Category: Culture

Cory Arcangel and Frankie Martin video, 414-3-RAVE-95, sketched by M. River

Earlier this week I invited artists to submit sketches of the works in the Greater New York 2005 show at PS1, since the museum does not allow photography of any kind, and because there are few images available on the lousy flash web site.
I think of it as a modest step in a campaign to free the visual arts from the darkness to which they are too often committed by their custodians. We’re starting with PS1/MoMA.

Barry has set up a gallery for the images, and we’ve just put up the first submission, by M. River, a drawing of Frankie Martin and Cory Arcangel’s video shown on a monitor in the big elevator.
I haven’t yet come up with a snappy name for the artist call, or the gallery, so if anyone has a suggestion I’d be pleased to hear it.
I certainly didn’t start the discussion of camera policy in museums, and I don’t expect to be there when it ends, but I feel very strongly about access. This quote from his editorial, “On Camera Policies in Privately Owned Public Spaces.” on Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection basically reflects my own frustration:

I feel that not only is it bad business for [public museums] to prohibit or impede photography but that it is morally wrong. The whole point of a museum is to open up the arts and sciences to as broad an audience as possible. The San Francisco MOMA should be as interested in sharing it’s [sic] collection with someone in a village in China who will never make it to San Francisco in their lifetime as they are to the patrons that pay the cover charge at the door. They should be enouraging, not discouraging, the widest possible public viewing and distribution of their content and collection.

it gets better, but no bigger, than this


mechanical loo artist at work


neo neo geo?


getting it all together for art

Barry McGee’s installation at Deitch, which is around the corner and down the street from Swoon’s, was well lighted by skylights yesterday, and there was lots of room to go around, so the camera and I had a ball. But while the show was very entertaining, in a guy-kid, hazardous amusement park kind of way, I went away feeling that not much had really happened.
But it was fun. A bit too lifeless at first, it got better when the huge space filled up with people while we were there.
I almost giggled at the auto junkyard which confronts you after you enter the gallery through an overturned van truck, I liked the massive expanse of geo stuff, I did shiver a bit when I stepped into the very realistic messy loo, and I was amused by the animated figures. I confess the ubiquitous painted sad-eyed men never really got to me before, so I wasn’t disappointed to find they had been somewhat eclipsed in this installation, even if I’m not sure by what.
Both artists work with and in the street, but while McGee’s sources are apparently much more specifically the world of outcasts and his materials are very real, it’s Swoon’s paper creations which evoke a truly visceral response to a city usually hidden from most of us.

view of an untitled section of an installation by Swoon at Deitch

It’s a terrific show, and to think I almost missed most of it. Barry and I were at Swoon‘s opening over a month ago, but the crowd and the heat discouraged us from even trying to get into the main gallery that night. Since then we had been putting off going back to Soho until we might line up more shows to see on the same trip. I had even resigned myself to missing the larger installation altogether [there was all that hype, and I was ready to persuade myself that what I saw of her work on the streets was probably superior to anything she’d put in a gallery].
Wrong.
We finally made it back downtown yesterday and I’m very glad we did. This work is on another plane altogether. It’s a really great show. She’s created a brilliant environment. It’s like walking through a surreal, silent, film noir set! Unfortunately I can’t give you much to look at this time. It’s pretty dark in there, so my little camera balked at my suggestions. Barry however was able to pull off a couple of great images. But if you can make it to Grand Street, don’t be satisfied with these two dimensions. You should walk through those paper streets yourself.

Peter Baumgras (1827-1903) Three Artists Sketching (1873) pencil on paper 8.5″ x 10.75″

Ladies and gentlemen, a reader has written in to comment [see the first one on my crabby PS1 post], that I should send out a call for sketchers and then post their images on this site.
Yes!
It’s a wonderful idea. Here’s the deal:

Michael Cambre (a wonderful artist who’s done some competitive sketching in his time) suggested that people be assigned an artist’s work in the Greater New York show, but I don’t know how to go about that without seeing who’s raising their hand. I’m thinking we should just leave it up to the field out there to choose subjects, and then watch what comes in.
So I want to encourage anyone who’s interested in using her or his own skills to show the world what the MoMA team is keeping partially under wraps to get out to PS1 and send me a jpeg or two. If this works, I’ll show anything decent that comes in on a gallery I’ll set up here for the purpose.
With each piece sketched, please include the name of the artist and the title.
I’m thinking we should encourage creativity as much as realism, just to keep it more interesting for everyone, but the idea should still be to describe another artist’s work.

[image from The College of the Siskiyous]

on some very rare occasions blackouts might be a good thing*

But, even when they aren’t iniquitous, others are just plain stupid.
Barry writes that I’ll probably be doing a post about our return visit to PS1’s Greater New York 2005 show, but I don’t know how I can do that without images.
There are no documented pictures on the institution’s website [okay, there’s a silly slideshow/teaser of a dozen or so works, but no information and the images can’t be uploaded], and photography is not allowed in the galleries. My site can’t function without pictures, and besides, they’re called the visual arts, aren’t they?
So, we did have a nice afternoon, but I don’t have anything for you on this show. In a way, as I’m writing this, it almost seems like we were never there. I’m sorry.
The Museum of Modern Art owns PS1, and MoMA directors are about as jealous of the firm’s image and perogatives as global capitalists seated in the country’s fattest corporate board rooms are of theirs. Within the arts business/community, this museum is notorious for its insensitivity and its reluctance to recognize media credentials. Reflecting its lamentable growing irrelevance in times we still call “Modern” the Museum of Modern Art has assumed a posture which refuses to recognize that arts bloggers today exist as a part of media.
So just forget about a press pass. The 53rd Street Brahmins don’t even deign to reply to inquiries. Knowing I had nothing to lose, and thinking that things might be more relaxed in their farm team operation, I tried yesterday once again to photograph a work of art on display in their Long Island City galleries. I was told, once again, that photography wasn’t allowed. No surprise, but in fact it wasn’t even permitted to photograph the painted tin ceiling. I know. I tried that too, and was firmly chastened for the attempt.
The museum was almost empty, I had no intention or interest in using supplemental flash, my miniature digital camera is perfectly silent, the images it captures can’t possibly be mistaken for original works, and there can be no question that any picture would be used commercially.
The only consequences of my being permitted to use a camera would have been, first, your enjoyment of the images of works neither created nor owned by MoMA; second, an internet record of the work, which might in fact be permanent; and third, some modest assistance to MoMA’s marketing campaign – without any inconvenience, and with absolutely no cost, to the museum.
So we eventually left PS1 and went north to Socrates Sculpture Park, where cameras run free, even if they’re just having fun. See my next post.

*
the caption to this vintage WWII photograph reads, “A couple nails a blackout curtain over the window”

[image from VIRGINIA FIGHTS]