Author: jameswagner

Gregg Evans and more, at the NURTUREart benefit

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Gregg Evans Luis 10/06 2007 digital C-print 16″ x 16″

Barry and I had a terrific time at the NURTUREart benefit Monday night, and we came home with the piece by Gregg Evans shown above.
Executive Director Karen Marston tells me that the staff is pleased and relieved that there was no major drop in either sales or enthusiasm this year, in spite of our current serious economic scare! She added that even if it hadn’t been a financial success she herself would have thought all the work worthwhile for its incalculable value in energizing the volunteers, the artists (including the school kids in the Outreach Program), patrons both continuing and newly-arrived, and friends who can’t live without art.
I can only say myself that the art displayed and available was very impressive, and that the room was filled with more happy and excited people – of all kinds – than I have ever seen at an arts benefit, and I’ve been to a lot.
I think the organizers are trying to arrange a way to make the works which did not walk out of the room that night visible on line and available for purchase. I know that if we had some fat in our own wallets right now the two of us would have reduced their number quite a bit further on our own. The exhibition had been selected from offerings by NURTUREart artists through the input of a curating team which included Koan Jeff-Baysa, Lowell Pettit, Amy Rosenblum Martin, and Lily Wei. Their excellent judgment was reflected in the quality of what we saw that night. If a system for the sale of the remaining works is set up, I will be reporting it here.
The picture at the top of this post?
We had purchased a ticket which entitled us to one artwork, but, since we were also on the benefit committee and had to get back to work, we had only a few seconds to make a pick from among 150 worthy pieces hanging on the walls of the James Cohan Gallery.
Quickly comparing notes when we could both take a break, Barry and I found we had each separately and immediately zoomed in on “Luis” without knowing anything about the artist or the series of work of which it is a part. It was enough that this beautiful big print suggested a mind and an aesthetic which seemed to be worth exploring further. It turns out that the image is part of body of work in which Evans investigates the home environments of a number of his friends.
I’ve searched on line for more information and I came across these two statements, on separate pages of an Arts in Bushwick preview/profile, about his work from the artist himself:

I have a friend who often talks about photographing the people he is close with as a way of maintaining relationships. I often wonder if I agree with his logic, if the power between photographer and subject creates connection or destroys it. Can one maintain a friendship with someone they are constantly observing? If, for example, I photograph the things which gather on bookshelves in a friend�s apartment is this photograph a testament to our friendship and existence, or is it really a marker of the beginning of the end? What happens to a relationship, or for that matter, a place, when it is suddenly acknowledged as important?
My work stems from day to day life; the seemingly banal objects and spaces we overlook in a given day or week, i.e. the books on one�s bookshelves or the newspapers we leave behind on the subway. I am interested in the remnants of consumer culture, archaeology, and what our products say about us.

There’s more here, on the White Columns Registry site, and there are also two books documenting his work, one carrying the weight of the painfully-disconsolate title, “I Could Walk Away Now And You Wouldn�t Care”, the other (a zine?) tagged with the more dispassionate, “The State of Upstate”.

a vote for Obama just won’t be enough

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in storage since the wingnuts bought all the rights: my old, yellowing 48-star flag

I have had a very hard time getting as excited as most of my friends and acquaintances are about Obama’s candidacy, perhaps especially during the time he was coming closer to being the Democratic candidate and then to being chosen to occupy the office of President itself. I admit I’m spoiled: I’ve always had difficulty settling for less than what I want or, in this case, for less than what is needed by my country.
Yes, part of it’s because I’m politically far to the left at least of the image the candidate presents of himself, but I also believe that we have nothing but our fragile hopes to support any belief that Obama will have both the imagination and courage to do as President what absolutely must be done. The extremity of our current crisis requires an even more ambitious agenda, in both domestic and foreign policy, than what was required of FDR in 1933, and I see no evidence that anyone is fully aware of this, including the candidate – perhaps especially the candidate.
We’re in big trouble, and I don’t think we understand yet what’s wrong.
But I also worry that we are too anxious to lay the blame for our shame and misery, and the responsibility for our redemption and relief, solely on someone our system puts in charge of things. Neither Bush and Cheney nor the people and corporations who created them are fully to blame; after all, almost 50% of voters approved their candidacy – twice! At the same time, we won’t find our way out of this mess if we think our own responsibility ends after next Tuesday.
The October 27 issue of The New Yorker includes this letter from a reader which beautifully lays out the sense of what I’ve just touched on:

While I agree with your editorial support for Barack Obama, the challenges of national leadership are greater than simply choosing the right candidate (Comment, October 13th). Our preoccupations – consumer profligacy, national myths, and denial of the rest of the world – may not result in the best choice of leadership, as the second Bush term so clearly demonstrates. The question is whether we can make the personal sacrifices necessary to change ourselves, or whether we believe that change is only about what leadership we select. The original patriots risked their lives for what they believed. No one is asking that of us; just that we vote with care and with attention to our enduring values, and realize that there is more to being good citizens than going to the polls.
Jon Gilmore
South Orleans, Mass.

NURTUREart benefit at James Cohan in Chelsea tonight

It’s a great cause and a good party, and it’s an excellent chance to acquire art by emerging artists with a pretty modest outlay. The 2008 NURTUREart benefit is this very evening, and it’s in our own almost-totally-accessible (transit, that is) Chelsea, at James Cohan Gallery on West 26th Street.
Barry and I will be there early helping out. We hope to see you after 7, or even 6:30 if you’re feeling generous, anxious or just VIPish (see the invitation below).

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Bowery turf

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untitled (yellow riser) 2008

This grassy clump is growing at the top of the stairs of a subway entrance on Bowery.
Who says Manhattan’s lost its edge? Ask any European or Japanese visitor what s/he thinks about the appearance of our infrastructure – after twenty years of killer prosperity for the city. I’m afraid of what may lie ahead, even if it could mean the return of affordable apartments for artists and those who love them.
In any case, it looks like we haven’t lost our heart. I like the grafitto, “I love you”, in the background.

it’s not about term limits; it’s about fake democracy

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the Radical Homosexual Agenda seen in Council this morning

The real argument is about competitive elections, not term limits. Of course we’d like to think that every vote counts, but the fact is that we’ve designed a system in which money really counts; the votes are essentially just for decoration.
If we had a real system of public financing of elections there would be no argument for term limits. New Yorkers have voted twice to establish a system of term limits, a clumsy and ineffective mechanism intended to help level the playing field for candidates seeking office. It doesn’t really get us where we should be, but it’s not preferential, and it’s what we got.
While it’s not entirely about money, it’s about money. Wealth always attracts power and power attracts wealth. It’s not just ironic that the billionaire who initiated and bankrolled, to the tune of $4 million, successful term limits referendums in 1993 and 1996 now wants to overturn the results without a referendum, in order to support another billionaire: In fact it’s disgusting but it should surprise no one.
Supporters of Mayor Bloomberg’s call for the Council to negate the twice-expressed will of the voters of the city for his benefit are acting as if victory would automatically mean a third term for their candidate. Unfortunately they’re probably right. Bloomberg spent $100 million of his own money to buy and keep his first two elections; he is expected to spend another $80 million if we let him have his way with us a third time.
Supporters also argue that voters should have complete freedom to cast their ballots for whomever they wish. I agree, but it’s not going to happen if this kind of money (whether coming from individuals or very interested corporations) is always going to be there to tell us who and what is best for us. Any other other “whomever” or “whatever” will always be kept out of both sight and sound by people with more money behind them.
I’d like to think that my city is not for sale, and yet of course we know it is.
But there’s still hope, and some of it showed up at City Hall this morning. On the second day of hearings over the question of whether the Council should vote for another term for Bloomberg, the first statements were delivered by Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, Time Warner Chairman Richard D. Parsons, and Peter Vallone, Sr., who was Speaker of the City Council from 1986 until 2001. All three support Bloomberg, and all three spoke in his support today, but then something happened to throw a figurative wrench in their political works. I hope it might set the theme for the remainder of the day: Members of the Radical Homosexual Agenda [RHA website] got up from their seats and dropped the cloth banner shown above.

“Party At Phong’s House” at Janet Kurnatowski

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Nora Griffin Soft Machine oil on canvas 2008

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Amy Sillman oil on canvas 2008

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Matt Connors The Star (January) oil on canvas 2008

After a month’s run the party is over and by now the walls of the white box must have been cleared, but when Barry and I arrived on the last day of “Party At Phong’s House” at Galeria Janet Kurnatowski there was still plenty of fun to go around.
The times (and at times my own peevish taste for serious drama) may demand more dour or even doleful work than the dozens of beautiful mostly-abstract works created by almost as many living artists (including one elephant) which the painter Chris Martin had assembled for this show, but let those times wait, and right now I think we all need a little revel. Martin ended his short curatorial statement: “The reason for curating this show was to have a party afterwards at Phong‘s house.”
I thought both the idea and its realization were unaffected and delightful, a perfect match for another perfect fall afternoon, and an excellent elixir for sweeping away gloomy thoughts about our socialist capitalist end of days. I’ve included a tiny sampler of images from the exhibition here. The information below each is all that was printed on the checklist.
I don’t think I have a complete list of artists, but these are those names the gallery had furnished for the ArtCal listing, to which I’ve added some more which I happened to record on Sunday with my camera:

Liv Aandrud, Keltie Ferris, Margrit Lewczuk, Isabelle Acheson, Alison Fox, Craig Olson, Peter Acheson, Peter Gallo, Joyce Pensato, Chick Bianchi, Tamara Gonzales, Nathlie Provosty, Palma Blank-Rosenblum, Ron Gorchov, Tal R, Phong Bui, Nora Griffin, Alexandra Shurrer, Matt Connors, EJ Hauser, Amy Sillman, Dave Cutrone, Bill Jensen, Elephant Sri-Siam, Thornton Dial, Ben La Rocco, Sharon Horvath, Malado Baldwin, Bill Jensen, John Blank, James Biederman, and others . . .