NEWSgrist - where spin is art
An e-zine covering the arts since 2000
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Vol.5, no.29
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read it on the blog:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com
Archives:
http://newsgrist.net
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Sunday, December 05, 2004
East Village: Heyday of Scuzz Remembered
[image via New York Magazine: Opening night at an East Village gallery,
1984. (Photo credit: Gary Azon)]
via New York Magazine (thanks bloggy!):
One Brief, Scuzzy Moment
By Gary Indiana
The East Village art scenethat heady mid-eighties era when uptown
collectors elbowed out Avenue B junkiesis about to be memorialized by a
New Museum show. Not so fast. One of the more pointed critics of the time
recalls the worst excesses of that art movementand the (infinitely cooler)
neighborhood that it eclipsed.
via The Guide:
Friday 12/10
ANOTHER 80'S REVIVAL
The East Village art scene of the early 80's is given the historical
treatment in a huge exhibition opening this week. The collagist David
Wojnarowicz and the photographer Peter Hujar are well established, but
lesser-known talents like the painter Martin Wong get their due as well.
In his paintings of love and graffiti on the Lower East Side, Mr. Wong
gives a hint of the untamed downtown that no longer exists.
"East Village U.S.A.," New Museum of Contemporary Art/Chelsea, 556 West
22nd Street; 12 to 6 p.m.; $3 to $6. (Through March 19.)
December: East Village in the 80s
via BAM:
In conjunction with the New Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition East
Village USA, BAMcaf Live presents some of the most influential performers
of the 1980s East Village club scene:
Penny Arcade
Fri, Dec 3 at 9pm
Phoebe Legere
Sat, Dec 4 at 9pm
Bob Holman
Fri, Dec 10 at 9pm
Ben Neill
Sat, Dec 11 at 9pm
via NewMusem.org (thanks Ben!):
"East Village USA"
The New Museum of Contemporay Art
December 9, 2004 - March 19, 2005
Imagine a village where everybody is an artist, nobody has or needs a
steady job, and anyone can be the art world's Next Big Thing. Such was the
myth (and occasionally the reality) of the East Village in the mid-1980s,
when glamour and sleaze were nearly indistinguishable, and the boy next
door was an androgynous, foot-high-peroxide- pompadour-sporting singer
named John Sex. It was the height of the Reagan era, with its Cold War
paranoia, intensified by growing nuclear fears, and inner cities and civic
institutions in a state of increased upheaval and decay. Meanwhile, the
East Village was busy inverting the values of trickle-down economics and
gunboat diplomacy by transforming itself into the American dream's dark
underside, its evil twin, its inner child run amok. […]
Complete list of artists.
Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 09:54 AM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/east_village_re.html
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Saturday, December 04, 2004
Unauthorized iPod U2 vs. Negativland Special Edition
via Rhizome.org:
Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Rhizome's Francis Hwang has
opened an eBay auction for the Unauthorized iPod U2 vs. Negativland
Special Edition:
Commemorating the infamous early-90s case in which U2's record label
crushed indie noisemakers Negativland, this iPod is a U2 iPod that comes
pre-loaded with lots of Negativland tunes, and some fancy box
modifications. Experimental noise content trapped in a corporate megarock
shell–oh, the humanity! Profits will go to Downhill Battle, a non-profit
organization advocating for a less sucktastic music industry.
from his eBay description:
In 1991, the experimental sound collage band Negativland released a single
called U2, which extensively sampled both U2s hit single I Still Havent
Found What Im Looking For and colorful studio recordings of Top 40 disc
jockey Casey Kasem. This offbeat recording would have languished in
obscurity if werent for Island Records, U2s record label, which decided to
sue Negativland and their independent label SST Records for deceptive
packaging and copyright infringement. After a protracted legal battle,
Negativlands legal funds were exhausted and they settled out of court.
Today, it is illegal to produce the U2 single in the United States. (U2,
on the other hand, would go on to use unauthorized samples of appropriated
satellite video in their Zoo TV tour.)
Now you can commemorate this ignoble episode in intellectual property
history with iPod U2 vs. Negativland Special Edition. From its packaging
to its pre-installed content, this unauthorized iPod modification is an
artful mash-up of the forces of corporate megarock and obscure
experimental music, and a provocative symbol of the ongoing struggle
between those who would confine culture and those who would free it. […]
Saturday, December 04, 2004 at 02:34 PM in Misc. | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/unauthorized_ip.html
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Friday, December 03, 2004
The New New Museum (in Quicktime)
Speaking of Quicktime, there's a very cool little animation
by Chris Hoxie, Cameron Wu and Brandon Hicks over on the
New Museum site that demos the new building.
Friday, December 03, 2004 at 04:12 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/the_new_new_mus.html
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May 68 leaflets (La Lutte Continue)
I just came across this post from before the election on Social Design
Notes:
Some excellent images of May 68 leaflets from an exhibition by National
Library of France on the sources of Utopias […]
Friday, December 03, 2004 at 04:05 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/_i_just_came_ac.html
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Tale of Crow
[still from 'Tale of Crow']
Doron Golan makes superb QuickTime shorts for the web – here's the
latest:
'Tale of Crow' (re-edited)
duration: 4 min.
frame rate: 12.5 fps
Hebrew with English subtitles
Friday, December 03, 2004 at 12:55 PM in Film | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/the_tale_of_the.html
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Thursday, December 02, 2004
Roberta, c'est la vie!
[image: Inside the Pavilion of Virginia Puff Paint]
"trans>" at Participant Inc.:
Roberta, c'est la vie!
Participant Inc, 95 Rivington Street (between Ludlow & Orchard)
TUESDAY, December 7, 2004, at 8pm
The very first show of the trans-mutated Roberta Beck Memorial Cinema at
its new venue, Participant Inc, on the theme of "trans>", as in,
trans-species, trans-gender, trans-sexual, trans-vestite, &
trans-formations…(etc)
"I wish I could change my sex as often as
I change my shirt."
-Andre Breton
Featuring polymorph films & videos by
Tara Mateik (Society of Biological Insurgents)
Rafael Sanchez
Charles Atlas (with Leigh Bowery)
Jean Painlev (seahorses)
(The Pavilion of )Virginia Puff-Paint [view XXX Quicktime clip]
Joseph Nechvatal (andrOgynes)
…and surprises.
The artist (venue) formally known as Robert Beck is NOW the Roberta Beck
Memorial Cinema the FIRST TUESDAY of the month, at Participant Inc.
Thursday, December 02, 2004 at 10:27 AM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/quottransgtquot.html
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Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Evening with John Dugdale @ SVA to Benefit Visual AIDS
[Image: John Dugdale, In the Forty-Second Year of His Age, 2002]
School of Visual Arts presents an evening with photographer JOHN DUGDALE
benefiting Visual AIDS
Thursday December 9, 2004 @ 7 PM
School of Visual Arts Amphitheater
209 East 23 Street, NYC
Suggested donation $10, SVA students $5
An evening with photographer John Dugdale. In 1993, an AIDS related
illness left SVA alumnus John Dugdale nearly blind, with only minimal
peripheral vision in his left eye. Despite this loss of sight, he
continues to work and his popularity as a photographer continues to grow.
Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS increases public awareness of the AIDS
pandemic. Through the Frank Moore Archive Project, Visual AIDS offers
direct, professional services to artists living with HIV/AIDS.
Don't forget the POSTCARDS from THE EDGE sale this Sunday (Dec 5) hosted
by Brent Sikkema Galllery and benefiting Visual AIDS.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004 at 03:44 PM in Benefits | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/school_of_visua.html
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NEW WEB EXHIBITION FOR World AIDS Day
VISUAL AIDS + THE BODY ANNOUNCE
NEW WEB EXHIBITION
for World AIDS Day
Eleven Artists curated by Ted Bonin
December 2004
Every month, Visual AIDS invites guest curators, drawn from both the arts
and AIDS communities, to select several works from the Frank Moore Archive
Project. In recognision of AIDS Awareness month, Ted Bonin curated the
touching current on-line exhibition Eleven Artists which features the work
of artist members: Joe Brainard, Scott Burton, Jimmy DeSana, Arnold Fern,
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Knudsvig, Ken Goodman, Frank Moore, Paul
Thek, David Wojnarowicz and Martin Wong.
In the Curators Statement, Bonin states:
Viewing the archive one is reminded of the enormous and premature loss of
so many fine artists, both established and promising; viewing the works,
one sees a visual representation of destruction that is almost unbearable
to watch unfold. Before completing just one section of the archive, the
toll of significant artists, many of whom Id had the pleasure of knowing
and, in some cases working with, overwhelmed me.
My selection includes those artists represented in the archive whose
absence remains a source of personal regret and sorrow. The archive
reminds us not only just how great the losses have been, but also of the
ongoing scourge of a disease, which much of the mainstream, and some
factions of the communities most affected, wrongly consider solved,
manageable, or something no longer to be feared. Ten years down the road,
the Archives accumulation of images demands we consider these haunting and
important works in a historical context. All eleven artists in this
exhibition became members of the Archive Project between 1994 and 1998,
nine of them as estates.
Ted Bonin is a partner in the New York gallery Alexander and Bonin. The
gallery represents artists living in the Americas and Europe as well as
the Estates of Ree Morton and Paul Thek.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004 at 03:13 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/_visual_aidsnbs.html
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How To Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit
Columbia University School of the Arts
presents
A Lecture by Jon Ippolito:
"How To Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit"
Thursday, December 2
6:00 PM
702 Hamilton Hall
Columbia University
116th and Broadway
New York City
Jon Ippolito is an artist, a curator at the Guggenheim museum, and
co-founder of the Still Water program for network art and culture at the
University of Maine where he is an Assistant Professor of new media.
Mr. Ippolito's lecture, "How to Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit," will
examine alternative approaches to intellectual property and creativity.
Here's Jon's abstract:
Now that the music labels have sued 6,000 college kids and universities
are spending more on anti-plagiarism software than on student art
exhibitions, you'd think young people would finally grok the message that
sharing is bad. But as this presentation aims to demonstrate, a cadre of
dedicated artists, musicians, and activists are offering digital creators
an end-run around broadcast flags and RIAA summonses–from tools for
embedding open licenses in music files to an online environment for
sharing art and code to a semantic search engine for remixable art and
video. In conclusion, this presentation will examine the question of
whether such innovations are sufficient to prevent the lockdown of
creative culture.
This is the fourth lecture in a series on Open Source Culture. The series
will conclude with a lecture by Cory Arcangel on December 16.
The Art & Technology Lectures are organized by the Digital Media Center
and sponsored by the Computer Music Center. Streaming video of the
lectures is produced in partnership with the Columbia Center for New Media
Teaching and Learning.
Visit the site for more information about upcoming speakers, and streaming
video of previous lectures.
Monday, November 29, 2004 at 04:08 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/11/how_to_hack_cop.html
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Palladio: The Movie
NEWSgrist is designing and hosting a blog, fan site and video clip archive
(in progress) for the latest project from media artist Bill Jones +
composer Ben Neill:
Palladio, a music performance video work-in-progress based on the novel by
Jonathan Dee.
Palladio will premier at the New Territories Festival in Glasgow and at
the Thalia Theatre (NYC) early next year.
from the press release:
Coming out of the world of DJ/VJ culture, Neill and Jones' networked
instrumental ensemble plays the video and music simultaneously. The
musical score includes Neill's evocative instrumental compositions as well
as songs with lyrics written by Lance Jensen, the award winning
advertising creative director. Mikel Rouse, a noted composer/performer and
creator of the TV talk show opera Dennis Cleveland will play a leading
role as an actor and singer.
Palladio's video component, projected onto a movie theater screen,
includes commercial samples seamlessly merged with live-action footage as
the lead characters played by Rouse, Zoe Lister-Jones and Cort Garretson
are digitally transported into an environment created from the ads
portrayed in the story.
Ben Neill, internationally known composer, performer and inventor of the
mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, has been a pioneer in
the use of interactive computer technologies in live performance. Neill
has recorded seven CDs of his music on Six Degrees, Universal/ Verve,
Astralwerks, and other labels. Visual artist Bill Jones has been
exhibiting in galleries and museums for over two decades. He is also a
noted writer and editor who has founded a number of periodicals including
The Independent Film and Video Monthly and ArtByte the Magazine of Digital
Culture.
For a synopsis, cast previews, more information and tickets, visit
palladiomovie.com
Monday, November 29, 2004 at 03:52 PM in Performances | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/11/palladio_the_mo.html
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"SoHo on crack"
Via NYTimes, excerpts: Chelsea Enters Its High Baroque Period, by Roberta
Smith:
After a decade of rapid growth, the neighborhood now harbors more than 230
galleries within its borders, which stretch from West 13th to West 29th
Streets and from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway in Manhattan. That's
twice the number of galleries SoHo had at its zenith in the early 1990's.
The notion of spending a day "doing" the Chelsea galleries now seems
downright quaint, since it would take at least a week to see them all.
As a result of this explosion, the inevitable anti-Chelsea backlash has
been on the rise, too. The rap against Chelsea is that it is too big, too
commercial, too slick, too conservative and too homogenous, a monolith of
art commerce tricked out in look-alike white boxes and shot through with
kitsch. This litany is recited by visitors from Los Angeles and Europe, by
dealers with galleries in other parts of Manhattan or in Brooklyn and
often by Chelsea dealers themselves. As the Lower East Side gallerist
Michele Maccarone put it recently in an interview: "The Chelseafication of
the art world has created a consensus of mediocrity and frivolousness."
Two of the city's most highly respected small art museums, the Drawing
Center and the New Museum for Contemporary Art, both recently rejected the
idea of relocating to Chelsea, in part because they felt they would be
lost among so many galleries. Christian Haye, who has a gallery on 57th
Street and who once memorably described Chelsea as "SoHo on crack,"
agrees. "There are too many big galleries competing with one another and
acting like museums," he said recently. […]
In all, the Chelsea gallery scene is exactly the opposite of monolithic or
homogeneous: astoundingly diverse, a series of parallel worlds catering to
different audiences and markets, from avant-garde to academic, blue-chip
to underground. With art fresh from places as far apart as China and
Williamsburg, Chelsea is messily democratic, the most real, unbiased
reflection of contemporary art's global character. The Gagosian Gallery's
impeccable three-ring circus on West 24th Street, the art world's answer
to Niketown, faces the one-man band photography gallery of Yossi Milo,
upstairs from a taxi garage. PaceWildenstein's Minimalist mausoleum on
West 25th is just down the street from a building rife with scruffy
old-time artist's cooperatives, decamped from SoHo. Understanding the huge
differences among Chelsea's current crop of galleries - their types,
tendencies, and origins - is the only way to begin to grasp the complexity
of the whole. […]
Even as you wonder how many more galleries the neighborhood can possibly
absorb, you ask how long any of the dealers - excepting the few who own
their spaces - will be able to afford to stay there, and where else in
Manhattan they could go, and what it would mean to the city's cultural
identity if the area disappeared. As Chelsea's residential population
expands, will the storefronts be taken over by restaurants, boutiques, dry
cleaners, delis and copy shops, or will the lack of subways discourage
that? Could the proposed Jets stadium a few blocks to the north, with the
traffic, crowds and noise it will generate, be Chelsea's death knell? Will
the restoration of the High Line precipitate the northward crawl of the
West Village Gold Coast and meatpacking trendiness? Or will the art market
bubble simply, once again, burst?
Meanwhile, the Chelsea carnival continues, simultaneously expanding,
imploding and absorbing. All species of art gallery are evident, and at
every stage of development. Chelsea, like SoHo, is making itself up as it
goes along. A contemporary art scene on this scale has never happened
before, and it's hard to imagine it ever happening again.
Catch it now, because in a few years, Chelsea nostalgia will have replaced
SoHo nostalgia, and the current state of affairs will have become the good
old days.
Monday, November 29, 2004 at 03:36 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/11/soho_on_crack.html
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NEWSgrist: East Village: Heyday of Scuzz Remembered
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