Flux Factory is an artist-run not-for-profit organization that provides residencies and work spaces for 14 artists and organizes group exhibits in-house and worldwide as an arts collective. The premises include a gallery, a coworking office, a screen printing lab, and a wood shop. It also has a shared kitchen, library, and lots of great people. Residents benefit from an engaged and creative community, studio visits, monthly art salons, and exposure to a large community of creative collaborators who both maintain personal practices and also develop projects together. All residents have a voice in planning programming and sustaining the organization as a whole.

We’re looking for an artist, community member, and friend who enjoys being part of a wonderful and active social milieu, and has a willingness to work collaboratively and/or socially.

Applications are due on August 1st.

All rooms have big windows and range from $550-700 per month plus utilities. Square footages range from 120-207. Residents must find their own funding for their residency.

Apply here.

Ahhhh how things have a way of coming back around on themselves, and how art has a way of blurring the boundaries of itself, life, and entertainment.

Socrates Sculpture Park opened up their 2010 summer film series, Outdoor Cinema, last week with a screening of the “road movie on a river”, Flood Tide directed by Todd Chandler. The movie was a “remix” in the director’s own words, since it was specially adapted to feature a live score by Dark Dark Dark:

Genius! At times their score was seamless, to the point where I was watching a film and the music started to effect me in such a way that I had to remind myself that it was live, and I had to glance over at Dark Dark Dark on the adjacent stage to confirm that indeed they were playing the music I was hearing. And as always, set against the backdrop of Roosevelt Island and the Upper East Side of Manhattan makes any trip to Outdoor Cinema a blast!

And then this really wonderful moment occurred where one of Swoon’s Switchback Sea boats, floating down the Hudson, was projected onto the blow-up screen and reminded me of 2008 September 7th when I took a similar shot of another boat from that same armada floating down the East River, passing via the same park I was now sitting in – watching a filmic representation of that similar moment! Funny how life does that to you, eh?

if you’re near Union Square Plaza (“U.S.P.”) on Fridays, Saturday or Sunday look for this guy Alex somewhere around the perimeter, where artists-folk setup shop. He’ll cut out one of these silhouette portraits of you or any head off the top of his head for only $5. He’ll date it, sign it, and affix the paper cutout to a paper ticket for you to string wherever you want!

Genius work, and the detail is amazing – he did my likeness in about 7 minutes!

paper_portraits twitter

Where to begin?

This is one of those megaposts that makes me sad, because it reminds me of how much activity just happened, and how poof, it’s all gone now. I’m still nervous with excitement – okay maybe that’s the late-night coffee talking – and unclear what exactly to say other than if you missed it, you seriously missed it!

It’s incredibly difficult to explain in a blog post what Maker Faire is: what it excites and instills in people, and how it operates. The best way to explain it is to participate in it, to see it live, and to flow through its channels. Maker Faire isn’t a thing that tells its Makers what to do. Instead, Maker Faire is whatever the Makers make of it! There’s a point at which the floodgates open and the crowds come rushing in, sure, but more-so than that there’s a point when the team who put it together kind of give it up, and let the Makers run the show! It’s really remarkable, really incredible, not something you find much of anymore. So much of society elsewhere is “curated”, orchestrated, composed. Maker Faire is LIFE. It’s fluid and organic and sometimes it doesn’t work – and when shit breaks down, you understand it that much better, and you hack it back into place!

And perhaps the most impressive element of Maker Faire was how it natively procured a platform of dialogue that is lost in so many other facilities. You could easily walk up to a complete stranger and ask them a question – be it technical or conceptual – about their project and get a response. They were there to talk, to exchange, and to expand the minds of those attending, to open up new possibilities through language and presentation. Here is this thing, yes, but now I will tell you here is why this thing is here! Ah-hah! That’s when it gets really interesting.

I really want to mention and caption each and every single image with its own essay, but that simply might not be possible. This page will never load and this server will crash if I tried to load all 400+ quality photos I took at this amazing event. Instead I’ll post a couple dozen now, and I hope to mention a couple more choice images and projects in the days ahead; because it’s pretty clear to me that as I twitch and type that I’m completely overwhelmed with the mass of experience I just encountered, I’m looking for a way to unload, and I want you to participate in the tidal wave of awesomeness that Maker Faire has to offer:

this is like one of those centrifugal spinning solar system devices, only GIANT and DIY!

a Make workshop about marketing your hand-made products

I gave the PaperBot one of my blue ribbon Editor’s Choice awards. Here’s a video showing the PaperBot in motion:

Kids having so-much-fun in the Young Makers building

Also, kids and adults alike could learn how to solder for just $1 – and you actually made a blinking LED device!

embedded arduino lilypad in fabric – wearable electronics

giant… cardboard… robot… AWESOME!

Madagascar Institute – from Brooklyn – Invents The Wheel at Maker Faire! I have yet to take this thing for a spin!

a custom bike wheel with embedded LEDs that display images as you cycle! in this case, the Matrix code.

a crafty theatre set for teaching middle schoolers the principles of stage lighting design and sequence-programming (cue calls, basically), driven by a MaxMSP patch with iCamera and servo-lights. Brilliant!

Angus operating the ShopBot… HI Angus!

hi Tramaine… Shouldn’t You Be… (Tramaine was the resident sign-painter and made some lovely hand-painted signs chock-full of info’mation)

lots of crafters at Maker Faire!

glowing boxes of DIY-whats-it-dos!

a solar charging station, reminiscent of gas stations of yore, for you to recharge your mobile devices with sun-ergy

learning basic smithing skills, taught by Oakland’s The Crucible

the Midway fairegrounds. And yes, that’s a rocket in the background. And yes, it’s 40′ tall. And yes, you could go in it. And YES, it’s capable of space exploration, they had all the knobs and dials and viewports to prove it!

Like I say, if you missed out on this you missed out on one of the most exciting events in this country. That’s saying a lot, but it’s also true that there was something for everyone at Maker Faire – from kids to adults to hackers to solar enthusiasts to gardeners to pyro-maniacs to music and performance. And it was all Do-It-Yourself! See you next year – I can’t wait!

More pictures on my full Flickr set!

“School of the Future is a project about what a school can be.”

For the month of July a bunch of artists are constructing a free school in a park in north Brooklyn; collaborating with architecture graduate students from Columbia University; and engaging the surrounding community to bring them free classes and workshops on subjects they want to learn, or conversely, teach! There’s a running list of current learning deficits and you are free to suggest your own – just visit the School of the Future website or visit Sgt. Dougherty Park and fill out one of the slips and drop it in the yellow box!

the School is currently running a kickstarter campaign (yes, another!) to raise a measly $1000 to help buy materials to build the school. C’mon help us un-learn education!

what do a bike parade, instrument making, a dance floor and a choir of YOU have in common?

Absolutely nothing. That’s what makes contemporary life so exciting! Action-Club artists will be leading a costumed bike parade from north Brooklyn to your and my favorite low-cost salvage surplus building materials supply warehouse: Build It Green – B.i.G.! – at 5pm. Once there I suspect musical instruments will be fabricated from… low-cost salvage surplus building materials. And then at 5:30 a one-song album recording and simultaneous music video and dance floor will ensue!

An anonymous tip suggests the song will be a foot-stompin’ classic.

simple in its execution: just do it; but complex due to its commitment to time, and depth: the meaning not of one image but of 999 and all the readings in-between.

it’s a shame his website isn’t linked-to better. Then again it’s a hodge podge of links (including an expired geocities link) and thus pretty difficult to navigate or figure out the meaning behind his work. But who am I to talk my crap is all over the place too!

Maker Faire New York 2010 Open Call is now… Open!

This has been in the works for a long time now, and I’m really happy – beyond words – to say that I’m a part of it!

If you know me you know I love culture. I love events. I love people and artists and crowds and activities and mobs and spectacles and life. Loving is the easy part though.

The best culture is D.I.Y. culture, and that means for it to happen, we have to make it happen.

WORLD Maker Faire NY is taking place later this year at the New York Hall of Science, and will provide one of the most exciting, dynamic and fruitful make it happen environments that New York City has ever seen – at least in my opinion, and during my near-6 years here.

If you Make something, I want you involved.

If you teach how-to something, I want you involved.

If you instruct-a-thon, I want you involved.

This IS the WORLD’S Largest D.I.Y Festival!!

IF YOU ARE A MAKER THEN NOW IS YOUR TIME TO SHINE!

Do you DIY:

3d printers
circuit bending
wind power
dorkbot
marching band
compost
arduino boards
origami
steampunk
LEDs
beer/wine
mycology
game-makers
telescopes
chocolate
permaculture
rube golberg
MIDI
scrap booking
book-making
silkscreens
photography
kinetic arts
circus
ceramics
beekeeping
radio transmission
CNC milling
model railroads
non-profit arts
hydro power
breadmaking
catapults
solar anything!

If YES to any of the above, then I WANT YOU INVOLVED!

How to submit a proposal? CLICK THIS LINK – It’s a VERY SIMPLE form, not complex or convoluted. It will require you to make an O’Reilly account, that’s just so we can keep track of your data and contact you through our backend if necessary.

Please please submit your proposal sooner than later. The Open Call will stay open for approximately 7-8 weeks but we are tight on resources and will start allocating them as soon as the proposals arrive.

I want to be accessible throughout the success of this project, so if you have any questions, comments, concerns, ideas or general thoughts please feel free to contact me. I’ll publish my details below, or you can access me through various social networks that I’m involved with.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading and I really want you to be involved!

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL TO MAKER FAIRE NY 2010

CONTACT:
email: nick [at] geekathon [dot] net
Twitter: @nicknormal
my Facebook profile
my Flickr account

…

Do you want to help spread the word about Maker Faire NY? Great!

Blog about it! Tweet about it! Or send people to this blog to talk with me or use this shortlink to send makers straight to the proposal form:

http://bit.ly/mfny2010

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

to see more of what MAKE culture is all about, visit

MAKEzine
Craftzine

or to see Maker Faire in other cities, including San Francisco and Detroit visit the main

MAKER FAIRE website

The Ocean of Blood, a sub-project of the Swimming Cities, are having a silent auction tonight to raise funds to sail 5 boats down the Ganges River in India. Here’s a snippet from the event listing:

The SWIMMING CITIES art collective is holding our first art auction fundraiser for our upcoming sculptural boat and performance project on the Ganges River, in India, 2010. The event will include the unveiling of the first finished boat prototype, an 18′x8′ hand-crafted stainless steel catamaran, powered by a motorcycle driven paddle wheel.

My “Thought Island: Active” will be available in the auction (I’m not in the artist list but it’ll be there, so will I after 9). Here are the event deets and map:
7:00 – 11:00 p.m. – art auction
11:00 – 1:00 a.m. – after (dance) party
$10 door
@ 56 Walker Street, NYC
(facebook event link with more info)

UPDATE: full photo set on my Flickr

Some complications on my blog server meant I didn’t get around to posting these images until now, but the moment is still valid as the Brucennial is on view until the 12th of April. Hell between now and then I plan to travel a couple thousand miles and telecommute around the globe many times over, all while plenty of art lives in a storefront on West Broadway – point is go see it if you’re near, it’ll be there. I wouldn’t say it’s worth going out of your way to go see, but then I don’t say that about much these days. Most art, especially these smorgasbord-style showcases to me are a dime a dozen. There’s a lot of artists and a lot more art out there than one person can ever know or see. That’s not to downplay the importance of the event or the art, because there are some really smart pieces in the show, and chances are in the next six weeks you’ll be near Canal and W. Broadway anyways, so just keep it on your radar and go see it! But these pictures are from the opening night.

Of course the other main reason to go to these events is the crowd. I go for my people, and to meet or see new people, and to experience the vibe. It’s less to me about the art (you never get to see it all anyways), and more about the sea of personalities and joy of us taking over a (temporary) space for a limited duration of time. So meet Man Bartlett, Marin Tockman and Ian Montgomery (our hearts are fluttering, btw):

Eventually it got so packed that those who arrived fashionably late got stuck out in the impending Snowicane blizzard-storm. And yeah, all the Miller High Life was gone by the time they did get in (about a 1 hour 30 minute line!).

Oh yeah, there were outdoor plen-air porta-potties. Brilliant! Here’s a view from inside one of the stalls (I can multi-task, as I was pissing at the same time):

If you can make it out tonight, in just less than 11 hours from now, will be Flux Factory’s inaugural exhibition, HOUSE BROKEN. We’ve been working since last April converting a former greeting card warehouse into a workable arts centre. We’re opening with over 80 artists’ installed works and performances. It’s going to be a mad house! These pictures don’t begin to show the half of it. The place is chock full of art almost to the point that you don’t know what is art and what is part of the building! Artists have designed our doorbell, tiled a bathroom, built chandeliers, installed NO SMOKING signs, and laser-etched kitchenware, designed table cloths, painted pipes! SO MUCH ART!

And yes, we have birds! In an aviary!

I know I should be posting my “art” online more often. I often gloss over the process of scanning and resizing and uploading and tagging because there’s only so much time. But this drawing is especially meaningful to me if for no other reason than I think it’s a really good drawing! I also had a really nice discussion at Heathers with some Turkish bird whose name I can’t remember right now – has a C and an O in it – about the accessibility and immediacy of drawing. Which was nice because the conversation emerged after I made this drawing, in a sketchbook in my pocket, and my mind was already buzzing around these very ideas: about how an artist can be anywhere at anytime and drawing is always at their dispose. Including sitting at the bar by one’s lonesome, surrounded by young hip people – all it takes is pen and paper. I plan on donating this drawing to Heathers the next time I’m in the East Village, so if you happen to be there (everybody goes there at least once I reckon) give it an ogle, and salivate as I did over this Whisky at Heathers (Maker’s Mark, Neat), pen on paper, 2010.

Last summer when I was assisting with the renovation and remodeling of the current Flux Factory arts & residency centre, I removed a couple artifacts from the building that might have otherwise got built over, taken down or trashed without consideration. One of those artifacts was a “NO SMOKING” sign absolutely covered with white splatter paint, and aged to a yellow like a 35-year smoker’s teeth. I was attracted to the comical font, and the remnants of wear and tear on the surface of the sign. For Flux Factory’s upcoming inaugural show, my piece will be to replicate this NO SMOKING sign in silkscreen on sheet metal and install them throughout the building. As well as being a site-specific piece, the signs double as legal signage, since the organization is an office with commercial zoning the signs are a must. I plan on selling the works as limited edition (number yet to be determined), so if you’re interested in NO SMOKING your establishment, house or office, I reckon $10-$20/each once I price my materials and labor (3 color on sheet metal, with holes drilled for hanging).

Tonight is Flux Factory’s end-of-year fundraiser featuring a wonderful collector’s edition box set of multiples by some hot shit artists including yours truly. The entire list of artists is impressive: Brandstifter, Bread & Butter Collective, Andrea Dezso, Kerry Downey, Heather Jones, Aya Kakeda, Miwa Koizumi, Simone Meltesen, Nick Normal, Ward Shelley, and Swoon. That’s not all! There will also be goody bags available with edition works from: Parfyme, Paula Castro, and Georgia Muenster. ALSO! There will be audible entertainments and visual screenings by the following: April March, Adira Amram and Nick Jones, Marie Losier, Nick Yulman, and Sxip Shirey! OH YEAH! And AVE BFF DJs laurendarling and soh luvlee will be spinning throughout the night!

…

AND! there’s an Open Bar and cocktails served all night, care of Campari, Vine wines, and local food distributors (big ups to all of them!).

It’s a $20 suggested donation but with that line-up and hot art available for sale, it’ll definitely be the hottest thing going on between now and tomorrow! See you there, I hope!

Here are some sneak preview shots of our installation currently in progress:

my working prototype for the box set – a facsimile box of JT21/T27 Arrow brand staples

preparing the art for the boxes (seen on floor, right and drawers in back-right area)

Nick Yulman’s computer interface for his solenoid musical devices!

the stage!

the box set to-be! nice install.

The LEDs4N00Bs workshop was a real success, and thanks everyone who attended, built toy-boxes, and to Julius for giving a really wonderful first workshop at our new space in Long Island City.

I introduced the workshop and then Julius gave a 30-odd minute presentation about his art, and a little history and science of LEDs. We followed with the art/toy making session, which lasted for around 1.5 hours!

We weren’t able to acquire some .5W solar panels like in the image above, so we were relegated to 9V batteries which can be easily replaced, and combined with a switch are able to extend the longevity of both the battery and the LEDs. Our kits required: 9V battery, a pre-fabricated clip to draw power from the battery, a switch, LED and a resistor. From this people made some pretty interesting toys!

Visitors to Flux Factory were greeted by an evil flamingo! A working example of some found objects, scrap wood and simple LED hacking.

The lecture and presentation, Julius talking about his art.

A small sample of a complete circuit powered by a AA battery.

Then the hacking begins! Bit boxes, batteries, LEDs, soldering station!

Blue ‘bots! I like the switch hack: a hole drilled into the case so no need to open/close the lid.

Another hack in the works, a modded Obama chia-pet!

If only turning on democracy was this easy!

The circuit: you can see the negative wire (red) goes to the right eye, and the wire from the switch continues to the left eye and sequences like an eyeglass bridge.

And one of my favorite aspects of any workshop or classroom environment, the mess! The aftermath is always chaotic, but evidences the activity of life:

more work by Julius can be found at his website: http://www.urgu.de/

EAF (Emerging Artist Fellowship), not to be confused with EFA below, is Socrates Sculpture Park’s program that provides artists with short-term residencies at the city’s only outdoor sculpture park with this group show opportunity. It’s always a blast, there’s always good art to see, and when the weather is nice the public come out in full force and really make a day of it!

The thing to note this year is there’s a lot of replication going on in sculpture @ Socrates. The replicated suggestive construction site and the to-standard MTA subway stop staircase are prime examples. Even the giant foam whale and red-resin city use pre-existing models or forms to build their art upon. Just a mention that many of the artists at EAF are thinking alike.

Arctic Book Club @ Flux Factory/EFA

Arctic Book Club was a collaboration between Flux Factory and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts – the show took place at EFA’s space on 39th street in Manhattan, and the inspiring author behind this show, Tété Michel Kpomassie, was even in attendance!

Central Booking

Central Booking is a new book arts gallery located in DUMBO on Front Street. Great place, lots of paper and book arts to look at. This was their grand opening, and it was packed! I really recommend making a trip to see this show, this space, lots of art to look at!

I’m participating in this year’s Conflux Festival. I’m collaborating with friend and fellow artist Martina Mrongovius. We’ll be fabricating the Holoscape, a 3-dimensional real-time user-generated diorama, constructed from images of the festival itself which particpants of the festival will be uploading and tagging to social media services such as Flickr or Twitter.

I don’t want to put too much information on my blog here, because there’s an entire website I’ve coded just for the project: http://holoscape.net/

But just in case, here are the directions:

Jay-Z’s forthcoming Blueprint 3 album (due respectively I’m sure on the 11th of September), and more specifically his album cover and track listing have been getting a fair amount of attention lately. To meme the analysis even further, his track listing even received it’s own “news” article, and searching “track listing” in google returns a thumbnail of Jay-Z first and foremost (above).

How meta!

While his track listing design is okay, it’s not very original or interesting really, I’ve seen much better designs of information handling than this. But I’d really like to focus your attention on his album cover:

At first, one goes, “Wow!” One should. It’s an interesting image.

An ensemble of sound instruments and equipment, we see everything from boards and mixers to old-world and new-world phonograph players, as well as enough speakers and amplification to crack the foundation in my building’s basement, all topped off with an accordion, how quaint. Everything is painted white except for the keyboard keys, the drum cushions, the record on the crank-style phonograph, the electric-style phonograph arm, and those rubber feet on the speaker head. The 3 bars in the middle are like roman numerals turned sideways, and are oriented like a “stack” – this is the final album of his trilogy after all, so it’s only appropriate that one think of each album as building upon the previous release, with this thankfully being the final Blueprint.

The composition is intriguing, all the objects arranged into a towering mish-mash. And the three bars are a unique way of expressing the third installment. However neither are original or even creative, and in my opinion they’re outright stolen!

Okay okay maybe all the instruments pictured were the instruments necessary to produce the album, but I seriously doubt that Jay-Z is that conceptual in the execution of his album covers. And maybe he thought himself novel in the adaptation of three bars to signify his almost-architectural record-naming scheme. But as I’m about to point out both practices are quite deeply rooted in contemporary art.

For starters there are the three bars: transparent & equal (although not equidistant). Overlayed, they show the world behind while masking it (I just noticed the violin! That’s what I mean by mask!). And they quite clearly resemble the work of Donald Judd, a minimalist artist who while he worked with wood, steel and concrete is usually known for his transparent, at times reflective, Plexiglas boxes that were arranged in stacks and mounted on walls:

Their stack creates a type of tower, and their verticality makes you wish yourself taller, shooting into the sky! As noted, the one difference between Judd’s work and Jay-Z’s cover design is that Judd’s work is equidistant, that is the distance between the boxes is exactly equal to the height of the boxes themselves, creating a type of democracy between the objects and the wall or background they reside upon.

A few more examples to show you Judd’s rigour of line and his creation of boxes, spanning several decades:

Then there’s the white towering ensemble, or assemblage rather. It’s a direct reference (and poor execution I might add) to a truly pioneering artist: Louise Nevelson, a female born in Russia in 1899 whose family emigrated to the US in 1905. Someone whom to this day is still undervalued and under-acknowledged (see how short her wikipedia article is, especially compared with Judd’s). She eventually moved to NYC in 1920 where she would live until her death in 1988, and during her time made assemblages, or physical collages, from discarded objects that she found on the streets of this magnificent city. Truly: trash art! And while her work was made from trash, and was simple in its execution (everything – EVERYTHING – painted white or black), her work contained an inherent complexity and depth that few of her time could rival or generally even muster the courage to put out there:

And this is why I look at contemporary art. It’s so far ahead of the curve. And this is why I’m so uninformed by pop culture. I mean, I’m sure Jay-Z’s album will be good. He has some mega producers backing him up, and has all the right (some would say too many) “featuring” artists by his side. But the real testament will be in 20, 30 years, if Jay-Z’s album cover will still hold as much ooompf, ooopla or ahhhhh as it does today. Probably not. Whereas already the work of Judd and Nevelson, 20, 30, even 40 years after its making in some instances, is still as strong as ever and will in another 20 years still be as vital, necessary and important to understanding culture.

FRIDAY:

pretty straightforward that. nice flyer. I think I know this Ryan too. Sarah says it’s one of her friends and I know a number of her Ryan friends, so I reckon I have an 88% chance of previous encounter. Which makes it all the more exciting for me, putting art-to-face.

SATURDAY:

Bedford Avenue Gallery is pleased to announce the Zach Bruder’s first solo show , opening August 1st.

Zach Bruder will show his Forecast series with several other works on paper. Working in the gap between history and figuration, Bruder appropriates both text and imagery ranging from Civil War generals to auction catalogs. These images, disembodied and stunted, join to make a strangely poignant body of work exploring mankind’s urge to commemorate itself.

Zach Bruder, born in 1984, lives and works in New York.

BEDFORD AVE. GALLERY
SAT. AUG 1ST (7PM – 9PM) and SUN. AUG 2ND (12PM – 7PM)
177 NORTH 10TH ST. SUITE G (BTWN BEDFORD AND DRIGGS)
BROOKLYN, NTY 11211
(917) 364-3809

[via Fubiz]

and poor Staten Island, what body fluid must it be composed of to make it on the map?

via Cosmic Art Gallery

Spindle 7 is an ongoing performance in which I bring my drop spindle on the #7 train during its run in Queens.  As I spin wool, I invite other passengers to comment and participate, teaching them how to spin and giving out homemade spindles and fleece along the way.  Part counterpoint to the sea of iPods, iPhones and other electronic gadgets on the train, part conversation starter among the diverse communities who use the #7, and 100% fun, Spindle 7 is funded, in part, by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

So there’s that phrase ‘part counterpoint to the sea of iPods, iPhones and other electronic gadgets”, and frankly it disturbs me.

As a matter of fact, this email about happenings in the city I read on my electronic gadget, a phone which downloads emails while I’m walking so I can read them while I wait for and ride the train. It’s how I multitask. This way I can stay informed of as many events and activities in the city as possible.

And I’m concerned with what is implied by ‘part counterpoint’. That phrase imposes faith in an idea that proclaims everyone on the subways are e-Zombies and somehow gadgets do not Connect Us.

Case in point: when in the history of NYC’s subways have you ever seen anyone carry a photo album onto the subway and share it with their fellow straphangers? When? I’m talking analog color-negative prints behind those sticky clear cellophane pages in 3-ring binders. Have you ever seen that on the subway, do you ever think that existed? Could you imagine someone pulling out their point-n-shoot film camera and wanting to share their celluloid film with their mates, as they pop open the back only to expose the film and lose their memories. Sounds pretty ridiculous, right?

Now, conversely, how often have you looked at someone’s digital photos, shared memories, discussed collectively-shared moments thanks to your gadget containing documentation of said memories? Sure a parent may carry a single solitary picture of their child in their wallet but I currently carry 200 images of some of my best friends and moments in my gadget.

‘Part counterpoint’ reminds me of groups of people that are antagonistic towards sub-groups of other cultures simply because they don’t take part in that culture, and more often than not because they do not understand it.

I understand that MOST people employing these gadgets don’t use them the way I do, don’t connect to networks the way I do or multitask to the same mechanisms I do, but ARTISTS need to stop positing their ideas in opposition to a popularly held belief or format. Tell me actually what are you doing! Don’t tell me you’re doing this in ‘counterpoint’ to that, actually tell me WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? I’m tired of artists, Artists (with a capital A it appears as though you have more Responsibility), assuming a critical position of technology or groups of people that use technologies as somehow being un-connected to their analog world. Tell me less about that and more about you.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly dislike people listening to iPods on the subway. You miss announcements (I saw that happen yesterday), you miss people telling you you’re beautiful, and you’re unaware when someone yells, “There’s a Gorilla on the train! RUN!” But artists need to be more particular with the language they choose, else it comes across as a type of plebean antagonism.

And no I do not know this artist.

And yes I do love the 7 train.

brilliant. I think Warhol definitely got the best feel of the bunch.

Well, frankly, no way in hell could this work depict me in any way!

Of course it resonates with me. Hell it speaks directly to me! I got a lot of shit!

Unfortunately for me, this would be only page 1 of 316! No way could I cram everything I own on one piece of paper, unless that piece of paper was the size of a football pitch. But then it might just be easier to transport everything and simply lay it all out, rather than attempt to visually depict it for viewing inside a gallery. To be honest I’m a wee skeptical of work like this. After all this piece was fabricated with ‘Pen, paper, scotch tape, white out’ – are those materials depicted in the work? What about your shoelaces; are they not separate from your shoes? I just bought a pair of shoelaces this past week. Does that mean right now they are their own autonomous object, but as soon as I thread them into my kicks they lose their identity to the more-prominent apparel? Actually, I can guarantee you the shoelaces I bought will forge their own identity!

I’m just about sick though of seeing British artists interpreting the London Underground tube map. Even though Simon Evans uses woven paper to convey his message and that’s, well, that’s awesome! Still, Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear just about did it for me, and I don’t feel the need to routinely recycle this idea, no matter how witty and clever your station names are (Architects Rectify Their Bodies). Plus Patterson’s work was circa 1992! It seems to be something that plagues any British artist named Simon I reckon.

His works like Green City are what really do it for me however.

Very large-scale and nearly borderless drawings using pen, scotch tape and correction fluid on paper, an aerial depiction of a sprawling city fabricated in Simon’s mind – I think I see London, I think I see Toronto, I think I see NYC housing projects. And the Green suggestive of architectural/environmental trends of this era. But wouldn’t it simply be easier to paint everything green? That would be a Green City after all.

I recognize the police officers as British by design (those neon jackets are hard to forget) but I don’t know anything about the event or the mechanized monster machine.

Anybody?

Update: artist Craig Atkinson informed me this is La Machine from the 2008 Liverpool Biennial. thanks Craig!

Supplement -

another image of this amazing machine in situ:

The morning offered a trip over to see some houses converted into domicile-scale installations, the houses possibly being unsuitable for living after Katrina. These works were all organized by KK Projects under the auspices of the Prospect 1 New Orleans biennale, so it was my first taste (surprise!) of the art fair. By far my favorite, the one that gripped me immediately, not only because of its visual appeal but especially because of its audience participation and interaction was Mel Chin’s safe house:

One enters through this bank vault door which locks shut at night to view thousands upon thousands upon increasing thousands of hand-drawn $100 bills on templates, by passers-by, participants, and New Orleans area kids and children. Talking with the assistant coordinator to the project Amanda Wiles, she suggested that they were attempting to collecting $300m in these hand-fabricated bills which would be delivered via armored truck to some Congressional body in exchange for the real funds needed to reduce lead levels in the soil and environment of New Orleans which ranks as one of the most lead-polluted cities in the US, and it’s well documented that lead poisoning in children can lead to behaviorial problems and learning disabilities. Still, $300m, that requires drawings by 3million students or participants, or approximately 1 in every 100 Americans! Whoo. That’s a lot of art.

[Visit Fundred.org if you're an artist or educator to see about bringing this project to your peers or students]

What’s difficult to digest is I know you’re thinking ‘wow that sounds like a lot of money to reduce lead content in soil’ right. Didn’t we just pass a bill to spread around $700billion to the financial sector, auto makers, and other industries? Isn’t $300million less than 1/3 of $1billion? Where does that bailout money really go?

Anyhow, adjacent house-installations included some crazy detritus-strewn environments which I was told the previous month contained some elements of water or pools or something which would have better aluded to a post-Katrina environment. Or something like that. Hey, things were crazy:

Quite frankly though I think this city does a better job – as a city, as if the city were an organism – of defining that post-Katrina space, and it doesn’t have to be blunt or overblown, many times in fact it’s subtle, silent, minimal (and beautiful):

that hole up there… is the whole building empty? hollowed? drafty?

The evening began afresh with a jazz band in a jazz bar, total New Orleans style:

Life immitates art, they look like the painting on the wall behind them!

Stumbled upon some car that had many thousand pieces of bric-a-brac and kitsch stuck to it. As well as some text which I was told had to do with saving vampires from themselves; some preachy bit of words about how eternal life is a really bad thing and vampires should repent then somehow commit suicide or give up their souls or something so they can become mortal and die peacefully. But it was the stuff that caught my eye:

(rear-view no longer working!)

Makes me wonder if they worked on the automobile in silent, behind closed doors in a garage, until it was deemed worthy of being seen, or if it was a gradual development, some watches here, a spider-man here, some homeboy figures there, and is it considered done or continually being worked and reworked?

And again, this city photographs beautifully at night:

I saw this piece several months back at Artists Space in NYC (sure enough there’s a photo in my Flickr). A really engaging piece that asked WHAT KIND OF HOUSE DOES A MAN WHO HAS LIVED IN A 6′ X9′ BOX FOR OVER 30 YEARS DREAM OF?

As it is completely pissing outside I’m tidying up some e-business and stumbled upon old links and saved data that I horded months ago and packed away for a rainy day. First I found a downloaded mov file (which I’ll direct you to in a bit) which triggered my memory of the exhibition. A quick google search returned the House That Herman Built site, which I wasn’t previously aware of. That mov file, a CAD video with narration by Herman can be found at this link. As I sifted through the website I was also unaware that artist Jackie Sumell’s piece is also currently on view at the Prospect One Biennial in New Orleans! I’ll be visiting New Orleans very soon, so whereas I usually end up missing about 99 in 100 biennials I am really looking forward to this one – and Herman if you’re in town (he grew up in N.O.) I’d like to buy you a drink!

I’ll be visiting New Orleans sometime in early January and I’m psyched to see this city, as unfortunate as the situation is – although I don’t think I’ll quite have the lenses embedded into my eyes that Relle sees the world through. (I think there are things you can ingest to achieve these effects however)

[compare with Robert Polidori's After the Flood images]

Across the street from what appears to be a community home for old foggies or some sort of hotel for traveling shoe salesmen, and sandwiched between multiple abandoned buildings and an auto body & paint store and a Jiffy Lube, located inside a highly discreet brick building typical of your Manchester Avenue and South Kingshighway Boulevard intersection, you’ll currently find the best damn show in town (clarify: the brick is discreet, the building itself is discreet, the monstruous vinyl high-contrast diamond-encrusted basketball banner is NOT discreet!). You have 10 days left to see it.

White Flag Projects is a gallery that was definitely not here the last time I visited St. Louis (sure enough they began operations in Sept 06, I was last passing through in August of that same year – although I remember reading about them in Megan and Murray’s blog from their time in the STL). The press release claims this is their most ambitious exhibition to date. If it wasn’t I’d be scared! Anything more than Brock Enright’s impressive array of scatological object installations and my eyes might be bleeding.

The space itself is gorgeous, a huge cavity of a space with just the right amount of Industrial Light & Magic: huge I-beams overhead, gorgeous natural light flooding in, an iron spiral staircase, an impressive back area office space. The works. Very impressive to see a space of this magnitude and professionalism set up camp in St. Louis, especially in an area of the city otherwise overlooked and overshadowed by car traffic that is usually only ‘passing through’.

First thought, How the hell did all of this stuff get in here? Visions of Enright (the name of my middle school in north St. Louis) driving cross-country with a Ryder truck full of football helmets, fake blood, tin-foil, mechanical gadgetry and his own sadistic version of Tin man come to mind.

Second thought, What the hell is going on with all of this stuff!? Closer inspection of a hand-drawn map of the installation gives nearly every object or array of objects in the space its own title. Over 70 works with titles ranging from “Tin man holding himself up”, “Punchy face”,”Log used to throw through wall to reveal a girl in a rabbit suit masturbating” or “Collection of things that come after you” suggest Enright’s fascination with the interstitial space of sex & violence, of nightmares and the images and signs used to represent them. Others are suggestive of Enright’s working methods, in that he gathers work as he moves along and around, culling work over time: “St. Louis bread” was clearly conceived, bought, and installed-abandoned during his time in the city; “Debris from 8 events” is clearly borne from past performances, detritus from old work given a new life.

Third thought, What do you find yourself attracted to? A punching bag? A pants-less plastic doll bent over staring back at you? Black & white photocopies of brains mounted on cardboard? A shoddy shelving unit nearly collapsed and wrapped in tin-foil, possibly the only thing keeping it standing? Or those almost-unifying objects, the seeds of some sort with dozens of razor blades jammed into each one, and mounted all around the place, like a raging virus enlarged for us to see or a latent grenade’s potential vectors of explosion. In writing about the show, you’ve learned a little bit about what I’m attracted to!

You have 10 days left to draw from and leave your own imprint in the show. Literally. The entire room is coated in dust from the construction of this arena of phantasmagoria, and footprints are everywhere, including that of a lady (I presume) wearing what appear to be size 13 stilettos.

visit White Flag Projects

[and thanks to Juan from Boots Contemporary, another great non-profit on Cherokee Street, for pointing me in the right direction!]

My friend, former roomie, fellow artist and all-around geezer, Anthony Rhoads, has a 9-minute short “Without Your Permission” in the New Filmmaker’s screening this upcoming Wednesday, 26 November at Anthology Film Archives in NYC. His work will be in the animation festival and short film program, which consists of nearly all-new directors (all but one actually) who have never screened at AFA before (that’s 17 new directors!). So if you happen to be in town next week, aren’t traveling out (or as New Filmmakers put it Hate the Holidays) and are looking to see some film by unlikely directors, head down to AFA. It’s easy to remember their location: 32 2nd Avenue @ 2nd Street.

It’s between $5-$8 for admission, and starts promptly at 6pm.

And as someone who’s gotten a sneak preview of the piece Anthony will be screening, I can say that his work alone is worth the cost of admission. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, and find yourself shouting ‘replay!’

Currently sitting in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, have been here since 6am assisting Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese – two Brooklyn-based artists – to realize their public installation, Main Street Meltdown.

Even though the available WiFi is sweet I don’t have much time to write. So I’ll just post some quick images and captions so I can get back to taking more images. I’ll write up a more comprehensive post laters.

around 7am, the tables are setup which will become the plinth for the 1600 lbs. of ice sculpture that will get loaded on top.

Marshall Reese, planning the next move.

Dressing the table.

preparing the ice trays

master ice sculptor Okamoto from Long Island City, preparing the base.

ECONOMY ice letters laid out

the E goes up

ECONOMY gets pissed on, rain ensues.

ice drip

interviewing people

while I was away at lunch, the EConomy collapsed!

ice detailed

sent in via Shalin. thanks!

a little research reveals it is from this artist. (and was posted on Eyebeam’s reBlog some months back)

I’m lost, tell me. Oh wait, nothing.

Google have implemented an ‘artist themes’ capability for your iGoogle home page, which doesn’t really skin your page so much as simply replace the negative white space surrounding the iGoogle banner with a background image of your choice. It’s not terribly original, and the text can become difficult to read without the ability to modify (and save to profile) the CSS. The range of options include Jeff Koons and BAPE designer NIGO, as well as “artists” Dolce & Gabbana (and links to all their respective websites, so this is proper!). And perhaps most entertainingly, a theme for the band Coldplay which is actually perhaps the best-known painting by Delacroix, google’s version sans exposed breasts. A little confusing, a little useless, but if you’re the kind of person who likes every possible page for all your logins, accounts, profiles, etc. skinned to your flavor, then have at it! If not, keep reading!

Still, an article on artnet mentioning my work is something to rave about, no? More important than my mention in the article, it is really just a fine piece of writing by Ben Davis and I think really does justice to the Flux Factory living-collaborative environment, and understands the space quite well (while the following quote might be seen as a smack on the face, I think it more a really really fair assessment):

I haven’t always loved everything they’ve done; sometimes it has seemed too precious, or only partially thought through.

But read the article for yourself. Like I say it’s lovely, well-written, good images, and I’m thankful.

(this makes me think I need a ‘press’ type of section. Actually I need to re-think the whole frickin’ scheme around here! Bleh – blooooooooogs!)

[display_podcast]

The closing party for the Everything Must Go show is this Saturday. Come and shake yo booty if you can! And praise the Zigg!

this is where I’ve been for the past week: after the opening of don’t poke out my iBall, I woke up the following morning and started laying the masonry (milk crates) for the Ziggurat Viscose, a monument to monuments, and an embrace of the experiences and material collection of my past three years at the Flux Factory:

(this is an ongoing post, and will be updated continually over the next week until the opening. here I want to show the process. I plan on publishing a text later, maybe in time for the opening. but for here, images…)

posts posts posts coming soon, tonight, i hope. In the meantime, check out what’s opening TOMORROW NIGHT in my studio-bedroom-loft-garden-gallery, the Normal Space!

Golden Staircase, opening next week, 14 March 2008, at ABC No Rio as part of the Ides of March exhibition.

it’s true. Facebook said so.

speaking of faces, books, and lists of names, check out the Virtual Museum of Deathmasks, featuring a collection of mostly Russian and Ukranian historical figures as sculpted by Sergey Merkurov. 59 of his masks are on display in the real-world museum, including the only original Lenin death mask, but you can see all of the masks in the virtual museum. Looking at photographs of historical figures is one thing, and while these are merely 2D representations of 3D objects, getting to see these masks is revealing: Alexander Blok’s features are slender yet stoic, and one can almost sense his suspected death from starvation; or the collection of wrinkles that developed on the face of Boris Pasternak:

Issue #2 of Private Circulation has been released, a “bulletin for proposals” including failed or unrealized artworks.

this second issue includes some scans of my plastic bag archive, the hard drive which contains this project failed last spring before it could be published. the PDF includes a text, ghost-written by “The Editors” (I don’t know them, although I have my suspicions) from some notes of mine I forwarded them.

Issue #2 also includes the first installment of their “Animated GIF Issue Addendum” – I like that wee Lenin guarding over my digital-plastic data!

download: Private Circulation 04-12

sometime next week, or later this week, or sometime eventually, I’ll have some sort of interview, Q&A, and images regarding my ‘BAGS’ book that I was hoping would have been published sometime mid-last year.

For those who don’t know, the book had gotten up to around 430 pages, and then the hard drive which stored all of the digital files (high-res 300dpi TIFF files, and converted PDF files, around 50Gigs of data) failed suddenly, just before I left for Budapest last summer. Since then, I haven’t had the funds to recover the data – OnTrack Data Recovery, one of the world’s leading specialists, has quoted me $800, or more than one month’s rent!

But word of the book and my obsessive collections has gotten around, as well as word of the failed hard drive and thus the failed work (for now), and so The Editors of Private Circulation, an e-zine that seems to have just started up, sent me some questions ranging from my archive aspirations to my emotions regarding digital death. Their intentions are stated on their blog:

THE IDEA is to collect and distribute proposals for texts and artworks that, for various reasons, cannot be realized—or were never meant to be.

They requested some new scans of the bags which will hopefully be published in the next issue, alongside some of my answers to their questions. They maintain a blog but don’t publish online, so the only way to receive the bulletin is via email (subscribe here). I’m not sure what to make of it all really, but I like zines, e-zines, PDFs and circulations, oh and it will feature some of my work! I guess that’s worthy of a blog post!

Other bags yet to be realized:

and if you’re interested to help me recover the data from this failed hard drive, so that some day soon I might be able to self-publish this book, I’d be more than happy to accept some donations at this point! I’d go so far as to offer a deduction from the cost of the book equal to the value of your donation! Cmon people I’m desperate for this data already!

donate $5!

donate $20! schweeet!

Two weeks back I quickly mentioned that I found it difficult to imagine heaps of e-waste being worked into contemporary art. Then just last week, inhabitat reported on the “Beauty From E-Waste” photography of Chris Jordan. So it seems you can create beautiful contemporary art from e-waste. But this isn’t exactly what I was talking about, and feel the need to defend this a little further.

I pointed to Kurt Schwiters as a prime example of an artist who recycled the world around him. From detritus found in urban areas to objects scavenged from walks on beaches, once you breach the levees of his popular work you find out just how prolific he was in producing thousands upon thousands of smaller works constituted from included-found objects and materials. Chris Jordan’s work on the other hand is one of the seductions of photography: a beautiful image yes, but ultimately only concerned with the composition and array of objects and colors, and less worried about that object’s transition in the world or its ultimate fate, as I’m sure he discards the objects used to create his own work once he is done photographing them.

Of course on that note I admit what I’m asking for is probably impossible, as by no means do I expect any artist to have the capacity to work 426,000 discarded cell phones a day (in the US alone) into their artwork. However maybe China has the right idea.

One reason I find this topic so pressing is because I am constantly struggling with my own work, regarding the sheer volume of materials and objects in the world, and more importantly for me when I let go of a material into an artwork, and how I collect and supply my practice; or what do I choose to include and exclude. I’m a pack-rat yes but I know that ultimately I have to let it all go, install it or construct it into something.

I absolutely agree that every city should be doing something like this, but disagree completely that ‘every city… should hire’ [via BLDGBLOG] Packard Jennings and Steve Lambert. Their illustrative style speaks West Coast to me, and wouldn’t translate well to say a place like Detroit or Iowa City, for example. The whole art-in-bus-kiosks thing is also nothing new – Bob Hansman has been running City Faces in my hometown of St. Louis for over a decade now, which gives inner-city kids (mostly Black youth, not white professional illustrators) a chance to express themselves in bus stop lightboxes.

The images are also somewhat outdated: the Mobile office building concept was first popularized in The Crimson Permanent Assurance, care of Terry Gilliam. I also understand those underground motorways are supposed to give the five bicyclists up top a little more comfort (which I agree with for probably completely separate reasons!), but underground motorways are nothing new to Moscow!

Still! I love the playfulness of the project and do wish I ran into more works like this in public spaces in all the cities I visit and the one I live in. But, San Francisco, I’m sorry there’s especially one reason you and I will never get along, and I think you know what I’m talking about.

Clicking on the player however one is confronted with the message: We’re sorry, this video is no longer available.

Sure enough a visit to the actual video page on YouTube lets you know:

My argument here is I’m curious who made the call to YouTube to report the video as copyrighted or owned by a specific party? Was there no agreement between McCarthy, his studio or gallery representation, and S.M.A.K. (a well-known and prestigious museum)? The video was not deleted by the uploader, it was removed by Google!

McCarthy is well-known for his video work, so it would make sense to have a video of some sort to tease audiences into coming to the museum! I don’t recognize the video thumbnail image, so I can’t speak for the importance of that specific video, but I remember once watching nearly every monitor of a row of McCarthy videos at the ICA in London and literally hogging the monitors! Each monitor only had one pair of headphones and it was my first encounter with some of the videos. I stood, watching each one all the way through, some 40 minutes long! I was laughing my ass off and I wouldn’t let anybody else have a go to know what was so funny, after all I paid to watch this stuff and I wanted to see it desperately! Of course putting a video on YouTube isn’t the same quality or standard of installation as seeing a work on monitor at the ICA, but it would help facilitate an awareness of what the artist is really known for, and generally just make the website more exciting!

But I’m mostly interested to know what the argument against having a video on YouTube was all about, who were the parties involved and who ultimately made the call. And why an artist may be potentially involved in the decision to restrict access to their work.

(Of course you can always watch a good number of McCarthy videos online over at the ubu web film archives)

Of course the first to arrive was from friend and fellow artist Elaine Arkell, featuring what I can only assume to be a depiction of the inner workings of her own aorta!

Moira Ricci sent me this YouTube card with a link to the video below:

not via the inbox, but real-world artists gifts included the following:

from Jason Eisner

a comics pack from my Aussie friend Alice Mrongovius

holiday CD tunes from Jessica Cannon

parallel language text from Lukasz Skapski:

merry christmas or season’s greetings
wesolych swiat lub pozdrowienia okolicznosciowe

and
no i

happy new year
szczesliwego nowego roku

lukasz

also
John Pitts in… uh outfit performing… uh a song that needs an outfit.

Even Google made sure to send everyone holiday wishes at their gmail login screen, with pun intended:

and after it all check out this image of a yule goat from Sweden I stumbled upon:

brilliant!
what? you want to see the goat live, right now? IT’S HERE!

one of the truly greatest liberties of being an artist is having the ability (for lack of a better word) to envision a different world, or a world as you would like it – sure, they’re going to build that airport, so it might as well look like this! Like I said there’s really no one word to describe this notion. Perhaps ability, but also vision, courage, audacity, they all apply.

Such as Robert Smithson’s vision-liberty-audacious drawing of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, from 1967, two years before construction on the airport began (it opened in January 1974). Approximately 150 (I started to count but didn’t get too far) ‘wandering earth mounds and gravel paths’ populate the area around the terminals, runways and towers that would become the airport proper, rather than filling it in with additional infrastructure and forfeited land as it is now.

One can only imagine what it would have been like flying in to see the land rolling, bubbling, wandering around one’s vision as one slices through the air above.

An imposing idea that never would have been ratified given the rivalry and difficulty already between the two cities to agree on a joint-airport location and design. Still, this drawing on blueprint typifies all that can be great about being an artist, and suggests a world of possibilities. A world outside the gallery where contemporary art actually transforms the landscape and works alongside architecture. Instead we are left with a world where that same architecture has merely become an encasement for a type of ‘public art’, where the airport has simply become another type of display space for the work of other contemporary masters. Poppycock.

I will probably never be one of the many many thousand+ visitors who flock to see Leonardo’s The Last Supper painting, and one could argue now why would you need to. Considering this new scan, racking up a whopping 16 billion pixels, will let you zoom in and view the gap between someone’s fingers, or if you prefer, peer into Jesus’s gob.

Related:
BBC article about haltadefinizione
Harlem in 13 gigapixels

50″ x 8″ x 8.25″

Entire work made from scrap wood – additional hardware used include brad wire nails, angle bracket, screws and finishing washers. Sculpture on top is scrap dowel rod, covered with flock grass and finished with brad wire nails and staples.

scrap wood sculpture #1 – one of many, many to come (yay for working indoors during the winter!)

I’m thinking about donating this to the Flux Factory 2008 Benefit Auction. Look for it there if you’re interested in picking it up. It’s very precarious!

In mid-November I received a postcard in the mail. I immediately recognized it as being from my friend Jason Eisner, for a show that he was telling me about two months back. I opened the envelope only to realize that the opening was the weekend that just passed. I missed receiving the postcard on time because of the way in which our house mail system operates, so I became internally frustrated, because I would have loved to have attended the opening, which was laced with several performances.

But sometimes, things are somehow for the best.

I could not attend the following two weekends (the gallery is only open on Saturday and Sunday) because of Thanksgiving (closed) and prior engagements, so I set aside 2 December, a Sunday, to parade my way to this new-to-me space, the English Kills Art Gallery.

Living in Queens can be frustrating, because Brooklyn is right there – right there! I have to take three trains: the 7 (from 40 St/Lowery St) to the G (transfer at Court Square) to the L (transfer at Metropolitan) to Morgan Avenue, to arrive in Bushwick, an area technically only three neighborhoods away (but by other measurements worlds apart). That’s one train per neighborhood! Meanwhile the next decade-plus will see likely a billion dollars poured into constructing a new subway in Manhattan so that Upper East Side bougies don’t have to walk two blocks west to crowd themselves onto the 4/5/6. But WHATEVER! I exit at Morgan Avenue only to find a map for “Open Spaces“, a one-day event promoting artists and galleries in the Bushwick area – everything would be open! Sweet!

My agenda was set: first to English Kills, then just stroll and look, at my leisure.

Billed a ‘double solo show’, Jason and Brent Owens each got one of the two cavity spaces that constitute the English Kills space. Even before entering though, you knew you would be entering an alternative space, as each artist had made exterior signage (above image) to promote entry. Ahead – Knucklehead Blues!

(install by Brent Owens)

Both artists have similar but separate approaches: each obviously have a fondness for wood, drilling into it, chopping it up, hacking it as it were. Transforming it to their will. Owens additionally relies on a specific vernacular which he imposes into the grain, and one can leap from the language he uses to imagined narratives about his upbringing: LIKE THE PATH BEATEN BY THE SWINGING SACK OF FATHER TIME. One can only guess he’s from the South!

The Taxpayer, by Brent Owens, a homebrew-looking machine with multiple buckets, containers, modified Anheuser-Busch keg, propane tank. Where’s the moonshine bruh?

Eisner activated his space with both static works (as in framed, none pictured here though) and site-specific installation and sculpture. One or two of the works you got the impression were not only built & installed on-site, but perhaps not even conceived of until the artist was present in the space: wood blobs taking over the architecture or wood shoes hanging from conduit, or various carts promoting their… is that a billboard or a landscape?

The main work in the space was a cart, with inoperable wheels and a suggestive tow hitch, its bed stuffed with slats of foamcore to hold stiff what appeared to be a type of billboard structure depicting a rolling, segmented, landscape. An open cavity in the billboard-landscape revealed hidden works and spaces beyond: power towers, forest stubs, and a plastic work. Originally seen as obtrusive, the viewer is meant to penetrate the landscape in order to find these hidden messages and metaphors.

The delight of the day though was the Open Spaces event, and simply having the time to walk around and enjoy viewing random spaces, art and artists in their spaces. Other notable stumbled-upon spaces included Pocket Utopia, where artist Libby Hartle sat in residence, conversing with punters and carving short wood sticks out of re-constituted paper pulp.

All my cynicisms about this area of Brooklyn aside, it is obvious that some fantastic new spaces are cropping up and are being operated by people that obviously have an investment in their work and the artists they support. Our fair city’s first snow of the season fell this morning, but that didn’t stop me from trekking (again, THREE trains!) there to engage the area, and it shouldn’t stop you either! The Arts in Bushwick non-profit have simplified the task with an accessible map of the area’s galleries and studio complexes.

it?

IT?

IT!!!!??!?>

note to self: inspiration from social protest may only lead to increased reification of one’s practice and an inflated market around the work one produces which the artist rarely reaps – also your work will be stored in warehouses in east London and referred to as ‘it’.

Things have definitely slowed down a bit now, and all for the best, I need a little rest. But it’s been a good run the past 15 or so days:

Halloween

I think I might prefer the grounds upon which Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated – coupled with an aversion to the commodity nature of so many American holidays – but of course Halloween is guaranteed to be a pretty fun fucking time! Especially in a city like New York City, where it is that one time of the year where it really seems quite natural to be riding the subway with a zombie or someone with an arrow through their head.

At my home we hosted the Hunter MFA annual dance party for the second year running, and it was a complete blowout!

Me? I followed through with my plans and fabricated an outfit which commented on desires of the male form, inspired by guerilla (text-less glossy posters showing a chiseled male with a notable package) and overt (newspaper back-cover spreads commanding “Meet Clint”) advertising campaigns throughout SoHo and the city at large promoting male underwear. For one night I was Clint Mauro, the Armani Exchange underwear model. Consisting of digital prints mounted on cardboard and fastened with zip ties, my outfit became an exo-skeleton of sorts that also greatly improved my dance moves!

(photos of me by Sarah Glidden – thanks Sarah!)

The morning after it was apparent the party was a complete and utter and total resounding success!!

GTA IV billboard followup

removed.

Performa07 opening

Later that night I attended the Performa07 opening at the Guggenheim with my matey Chen, which launched with a one-night only performance by Francesco Vezzoli. Contrary to what others had to say about the event organizing, not all hope was lost. Sure the line wrapped around the corner and nearly halfway to the next Avenue, and sure there was a fiasco surrounding the ticket issue, but eventually all punters made it inside and got to ‘view’ the performance in one way or another:

While some people got dugout-class chairs in the rotunda, and others got to stand along the signature spiral ramp, I still think I had one of the best seats in the house! Sent to one of the Gugg’s theatres, we didn’t get to see the ‘live’ performance but rather to watch it on two quad-split projection screens, with a model – someone by the name of Cate Blanchett or other – sitting on stage the entire time, who eventually got up and left to close out the performance, being video-tracked as she circled down the entire Guggenheim spiral ramp, to interrupt the scene and ask the cast what do they want, what is the truth?

The screen setup was spectacular, and between eight available screens it routinely switched between an array of around fourteen different shots or angles, constantly putting into question one’s perspective, placement and reading of the characters, their storied environment and interaction with each other. Remarkable!

A Psychic Vacuum

If you missed this one, you might possibly have missed the most important public art exhibition this year, anywhere! I’m referring to Mike Nelson’s Creative Time project that turned a dilapidated warehouse space right smack at the Delancey St and Essex St intersection, we’re talking the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge here, into a total apocalyptic fallout space, where you could only traverse by opening doors and passing through, sometimes getting caught in a labyrinth of similar paths and turns, and one encountered small shrines and references to war in the form of carcasses or the passing – almost absence – of time in the form of some old, old calendars.

The last room, which you had to encounter in order to exit back onto the street, was completely exhilarating. I actually laughed, quite heartily, when I entered: a giant warehouse room filled with tons and tons and tons of sand. I mean shit-tons! How did all this sand get here? This? This is what awaits the end? Oh man, talk about hitting the final nail on the coffin! I still laugh at the thought of that room, full of sand!

(nearly finished)

on the set with Law & Order

Two Mondays ago started early, at 6:30am – like I said, little time to sleep! – on set with the crew of NBC’s Law & Order. Nearly a 16-hour gig, they were doing a shoot at Location One, as their script called for an art gallery, so I was their facilities manager for the day. This was an amazing bunch of people, and the crew totaled easily around 60 people. And they all fit their roles perfectly: the actors were self-involved; the producers made influential decisions on the fly; the electricians were the biggest, nerdiest, thickest-glasses-wearing ones around! I got to see some pretty unique hardware, and it was pretty amazing to see how a shot gets made and furthermore to imagine how it will all be stitched together later for television! And thankfully they did their work when they did, as that night the Writers Guild of America strike went into full-swing, and within a day they were reportedly picketing the Law & Order set (which could have potentially made me a scab for crossing the picket line to open the facility!).

Fat Lipstick and the World Famous Bob

the Fat Lipstick film series opened with the screening of (breathe) Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom. Perhaps it rolls off the tongue easier in Japanese: Kyôfu joshikôkô: bôkô rinchi kyôshitsu. A steamy and raunchy film that was probably the perfect touch to welcome in the deep autumn chill of November, involving multiple girl-gangs whose members all had some brilliant cognomens like pipe-crusher or the-boss-with-the-cross; and corrupt politicians and high-school administrators and the multiple parties looking to expose them through blackmail, debauchery and group sex! All the while managing to throw in a comment or two about the American bombing of Japanese port cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I can’t think of a comparable American film to be honest, they definitely have something totally unique with this one!

Oh, and did I mention we were offered an exclusive performance by the World Famous Bob:

A performance you won’t see repeated ever again. As you can assess from the snapshot, if you missed it you missed it!

freeDimensional and Censorship opening

Closing out the run, if you missed the opening for Censorship organized by freeDimensional then you may very well have missed the best opening of the week! If not for the work – which was itself pretty spot-on – then for the party, you missed a great party! Complete with Censored ale, naked people (in that not-so-invasive sort of fashion, but somehow sensible), a raffle and a sound troupe that seemed to follow me from room to room as the evening progressed! And the crowd was really great, supportive and best-of-all willing to dance!

Additional asides:

The Altman Building

let me just say if you get a chance to attend an event at the Altman Building on W 18th Street @ 6th Ave, then go! It’s a gorgeous building. Expansive, open, bricked ceiling, huge riveted beams, a spectacular place for any type of event!

Helicopter chase

Oh and then there was that night that began with some typical NYPD undercover-but-not-so-undercover vehicles creeping up and down our block for some time, before eventually the helicopter showed up and a pursuit of some sort ensued. That was exciting.

Old feet, new shoes

Some new shoes were in order, as my last pair developed a sizable hole on the right sole which I didn’t find out about until I stepped into a puddle of murky water – fun fun. And as it turns out my feet have grown a full shoe size in the past year.

Closing

So all that and then some. I hope this post will keep y’all busy for a while. I know it sure kept me busy.

be sure to swing by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to see Empyrean by Cliff Evans, a multi-multi-channel, five in all, high definition projection work. I haven’t seen the completed installation yet, and might not get up to Boston to see it there (but hear rumour of it coming to Chelsea, NYC, within the next six months), but I had a hand in assembling the computer running these high-def video channels. A barebones PC running a flavour of Linux OS, the machine uses open-source software across the board to power what is guaranteed to be a seductive array of moving images.

Cliff Evans’s website

I chose to present the work in a hotel because a hotel is, interestingly, both an intimate and autonomous space. A ‘hotel’ is neither a ‘cinema’ nor is it a ‘gallery space’. DISLOCATE is not cinema, it is not passive, in order to fully engage the viewer has to locate themselves emotionally within the work, dislocated from where they usually place themselves when viewing artworks.

Andrew’s home-brew website

Forms of Resistance. Or social change. Is resistance a form of social change?

Two topics that had recently been on the tip of my tongue in conversation with other artists and friends recently, which then happened to creep up in other news. Interesting how that happens, idinit?

such has surely been the case these just-over two weeks I have been back since my summer holidays.

my first full 24 hours back home was burdened by a futile attempt to start cleaning our home from a potential (one could say inevitable given the nature of our living setup and lifestyles) bedbug infestation. it appears this past summer that a temporary subletter brought upon us a very permanent problem, something that has recently really been plaguing NYC and tearing homes and living situations apart (NYTimes article from 2005 Nov).

Welcome home!

Additionally, I was burdened both by work and practice: two days later returning to the job to help install and also make work for (see this post) Crater NY.

But the title of this post is not concerned with those politics!

Rather, it’s in reference to the hundred-plus openings from the past week in Chelsea and around the rest of New York City, proving the impossibility of seeing it all, taking it all in (not as if the openings are for the work anyhow). Plus-plus impossible if you are involved with a show yourself, as was the case with Crater NY, and being stuck in your one venue, and away from the mob scene that was likely in Chelsea and other places. Okay so I missed the big night, the 6th, when around 100 exhibitions opened and a couple thousand litres of wine got served, sunk and spewed, so I thought I’d venture out on the 7th after work, and nip in to whatever I saw was open and interesting (going by the crowd there).

So I headed over to Roebling Hall because I like Roebling Hall and think they have consistent shows and they’re not in the thick of Chelsea but off to the side and near that incredible industrial building on 11th Ave (between 26th and 27th, west side of street). it’s been a while but I like to think that I’m walking over there and not over there where everybody else is. Anyhow their opening was a show that sounded interesting but which I really didn’t know what to expect, by David Ersser called Nothing But Heavy Duty (sorry Roebling Hall I have to point to artcal because you use frames in your website, so I can’t link to anything!).

Sure enough, it was interesting:

(Makita? Milwaukee? ain’t no DeWalt that’s for sure!)

(ahh, he’s a quick-release bit kinda guy!)

The approach to the work was a good start, a half-completed stud wall where real screws were needed to hold it all together but included facsimile screw notches of sorts to suggest another anchorage. One wall wasn’t even hung, but merely leaning on the studs. Immediately you knew you would be dealing with something that questioned your sensibilities about ‘what is complete here?’ The room inside the room included power tools like a chopsaw and circular saws, power screwdrivers of various dispositions, makes and models, screw bits, caulking guns, ladders and even the presence of ‘raw wood’ sheets and sawdust suggesting activity but which could have been fabricated itself.

I left rather pleased, but was already mulling over the thought in my head, “What is art supposed to say to me?”

What are artists these days trying to say to the public with their work? What are they trying to accomplish? What is their message? What class do they belong to? etc.

As I walked back towards the throngs of Chelsea that were starting to gather – fashionably late like – I stumbled upon Ersser’s competition: life.

And the difficulty of it.

It was hard to tell what was going on here, and unlike so much art that is what made it interesting. Strange that it was less than a block away from Ersser’s installation, and thinking of Ersser’s show in relation to this space, but here was the real thing: detritus lived, worked and abandoned.

Materials from umbrellas to baby strollers, from luggage cases to Multi-Function Printers, lay strewn about, with several wardrobes thrown around for good measure. Where did all of this stuff come from, and who left it all here? The fence was bent, there was an entryway, someone wanted to get in and out of here. When it wasn’t a parking lot that is, this plot of asphalt that has no doubt seen its real estate value increase ten-fold over the past couple decades.

As I turned to continue walking it was a simple blip. Having just taken in Ersser’s show, and then contemplating that abandoned plot, I simply felt I didn’t need to see anything else, one opening was plenty.

Several of my friends have cringed from thinking about how to take in as many openings as possible, how to schmooze the scene and be in too many places at one time. But me, I’m a little pessimistic this time around. I’m burdened by real troubles to the point that I’m not so certain what it’s all for anymore. My only comfort was the thought of going home and making some art.

[MTAA have a gif showing the overwhelming list of openings last week]
[Hungry Hyaena also mention the list, as daunting]

quick and easy article in the NYTimes published today reviews an exhibition of photographs by Richard Pare on currently at the MoMA. Pare’s photographs taken over a decade study some of the signature buildings built between 1922-1932, a time of quick architectural expansion and collapse (a bit like how my lungs feel after I eat too much peanut butter too quickly) after the Revolution, but also examine some of the more forgotten or abandoned buildings of the time, including a perennial favorite of mine, the Narkomfin Building (and a new favorite, that garage by Melnikov – see the Times slideshow).

I love the thought of the shelf of plastic kitsch, the various cloths and draperies with ornamental designs, the religious iconography, the paint chipping, all sort of nestled up inside this House of Constructivism. I hope Pare’s photographs reveal more of the Narkomfin’s interiors. Note to self: must see this exhibition!

this stuff is slow-going, but I reckon the level of detail that can be achieved will make the work worthwhile. It’s a bit of a conundrum really. the diorama is and isn’t crucial to the overall project. it is because in a way it determines the placement of buildings and objects that will be engaged further on in our installation, but isn’t because it’s technically only supposed to be viewed for an approximate 15-20 seconds, not gawked at for endless minutes (like me once at the Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany where I gawked for so long at a diorama used for the King Kong vs T-Rex scene in the original 1933 film that eventually a staff attendant came up to me to ask if I was okay!). But I find myself pouring in countless hours to these little buildings because there isn’t much else we can do on this end, since we can’t ship anything large, or anything at all really (anything going into the show has to fit in our luggage!). And since we can’t really design the rest of the layout until we get a majority of the diorama constructed, and I have nothing but time for this now, thus I am spending lots of time for something that will receive little viewing time.

I can only reckon that once the thing is installed, that aside from the 8 days the installation is up, we will only have photos and documentation to account for the work, thus the level of detail will hopefully heighten any reception of the work absent of the physical work. the Flux Factory isn’t very good at archiving its physical remnants from exhibitions, and I hope to retrieve my personal contributions to the diorama for making extended works, so again hopefully time and detail now will payoff later.

the very very rough sense of scale we have going so far. This is probably around 33-35 sq. ft., with some room in the foreground and right side that you can’t see, and you can imagine with some buildings as small as my thumbnail, then we need a shedload of buildings!

all diorama-related photos up on my Flickr: Diorama Party

Getting back to the point. Method: carve building with breakaway blade; spraypaint with base coats (also figured I can use large thread spools like spray hoses, to better direct the spraypaint, or to let me coat just the roof of a building without the spray going elsewhere! great!); detail with markers, paint pens and pens/pencil; apply flocking material to give the impression of hanging gardens, rooftop gardens, patio foliage, etc. These will be assembled into community areas and blocks, abundant with flocking foliage and backyard collective garden spaces.

now, I only need to make around 1,192 more! . . . . . . . . . . shit.

this is a digital composite, of building facades taken from pictures I have taken of New York City superimposed onto these small (real) buildings I have cut from this foam material I acquired. here they range from about 7mm to 4cm tall. Not sure if this is the way to go with buildings at this scale, or if they should just be spraypainted, painted and detailed. Or both (probably a combination of both). The space in between the buildings is like a ‘courtyard’, and can be filled with flocking material to look like a giant garden.

The foam can be cut into literally hundreds of ‘types’ of buildings; detailing is secondary to this. And their installation is completely random and almost arbitrary, which allows for a lot of freedom in the type of ‘blocks’ to be created. They can be gridded, or windy; an area can be industrial with low one-story warehouse type buildings or dense with 4-story tenement buildings. Lots of room to maneuver here.

I think the notion of scale is ‘assumed’ on the part of the viewer; there isn’t a strict adherence to a ‘rule’ (the act of collage aids this reading). In other words, you know what it is: a model of a block.

Alexander Rodchenko: Wikipedia entry and MoMA retrospective
Arirang: Wikipedia entry and more specifically the festival.

this juxtaposition originally inspired by this Guardian article many moons ago (those images have been sitting on my desktop since 23 December 2006!).

the Surface Gallery in Nottingham, UK have installed ‘a blank screen’ and ‘a set of rules’ are put in place to establish a social network of artists, creative peoples, or whoever happens to stumble upon the project.

Of course this approach is nothing new. All of these grid-pixel spaces are mostly derivative of the Million Dollar Homepage website, which netted Alex Tew, well, a million dollars. HOWEVER, rather than advertising and the promise of permanent internet posterity, here you get to see a social network develop live in the gallery (quick, someone hit the refresh button – or F5 on a PC/Linux box!) – and a quick clickthrough on my end shows people using deviantart, blogspot and MySpace (among other sites) to host their content, extending this grid into other networks and showing quite simply how and where artists are using the internet to establish their presence.

I linked to my del.icio.us account. It just made sense. There are plenty of links there to keep people busy, rather than pointing them to a page with my bio or some crap like that (not that I condone it when other people do it, just not for me!).

My mate Karen D’Amico sent me the link, now it’s your turn. Leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite.

http://jadedoskowworldfair.blogspot.com/

a friend of a friend left on a plane today for Barcelona, where they’ll start to photograph sites of past World Fairs around the world.

I mentioned they best be sure to swing by my hometown, St. Louis – the host of the 1904 World’s Fair. That fair took place during a time of high prosperity in St. Louis, when it was the fourth largest US city, and also host to the first US-held Olympic games (due to the hype of the fair, it actually stole this claim from Chicago). Notable structures at the 1904 expo included the Observation Wheel, a ferris wheel, which has an almost mythical presence among people (St. Louisans that is) when they talk about the expo.

Best of luck to Jade on their photography tour. Looking at the Wikipedia list of ‘registered expositions’, I realize I’ve only visited or lived in seven cities that have held world fairs (London, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle – however this year I hope to add Budapest and Brussels to that list!) whereas the artist has a good 30+ cities to get to! (that is, unless they’re following this list – and I hope they’re not because that list is comprehensive!)

Anybody else interested in the St. Louis fair site, I recommend you visit the Missouri Historical Museum on Lindell on the northern edge of Forest Park. they also have a great resource online about the fair – click here.

he pointed out to me that the upcoming auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s are actually available for public viewing. Sure enough, in this month’s edition of Artforum the Sotheby’s ad (an 8-page spread I might add – that’s not cheap!) even calls the event an ‘exhibition’. Interesting!

Both have their auction catalogues available online for viewing, however the Sotheby’s website requires registration just to view the works, so boooooo to them for that feature! Click here to view the Christie’s ‘POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART AFTERNOON SALE, Sale 1836′ works.

I thought of opening this post with a ‘wanna see what a million buckaroos looks like?’ or ‘here’s what I’d buy if I had a million dollars’ but it’s all pretty pointless really (however I will note that the below images are in the low-ballpark range of $480,000 and in the high-ballpark range of $720,000). I just want to see a couple of these works, and this may be the only opportunity to see some of this works for a while, and given the amount of works available, these auctions may very well be the largest show in town next week.

(Sotheby’s ‘exhibition opens’ 11 May, auction on 15 May; Christie’s have viewing from 12-16 May with auctions on 16 and 17 May. maybe see you at the exhibitions?)

Additional images can be found on my Albatross Flickr set.

I have no clue who Anya Hindmarch is. I reckon she’s some fancy designer. Some of her bags go for £995, or $1986 at current conversion rates. Either way, her website says:

Sainsbury’s launched I’m Not A Plastic Bag in 450 stores on the 25th April. Due to overwhelming demand all stock has now sold out.

It goes on to say:

The first day, Friday 27 April, will see Sainsbury’s become the first major UK supermarket to stop giving out free disposable carrier bags in its stores.

That’s TODAY people!

Yesterday I just sent off my proof for a book I’m self-publishing, a collection of plastic carrier bags. I’ve been hinting at this work (here, here and here) for many months and finally now it is going to happen!

Sainsbury’s of course, going way back, were one of the first inspirations behind me starting to collect plastic carrier bags (see below, first image, last column, fourth row!), exactly because they had these ‘bags for life’ programs. It got me thinking. I started hording and saving bags without knowing what I would do with them.

Now my bags will be published in a full-color full-bleed book. More details on how to purchase that will come soon, but this book will be a monster, at around 340 pages in the first of hopefully many volumes to come.

went to the Albatross boat in Socrates Sculpture Park tonight with Ian Montgomery who has been heading up most of the on-site installation work for this project. the boat got tipped on its side Monday, purposefully of course, and it looks gooooooorgeous!

Ian and I tonight mounted the captain’s chair on the fly deck, up top. the chair really helped finish off the design of the fly deck, as before there were simply three planks of wood for whoever to sit at, but now it’s a proper captains chair! The chair also is a really lovely red vinyl, which matches one of the ship’s two antennae, the red in the ship’s flag, and the keel and part of the ship’s hull. all came together quite nicely, and fun fun working in the park after hours!

Related websites:
Albatross @ Flux Factory

The thought of a boat parked on land, shipwrecked as it were, is already quite intriguing. Where did this boat come from? Who was in charge to let such a wreck happen? What were the circumstances of the wreck and how does a boat crash so far inland? The imagination is pretty free to roam in order to answer these questions, even before coming to the ‘art’. Hopefully, of course, the art will attempt to answer these questions, and add a couple more to the mix.

The boat itself, already, is quite sculptural. It’s also a very unique boat, it’s build and make are uncommon and give the boat an immediate distinction. Throw that onto land, and you have a double-whammy sensation!

Of course, this is a Flux Factory project, and is accompanied by all the complications and excitements that all Flux Factory projects include. Notably, there are 30 artists involved with this Albatross. How do you get 30 artists to agree to concepts and materials, and make sure the final completed installation is coherent, so that all the ‘art’ is understood to be part of this final work? What if two artists have similar ideas or want to use similar materials or objects, how do you make sure those individual works aren’t conflicting and each fit into the larger project without coming across as an argument of materials, one vying for dominance over the other – of course, unless that is the intention of said works, which isn’t likely given the nature of artists’ egos.

Early on in the project, some artists were outright declaring the work they were going to be including in the Albatross, before they had ever even SEEN the boat! I argued over email:

And now artists are starting to throw out somewhat definitely the work they want to make, rather than working with the boat, on site, within the camps, towards an idea. [...] I’m getting concerned that there’s no cohesion.

[...]

some works are suggestive of a shipwreck, others of this captain. if we conclude on a notion of archaeology, here’s a simple question: was this captain an archaeologist, or are we the artists-archaeologists? I think this would produce very different works. asking ourselves questions like these will better-help clarify exactly the work we should be making.

Of course not everyone agreed with my thinking. Notably the illustrators and design-minded artists saw ‘no conflict’ as I did. Which re-affirms my point, or question rather, of how do you get 30+ artists to agree on a project like this? Flux Factory, while it proclaims itself an ‘arts collective’, is not in the business of fabricating very physical works that are collectively produced. It operates better for the facilitation to such ends – a sort of management agency that promotes mostly installation-based works in group exhibitions. This time things are different: ‘Flux Factory’ is more of a banner under which 30 artists are operating, and each have apparently free reign over the works they’re going to include under said banner. The argument again falls back to it has to all come together.

Eventually pushing for this communication improves things, and some artists met up on-site. Still, it was only 1/2 of the artists involved. Not much was said that wasn’t already known, or which weren’t simply practical arrangements (how we have 24-hour access, what precautions to take when working on the boat, how to get electricity to the boat, etc.).

Eventually we plan on tipping the boat onto its side, in order to suggest this shipwreck, and also to give the final installation a new dimension; to expand on what I said earlier, as if a boat on land wasn’t enough, now its on its side – whammy! The shipwreck has landed. I’ve worked minimally on the boat itself; as an artist I can’t really approach the boat as a type of sculpture until it is on its side. It’s silhouette, it’s shape, it’s direction and vector, I can’t work with any of that until it is actually stranded on shore. I’m interested then to work with the condition of the boat, on its side, and to produce a work which acknowledges this condition, which stands as a work on its own but which is also part of the larger work.

Related websites:
some full-size photos on Flickr

It was great to finally see Lance Wakeling exhibit his ‘art mini’ piece, which includes work by me, in it. This particular installation, in fact, included the work of 32 artists, and its display finally sealed in Lance’s position as Director and Intern of the art mini artwork. I really think Lance’s work was the best-in-show, which is odd, since it’s a piece about exhibition display and the art fair, so really it was more like the-show-best-in-show. Here are photos from the opening:

Related websites:
these and more full-size photos available on my Flickr set

In a round-a-boot way I have a piece in a show opening up this Friday, 6 April (8-10pm), at Tastes Like Chicken, a gallery in Brooklyn I haven’t been to yet but have been hearing good things about.

http://www.tasteslikechickenartspace.com/One%20Pill%20Makes%20You%20Small.html

My piece is actually included in the work by Lance Wakeling, who through our collaborations has become a good friend of mine. Lance’s work in this show straddles the line of producer or curator as artist; his piece hails under the title ‘art mini’, and details of it can be found online:
http://artmini.net/

I hope you can make it out. Details below:

One Pill Makes You Small opening
@ Tastes Like Chicken
300 Morgan Avenue
Friday, 6 April, 8-10pm

Directions and Hours are online: http://www.tasteslikechickenartspace.com/Directions%20and%20Hours.html

(ps – I will get there after 9pm as I am working late that night! ciao ciao!!)

love, Nick Normal

There’s a good bit of billboard art going around these days.

Last week I was flipping through some magazines and found an ad for an exhibition by Richard Hoblock at the Kim Light Gallery in LA, which showed an image of his first public space artwork, a large billboard work that was based on a photo but looked like a painting and was entirely abstract, a flow of lines and swirls and brushstroke-like marks (you can just imagine someone up there with a huge 3-foot brush!). When I saw the image of the work, all I could think of was that is soooooooooooo West Coast.

What would an East Coast example typify?

Probably not right on the mark, but pretty good, was the Color Shift work by the terraswarm artists. The Columbia architecture school website described the piece as such:

On a series of evenings in the months of February and March 2007 the billboard was illuminated, transforming the urban area around it and the Queen’s grocery facility.

The Columbia text likely comes from their press release to coincide with the exhibition for the work (opened last week), which happens to be about the only bit of text that locates the work in Queens. Even the architect-artists’ website never mentions Queens as the borough in which their ‘urban’ art took place. The opening of the exhibition was proceeded by a lecture, which some reported back from. David, a commenter over on BLDGblog said,

I went to the “lecture” the other day.

Sometimes it’s better to admit that something just looks cool.

Another blogger writes,

The colors are linear and have no connection what so ever to the immediate environment and the public spaces. They dont really care about feeds and corresponding changes in the colors because it doesnt work “technically�. Ofcourse, a long contorted architectural theory ensued to explain why the piece wasnt a contextual misfit.

Ahhh the ol’ architectural theory schtick, eh? Oh well! Billboard public art, it’s a tough business after all!

(Myself I’ve been documenting a billboard rig near where I live for several months now, taking photos of it in different atmospheres and climates. Still thinking about what to do with the documentation (thus just thumb-teasers, no full-size images yet, still compiling them) – why is one intrigued by a billboard? These structures are domineering, and all for a flashy ad or two. Yet they are engineering marvels, and have developed into an industry within themselves. They are here to stay for some time – we might as well work with them.)

Related websites:
Wikipedia Billboard_(advertising) article
Gothamist – Illegal Billboard Crackdown article (they close mentioning Houston Street)
Gothamist – nearly two years later! 40 ft. beaver shot on Houston Street

funny, idinit?

my matey Mikey B sent me this link to The Fireladders of SoHo. I work in the SoHo area so I’m pretty familiar with – and very fond of – this cast iron district.

Around 200 drawings, all referenced apparently from really low-res camera phone images (click any drawing to get the reference photo section), the drawings show a diverse range of cast-iron escape ladders, from the grand double-sided multi-story ladder of 142 Mercer to the discreet side-of-the-building mounted 5-story single-drop vertical ladder of 113 Greene, from simple but elegant ladders found at 74 Wooster or 53 Mercer to the absolutely gargantuan 13-story monster found at 451 Broome! Potential favorites however may be ladders such as 27 Mercer (so simple!) or 55 Grand (it has it all, and only two stories tall!). The collection also includes the 101 Spring Street building (during its recent renovation time, wrapped and scaffolding-framed), bought nearly 40 years ago by Donald Judd and currently owned and tour-operated by the Judd Foundation.

For the Judd Foundation, tours are an outrageous $30, for the fire escape ladders of SoHo, all they require is your admiration.

I haven’t had my Flickr account even two months yet and already it is helping me understand social networks and how exchanges are made with the world in which I live.

In other words, I attend an art event, an opening. I like to document process, spaces and events and invariably end up taking digital photos. I had been watching Flickr’s progress for nearly two years now and was eventually impressed by the usability of Flickr’s interface, so I joined up with a Pro account, and have since started uploading and learning all that Flickr has to offer (tagging, geomapping, batch processing, etc.). It’s really really intuitive and really really friendly.

I had never previously attended an opening at Eyebeam and then heard about their ‘OPEN CITY: Tools for Public Action’ exhibition. Eyebeam are a generally well-respected venue, not your typical Chelsea space, and like I said I had never been to an Eyebeam opening and I wanted to see what the space was like during an opening, to see their crowd (nerdfest or culture vultures?) and of course to see some art showcased by this ‘art & technology center’.

(by the way I have been meaning to blog about this opening for nearly two weeks now! to make a long blog post short it was a great show, great work and a great crowd, especially the crowd. very good people and they were all pretty lively and talkative.)

So I take a relatively nominal number of photos (after all I have been known to take more photos of the Party Fair on Steinway Street) but still make sure I upload them to Flickr (remember kids sharing is caring!). Then Joanna Raczkiewicz, Eyebeam’s Development and PR Associate and current reBlogger sends me a message asking if it’s okay to use my photos in Eyebeam’s weekly e-blast. That’s cool! Of course it’s okay. After all thanks in the first place for having the event.

Actually then I thought all I would get is a link, which I did, but was well-chuffed to find that my image was also present at the top of their e-blast:

(as well as on their frontpage currently) It’s these small things that really excite people, that help remind us that our exhaustion of all these energies is truly worthwhile.

OPEN CITY RECEPTION PICS!

Did you get paparazzed? Check out these great pics taken by reception attendees and Open City artists:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicknormal/408435999/in/set-72157594566630329/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andymal1/sets/72157594573684619/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bartholl/sets/72157594560724502/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/tags/opencity/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17076023@N00/sets/72157594565521841/

Related work: here and here.

Related thoughts:
Paterson Silk Strike of 1913
Industrial Workers of the World
Paterson, New Jersey

It reminded me of my just-mentioned images, a real estate office that I vaguely remember was a clothing store just a year ago. Ahh a building about selling buildings, complete with models and faux kitchens of future-planned sites, expected views, and an abundance of slogans, signage and information packs.

a whole corner all for yourself! WOW!

The chrysalis is formed.

A few diffused thoughts:

The author asks the questions, “where would all the Puerto Ricans go? Or the old Poles who run the delis”? The author also quotes Neil Smith, director of CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics as saying, “the wealthy are suburbanizing the center and pushing the poor to the fringes”. A little more research on behalf of the article’s author (did they ever actually travel to Williamsburg?) might reveal a link between these two thoughts, such as some of my friends – of Arabic descent – who run the Superior Markets deli on the northeast corner of Bedford and North 7 as well as the health food store on the same block, some of whom drive daily from as far away as Staten Island, in order to staff a deli which caters to a class with which they have no relation (it was designed that way).

WATER TAXI?!?!!!lk1 Faaaaaaaaack! That’s the first I’ve heard of that. Not surprised, but faaaaaaaaack!

Engine 212. Tis a shame:

In nearly three years of disuse, Engine Company 212 has fallen into disrepair, and while the Company itself has become a martyr for fire safety advocates, the tragedies it could have helped to contain outweigh its symbolic value.

Engine 212 would have been the designated first responder to the recent ten-alarm Terminal Market fire that ripped through fifteen warehouses in Greenpoint. Furthermore, Engine 212 represented the bulk of ambulance service in Williamsburg, which is now serviced by emergency medical units from Bellevue Hospital on First Avenue in Manhattan.

Now that the city has rezoned the waterfront through Williamsburg to Greenpoint for the development of more than twenty 400-ft.-tall apartment buildings, the danger is even greater. Engine 212 would have been just two blocks away from the waterfront, in a prime location to protect all of the development sites. Without that company, the likelihood of dangerous, potentially fatal fires raging out of control before emergency crews arrive is a grave concern for Williamsburg residents and fire safety advocates in the community.

Development causes dislocation even to the rooted (of 117 years, yarrr!).

[via mtaa.net]

Related websites:
My full-size images of ‘Williamsburg, Brooklyn – North 8 development’ on Flickr
Photo of Superior Markets originally from livefromthewb’s Flickr
blockquote about Engine 212 originally from Block magazine

which was mentioned on BoingBoing, thus moving along the meme train.

However, it’s unfortunate that the BoingBoing article didn’t directly link to the YouTube video. Instead it linked to another article which then links to the video. The lack of direct linkylink I suspect means fewer users actually clicked-through than should have – it’d be interesting to compare the stats of BoingBoing referrers to couchprojects.com with the number of viewers of the YouTube video (1,808 at time of writing). Not to say those numbers are too few, with an average of 40/day, but BoingBoing undoubtedly has the ability to garnish much higher numbers, such as this post from yesterday linking to another video with already nearly 15,000 views (for a video only 6 days online I might add)! Perhaps BoingBoing were purposefully attempting to direct users to a site rather than a video, with the hope of them becoming further enlightened? Or perhaps BoingBoing failed to directly deliver the content?

Either way, I’ve been following the Kurtz case for some time now, and have attempted to show support where and when possible, including attending a benefit silent auction nearly two years ago (I didn’t get anything, the cheapest work I liked was $450 starting, and closed much much higher!), and while you can read endlessly about the case, it’s good to finally see Steve on video, to see his gestures and demeanor, and hear his voice about the issues.

[Via the Walker Art Center 'Off Center' blog]

Related websites:
CAE Defense Fund

There was a talk at work earlier tonight and no matter how moved or excited I am by the talk and the discussions I invariably find myself more intrigued by the scattered array of the materials needed to make the talk and discussion, the juxtaposition and layout of tools, materials, wires, etc. that are used in order to fabricate events and which motivate human interaction and activity. Indeed if there were no wires, no computers, no projectors, people wouldn’t even show up anymore – we used to gather around campfires, now we gather around 2Ghz processors and 2500 lumens projectors. However don’t get me wrong, I’m completely in favor of the analog interpretation of this idea also: the notion reminds me of a piece I made for an exhibition in a domicile in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn last year, where I raked the basement dirt floor and exhibited all the found items, remnants of years, decades even, of previous activities:

another ‘four day’ stint without focused commitment to blogging and I found myself staring at the ‘post box’ as it’s called and wondering how to regain my momentum. and oddly enough it’s not a dilemma of not knowing what to say, it’s a dilemma of having too much and trying to remember where to begin again, of how to collect everything I should have said between then and now. i don’t want to ramble but i’m just too excited by it all so hopefully you’ll bear with me.

it was a crazy past-week for openings and shows. and it’s an even crazier week ahead. Don’t forget to sleep.

the 10th (has it really been that long?) was the Project 1981 opening. I did manage to put some photos up on my Flickr account (oh there I gone and done it now! I said my Flickr! egads!) but I never got around to the meat of the show. I got talking with a friend at the opening about the dilemma of openings themselves. I mentioned that somebody else said I missed completely one piece in the show: because of the crowd, I managed to walk around a vitrine – I later went back to view it once the crowd started to breathe a little bit, but the point is that at openings, depending on the size of the crowd and the size of the space, sometimes seeing the work is just not possible. Not seeing it with certain comforts that is, like space, time and the absence of noise. My friend elaborated: I was told that the opening for the show was basically the run of the show. The work might stay up for another few weeks but it would be by appointment only, not ‘open’ per se. I was unaware of this and commented that it’s difficult because you want as many people to gather at the openings as possible, but you also want to see the work (or in the case of one piece to hear it, impossible at openings because of the noise volume of the crowd). As it would turn out the show is up for a couple extra weeks (the website indeed says until the 28th, by appointment), but for shows that really do only last a week, or a couple of days even, the problem of having the space and time to see the work and maximizing attendance is impossible to solve. But now that I think on it that we were even having that conversation, while immersed in the crowd, is the interesting bit – unable to enjoy the work as it should be but still able to exchange ideas.

two days later I returned to work, still sick at the time, and we had less than two days to complete our installation. while the largest group show I have seen installed in our space, the process was pretty chill and most things were dealt with simply as they arose. and while the opening was a success, I still can’t help but reflect back to the process of these installations themselves, which are sometimes easily the most rewarding part of organizing and installing shows:

(and sometimes way cooler than the work you’re meant to be installing!)

moving ahead Thursday night was the ‘My Country’ opening at the Hungarian Cultural Center. The two artists – Andrea Dezso and Miwa Koizumi, both artists I have worked with on other projects before – are highly aesthetically driven. Miwa carried out a performance for the opening where she used paper-shredded ‘wishes’ written down by viewers to create these small geological-esque paper hill formations and other structures; Andrea’s main body of work on display were approximately 40 small embroideries that illustrated things her mother once told her, many of which manage to be simultaneously sinister and fantastical, touching on topics such as sex, semen, aliens, digestive tracts – you get the idea!

Somewhere in the midst of all this activity also, Manami Fujimori paid a visit out to Flux Factory. Manami is an absolute delight! She’s nothing but energy, completely excited to see work and the spaces of artistic production and life. She was writing about Flux Factory and the crossover of artists who also involve themselves within an arts organization. She’s full of interesting questions and I can’t wait to read her thoughts (it’ll also help kick me in the butt and remind me to finally develop a ‘press’ section in the blog already!).

Finally a 3-day weekend!

Saturday night was the Building Show opening at Exit Art. It’s been a while since I’ve managed to get to an Exit Art opening, but as always it was well-crowded and generally up-beat. I got into discussions with several people since the opening and found that some people are more put-off by Exit Art than I ever have been or even thought to be. Their argument was that too much of the work tends to be ‘redundant’ or copied, and they’re not convinced by the progression of shows over the years. On the contrary I look at the space (I’ve only ever been aware of their 10th Ave site) and I’m completely in awe. And I’m not simply talking about the physical space, but the whole package: the space, the work, the location, the crowd, it all works for me. When I consider how much of the rest of the city is clogged with tourist traps and shitty bars, of course I find haven in a place like Exit Art which has consistently made me think and wonder about it’s programme. Maybe it’s more-easy for others to come to finite conclusions about their opinions, but I like to keep my nerves on-end!

Continuing on, I managed to squeeze in a few house parties as well, including one hosted by Stacey Allan, an old acquaintance that I studied with in Chicago and recently ran into again (again again I should say). Twas good to see her and she had a great crowd, including some Canadian friends of hers that I got discussing with about ‘Artist-Run Centres‘, a phrase and organizational structure I was really only recently introduced to – was intriguing to have such a primary conversation conclude so well, and made me want to travel to Canada this year to view and exchange with some ARCs. And thanks to the President’s Day holiday I was able to enjoy a birthday party on Sunday night for Marcela Cussolin whom I recently befriended (oh who am I kidding holiday or not I would have gone and partiiiiieeed wooooo … ahem). Another great crowd, I told another friend of mine that it reminded me of parties in the Midwest, where people are generally warm, relaxed but enjoying themselves, where the kitchen is usually a focus area (after all that’s where the liquor is) and music is of good selection (speaking of one of the hosts, Chris, had one of the largest selections of ‘mash-ups’ I’ve seen, and was the first person I’ve ever seen to actually interface with Front Row on the Macintosh).

Marcela Cussolin with Andy and cake (NOTE the cake was effing delish!)

OHHHHHH otherwise it was the same-ol’ same-ol’. Yeah, right. In other news I finally got cracking on my upcoming lulu book, working from a newly acquired Epson V350 photo scanner. That thing is a beaut! Most-importantly for my own work, and it’s such a simple design feature that really goes far, is the lid can detach and fold back so you can get large items on the flatbed! Wonderful! The other thing heavily weighing on my mind these days is baseball. Spring training games are just about to begin, and I’m about to do something I’ve never done before, which is invest in a major league sport: I plan on purchasing the ‘premium’ package that allows you to listen to/view every game online. I thought of doing this last year but got deterred because of a couple of reasons; but this year I’m committed to it, I want to see specific pitchers pitch, certain batters hit, and follow more games and players. It’s a hefty investment but it’s not about a financial question, it’s a love for the game.

And the week ahead is nothing easy. Is February always this busy? this weekend initiates THE weekend of art fairs around the city, and for the first time I can say that I’m possibly not interested in them. Of course I’ll end up attending one or two, but I won’t be thinking if I don’t see them all then I’ve fallen short, the way I have in the past (oh the guilt!). Truth is there’s always more going on than one can achieve, so one can’t imagine to do it all. Okay okay, you could imagine, but like I’ve said being from the Midwest means practical living and if I can’t do it all then I’ll just do what I like and be happy with that.

See you next time, folks!

Related websites:
Flickr folder for Project1981 opening
Flickr folder for the Building Show opening at Exit Art
Flickr folder for Marcela Cussolin’s 26th Bday party

Using the print-on-demand services of lulu.com (which I support as well!) allows Lance to do his thing with the perl scripts and web crawlers and to compile these basic black&white books to further disseminate the already overwhelming presence and volume of images such as “me.jpg”. He writes:

The first one is called ME DOT JPG, a collection of images from a google image search of images specifically named “me.jpg.”

Here we’re given a snapshot of how people see ‘me’: as avatars, as floral arrangements, as high school yearbook photos (inspiration for the other book, My Yearbook 0.2, perhaps?), as landscapes, as casual snapshots or studio portraits, or as electron-wielding quantum-neutrino-brained DORKS. Whatever your fancy it’s a simple premise that speaks wonders about the volume of information and the arrays of interpretation abound today.

four days without blogging is like an eternity.

time lately has been without compassion. monday (the last day I blogged) and tuesday were very busy days at work, as we are currently installing our next show; wednesday we were installing and had to stop mid-way, clean-up, and prepare for the February installment of Dorkbot; wednesday night I fell ill and still went in to work because I’m the only one who does my job the latter part of the week – thursday night I had a fever and slept for over eleven hours and by friday I was so weak I could barely eat anything. while sick-with-the-plague most of my time is spent managing other artists’ time because the majority of them are such bad planners: “No, come to the gallery now. You have to see the space.”; “We need that DVD from you. Absolutely.”

Very few – as in only one – communicate their schedules, their timetable, and let us plan accordingly. Here it is the weekend before the opening and two of them don’t even have their final video edits turned in! Some of them spend so long finicking over minor details that they forget about their own work as well as the larger installation: the entire space; “No, you can’t place that smack in the middle of the room.” “Why not?” Nevermind… A handful of artists finally showed up to the gallery at 5:25pm on Friday – keep in mind we close at 6pm! Then it’s the weekend, and much to their surprise we’re not open.

So, here it is, Saturday morning, not even 7am. I’m over 100 emails behind schedule. Lots to troll through and catch up with. I’m still very much sick, but if I just spend the day lounging about drinking tea and forgetting about the burdens of the exterior world, maybe tonight I’ll venture to the Project1981 opening. More posts to follow.

Love him or hate him, the trio of exhibitions (Queens Museum of Art, Museum of the City of New York, and the Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University) about the legacy and visions (completed or not) of Robert Moses are nearly all underway. The last one to open is the one I’m most looking forward to, mostly because it’s at one of my all-time favorite museums, the Queens (DEFEND IT!) Museum of Art. I’ve never been to a QMA opening, so I’m pretty excited to be in the park and visit the museum and see the type of crowd they attract to their exhibition openings; I plan on going with a handful of friends. The QMA website says

Opening Reception: Sunday, February 4, 2-5pm

see you there!

Related websites:
[Robert Moses and the Modern City online at Columbia site]

Shit. Honestly I thought I might have something to write about. I was going to give one of those heads up to let you know this is the last weekend to go see some shows. Then I realized it was LAST WEEKEND! At least for one of the shows. So sorry. However, that means the show I was going to recommend to you I actually saw on its last weekend, so I guess the post title still has a little bit of relevance. Clever, eh?

Okay so the image above is a painting by Walton Ford that was recently exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The image above does no justice to the painting, Falling Bough (2002), because the painting is about 3 feet by 9 feet! I mean it’s fucking massive! If I’m going to look at watercolors then I’ve decided this is how they should be: fucking massive! And Walton Ford is a bit of sinister feller. Not sinister like Bosch but sinister in such a way that you’re looking at these fucking huge delectable paintings, and then suddenly you realize something terrible and awful is about to or just did happen. If it’s still about to, there’s nothing you can do to stop it, so you might as well enjoy the aesthetics!

Sinister: in Falling Bough there are birds – turtledoves – eating other bird’s eggs; baby birds are falling out of their nests – HOW will they SURVIVE?; and of course the title: Falling Bough. The tree branch I originally thought was being carted away by these massive numbers of turtledoves, but no, the branch is falling and these birds are in a skirmish for their lives!

Lots of other great paintings by Ford, including Chingado (1998) that features a ‘Zebu or Braham cattle (Bozindicus)’ (Ford’s paintings often include bits of text overlayed throughout the paintings in pencil) whose hairs were painted in such a way that it quickly reminded me of the Ron Mueck show I just saw one floor above! Now, if you got a free weekend then my posting may still prove worthwhile: this is the last weekend for the Ron Mueck show! Go go go! It’s a particularly good selection of his work if you’re unfamiliar; some works are a bit oddly placed, behind walls and on the other sides of columns and whatnot, but such is the top floor of the BMA. I nearly missed two pieces so take your time. I’ve now seen Mueck’s work at two major museums, and both were accompanied by a documentary. If you can’t make it to the show, you can still watch this same documentary online at blip.tv.

(Quick digression: it’s a really great era when places like the BMA are linking to ‘videos’ and said content is hosted on sites like blip.tv or YouTube. This is really smart and is the web at its finest people!)

(Okay not so quick: For real, this is just smart. The BMA also have a podcast interview with Walton Ford online. Get to hear some Q&As. Elsewhere, Walton Ford was one of the artists featured in the PBS art:21 television series. On the left-hand side you can find some links to videos, including one where Walton specifically talks about Falling Bough:

It’s a dark humour but it makes me chuckle when I’m [painting]

If you get a chance you should really swing over by Artists Space on Greene Street in SoHo and check out the current exhibition, Elephant Cemetery, on view through 10 March. Honestly, the show is kinda disappointing. However! There are two works in the show which are so exciting that I think they’re worth suggesting making a trip for the entire show. How’s that for enthusiasm, eh?

The above image – as well as this image – shows one of two such pieces. ‘New Monuments for New Neighborhoods‘ by Terence Gower and Pedro Reyes, two artist-architects who both have concerns with the expanding neighborhoods built around the borders of Mexico City, as that city grows and expands. Their work presents us with email correspondences between the artists, along with books, photos and small-sculptural models, and accompanying text, for us to engage the notion of the physical space of the ‘barrio popular’ as a site for developing work. Very smart, as the work looks at other models and previous forms of architecture – one wonders what might come out of these models today. (The artists are currently in ‘phase one’ – construction begins in ‘phase three’ – so one day we’ll see!)

The other work (which I didn’t get a photo of) which is worth seeing is ‘Florida‘ by Kerry Tribe. Soundtrack-interviews with elderly people (they have that rasp in their voice y’know – I’ll have it someday) is combined with photos (not so engaging) and a mis-synched video projection of the swamps, jungles and marshes of Florida, as the voices discuss their visions of paradise, or their surroundings – thus their paradise, Florida. The opening scene I caught was of a slow-pan around a pond; the video was extremely steady, the water was perfectly still. Was the camera in a boat? On an island? Hovering in the air? The pace and pan of the video is convincing and seductive, like a fish unaware of the lure that will reel it in. This is accented by the boxes and foam-seating that is nearly bed-size – you can sprawl out and simply enjoy the art. Very refreshing, and the tales are really amazing. I plan on having another go with this work.

Other works in the show however were pretty disappointing. A projection by Mario Garcia Torres consisted of paragraph-long blocks of text that were only viewed for six or seven seconds before the next slide was rotated; this was a trade-off since most of the bits of text were one-liners of 9 or so words. But with an analog slide projector, you can’t control the difference between the short bits and the long bits. As soon as the long bit flashed, I walked out.

Additionally frustrating was Falke Pisano’s ‘Studio Lecture 1‘. A ‘lecture on DVD’, it ran for 45 minutes with an accompanying zine-like brochure. The lecture was like a seminar in art college on the topic of sculpture. And it may very well have been a direct reading of an academic text. I don’t know – I just couldn’t bother to find out. Mostly because this piece was right at the front of the exhibition, it’s monitor staring at you as you exit the elevator. So I’m presented with ’shit, this is what I have to deal with here?’ And don’t get me wrong, I like this kind of work! I like the zine, I like lectures. But right at the beginning of the exhibition is a bit of a put-off. I would much rather have been introduced to the show through one of Jamie Shovlin’s watercolors, it’s tinge of play helping break the mould one always wears when entering a new show.

And some of the other works in the show, while very pleasing sculpturally were just not overall engaging, but maybe you’ll find something intriguing that I missed (like that networked triple-projection work – I feel like I should give that a bit more patience. We’ll see…)

[full-size photos on Flickr: here, here and here]

It’ll make you feel all warm & snuggly inside. Perfect for the January cold.

maybe see you there, eh?

Architectural models represent both the projected idea and a realization of that idea. ART MINI fails to be well behaved as either an architectural model or an art fair because it is both. Parody and satire are indistinguishable from earnest and literal presentation. Models make it possible to think about the subject in a larger context by seeing it smaller.

Did anyone else notice that Documenta 12 is this year? I sware I thought it was in 2008. I’ve had 2008 stuck in my head for at least two years now! But it’s this year. It’s in six months this year! At least it runs for a few months, but bloody hell that means I have to start planning a Europe trip – who’s with me!?

the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) have online a series of Public Art (notice the Capitals there People!) podcasts audio walking tours of sites and works in – you guessed it! – lower Manhattan. The three thematic (thhhh thh!!) mpTHREEs available are presented by Perry Garvin (who works for the LMCC and also has his own blog) and William Smith, complete with NPR-style slow jazz background music (with the occasional AC/DC guitar riff), whose spoken word message is accented as much by the information presented as by the silence and breaths between the thoughts and sentences.

You can download and enjoy the walking tour at your leisure – that’s the beauty of Public Art.

Continuing with our Microcinema Thursdays: tomorrow night, 3 Women screens at 9pm. Directed by the late Robert Altman, starring Sissy Spacek and Shelly Duvall. It’s totally weird, totally hypnotic, and totally amazing. Hope to see you there.
[...]
January 25: 3 Women (1977, dir. Robert Altman, USA). Runtime: 124 minutes.

that’s all for now. I just need something new up at the top – Live on the Internets is sooooooooo two days ago!

(work from Hello exhibition at Flux Factory, unknown artist, opens tomorrow)

So seriously, I’m a little behind on my end, with a bit much on my plate at the moment. Which is epitomized by tomorrow’s events: I’m working probably around 12-14 hours, not pleasant; should be in as early as 11am to prepare some things before opening at noon – don’t expect to leave until around midnight; while invigilating the gallery all day tomorrow we will simultaneously be setting up for a duet-concert by Yuka Honda and Petra Haden in Location One’s performance space; we’re already stretched for resources, and by half-4 today they had only started practicing their second song – they’re asking to stay late but we have to get out of here, it’s Friday after all; i’m supposedly DJing the event, which I wasn’t asked to do but was put on the bill and expected to return – I have NO set list prepared, and I won’t spend my evening tonight stressing out over what music to play tomorrow!; last night the bulb on my eVo v1 projector blew – it’s being installed for the next exhibition at Flux Factory, and word is that the artist pulled out the power cord while the projector was plugged in and running!; it took me over an hour to open up the housing unit and examine the bulb – took so long because of a stripped screw that had to be drilled out with a strip-kit; and oh yeah that show (image above is a piece in the show, unknown artist at this moment) opens tomorrow, at the same time I’m working the concert at Location One, so basically I won’t be able to attend the opening at my home because I’m working a concert for the man (or two women, in this case). Earlier this week I thought I might be able to leave the concert right at the end, and make the tail end of the ‘Hello’ opening at Flux Factory, and then I got told that the space needs to be completely cleared out for Sunday afternoon when some musicians are renting the space for rehearsal – what this means is my mates and I have to spend an hour after we finally kick everybody out cleaning and re-arranging furniture (thus pushing us towards midnight) instead of letting the facility’s janitor take care of it, since they don’t come in until Monday. Bloody bullshit scheduling if you ask me.

my friend and ex-peer Claire Deniau just sent me this invite to the Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design MA Fine Art degree show that will be opening this time next week. If you’re in or around London I recommend going. Claire’s work is always a delight, and I’m sure the rest of the work will be also. Here are the details re-printed in case you can’t read the text on the above image:

CSM MA Fine Art
Private View – Thursday 25 January
6-8:30pm
@ Bargehouse/OXO Tower Wharf
Bargehouse Street, Southbank, London, SE1 9PH
also open 26th-28th January from 11am-6pm

check out this collection of bus stop images over on Polar Inertia, taken throughout the old Soviet federated countries, taken post-collapse from 2002-06 by photographer Christopher Herwig.

Christopher writes,

it is easy to overlook the phenomenon of the common roadside bus stop as an example of soviet art and design letting loose and becoming a little weird and crazy.

he’s a little right and a little wrong at the same time there. some of these designs are amazingly simple and ‘boring’ as he comments in another mention, however it’s almost their banality, combined by their isolation, which make them incredibly beautiful. There’s no need to say ‘check out #13 and oh yeah #19 is my fav’ (hypothetical) because they’re all fab fab!

[again, linkage]

whenever an image reminds me of all-too-familiar settings or things, but manages to make me question the motive of those things, or how i reference those places, I’m intrigued. Such was the above image by George Bolster over on the artist ‘online publishing project’ /seconds. Check it out.

And while quickly skimming through the artists involved I found some images by my ex-tutor Paul Eachus. (I miss you Paul!)

Mark and Geraldine have been staying at Flux Factory for around a month now, preparing for the imminent launch – or departure rather – of their work ‘The man who shot Liberty Valance’. They leave tomorrow morning for a near-one-month trip through twelve ‘Etats-Unis’ cities whose names engender allegorical aspirations: they will begin at Freedom – the ‘freedom’ indicative of the ‘open road’ culture of America – then pass through Joy, Comfort and Pride (among others), all the while moving towards Harmony, a fitting finale to a multiple-thousand-mile road trip through an immensely diverse landscape.

Here’s to all the best for Mark and Geraldine! See you soon!

Charmaine Wheatley will be having a standard opening and book signing for a new comic, but the event is to be followed by a ‘cardboard hot tub party’ – need I say more?

(I mean, I love cardboard, I love hot tubs, and I love speedos – perfect trio combo!)

The point is, if you’re interested, him and a small handful of other artists (Judith Barry, Acconci Studio, etc.) are available for download over at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies @ MIT (whose website, by the way, is broken like hell – or am I just broken?) – just some of the many bits of media I’m dumping onto my new mpthree player – schweeeet!

Open call to Send us your ideas about artworlds, how they could differ from the dominant ones today…
When we say “artworlds”, we mean any network of people involved in art, and the systems they use to support their practice.
But people keep talking about “THE Artworld” as if there were only one. We need examples of other artworlds to help people understand. We will be making 11×17″ posters based on your examples and show them at the ICA the end of this January!
Send us a word, a sentence, a sketch — anything that helps give an example of existing or possible artworlds (you get points for being funny or imaginative or uncovering some bit of history). Could be manifesto, half-cocked proposal, reporting on things others may not know about, anecdotes, fantasies — 1 poster per idea — no limit on number of ideas – send as many as you can think of…
MUST EMAIL TO US BY JAN 12!! projects@basekamp.com >>
Happy 2007!
Scott from basekamp

I like posters; I like the ICA in Philly (although it’s been errrrr maybe six years since I’ve been there); basekamp look like a rad organization. Submit it if ya got it.