Jonathan Podwil, Huey, 2006
film loop still
James and I are big fans of the work of Jonathan Podwil.
I’m happy to announce that he has a new website, hosted by ArtCat. Check out the video works, as he did a great job of getting those to a nice web-ready size.
If you want to see a work by him in person, he is in a group show at Plane Space in the Village through July 30.
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Michael Salter, Styrobots, 2006
Styrofoam packing materials, glue
This comes from a show at Jeff Bailey Gallery titled Men and Materials, described as
combining everyday objects, vintage and new, coveted and discarded, craft and fine art materials
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Here are my picks for tonight’s openings in Chelsea:
In addition, other 27th Street galleries like ATM and Wallspace have shows that look worth a visit, plus we may drop by Jeff Bailey and Buia. Check out ArtCal for all you need to know.
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No, I’m not dead. Just slowed down by the weather (except today) and a huge number of projects.
As a follow-up to my post on Galapagos planning to lobby for aid for emerging artists, here is a good article on the Galagos site on why this is important, titled Canaries in the goldmine: The emerging arts in New York City.
Assuming the weather doesn’t totally suck, this looks like a fun event tonight.
Wednesday, June 28th
9:00 pm
Pier 63 Maritime
23rd Street and the Hudson River (directions below)
New York City
Admission free
Please join EAI for an outdoor program of alternative music videos and music-based video by artists. The screening will include works by Cory Arcangel, Charles Atlas, Michael Bell-Smith, Johanna Billing, Dara Birnbaum, Meredith Danluck, Devin Flynn, Shana Moulton, Tony Oursler with Sonic Youth, Ara Peterson, Seth Price, and William Wegman.
The videos will be screened on the tented stage at Pier 63 Maritime, the public access pier on the Hudson River. Food and drinks will be available for purchase at the pier.
The artist-made music videos in the program include Charles Atlas’ new music video for Antony and the Johnsons, Ara Peterson’s pulsing abstract video for Black Dice, Devin Fynn’s animated epic for Erase Errata, William Wegman and Robert Breer’s classic video for New Order’s Blue Monday, and Tony Oursler and Sonic Youth’s 1990 tribute to ’70s pop star Karen Carpenter.
Other artists manipulate or re-conceive footage from appropriated music videos or live music performances. Cory Arcangel tries to take Simon out of Simon and Garfunkel’s 1984 Central Park performance, while Michael Bell-Smith makes an entire R. Kelly DVD happen all at once. Dara Birnbaum integrates the audience and even the weather in her rendition of performances by Radio Fire Fight at the legendary Mudd Club and Glenn Branca.
Other works playfully subvert the music video format, reworking and reinterpreting its rules and strategies. Seth Price uses analogue video graphics to map out a pop history of the music genre New Jack Swing. Meredith Danluck experiments with James Brown and the power of context, Johanna Billing blurs the lines between documentary, performance and music video, and Shana Moulton uses an electronic rave as a hallucinogenic escape route from the everyday.
Directions to Pier 63 Maritime
Take the C or E train to 23rd Street. Transfer to the westbound M-23 crosstown bus and take it to the end of the line. Walk west to the end of West 23rd street and cross the West Side Highway. Walk through the parking lot in front of Basketball City, bearing right. The ramp leading to Pier 63 Maritime is directly to the right of Basketball City. The screening will take place under the tented area at the rear of the pier.
[Image above from EAI. I think it’s a still from Charles Atlas’ snew music video for Antony and the Johnsons.]
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Wendy Heldmann, Finding noon sleep in winter 4, 2006
acrylic on paper, 20” × 30”
I first spotted Wendy’s work (online since I didn’t see it in person) in a group show at Sixspace titled There Goes The Neighborhood.
I’m happy to welcome her to the ArtCat family. Check out her new website. I’m proud to announce that this is how her site looks 48 hours after she signed up. I like to think it’s a combination of ArtCat’s ease (including the new help website) and Wendy’s enthusiasm.
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When I first came to New York in 1989, I found it hard to believe that artists — whether visual artists, actors, dancers, etc. — could afford to live here. Given the real estate prices of today, those seem like the cheap halcyon days. I worry very much about the ability of NYC to remain an arts capital when it is so expensive for people to live within 3 subway stops of Manhattan. Those patrons and collectors that support new art are unlikely to venture out that far unfortunately. Williamsburg is so close, and I still hear people talk about it like it’s Kansas.
From Crain’s New York I learn that Williamsburg’s Galapagos is trying to do something about this.
In an effort to keep up and coming artists in New York, Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg plans to meet with the Department of Cultural Affairs tomorrow to begin lobbying for government aid for emerging artists.
Executives at Galapagos, which presents 140 performances a month attracting an average of 8,000 people, say New York City is at risk of losing its status as an international cultural capital because beginning artists can’t afford to live here anymore.
“There’s not the inflow of young artists moving in the city like there used to be,” says Robert Elmes, director of Galapagos. “The conversation at this point isn’t whether or not there’s opportunity in New York, but just what other city they should go to.”
Mr. Elmes says his theater has already seen a significant drop in proposals from college students or recent graduates to come there and present their work.
Instead, young artists are heading to places like Pittsburgh, or even overseas to Berlin, which has been aggressive about promoting itself as an affordable hub for emerging arts.
When we attended the Whitney Biennial press preview, I was struck by the fact that the curators travelled to Berlin to visit American artists’ studios. I know a number of people that find it cheaper to live and work there part of the year, while still showing with a New York gallery. One example is D-L Alvarez, who shows with Derek Eller Gallery.
On a related note, James and I are troubled by our ability to see as much emerging art as we once did, since we don’t own a car. Many interesting Brooklyn galleries are increasingly spread far away from each other, and from a convenient subway stop. As an example, check out this map from WAGMAG. Visiting VertexList, Klaus Von Nichtssagend, and Outrageous Look in one day is quite a trek.
I wrote about the show at the beginning of June. It has been extended until June 30th, so you have no excuse if you miss it.
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I just read an op ed in Newsday by Ray Lemoine. Ray LeMoine is co-author, with Jeff Neumann and Donovan Webster, of Babylon by Bus, an account of LeMoine and Neumann’s experiences working for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
He points out that he had just spent six months working and traveling in the Islamic world — Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Pakistan — so that he wasn’t surprised when the Department of Homeland Security agents took him aside to question him. What did they want to know about? Copyright infringement related to t-shirt sales.
No, these frontline warriors in the global war on terrorism at Homeland Security had far more pressing issues to question me about. “Why did you infringe on the Boston Celtics’ copyright in Boston in 2003?” asked my case officer, Malik – ironically a Pakistani – from behind his high desk. Uh, because I used to sell T-shirts outside sporting events, I said, wondering what this had to do with national security.
“You’ve got a long record,” he said. Sure, for peddling “Yankees Suck” T-shirts – sans permit, which isn’t a crime but a code violation – not for promoting “Bin Laden Rulz!” DVDs or the “Idiot’s Guide to Suicide Bombing.”
They also had information on a dispute with a parking attendant in New York. Apparently, the NYPD now feels the need to share basically all of everyone’s record of police contact with the DHS. Do you think they can really process the amount of information they’re given? Are the feds really in charge of policing all behavior now?
Homeland Security, the $40-billion-a-year agency set up to combat terrorism after 9/11, has been given universal jurisdiction and can hold anyone on Earth for crimes unrelated to national security – even me for a court date I missed while I was in Iraq helping America deter terror – without asking what I had been doing in Pakistan among Islamic extremists the agency is designated to stop.
Instead, some of its actions are erasing the lines of jurisdiction between local police and the federal state, scarily bringing the words “police” and “state” closer together. As long as we allow Homeland Security to act like a Keystone Stasi, terrorism will continue to win in destroying our freedom.