Artists Unite Issue

Interesting post at NPIRL. I will provide a link to the article along with some of the key points for me. (I need to separate them from the text to facilitate my thinking due to ingrained self taught short attention span) (I was reading Bob Dylan’s bio last night and he talked about forcing himself to read long poems and memorize passages to offset or wean himself away from the tv, 45rpm, 3 min song lazy thought pattern.)

The Work of Art in the Age of Computational (Re)Production ***
Posted by Alpha Auer…

Key points (for my understanding)

a very vital component of artistic practice is no longer present with us today. Or at least not immediately and obviously so. Does artistic output still serve the intrinsic purposes of humanity? Or has art simply lost its cause?

unless we provide an intrinsic purpose for it, and one which transcends that famed holy cow of “creative self expression” at that, our artistic goose is pretty much cooked! Overcooked, if anything, should you ask me… ;-).

Personally, I have created Syncretia entirely by the credo of “livability” as opposed to “viewability” and my future efforts in metaverse creativity will follow along these lines as well, since to me this seems to be a thoroughly viable means of providing context to artistic endeavor today: The provision of usable objects and spaces serving the ritual of behavioral change and consequent self discovery through play.

Well what do you think? It looks to me like I am still rooting about in the subconscious for myself and for the viewer I am providing the visual narration of my spiritual concepts. But then what was “Ghost Story”?

Recommended viewing

The story of stuff

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.

Victor Lebow

The modern industrial economy works like this: resources are dug from a hole in the ground on one side of the planet, used for a few weeks, then dumped in a hole on the other side of the planet. This is known as the Creation of Value. The Creation of Value improves our quality of life. Improvements in our quality of life make us happier. The more we transfer from hole to hole, the happier we become.

Unfortunately, we are not yet transferring enough. According to the Worldwatch Institute, we have used more goods and services since 1950 than in all the rest of human history. But we still don’t seem to be happy. Indeed, over the same period, 25-year-olds in Britain have become ten times more likely to be afflicted by depression. One in four British adults now suffers from a chronic lack of sleep, and one fifth of schoolchildren have psychological problems. Over the past 13 years, mental health insurance claims have risen by 36 per cent. American studies suggest that between 40 and 60 per cent of the population suffers from mental illness in any one year. The World Health Organisation predicts that by 2010 depression will become the second commonest disease in the developed world. Unless we start consuming in earnest, we’ll never experience real joy.
George Monbiot

What’s the most boring date of the year?! It has to be the Monday between Christmas and New Years. But not this year!

Join Artists Unite on Monday, December 29 for the finale of Now:Here:This along with performances by dance/installation artists robot hands and spoken word artist Angela Jones. Plus drinks and snacks. No boring Monday for you!

Details
Monday December 29, 7-10 pm
720 Fort Washington Ave #2K
A Train to 190th and take elevator up to Ft. Washington
1 Train to 190th and take steps at 187 or A elevator above 192 to Ft. Washington Ave.
click here for map

Now:Here:This
The final exhibition of work from artists around New York and beyond who make work at the same moment in time.
A catalog of the project for 2008 will be available

robot hands
meditations of a french hipster.

Drawing from the pop culture phenomenon of Yelle and tektoniks, robot hands once again blurs the line between party and performance, artist and audience, art and fun. In their newest work, meditations of a french hipster, the dynamic duo seeks out to explore the societal boundaries set up when a performer takes the stage and how the french dance sensation, tektoniks, broke those pretensions. Employing heavily inspired tektonik vocabulary, robot hands twists and turns to the self-mashed mixes of Yelle and Santogold. Mainly, we just want to take your picture. Visit ihaverobothands.blogspot.com for more info.

Angela Jones
with her own unique (out)spoken word performance!

SEE YOU THERE!!!

This would be in the ‘absurd’ category, except for the fact that I’ve taken a few of these photos myself!

THE ART MUSEUM TOILET MUSEUM OF ART - NOW ACCEPTING IMAGES

World-renowned Collection’s First-Ever Call For Submissions

New York, NY, — The Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art, the world’s largest collection of images of art museum toilets taken at various art museums around the world, is seeking to add to its unique collection through a call for submissions from other art museum art toilet aficionados.

more details at their web site: www.artmuseumtoilet.org

As a writer, Charlie Kaufman has given us some of my favorite movies of the last 10 years: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In his writing/directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York, he reaches for the highest levels of cinematic creation and gives us something to put on our shelves next to other visions that have made it to mainstream theaters in spite of their daring (2001 A Space Odyssey comes to mind).

Synecdoche means a specific part of something that is used to describe the whole, as in using “the screen” to describe the movies; or a whole that is used to describe a specific incidence, e.g., “the law” to describe a police officer. In this case, from his beginnings in Schenectady, New York, Kaufman’s protagonist, director Caden Cotard, goes on to create a theater piece that fills a New York City warehouse with a life-sized version of his life, complete with actors playing himself. The result of his attempt to create something authentic is an ever-evolving play that examines how powerful players in the dance of life make waves in spite of themselves; and how, to quote Dorothy in Oz, the answer is always right there with you. Would that Caden Cotard could figure that out.

The reflexions and parallels this structure provides are both confusing and clarifying, and the whole thing, which could verge on groaning darkness, stays even-keeled due to Kaufman’s biting sense of humor. The cast — Phillip Semour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Hope Davis, Katherine Keener, Diane Weist, Jennifer Jason Leigh, — and a great supporting cast — is outstanding.

I am reluctant to give away any of the devices Kaufman uses, because they are audacious enough to be worth slaps in the face. You can look to other reviews if you crave that before seeing it yourself. Let me limit myself to accolades, and end with the quote that got me to the theater, from Manohla Dargis’s review in the New York Times:

To say that Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now…

This is the funniest invite I’ve ever seen.

They deserve whatever extra publicity this post gets them! Good luck!

There are a few buildings competing with the Flatiron and Empire State (off to the left in the 2nd photo). Be sure to take a look if you’re at 23rd and Broadway…

Wired thinks blogs are so 2004. That the form, which was lo-tech and authored by individuals has turned pro and overly lush, and is therefore no longer valid. Paul Boutin’s article has a solution in mind: Twitter and Facebook.

I say no way!

I have friends who facebook and twitter, but what led me to the blog format in the first place is the ability to have a deeper discussion of ideas. The format of the replacements explicitly fosters the kind of succinctness that I believe devolves into superficiality — not the kind that is shallow, but the kind that asks only for things you can share in a sentence. Not a description of why you like the painting you just saw, but that right now “I’m looking at Morandi.”

I suspect I’m going down on this point. I have felt a lack of participation in blogging among my own circle. But I think the solution is to turn off the kind of sharing we have on facebook and twitter, which diffuses the energy available for communicating and leaves less for deeper communication.

Right now, I’m blogging!

Artists Unite Island is a proposed virtual studio enabling artists from throughout the world to collaborate, share, and learn together in virtual space.

Following on the heels of the successful Now Here This Project AU Island is a logical progression in Artist Unites mission helping artists of all genres collaborate on projects. Members are welcomed in to the virtual environment, provided with training, tools, and most importantly communication with other artists throughout the world. In the virtual environment artists can collaborate on flat art, installation, text based projects, and social interaction mediums. AU Island is the common ground for artists from Washington Heights to meet, learn, teach, and collaborate with artists from around the world.

Copyright 2008, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Arts in Second Life

A Rich Creative Medium, an International Audience
Second Life is the future right now, offering endless possibilities
for artists.Close Quote
— Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran
Creative People

Artists of all kinds have found a powerful new medium for creative expression in the Second Life® world. Musicians, designers, directors, photographers and architects use the Second Life platform to develop exciting new work and expand their audience.

Musicians

Real-world musicians and DJs are migrating to Second Life as the ideal platform for sharing their music and expanding their audience. Big name acts like Ben Folds, Chamillionaire, Suzanne Vega and Jay-Z have used Second Life for both intimate performances and arena-style concerts. Homegrown heroes have launched their careers from Second Life stages. Welsh singer-songwriter Melanie Fudge plays in-world as Mel Cheeky and has sold more CDs through Second Life than any other method. Folk singer Frogg Marlowe, who got his start in Second Life, has since appeared on MTV. Live music events take place in-world every day, in all genres and time zones, and on the weekends there are upwards of 50 events to choose from.

Machinima Directors

Second Life is a machinima-maker’s mecca where directors can film whatever they can imagine — with set pieces of Mars or Milan, costumes from the 1st century or the 21st century — and agile camera tools allow for dynamic cinematography. Plus the Second Life world is an ideal screening environment, where videos can be played before a live audience or set up for on-demand viewings by individual visitors.

Designers

Second Life designers create a booming trade in fashion and decor. Looking to add style and personality to their avatars, residents flock to in-world stores and buy clothes, hair, avatar skins and all the accessories to suit any tastes – from casual to couture. Designers get unique effects by uploading their own textures and manipulating hundreds of appearance settings built in to the Second Life creative tools set. Creating virtual goods has turned amateurs into professionals and resulted in real income for some designers. Their stories and more are reported with panache in Second Life fashion blogs and magazines like Second Style http://www.secondstyle.com/.

Artists

The virtual world offers artists an extraordinary creative medium. The embedded building and scripting tools allow artists to add multi-dimensionality to their work — light, sound, 3-D sculpting and motion. And, Second Life is an ideal format for sharing that work. On any given day, hundreds of in-world galleries and museums are host to shows by artists from around the world, displaying everything from photography to paintings, the real to surreal.

Architects

Second Life is an ever-expanding world filled with diverse environments, from cityscapes to fantasy lands, all created by the residents. It’s an architect’s paradise. There are no limits to what they can create — scale models of real-world houses or fantastical structures unbounded by physics. Builders can work simultaneously on the same project, and all members of a team can see the work as it develops then tweak it on the fly. Real-world clients can walk through a virtual model of their home.
Creative Tools

Built-in, easy to use creative tools give every resident the power to change the world. Professionals and beginners alike can quickly learn to make anything from hairstyles to houses, personal photo galleries to interactive art installations. Second Life offers an environment unlike any other, merging many of the best qualities of the Web, online games, social networking, user-generated content, creativity applications and telecommunications technologies. Residents also benefit from these unparalleled tools and features:

Build & Script

Residents use simple 3-D modeling tools embedded in the Second Life platform to create clothes, buildings, landscapes, sculptures and whatever else they can imagine, and they can animate objects and avatars using the built-in scripting language. Because everything happens in real time, creative work can be highly collaborative.

Images & Textures

It’s easy to convert digital photos and designs from popular graphics applications into an Second Life-compatible format and import them to the Second Life servers. All images can be applied as “textures” to objects and avatars for an infinite variety of creative results.

Audio & Video

The Second Life platform supports streaming media, and enabling it is as easy as copying and pasting the artist’s media server URL into a control panel. DJs, musicians and spoken word acts can put on live or prerecorded performances in-world.

Intellectual Property Rights

Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, decided in 2003 to break away from industry standards and allow users to have intellectual property rights over what they create in-world. Built-in features allow creators to label work as their own and flag it with the level of copy permissions they want to assert over their work, e.g., all-rightsreserved or freely modifiable and transferable.

Micropayment System

Since they own the rights to their work, Residents can sell and trade their objects, scripts, and animations for pleasure or profit. The in-world micropayment system allows Residents to easily pay other avatars for products, services and entertainment. Similarly, the audience at a concert or film screening can pay a “tip jar,” or event organizers can charge for admission. Some talented residents have been able to quit their day job and live off what they make selling their goods and services in Second Life.

Second Life offers professionals and amateurs alike a vast canvas for imaginative expression. Artists, musicians and creative people from around the globe have already made their mark on the virtual world, and the wonders have only just begun.
Resources

* Second Life Music
* Second Life Fashion
* Second Life Machinima
* Second Life Media
* Machnima.com Second Life sampler
* YouTube Second Life machinima group
* Second Style magazine
* Now, Virtual Fashion: Second Life Designers Make Real Money Creating Clothes For Simulation Game’s Players
* List of 100s of in-world galleries and museums available at Towers Gallery Artists Village
* Architecture in the metaverse blog

What is Second Life?

It’s just like real life, but you can fly….”80% of Active Internet Users will have a ‘Second Life’ in the Virtual World by 2011.

— Gartner Research Press Release, April 24th 2007

Second Life may be more important, longterm, than even this much publicity would suggest. That’s because what it really may represent is an alternative vision for how to interact with information and communicate over the Internet.

— David Kirkpatrick, Fortune Magazine, November 10th 2006

The Basics

Second Life® is an online 3D virtual world imagined, created, and owned by its Residents that offers a platform for communication, business, education, and organizational development to anyone who wants to try it. Developed by Linden Lab, Second Life was launched to the public in June of 2003. Since then, the Second Life world has grown dramatically with Residents joining from all over the globe and a virtual land area of over 4X the size of New York City. A tool for innovation, Second Life attracts not only individuals but non-profits, universities, big brands and government agencies, who see the potential for collaboration, education and communication.

The Three Key Elements of Second Life are:

Residents create avatars, form groups and establish a persistent presence in the world.

Residents create and own everything in the world. Using easy-to-master building and scripting tools, Residents create anything from houses and animations to clothing and vehicles.

A vibrant economy results in the buying and selling of Resident created content.

Second Life is not a game, instead it’s the next evolutionary stage of the Internet. It merges many qualities of the Web, online games, social networking, user-generated content, creativity applications, and telecommunications technologies. Second Life is whatever you want it to be — a social hangout, a business opportunity, a creative outlet or classroom. While there are no dragons to slay or levels to attain, there are plenty of games INSIDE of Second Life created by enterprising Residents.
First things first

* Getting In: Your first Basic account is free. Additional Basic accounts cost a onetime flat fee of $9.95. If you choose to own land, you’ll pay a monthly lease fee based on the amount of land you own.
* Avatar Customization: Creating your avatar is simple. Using sliders, you can customize your appearance endlessly. Buy a custom skin and hair to create an even more detailed look.
* The Linden Dollar: Second Life has a built-in micropayment system. The in-world currency is the Linden Dollar (or L$) and the exchange rate is about L$270/US$1. You can buy and sell your L$ at the LindeX — the Linden Lab affiliated currency exchange.
* Land: Buy islands from Linden Lab at the Land Store (or from other Residents via auctions). Owning land gives individuals and organizations the opportunity to customize the Second Life experience for their particular audience.

Programs for Nonprofits to Use Virtual Worlds

Nonprofit organizations use Second Life Grid’s virtual world technology to construct inworld facilities, reach out to new audiences, build communities, and conduct campaigns in support of their causes. Residents can interact with inworld demonstrations, multimedia-rich presentations, and topical discussions.

Linden Lab’s program for nonprofits makes it easy for organizations to establish a virtual world presence. This program provides discounted land rates and access to group mailing lists for reaching out to inworld Residents.

Universal Benefits: Why Real-world Organizations Use Virtual Worlds

Large enterprises and educational institutions continue to invest in their presences on Second Life Grid. They recognize that the largest virtual world provides verifiable real-world benefits:

* Increased Productivity
* Effective Collaboration
* Improved Communication
* Enhanced Engagement with your Customers or Audiences
* Reduced Business Costs

Increased Productivity

Corporations, universities, governments, and nonprofits use the Second Life Grid today to enhance their productivity. Some organizations focus on internal uses, such as training, education, and simulation. Others engage with their customers or students through interviews, recruiting, and product research. Some create prototypes of equipment or business processes quickly and inexpensively. All of them can reduce travel costs and downtime by substituting interaction on the Second Life Grid for real world events and meetings.

Effective Collaboration

The Second Life Grid enables participants in different environments and locations to collaborate in real time in a 3D space. For example, you can walk through a new piece of equipment, engage in a scripted training simulation, or cooperatively design a new workspace.

Improved Communication

The Second Life Grid provides multiple channels of communication, including images, audio, video, voice, public and private text, with both groups and individuals. The platform supports multiple languages and real-time text chat translators are available. For example, the private chat feature lets participants cover ‘lets go over that topic right after the meeting’ in real time. Too often the meeting ends, people leave, days or weeks of emails occur until participants catch up and address that topic. University educators use the Second Life Grid as a platform of choice for a range of distance learning options from entire virtual campuses, to classes, office hours, meetings and presentations. A visible indicator of speech and spatial 3D-voice makes it easy to identify the speaker from among those present.

Enhanced Engagement with your Customers or Audiences

Second Life Grid enables a unique, two-way opportunity for direct engagement with your customers or audiences. Unlike most traditional Web sites, this virtual world platform encourages extended engagement with participants. Many organizations have taken advantage of this 3D interaction space and long engagement times for focus groups, customer research and feedback, recruiting and interviews, and other practices.

Reduced Business Costs

Save expensive travel and business costs through the use of the Second Life Grid. Your organization can establish a private or public centralized 3D meeting space where participants can communicate, collaborate, and present using voice and text in real-time. Meet with global partners at your own branded virtual headquarters. Walk a product team through a prototype to find design problems before committing to real-world construction. Participants from around the world can connect together daily for a fraction the cost of video conferencing solutions or airline tickets.

How Other Organizations Use the Second Life Grid

The Second Life Grid platform provides a powerful platform for interactive experiences. Over 200 educators from nearly as many universities and colleges use it for classes, research, learning and projects with their students, bringing a new dimension to learning.

A large, active education community is engaged in the Grid. Harvard University, Texas State University, and Stanford University have set up virtual campuses where students can meet, attend classes, and create content together. Below are just some examples of various organizations that have incorporated the Second Life Grid in their educational programs. The links below take you to the in-world campuses of these universities. You’ll need a free Second Life account to visit and see what they are doing.

Some of the universities and colleges inworld today:

* Harvard University
* Princeton University (Web site is here)
* New York University
* San Diego State University
* Stanford University
* Texas State University

Island Set Up Fee (Educational/Non-Profit Discount) Price: $700.00

A private island is approximately 65k square meters.
Your status as an educator or non-profit will require verification prior to island delivery.

NOTE:
Monthly maintenance, at a rate of $147.50/month, will be added to this order based on the Payment Cycle chosen. You will be prompted to select either a 6 or 12 month billing period during the order process. Please note that Island Maintenance fees are to be paid in advance and will be included on the first invoice.

What could be more apropos for the era of warrantless wiretapping and imprisonment of suspected enemy combatants than “The Files,” a new play at 59E59 Theater? The play from Theatre of the Eighth Day is a part of the festival Made in Poland running through the end of November and takes the extraordinary form of a reading of the secret police files kept on the theater company during the 1970s. The Polish sense of the absurd comes through strongly here and makes what could be a sad recollection of repression into a humorous look at how ridiculous overzealous political policy can seem in the bright light of artistic interpretation.

The reading of the files is punctuated by archival footage of the episodes described in some of the readings, plus a reenactment of several of the scenes from referenced repertoire. The cast members’ fantastic delivery is perfectly timed, despite their own limitations in English (which don’t show here). Theatre of the Eighth Day (named for the biblical reference: on the eighth day, God created theater!) is a Polish company from Posnan known for uncompromising social commentary and a tight-knit personal interaction. The play includes some very funny “reports” about drunkedness and anti-communist stances and sums up with one spy’s assessment that the company should be infiltrated by party-friendly members, but they would most likely be won over into the company’s worldview.

Following up on Stephen’s post…
I received this in today’s mail:

Artists: Please share your positive/negative experiences with critics, curators, and galleries. Comments from those with direct experience only, please.

Thats the tagline of this site which aims to air the laundry of dealers and gallerists but only with your help

http://howsmydealing.blogspot.com

77 years ago, the vinyl LP was introduced in New York City.
WFUV in New York is paying a tribute of sorts this morning.

Many jazz players follow a tradition of jazz standard: improvising over chord changes where if you know the tune, you can try to keep up. Others go for free jazz: flowing spontaneously with the gods of musical invention. Last night I got to enjoy an extraordinary young musician who dances a middle ground. Mateusz Kolalowski performed at the Jazz Standard with veteran reed man Dave Liebman. Kolakowski works with the standard repertoire, but takes off in a delightful variety of rhythmic and harmonic directions that leave you just enough connection to the tune to help with that joy of familiarity we all have, while showing the richness of his inner compositional musings.

Here’s the intro from the Polish Cultural Institute:

Mateusz Kolakowski, whom the Polish Cultural Institute presented at age 15 playing at the Knitting Factory with U.S. clarinetist Brad Terry, comes back at 21, with three albums to his credit and many musical awards, including the prize for “most promising pianist” at the Martial Solal competition, Paris, 2002, and an honorable mention in the Jazz Piano Competition at the 2002 Montreux Jazz Festival. In 2003, his solo recital in Prague was recorded by Czech Radio during the “8th International Festival of Jazz Piano.” A CD of the performance “14th Spring” was released in Poland by Jazz Forum. In his solo piano improvisations, Ko?akowski creates a unique marriage of jazz and elements of classical music. He continues to receive wide acclaim from leading jazz critics.

Here are some tastes:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/mateusz
http://www.audiolunchbox.com/album?a=169521
or on itunes

top photo via Polish Cultural Institute © Carolina Los

From:       zjoajr@tom.com
Subject:     Precision Parts Machining in China: fast delivery
Date:     September 5, 2008 1:09:51 AM EDT
To:       editor@artistsunite-ny.org

We mainly focus on machining jobs with the lot size ranging from 100 to 2000
pieces on monthly basis. Please be advised with the basic information of our
shop below:

A. Facility & Machinery

-Employers: 120; Space: 10000 Sq. feet; Certificate: ISO9000;
-CNC lathe: 10; CNC mill: 8; Grinders: 3; Auxiliary machine: 35; Wire cut: 8;
-Tolerance: 0.01 mm and maximum capability: 800mmx600mm.

B. Materials & Finishing

-Aluminum, bronze, brass, stainless steel
-Power coating, anodizing and plating
* Remarks: colors by Pantone

C. Typical Products & Industry Served

- Housing, heat sink, fixture, machine parts,
- Automation, robots, instruments, equipment & machine making, engine & motors,
dentists, product design & engineering, etc.

E.CAD files Accepted

Hand draft, IGS, STEP, AutoCAD 2007, Solidworks, AutoDesk, UGNX and ProE

F. Delivery Cycle

- Emergency: 3 days
- Fast delivery: 10 days
- Normal delivery: 2 weeks or monthly basis

Serious buyers please send us drawings for a quotation and details.
* No casting,stamping,injection,screw machine parts please.

Yada Inc./TaiHao Factory
Contact: Mr. Ling (Hotline: 86 755 88832548)

A news blast about our committed board member Rosa Naparstek:

Rosa Naparstek is in Paris at a UN conference in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As cofounder and a director of Artists unite, Rosa is representing the Greater New York Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violence. Their initiative “International Artists for Peace and World Harmony” is the subject of roundtable discussion.

The conference activities also include an exhibition, “Sketching Human Rights,” shown here.

image: Human Rights, by Jerry Robinson, USA, curator of “Sketching Human Rights.”

The June and July episodes of Now:Here:This are online at www.artistsunite-ny.org

The June 6 exhibit was actually shown live in New York as a video projection. The video is included in the online version of the episode on the Now:Here:This project page.

For more information about Now:Here:This, see the project page.

I’m not sure what this medium is called, but it’s an enjoyable summer smile-inducer that ranks artistic types high on the scale. From Huffington Post:

A Blogger’s Guide to Judging People (by their hair).

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is the kind of institution that exists in my dreams and happily, in reality: a gorgeous industrial building complex, beautifully repurposed into an art space with exciting visual arts, mainstream and avant garde performance and good food to boot.

A recent Saturday was the finale of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, a full day of new music performed by a group of musicians who spent a three-week residency with members of Bang on a Can Allstars and other top new music performers. The featured artist was Terry Riley, who reportedly taught the residents Indian ragas every morning. There were a few pieces on the program with a visual or multimedia component. They were not so interesting from my perspective, as the relationships between components seemed weak. But overall, I have no complaints about a full-day program of New Music that is almost never performed in a venue that hosts artists like Beth Orton other nights of the week.

The gallery spaces house two hands full of shows this month. I was able to fit in several between visits to the Festival performances. The first is sculpture and paintings by Anselm Kiefer, including a 50-meter long ribbon of concrete and some spectacular paintings whose surfaces now look like a dry cracking desert. The show includes about 6 paintings plus the sculpture.

On the huge ground floor, an exhibit that explores new landscape art was varied and interesting. 

I admit to rushing through, but was taken by two works in my survey. The first was Jennifer Steinkamp’s animation in which a tree, possibly inspired by the upside-down tree installation by Natalie Jeremijenko in the MoCA entranceway, moves from one position to another and back, tracing a huge reordering of branches along the way. The second was a set of terrariums by Vaughn Bell (Personal Biospheres) in which the viewer is invited to join the microenvironments by putting his/her head through a hole in the bottom. While the photo op this creates is irresistible, I tried to focus on my own experience of being in the miniature world when I put my own head into one.

On the top two floors, a group show surveys the artistic impressions of numerous Western artists visiting China. Some of the work is really good, such as a pair of photographs by Wolf that show the dense architecture of Hong Kong, but most of the work states the obvious: China is crowded and busy. The one piece that tackled the idea of scale metaphorically was a video installation by Catherine Yass entitled Lock in which we experience the view fore and aft from an industrial river barge as it changes levels in a gargantuan lock. I couldn’t help feeling like I was watching a TV show (and waiting for the host’s commentary, “Here we are fifteen minutes later—notice the water beginning to flow through the gates…”) but the idea was clever.

The highlight of the day for me, though was Jennie Holzer’s installation in a darkened room the size of a football field. From both ends of the room, cinema projectors send rolling credits across the floor walls and ceiling as the viewers walk through or lounge on the 8-person bean bag chairs mushrooming around the room. The text was a work of fiction of no particular relevance or politics. The piece appeared to be more of a formal experiment in using some medium-tech sleight of hand to put you in a state of wonder.

Getting to Mass MoCA takes you through some beautiful country from any approach, and these shows are continuing through Spring ‘09.

Roberta Smith reviews a Bronx Museum Group show and only finds a few things to like, notably Blanka Amezkua and Jeanne Verdoux. She was so taken with what she found mediocre that she turned the whole review into a criticism of art school. I’d say the whole market could fall under the same evil glare. Here’s a clip:

It does gives me pause that 26 of the 36 artists have master’s degrees in fine arts from respected universities or art schools. I think most of them should ask for their money back. On the evidence here, at least, they have only a meager understanding of what being an artist entails.