Artists Unite Issue

From 207 Records artist Ben Krieger:

It’s been a while since I got to put together a bill of my favorite acts. If you’re free this Wednesday, August 2 and can make it over to the Laila Lounge in Williamsburg, I’m going to be sharing a bill with 3 fantastic songwriters: Mike Ferraro (who I toured with in February), Rebecca Capua (an sweet, mellow performer), and Paul Fuster (of Proton Proton). The music starts at 9pm sharp. If you can’t be there for the entire evening (though I highly recommend it) and just want to catch my set, I will be on at 10:15 sharp. Mike takes the stage at 11pm.

Includes NHT contributor Nick Holliday
PAVEL ZOUBOK GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of THE NEW COLLAGE, a large-scale survey exhibition of new and recent work by fifty-two contemporary artists working within the aesthetic and practice of collage; including Nora Aslan, Tony Fitzpatrick, Wangechi Mutu, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Javier Pinon, Fred Tomaselli, Dodi Wexler and C.K. Wilde. Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, June 1, from 6-8pm, or during the run of the exhibition, which continues through August 12.

The gallery is located at: 533 West 23rd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues)

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-6pm (during the month of June) Summer Hours: Monday – Friday, 11am-6pm (from July 1)

Since 1997, Pavel Zoubok Gallery has exhibited the work of contemporary and modern artists with a particular focus in the field of collage, assemblage and mixed media installation. Over the years the gallery’s exhibition program has expanded to include paintings and drawings by artists whose work embraces a montage, or collage aesthetic. Following last year’s COLLAGE: signs & surfaces, the current exhibition builds upon the gallery’s art historical programming by exploring collage in contemporary practice through the work of fifty-two artists:

NORA ASLAN – MARC BELL – BRADLEY CASTELLANOS – MICHAEL COOPER – MATTHEW CUSICK – JOHN DIGBY – INDIA EVANS – TONY FITZPATRICK – ADAM FOWLER – JOHN FRASER – RICHARD GALPIN – MARIETTA GANAPIN – GINNIE GARDINER – ARTURO HERRERA – LESLIE HIRST – NICK HOLLIDAY – IMI HWANGBO – MARCUS KENNEY – VIVIENNE KOORLAND — THOMAS LANIGAN-SCHMIDT – LANCE LETSCHER – ANTONIO MERINERO – JERRY MISCHAK – WANGECHI MUTU – PHILIP NAUDE – SIMON NEVILLE – AARON NOBLE – MICHAEL OATMAN – TONY OURSLER – JAVIER PINON – MAC PREMO – ANTONIO A. PULEO – CHRISTIAN ROSSI – MARTHA ROSLER – JONATHAN SANTLOFER – RAVEN SCHLOSSBERG – HOLLI SCHORNO – JOHN SCRIBNER – DONNA SHARRETT – KAREN SHAW – FRED STONEHOUSE – CHRISTOPHER TANNER – MARITTA TAPANAINEN – FRED TOMASELLI – MARK WAGNER – ROBERT WARNER – MARSHALL WEBER – BRADLEY WESTER – KARIN WEINER – AARON WEXLER – DODI WEXLER – C.K. WILDE

(via amNew York) As an example of the responsible behavior I called for in my post about American Apparrel ads (lost my slut thang), Nickelodeon’s summer program “Lets Just Play Go Healthy Challenge” tells kids to get off the couch and get physical. The network has signed up about 100,000 kids to take the challenge, which encourages good eating and exercise habits.

Responding to already exorbitant and constantly climbing admission fees for museums, Andrea Sperling wrote a letter to the New York Times containing an excellent suggestion:

To the Editor:

Re “The Value of Art, to Those Who Pay to See It” (letters, July 28):

As a professional artist, I frequent all the New York museums, and often I go just to see one exhibit.

I can afford membership in only one museum per year. I cannot afford to pay high entrance fees every time, and I find the free nights to be too crowded to seriously look at any art.

Perhaps those of us who are frequent museumgoers and art professionals could buy an inexpensive museum pass on an annual basis.

I’m wondering what would be the most effective way to make this happen? As an organization of and for artists, we could send a letter to the museums making the suggestion, and try to get other artists and organizations to follow suit. Any other ideas?

William Christenberry’s exhibit at Aperture Gallery is a survey of works from 1961-2005. The color photographs of the American south, plus a sculpture and several signs that served as subjects for photos represent Christenberry’s process of documenting the passage of time using buildings in rural Alabama.

What struck me about the exhibit is that half the prints are snapshot-sized photographs. It is so refreshing to see something small, something that is not screaming “I am impressive,” but that merely is impressive. The show is beautiful, and anyone who gravitates to Christenberry’s graphic elements like palm-reader signs, or building shapes and textures, or quietly emotional landscapes will have lots of inspiration to continue drawing from in this show.

image: Guinea Church, near Moundville, Alabama, 1964

Announcing
INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL
for
Digital’06: Bio/Med SciART
International Competition & Exhibition of Digital Prints
to be held at the New York Hall of Science
September 30, 2006 - January 15, 2007
Organized by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI)

News Flash: “Nanotechnologists have made alcohol- and hydrogen-powered
artificial muscles that are 100 times stronger than natural muscles,
able to do 100 times greater work per cycle and produce, at reduced
strengths, larger contractions than natural muscles. Among other
possibilities, these muscles could enable fuel-powered artificial limbs,
“smart skins” and morphing structures for air and marine vehicles,
autonomous robots having very long mission capabilities and smart
sensors that detect and self-actuate to change the environment.”
-University of Texas/Dallas, March 16, 2006

Wrapping my head around the bio-science press release above makes my
imagination spin and I share it for your delight!
-Cynthia Pannucci, ASCI Director

Art & Science Collaborations is pleased to announce its 8th annual,
international digital print competition/exhibition. The exhibition,
Bio/Med SciART, will be held at the New York Hall of Science from
September 30, 2006 - January 15, 2007. The aim of this exhibition is to
explore how the health, medical, biosciences [including biology in
general and also neuroscience] and biotechnologies are influencing the
content of contemporary art via digital prints.

Most often, topics such as bio-warfare, bird flu, designer babies and
cloning grab mainstream media attention. However, for many, the thrill
is in learning about the amazing medical science/ technology
breakthroughs occurring in the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and
cures of illnesses. Today, more and more artists are mining these fields
for information, inspiration, and even new venues for their art.

Throughout history, artists have demonstrated a curiosity for knowledge
about how the human body [and mind] work. For some, the childhood
influences of having doctor or health professional parents or visits to
natural history museums surface in their artwork. Today we even find
individuals who have degrees in both art and medical sciences.
Unfortunately for others, their newfound interest is foisted upon them
because of a personal medical diagnosis, from the loss of a loved-one,
or a fascination with the
macabre and their own mortality.  It is also just as easy to understand
how artists’ imaginations are captivated by today’s amazing medical
breakthroughs and exciting [frightening to some], experimental research.
Artificial organs and joints already extend the quality of life for
millions of people, and gene therapy will hopefully soon replace
chemotherapy as a new cancer treatment without side effects. However
exciting in their advances and future
promise though, the biosciences are also challenging our ethical mores.
Hence, we are now seeing a new breed of artists that focus on
illuminating these hotly contested topics as today’s most important
cultural issues.

JURORS:   This year’s competition selections will be made in an
art-science collaborative process between ASCI Director, Cynthia
Pannucci, and Ramunas Kondratas, Curator of the medical collections in
the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of AmericanHistory.

We eagerly look forward to seeing what your digital prints tell us
about this year’s Bio/Med SciART theme.

ENTRY INFORMATION:
Details: http://gallerythe.c.topica.com/maae0o9abr73rbbuuDjb/
Deadline for entries:
Thursday, August 3, 2006
Notification of Juror Selections: Saturday, August 12, 2006 Receipt of
artwork at the museum: Friday, September 22, 2006

There are lots of “Public Domain” medical image databases online! [Be
careful NOT to use "copyrighted" images.]

EXHIBITION HISTORY
ASCI was one of the first organizations in the world to recognize the
digital print as a valid fine art product in 1998 by organizing an
afternoon panel discussion, “Collectibility & the Digital Print.”  This
event was held in The Great Hall at Cooper Union, New York City, in
conjunction with ASCI’s first international digital print
competition/exhibition.
http://gallerythe.c.topica.com/maae0o9abr73sbbuuDjb/

ABOUT ASCI
Founded in 1988, Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) was one of
the first art & technology members organizations in the USA.
Established primarily as a network for artists who either use or are
inspired by science and technology, ASCI has become a magnet for some of
the best examples of this type of contemporary art and an excellent
resource for scientists and technologists wishing to collaborate.  ASCI
was instrumental in reinvigorating the art-sci-tech movement in the
United States during the 1990’s and helped coalesce the nascent
art-science movement 1998-2002.
It produced seminal public panels on timely topics: from the first
“CyberFair for Artists” (1995) to “Bell Labs & the Origins of Multimedia
Art” (1998), “Collectibility of the Digital Print” (1998), and explored
potential support systems for the first net art at “CyberArt’99.”  ASCI
also produced exhibitions of kinetic art, interactive light art, solar
art, digital prints, and a Womentek exhibition.] Since 1998, it has
produced four ArtSci international symposia on collaboration and the
ArtSci INDEX, an online matching tool for potential collaborators. The
monthly ASCI eBulletin [sent to ASCI members] is one of the most
comprehensive resource tools in this highly interdisciplinary,
international field. ASCI welcomes partnerships and dialogue with the
art and scientific communities.

PLEASE SHARE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT!

The ASCI Team
info@asci.org
www.asci.org

I’m a sentimental sucker for a good description of the creative process. This hit me this morning. It’s from Rebecca Wells 1992 novel, Little Altars Everywhere:

I direct plays…I love studying a script on the page, then presiding over the accidents that occur when the actors let their bodies lead them. The whole process, from first read-through to opening night, feels like a series of tiny miracles to me–one person’s thoughts getting transformed into flesh and movement and conversation and thousands of gestures.

Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1921 novel We is out in a new translation. Those looking for a summer read of monumental meaning and minimum verbage should give it a look. An exciting story of a future in which everyone lives in a “utopia” of sameness, except for the forbidden territories beyond the state’s glass wall. The feel is sci-fi and has a sexiness and thrill to it as the protaganist diaries his stumbling out of the prescribed pattern. Zamyatin was a victim of a failed Soviet revolution, his work was known by Orwell, and the state of child-like citizens he envisions is not far from the Neocon dream (see the post about this BBC special). The LA Times review provides this comment about the novelist in it’s review of the book (via Arts & Letters):

An advocate of permanent revolution, Zamyatin understood that any system, especially a political one, was inherently inclined toward stagnation and entropy — things would inevitably begin to fall apart. Leaders will resort to crushing means of repression, but there will always be rebellions when the deepest demands of human nature have been thoroughly subjugated.

“Fanfan La Tulipe,” a film by Christiane Jacque starring Gina Lollabrigida and Gérard Philipe has the craziest name for a film that I’ve heard in a long time! I hope to go see the new 35mm print at Film Forum. There’s a clip here that shows some of the swashbuckling and humor. Has anyone out there seen this??

Two grabber headlines from the current media. Real data; the real deal:

From the NY Times

Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills

In an era of widespread cuts in public-school art programs, the question has become increasingly relevant: does learning about paintings and sculpture help children become better students in other areas?

A study to be released today by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum suggests that it does, citing improvements in a range of literacy skills among students who took part in a program in which the Guggenheim sends artists into schools. The study, now in its second year, interviewed hundreds of New York City third graders, some of whom had participated in the Guggenheim program, called Learning Through Art, and others who did not. [click the NY Times link for the rest of the story]

From the BBC

LA gangsters launch music careers

Veteran music producers scoured the streets and parks of areas such as Compton, Watts and Inglewood in the hope of discovering another 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg.

“Looking at the west coast market there were no artists that were brand new,” says Robert W Lewis of Reputable Records.

“We wanted to be able to go back into the neighbourhoods and find talent that hasn’t been tapped into.”

Wannabe professional rappers turned up at auditions throughout the south Los Angeles area largely though word-of-mouth.

The organisers were determined that the project would offer opportunities to young musicians that stood little chance of being discovered by more mainstream talent scouts…

… Strict rules were laid down banning guns and any form of violence.
The auditioning rappers were told the project would be called off at the first sign of any fighting.

[click the BBC link for the rest of the story]

This brief essay is the fifteenth in a series addressing the emergence of meaning, by James Leonard.

(Please note: the following material is © copyright James Leonard 2006 and may not be used in any way without permission from author)

Summer is here. Last weekend I attended my first barbecue of the season. The weatherman had predicted rain, but we had nothing but warm spring air and a starry sky. The crowd numbered more than two dozen individuals and was a mix of University of Michigan graduate students and Ann Arbor locals. The hosts, two friends from the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the university, had invited me.

After several hours of beer, barbecue and small talk, a man in his late twenties or early thirties approached me. “Our host tells me you’re interested in complex systems,” he began. “I want to pick your brain,” he continued. The evening and the alcohol had left him itching for some intellectual sparring and he was trolling for a duel. We may have shared acquaintances, but we differed in our opinions regarding the validity and value of complex systems theory.

“What is the value of declaring that anything is chaotic or complex?” was his opening jab. He based his argument on three presumptions: first, science is ultimately a utilitarian endeavor; second, only a reductive approach can render the noise of the universe into utilitarian knowledge; and lastly, he assumed he was speaking to a scientist for whom complex systems theory represented a loosening of discipline in his field.

I tackled these presumptions in reverse order. First, I am an artist not a scientist. For three and a half decades, art and cultural theory have been biased towards a wholly unknowable, absolutely relativistic world. In my field, complex systems theory represents a tightening, rather than loosening, of discipline.

Second, complex systems theory shines when applied to realms that resist reductive methods. Human cognition, artificial intelligence, ecological restoration, international finance and trade, and telecommunications network management are just a sampling of the breadth of realms of inquiry that have benefited from the advent of complex systems theory. Calling any of these systems either chaotic or complex (an important distinction better left to another essay) is not a gesture of surrender. It is a means of identification and a means of steering your method of inquiry.

Granted, complex systems theory is still a young field and its tools are still in development. But we are on the cusp of some marvelous discoveries. As Rick Riolo, a professor I worked with in graduate school has asserted: Though we may never be able to predict what species will exist a million years from now, we will someday be able to make solid assertions about future life on earth, such has what percentage of the biomass will be single celled organisms. We also may someday be able to identify the liminal zones where phenomena such as life, intelligence, and society emerge: How many connected catalytic reactions, nerve cells, or individual beings are necessary?

This brings me to his first, and in my opinion, deepest presumption: Science is utilitarian in nature. Science is a means of questioning the universe, investigating possible answers, comparing evidence, and sharing work. It is the collaborative effort of a professional culture that strictly weighs and reweighs evidence in search of proof. Throughout human history, scientific discovery has fueled technological advancement, reinforcing the presumption that science is, at its core, utilitarian. But at its edge, science remains a means of exploring fueled by curiosity. As an artist, though I benefit daily from the utilitarian side of science, I identify most closely with those scientists who spend their lifetimes indulging curiosity.

(essay 1: wandering; essay 2: the whole; essay 3: news; essay 4: belief; essay 5: debbie; essay 6: consciousness; essay7: culture; essay 8: prototyping; essay 9: fitness; essay 10: exploration; essay 11: meaning; essay 12: pie; essay 13: dots; essay 14: undecidability)

An interesting interview with Thievery Corporation on kcrw’s Morning Becomes Eclectic is worth a listen. It is available as an archive. The interview mentions TC’s failure with a Courtney Love remix and includes a final song from late D.C. songstress Pam Bricker.

Wendy and I attended a very enjoyable yoga workshop on Sunday that led to an artfest.

The workshop was held at YogaWorks by Charles and Lisa Matkin and Barry Walker and focused on keeping your senses in the game and not migrating off into thoughts and anxiety and fear. Good ol’ psych advice. Walker assured us that our senses would be hi-fi after the workshop and he was right. We had gotten in the art mood the previous afternoon when we hit the Met on a whim and drank up the really smart Raphael exhibit (the Colonna Altarpiece).

On our walk to Raph, we got sucked into viewing a set of Rembrandt’s prints (see the intriguing article in last month’s ArtNews). This print gave us a taste of just why he had beefs with the powers that be:

But back to Sunday! We strolled out of the workshop and found the weekend had turned from rain to gorgeous (probably due to our enhanced sensual energy). We decided to walk to the Hudson to enjoy the view. En route, we hit one sensual pleasure after another. First, the shoe store was cooperating with the sun to create one of my treasured lightows (opposite of shadows); this one looked like a glyphic fish…

Then as we headed down 72nd Street, Wendy spotted this aerial phenomenon…

…which appeared to be a rainbow colored cloud. I thought it might be Cai Guo Qiong’s Met piece, but I read that his piece is, in fact, a black cloud. Wendy thinks it’s a coincidental prismatic reflection from somewhere into the cloud; I think it’s our enhanced visual sensuality seeing the light in more detail than usual.

We made it down to Riverside Park. There we took advantage of the opportunity to check out two of the pieces from Studio in the Park, curated by Karin Bravin. The work is hard to miss. Lining the 72nd street underpass is Fabian Marcaccio’s The Fall, shown here with a detail.

At 70th Street, Orly Genger’s “knitted” sculpture, Puzzlejuice, was a treat to see. The palette is garish-but-right-on and the interaction of the climbing rope and the rocks is perfect. It was really fun to see people checking out these pieces of public art. Here’s Wendy checking out Puzzlejuice:

…and here’s Orly Genger reknitting the piece after someone else checked it out a little too interactively! (Her companion untied a nearby tree that had temporarily become involved.)

My heightened aural acuity led me to the bandstand at 70th street where we sampled the Howard Fishman Quartet. We grooved on the Dylan cover and original songs and appreciated the instrumentation, which included violin, trumpet, and tuba along with Fishman’s guitar plus a lead guitar and drummer. Like all outdoor concerts, this one featured a toddler go-go dancing troupe which provides a reality check for all the adult angst and heartbreak so de rigueur in song lyrics.

The visuals tried hard to steal the show. Wendy was on a rainbow kick, it seems. She just had to have a picture of the sailboat with the rainbow spinnaker.

I however was (of course, hopelessly) delighted with the heightened sensuality of the buidings in the late afternoon sun.

I won’t bore you with the details of our dinner; suffice it to say it tasted good.

The moral of the day was, life is more experiential when you bother to experience it.

Newsgrist reports on a possible acquisition of the Onion by Viacom. Stranger than fiction?!?

I had an extremely pleasant surprise last night. My friend Tim, who reps for Paiste cymbals and shares my passion for yoga, told me he had just copied an old photo and thought I might like to have a copy. I was stunned when I pulled out the 8 x 10. Tim said it came from a photography excursion to NYC he came on with some people back in the day. A fellow shooter on the field trip spotted a guy with a bass in the village. He said, “Can I take your picture?” The photogenic local color said, “Do you know who I am?” to which Tim’s companion replied, “No.”

Lucky for us, Jaco was bemused rather than megalomaniacally outraged, which could be his way.

Jaco Pastorius, whom I could never approach as a musical talent, profoundly influenced my musical efforts. He died the most tragic kind of death (avoidable-he died after a fight with a bar bouncer) after battling untreated mental illness and substance abuse. His music though, was full of light of the most brilliant kind. From Pat Metheny (whom I guess is quite quotable as I also quoted him in my interview on Artists Interview Artists):

jaco pastorius may well have been the last jazz musician of the 20th century to have made a major impact on the musical world at large. everywhere you go,sometimes it seems like a dozen times a day, in the most unlikely places you hear jaco’s sound; from the latest tv commercial to bass players of all stripes copping his licks on recordings of all styles, from news broadcasts to famous rock and roll bands, from hip hop samples to personal tribute records, you hear the echoes of that unmistakable sound everywhere. (it may even be more imitated at this point than the previously most pervasive jazz sound to escape into the broader culture beyond the local borders of jazz, the moody harmon mute stylings of miles davis). for all the caterwauling that has gone on about new musicians that have shown up in recent years being toted as the “next miles”, or the “duke ellington of their generation”, or whatever, jaco outranks all of them and all of that by being the one and the only of his kind, without predecessor; the only post 1970 jazz musician known on a first name basis with all music fans of all varieties everywhere in the world. from the depths of africa where he is revered in almost god-like status to the halls of most every music university on the planet. to this day, and maybe more than ever, he remains the one and the only JACO.

Jaco never understood why he wasn’t recognized as the next Jimi Hendrix, but alas, his recognition is mostly from other musicians. The family he left behind has tried to protect his legacy and his intellectual property rights. So it’s easiest to hear his music by buying it (unless your into piracy, and of course you’re not!). But I still listen to Joni Mitchell’s 1976 Hejira with Jaco’s soaring lines like it’s a new album, so you’ll get your money’s worth. Metheny’s quote is from the liner notes of the reissue of Jaco’s eponymous first album (preview MP3s are here), which is a masterpiece of aesthetics and virtuosity. All his recordings and a lot of history and marketing this ‘n that are on his posthumous website.

Thank you, Tim, for the great souvenir (fr. for memory!) and apologies to the photographer whose name n’est pas souvient.

This brief essay is the fourteenth in a series addressing the emergence of meaning, by James Leonard.

(Please note: the following material is © copyright James Leonard 2006 and may not be used in any way without permission from author)

Humans have a deep desire for proof, solid answers, and stable information. Sometime in our animal past, perhaps as far as our bacteriological past, acting on reliable information proved more beneficial than acting blindly. Those ancestors who spent a majority of their time running from mirages, grossly misestimating social relationships, and eating toxic foodstuffs suffered disadvantages. Constant reinforcement through experience and selection has engendered a biologically rooted lust for fixed answers. Reliable information can lead to reliable simple rules of behavior: NEVER eat the green berries! A smile is ALWAYS a sign of good will! Don’t run from a visual cue UNLESS it is reinforced by a scent cue!

We value decidability. It makes life easier by reducing the amount of energy required to arrive at a course of action and the time taken between stimulus and response. But what happens when we can’t arrive at predictable stereotypes, like the rules in the above paragraph, based on reliable patterns? What happens if a situation reveals itself to be “undecidable?” There are undecidable dynamics that for all purposes of human perception are random. Consider superstitions about black cats for example. If a stock trader based his daily trades solely on whether or not a black cat crossed his path that morning, he would likely go bankrupt very quickly. This sort of undecidability, randomness, is often disregarded as noise.

But what about a dynamic that is neither random nor decidable? Are there systems out there that look like patterns, but never actually repeat themselves? According to the mathematical field of chaos, such dynamics do exist. A system, such as the weather, that exhibits quasi-patterned behavior that is not precisely regular but never actually repeats is referred to as “aperiodic” and is associated with a mathematical solution known as a “strange attractor.” A strange attractor is a special kind of answer. Many of us perceive math problems to have singular answers or at least a finite set of answers.

When we pay one dollar for a seventy-seven cent purchase, our change is and will always be twenty-three cents. This is a fixed, decidable bit of information. But imagine if one day, our change for the same purchase was twenty-one cents, then the next day, thirty-five cents, and the day after that, nineteen cents, and so on and so on with no exact repeating pattern. In systems whose dynamics are governed by a strange attractor, short term predictions are relatively easy and reliable. A common example is the reliability of one and two day weather forecasts. Meanwhile, long term predictions become exponentially more and more difficult to make. Consider how relatively unreliable the five day weather forecast is over the two day one.

In fact, at a certain point, it actually becomes more efficient to just update your model of the universe and refine your own internal rules. And the human intuition seems well equipped for such a task. We tend to see regular patterns where there are only quasi-patterns. And as we update our internal models of the universe, we constantly refine and revise, generating new perceptions and relationships as we go.

Right now, in the humanities, a philosophical pendulum swings. At one extreme, the world and human mind are cast deterministic cogs in a wholly knowable and mechanistic universe: decidable and regular. At the other, the universe is entirely relativistic and its inhabitants entirely unpredictable, in other words: unknowable and random. These extreme world views leave little room for a field like art theory to function. In the first universe, art must contain and transmit its meanings, like a data disk filled with information. In the second universe, the meaning of art is entirely relativistic and therefore entirely sociological in its nature.

But in his recent book Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts, the contemporary art theorist and critic James Elkins takes small steps towards finding an elusive theory of meaning. One in which meaning is neither fixed nor random, neither contained by the artwork nor solely generated by the society. He borrows arcane scholastic terms, describing this grail as a theory in which the viewer and the work of art are “equiprimordial” and “coresponsible” in the generation of meaning. And he then asserts that the first step towards moving towards such a theory requires, in so many words, a “demonstration of undecidability.” I’m still not certain as to exactly what he means by this. Nor would I know how to go about providing such a demonstration and how one would measure its success. But I think I’m beginning to understand the challenge he’s leveled. I think the undecidability he searches for is the same I’ve identified here as that “baby-bear” zone between strict linear determinism and unpredictable randomness.

(essay 1: wandering; essay 2: the whole; essay 3: news; essay 4: belief; essay 5: debbie; essay 6: consciousness; essay7: culture; essay 8: prototyping; essay 9: fitness; essay 10: exploration; essay 11: meaning; essay 12: pie; essay 13: dots)

I re-watched M*A*S*H, the film by Robert Altman, last night. An amazing piece of social commentary and revolutionary editing with a cast that just doesn’t quit. On my Netflix DVD, there is a show called “Backstory” about the making of the film. Altman and his entire cast were barely up-and-coming at the time (Donald Sutherland describes his own circumstances as “not able to buy a cup of coffee”). Altman was selected for the film after more than a dozen other directors turned down the script. He wanted to do it as a commentary on the Vietnam War (he removed most reference to Korea to confuse the two wars).While Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould had about three film credits between them, M*A*S*H relied on TV players like Tom Skerritt and Sally Kellerman, and fourteen newcomers, including Bud Cort and Gary Burghoff. 39-year-old Robert Duvall is the most veteran player. Altman’s directorial method was so unique–the narrator calls it ‘guerilla tactics’– that Sutherland and co-star Gould thought Altman was literally insane and tried to get him thrown off the film. The studio heads were paying no attention to the low-budget full of unknowns as they had two other blockbuster war flics (Patton and Tora!Tora!Tora!) in production. Once they saw a cut, the studio flipped out. Altman convinced them to show it to a test audience. The rest is history. Ring Lardner, who wrote the screenplay was furious, as Altman’s technique had the actors improvise all the dialog, bypassing the entire screenplay. Ironically, Lardner was the only winner among the five Oscar nominations the film garnered.

Political art at its best.

The  recycle art Project was initiated last fall in conjunction with the Washington Heights Harvest Festival. The premise of the project is to raise awareness of how much we throw away in contrast to how little the victims of  Katrina were left with. This is a project that reaches out from one community to help another in the name of recycle.

Here are the guidelines for the silent auction:
- The pieces must be made from recycled/found objects only
- There are no size restrictions, please just keep in mind the majority of potential bidders live in NYC apartments
- Deadline is September 15th 2006

How the auction will work:
The recycled art pieces will be on view  for two weeks in a Washington Heights storefront window
The logistics of how the bids will be made have not been determined yet, I’m hoping to have them made online.
The artist can either donate 100% of the proceeds to the cause or they can put a reserve price on it and choose a percentage.

Where the donations will go:
All proceeds will go to Louisiana State University Agricultural Program/Cooperative Extension
The money will go directly to the educational programs that LSU is providing in the shelters. With the donations from last year’s recycle fundraiser,  they purchased books, puzzles, table toys, art supplies, blocks etc. There are still many people living in these shelters that need our help.
If any artists are interested in this fundraiser please contact me directly
mdelg@mindspring.com

Michelle Del Guercio

Art photographer Cathy Carver graced us with copies of some of the images from Marian Goodman’s summer exhibition “Freeing the Line,” curated by Catherine de Zegher. [© Cathy Carver. These images are the property of the photographer and may not be used without permission.]

Enjoy this sample of one of the summer theme shows I mentioned here.

(left to right) Joelle Tuerlinckx, “Volume of Air (’Sol’),” 1994, Iron with white thread cover, 10.5 x 15 x 15; “Volume of Air (’Alberto’),” 1998, Iron and plaster, 20 x 20 x 20 inches; “Volume of Air (’Giorgio’),” 1993-1996, Iron with red, blue throead cover + tipes, 25 x 25 x 25
Karel Malich, “Energy I,” 1974-1975, Galvanized iron wire, thread, 66 x 63 x 49.25

Ranjani Shettar, “Vasanta (Spring/Transition)”, 2005, Handrolled wax, pigments, cotton thread dyed in tea, 10-1/2 x 13 x 24 ft.

(foreground) Joelle Tuerlinckx, “Table of Floating Lines,” 2003-2006, dimensions variable, mixed paper roll, Plexiglas, pigments, pastel, color magic marker, worktable (background) Julie Mehretu, “Covenant,” 2006, Ink and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96 inches

Monika Grzymala, “Transition,” 2006, Black and white masking tape of 8.3 KM, dimensions variable.

Two articles on the same page of the Times today seemed relevant to the spirit of our name, “Artists Unite.”

Loveparade
The first was about the Berlin Loveparade, which sounds like the million-partyer rave, but according to founder D.J. Dr. Motte, it’s a political demonstration. In fact, Dr. Motte is skipping this year’s parade because it’s gone over to corporate financing (it seems the government stopped paying for security and maintenance in ‘99 upon deciding after 10 years that it wasn’t, in fact, a political demonstration). A German fitness chain will be sponsor this year and has made quite a few changes to the spirit of the original. Dr. Motte is dismayed, saying “…The Loveparade is about healing society through music and nonverbal communication. It’s not a marketing parade.”

BMA
The Brooklyn Museum’s curators are up in arms as the museum plans to restructure their departments in ways that will “undermines the traditional vocation of the curator-as-scholar whose commitment to a particular collection renders him or her uniquely qualified to make recommendations regarding its care and interpretation.” Instead, the new plan creates a two-team structure and gives part of the role of developing shows to the director, museum educators, and exhibition designers.