untitled (Cocteau heads) 2009
Of course I didn’t do the drawing, but I want to share it. There’s a lot going on here, most of it by chance. I saw these faces drawn on a very busy ground on an unused advertising board inside the Jefferson Avenue L stop over a week ago and the image I shot then still thrilled me when I rolled through my recent stash today.
This is what the entire board looked like:
Category: NYC
en plein air: 23rd Street studio
concentration
The story is that when I looked out of my window last Thursday afternoon, on the coldest, windiest day of the winter, I saw this painter and his rig. I had often seen him planted elsewhere on the block, often, as here, painting the Chelsea Hotel across the street, but on those occasions I would have been too respectful of his privacy, or maybe just to self-conscious, to intrude on his concentration with my camera.
This time it was different, since it was unlikely I could disturb him and equally unlikely I or my machine would draw anyone’s attention. I took this picture and later returned to the window (without the camera) to see if he would still be there. He was, but I now saw that a young woman was standing at the driver’s side of the car seen in this picture, looking a little puzzled, and a somewhat older man was standing in the street ahead of it pointing to something in the area of the left front fender. Then I saw a smile of recognition come to the woman’s face and she stepped forward to pull and gather up what turned out to be a large, bunched-up clear plastic bag. It had probably become stuck somewhere on the car. She thanked the helpful stranger, walked over to the curb and plopped it in the midst of the painter’s bags, each of them strapped to luggage carriers. She returned to the other side of the car, slipped into the driver’s seat and drove off.
She had apparently remained throughout totally unaware of the artist’s presence, and of his equipment as well. Probably she was only sufficiently aware of her environment to see some vaguely trash-bag shape already sitting on the curb, and that was where her own offending litter would be deposited.
I can’t end the story without allowing that the artist appeared to be no more aware of his environment than she was: He didn’t seem to notice any of what had just transpired, including his bags being mistaken for trash. In fact, he never looked away from his canvas. Ah, the singular concentration of the artist can apparently be sustained even in the open air.
UPDATE: All thanks to the folks at “Living With Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog“, I’ve learned that the artist is David Combs, who used to live in the Chelsea, and may now have returned.
WAGMAG benefit at The Front Room tonight
William Powhida Sellout [item #76]
One sign of the almost proximate arrival of spring is the announcement of the annual WAGMAG benefit. Once again it’s again time to help out our indispensable guide to Brooklyn galleries (it now covers all of Brooklyn!), by purchasing tickets for the artwork drawing tonight at The Front Room Gallery.
Some really great art, including the William Powhida piece shown above, have been donated by artists and galleries who know how much this publication does for the community, and want to give a bit back.
The rest of us have a chance to help by showing up and purchasing an opportunity to select from the bounty shown here. If you and your valentine are already committed elsewhere tonight, you can also buy one or more tickets on line (they are only $200 each) and indicate your choice with a WAGMAG proxy. All tickets guarantee a work of art, and entry to the party is free.
As I wrote last year, I can’t say enough about Daniel Aycock, the generous artist host.
For details, see this post on the ArtCal zine.
ragged tarps on Grand Street lot, Williamsburg
untitled (blue threads) 2009
Yesterday I spotted this section of a sad, somewhat unsound wall which had been assembled around a large vacant lot on Grand Street in Williamsburg. These bright blue tarps, blowing in the wind and buoyed by the February sun, would hardly present any barrier to the curiosity of even the most casual passerby, but as a brilliantly-lit, flapping bauble they managed to relieve the drabness of the dull flat plywood boards they interrupted with their play.
Will their gambolling last until the day the sober speculators return with their cranes?
�ELLIS G. signs in on Bedford St. corner
This �ELLIS G. intervention in Williamsburg included the artist’s signature plus the additional note, “STILL HERE”, a possible reference to the arrest of Poster Boy on Saturday.
ADDENDUM: Wooster Collective has a video documentary on the artist.
soft face on Wooster Street
I have no idea who did this quiet piece, or who the image represents.
New York shad return to old Delancey farm waters
I’ve become totally enchanted by this piece through several years of F train transfers. This is a large detail, taken from the other side of the tracks, of one of the glorious mammoth glass mosaic murals installed inside the Delancey Street Station. Created by Ming Fay, this one is entitled “Shad Crossing”.
James Turrell, on a cloudless day
James Turrell Meeting 1986 [detail of installation]
It was cloudless, yes, but just a mite hazy – and freezing cold. Still, sitting inside that quiet, perfect room at PS1 (quiet once the voluble little kids had left) while it was still light outside, and looking up through the open roof was, . . . ineffable.
Bloomberg’s Israel-speak is disgusting
(tell him it’s not his to give away)
Nothing Michael Bloomberg has done yet has disgusted me more than his mindless support of the government of Israel’s bloody insanity in Gaza while he’s wrapped in the trappings of the high office of the cosmopolitan City of New York.
Some of us prefer to think before we act, and we don’t pretend to represent an entire constituency when we do.
While he’s talking about the right of a government to defend oneself, referencing a mighty military state allied with the most powerful nations on earth, a nation which actualized its people’s 2,000-year old memory of a homeland only 60 sixty years ago, why can’t the mayor of all New Yorkers bring himself to recognize the rights of an almost people who are almost powerless and have virtually no allies, whose memory of a homeland is more vivid and within living memory, going back, as it does, only those same 60 years?
Bloomberg may understand money and power (he bought his own political office and since then he’s learned to emulate Putin), but apparently nothing else. His sympathies have always been with the guy on top, and that’s where they remain today.
He’s a damned fool, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous.
[image of the Great Seal of the City of New York from citizenarcane]
don’t let Art Fag City die!
Paddy Johnson is having a year-end fundraiser for her increasingly indispensible cultural blog, Art Fag City. Contributions are tax-deductible, through the generous support of another of New York’s precious resources, Momenta Art. Go here to Paddy’s site for more information and an easy contribution form.
Tom Moody has assembled, on his own site, an impressive, but unassailable description of what her site means to the arts community it serves:
Johnson’s blog is a necessary counterweight to the institutional writing that constitutes current criticism: magazines chasing ad dollars, 501c(3) organizations that have to say nice things about everyone, and museum curators at the beck and call of powerful board members. Johnson produces a staggering amount of original content each year, including interviews, essay series, and reportage. Her comment boards are moderated in a civilized fashion and are a good place to hash out issues that aren’t being discussed elsewhere. Plus she is that rare writer that can cover both the art gallery scene and the online scene with equal knowledge and confidence.
In J.M. Barrie‘s “Peter Pan“, the play, the novel and the film, children are urged to clap to show that they believe in fairies, lest Tinkerbell die. I feel a bit like when we were first asked to save that little sprite, but this time we’ll need to do more than clap if we’re going to help keep Art Fag City alive.
[1915 image, by Francis Donkin Bedford, from Project Gutenberg]