Author: jameswagner

Harvey Milk HS I: to cheer the baby queers


the crowd on Astor Place, entertained by Phelps christianists
For more images, go here.
Barry and I joined hundreds of others outside Harvey Milk High School this morning to cheer students entering the building for the first day of classes.
Across the street was the Fred Phelps family circus of Christianist nuts. The police seem to have understood the difference, and this time their sympathies worked for the good guys. Supporters were assigned the sidewalk in front of the school on Astor Place. The anti’s had to be content with, appropriately, the gutter on the north side, and their screaming was continuously assaulted by the roar of a huge garbage/trash truck adjacent. Who had arranged that intervention?
Their posters alone alienated the cops, as did the sight of several of them standing on or dragging the flag through the dirt, but it was when they pulled out the “THANK GOD FOR SEPT 11” sign, that the police barricade we were standing behind was immediately moved well into the street to give our crowd more comfort, and additional public visibility in the process.
The kids themselves are alright, and we’ll be back this afternoon before 3, to see them safely out.
Bloggy has more, including images. Don’t miss “GOD’S ROD“.
ps

A confession is in order at this time. If you go to my link for more images, the last picture will show what I would say is one pretty hot young bible thumper. Our friend Jon yelled across the street, asking him if he lived in New York. Surprisingly there was an answer, and it was “yes.” Jon followed, “You should get out more. It’s fun.”
You never know. There are all kinds of callings and conversions.

And this afternoon, in a Reuters photo on the MNSBC site:

B’s striped blue polo obscures J’s white shirt – our loopy “YOU’RE OUR ROLE MODELS” sign rises above all. Let’s hope the student queers will be better at signs, but let’s hope they won’t need this kind.

it’s fall – [art] schools’s back!


Danica Phelps
We stopped by the LFL opening on Friday, but could only stay briefly, in spite of my heads-up broadcasted earlier in the week. We had to be in Brooklyn at about the same time, but we’ll be back. I recommend that anyone thinking of visiting Danica Phelps’s grand and intimate installation set aside more than a few minutes, even if you don’t intend to talk to the live-in artist – just what Kiki Smith was doing at the opening reception. The drawings, the texts and the concept are much more than a seductive conceit, but there’s that too.
Saturday afternoon, on the first weekend of the fall season, we walked about western Chelsea without assignment, deciding to take advantage of the fact that virtually any gallery show in the neighborhood would be there for weeks. Ah, like the first day of school, but with the difference that there would be absolutely no pressure.
We started with Galerie Lelong‘s show of new, literate sculpture by Donald Lipski, called “Non-Fiction.” Beautiful installation, magnificent shapes and textures. More.
James Welling still throws out magnificent studies and manipulations of found light. His photographs at Gorney Bravin Lee [site unfortunately not updated yet] are never just pictures. Every one is a challenge, and not just for “Where’s Waldo?” enthusists, since the rewards are aesthetic and intellectual. A wall is not a wall.
But then we crossed the street and walked into the James Cohan Gallery not knowing what we would find there, and the day was transformed. Some time later we walked out of this beautiful, serene show, “A Simple Plan,” with our feet inches above the pavement. Wonderful, literally. Favorites include: John Cage, Tom Friedman, Adam Fuss, Hans Haacke, Paul Pfeiffer, Gerhard Richter, Karin Sander and Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia unfolds a beautiful poem at PaceWildenstein. Scores of small prints of images taken over 25 years compose a sorta fictional and sorta autobiographical non-narrative. Every light imaginable, some barely, recorded. Lyle Ashton Harris, who just opened an important show himself [still on our list of must see’s!] at CRG Gallery, was looking at every one.
Marilyn Minter has a dynamite, jewelbox show at Fredericks Freiser, with with richly-figured photographs and paintings. The paintings are enamel applied with her fingers on metal, a technique which mimics her subject. “Her paintings . . . deal with the pathology of glamour” reads a description on one online site.
Tim Davis was enjoying the opening of his second show at Brent Sikkema Saturday. We liked his series, “retail,” in 2001, with its images of commercial signage morphing over the American landscape. The new work also succeeds in turning light into a dimensional object, while it examines how we physically approach iconic art imagery, questioning a relationship many of us take for granted. Very cool, and incidently very generous to some wonderful images.
Andrew Kreps was hosting a closing party for a totally delightful and smart show curated by his own artists and staff and including only selections from their own collections, er . . . stuff. Seen about: Eli Sudbrack, Lillian Ball and David Reed. Loved Ricci Albenda‘s parakeet.
Anton Kern was showing Ellen Berkinbilt. We both loved the smaller images, especially those boasting darker pallets, but couldn’t register the larger, metal screen “canvases.” Arto Lindsay and David [looking good!] Byrne seemed very pleased to be there, or at least they found plenty to talk to each other about.
Crossing the street as dusk fell, we ran into Emily Noelle Lambert and a friend of hers, locking their bikes after a trip across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Before heading for the, literally, heavenly roof above I-20 Gallery at the top of the building, we wound up the day in Paul Rodgers/9W, where Orly Cogan had installed herself and two other artists. in a show which sometimes looks like the product of a loose collective. We’ve both really liked Orly’s work for some time, most of it embroidered and painted images of a very, very sexy Eden on found fabrics whose faded decorations collaborate with her art. Mixing with the crowd: Ike Ude, Jonathan Feldschuh and Andres Serrano.
From the roof:

ttowers
PS, in the absence of material on the gallery site, I couldn’t resist copying this older image of Orly’s:

Orly Cogan, Garden of Earthly Delights, (detail), 2000 Fabric
[images of Phelps and Cogan from LFL Gallery]

Reza’s in New Jersey

Yea! I was just about to write to Reza‘s travelling companion/friend David Hyslop, wondering why we haven’t heard a thing about his run since July, when I found this story on the Newsday site. I assume it will be in tomorrow morning’s (Sunday) ediion.

He’s gone through 12 pairs of sneakers and run about 3,700 miles, all in the name of peace. He has been undeterred by rough terrain, or by immigration officials who detained him. And now, Reza Baluchi plans to finish his journey in New York City on thursday, the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Reza is somewhere in New Jersey right now, but he should be at the World Trade Center site in five days. Now there’s a real alternative to a deadly Dick Cheney star turn or “9/11 families” demonstrating about tombstones rather than inquiries.
More details as I receive them.

protect our kids!


local color, now in New York
I’ve never been drawn to demonstrations with a “battle of the bands” scenario, but sometimes the people who need help need help on the scene, because the really bad guys will be there threatening them.
This seems certain to be the case this Monday for the students of the Harvey Milk School on Astor Place. Regardless of the complexities of arguments over what the city is doing about homophobia, vulnerable kids don’t need the aggravation and hate with which they are being threatened on their first day of school.
Fred Phelps and his sick entourage will be protesting the fall opening of the school early Monday morning. The people organizing the protest are the same ones who protested at Matthew Shepard’s funeral. Fortunately, their website is down, although that means I miss out on linking to it here in order to give just a hint of the malevolence of this cult. [Our fabulous friend Elizabeth, who first alerted me to their plans, absolutely denies credit for the hackwork.]
Supporters are encouraged to be at the school at 7:30 am on Monday, September 8 (first class is at 8:00 a.m.) and 3:00 pm (end of school day), with happy signs and encouragement. The Harvey Milk School is located at Two Astor Place at the corner of Astor and Broadway (take the 6 train to Astor Place or the N or R to 8th Street and Broadway).
Please consider helping to welcome these young people to school. The idea is to bring signs conveying the importance of education and safety for all of our children.
This thing is media candy, especially since we have our own cache of notorious homophobes here in New York, including Ruben Diaz. Be ready for your close-ups, and your fabulous sound bites.
[image from Dr. Truluck]

be gentle with Ashcroft and Cheney this week


I wrote late last night about Ashcroft’s marketing visit to New York next week, and I titled the post, “talk to Ashcroft Tuesday.” While I was at it, I might also have mentioned that although he has declined to grace us with the Chief Monkey’s presence at “ground zero” on Thursday, Dick Cheney himself will be coming instead.
At this point across the breakfast table the Barry reminds me that it was Cheney’s Halliburton which, right up to Cheney’s appointment as vice president, did big business with Saddam Hussein, who of course was responsible for 9/11, according to Cheney. Sublime.
[The Fort Wayne paper begins its news story on Bush’s no-show with, “Wait till next year,” reminding us that in 2004 Bush “will accept his party’s nomination for reelection at the GOP convention in New York City nine days before the third anniversary.” Later the article frankly discusses the virtual certainty that Bush would now have gotten booed in New York. Wait till next year.]
Were I not sufficiently awed and affrighted by the terms of their “Patriot Act,” I would have written not about talking to Ashcroft, and now Cheney two days later, but rather about driving them both out of our city and back to their war bunkers, which should then be sealed forever.
But I didn’t say that. Nope.
[image from The Upsidedown Culture Collective]

talk to Ashcroft Tuesday


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You are not busy this Tuesday at noon – not until now.
This just in, from people who keep their eyes on the Constitution and on those who would destroy it:

On Tuesday, September 9, Attorney General Ashcroft will visit New York City to attend a closed meeting with law enforcement officials to build support for the USA Patriot Act and impending Patriot II legislation. Hundreds [no, make it more!] of New Yorkers will meet his arrival and gather together to tell John Ashcroft to stop his attack on the Bill of Rights and to affirm and uphold our rights and liberties.
Join United for Peace and Justice, the New York Bill of Rights Defense Campaign and a coalition of dozens of civil liberties, immigrants’ rights, peace and justice organizations, and political leaders on Tuesday, September 9, at 12 noon on Wall Street and Broad Street, for a rally for the Bill of Rights.
Today the government can get a secret warrant to search your home without telling you until later.
Today the government can monitor your Internet use, read your emails, and examine your online purchases.
Today you can be detained without access to a lawyer, without being charged with a crime.
Today the FBI is authorized to monitor your political and religious activities.
We can only guess what tomorrow will bring.
The United States is at risk of turning into a full-fledged surveillance society. The fact is, Orwell’s vision of “Big Brother” is now, for the first time, technologically possible.

[image courtesy NPR]