PLEASE VIEW THE NEW YORK GROUP SHOW TUMBLR FOR DETAILS ABOUT THE ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK.

This is an open call for artworks that relate the theme:

 “I am the judge. I am the jury.” Rebellion & Empowerment in Contemporary Art

The New York Group Show is an idea that began this spring with my unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign. It will be realized these holidays in a greatly simplified form at my new loft in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn (see pics below).

Talented artists of New York: Hear Ye, Hear Ye…..

Before my other half and I fully occupy our new home, I’m having a 5-day housewarming party from December 28, 2011 – January 1, 2012.

Please fill these here walls!!! You’ve got 14 ft ceilings, exposed brick and white walls to work with. There is a large open space and three smaller spaces.

Here is what you need to know to participate:

1. Send an email to me at kellis [at] nygroupshow.com by 11:59pm Saturday, December 10th (THE DEADLINE)

2. Include in that email up to (no more than) FIVE art works available for inclusion in the show. Please send high-quality images of the proposed works or links to video works along with a full description of the work’s title, materials, dimensions and year of creation. If your work is a site-specific installation or performance, please describe all elements and aspects fully.

3. DO NOT INCLUDE: artist statements, bios, CVs, press mentions, etc.

4. Participating artists will be responsible for the installation and de-installation of their own work(s) and providing all necessary materials and equipment. Nothing will be accepted by post/mail/delivery.

5. Please direct all questions to me on Twitter (@NYGroupShow) and Facebook (The New York Group Show). I will not respond to questions by email.

6. Artists invited to participate will be notified the week of December 12th and must be available in New York for installation Monday, December 26 – Wednesday, December 28, and de-installation on Monday, January 2.

LET’S DO THIS.

Peter Daverington, Nubian Girl, 2011

Kianga Ellis Projects (KEP) is a mobile gallery program that hosts conversations about the studio practice and work of invited contemporary artists. KEP’s inaugural Art Talks Weekend will take place on July 29^th through 31^st at HD3 on 560 Montezuma Avenue, located in the heart of the Sanbusco/Railyard District in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The weekend’s program is open to the public and will involve several of the artists attending in person and via Skype. Follow on the Web by watching the talks on Ustream and Twitter using the hashtag #KEP.

Friday, July 29th, 3 – 8:30 pm/OPENING RECEPTION 5 – 7:30 pm

Saturday, July 30th, 1 – 4 pm

Sunday, July 31, 12 – 8 pm

Details below; RSVP on Facebook or Evite.

THE ARTISTS:  Ethan Cranke ~ Peter Daverington ~ Brian Dupont ~ Jeannette Ehlers ~ Sabina Forbes II ~ Nikita Gale ~ Clarity Haynes ~ Laura Isaac ~ Elisa Kreisinger ~ Nikolaj Recke ~ Bryan Reyna ~ Maritza Ruiz-Kim ~ Painta ~ Jason Varone ~ Katarina Wong

Friday, July 29,  3 – 4 pm : RETHINKING REPRESENTATION

Elisa Kreisinger, Queer Carrie, 2010

Elisa Kreisinger, Pop Culture Pirate, joins KEP live from New York via Skype to discuss the world of “Remix”:

I’m a video remix artist subverting the carefully constructed world of corporate content to work off my massive consumption of pop-culture and reverse the psycho-social toll it takes on my sense of self. I also believe that women want more stories about other women that don’t revolve around men. Remix allows me to create tangible examples of what these stories might look like without the old ball and chain of the traditional production system. When people don’t like my version, remix encourages them to make their own.

This conversation will also consider how contemporary artists Clarity Haynes and Sabina Forbes II reflect or challenge popular notions of the feminine ideal in their Breast Portrait Project and Conceptual Bodies works, respectively.

Artists:

Sabina Forbes II (b. Somerset County, New Jersey; lives in Manhattan, NY and works in New Jersey)

Clarity Haynes (b. 1971, McAllen, Texas; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY)

Elisa Kreisinger (b. 1986, Passaic, New Jersey; lives and works in Manhattan, NY)

Friday, July 29, 5 – 7:30 pm: SMOKE SIGNALS, OPENING RECEPTION

Jason Varone, Untitled (Not with a Whimper But a Bang), 2010 | mixed media on paper

Jason Varone (b. 1977, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Brooklyn) combines moving images with cartoon-like representations of our modern landscape that disturb, such as plumes of smoke from natural disasters and dying wildlife. Varone combines appropriated news footage, maps and electronic data in visually beautiful ways that carry a harsh message – even a warning – and critique of Western technological advances. In recognition of the wild fire disaster in New Mexico and surrounding states, Varone will present a site-specific painting on canvas and digital projection.

Friday, July 29, 7:30 – 8:30 pm: VIDEO SCREENING ~ TRINITY LAND ART INSTITUTE & OTHER INTERVENTIONS

Nikolaj Recke, Trinity Land Art Insitute (video still), 2010

In the summer of 2009, Nikolaj Recke (b. 1969, Copenhagen, Denmark; lives and works in Copenhagen) traveled to the American Southwest in search of Land Art, one of the great movements in post-war American Art that has been a continuous inspiration and reference in his work. Given the fragile state of our environment, it is no surprise that contemporary artists are showing renewed interest in the land. But unlike the iconic works that inspire Recke, his own work is invested with personal subjectivity and a desire to connect emotionally with the spectator.

Trinity Land Art Institute (2010) – Recke builds a shed on land facing the Trinity site in New Mexico where the United States tested the first nuclear bomb in 1945.

I miss Sol LeWittt (2010) – Recke’s homage to the conceptual art legend who died in 2007.

Waking Up to Roden Crater (2010) – Recke records the sun rising behind Roden Crater in Arizona, a volcano crater James Turrell has been working on since the mid-1970s.

Insecurity Zone (2009) – Recke takes a blindfolded walk on Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty being directed orally by the videographer, a re-enactment of Vito Acconi’s Security Zone (1971).

Saturday, July 30, 1 – 2 pm: EVERYTHING & EVERYDAY

Nikita Gale, WWRPD, 2011 | mixed media

The subject of this conversation is taken from Nikita Gale’s current series, “Everything and More,” begun this summer during her residency at the Center for Photography in Woodstock, NY. We will discuss the new approach to the Everyday by artists whose passion for making work fuels a daily routine of sharing their process and thought life with “followers” on social media. Ethan Cranke’s newest series of paintings, Fire Man: Art is an Act of Self Immolation, will provide a metaphor for understanding the motivations and concerns of both Gale and Shawn Lindsay (a.k.a Painta). Gale will join us live via Skype from Atlanta. Cranke and Painta will join us in Santa Fe!

Artists:

Ethan Cranke (b. 1978, San Francisco, California; lives and works in Sonoma County, California)

Nikita Gale (b. 1983 in Anchorage, Alaska.; lives and works in Atlanta, GA)

Painta (b. 1988 in Fort Washington, MD; lives and works in Forestville, Maryland)

Saturday, July 30, 2 – 3 pm: OBJECTIFIED

Bryan Reyna, Pink (New Photography, 2010), 2011

The subject of this conversation refers to contemporary artists making three-dimensional works that have more kinship with the Specific Objects of Donald Judd’s era than current trends in installation art. Almost 50 years later, however, a kind of reversal has occurred in what artists understand about the nature of art in space. The places where some artists exchange ideas with others, particularly in the online realm, or where they attend to work obligations apart from their primary art making, form a dimension that becomes an important extension of their artistic practice. The experience of place is the new art object. The commodifiable work no longer expresses the artist’s primary meaning; the commodity is better understood as an artifact. The true content of the work therefore rests in the representation or investment of the experiential dimension in that object.

Artists:

Brian Dupont (b. 1973, Tacoma, Washington; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York)

Bryan Reyna (b. 1977, Plano, Texas; lives and works in Queens, New York and at The Museum of Modern Art)

Saturday, July 30, 3 – 4 pm: #WITHIN

Katarina Wong, Head 2, 2010 | Sumi ink on clay board

The subject of this conversation is the title of a project begun by Maritza Ruiz-Kim in January 2011 to make paintings with her own hidden information inside them and to expose the fact that she is doing so through regular blog posts and on Twitter. Blended cultural and racial biography can produce particularly challenging questions about identity. The “within” that gets expressed “without” through works of art by such artists can be challenging in its political and social directness. Sometimes the narrative is more like a dream (or a nightmare) and hardly understood during waking hours. Ruiz-Kim will join us in Santa Fe!

Artists:

Jeannette Ehlers (b. 1973, Holstebro, Denmark.; lives and works in Coppenhagen, Denmark)

Martiza Ruiz-Kim (b. 1975, Orange County, California; lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area)

Katarina Wong (b. York, Pennsylvania; lives and works in Manhattan, New York)

Sunday, July 30, 12 – 5 pm: PERFORMANCE ~ 10,000 HOURS

Laura Isaac, Knitting Vigil for Ai Weiwei and His Four Missing Associates (Hours 426 - 472), 2011 | bamboo knitting needles and 100% Pima cotton

Documenting the journey from absolute beginner (0 hours) to supposed master (10,000 hours), Laura Isaac (b. 1977, Kansas City, Missouri; lives and works in Kansas City) set out in February 2011 to become an expert knitter. She has completed just over 500 hours to date. This performance will be her third livestream broadcast in which Isaac knits for up to 8 hours and chats with followers watching online and communicating with her through Twitter. She said in a June 21 blog post about the project:

I doubt it’s the “knitting” part of this equation that gives me the queasiness. But change… now that’s something humans tend to fear on such a base level. Impermanence. 10,000 Hours is an unusual project this way. The change is at the core of it… The knitting is just the vehicle I’ve chosen to hitch a ride in.

Isaac has based her entire journey on Dr. K. Anders Ericsson’s, The Making of an Expert, new research showing that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill.

Sunday, July 31, 6 – 8pm: SOCIAL MEDIA ART: FAD, FARCE OR FUTURE?

Maritza Ruiz-Kim, Artifact from an Anthropological Experience, 2010 | mixed media on panel

The subject of this conversation is taken from the June 2011 ARTnews Magazine cover story, The Social Revolution, by Barbara Pollack featuring artist and designer An Xiao:

“Artists who have been working with the Internet and with new media since that genre began are interested in participatory systems and social networking,” says Lauren Cornell, the curator of “Free.” “What is new is more advanced technologies and new applications connecting masses and masses of people. It’s really just a progression.”

An Xiao, an early adapter to Web 2.0 and the founder of @Platea, a collective of online art makers would disagree. “I think social-media art is a new genre of art,” she says. “It blends many different things. It blends performance art because it is people interacting socially with each other. It blends visual art because Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and the rest all rely on very visual elements. It blends net art, but it is more of a public space than traditional net art.”

Since the publication of this article a passionate and lively debate has blossomed online following some critical comments by New York blogger and critic Paddy Johnson in L Magazine, #Don’t Follow Twitter Art. Xiao recently responded in An Open Challenge to Social Media Critics published by the popular art blogazine Hyperallergic.  She will join us live from Beijing via Skype to continue the discussion.

Follow live all weekend on Ustream and on Twitter with the hashtag #KEP.

Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Pamela Alper Associate Curator, Julie Rodriguez Widholm spoke to me about the exhibition she organized from the MCA Collection and augmented with loans from private collections.

Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking: A Jim Nutt Companion ends Sunday!! If you are in Chicago this holiday weekend, it is not to be missed (or seen one more time).

Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking includes work by more than 50 contemporary artists that resonates—either formally or through its subject matter—with aspects of Nutt’s work. The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections that examine how artists look to comics, folk art and non-Western art as source material; representations of surrealist psycho-sexual dramas; the traditional portrait bust genre; and an architectural approach to materials that oscillates between 2-D drawings and 3-D forms.

Click to view slideshow.

Theaster Gates, Itinerary for silver hill, 2010 Silver and gold leaf, neon, wood, acrylic (two elements) Pulitzer Foundation 2010

It is written that without a vision the people perish. Fortunately, there continue to be artists in our time who project for us a picture of what is possible. Artists have always done this, but today we find artists whose value is in how they live and not just in what they make. In their living we not only have a vision of the future, but a model for how to get there.

In terms of my own life, I often think about the word “consequential.” What does it mean to live in a way that is significant in the world and to the world? My pursuit of art and admiration for artists generally has to do with finding answers to these questions.

At the time of this writing it has been almost 1000 hours since Ai Weiwei and, later, four associates disappeared.  Ai’s political engagement with the Chinese government is well known. He has suffered life-threatening abuse and risked personal safety in order to set up new questions. Ai uses art as a tool to create basic structures that can be open to new possibilities. It is therefore appropriate that the forthcoming documentary film by Alison Klayman, Ai Weiwei Never Sorry, asks the question, “Can an artist change China?” A similar question is being asked of Theaster Gates, “Can an artist change Grand Crossing?”

The difference in circumstances of these two artists hardly needs to be mentioned. That they originate from different generations, geographies and genealogies is also obvious. To assist us in understanding the new function of the artist and art in society, we should focus our attention instead on the symmetry of their inquiry and their agency with respect to social problems.  It is this picture that can model the modern moment to which we should aspire.

I met Theaster Gates recently in Chicago at a dinner hosted by Artadia Board Member and Chicago-based art patron Larry Fields. I quickly learned that the Theaster Gates “whole person” approach to life very much mirrored my own and his work seemed like mathematical proofs for my private theories about why art matters.

When approaching the work of Ai Weiwei and Theaster Gates, descriptive terms like “cross-disciplinary” or “inter-disciplinary” are unhelpful. To think in terms of disciplines or worse – medium – with respect to these artists is to completely miss the mark. We have to look deeper in them to understand anew what an artist is and what it is that an artist can do.

The quality and manner in which these two artists matter requires a new and distinct discourse which I am calling “consequential aesthetics.” I use the term to describe the practice of a type of artist exemplified by Ai and Gates.  They are interested in and investigate traditions of the beautiful in art, but situate the production of art objects and circulation of related ideas in ways that impact the lives of people outside institutionalized contemporary art discourse. The result is that the artist through his art practice becomes a transformation agent in society capable of creating a new reality through subversive interventions in the status quo. (See this month’s ARTnews profile on Ai Weiwei by Barbara Pollack, Crossing the Line in China.)

Gates generously agreed to spend some time walking me through his current solo exhibition, An Epitath for Civil Rights And Other Domesticated Structures, and his nearby studio/workshop. It’s two weeks later and I am just beginning a process of understanding how to think about what I saw and learned. Yes, I said “beginning a process of understanding how to think about”…

In An Epitath, Gates raises the question of political potency: “How do we think of the history of Black political engagement that required acts of unrestrained heroism and life-threatening engagement? What is the state of Civil Rights, especially now that there are splinters of class-based need, new marginalized groups, and the ever present belief that things are better for all because of the election of 2008?”

This inquiry relates in clear ways to the Arab Spring and upheaval in many other parts of the world we are all witnessing. While Gates is dealing with the failure of the Black middle class to address issues of the Black poor, he has also placed a specific African American historical narrative in relationship with contemporary acts of “life-threatening engagement.”

If you have not previously thought about these artists in relationship to each other, consider their shared interest in ceramics. Both understand what Gates describes as “the function of craft to carry culture.” Their ceramic work deals with ritual, ceremony and history transformed by an artistic act that invites the audience to travel from the old into the new.  See Theaster Gates at the Milwaukee Art Museum, To Speculate Darkly: Theaster Gates and Dave the Potter, April 16 – August 1, 2010 and Ai Weiwei at Arcadia University Art Gallery, Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn Ceramic Works, 5000 BCE – 2010 CE, February 24 – April 18, 2010. In these exhibitions the art object becomes a device for intervention and interruption in ways of thinking.

In their artistic practice, both artists engage in acts of demolition. Ai destroys antique ceramics of actual (and even greater symbolic) value.  Gates demolished the insides of abandoned buildings which have neither actual or symbolic value as raw materials. Both artists play the role of redeemer by transforming these old objects. As contemporary art the old object is infused with new value, becomes worthy of museum exhibition and commands a high price because of its association with the artist.

Importantly, however, Ai and Gates go beyond the Duchamp slash Warhol conversation their work invites. The very making of the work is used to meet the basic needs of people living in communities far and away from the museum and the art fair. The objects are part of what Gates describes as an “ecology” that unifies fine art making, exhibiting and selling with the redemption of discarded materials, people and places.

Ai Weiwei employed 1600 grateful citizens in the small city of Jingdezhen to produce 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds for his exhibition at The Tate Modern. Theaster Gates’ exhibition at Kavi Gupta Gallery is similarly note worthy for having involved the employment of an ex-offender who is being re-enfranchised through his making of art. As artists, Ai and Gates have successfully transformed circumstances for groups of people who had no previous relationship to contemporary art practice.

In another clear and specific parallel, both artists are challenging the political structures that produce shoddy buildings. According to Ai, political corruption among the Chinese ruling class led to bad construction of school buildings, causing the deaths of children in the 2008 Szechuan earthquake. According to Gates, moral corruption (my words) among the African American professional class led to the removal of intellectual and financial resources from neighborhoods causing blight and the collapse of builds, ruining lives.

These are new equations for artistic practice that stand in opposition to (or maybe they are an evolution of) 20th century inventions like relational aesthetics. And whereas social sculpture  celebrates the idea that art has the potential to transform society, consequential aesthetics actually causes the imagined transformation.

Within consequential aesthetics a new level of artist engagement with the world is occurring. This engagement extends beyond the privileged discourse of the art world, which often amounts to little more than a private conversation among elites. Ai and Gates successfully deploy a language and context for their work that suit traditional art institutions and operators. But they also extend themselves personally through a material engagement with public life.

Their art objects are symbolic, loaded with meaning and at the same time beautiful. Artists like Ai and Gates embody the best of conceptual art practice combined with reverence for materials and artistic skill. But the wholeness of their identity, and thus the significance of the works, can only be appreciated when the objects are brought into view with the artist’s participation in communities. Ai’s political activism through social media and Gates’ neighborhood revitalization through urban and cultural planning model a new standard for moving and being in the world as an artist.

Earlier this weekend on Twitter I was asked, “What are you seeing today that you think might be the beginning of something new and big?” I didn’t realize it at the time, but my answer set the framework for this post in 140 characters. I tweeted: We will see a shift from what is made to the maker. The future is for the artist whose entire life is the work.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. ~ Jeremiah 18:1-4

Why Firehoses?

Why Sunflower Seeds?

Perris Straughter, Senior Planner, City of Newark

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting Perris Straughter and seeing another aspect of what is happening art-wise in Brick City. After decades of neglect, Newark’s commitment to public art is experiencing new life under the Cory Booker administration.

City Without Walls (cWOW) is the organization that has been responsible since 2009 for City Murals, “a public art program that builds neighborhood pride and trains youth for the Twenty-First Century through community collaborations.” cWOW is an urban gallery of emerging art. Their mission is to advance the careers of artists while expanding the audience for contemporary art. They use art and technology to build communities, careers and contemporary culture (umm, sounds like me!!). Based in Newark since 1975, cWOW is New Jersey’s oldest non-profit contemporary art space.

Installation of Newark's PEACE Mural

In the coming two-year program cycle, the Barat Foundation will join in the administration of City Murals. The foundation is making a big splash with its PEACE Mural being completed today, just in time to welcome the Dalai Lama to Newark for the Newark Peace Educational Summit (May 13 – 15, 2011). Founded by Gary and Chandri Barat, the Barat Foundation is a 501(C) 3 not-for-profit educational corporation dedicated to the power of the arts to transform lives and to level the playing field for highly motivated, underserved youth.

Ahhh, Park Avenue…land of the free; home of the brave! #iwantyou 11:03 AM Jul 8th 

Secret service and police action at Park and 68th #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:04:00 AM 

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” — Thomas A. Edison #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:07:11 AM 

I’m keeping @BLAISEartworld waiting! #yourefired #justkidding #shelovesme #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:09:10 AM 

When are they going to be done with the scaffolding at the Polo Mansion already? #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23hlwf Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:11:06 AM 

@BLAISEartworld and Damon already started the party in the back but no network connection! #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23hnrx Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:17:33 AM  

@BLAISEartworld and *Damon* are playing “do you know…” from her days at Sotheby’s #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23hond Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:20:59 AM  

This cute UES cafe is where @BLAISEartworld used to hang out in high school acting older than her age and bumping in2 her parents. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:22:28 AM

@BLAISEartworld worked on a Sotheby’s Tools for Thought benefit and Damon had work there, but they didn’t meet then… #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:23:36 AM

Damon has two painted soccer balls in a surf lodge benefit this weekend in Montauk out east. #iwantyou #worldcup Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:25:15 AM 

@BLAISEartworld is a woman after my own heart…chocolate croissants #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23hqry Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:28:16 AM  

@BLAISEartworld updating Damon on meeting with Darin Rubell yesterday and options for a unique project at Gallery Bar. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:29:55 AM 

Damon and @BLAISEartworld talking about catching up out east this weekend with Darin…maybe #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:31:14 AM  

Damon has jokes! He says the City over 4th of July was like a zombie film. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:32:07 AM  

Damon, about living in Flushing: “some days are better than others…” #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:33:01 AM

This is not a bad way start off the work day… #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23hsra Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:35:24 AM 

Damon and @BLAISEartworld are chatting about her salon show last month. Was a gr8 crowd AND work sold. Damon: THAT’s all I care about. #word Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:36:30 AM


People, know that @BLAISEartworld is doing the old biz a NEW way. That’s why… #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:38:08 AM

Collectors who attended @BLAISEartworld‘s salon opening appreciated the intimate setting, Prosecco + chance 2 actually *talk* 2 the artists. Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:40:04 AM 

Damon sharing horror stories of working with other exhibitors. He had to pay 4 transportation and sell his own work at the space. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:42:28 AM

@BLAISEartworld sharing her guiding principles for dealing with artists and collectors. Always responsive. Always responsible! #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:43:33 AM


“I’m borderline OCD” says @BLAISEartworld Watch out, she’s watching FB updates, so “what’s up with the no reply to my email!” #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:45:45 AM

RT @damonjohnsonnyc Open Mindedness has become equal to having no standards or convictions, if you believe in things that people don’t then your not open minded Friday, February 19, 2010 3:15:44 PM

Damon is on Twitter! Sort of. I just RTd his last Tweet from Feb. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:48:43 AM 


@BLAISEartworld talking strategy for reaching multiple levels of buyers with @damonjohnsonnyc #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:50:37 AM

*ASIDE* Come Undone, Duran Duran is playing here. I’m distracted. Not listening to @BLAISEartworld or Damon. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:51:59 AM 

We are talking about what a zoo crazy hot scene @brooklynmuseum was last Saturday. @damonjohnsonnyc was there! Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:55:23 AM 

@damonjohnsonnyc let’s others define his work. He says maybe it’s demented pop art #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:56:12 AM  

@BLAISEartworld discussing her firm’s “talent management” approach. It’s highly customized. Not the standard 6-week white cube rotation. Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:57:59 AM 

You heard it here first! @damonjohnsonnyc is going to be one of the top 20 artists in NYC. I *like* that kind of talk. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:59:28 AM 

@damonjohnsonnyc and @BLAISEartworld talking abt artists signing contracts and comparing fine arts to music industry #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:02:20 PM  

@damonjohnsonnyc just sold 10 paintings to a Taiwanese collector. Old ones that were collecting dust under his bed. Very cool! #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:03:15 PM  

@damonjohnsonnyc talking abt the weirdness of being trotted out by dealers to meet and charm collector…*potential* collectors #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:04:25 PM 

Uh oh!! @Zacharycohen just showed up. Great hair cut, dude. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:05:10 PM 

@Zacharycohen is here 2 chat with @BLAISEartworld abt her help with one of his art clients #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23i21f Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:09:26 PM  

@BLAISEartworld and @Zacharycohen doing catch up, small talk, Hamptons, let’s order food. #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23i3fv Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:14:50 PM  

@Zacharycohen just told me the second thing I can’t tell you. #annoying #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:16:40 PM  

Seems we can’t get started with the business part of the meeting until Zach orders salad. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:19:01 PM  

@Zacharycohen giving a summary of his boutique firm that helps clients in hospitality + cultural industries embrace social media #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:22:55 PM 

The shoes! #iwantyou http://twitpic.com/23i727 Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:28:23 PM  

We are talking abt #class, the incredibly important show organized by @powhida and @jen_dalton #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:38:30 PM 

@Zacharycohen says social media is not a step forward, it’s a step back 2 a common sense approach to biz. Customer service matters #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:39:39 PM 

@BLAISEartworld is getting the scoop on social media from the master. @Zacharycohen is sharing what is working + not working for businesses. Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:44:10 PM 

I think it’s clear, @BLAISEartworld is as serious about smart business as she is about smart art. #iwantyou Thursday, July 08, 2010 12:46:22 PM 

…but it might be at your feet.

As I write this it is Memorial Day in the U.S. I haven’t always taken time to consider the purpose of this holiday. Usually, I’m busy getting out of town for the weekend or making sure to change over my closets. But this year, thanks to a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago, I’m thinking about revolution. In particular, the American Revolutionary War or the American War of Independence, as it is also known. Why  would I be doing that when there are plenty of wars happening RIGHT NOW for me to choose from? Well, as street artist General Howe pointed out to me, today’s wars are happening so far away as to make genuine identification with them almost impossible. However, in the mid 18th century, troops were marching literally across my back yard.

I live in Brooklyn. General Howe showed me his map where he had traced the movements of American and British troops through Brooklyn two and a half centuries ago. In his work, he stages “battles” in public places with toy soldiers ordered and altered specifically for the task. In an unusual first-time twist, Howe discovered that one of his battles was recently “re-staged” when he returned several days after the initial composition was made.

The location, as you can see here, is inside of a log along a quiet waterfront area in Dumbo, Brooklyn. As such, it has remained relatively unmolested for much longer than is usually the case.

Independence. Freedom. Not far from the view above (a little to the left), the Statue of Liberty stands tall in New York Harbor. Independence. Freedom. We talk a lot about it in America. We live for it. We die for it. As do people all over the world. But, I’ll admit, it is very easy living in this country to forget so many things. To forget the past. To forget the present. We’d even forget the nose on the tip of our face, if it wasn’t attached. Hey, we STILL forget about it. How much more do we forget the sacrifices, struggles and blood shed occurring beyond our borders.

So, a hearty thanks to street artists everywhere like General Howe who have unleashed art. Liberated it from the white cube and even from the canvas so that it confronts us in our everyday journeying through life.

Every little bit helps.

The above is the official Statement of Wounded Knee Skateboards. I first read about this crew in the New York Times and saw some of the boards up close today at the National Museum of the American Indian. The exhibition was much too small and superficial for what I was hoping to find, but I can appreciate that even this small spotlight may be an improvement over the status quo. Ramp it Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America is a national touring exhibition beginning at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. last year. Based on this Washington Post review, what I saw today was not the complete exhibition. Nevertheless, I hope some of the New York culturatti will make their way down to the SI on Bowling Green to get a glimpse of an incredibly vibrant and active sector of contemporary visual culture.

Skateboard artists of all backgrounds exist to a large extent, as I like to put it, “on their own terms.” This independent existence, for all of its value, nevertheless can be lacking in the wide-spread recognition, appreciation and critical review that creative excellence and dedication deserves. How many knew that skateboarding originated with Native Hawaiian surfers? Surfing, once it caught on in California during the 1950s, quickly gave birth to skateboarding, which was then just a land-locked substitute for catching a wave.This is one fine example of many where the hardship and lack experienced by a particular community in a certain time and place leads to breathtaking innovation and beauty. A new culture is born that spreads around the world and becomes such a part of us that its influence is no more visible than the air we breathe.

According to a text at the exhibition: “Native Skates has given many Native contemporary artists an opportunity to distribute their artwork outside the traditional methods of galleries and art fairs. Founder Todd Harder believes strongly that both Native and non-Natives should be able to own art work by Native people, even if it comes on the bottom of a skatedeck.”

Um, YES PLEASE! Look at the two images left and tell me the contemporary art “scene” is not horrifically impoverished by the absence of these artists. I also really dig what is going on at Nakota Designs. Even the biggest art snob would agree they are missing something exceptional and important by not knowing the work of Native contemporary artists like Sonya Kelliher-Combs and Nadia Myre, both shown in the exceptional exhibition Hide: Skin as Material and Metaphor through August 1 (also at the NMAI downtown).

Maybe I missed the articles, but I just searched the online archives of Art Forum for Myre and was told, “No matching entries found. Please modify your search and try again.” ArtInfo.com has this much on Kelliher-Combs: Artworks (0) ; Galleries / Museums (0); Artists (0); Exhibitions & Events; (1); News & Features (0)

So, there you have it. N.U.A. PAVILION has its work cut out. I know like you know that people from top to bottom, left to right and east to west are bored to tears with the tiny slice of life packaged, presented and discussed in most cultural circles. I am intensely interest in the traditional conversations and spaces, but I’m hungry for more. And I want to experience my portion of “more” at the same level of intellectual engagement and dignity of presentation that I find in high art circles. I guess it is time to be the change I want to see. Thank you, Gandhi, yes I will.

Art Agenda commented today about the Amy Sillman show at Sikkema Jenkins & Co:

“Sikkema Jenkins & Co is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Amy Sillman titled Transformer (…or, how many lightbulbs does it take to change a painting?) on view from April 15 through May 15, 2010.

Sillman’s show features a range of new work across mediums, including large and mid-scale paintings, two different suites of drawings, and a new edition of her one-dollar ‘zine “The O-G.” The show begins with a simple drawing of a lightbulb. The lightbulb transforms into a flashlight, which in turn becomes a medium for self-reflexive investigation. The lightbulb is thus a pivotal image for illumination, reflection, transformation, the comic, and obsolescence – a thematic stand-in for the conditions of painting itself.”

I went to visit the show last week and picked up a copy of Sillman’s ‘zine, which Two Coats of Paint talk about in their review of the show. Imagine my surprise today after reading through the ‘zine and considering Sillman’s reflections on the light bulb, when I saw these brilliant paintings by graffiti veteran and curator of 5Pointz, Meres One.

Light bulbs galore! These works were completed in January and represent a kind of re-birth for the artist. Yet, the light bulb I came to learn is his signature and has been used consistently as an iconic representation of the artist himself (my words).

Clearly, these two artists are in dialogue. One from Chelsea. One from Long Island City. Both continuing a long tradition of artistic renderings of the light bulb throughout art history. Sillman’s ‘zine contains images of light bulb references in works by Dieter Roth, Charles Peirce, Mike Smith, Picasso, Johns, Guston, George Grosz, R.H. Quaytman, David Salle, Lisa Milroy, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Palmer Hayden, Picabia, George Clinton/P-Funk, Christina Ramberg and Amy Sillman.

What is it about the light bulb that has captured the imagination of so many revered artists? Sillman’s “Train of Thought” in The O-G may contain a clue. She writes:

“Light bulb over head is symbol of ‘idea’…’ideas’ similar to ‘concepts’…Are precepts, constructs, perceptions similar to ideas?…Good painting also has good ideas…Nothing more irksome than idiotic curators who don’t understand the conceptual + emancipatory possibilities of painting…Think & Feel! Speak & Act!”

These are my excerpts strung together in a way to suit the perspective I wish to highlight: the emancipatory possibilities of painting. Sillman and Meres have not actually had a conversation (as far as I know), but I find something very powerful in their common engagement with the light bulb despite coming from such different artistic traditions. There is something about the light… It is light that shines in the darkness. The darkness does not comprehend it. The light bulb; therefore, may hold fascination for artists as the ultimate icon of comprehension and liberty.