Category: NYC

scattering the drawings – as much fun as the Gramercy – showing, among other pieces, Line IV 2006 ink on archival scrapbook paper 24″ x 24″ on the top left, Bulb I 2006 ink on archival paper 12″ x 12″ on the lower right, and Float 2006 ink on archival scrapbook paper 12″ x 12″ just above it [installation view]

It involved a lot of imagination, a lot of work and a certain amount of risk, but one excellent, under-exposed D.C. area artist has managed to arrange for a one-man show in New York this week all on his own.
J.T. Kirkland knew well in advance that his job would take him to Manhattan all this week, but he decided he wasn’t going to limit his off-hour activities to trips to Chelsea galleries looking at other artists’ work. Kirkland drove to New York with a selection of all but his largest wall sculptures packed in his car and he has installed them, along with some stunning drawings and prints, inside his downtown hotel room. The week before this he had sent invitations to friends, collectors, curators and gallerists and many have made the trip over the last several evenings.
Kirkland’s “gallery” reminded me of the fun and reward of visits to the early Gramercy Art Fairs, when dozens of the old hotel’s guest rooms were temporarily and magically transformed into something like so many “trunk shows” showing some pretty adventurous art. Sometimes you might quickly move on after a peek inside a room, but we both would have made this room a “stayer”.
The New York world of the visual arts can always use more of this kind of infectious delight in a creativity unfettered by the conventional institutional structures (which in the long run couldn’t possibly survive on their own without the continuous challenge of the excluded).


two small sculptures installed on the hotel room wall: Spalted Poplar, Purpleheart 2006 wood 6″ x 6″ and Purpleheart, Yellowheart 2006 6″ x 6″ [installation view]

I was already interested in the artist’s work, having found images on line last year. When Barry and I later managed to come home with a small piece he had donated to the recent Visual Aids “Postcards From the Edge” benefit we found we were hooked on these wonderful wooden devices. We had also seen the equally conceptual, minimalist drawings he shows on his site, but I wasn’t prepared for the extravagant beauty of the real thing. And the prints are really wonderful!
We had a great time this afternoon, not least for the good converstation. Oh yes, Kirkland also has a blog.

TO SEE THE WORK:
I cannot reveal the details of the hotel location here, but if anyone reading this is interested in a visit tonight on the closing day of the show, and is able to stop by there between 7:30 and 9:30, please email Kirkland at jtkirkland@gmail.com.

this collage is probably mostly an accident, but stunning nevertheless
[for 41 more images go to my 11 Spring photo set]

Why is it called “street art”? And does art created in the street step out of character when it steps in off the street? Where does street art fit in the hierarchy? Can street art inform the mostly housebroken art which makes it into our galleries, our homes, our museums? Does street art disappear when the street moves on? What role does commerce play in the creation and the survival of art seen in the street – or the survival of the privileged art of the salon? Is street art necessarily more political than art which originates under a roof? Can just about anyone appreciate, can everyone learn to love, the best art found on the streets? Why does street art attract a special kind of excitement, even fanaticism and almost cultish devotion to its mysteries and beauties that is almost never shared by conventional art museums? Does an artist have to love a street before she or he can use it as a “canvas”? Is there a future for street art in an increasingly-sanitized Manhattan, and nearby Brooklyn, rapidly being customized for the pleasure of millionaires and their vastly richer new neighbors?
This past weekend New Yorkers had a rare and wonderful opportunity to be provoked by at least some of these questions, and probably a lot more I left out, so long as they were willing to stand in line (yes, in the street) for an hour and probably much longer in order to gain access to the cultural and real estate phenomenon of “Wooster on Spring“. Well, admittedly the line was for a view of inside street art (inspiring some of the questions posed in the paragraph above), but the experience was almost like stepping inside the work itself. The fact that all of the art would soon be rendered invisible obviously added to the appeal of this temporary street-corner agora. 11 Spring Street is now closed and construction will soon begin on the five floors of this nineteenth-century brick and stone building in NoLIta. The grim but noble pile is slated for conversion into another representative of New York’s still growing stash of “luxury condos”.
Me, I really liked the art, but I couldn’t also help thinking of the significance of this amazing phenomenon while trying to decode and enjoy the exciting work of the 45 artists who were invited and hosted over the last few months by a few other people who clearly like art – a whole lot.
And now it’s all gone. Well, at least until the next New York renaisance, for while the outside of the building is to be cleaned and restored to something like its nineteenth-century appearance, the work inside 11 Spring is to be sealed up for the ages behind the new plasterboard walls deemed meet for the pampered sheltering of our newest professional class. If things work out better than they do in most apartment buildings, eventually there will at least be some good art showing up on those clean white walls, even if it will have to be store-bought.

I have not put captions on the Flickr images, largely because many are general or detail installation shots and because I’m not able to identify most of the artists. I’d be delighted if more knowledgeable visitors to the site could add attributions with their comments.