice in Wonderland meets Total Recall than Jerry Saltz reports from the Venice trenches (or moats, as the case would be). Unless Jerry decides to cut and paste from my report like he did two years ago...

2009-06-23T14:23:00.013-05:00

Taketo Shimada, Calder Martin
Keith Connolly & Yuji Agematsu
can we expand MUSIC? (CWEM)
At Hanne Tierney's FiveMyles
558 St. Johns Place in Brooklyn
Curator: Yuzo Sakuramoto

Yuji Agematsu, Found Objects at FiveMyles

by Alison Knowles

Making the trip out to FiveMyles last week gave me the chance to support this brave and exciting endeavor created some years ago by Hanne Tierney. FiveMyles, derived from Five 'Myles' (names of the deceased male members of her family) is located in a profoundly underprivileged section of Brooklyn serving the ethnic youth of that community. She has brought in significant culture to these deserving people by buying a large ground warehouse space without any windows and making it very attractive.

Yuji Agematsu, Found Objects at FiveMyles

'The four artists in this exhibition are both musicians and visual artists. This exhibition is presented as an attempt to explore different aspects of encounters between sound and image. With an emphasis on creative process, the exhibition, consisting of four installations, is itself an experiment into a possible unfolding of such encounters. It is also meant to be a documentation of, or status report on these artists, the first in an on-going series.'

Taketo Shimada, Work Environment Installation at FiveMyles

The place was packed, free beer flowed as the performers arrived for the "closing" of the event "can we expand music?" or CWEM. These musicians: Taketo Shimada, Keith Connolly, Calder Martin and Yuji Agematsu had a variety of instruments and installations available to look at and talk about. Calder Martin's plastic bag sculpture initiated the space as it quietly moved in the open air(the warehouse doors were open) and franks and hamburgers were cooking on the barbecue next door. Taketo's floor instruments were spread out on various rugs and colorful cloths. The longest sitar-like stringed instrument (hand made by Taketo from a length of wood with strings attached and pegged for tuning) show his interest in string resonance theory particularly of the Kirana school of Indian music. His music is heard without electric enhancement. This remarkable instrument is supported by boxes decorated by the candy wrappers he uses to make his art. Very beautiful drawings of Pandit Pran Nath completed Taketo's homage to the master. I wanted one of these drawings but learned that they were not for sale.

Taketo Shimada, at work tuning an instrument at FiveMyles

The work of Yuji Agematsu attracted me since collecting street objects is a pass time of mine in artmaking. Yuji packaged tiny portions of what he had picked up in tiny plastic bags, hundreds of them to be picked up and looked at. The street cullings were from one year of walking the same city blocks.

Keith Connolly, design process wall pieces at FiveMyles

This combination of visual art and music was a safe haven for this community and the opening and closing reminded me of the vigor of the lower East side of the 1970's. Bravo to Hanne Tierney.

Taketo Shimada (meend tanpura) Tres Warren (Guitar)
video by Kristin Mullane Shimada at Can We Expand Music
curated by Yuzo Sakuramoto

Caitlin Cook and Calder Martin
video by Kristin Mullane Shimada at Can We Expand Music
curated by Yuzo Sakuramoto

Alison Knowles, NYC

Taketo Shimada has made music with Tres Warren of Psychic Ills as Messages since 2006. Doug Mosurak of Dusted commented that the Messages 7” record released by The Social Registry “is some heavy, humid drone, pregnant with 4am electricity. Best record in the Social Registry’s singles series to date.” His work has been shown at Postmasters Gallery, Wall Space Gallery and Emily Harvey Foundation.

Calder Martin is a guitarist and visual artist and the founder of the band Vizusa. Arthur Magazine said that Vizusa’s debut LP “VizUSA is the new psychedelic simple, hard: the rock and roll of Buddy Holly bare bones with the doors of perception jimmyin' and repetitious riff milkin' of Les Rallizes Dénudés.” Calder has produced video projections at the Kitchen for Caitlin Cook and company, and live music and installations at Deitch Projects with Exceptor. His work has been shown at Emily Harvey Foundation and Participant.

Keith Connolly is an artist and musician, and is a founding member of the No Neck Blues Band. His most recent work was exhibited at Parade Space in London. In New York he has exhibited his installations and performed live events at Greene Naftali Gallery, PS 1, Roulette and the Sculpture Center.

Yuji Agematsu is an artist/photographer. For the past thirty years he has been picking up discarded things from the street and meticulously archiving them. He has worked with Tokio Hasegawa, former member of Taj Mahal Travellers, and studied yara with Milford Graves. He is also a fervent fan of Cecil Taylor and Miles Davis.

can we expand Music? curator Yuzo Sakuramoto is a New York-based researcher, translator and the publisher of the legendary, now defunct fanzine Music. He recently translated the liner notes for the Taj Mahal Travellers album, Live in Stockholm 1971 and DVD, on “Tour,” as well as Takehisa Kosugi’s Catch Wave ’97.

2009-06-22T14:09:00.001-05:00

Easthampton Bear Fest 2009
In Hard Times Locals Come Out In Generous Support of Art

A townsman maintains a commissioned bear

by Angélica G. Huertas

Easthampton City Arts (ECA) is a local art organization that, according to their website, makes its mission to enhance “the collaborative efforts of the artist and business communities to increase economic opportunities for artists” and “the opportunities of local artists to showcase and market their work and to provide the public the opportunity to discover emerging and established artists.” Easthampton City Arts collaborates with other local arts organizations such as Art Walk Easthampton, and various local galleries.

Bear Fest benefits include “community involvement,
cooperation between artists, businesses, and local and state government”
John Polak, ECA Marketing Committee

The Easthampton Bear Fest was a public art event in which Easthampton City Arts (ECA) of Massachusetts obtained 35 life-sized fiberglass bears and paid local artists to decorate them. Once painted, the bears were made into a public exhibit, scattered and displayed throughout Easthampton. ECA received the sponsorship of various local businesses, banks, galleries, and media outlets, and is donating proceeds to public schools for arts education.

Site specific commissioned bears are found throughout Easthampton
as are many Easthampton Bear Fest branded objects

The Bear Fest has successfully integrated art into everyday life. In Easthampton, art objects are naturalized as part of the environment— a work of art graces the steps of a bank, the very capitalistic center of town, or the outside of a supermarket, where the purchasing of all of life’s necessary trivialities occurs.

Bear poses for a photo op with local children

But how does one go about soliciting monetary support for such an event? What would one have to say to these businesses to convince them that this type of event is worth the investment? Just how much money is actually available from local businesses in a small town such as Easthampton? And what can we take from the Bear Fest example for future arts fundraisers? I spoke to some of the people in charge of running the event to get some answers to these questions.

Art objects are naturalized situationally and throughout the town's environs

One of the key differences between this event and, a benefit is that Easthampton Bear Fest, paid the artists $500 each for their work rather than asking artists to donate their work The proceeds for the event were thus split between the artists, Easthampton City Arts, and Easthampton public schools, mutually and financially benefiting both the organizers and the community. In addition, the artwork was on random display in many locations in the city. According to Briana Taylor, Coordinator at Easthampton City Arts, “The main appeal of this project was that it is public art. Being an arts organization we are very interested in creating a forum in the community for art and culture, something that would bring the community together around art. The Bear form that we chose is so engaging, to both children and adults and especially an audience that might not be used to looking at art. Everyone can appreciate it.”

Bear Fest related activities augment the exhibit

The Bear Fest managed to involve local businesses in more ways than one. In addition to making donations, businesses created and sold co-branded products to coincide with the Bear Fest. Mt. Tom’s Homemade Ice Cream offered a new flavor especially made for the Bear Fest, and Opa-Opa Brewing Company introduced their Country Bear Ale. Mt. Tom’s Homemade Ice Cream in particular “has seen increased profitability over his entire business due to the Bear Fest,” according to Taylor. But Bear Fest mania doesn’t end there. Spectators were able to vote for their favorite bear, and kids were encouraged to enter a “My Bear Story” contest. Related events are being held, including a “Create Your Own Bear Story” program with actress and children’s drama teacher Ilana Meredith, slated for Saturday, August 15th at the Easthampton Senior Center.

Painted bear tracks added suspense for pedestrians hunting art

All in all, the Easthampton Bear Fest raked in an impressive $50,000. Briana Taylor expressed her pleasant surprise at the success of the event in this way: “We were hugely satisfied by the response from the community and visitors alike. Attendance at the first day event was much more than expected, we think around 5,000 people came through the City throughout the day to the different events and to see the bears. It was just fantastic.”

Artists & Bears:

Jeffrey Calvi: Madam Bearterfly, Luke Cavagnac: This Bear is Worth One Thousand Words, Sara Chalifoux: Transoceanic Bear, Amy Davis: Paddy O’Bearen, Jo-Ann Denehy: Bear Hugs, Deshria: Rubber Ducky, You’re the One, Adell Donaghue & Justin Brown: Ursa Major, Jennifer Dorgan: Garden Bear, John Casey Douglas: Astronaut Bear, Michael Fitzgibbon: Aurora “Bear”ealis, Amalia FourHawks: A Bear With A Buttoned Down Education, Gary Hallgren: Wire Haired Bear, Elsie Hasskarl: Berry Bear, Beverly Hosmer: Ted E. Bear, Amy Johnquest: Clementine (the Circus Bear), Jim Johnson: The Bearon, Heather Kasunick: Garden Party, Mary Klaes: Master Essential, Silas Kopf: Aloha Bear, Gary LaCroix: Mountain Park Bear, Jill Lewis: Williston Button Bear, Michael MacTavish: Bearly There, Leah Moses: Bumble Bear, Dianne Murphy: The Gingerbear Man, Kim Parkhurst: Three Bears, Maria Parasiewicz: Peace Bear, Crystal Popko: Hiding Bear, Marcia Reed: Ursa Great Spirit, Ruth Sanderson: Papa Bear & Baby Bear, Greg Stone: Something’s Fishy, Christopher Woodman: Bear, Bath & Beyond, Jean Zampiceni: Mother & Child at Parade

Committees & Volunteers:

Event Planning Committee: Stuart Beckley, Amy Davis, Denise Herzog, Jen Moulton, Denise M. Riggs, Kim Schmitt, Carol Abbe Smith

Marketing Committee: Stephanie Gibbs, Trace Meek, Marcia Morrison, Jean-Pierre Pasche, John Polak, Briana Taylor

School Participation Committee: Stuart Beckley, Erin Binney, Cyndy Chamberland, Francis DiMenno, Michelle Geoghegan, Kim Hunt, Rob Orlando, Susan Pepin Phillips, Susan Pouliot

Easthampton City Arts Coordinating Committee: Stuart Beckley, Cyndy Chamberlain, Amy Davis, Ellen Koteen

Co-Facilitator: Sharon Keene, Marcia Morrison, Jean-Pierre Pasche, John Polak, Denise M. Riggs, Briana Taylor

Angélica Huertas for Artist Organized Art

2009-06-16T10:36:00.004-05:00

The 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009
Making Worlds, Directed by Daniel Birnbaum
with Bruce Nauman, Wolfgang Tillmans and more...

John Baldassarri Project
Photo: Press CD, La Biennale di Venezia 53 Esposizione d’Arte

by artist and critic: Emilio Fantin

What should an Italian be considering during a trip from the city of Bologna to the city of Venice bound for a biennial circus of art? An Italian who is at that moment reading an article about the Italian Prime Minister's latest "conjuring tricks." An Italian who lives in a nation who's gags, jokes and public clowns have migrated into the institutional sphere using positions of power to harvest techniques of parody from progressive discourse?

No more "spaghetti" but anecdotes. This seems the sudden pleasure of politicians and pedestrians: kidding someone or kidding around at something to fulfill their heartfelt interest. They mock their own institutions, anyone's work, collective or individual suffering, murders, garbage, sickness, the dead and life itself. Dry drunks clowning for themselves and seeing the world flat as a cartoon, but dominated by "cunning," the hidden character trait of the two dimensional hero. Each little pun, caricature or gag hides the gratification of cunning, the pleasure of faking everybody out and making fast money. Everything else is useless and without application, parliaments, laws, human rights, human beings, old people, kids and, of course, useless democracies. But this Italian parody is the spectacular backdrop in front of which our clowning divas debut for this year's society soap opera, the Mediterranean Character, dangerous yet vulnerable and sometimes capable of salvation. Meanwhile in the European situation, something very different is emerging: the last elections showed that in most of the European states neo-Nazis gained a large percentage of votes from which they are at this moment extracting sizeable power and dangerous capability, but what fears could possibly lurk in the hearts and minds of Italians.

With this fleeting insight in mind I stared back at the day, scratched an itch over my eyebrow and committed myself to the carefree abandon of the great circus of tourism, 2009's 53rd Venice Biennale.

First stop: Sant Erasmo

"Sant Erasmo from the boat"
Photo: Emilio Fantin

Sant Erasmo is a beautiful island where I myself have installed a work in an ancient fortress, "Fortezza Massimiliana," for the show IsolaMondi, which is one of the collateral events of the Biennale. Collateral events, parties, meetings, openings constitute the true earth of art scenes today in Venice, where the biennial itself is just one of the shows and it might not be the most interesting one.

"Fortezza Massimiliana"
Photo: Emilio Fantin

Sant Erasmo is an example of the variety of places that constitute the residential area of Venice. It is a big island, where only six hundred people live. It is where the most vegetables and fruits sold at Venetian market are produced. It is covered with Gardens and vast green areas.

Emilio Fantin, "Inner Encounter," inflatable structure, 2003
Photo: Emilio Fantin

Second stop: Giardini e Arsenale

"Arsenale, Gaggiandre, Before the Exhibition"
Press CD, La Biennale di Venezia 53 Esposizione d’Arte

Arsenale, Corderie, Before the Exhibition
Press CD, La Biennale di Venezia 53 Esposizione d’Arte

"Venice." Here we are, and the entire city is involved in the Italian art scene's biggest carnival. I asked some folks for their impressions. Cesare Pietroiusti and Mario Pieroni said to me: "I like this vortex: happenings, openings, performances , different places and people not just the Biennale itself. What we like is the general "status," the atmosphere." A few days later, in her intervention at the meeting "il Falso Oreste" in Bologna, Francesca, a young girl, said: "...it is only this vortex that justifies operating the Biennale. Language, messages and expressions of the artists are not important: here art work functions like a merry go round in a huge amusement park."

I jump from Giardini to Arsenale from Palazzo Fortuny to Punta della Dogana, a new space restored by Pinault Fondation. At the Arsenale there are few works worth seeing; better to spend time at Giardini's international pavilions.

Bruce Nauman, Three Heads Fountain (Juliet, Andrew, Rinde), 2005 (detail)

Someone told me the choice of Bruce Nauman for the American pavilion was a political choice and a very expensive one. Here again, instead of inviting a young talent, we are put in front of another "political choice." I am known for having criticized this kind of thing and I still do, but in this case the power of the artwork outstrips that of the critic. Among all the art works that I have seen in this 53rd Biennale, those of Nauman and Tillmans really touched me. I'm very happy to have seen Bruce Nauman's work, which is clear and simple because his manner of drama and capacity for depth leaves absolutely no ambiguity. The work speaks to my heart and mind directly, through lightness, successfully liberating itself from the Biennale's amusement park culture and taking me along. Wolfgang Tillmans too, shows the beauty of simple images and colors. A good artist is able to create imagery with few things. All he needs is the courage to relate himself directly to the world, without bluffing, simply drawing on personal wisdom and humility.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Installation, 2009 (detail)
Press CD, La Biennale di Venezia 53 Esposizione d’Arte

Third stop: Palazzo Fortuny

Palazzo Fortuny Façade, Mario Merz (1925–2003) "Fibonacci Sequence," 2002
Photo: Press CD In-Finitum Palazzo Fortuny, Venezia 2009

At Palazzo Fortuny the show "In-Finitum" is a wunder-kamera immersed in smooth darkness. Art works of various ages dialog inside a beautiful context furnished with different objects, a sort of historical dialog between images and objects. The setting up of the exhibition is extravagant, curious, but it is very difficult to remember a single artwork.

First Floor, Sala Grande, Palazzo Fortuny
Berlinde De Bruyckere (1964) Infinitum 2009
Thomas Houseago (1972) Figure (Oedipus) 2008
Anonymous, Small basin with double zoomorphic resemblance
Anonymous, Portrait of Colleoni from the collection of Mario Fortuny
Photo: Press CD In-Finitum Palazzo Fortuny, Venezia 2009

The show at "Punta della Dogana" is an ostentatious display. The restoration of the old building made by Tadao Ando is, of course, beautiful, but the exhibition "Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection" is anything but. The atmosphere resembles one you might "enjoy" from the interior of a glamour yacht berthed nearby. A crude demonstration made in bad taste.

Fourth stop: Ponte dei Sospiri

"Advertisement" Ponte dei Sospiri, Venezia 2009
Photo: Emilio Fantin

"Press Office" 53rd Venice Biennale
Photo: Emilio Fantin

Around the city: Inside this huge forest of varied artistic proposals and events we wonder whether a tree, a bridge or a colored wall are works fabricated by artists or if they merely look so. In the biggest museum of souvenirs, the city of Venice, it is difficult to separate daily life from the tourist attraction, especially when every little thing trumpets an industrial parade of art. The famous "Ponte dei Sospiri" (the Whispering Bridge) has been appropriated by a huge advertisement, and is headquarters to the Biennale Press Office. I actually find it one of the best installations of the Arsenale.

In this article I will avoid reviewing individual art works of the Biennale, you can find that and reproductions anywhere, rather I prefer to relate a feeling, a "status" which can be experienced in Venice as well as in many other artistic events or festival nowadays: commoditization and slavish obedience to the rules of the culture industry and a palpable sense of the consequent loss of true research and meaning in art making itself.

This enables demagogy, a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions and expectations of the public: the Italian pavilion expresses a cliché of political thinking which affirms that art has to be subdued to the role of entertainment, castrating its capacity to generate ideas, transformations, to get to the heart of things and the heart of the people.

"Poetic Loss" casual installation at Giardini, Venice
Photo: Emilio Fantin

Why this happens is understandable. Today artistic choices and exhibitions are managed by boorish collectors and ignorant politicians. Not just in Italy, but here it is frankly due to a particularly low consciousness about contemporary art.

"Poetic Loss" casual installation at Giardini, Venice
Photo: Emilio Fantin

What we might discuss, after having seen such a "biennale," is something about the industry of culture itself, which, of course, includes the art-system. As Paolo Virno suggests, "fabricating politics" out shines the reality of work itself. The equity in verbs like creating, producing and making is cashed out. According to Guy Debord, the show is a productized form of human communication, yet it is also a staple of the culture industry. Artworks function as special devices of communication, as such they are interchangeable and adaptable to varied trends. Regardless of what they transmit, express or evoke they stand subsidiary to the culture industry. As it expands and monetizes communications in traditional sectors of the daily economy, eventually it requires the very role of the artist to be conformed to its strategy. It requires art making to sacrifice its sovereignty. The artist is scripted to the character type of independent thinker, original inventor or simply autonomous worker. Omnivorous and ravenous, involved only in its own flourishing, the show alone, must go on however.

Emilo Fantin

2009-05-18T15:13:00.020-05:00

The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia,
1860-1989 at the Guggenheim.

Performance by Mary Beth Edelson, Jessica Higgins and Shigeko Kubota at the
Guggenheim preview reception for The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia,
1860- 1989, (AKA the Buddha show)

By intermedia artist Jessica Higgins

I was invited by Alison Knowles, to the formal dinner on January 28th and cocktails on the 29th.

Of course I was thrilled to go, not only because the topic was of personal interest to me and to my own conceptual language, but I also felt honored to see so many of the faces I’d grown up seeing and relating to together or close by in the Guggenheim. The curator had a cozy alcove set aside for The Fluxus group of which I so fondly grew up experiencing around me in a childhood wildness to which I often refer now. The scope of the show is vast and brilliant, so for the purpose of expressing my views experientially I will contain them within that room and a few steps upward toward Larry Miller's work.

Dick Higgins, A Thousand Symphonies, Performance relic of Danger Music #12,
Symphony #860 1967/97 in Three movements.

In turning the corner, Dick Higgins, A Thousand Symphonies, Performance relic of Danger Music #12, Symphony #860 1967/97 in Three movements. The bullet holes reflecting a thought of war or questions on its opposite, such a random period in my life in Vermont. A period of harsh screams, pianos and typewriters somehow abstracted into something else, my father always seemed bigger or slightly abstracted by life itself.

Alison Knowles, The Identical Lunch [2nd Edition], 1973/93 silk-screens in cadmium

Close by Alison Knowles, The Identical Lunch [2nd Edition], 1973/93 silk-screens in cadmium yellow with her friends eating the tuna fish on whole wheat toast with buttermilk brought me back to such a different time. One when artists helped each other and a creative community bloomed. I find myself contemplating Joshua Selman's amazing grip on culture in the 21st century and his extensive work on ArtistOrganzedArt.org. I flip back in time to the crazy reflections of parties with genital cakes, jelly’s and gender switched wedding’s occurring mostly in big open spaces. All those beautiful faces with concepts behind each one ready to share freely and laugh. Shigeko’s silkscreen reminded me of a full moon. Later I met her sitting like a Buddha and she was smiling, which I hadn’t seen in a while. I was introduced to Mary Beth Edelson, and in a spontaneous way we all made an event. “The quirky, abstracted, pull it together” sense re-merged in a flashback.

Performance by Mary Beth Edelson, Jessica Higgins and Shigeko Kubota

at the Guggenheim preview reception for The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia,

1860- 1989, (AKA the Buddha show).Alison Knowles is handed Edelson's

camera to record the spontaneous performative event.

Performance concept by Mary Beth Edelson, 2009.

In my brief wander upward Larry Miller’s piece about his mother strongly stood out as a relation to the Fluxus room, for me one of the most important later Fluxus artists to exchange and influence the next generation of artists who ponder the movement. He stood by his work talking as only he can about all that went into the work or the people who happened to be there, an event itself. The rambling wild thoughts became a trip about hypnosis, identity and Jack Kerouac who he happened to be reading when he made the piece.

I walked back into the room and found myself drawn to the wonderful typography of Fluxus. The bold black lines and design that often draws me in and did as a child, all those boxes I associate with Maciunas and Brecht. I remember trying to sort through my own toys and being particularly fascinated by toys that came in boxes with pieces.

It was important for me to see George Brecht's Water Yam, 1963 and Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Music. Several times during my childhood and very early adulthood I visited George Brecht. The few times I met him he had such charm with such fierce ideas. One intriguing visit took place in Koln at a large dinner with Alison Knowles, myself, her travel companion, Hermann Braun and several others who had joined us. At a large bistro specialized in types of beer, a large tub arrived at the table out of which emerged the enormous head of a roasted pig with hoofs and tail decorating the rim. The body was simply missing. The pig's head was cooked and shiny, looking like it might open an eye. As the evening went by there were many rounds of Kilsch required to go with stories of friends and we talked about how it was for me working with Alison at the WDR Radio station in Koln. The laughter, smoke and faces are still etched in my memory. Alison Knowles, my mother, invited me the following day on a trip to the Cathedral, it reminded me of a lighted sand castle as we climbed arduously to the top. Decades later on return I still associated Koln with Kilsch, lighted castles and WDR Horspiels and remember the climb standing in the Guggenheim.

Being at The Third Mind also brings me back to John Cage's visits with my mother and the process of everyday life and everyday art. I saw so much of that in both of them. The outlines of life, the questions and experiences of life art, nature, food and the outlines of John's smile ... the thought of trying one of their mushrooms with concern as they looked them up in a big book ... gentle giants ... I wasn't so sure I should try them, but they smelled good and the names were so beautiful ... and John had co-founded the New York Mycological Society.

Alison Knowles, The Giant Bean Turner, 1995

Alison would later emerge from the swaying architecture carrying the beans in a way I can only begin to say how much I associate a large part of my early adolescence with constant thoughts about beans, whether in soup or in art the point was consistently pondered. She walked with her statuesque gait and appeared and disappeared being with the art she moved through her event. Somehow it had the extra-ordinary appeal of the ordinary with in it. She was just walking down the path.

I could go on reminiscing about many of the others works in this show and the amazing culture and people I was lucky enough to meet that evening. But I will save that for another time and hope this vignette offers a view of experience reflected back into the eyes of a grown child of art who later became an artist herself.

Jessica Higgins

2009-03-28T11:29:00.008-05:00

Brooklyn DIY Premier MOMA Feb 25, 2009

IMAGE of: Mike Ballou interview

by artist Claire McConaughy

MEMORY LANE

I got a bunch of emails about a documentary film on the Williamsburg art scene. I thought it would be interesting and I knew everyone from the neighborhood would be there, so, I let it sit in my email in box. I wasn’t completely sure about whether I should go or not. I didn’t even know this film was being made. I’ve been in Williamsburg for ages, but then again, I spend a lot of time in my studio. Then I got an email from my old pal Erika Knerr (who by the way was the person who first took me to Four Walls back in …....hmmmm…let’s say 1990 or 91? Could that be right? Yikes.) Erika emailed and said she was coming to town to go to the premier and wanted to know if I wanted to go with her. Having a pal to cavort with always makes me more into things, so I said yes. Internally I was still a little reserved about going. If I wasn’t in it and I didn’t even know that it was being made I just figured all the cool popular kids would be there and I would be just watching all the fun everyone else had while I was in my studio painting (kind of like now).

IMAGE of: Interviewees

THE MOMA PREMIER
Long story short, Erika couldn’t make it and I went with a new filmmaker friend who is about as far away from the Williamsburg art scene as my new teaching job at Bergen Community College, in Paramus NJ. Gregg Biermann is way cool and he’s a filmmaker so, I thought he could help me be objective when I inevitably would get caught up in recognizing people and places or remembering if I was at some opening or party.

Marcin Ramocki introduced his film, Brooklyn DIY, at the Museum of Modern Art. He had that self-effacing, open quality that Williamsburg artists had and obviously still have so, I was ready to go down memory lane.

Whether I was watching old footage of Test Site mega-parties or succinct, provocative interviews with artists like Ebon Fisher and Ward Shelley, I was glued. The film had an incredibly tough challenge: approximately fifteen years, artists, art making, art in every style and medium possible, community, gentrification, freedom, change, artist run venues, renegades, real estate, documentation and lack of documentation, memory and it’s fallibility, the list of obstacles to creating an accurate film about this subject seemed insurmountable. And here’s the topper – how to make this film an artwork – a living thing that is about the present integrated with the past. With all the obstacles Ramocki faced he also had the best resources any filmmaker could ask for, a bunch of artists. Matt Freedman opened the film with a performance of drawing the history of Williamsburg before the artists came on a white board while Tim Spelios played a drum. Mike Ballou did the majority of his interview wearing a paper maché bear head. (Ken Burns would pay cash money for that.) Amy Sillman was insightful and didn’t mince words while petting her dog. Joe Amhrein, who always seems at ease because of his sincerity and dedication to art. Wild loft party footage. Aron Namenwirth and Nancy Horowitz sitting beside an art installation of Zoe Sheehan Saldaña’s plants growing under fluorescent lights. And I save him for last so you can bow your heads when I invoke the name, “Gene Pool”.

IMAGE of: Gene Pool

Afterward, my present tense colleague, Gregg liked it. I was in a fog. I really wasn’t sure what I thought about the film objectively as a documentary. The audience was packed with Williamsburg artists. All of the well-known characters were there, only a few were missing, the critics and writers attended, and of course the Williamsburg artists were there in true form; Williamsburg doesn’t dress up even for MOMA, and they always look great. Part of my fog was nostalgia and part was that the film was stirring up feelings of being inspired. That time was inspiring. The participants were inspired. Clearly Marcin Ramocki was inspired and submerged himself in the material for two years and sunk his retirement account into it, but that’s nothing any artist wouldn’t do, right?

When it was over I didn’t go to the after party. I guessed that the conversation mixed with beer could go a number of ways, of course a lot of praise for Marcin’s hard work and dedication, which he deserved, and opinions on the quality of the film? Would arm wrestling ensue? Would this be Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman at the White Horse? If any crowd could do that this one could. Other responses would obviously be about accuracy or treatment of different aspects of the scene. I went home and emailed Marcin asking for an interview.

IMAGE of: Ward Shelley showing a “timeline” of the history of the Williamsburg art scene.

THE INTERVIEW
We made arrangements to meet at Fanny’s restaurant on Graham Avenue. When Marcin politely tried to give me directions my Williamsburg attitude popped up as I quickly told him that I’ve lived here forever and I knew the way. Did I mention that Williamsburg artists wear time spent in the trenches like Purple Hearts?

Marcin Ramocki is a media artist, professor, curator, he ran the art space, vertexlist, for five years and has made two feature films. In his artwork he is interested in collecting groups of information so, the segue into organizing historical data into a documentary film is a natural step for him. His approach to organizing this sort of information is not from an analytical perspective even though he does have an interest in mathematics. We talked about Mark Lombardi’s drawings of diagrams of conspiracies as having a relationship to the way he parses information into art.

When he gathers information and composes it into an art work he is both sensitive and practical. He chooses the medium that is appropriate for the subject and figures out how best to achieve it. He has as much as he can afford time and money wise and in the end utilizes what he has available. He gave two years, his retirement fund and his dedication to this film. He recognizes that there may be more to cover on the subject so, as well as seeing his project as complete in its own rite, it can also function as inspiration for hopefully more attention to the Williamsburg art scene. Ramocki emphasized, “This obviously is not the final historic story that everybody will have to follow. It is just one story of certain communities. So, I don’t want people to think that just because I didn’t include something it’s a final word. I’m looking forward to all these other aspects of the story to be covered by someone else because obviously I can’t. Probably if I made it the goal of my life to make a ten hour documentary about the Williamsburg art scene I could maybe do it, but within the framework of what I started, I couldn’t so, I just want people to be aware of that and instead of thinking why wasn’t so and so in it they should think ‘hey why don’t I make something about so and so myself’ because that’s the whole idea of it. I’m just another guy living here. I don’t have any money and I made this with my salary and my retirement fund which I don’t have any more. That’s all there is to it. An idiosyncratic story of Williamsburg. I personally believe that I at least touched upon the important things that were formative.”

IMAGE of: Joe Amrhein

The interviews that framed the historical footage in the film; Ebon Fisher, Amy Sillman, Mike Ballou, Joe Amhrein, Ward Shelly, Jude Talllichet, Matt Freeman, Ken Butler, etc., were wonderful. As Ramocki said at the premier, Williamsburg artists aren’t shy. Ramocki said that the interviews that became performances such as Mike Ballou talking with a bear head on and Ken Butler demonstrating his instruments occurred naturally. The stories of filming the interviews were charming and the ones that got away were good to know about. One story Ramocki recounted about an interview he would’ve liked in the film was the guy who owns De Vito Paints on Graham Ave. “Originally his customers were people from the Italian community who painted their houses for communion celebrations, then there was a period when no one bought paint. When the artists came it was the gallerists coming in to buy paint for their walls. He told the story of this area though sales of house paint! And I thought ‘wow this could be the bridge between the community that was here before, to the new community of artists’, but he said he wouldn’t do it. I think he just didn’t like being on camera.” Some other people were just camera shy so, some of them ended up being narrators. Eric Heist, of Momenta, who doesn’t appear in the film was absent because of scheduling problems. Ramocki also talked about additional footage of Joe Amrhein discussing Mark Lombardi’s work, that didn’t make the final cut because it felt like a separate subject and became overly dramatic due to Lombardi’s suicide.

IMAGE of: Test Site

ANTHROPOLGY OF A CULTURE
Ramocki was very aware of the vastness of his subject and the challenge of “representing the different ‘tribes‘ of Williamsburg” and he acknowledged that he had his own proclivities because of affiliation with his ’tribe’.

When I asked him what he hoped the audience outside the art world would take away from his film he said, “When I was doing the interviews I would tell them to not assume that everybody knows what we’re talking about. That was why I basically sampled different little pockets of Williamsburg and made stories. Obviously I couldn’t cover eveything. I made representative stories and themes. We’ll see, but hopefully they’ll get a sense of this homemade artist community that really can happen in any city with a little luck. Berlin is certainly a similar community and I got an email from someone in Toronto who wanted to see it because he said that they have a couple of wanna be Williamsburgs in Toronto so, they want to see what I have to say. And I think its true that a lot of large cities have versions of Williamsburg. So they’re probably going to get a kick out of it. There’s sufficient amount of fun and party for most people to enjoy it.”

IMAGE of: Giglio

Given seven to ten more minutes of film, he would’ve liked to have seen a deeper discussion of the artists in relationshihp to and the pre-existing neighborhood. Since there was so much to cover regarding the art scene and its relationship to the time, location and economic environment, he affectionately said he made the choice to focus on the artists and how they became a community, “My goal was to show this funny community. This happy, funny place.”

He described the process of making the film as a collaboration. He gave great credit to his editor Jessie Stead for her expertise, wittiness and female perspective on editing. He praised Lalo Molina the director of photography. And noted the communal spirit of the crew and subjects as being key in the realization of the project. He humbly added, “This is just one film from one poor Polish guy.” When asked who encouraged him most he responded, “Everybody was into being a part of the film and encouraging the making of it. From the moment Mike Ballou opened the archives of Four Walls. Obviously it needed to be done. There was definitely a need in the community to do it. I don’t know if I was the best person to do it, but there was talk about this person and that person making a documentary, but I was the one to do it. So, I guess my little documentary is the first after all.” We ended by talking about rumors concerning a “real documentary” being made with a “real producer from Hollywood” with “real money” to which Ramocki added, “I feel comfortable being ‘unreal”.”

All photos are stills from “Brooklyn DIY”.
http://www.ramocki.net/brooklyndiy.html

2009-03-12T21:45:00.014-05:00

The Green Light Tour

by artist correspondent Eva Mantell

On Saturday February 7th, 2009, a small group from the Arts Council of Princeton set off with me to New York City to explore green art and design. Picture us all driving in an ordinary, smog-producing van from New Jersey through a tunnel and emerging into an imaginary world, the green city, a model of sustainable living, with organic gardens growing up the sides of friendly buildings and clean streets filled with cheerful, creative citizens.

This week Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, Nobel-Prize Winner, physicist, was interviewed in the New York Times and let it be known from the top down that we need a revolution in science and technology. We need replacements for fossil fuels and new ways to curb CO 2 emissions. Solar needs a serious upgrade. Alternative fuels and clean ways to burn coal need to be invented PRONTO. We knew this, but now you know it too.

Calling all engineers, P.H.D's, politicians and investors: start small, start big, be brilliant, talk amongst yourselves, make it happen, and then lay it on us. We'll take one in every color.

We, the consumers. What exactly are our obligations towards being sustainable, when we don't have enough green to invest in green updates, and to buy those green treats? What's happening to the dream when everything is tasting so stale right about now?

The environment has been on my mind for about 20 years now. For quite a while I have been making my own art out of broken umbrellas, the mail, magazines and other abject ingredients, including most recently, paper coffee cups. Seeing that those paper cups we throw away are in effect a group environmental sculpture anyway, on view at your local landfill. I thought I'd see what I could do with this vessel, this little disposable grail that has known the human touch and taste of human lips. I took a few photos of some pieces in the snow that fell last week, putting the coffee cups back on the ground where they were headed anyway. Finding what is human in these things, finding something new to do with them, is now eagerly called "recycling in art," which my literal mind says ought to be taking old paintings or sculptures and grinding them up into new ones, or something like that (not a bad idea!). My own use of the stuff around me presents a situation where a particular material is being asked to behave in a way that argues against its original utility. It's not literal recycling, but a lament for our relationship to the environment.

But it's fair to say you can recycle in jewelry, as mining new metals actually pollutes a great deal, and you can literally melt down old pieces to make new ones. Meet Lisa Linhardt, a young jewelry designer in the East Village, whose entire M.O. embodies environmental and socially conscious principles. From her artful, salvaged display cases to her reuse of metals from existing pieces to her support of education and the arts in the developing world, she really embodies a new approach. The jewelry is cool and lovely and the old anthropologist in me practically had a cow when I saw her carving tagua nuts into rings. These nuts apparently drop from trees in the rain forests of Ecuador and are an eco-friendly substitute for ivory. I might have to get some myself and check back with you soon.

At the studio of I-Beam Design in Chelsea, Suzan Wines is in the middle of preparing for her class at Cooper Union on the design of the city when we arrive. The city of the future is not the beautiful emerald vision of my dreams, but an unsafe, unsanitary chaos with populations surging and infrastructures overburdened or non-existent. Megacities in shambles. She and her partner Azin Valy created a prize-winning design for refugee housing using the simple idea of fitting wooden shipping pallets together to create temporary shelters that can be plastic sheeted, insulated with local materials, stuccoed, and gradually expanded as needed. The idea is so simple, so practical, so confident, so humane, as medical supplies and food will be delivered on pallets, so the materials will be right there.

But to Wines the idea isn't enough. The pallet house has been built as a model, but has yet to house or help a population of refugees anywhere in the world. Ideas can begin to seem like a luxury. But what ideas: we get to see many designs of cool urban renovations that have been built and an as yet only imaginary green city complex in Manchester, England, with canals and canal boats that clip right onto the apartments, like floating elevators. Oh, to float my boat.

Onto Black and White Gallery in the Terminal Building in Chelsea on 11th Ave and 28th St., we meet up with three artists using clothing in their work: it's hands-on work with material which seems so manageable, so personal and so private after our discussions of architecture within such a complicated context. Orly Cogan traces sketches of femininity in thread, making stops to embroider some mythic moments, Adam Niklewicz crafts Freudian situations from memory and dreams, and Tamara Kostianovsky creates exposed, animal flesh from girlish clothes. The body is still a funny, mythic and ultimately tragic place.

Our last stop is Paula Hayes, a sculptor, thinker and landscape artist whose soft forms containing plants sit on urban rooftops, balconies and in the wilder contexts of suburban landscape. It's a soft world in here as one translucent bulbous element after another peeks out at us. As she speaks about her art she gently puts on a living necklace, an epiphyte plant that would originally nestle in the crook of a tropical tree. The boundaries are getting soft again, as she seems to me to change herself into a kind of tree, supporting another species on her skin. Her artworks are messages in bottles she is sending into the future. Tend, nurture, protect, spray with mist, repeat.

2009-02-06T13:06:00.018-05:00

The NEA In The Age Of Obama
Who Will Benefit From The Value Of Creativity

1987 - The Endowment's budget is $165,281,000, for two years running, admission receipts for nonprofit performing arts events exceed those for spectator sports^2.
1989 - John Frohnmayer becomes Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
1990 - Chairman Frohnmayer says: "We must be prepared to use creativity not as an adjunct to our education, but as its central component, because creativity will be the currency of the 21st century."
1996 - The House of Representatives announces a plan to eliminate the Endowment

by artist Nayana Glazier

New work emerges publicly by way of a daunting task. It can overwhelm even the most outspoken of artists. Whether by way of a confusing relationship between pre-existing venue and artist, or, by way of artists organizing their own venues. The goal, to have their work experienced by others in a meaningful way, from the margins of their price oriented societies, increasingly supports the necessity of a mutually reinforcing and ever present backdrop. The commercial art gallery, this, along with the more subjective questions of artistic integrity etc.

Art making takes everything you've got. Your studio is full and you're ready to show your work, but then you hit the insurmountable. The success of your art making seems measured rather by who is showing your work, not by what the work is itself. You're sinking into a suspicion that for generations your own family-of-(wo)man has been buying into a perceived exclusivity. Perhaps this sense of the apartness is a driving factor in the evolution of the exhibition space from the more traditional gallery to what was formalized in the 1980's, by what the late Senator Helms raged against, the Artists' Space Movement in the age of the uncensored NEA. Yet, clearly it seems to many of us that for all time, the artist-gallery relationship, or rather the perceived relationship, has spurred artists to seek alternatives, if only for the sake of integrity in the artist to artist relationship.

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery (announcement)

I don't often make it down to the city, however my spies do. Apparently, in the art capital of the world, while the future of art cannot be determined, the present itself is becoming increasingly unpredictable as well. On exhibition from September 6, 2008 to October 4, 2008 at the James Cohan Gallery (Chelsea, 533 West 26th Street, NYC) was the combination of the Chinese conceptualist Xu Zhen, Dutch sculptor Folkert de Jong and NYC based artist Martha Colburn. The program was presented as three separate exhibitions flowing together to create a conversation of artistic expression.

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

What follows includes quotes from Martha Colburn, Film artist and Elyse Goldberg, Director of the James Cohan Gallery. I'll also include Stephen Cahill, multimedia artist, Turners Falls MA and Ric Sanchez, Painter and multimedia artist, Orlando Florida on the issue of the perceived relationships between artists, galleries and art making in the USA today.

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

Martha Colburn (NYC): Art can't be In a cave to be seen by others and I think the gallery is a great place for artists which do not, for instance, show in museums or caves…I show in cinemas, music venues, lots of squats in Europe and festivals, the web, and galleries, and now I remember, I have shown in a cave in France more than once, so I guess I have to re-call the cave comments.

Stephen Cahill (Turners Falls): I've never shown in a gallery, I've submitted to a couple places, either 'we're not showing that kind of work' or 'its too big.'

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

What is the future of the artist-gallery relationship and what is this relationship now? Emerging artists often talk about galleries as they might describe the pyramid rituals of the Pharos. Few actually even know the real process of creating a relationship. Perhaps the most admirable artist is one who produces art for arts sake alone and does not care if others see or interpret their work. But there are many more artists who crave blessings for turning the pedestrian into a rarity.

Stephen Cahill: It was one of those things where it seemed unattainable. If you think about the large amount of people producing work and the small amount of venues, it's a game of odds almost.

Martha Colburn: They saw my film at Art Basel Statements, which is a competitive show, next to the big hall of big shots…

Elyse Goldberg (NYC): We saw her work (Martha Colburn) at Art Unlimited in Basel Switzerland.

When discovered by James Cohan Gallery, however, Colburn had the benefit of inclusion in the Basel Art Fair. By contrast, Cahill does not have the benefit of being featured in a highly respected exhibition to bring attention to himself. Take this as a sample of the often complicated way in which artists reach larger audiences. They may need to be previously established at some level and, despite exceptions, rarely do commercial galleries put the time into an artist based purely on the quality of their work. This, creating a level of perceived difficulty.

Ric Sanchez (Orlando): I think galleries are too rigid and demanding. They want you to be established before they offer you space.

Obviously galleries can't accept every artist who sends work. Though, with the growing percentage of artists taking exhibition space into their own hands, will the artist-gallery relationship, and in turn the gallery-collector relationship, change?

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

Many artists feel that "obscurity" may be the highest level of visibility their work ever achieves. Euro-centric art history apologizes for the "cultivation" process with myths of great masters wrestling with talent arriving later at a larger more visible stage that takes an entire lifetime to achieve. Or, more frequently, occurs after death. Such is the acceptance of an invisible hand chaining a series of seemingly random events to an inevitable accomplishment of having work presented before a wider audience. In today's click driven post Warhol media minute it has become a miniscule accomplishment. In such a paradigm an artist's primary goal is arranged around having their work seen by the maximum number of people. Those who excel at this often do not know what they have achieved and those who have not attribute the fact to the insurmountable.

Martha Colburn: I was just so happy to have the film show in NY … I don't think I've ever felt obscure. When I really got rolling, I just made lots of records and books and films. I got my more professional "art-world..." I got the ball rolling in Europe for five years before coming to NY and made installations and shows all over the world.

What does showing in a gallery setting as opposed to an improvised exhibition space present for the artist? Each day artists become more resourceful about where and to whom they present their work. Counter to the gallery paradigm, this strategic approach brings more profound meaning to the work. Yet it is the prospect of a sale that draws artists back to the gallery experience and with it the perceived status they achieve through price.

Elyse Goldberg: We have beginning collectors, collectors who have known the gallery for many years and/or come here specifically for artists that they are interested in collecting. This is quite nice, because in the process we can introduce them to other artists whose work they may not be aware of. Of course, museum curators and directors as well as art consultants frequent the gallery.

Gallery exhibitions are one way emerging artists build a collector base. Alternative venues rarely provide a draw from more established artists' work and collectors have difficulty learning about them. While finding venues is a necessity, equally necessary is finding new ways to attract the attention of collectors, curators and museum directors to them. Though emerging artists believe that their ultimate goal is to produce a living income from their work, artists who's work stands on its own may feel the opposite. The ultimate goal being to improve their work; to reach to a higher level of artistic expression and human understanding. Accordingly art would simply exist to present ideas and feelings to a public audience.

Stephen Cahill: I'm not truly all that interested in showing in a gallery anymore, my works sell in the venues I'm putting them in now and I don't need to sell the work. I do it for me.

Elyse Goldberg: The goal of exhibition is always to present the viewing public with works that illuminate the artists' ideas. Hopefully these works will raise questions. A positive or negative response is always welcome.

Stephen Cahill, Turners Falls, MA

Galleries in more obscure locations like the Nashawannuck Gallery in Easthampton MA or The Gallery In The Woods in Brattleboro Vermont use space differently than galleries in more high profile locations. In order to remain viable they present artisans and craftsman made objects which provide financial stability while reserving space to show artists with more experimental ambitions. The ability to present works based solely on feeling or expression is a luxury mainly afforded by co-presenting other objects for sale in the setting. Though these venues present art of no less quality this further perpetuates questions about the artist-gallery relationship and the work's relative appeal to viewers and potential collectors.

Stephen Cahill, Turners Falls, MA

Martha Colburn: Taste does not matter, at the end of the day, I think the artists determine most everything. With original, motivated and innovative work taking the stage because it is just those things. For real. Not for fake.

Ultimately I think alternative venues serve as locations that hold honesty tightly in their hands. To quote Lowell Downey^1. of Hatley Martin Cultural Forum, San Francisco, 1992, "Freedom of expression is probably the second most significant thing that art organizations have yet to achieve. Freedom of expression cannot be tied to financial support." Or, Veronica Enrique^1., artist organizer, San Diego, 1992, "But our greatest accomplishment has nothing to do with the material attributes of our spaces or what is done within them. Rendering a true reflection of artists in their society is how artists' organizations have created an attitude."

Yes, galleries like the James Cohan Gallery, Gallery In The Woods and Nashawannuck Gallery do important work and can be different, presenting challenging ideas to the public for their view, but generally commercial spaces coerce by default, because they perpetuate the accurate perception of an industrial pyramid.

Nayana Glazier: What do you think galleries' expectations are for artists and their work?

Martha Colburn: That it be great and get better, or I guess they trade you in for someone else. I would do the same.

Ric Sanchez, Orlando, Florida

It is this that creates the fear in emerging artists. They fear the initial rejection and if they are accepted to present their work they fear possible rejection following on. I have always subscribed to the philosophy that the worst thing that can happen is the word "NO" and it is by that very word that the impression of the impossible goal of the gallery finds its vector.

Martha Colburn: I didn't do the galleries for many years, but that's because my scene was (that) underground, but it still is, I mean one should not exclude the other. It's fine if people make that choice, but I don't see why in such a big world excluding any venue makes any sense.

To quote Helen Glazer^1. of The Rosenberg Gallery, Baltimore, 1992 "Here in Baltimore, 15 years ago, it seemed as if there were hardly any mid-career artists around. Unless they had teaching jobs, ambitious artists tended to flee to a larger metropolis - such as New York - at the first opportunity. I credit the artists' spaces that came on the scene about 10 years ago with helping to change the climate for artists, encouraging them to stay and contribute to the cultural life of the community… artists in Baltimore and Washington by and large might as well have been 400 miles apart rather than 40, but as they began to exhibit together in the alternative galleries, the two communities became acquainted, to our mutual benefit."

That really is the hit of it all. If artists are making the work, why do we in fact care what type of venue it is presented in, who sees it and if it ever sells? Should it always be at its core about the creation (of the art) above all else? Can satisfaction come from presenting ones art to an audience, or come from the recognition that others feel the same way, or have had the same experiences? Ultimately human experience is universal to humanity, art being a large carrier for the sharing of those experiences. The 'movement' of artists working for themselves and providing their artist run venues for presentation is hardly a new one.

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

Martha Colburn: Creativity put to the purpose of art and not industry or the exploitation of other people or for the evils of the world can be nothing but a good thing, be it for sale or not. The 'direction' of art, the world's too big to figure that out.

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

By contrast I quote Edmund Cardoni^1., Hallwalls, Buffalo, 1992 "Despite all the efforts of artists' organizations and the artists we serve, we failed to change society even enough to ensure our own continued survival, to preserve our little niche. We thought the alternative spaces we had created (both literally and in the larger sense) were a permanent feature of the American landscape, but we have found out they can be closed. Those of us not burnt out, with something still left to sacrifice, and with the resourcefulness of outlaws, will have to take to the hills and carry on the fight. Allow no quarter. Don't try to appease them. Corporations and governments will not help us now. Even the Constitution will not protect us. It's a whole new ballgame."

Or, Linda Burnham^1. of Highways, Santa Monica,1992, "…I'm sure it is considered politically incorrect to admit this, but there is not one artists' organization I know of that is more than two steps from disaster at all times. It is no wonder that the smallest puff of wind from Jesse Helms has sent us reeling. Organizations that were borderline last year are now way behind and exhausted from dealing with the censorship crisis, let alone the failing economy that has reduced subscriptions, memberships, donations, and ticket sales."

Stephen Cahill, Turners Falls, MA

While the direction of art may be unpredictable all we, as a community, are left to do is to shape our own direction. Keeping our work as integral as possible, forming our own exhibition spaces or working with the few galleries who are on the same page.

Elyse Goldberg: I believe that all artists, like musicians, writers, filmmakers, any person who creates anything, would hope that you have produced something that has 'something' to say, that can touch another person's awareness. That can have an effect whether it engages, lifts one's spirits or effects profound indignation. Basically it is to communicate. Selling the work is always amazing, no matter how many times I have witnessed it. People who acquire art are to be acknowledged. They keep the fires burning, and their belief in the power of art is inspirational. This may sound naïve, as everyone is obsessed about talking about the market and high prices, low prices or no prices. I believe In the basic presumption of art which is always to try to challenge the status quo and take us on a journey.

This is perhaps the most essential part of this whole question. What is art's purpose in the context of the artist-gallery relationship and the artists who develop alternative venues and progressive galleries? Is it along Elyse Goldberg's suggestion to fulfill the need to present work and affect others with expression?

One might wonder what those obsessed with the desire to achieve presentation at a perceived "high level" gallery are truly after. I too have always sustained that the goal in my own work is to express and evoke a feeling in a viewer, positive or negative; for me, this effect makes the work a success, regardless of the venue or number of viewers. But, is It essentially this idea and desire that at times sees artists organizing their own venues and in essence their own directions? How did artists fail to effect the direction of the gallery system as we know it today?

Stephen Cahill, Turners Falls, MA

I quote Joshua Selman of Artist Organized Art, 2007 "Dealers say to artists, 'We want you to think creatively. Spend all your studio time thinking, feeling, practicing as creatively as possible. We are looking for only the most creatively minded artists. Meanwhile, we (the commercial dealers) will think strategically.' After ten years, who do you think is going to come out on top?"

1. Organizing Artists : A Document and Directory of the National Association of Artists' Organizations by Dc National Association of Artists' Organizations, Washington, published 1992

2. National Endowment for the Arts (2000). The National Endowment for the Arts 1965-2000: A Brief Chronology of Federal Support for the Arts. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts.

Elyse Goldberg, Director James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY http://www.jamescohan.com
Martha Colburn, New York, NY, Multimedia Artist http://www.marthacolburn.com/
Stephen Cahill, Turners Falls MA, Multi Media Artist doosel9 at yahoo dot com
Richard Sanchez, Orlando FL, Multi Media Artist and Painter http://www.myspace.com/artbytherls

James Cohan Gallery 533 West 26th Street New York NY 10001 Tel 212.714.9500 Fax 212.714.9510 Hours Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pmhttp://www.jamescohan.com
Nashawannuck Gallery, 40 Cottage Street, Easthampton, MA 01027 http://www.nashawannuckgallery.com
Gallery in the Woods, 145 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 http://www.galleryinthewoods.com/

Martha Colburn at James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea

2009-01-17T01:03:00.034-05:00

Aron Namenwirth at Vertexlist
“Made in U.S.A” Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Aron Namenwirth, Jay Davis, Kelly, Dan Kopp and "Obama"
138 Bayard Street, Brooklyn NY 11222
"Made in U.S.A" on display until February 1, 2009
http://www.vertexlist.net/

by Erika Knerr

December 14, 2008: I arrived at the gallery and spoke with Marcin Ramocki, the founder of the gallery while waiting for Aron to arrive.

Erika Knerr: Is this the old Four Walls Space?

Marcin Ramocki: Yes, it was Four Walls until 1999, then Leo Koenig’s first space in 1999, then Mike Ballou’s Film and Slide Club, then Vertex List since 2003. I did five years and I just passed the space on to a friend of mine, Charles Beronio, who’s going to do the next five years.

EK: And will it remain vertexList?

MR: Yes. We are starting our second five years. Charles is already the director and Sunday is my day to be here. For me five years of an artist running a gallery is enough.

(Phone rings) That’s Aron. What’s up? He’s coming here.

(Aron was watching his gallery artMovingProjects...) http://www.artmovingprojects.com/ (...which opened John Giglio’s thoughtful show, “Designing Heaven,” the night before.)

EK: How often did you do shows, was it a full schedule?

MR: We’re open 3 days a week and we had 8-9 shows a year. This space took off. It’s a great location because everybody knows it as Four Walls.

EK: It’s a great legacy to have especially as an artist run space. Is the new director also an artist?

MR: Yes, he’s an artist and has his studio in the back.

EK: How was the opening last night?

Mary Baronne and Tom Moody

MR: It was good. We had about 100 people. There was also a performance by Glomag. http://glomag.com/. It’s much easier for me now because there’s less pressure since I’m not in charge. I still do everything that’s online, we have a blog http://vertexlist.blogspot.com/, so I still write that. Sometimes the blog gets rolling and sometimes we’re all doing other things. This has been a nice, interesting adventure; it was five years of my life. You’re welcome to check out the back, you probably know the way.

EK: It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.

I went to the back and reveled a bit in my memory of attending Four Walls events there and was introduced to Brian Conley, who Marcin interviewed for his documentary on the Williamsburg Art scene premiering at MOMA on February 25, 2009. Aron arrives to do the interview and talk to me about his show, but we end up bull shitting in the back room for an hour with beers beforehand.

Aron Namenwirth: I came to New York in 1987. I was living in New Jersey, but half my friends were here in Williamsburg. We all left Yale in 87 and I moved to Hoboken with John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage, Matvey Levenstein, and Joe Begonia. We split up, half of us, like Jim McShea and Dik Liu and some of my other friends where here, so I would be coming out here as much as I was going to the Lower East Side, which was also what was going on then, so I’d just come over the Williamsburg Bridge. It was really fun. It freaked me out a little bit, some of the stuff that was happening on the waterfront, the movies they were showing about sex change operations and penile insertions. I was pretty green back then.

Brian Conley: There were a lot of intense characters.

AN: There was this place called the Freezer that was a little space upstairs on Grand Street. It wasn’t a gallery proper. It was a performance space. People would do performance art. Then at the gallery that I moved into, artists were coming by all the time to pick up there work, which I didn’t have and the place was just trashed and the city was coming after me because they had given them all this grant money for gear and they took the money and split.

BC: Who was that?

AN: I don’t want to name any names. They got all this money at the very end. It was a time when spaces like Brand-Name Damages and Minor Injury finally started receiving money.

BC: This was non-profit?

AN: I don’t know if they had status but they got grants and what they did was bought really expensive video recording equipment, TVs, stereo equipment and then they just split. They bought gear for themselves and they closed up shop. Then I was getting these letters? That was the early years.

I got an email this morning from Amy Sillman apologizing for not being at the opening last night.

MR: Amy, Amy’s interview was awesome. She’s the one (in the documentary) that dished some dirt.

AN: She wouldn’t be afraid to do that?

After an interesting dialogue about Brian Conley’s project in the Middle East we get back to Aron’s Show.

MR: You saw Osama Bin Laden out front in the gallery? No one can tell it’s Osama Bin Laden.

(left) "Osama Bin Laden," (right) John Berens w/ Bin Laden

AN: I had a guy all the way at the other end of the gallery saying, “is it Santa Claus? Castro?”

BC: That’s Obama at the other end right? He’s got the George Washington curls?

AN: Yeah, it’s Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bush, Bin Laden. And there’s the Spirit Surfers.

MR: And the abstract stuff.

AN: It’s not abstract stuff. It’s imagery. “Spirit Surfers” is all these religious leaders. Jesus, from Jesus Christ superstar, which I noticed their doing again, Mohammed, Buddha, Martin Luther King and Osama again and they’re all competing in this one little painting. It becomes a blurry face.

"Spirit Surfers"

BC: What? Did you just map them all on top of each other?

AN: Each one occupies a different grid and so there are four grids.

BC: So they’re not on top of each other, they are beside each other.

AN: They’re next to each other. Each one occupies one of the four grids, then it repeats. So you’re just getting one fourth of the information. And then there are five images in this painting, so one is completely covered. Mohammed is completely covered by Martin Luther King? I’m particularly fond of that painting. I just can’t stand organized religion. It seemed like a nice way to deal with it.

BC: So you went to Yale? Who did you study with there?

AN: I’d say the people now that had the greatest impact on me would be Mel Bochner and Andrew Forge and Jake Berthot.

BC: That was a really divergent group.

AN: Yeah, really divergent. Everyone was in complete disagreement. William Bailey was there. That was one of the first things I noticed when I started doing studio visits, because I would line them up boom, boom, boom, one after the next and I’d take notes and I noticed how they would completely contradict each other. So I became very skeptical of any kind of criticism at that point because there was no consensus. It was really confusing to be a student there then. The sculpture department was really good and I hung out over there. Oh, and Veja Celmins was one of my favorite teachers there. She was great to have in the studio.

BC: I’m sure Mel Bochner was pretty hardcore.

AN: He was totally hardcore but he saved my ass because?

BC: This was in the 80's right? He was doing those terrible paintings then.

AN: Yeah the 80's. I didn’t have any work after my first semester and they did these pit crits and I just had all this crap on the floor of my studio. Everyone else had seven paintings that they put up and I didn’t have crap. I just had all these drawings and they were all crumpled and they were all over and I was freaked because it was my turn. My friends dragged all my work out of my studio and left it on the floor of the pit and the faculty was silent. No one had anything to say. And I didn’t have anything to say. It was one of those incredibly awkward silences and then Mel Bochner says, “This is the most interesting work of this class”. And then all of the sudden everyone had all these great things to say. They’d pick up one little thing and pass it around. It looked like scatter art?

EK: Do you want to talk out front, Aron, with the work... This is the piece you were talking about with the intermix of religious icons? I love this piece. The body of work is great together as a whole show. I think it’s really cool that it’s come together in this moment.

Mary Alpern, John Illig, Erika Knerr, Sakurako Shimizu
Photography: John Bailey

AN: Well I finished most of the show in 2007. I didn’t work on much of the show at all this year.

EK: When did you do Obama?

AN: I did Hillary and Obama at the same time. I did her first and then he followed. They were both finished before he won New Hampshire. I thought she was probably going to win, but I liked him better. He was my first choice. Then when he won I was disappointed that he didn’t pick Hillary for his VP.

EK: Then you thought, now I have to do a Biden? lol

AN: No, No, there isn’t going to be a Biden.

EK: It’s not going to continue, this project?

AN: I don’t know. I never know. I doubt that I would just sever it, but I’ve been working on this work for 6-7 years. I’ve done 2 other previous shows of work that led up to this. They were more like this one, North and South. They are stills from the North Pole and Antarctica, different glacial landscapes from both locations. Basically the images all occupy one of these four pixels so there are four images sitting next to each other on four separate grids and they just obliterate each other.

"Party City"

“Party City” is also four images, a Chinese stockbroker, guys with suits with golden shovels breaking ground for the Chinese version of the NASDAQ, the building is designed by Rem Koolhaus, and a group of soldiers from Darfur with shovels and guns. All these images are off the internet. The fourth image is a group of people, friends of my mom’s Cynthia Bloom at her memorial service. I planted all these flowers in the sand, so all these people where around the flowers in the sand thinking about her.

EK: When did your mom die?

AN: In July. So that was the last image, I painted that image over the last image of the stockbroker. I finished this one in the fall about a month before I knew about the show here. It was an all black painting at one point. I started it in 2006. This is one of the earliest ones but I kept working on it and it evolved. At first it was more morose and now I think of it more like the Mexican day of the dead, a celebration of death. The subject matter is death ridden, but I see it as a positive thing.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to paint anymore, because there are a lot of other things I like to do too. My media works and writing.

EK: I like your blog, I check in on it every so often.

AN: It’s sadly honest.

EK: I love it. That's what's great about it.

AN: I love it too, but don’t want to perseverate on it. I just write it and get it out there. It seems when there is a spelling mistake the reader loses faith so I will work on that. In terms of the paintings I’ll tell you how it all happened. After I did the first show at VertexList 2005, I was thinking that I really needed to make the subject matter of the paintings more clear. I felt like I was hiding, I was creating eye candy. I was thinking of them like Trojan horses, a way to deliver content into the world in a way that it could exist and be accepted and I began to think of that as cowardice. I wanted to bring the subject matter to the surface and see how that felt.

EK: You felt like you were obliterating the image?

AN: Yeah, the paintings that preceded these had all this really heavy content like wounded children in Israel being worked on, images from Darfur, Abu Graib etc.

EK: But they weren't necessarily readable?

AN: They were multiple images so the images when combined disappeared. They cancelled each other out.

EK: So you could talk about what the images were or have it in a text, but it wasn’t visible.

AN: It wasn’t there. So when I would talk about it, people weren’t seeing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_1cm8Ckr0Y So I thought what if I exposed it. My biggest fear of exposing it was the collision with Chuck Close, because I thought they’re just going to look like his paintings. But I rationalized that they were coming from a completely different place. He was coming from photorealism. I was working out of the computer and out of media and off the internet, so it was such a different place that they were really very different paintings. I like Chuck Close. I admired him when I was a student, but I didn’t want to make any kind of comment about Chuck Close. I wasn’t interested in making appropriations of Chuck, it was just that this was how they were going to look and some of the things that were happening were just as close to Seurat and pointillism as they were to Close. When you back up the image comes together. He also didn’t think of the building blocks of his paintings as pixels they were dots.

EK: That’s what I was going to ask you. I looked at Chuck Close on line before I came here since he was the first thing I thought of and they don’t talk about the pixel at all, they talk about a topographical mapping so I see that they are technically different.

AN: They don’t talk about the computer. They don’t talk about Photoshop. His work came out of the printing process, which was pre pixel. But in the end they arrive at the same place. So there was a lot of anxiety, because I didn’t want that reference to be so strong to override the content of the painting.

"George Bush"

So I did this painting. This was the first of the figurative paintings, George Bush. I picked a subject of someone a totally despised. The painting came together almost effortlessly, because I had been working with these pixels for a while. I had a figurative image, where the orientation of the painting was predetermined. Like these [the combined paintings] the images are rotated. In the landscape paintings, I would turn them.

EK: You mean the image could be upside down.

AN: Yeah, I didn’t want to have a horizon line. I didn’t want them to be recognizably landscape. I wanted them to be completely open so your mind can infinitely put together different kinds of images, like bunny hunting. Something that was really bad about abstract painting, I wanted there to be bunny hunting that could happen.

With the George Bush painting it completely came together. It was so much easier for me to make the painting, because I knew exactly what I was doing with it. But then when I got the image I was completely horrified with it, of having George Bush in my studio and he’s been there for three years, looking at me. So I wasn’t sure if this was a good move.

Perry Hoberman came over and he said, “This is a terrible idea, this is too obvious, you’ve moved your work in a terrible direction. “You are making a one liner.” “He’s like a mug shot.” I made him like a mug shot so he would look a criminal, which he is. So here I had this painting. I tried flipping it upside down, but then we have George Bazelitz. So I just made another painting Osama Bin Laden, which was much more successful, he’s another villain, but works on many different levels.

The first Paintings I used the mosaic filter. I was doing them ass backwards, some cockamamie way and Marcin said, “You know there’s a filter in Photoshop for that process, just use mosaic. I just used a really simple filter to create the pixelation. I took an image that was small and blew it up and mosaiced it so I could get the one-inch square.

EK: Did you project it?

AN: No, I laid out a coordinate map, and I numbered the pixels on the top and sides and bottom. I wanted to have a one to one correspondence with the actual source, so I took a really small picture of Bin Laden that when blown up to five by four feet, the actual pixels, are what you’d be seeing. There wouldn’t be any filter used, so it would be what it is. There would be no translation.

EK: Was it a black and white image?

AN: The color is just what it was. I did change the photo. He originally had a rifle, but when it was translated he looked like he was flipping the bird at the viewer because the rifle blended into the background. I wanted the image to be more neutral, so I erased that part of the painting. I wanted to paint a picture of Bin Laden that wasn’t blatantly antagonistic, or confrontational. I also thought this painting reminded me, with the light and the color, of El Greco, or a Byzantine painting. There’s also an ambiguity about it. People don’t really get it. It’s not like the Bush were you could see it immediately. We are also conditioned to recognize Bush’s image, but with Bin Laden there are not that many pictures of him and he’s a specter. If you do a Google search for him only a handful of images come up.

Next I did the Hillary painting. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about her. I again picked a very small picture of her from her website. I did change the color. I wanted to make her more sensual. I was thinking of Hillary/Marilyn Monroe ala Andy Warhol

"Hillary"

EK: You definitely get that from it. It’s such a hot painting. She looks like Marilyn.

AN: The quality of the surface is different. It’s the only painting in the show that’s shiny. It was the result of technical issues with the birch delaminating and having to top coat it etc. But in the end I was really satisfied with the Hillary, because she seemed like the slipperiest. I never really got a feeling for who she was. And that’s the case with all of them. That’s why I think the portraits being pixilated really suits them. They all have an out of focus ghosty feeling. The way the media projects these people we have no feeling for how they really are, which is what portraiture is all about, trying to capture the essence of the person. The media gives us a detached or disassociated state of what the person actually is. I wonder if they know who they are. If they don’t know who they are, then we’re certainly never going to know. So for me the pixelation is a perfect way to represent them? There’s this whole discussion on Rhizome called the Rematerialization of Art, by Ed Halter http://rhizome.org/editorial/287

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I’ve been working on this project. People that work with computers want to take what they do and bring it into the world. It’s all about taking it off the screen and making it part of the world. So with this, it’s taking something off the screen and making it part of the world, then putting it back on the screen again on my Blog. So there is this full circle, and Tom Moody talked about that in his review.
http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2008/12/14/aron-namenwirth-at-vertexlist/

EK: Obama seems to have a bit more authenticity, somehow, in his personality.

AN: I don’t know does he? I felt his first real decision was choosing Biden. Biden is from Delaware who represents all these incredibly wealthy corporations trying to find tax loopholes. There aren’t too many people that have as many connections to special interests as Joe Biden.

"Obama"

EK: The Obama is very fuzzy. Your portrait of him, it’s not as clear as Hilary. I do really like Brian's comment about the George Washington curls.

AN: Obama was still my first choice and he’s the best chance we have to heal all the wounds that were made.

EK: I like that there is a time factor in these. That they were made over 3 years; you didn’t just whip them off.

AN: I was making this argument and nobody was listening. I felt like I was all alone with this for a very long time.

EK: It gives some vindication. It’s now become timely.

AN: I was worried that these wouldn’t be shown. I wanted them to be shown before the election and it didn’t happen because of personal issues. Then Charles came to me and I think it’s even more timely. People can think about it now.

The way I came to the title was a great process. It came about before all this Made in USA stuff came about.

EK: What do you mean by Made in U.S.A stuff coming about?

AN: Right now they’re talking about redoing the New Deal. There’s this whole movement away from outsourcing. I think that’s what the Chinese NASDAQ was eluding to. I was thinking for weeks what I would call the show. Then I had found this half assembled model airplane made of balsa wood when I was cleaning out my Mom’s house. I had started it when I was 10 or 13 years old. I decided to finish it and I painted it. Then I looked at the box and I noticed it said, “Made in U.S.A.” and I thought that’s it! All the problems and all the solutions are here. We made Bin Laden, we made all these issues with the environment. It’s a collision of the good and the bad. And now we have to remake it. We have to recreate infrastructure. In the first New Deal, the President tried something and if it didn’t work he would try something else. But now with technology the way it is, if you try something and it doesn’t work, you’re screwed. You can do huge amounts of damage to an infrastructure with computers if you make a mistake. So it’s a different world. I don’t know if there’s as much room for trial and error. They’re gonna have to get it right the first time.

EK: That seems like such a shame because trial and error is part of the process of figuring things out.

AN: There’s a really interesting article about Yale. Yale is supposed to be such a great university having created all these great people. Now you start pointing at the people. Yale created George Bush, Yale created the Clintons. What great thinkers were these people? How many good decisions did these people make? It focused on the quality of thinking. It’s supposed to teach them how to think. Right? But they’re not doing that. I don’t think Obama went to Yale.

EK: He went to Harvard.

AN: Yeah, so we’ll see. I’m really hopeful and really skeptical at the same time.

EK: That’s good.

AN: There’s a weird thing about making political art. There’s a taboo, or stigma associated with political art. I see that as a challenge. Some of my favorite artists like Leon Golub, when we were in school, I couldn’t stand him. I thought he was exploiting these issues, using them for his own self-promotion. Something about that really pissed me off. But then when I started getting involved in it myself, it seemed like the art that I most admired like Goya’s “Disaster’s of War” and Picasso’s “Guernica,” are works that are really difficult. Sometimes it will be propaganda. The art audience is pretty tuned in. So your preaching to the choir, but at the same time, is everyone going to make polite decorative art? And that’s what’s happened.

Aron Namenwirth is a painter, media artist, curator, and co-director of artMovingProjects founded in 1995. Aron was born in Ipswich Mass. He got his M.F.A. in Painting in 1987 from Yale. He works and lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Aron’s work is involved in contemporary American politics, war and consumerist culture. He recently showed at Momenta, vertexList. and Galapagos. Namenwirth’s Video and Animations have been screened at Diva in Miami. He has written and curated for Zing Magzine. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Time Out, Italian Vogue, and Broadcast on PBS and CNN. http://aronnamenwirth.blogspot.com/

ABOUT VERTEXLIST: vertexList is an artist-run space in Williamsburg Brooklyn, founded in 2003 by Marcin Ramocki with a mission of supporting emerging media artists. Currently the gallery is directed by Charles Beronio and seeks artwork conceptually involved in exposing the codes of post-capitalist culture, both via new and traditional media. vertexList is named after the property of a vector image which holds all numerical information about the image. http://www.vertexlist.net/, http://vertexlist.blogspot.com/

2008-12-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

Meditation on Mediations— An East West Cultural Exchange: Dialogue, Misunderstanding, Growing Pains and an Evolution of Artists Before Egos

CamouFLASHED Mediations
Curators: Mariusz Soltysik, Aurelia Mandziuk, Anja Tabitha Rudolph, Roland Dolfing
Event in frame of Month of Mediations - MEDIATIONS Biennial, 3-30 of October 2008, Poznan, Poland

MEDIATIONS BIENNALE
Biennale director: Tomasz Wendland

Voyage Sentimental, curator: Lorand Hegyl
Identity and Tolerance, curator: Gu Zhenqing
Corporeal/Technoreal, curator: Yu Yeon Kim

By artist Erika Knerr

Thursday, October 2, 2008- As an artist in CamouFLASHED Mediations I had the luxury of actualizing my sound installation, Atmospirit, The Last Breath and the Big Wind on my birthday. The painted white circle on the floor was dry and I suspended the pillows from the ceiling. There were the typical problems of finding materials and tools. I needed a ladder to reach the ceiling and managed to negotiate one of the few available.

There was some mix up that evening about when exhibitions were opening so Suzy Sureck and I went to the opening of "Voyage Sentimental" at the National Museum a day early and were turned away by the guards. Luckily, Eric Binder, a Slovakian artist from Bratislva, showing in "Voyage Sentimental," was returning with supplies. He was able to get us past the guards as his guest. This was great to get a preview before the opening. Most of the work was installed and a few of the artists were hanging and/or finishing their installations. We were struck by the contrast of the slick white Museum space to our abandoned Old Printer house with all its character. I liked the less precious approach of Eric Binder finishing his large, playful, graffiti influenced drawings suspended directly from the ceiling. We also met Barthelemy Toguo from Cameroon with some of the strongest works in this show. There were quite a few big name art stars in this venue like Anselm Kiefer, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Hermann Nitsch, Arnulf Rainer, William Kentridge and Marina Abramovic among others. I was happily pleased to see the beautiful, straw blown drawings of Roland Flexner, from New York. I was also struck by the amount of figurative and narrative works here, but made sense for this more traditional setting.

That evening at the Dragon Pub I spoke to artist Adam Klimczak about Dresden and the continuation of Camouflash there with the young group of artists who formed the UNACTO group about 2 years ago. Above all he stressed that there is something quite positive about the fact that the Dresden group of artists are trying to organized themselves, like we have done, in Lodz, and that’s a good thing. All the details are not so important in the end.

“We focus on non-commercial, experimental and alternative work….created often in unconventional spaces such as streets, shops, factories or public places" Galeria Wschodnia, Lodz

Friday, October 3, 2008. This was the longest day of the trip. I awoke early this morning at the Hotel Ryzimsky where most of the Mediations Artists were staying about a 15-20 minute walk to the Old Printer House, which housed CamouFLASHed Mediations and also one of the three feature exhibitions of Mediations Biennial, curated by YeoYeun Kim from New York, titled "Corporreal/Technoreal." I got to the Printer House later than I had hoped. CamouFLASHed Mediations opened the next day at 12:30 PM. There was still an overwhelming amount of work to do to prepare for the opening. Reinigungsgesellschaft, an artist collaborative in the space next to me on the first floor had arrived to install their video, The Japanese Garden, 2008. We worked through a few problems with lighting and basic co-existense of two installations with sound. There’s with the sound of children and a security guard explaining behavioral rules and the cultural meaning of the garden in Berlin at the recreation park “Gardens of the World,” mine with the sound of basic meditation instruction, overlaying the sound of wind and the breath of my father, a few days before he passed away.

I was able to mostly finish my installation today and resolve some issues with the pillow heights and with the recommendation of a Viennese artist we met the day before, Clemens Fuertler, I wrapped the bases beneath the pillows with white cotton fabric. I was still unhappy about using a laptop for sound of the audio. It was not loud enough and the fact that the laptop with sound was stolen from my installation at "Disappearing in Art", in Dresden, and was left without audio for 7 days of the installation was disconcerting. After many requests for speakers I ended the day with confidence that speakers would arrive by morning.

Friday night was the opening of the first two Mediatons shows, “Voyage Sentimental” at the National Museum and "Identity and Tolerance" at the Zamek Castle Cultural Center (Kultury Zamek). We missed the 6:00 pm opening at the National Museum still working on "Camouflash". Luckily we saw the preview the night before with Eric. The contrast was dramatic between spaces. Ours is a gutted old unheated shell of the old Printer House (except my room actually has heat which I was given as a good space to encourage meditation). The National Museum space is a huge open atrium with many smaller, white boxed rooms. We did make it to the Zamek Castle. This was a Historic space. A favorite piece, a performance on the front steps, near the entrance, was a fallen angel by SunYuan & Peng Yu simply titled Angel, 2007. There were great videos in the lobby space of the Zamek Castle now the Cultural Center of Poznan.

Upstairs was a large hall with people waiting for speeches from the curators and organizers. The entrance of the rest of the exhibition was down another hall near the beer tap and wine table. In trying to go in I was promptly stopped and pointed back toward the direction of the speeches, so more waiting, than another attempt to pass the ladies guarding the hallway to the artwork. Once again turned away by the stern, cross-armed guards. The speeches finally came and went with movement toward the drinking hall. We ran in to Warren, a Polish writer we knew from NY and had a brilliant talk about 12 years of living cycles. Warren was a fixture at every art event in NY for 12 years and has now migrated to Warsaw as he sees more happening here than in New York.

Next we were moved to a banquet where all the artists, organizers and curators where invited for a big spread of sushi, polish dishes, fruits and drinks. Off the balcony, there was a lovely view of the Castle gardens. Being that our opening was the next day at 12:30 pm, Mariusz, Agata, Aurelia, Margaret, Henrich from the Dresden group and other artists & installers worked all night with one or two hours sleep to prepare works.

CamouFLASHed Mediations was an enormous undertaking for the curators. It was overly ambitious and chaotic to deal with this beautiful old building, the Old Printer House in Poznan, smack next to a Sheraton Hotel and a short walk from the main railway Station (Poznań Główny). Not only did art need to be installed on three floors of about 8,000 sq. ft. each, walls were built and painted, electricity run to spaces for a huge number of monitors, projectors, lights, speakers, laptops etc. to be set up and all of this in only 4 days before the opening. This is an amazing “portrait” of overcoming obstacles.

"Camouflash" was first shown in a smaller venue, an old office building connected with the Patio Art Center, in Lodz, Poland, in October 2007. Conceived by Mariusz Soltysik and co-curated with Aurelia Mandziuk, this show was tight and concise in its curatorial vision and openness toward supporting it’s artists to realize their works. At the time there were also obstacles to leap in terms of the building, wiring and cleaning an old building for a show that was almost all media based. This idea in itself is a paradox; to show so much new media in an old world building that was not at first technology friendly.

So this was a similar case in Poznan, but on a much bigger scale. The next obstacle was moving from its second incarnation, “The Disappearing in Art” that took place in Dresden in a contemporary building shell of future offices, a little more than a month earlier. A group of young artists from a group called UNOACTU in Dresden, headed up by Anja Tabitha Rudolph became interested in "Camouflash" after their first UNOACTU project in which Mariusz Soltisik, Adam Klimczak and others from Lodz were involved.

Soltysiks approach was adopted by UNOACTU. At this point, a mixed encumbrance occurred. UNOACTU took Soltysiks concepts and ideas in "Camouflash" and augmented them thematically, with the subtitle “Disappearing in Art,” expanding the ideas of hyper-reality and presenting "Camouflash" now in Dresden. Interestingly an experiential and generational shift occurred, where a group of young, recently graduated art organizers are hosting a group of seasoned artists and organizers with a long and important history from Lodz.

Looking at the experiential differences in cultural and generational shifts is one way of understanding the different styles of organizing. This was not only a cultural exchange between artists from Poland and Germany, but also between the parallel histories of both Dresden, from GDR, and Poland, coming from the soviet bloc era ending in 1989. A new generation of artists organizing in their twenties, grew up for the most part in a Germany undivided, giving them a different perspective.

Egos are a huge part of the art world, commercial or otherwise and of the “artist” mentality. "Camouflash," coming from a long history of Construction in Process, The International Artist Museum and Galeria Wschodnia is the anti market, anti economy driven art world, supporting social change through artistic exchange. It takes a position of artists for artists, where egos play a secondary role. This is antithetical to the commercial gallery system of the art world. This contrast of approaches is important to the continued shift of a post-communist Central Europe and for future generations of global artist organizers in general.

A third time around, this incarnation, CamouFLASHed Mediations was back in Poland for Poznan’s first international Biennial,with yet another expansion, including curator Roland Dolfing from Luxenboug, and Inner Spaces bringing in painter Soazic Guezennec, and others. CamouFLASHed is about something other than a tightly thematic Biennial exhibition and highlights it’s strong contrast to the three main shows supported by the Mediations Biennial. Tomasz Wendland brilliantly invited "Camouflash" as a large “fringe” exhibition to show a deeply multilayered, multi-cultural, inaugural Biennial presentation for Poznan.

So with unquestionable odds and little funding all involved came together with big ambition in an enormous undertaking. There was chaos, many problems much compromising, swirling egos, envy of the finished white cube for some, incredible dedication, fear, frustrations, family, dancing, laughter and drinking, very little sleep, a nice hotel, over 300 artists from around the world all convening on Poznan for the Mediations Biennial because of the efforts of Thomas Wendland & Co.

Saturday October 4, 2008

Saturday morning Suzy and I had to check out of our hotel, drop bags at the Train station and get to the Exposition before the opening at 12:30 pm. I needed to check on the sound of Atmospirit. On arrival I found boxes of brand new Creative speakers and a DVD player and 2 laptops. More than I needed. I had a very short time to set it up myself, since everyone else was still installing, cleaning on the second and third floors and perhaps rooms down the hall from me, on the first floor. A little miracle happened and I hooked it up right the first try and the sound was perfect for the room.

Breaking through our limited expectation
of the way things should be, and when
things happen spontaneously, in unexpected
ways, we learn from this.

Yu Yeon Kim’s opening of "Corporeal/Technoreal" took place in the same Printer House building as CamouFLASHed and opening at 12:00 noon, just a half hour before ours. "Corporeal-Technoreal" is part of the main program and had a different quality. It was a strongly curated new media exhibition of video work and one sculptural floor installation by Yuan Shun. His “O” Project, of a mist shrouded landscape of the Forbidden City was a stand out. The content of Yu Yeon Kim’s show was the harshest, most heavily psychological. Another favorite was Oswaldo Macia & Partrick Jolley’s, Soufle, 2008, film, sound. The room on first glance showed projections that looked like beautiful color field painting. On further investigation one realizes the color comes from “flowing surfaces of edible sauces and the audio track is of machines used in slaughterhouses. The sauce also feels like blood.

A highlight of the day was seeing Richard Wasko there. I was very happy to see him after many years and he is in good form. He was there with Marika Kuzmicz and friend, from Rempex, Galeria Sztuki Wspólczesnej in Warsaw. He joked that this photo would appear in the New York Times, only better here for AOA. The enigmatic Wasko disappeared as quick as his wit. He has a big exhibition up now at the National Museum in Lodz documenting his years there and in Berlin.

Now there was movement upstairs for more speeches by the curators of CamouFLASHed this time. After this was a strong performance by Janusz Baldyga titled, Cheated – Rescued, 2008. At the beginning of the performance he announces, “Be Careful With Glass”. There were two pieces of glass, one wrapped with bandage with an image of a soaring hawk , the other plain, laying flat on the floor. He slowly unwrapped the glass, while at the same time wrapping himself in the bandage, letting it fall time after time and finally shattering on the floor. The second part consisted of taking the plain glass sheet, sliding it down a corner of the wall till it fixed itself there. It eventually smashed from the force of gravity some time after the performance ended.

The other performance by Gabriele Horndasch called Found Footage, 2008, became a wall installation on it’s completion. She started the dart throwing earlier that morning, before the opening and ended about a half hour into the opening. Each throw of the dart is replace with a nail where a wire hoop in hung. There is a beautiful sense of time in this work where the image on the wall is built up slowing creating a layered wall drawing. The active, almost violent action of throwing the large dart is offset by the stillness of the final piece.

Event in frame of Month of Mediations - MEDIATIONS Biennial, 3-30 of October 2008, Poznań

Artists:
Anna Adamczyk, Chrisitian Aschman, Janusz Bałdyga, Olga Bergmann, Martin Brazina, Sarah Browne & Gareth Kennedy, Henrik Busch, Agnieszka Chojnacka, Charlie Citron, Stephen Cornford, Disorientalism, Shige Fujishiro i, Sven Giessmann, Karolina Głusiec, Kristaps Gulbis, Shilpa Gupta, Soazic Guezennec, Tobias Hantmann, Eytan Heller, Jessica Higgins, Tatsuya Higuchi, Gabriele Horndasch, Eric Van Hove, Markus Huemer, Bernd Imminger, Adam Klimczak, Anna Klimczak, Erika Knerr, Patricia Lippert, Krzysztof Łukomski, Christine Mackey, Anna MacLeod, Cristina Maldonado, Tomasz Matuszak, Nadja Verena Marcin, Marina Naprushkina, Aisling O’Beirn, Łukasz Ogórek, Mariusz Olszewski, Arianne Olthaar, Pia MüllerSusana Pedrosa, Wiktor Polak, Ewa Szczyrek–Potocka, REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT, Grit Ruhland, Andreas Sachsenmaier, Mariusz Sołtysik, Suzy Sureck, Aki Tarr, Richard Thomas, Elżbieta Wysakowska – Walters, Miyuki Yokomizo

2008-12-05T08:50:00.011-05:00

Festival- Hopping Paris
Spring, Summer 2008, Slideshow

Angie Eng

If yesterday was "spend," today is "save." Economize money, energy, space, time, water, food, thoughts. If I'm not watching images move, or moving images, then by default I'm roaming. A to B, equals New York to Paris. At a discreet global position, vaguely sitting in cafes for hours chatting, discussing, debating. Cartesians: "wearing the clock" not "watching the clock." Spending vagabond days, writing, editing, reading, but do we, with one glance, have enough information to spark a sequence of ideas, feelings, inspiration?

Le Cube Festival 2008, Issy Les Moulineaux, www.cubefestival.com | Festival Nemo 2008, Élysées Biarritz, www.arcadi.fr | Festival Agora 2008, Ircam, www.ircam.fr | Exit Festival International, MAC Creteil Maisons Des Arts, www.maccreteil.com | VisionSonic, La Générale en Manufacture, www.lespixelstransversaux.net | Vision-R Festival, Mains D'Oeuvres, http://www.mainsdoeuvres.org | Scènes Ouvertes à L'insolite, Le Theatre de la Marionnette, Theatre de la Cité Internationale, www.theatredelamarionette.com

Angie Eng is a media artist who works in video, installation and time-based performance. Her current work draws inspiration from nomadic cultures. Her work has been performed and exhibited at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Lincoln Center Video Festival, The Kitchen, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, Roulette Intermedium and Experimental Intermedia. Her videos have been included in digital art festivals in local and international venues in Cuba, France, Greece, Japan, Holland, Germany, Former Yugoslavia and Canada. She has received numerous grants and commissions: New Museum of Radio and Performing Arts, Harvestworks, Art In General, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation and Experimental TV Center.

2008-11-24T15:49:00.045-05:00

The Art Connection
www.theartconnection.org

by Tova Speter

The Art Connection is a Boston nonprofit organization (currently celebrating its 13th anniversary) that seeks to enrich and educate under-served communities by expanding public access to original art. This distinct program places the work of donor artists on the walls of community service organizations. Within these healing environments, the art provides welcome opportunities for reflection, inspiration, comfort and hope. Sometimes, just one painting or sculpture can make a difference. This simple but powerful idea has resulted in thousands of installations into scores of organizations, giving those who often have the least access to art direct contact in their own communities.

A win-win for both artist and agency – the artwork is seen by many community members annually, often those who do not have regular access to original artwork. The artists feel good about gifting a work that has the potential to really make a difference in the life of someone in need; the agencies feel good about respecting their clients and staff by creating a warm and welcoming environment; and the community members feel good about experiencing artwork firsthand, often when they are accessing services during a difficult time in their lives.

Agencies must qualify for the program through an application process and must provide direct services to an underserved community. Common placements are homeless shelters, health clinics, community centers, and treatment facilities.

Perhaps one of the most significant components of our program, agencies create a selection committee of clients as well as staff to look through the art portfolio and choose the work that is most meaningful to them. In this way – a dialogue is created not only between staff and client, but also between staff and art, and client and art, and vice versa. The selection process is empowering for all involved and allows for a deeper look into artwork and what it means to them.

No need to take our word for it. The program has caused such a stir that it has expanded already to Washington DC and New York City. What people are saying:

Artists:
“It fulfills a lot of purposes… one of them is that there is not enough art in public spaces… and from an artist’s perspective, I want people to be looking at art as often as possible.”

-Ken Beck, artist

“Part of making art is communicating. Work sitting in a closet is not communicating with anybody.”

-Martha Jane Bradford, artist

“It is important to me that my artwork reached appreciative audiences who may have limited opportunities to view original work.”

-Marian Dioguardi, artist

Community members:
"When I walk into a room I’ve never ever been into, I look around and see what’s in it. If there’s lots of art I feel wanted. If there isn’t, I feel lonely.”

-Fifth grade student, Paige Academy

“Both times I was arrested, my mom would never come to visit me. She’d always send someone else to pay my bail and see where I was. But she came here, and she saw this painting (Difficult Decision by Fay Chandler) – and then she came back the next week. She sat at the table, and just looked at that painting. And we talked. I was shocked. I still can’t believe it.”

-Wanda, resident, McGrath House

Agencies:
“If you can’t bring the children to the museums, you need to bring the museums to the children.”

-Bill Walczak, CEO, Codman Square Health Center

“Fine art reveals creativity, imagination, beauty, emotional involvement and intellectual stimulation to all who see it. This is the kind of benefit that says to all our stakeholders, ‘We value you, we appreciate your efforts in treatment and recovery.’ The chronically under-resourced public health sector cannot offer luxurious environments, but through donated art, we can help provide a setting that encourages healing and wellness.”

-Carolyn Ingles, Director of Support Services, Metro Boston Mental Health at Shattuck Hospital

Comments from Demetri Yannopolous, Boston Rescue Mission:

The client opens the door panting and sweating. “Man, those stairs always kick my butt,” she gasps. There are six floors in the Boston Rescue Mission, and each floor serves a purpose in helping people recover from homelessness. The halls of the Boston Rescue Mission are filled with emotions: fear, hunger, hope, joy and transformation. They are now also filled with art as The Art Connection has helped make even the walls part of the recovery process. Residents struggle every day to get their lives back in order, but with the help of generous artists, the Mission has become a warmer place.

The Boston Rescue Mission has been working on transforming the lives of the poor and homeless since 1899. Reverend John Samaan, President of the Boston Rescue Mission, commented that “We now have splendid pieces of artwork that will brighten people’s lives for years to come.” The artwork now decorates the halls of the Boston Rescue Mission, and clients have begun to take notice and talk about what it means to them emotionally and spiritually. Erica, a client living at the Mission exclaimed that “Every day I face my demons, but the artwork has brought much needed comfort and beauty into my life. It gives me hope.”

Art offers all of us an opportunity to experience emotions, thoughts, and feelings that we can’t find elsewhere. It is a chance to escape to new worlds, to engage in discussion, or to gain a spiritual breather. The art donated through The Art Connection now provides the opportunity not only to make a person feel better, but to truly be a part of a person’s life during their road to recovery.

Comments from Marian Dioguardi, donating artist:

Donating my art through The Art Connection has always been meaningful for me. It is important to me that my art work reaches appreciative audiences who may have limited opportunities to view original art work. My art's placement with the East Boston Health Center, this summer, was especially meaningful. You see, I grew up in East Boston selling my crayon drawings door to door to my understanding neighbors on Webster Street. My neighbors were always gracious and generous with me and now it's my turn to say thank you and give something back to the community.

As an active and clumsy child I was an all too familiar face at the EBHC, then known as "The Relief Station". After asking my ritual question "How many stitches did I get?" I was always relieved and released once again to play, run and inevitably to fall. Now the EBHC continues to play an important part in my life as it cares for my parents Nick and Marie, life long residents of East Boston. Having my work chosen , hanging and welcoming everyone to the East Boston Health Center as me and my family have always been welcome gives me great pleasure.

Other info:
The Art Connection was established in 1995 as a vehicle for distributing original works of art to public, charitable, and educational institutions, in a manner pioneered by Fay Chandler, a painter and sculptor working in Boston since the early 1970s. As Fay began considering what would happen to her unsold inventory of work at her death or disability, she became convinced that the best result would be transferring the work, in conjunction with the work of other artists, free of charge, to interested public and nonprofit organizations in the community that have no funds for purchasing art. The program grew as founding directors recognized a demand for expanding public access to the visual arts and from their ability to build a unique program to meet that need. Since its inception 13 years ago, this unique gifting program has supported over 250 agencies in their personal selection of over 3700 pieces by 250 artists and collectors.

If you are an artist interested in donating work or an agency representative interested in receiving work, please contact us at info@theartconnection.org. Also- check out our new website at www.theartconnection.org

Tova Speter, Boston

2008-11-11T08:21:00.009-05:00

Suzanne Fiol at ISSUE Project Room
Old American Can Factory, Brooklyn, NY

performance at ISSUE Project Room
Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215

An Interview with media artist, Angie Eng

If you’re projecting video on a wrinkled bed sheet, performing on a door in lieu of a table, carting your own mic and mixer, getting lost in the rain by the Gowanus Canal only to roam in circles around a cylindrical room avoiding its audio hot spots, rest assured you’ve found it. ISSUE Project Room is a place where initiates hack such a pilgrimage to meet, hear and see experimental performers. I love New York for such venues. Recently ISSUE Project Room was awarded a twenty year rent free lease on a beautiful 4800 square foot room in Downtown Brooklyn. I interviewed Suzanne Fiol, Founder and Artistic Director, who elaborates about the venue and its unique culture.

AE: Please give us a detailed profile of a typical loyal ISSUE Project Room (IPR) fan.

SF: ISSUE's fan base is all over the map. We don't have any one typical fan because the kind of work that happens at ISSUE ranges from every type of music from Noise to Chamber music, literature, experimental film and video. What I could say is that the type of person who comes to ISSUE is someone who has a serious connection to the work presented…a person who might be deeply touched by a performance. Possibly a student, possibly a collector, possibly an artist or filmmaker or a pianist.

AE: IPR has been able to not only survive but also thrive in Brooklyn, when just recently many venues could not afford to lose their Manhattan crowd. What are the reasons that set IPR apart from other small experimental music houses?

SF: ISSUE is an artist run organization (though so are Roulette and the Stone which are both fantastic places). Our focus has always been towards the artist, to provide an atmosphere and a safe space where their visions could be realized. Our programming features some of the most accomplished people in their fields, but also emerging artists who are finding their voice. The opportunity for conversations and an informal and warm atmosphere lends itself to new collaborations and new ideas. This kind of energy creates growth and expansion for not just ISSUE Project Room, but for everyone affected by what goes on.

crowds at ISSUE Project Room

AE: IPR was quite a special place on the Gowanus inside the silo. Sound wasn't the best depending upon your seat, but architecture and the surreal placement inside that landscape made up for it. Then it moved to The Old Can Factory, its side-lit austere chapel-like room was also rich in character. And now... what can your faithful crowd expect for the new space?

SF: ISSUE was recently awarded a 20 year rent free lease on a beautiful 4800 square foot room in downtown Brooklyn. Easily accessible by most subways, this former Elk's club room in the old Board of Education Building is going to be the most amazing thing you can imagine. We've been meeting with the acoustical engineering firm, ARUP, who designed the Sydney Opera House and the Beijing Olympic Stadium to name a few projects and they have been interested in helping us take this space and make it sound completely amazing. It's quite an uphill battle trying to get in there and raise the funds to restore and treat the space, but trust me…it will be worth it for a generation of people who care about serious culture in New York and sustaining our artistic legacy as New Yorkers.

ISSUE Project Room's new space at 110 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, NY

AE: Oops, I did a journalist faux pas I just read your mission statement and realized I made the generalization that you were a music club. IPR is renowned for its programming of experimental music, yet its mission statement is much broader. Please explain.

SF: ISSUE is dedicated to all forms of artistic expression, while we do tend to feature music, our programming has included many incredible filmmakers, visual artists, poets, novelists, actors and even dancers. Our Artistic Advisory Board includes the great writers Paul Auster, Jonathan Lethem and Bob Holman as well as filmmakers Julian Schnabel and Jim Jarmusch. We've been profiled by many magazines and newspapers for our great literary series called "Littoral" which I co-curate with Tony Antoniatis. And just recently we presented a week of "Women in Experimental Cinema" which was very successful and a wonderful program. So I thnk our programming definitely crosses a number of genre boundaries.

AE: Artists are usually asked the same questions they dread posed to them. But if they were not asked of them, they are more than willing to address them voluntarily in a more organic fashion. Such as, what are your models or influences in building IPR? Better yet, what are your models to avoid so as not resorting to the bar for income?

SF: I've always been a big fan of Ellen Stewart at La Mama. They have a really fantastic organization and her energy and openness has been a big inspiration. Also we have a very energetic and incredibly supportive board of directors which makes it possible to achieve things that would never be possible through the efforts of one or two people on their own. They've helped us in ways I can't even begin to describe.

AE: You mention collaborating with curators on your site. You have mentioned before that your calendar is based upon thematic months such as 'vocal month', 'percussion month' 'multimedia month'. Can you explain the reason for this type of programming based upon musical instruments? Will this continue or what will a month look like in your new space.

SF: Collaborations are a huge part of ISSUE's mission. Last month we collaborated with Meredith Drum on Women's Experimental Cinema, with Zach Layton and Nick Hallett for a week of classic avant garde music through their "darmstadt" series. Percussion month was hosted by Billy Martin, one of my favorite percussionists. I think these collaborations yield a huge amount of exciting and fresh ideas and that is what ISSUE is all about. In the new space we will continue these programming models and expand them even further.

AE: I'm a young (25 year old) unknown composer/performer and want a gig at IPR. I just arrived in town and cannot say 'I'm a friend of so and so'. Do you answer the email/phone still? What is the process of being invited to the new IPR?

SF: Yes, we try to listen to all of the requests that come in via email and so forth. If someone sends us mail we like to listen to the CDs that are included. We ask that people send us a proposal for what they would be interested in doing at ISSUE and if there is a way to fit them into our calendar that makes sense programmatically then we like to introduce new artists to the community. It's very important to support emerging talent. For instance, ISSUE has an Artist-In-Residence Series that has featured Ashley Paul and Eli Keszler, young and brilliant musicians. They wanted to use their residency as an opportunity to perform with musicians in new york and build alliances. They played incredible sets with Phill Niblock, Aki Onda, David Linton and many other established musicians. Another new talent we're excited to work with next is Duane Pitre. His work is magnificent…he just sent us a CD. I was listening to it in the car and loved it and invited him to perform…his performance just blew us all away. Now he's our next Artist in Residence.

AE: The freefall economy is and will affect everyone for a while. You have a lot of courage to start a more ambitious performance space. Where does that courage come from, can you tell us about the magician/yourself behind it all from when you planted the seed until now?

SF: It has always been with me. Since I was in college I remember telling a friend of mine that I was going to make my life surrounded by art and I remember this feeling that I was going to open up a performance space. I was the gallery director of Brent Sikkema for a while and then came ISSUE and it seemed like destiny. It doesn't necessarily feel like courage, it just feels right. It feels like this is what I'm here for. There's something honest about this place that I think a lot of people feel too and are drawn to and the power and the courage doesn't come from me, it comes from everyone. Remember, this is now the Obama generation.

watch a quicktime video of events at ISSUE Project Room

AE: I am coming from the east village to see a concert/performance. It costs me $2 on the metro, $10(maybe $12 or $15 in the new space?) for a ticket and $16 taxi ride to get home (I am 53 years old). I come home with $28-32 less. Why would I go to IPR and not The Stone, Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, or Bowery Poetry Club?

SF: ISSUE does offer something that these other clubs don't and they offer something we don't. There are a lot of people living in Brooklyn, now, remember. Many people are being priced out of Manhattan and are coming over here. For many it's actually more convenient to stay here than to go to the Village for a concert. So it's really a balance. The great thing about 110 Livingston is that it is so accessible from Manhattan with almost every subway going right there and is really accessible from Brooklyn too. Besides this, there's only one space in New York with a 15 channel hemispherical sound system…ISSUE.

AE: When Tonic closed many people felt they lost their second home. You have catered to a similar crowd. Does IPR see themselves as 'family' or 'guest'?

SF: Family

AE: Its 12:30am in Paris, I have about 4 hours to go before I know if Obama wins. I believe in the trickle up effect. If he is elected president, how will that affect IPR?

SF: Well, it shows that this country is heading in a new and positive direction. We've felt at times like we were besieged trying to keep expermintal culture alive in the Bush years. Now it's a new situation, Brooklyn was absolutely beautiful Tuesday night, people were hugging and laughing and crying tears of joy. I think ISSUE represents a place that cultivates and sustains culture not denigrates it. The Obama Administration, we hope, will make arts funding a priority. There's a lot of work for him to do, but we need to keep this up there on the list. Since Reagan, the government has been cutting funding for the arts…we need to change this pattern now.

AE: Better to end an interview on an even number as they say. Far-sighted analogies can be insightful. If IPR were a plant what would it be?

SF: A weeping willow tree.

Angie Eng, NYC/Paris

ISSUE Project Room has received generous support from the Annenberg Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Brooklyn Arts Council, Meet the Composer, The Golden Rule Foundation, The Edwards Foundation Arts Fund, The Puffin Foundation, mediaThe foundation, the Independence Community Foundation, and the Experimental Television Center. BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Marc Zegans, Board Chair, Jo Andres, Steve Buscemi, Suzanne Fiol, Robert Longo, Steve Wax, ART ADVISORY BOARD: Paul Auster, William Basinski, Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad, David Grubbs, Shahzad Ismaily, Bob Holman, Jim Jarmusch, John Jesurun, Charlotta Kotik, Jonathan Lethem, Evan Lurie, John Lurie, Moby, Rick Moody, Stephan Moore, Lawrence D. Morris, Julian Schnabel, Elliott Sharp, Mark Stewart, Edwin Torres, John Turturro, Kate Valk, Anne Waldman, Hal Willner, Robert Wilson

Angie Eng is a media artist who works in video, installation and time-based performance. Her current work draws inspiration from nomadic cultures. Her work has been performed and exhibited at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Lincoln Center Video Festival, The Kitchen, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, Roulette Intermedium and Experimental Intermedia. Her videos have been included in digital art festivals in local and international venues in Cuba, France, Greece, Japan, Holland, Germany, Former Yugoslavia and Canada. She has received numerous grants and commissions: New Museum of Radio and Performing Arts, Harvestworks, Art In General, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation and Experimental TV Center.

2008-09-29T11:22:00.009-05:00

Conflux 08

The New Beauty: 2008 Conflux Festival
Challenges Ideas of Public Space

CutUp installation, Center for Architecture photo: Jean Pike

by Jean Pike

Now in its fifth year, the Conflux Festival (Sept 11-14), included works by over 100 artists, geographers, scientists, writers, and architects who were selected from 400 submissions. Conflux is a freewheeling and often ephemeral series of events that are organized around the idea of psychogeography or, as Conflux Co-founder and Director Christina Ray calls it, “finding beauty, surprises and wonder in city spaces.” In opening remarks artist and festival curator Sal Randolph further fleshed this out by quoting Situationist Guy Debord who said “the new beauty can only be a beauty of situations”. Keynote speaker Chris Carlsson, author of Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-lot Gardeners are Inventing the Future Today (www.nowtopia.org), put it this way: “when we do these projects it’s the moment when we’re fully engaged…City life has so much that is so possible but is so stunted as far as what could be.”

The dynamic, and sometimes changing schedule coalesced around the festival website at www.Confluxfestival.org and at the Conflux HQ, where lectures, meetings and projects took place, located this year at the Center for Architecture. While zones in the streets of New York were identified for events near the Center for Architecture, many were “off-piste” so to speak, such as those made by Artists Meeting, a group of fourteen artists who made nineteen pieces all over lower Manhattan (www.artistsmeeting.org), or Tango Intervention, organized by artist Ro Lawrence, which gave participants a chance to tango on the Brooklyn Bridge, creating an exciting and different kind of social space for the walkway (www.tangointervention.org).

Tango dancers on Brooklyn Bridge photo: Paula K. Lazsus

In fact, over the weekend lower Manhattan was deluged by a wave of both digital and analog art events, many of which would have been barely perceptible to an unsuspecting public. In a piece called The Pick Up, artists Eleanor Eichenbaum Eubanks and Heather L. Johnson collected personal stories that took place at specific NYC locations, embroidered these memories on over twenty vintage handkerchiefs, and placed the handkerchiefs at the locations where the stories had originally taken place. The idea of making an introduction by way of picking up a handkerchief was resonant in the event. Members of the public are invited to search for these site-specific works and pick them up, using the website map as a guide, but the artists warn, for example, that two handkerchiefs left near the Chelsea Hotel disappeared within a matter of minutes of the drop, making after-the-fact searches potentially futile (www.thepickup.org).

The Pick Up photo courtesy of H.L. Johnson/E.E. Eubanks

The anonymous British artists collective, CutUp, was in town and created two new works on downtown billboards at the corners of Grand and Wooster Streets, and West Broadway and Grand as well as an installation in the lobby of the Center for Architecture. Interested in reordering the urban and mediated landscape, their process for the lobby installation included removing a billboard surface whole, cutting it up into 1500 pieces, then reconfiguring to create a desolate landscape. The final image is then viewed through a television that is connected to a CCTV camera. (www.cutup.org)

Brian House, who works with database driven narratives and their intersection with public space and whose work has been incorporated into the curriculum at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, created an interactive video piece called Today is OK that could be viewed by anyone in the vicinity of the Center for Architecture with a cell phone that had Bluetooth capability.

The Federation of Students and Nominally or Unemployed Artists - $1k Giveaway, comprised of artists James Bachhuber, Angela Ferraiolo, Sam Freeman, Tamara Gubernat, Steve Lambert, Michael McCanne, Prescila Neri, Kahil Shkymba, Bob Smith, and Hal Weiss, set up a table over the weekend and gave out free artists grants to the public. Funds had been pooled together by the group from individual work activities leading up to the event. Anyone with a good idea for an art project could stand on line, describe it, put in an application and possibly receive instant funding. Soon local venders decided to join in and give things away as well.

1k Giveaway: receiving a grant application photo courtesy of Steve Lambert

1k Giveaway: a grant is awarded photo courtesy of Steve Lambert

Artist Lee Walton (www.leewalton.com) could be found on Saturday afternoon outside the Strand Bookstore where he was holding an “official” book-signing event. He had come prepared with a chair and a black Sharpie, was willing to sign anyone’s book and would stay as long as was necessary. Walton later gave a talk at the Center for Architecture where he explained how the Conflux Festival had influenced his work by introducing him to the notions of psychogeography. His work has since been commissioned by the likes of Art in General, Reykjavik Art Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. During his Sunday talk Walton passed out about twenty Starbucks Gift Cards explaining that only one of them had money on it which incited a roar of laughter from the audience and a comment from the crowd, “that’s brilliant!” Momentary problems with the internet connection during the talk prompted director and long time friend Christina Ray to call playfully from the back of the room, “That’s part of what we’re throwing at you! It’s called, Your Internet Has Been Dropped!”

Maps and map-making played a big role at Conflux. In a panel discussion that centered around projects that were inspired by the book, Cartography of Protest and Social Change, graphic designer and activist John Emerson, explained that he uses maps to visualize and challenge power and to navigate abstract relationships. He presented the map he created in collaboration with artist/writer Trevor Paglen of the CIA’s secret international flights that transported hostages for rendition. The map was posted on a Santa Monica billboard. Questions such as, “who makes the maps?” and “how do we map ourselves?” were put forward by panel participants as a means of unraveling assumed power structures.

John Emerson presents his map of secret CIA flights
photo: Jean Pike

Artist Lucas Murgida uses the way in which he earns his living, in this case cabinet-making, to make performances and interventions that engage the public and “their notions of service, perception, liberation, and derivations of power”. For this year’s Conflux Festival, in a project called 9/10, referring to the phrase “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Lucas constructed a cabinet that he then left on a New York City street with himself inside. On Sunday morning, during one of the talks, he was taken. Lucas’ flickr site provided a real time record of his experiences and can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucasmurgida/.

Lucas Murgida in 9/10
images courtesy of Lucas Murgida

As Christina Ray now steps away from the Conflux Festival after five years as director, participants and supporters are waiting eagerly to hear what will become of the festival. Conflux is currently in its fifth year with no corporate or public funding, running almost entirely on a grassroots, volunteer basis with only some in-kind donations.

At a time when freedom of the use of “public” space within the City is questionable due to big real estate and corporate interests and homeland security, the projects in the Conflux Festival come as a breath of fresh air, nudging at the edges of the control and ownership of communications systems, of our own habitual activities and the way we operate within the City’s systems. In these events we can see what isn’t normally seen, do what isn’t normally done, and learn about our expectations. Then, as Chris Carlsson says, we can “repopulate the technosphere and reappropriate what we do and why we do it”, a very exciting proposition indeed.

2008-09-08T21:45:00.005-05:00

J Mandle Performance
The Drawing Center’s 'The Big Draw'
The World Financial Center, NYC

by artist|architect Jean Pike

The collective, J Mandle Performance, enlivened the outdoor space of the World Financial Center yesterday with a fun but also poignant piece called hopscotch. Dancers created the underlying line structures (spirals) with cast chalk shoes that were later augmented by kids as they chalked pictures of “safe” and “dangerous” spaces, making a map for a more difficult hopping game. The kids didn’t hesitate for a millisecond as they dove into their task as artists.

The dancers wore highly structured gowns with phrases embroidered on them such as “if you see something”, well known to New Yorkers who are familiar with the MTA’s post-9.11 admonition, “if you see something, say something.”

This piece is based on the early French version of hopscotch called Escargot which is played along a spiral path, but Mandle was interested to note that hopscotch originated as a military training exercise in Britain during the Roman Empire and was used to build speed and agility.

About the collective’s work, Mandle says, “I believe in the necessity of public interventions to create small shifts in perception, causing people to turn from one realm of meaning to another.” (interview, artkrush, 09/2007) Hopscotch gave us pause on Saturday.

Jean Pike is an artist|architect living and working in New York City. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Yale School of Architecture. Her work has been shown at Viridian Artists Gallery in NYC, The California College of Arts and Crafts, The University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning Gallery, Tao Gallery in Hong Kong and Gallery 61 at The New York Institute of Technology. Her work is about translating between various forms of representation (abstract drawing, video) and three or four dimensional work (sculpture, architecture and installation). Coming from a background in dance, it is often about the physical sense of the body in space and time and how that relates to psychological and emotional states.

J Mandle Performance creates publicly accessible, often free, site-specific performances that seek to heighten the perception of everyday environments in both invited audiences and accidental passersby. Julia Mandle is the recent recipient of a NYFA Fellowship in Performance Art and numerous awards, including her earliest grant from Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, and later from The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, New York State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also been awarded recent artist?s residencies at Yaddo and Weir Farm Trust. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Williams College and a Master of Arts at the Gallatin School of New York University.Since founding J Mandle Performance Julia Mandle has pioneered the development of genre-defining, site-specific performance-installation. Named by the New York Times as "a promising force in New York's art and performance scene", Mandle seeks to help lead the expansion of performance art in meaningful directions. Hustle (2005) was included in an exhibition voted 'Best of 2005' by both Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times and Andrea K. Scott of Time Out NY. Julia has lectured at Rhode Island School of Design anf Pratt Institute, served on the Road Island Arts Council, and published her theories in several journals. She is the recipient of a NYFA Fellowship (2003), grants and awards from the NEA, NYSCA, and the Jerome and Greenwall Foundations, and residencies at Yaddo and Weir Farm Trust. Articles on Mandle's work have appeared in the New York Times, Time Out New York, the Village Voice, The New Yorker, Architecture Magazine, and NYFA Quarterly.

The Drawing Center has been a unique and dynamic part of New York City's cultural life since 1977. The only not-for-profit institution in the country to focus on the exhibition of drawings, it was established to demonstrate the significance and diversity of drawings throughout history, to juxtapose work by master figures with work by emerging and under-recognized artists, and to stimulate public dialogue on issues of art and culture. Historical Exhibitions focus on both acknowledged and under-recognized masters (such as Michelangelo, J.M.W. Turner, James Ensor, Marcel Duchamp, and Hilma af Klint) while Contemporary Exhibitions illuminate unexplored aspects of works by major living artists (such as Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois, Ellsworth Kelly, Anna Maria Maiolino, Ellen Gallagher, and Richard Tuttle), and Selections Exhibitions present innovative work of emerging artists who are contributing to new interpretations of drawing. In the Drawing Room, which was opened across the street from the main gallery in 1997, emerging and under-recognized artists are encouraged to create experimental, cross-disciplinary work and site-specific installations.

2008-08-29T17:56:00.009-05:00

Susannah Auferoth at wünderarts
Amherst Massachusetts

GIFT

by correspondent, Richard Lloyd

Susannah Auferoth's exhibition of new paintings opened recently at the wünderarts Gallery in Amherst Massachusetts. wünderarts is a new gallery in Western Mass. They have planted their flag in the ground and are staking out a territory all their own in the Pioneer Valley gallery scene. These new paintings are vigorous and if you live in the area I recommend you make your way to the gallery to see them in real time and place.

In her published statement about the work, Auferoth describes a process of layering thin washes of color one on top of the other. The results are beautiful. Auferoth is a colorist. She mentions Richard Diebenkorn, and Philip Taaffe as touchstones. Here she continues her own exploration of subtle color manipulation on an intimate and delicate plane. The paintings are deceptively simple in appearance. Three luminous bands of color run horizontally and form a foreground, background and a horizon line that bisects the painting in the center. The horizon line is a band unto itself and typically darker and more ominous.

When looking at these works my initial association is: landscape.

But whose landscape? The paintings are windows into the world we share today. What do you see? Is this the Thai beach sunrise for a twenty-something post-grad tourist? Or is it sunset on the killing fields of Darfur? Is it Hadley or Osetia? To my eye the paintings flicker between all these places.

Their size is important. They feel like scrolls that have been placed sideways on the wall. Long and horizontal yet small enough to be seen all at once. The events depicted here are ongoing, they haven't ended and the beginnings are far, far away. Think of what happens to what you see if you are moving fast enough - a smudge of colors all being pushed together in a fat line across your cones and rods; or when you stare at a blade of grass long enough and something similar happens. These paintings are peepshow slots into that world.

In some of the paintings you can see serialized images buried in the ground of the work behind the bands of horizontal color. This sets up an optical back-and-forth that animates the surface. What are these images? - and what are they doing there? Auferoth is dropping hints. It feels as though we are listening to a hushed conversation in the next-door motel room. The walls are thin but the actual words are still indistinct. You will need your intuitive channels opened up and humming.

These works speak to the traveler in us all. They are simultaneously hopeful and foreboding. I kept being thrown back and forth on an emotional Tilt-a-Whirl; one moment staring at the world - post-apocalypse, empty, lifeless and still, and at the next blink standing at the edge of a new world - full of nascent life, on the verge of becoming.

current exhibition through September 7

Susannah Auferoth, who has both a mechanical engineering and fine arts degree from UMASS Amherst, returned with her family to the Valley from New York City in 2001, and lives and works in a historic farmhouse in Hatfield that she and her husband have updated to suit their family's lifestyle. The artist works in her home studio where she creates paintings on paper and wood panel that explore color, form, and meaning. While their horizontal orientation and bands of color evoke more traditional land or waterscapes, the inclusion of repeated images or figures in Auferoth's paintings adds a layer of complexity and mystery while increasing the inherent abstraction of the works.

Richard Lloyd lives and works in Northampton Massachusetts.

wünderarts (wunderarts.com) is located at 383 Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts, is currently exhibiting GIFT, featuring paintings by Susannah Auferoth and Hillary Milens. The show, also marking the gallery’s one-year anniversary, opens with a reception on Saturday, August 2 from 6-9 p.m. and runs through September 7.

Hillary Milens, a graduate of UMASS’ Fine Arts program, and the Executive Director of the Amherst Community Art Center was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont. After concentrating mainly in sculpture while at UMass, she began experimenting with drawing and painting. An exploration of surface, texture, and color, her paintings are made by building up and breaking down the surface of wood by applying layers of paint, scraping into it and marking the surface with various tools and techniques. An interest in repetition, organic form and the meditative process are present in the paintings.

In addition, works by Italian artist Alberto Mancini based on his concurrent exhibition of paintings - I’ll tell you how the Sun rose - inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson, will be on view in the rear of wünderarts for the duration of GIFT. Mancini’s show, on view from August 2 – 10 at the Eli Marsh Gallery at Amherst College, is sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum, and includes 29 paintings inspired by Dickinson’s poetry. The exhibition is part of the 20th anniversary of the Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS), which holds its annual meeting in Amherst on the weekend of August 1. For more information on Mancini and the exhibition, please visit www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org.