Now: Here: This February 3, 2006
(scroll right to walk through the exhibition)
Vikki Michalios
Jersey City, New Jersey
payoff
4"x4"
oil on panel
On my mind:
Morning yoga sessions at 5a.m.
Nick Holliday
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
mouthed words
collage
...and, after all, anyone they encountered would not live to bear witness. "No witnesses," he reminded Perry, for what seemed to Perry the millionth time. It rankled in him, the way Dick mouthed those two words, as though they solved every problem; it was stupid not to admit that there might be a witness they hadn't seen. "The ineffable happens, things do take a turn," he said.
--Truman Capote, "In Cold Blood"
Anthony Gonzalez
Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
Scanned drawing - Photoshop enhanced
In my 4th and 5th grade art classes we have been studying the work of M.C. Escher, learning how to make tessellations. A tessellation is a shape or tile that repeats to fill a surface without any gaps or overlaps. Only certain polygons can be translated into tessellations. This one was made from a hexagon.
Incidentally, I have been having a blast with scotch tape and the New York Times since having seen PP’s last NHT entry - Immediacy, spontaneity, chance, and transparent layers to boot.
PP
New York City
Felt Architecture
Tape and Newspaper
Sometimes it fun to have a buzzword for a last name that has become a prefix: power tie and power lunch being my favorites. Though the Irish name Power is originally Norman. It may have come from the old French word poore, meaning poor, or from Pohier, meaning a native of the town of Pois, in Picardy, France. The Powers came to Ireland in the 12th century with the Anglo-Norman invasion, and the clan became among the most hibernicised of all the Anglo-Norman families. Today, it is principally found in and around Waterford county.
Mark Masyga
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Berlin 360
photo collage
This 360-degree view of Berlin is actually a self-portrait. I wanted to remember this precise place at this precise time. (This is not cheating!) It took a few monthsto process the information, and after much thought, it struck me that there is really no good way to "capture a moment," and certainly Kodak has no monopoly on such things. I was freezing. I was hungry. I was tired.
Anaximander
Berlin
to love me, is to flee from me / mich zu lieben, bedeutet auch
vor mir zu fliehen
installation (the suitcases, by the way, are filled with the textseries
"PURE" 777 text about sex & love)
what is the most important thing on my mind right now? discovery... the
relation between women and men. its part of nearly every theme i started
in the last years. sexuality... whatever intellectual thinkers may have
made of it, one of the strongest band between people. communication...
possibly the most difficult interaction. momentarily it seems so to me.
even if two people are using the same language, its not the same. after
the wall between east and west germany broke down, only few month later
i moved to berlin. directly into the former east area. there i made the
hardest experience about persons using the same language, but unable to
understand the meaning behind each others words.
what my jumping brain is giving me tonight: to love me, is to flee from
me.
Laura Traverso
Washington, D.C.
hombre cuatro
drawing
Tim Folzenlogen
Washington Heights, New York City
Self Portrait #74
ballpoint pen
I now view the yearly installments of Now: Here: This as being shows.
I view my contributions as being a series, specific to that period in my life.
I want each series to be unique in format, because I’m never feeling what I was feeling last year. Not even close.
So this show, I was going to do a variation on my cartoons. I was thinking single panel, with my little man saying a different slogan every installment – sort of reducing my thought down to a bumper sticker.
I’d then use the MIT section to elaborate on that thought.
I had a little give and take with Peter as to whether I could make my little man naked, because I like the thought of my little naked man – but then when I drew him, I liked him better with the big shoes.
So I was going to go with that, only it still didn’t feel right for reasons I can’t define.
Then I thought of my ballpoint pen portraits, which I started doing a few weeks ago.
I like the idea of me, looking at me, and then showing you, a drawing of me, looking at you, that grew out of me looking at me.
This is all I do anyway, so it’s nice to have a visual expression of it.
Renee Tamara Watabe
Verona, New Jersey
Young Girl Drawing beside the Hudson River
detail of drawing in progress/graphite on paper
Andy Gerndt, my drawing instructor at School of Visual Arts told me, in 1980, (if my memory serves) that drawing is the foundation and most important skill for an artist. He insisted we shave the point of our pencils with a razor blade by hand to achieve the stellar tip for a proper rendering. I remember doing a lot of looking at Ingres and Degas and being awed by them. Today I am enjoying the detailed repetitive motions that are required of me by my drawing. It feels nice and safe and solid. It is the beginning of a relationship with myself that will evolve over time. There is nothing to hurry about.
I am in a "Back to the drawing board" frame of mind.
Joel Adas
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Close-Up Self Portrait (after M.B.)
photograph
Thinking of Max Beckmann and his amazing self portraits. I've been working on a large self portrait from life in my kitchen and between bouts of painting I pore over reproductions of Beckmann's work for sustenance.
Stephen Beveridge
Washington Heights, New York City and Hemet, California
untitled
photograph
art is like a sheet coming out of the dryer. i don't want it to touch the ground and i want to enjoy it before it gets cold and flat
when i concieve the piece it seems fresh and its my job to keep it that way while getting it folded and put away
I can let it continue tumble but it might shrink or i'll forget
Malcolm's dying
I dont dare say what I mean lest I acknowledge the truth that I'm totally vulnerable and headed for certain decomposition with a detour through helplessness and embarrassment
Sky Pape
Inwood, New York City
flow
Digital photo (drawing on wall)
I had some time to work in the studio before heading back to the hospital. Once again, I'm drawing while someone important to me is struggling to survive. Oddly, the activity doesn't feel trivial. Many people said they'd send positive thoughts to this person, a stranger to them, and that didn't seem trivial either.
Evening darkens until
I can no longer see the path.
Still I find my way home,
My horse has gone this way before.
~anonymous
Rosa Naparstek
Washington Heights, New York City
Habit
m ixed media
On My Mind: Cartoon Uproar
religion, religion, religion
remember the Last Temptation of Christ, the Movie?
the hullabaloo, demonstrations, castigations, obfuscations
and even a death…for the intimation that Christ lusted
on the crossbeams of sacrifice?
remember Sensation, the Exhibit?
and the hullabaloo, demonstrations, castigations, obfuscations
and even censorship…for the intimation that Mary was no longer
pure to have her visage near manure?
I sometimes soothe myself by thinking that underlying all this insanity
is
the misplaced, confused, distorted longing for and fear of the Divine…the divine in ourselves and each other. For in acknowledging 'divinity' we then must take responsibility for what we create and in the words of that great songster "yes, it's true, yes it's true, growing up is hard to do."
.
Misha Dontsov
New York City
the sudden little things
digital image
The unimportant things, the little things, how do they bounce off?
The little misfortunes happen to you, the little victories happen to you, all sorts of things are going on in your life, your little life. The unimportant things, the little things, how do they bounce off of you?
An asshole guy reeking with alcohol tells you that he knows what your problems are, tells you that he is a "successful artist", tells you that he would give you a few pointers; the arrogant asshole stinking with alcohol, he tells you that he knows what you need to do. You step aside and look away, and you feel much better. You feel so much better.
The unimportant things in your life, how do they bounce off?
You eat the pitted olives and watching a TV cop drama at the same time. Crack! A good half of your wisdom tooth chips off, you spit it out, you most carefully touch with your tongue the remains of your tooth, tasting blood, feeling an exposed nerve inside the tooth. You spit out blood and call you dentist. Two days and thousand dollars later you are fine, they drugged you and pulled out the invalid tooth. You feel so much better.
The unimportant things, the little things, how do they bounce off?
You went to an ATM machine to get your forty dollars, it tells you that you have a zero balance on your account. You panic, you rush to a customer service. A woman officer tells you that yes, you have money on your account, but it is frozen, she will investigate and will get back to you tomorrow. You go without lunch that day, then go home sick to your stomach with worry. The next day you are fine, the bank made a mistake. You feel so much better.
The unimportant things, the little things, the sudden little things that happen to you, how do they bounce off? _How?
Peter Ferko
Washington Heights, New York City
ferko p
animation
That's ferko-opie. I've been diggin' Julian Opie's Sara Walking and Bruce Walking LED installations at New York's City Hall since last year. I rarely interact with art verbatim--it seems like a tourist stunt (although it is handled tastefully by remixers, and our own PP in her collage). But sometimes in the face of something that truly moves you (I'm reminded of Joel Adas's reactions to Cezanne and Matisse) that naive--or true--sense of joy sprouts through and makes you want to squeak "Look, look!"
end of exhibit
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