I’ve been fascinated by ‘miniatures’ ever since I can remember.
I collect them from random places, mostly thrift shops and the odd flea market.
they are actually pretty hard to find.
my greatly prized . . butcher’s block !!
a few more of my most recent finds.
lol . . yes, that’s tiny dog bowl, on the right !!
one of my best finds, ever. great graphic.
unbelievably contemporary color hues.
Kate recently scored the tiny black sewing machine for me . . in Door County, Wisconsin.
the one behind it, in a slightly larger scale, too big for a dollhouse !! / is actually a vintage Christmas ornament.
ornaments: that’s actually – a whole other subtext of . . tiny.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
~SPEAKING . . miniatures / replica spaces / dollhouses & YEAR OF THE DOG !! |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 12th, 2018, 7:08am
of course, one of the earliest ‘tiny’ art shows, in the current art cycle (!!) . .
was the RED ENVELOPE SHOW at GRUMPY BERT, the first one happened in Feb 2016.
artists are asked to submit original art work on lucky red, Happy Chinese New Year (money) envelopes, with the loosely held theme – based on the celebration of the whatever Year of the Animal it is, in the Chinese horoscope – which is based on the year of your birth.
the envelopes are: 3.5 x 6.5 in.
& they are usually priced well below $100 / though you’d prob want to keep them out of direct sunlight, as the red envelopes do fade in hue, after time.
but maybe for some that is the . . . point.
longevity – being a factor of ‘scale’ – as well.
this year – is the YEAR OF THE DOG !!
and it looks to be . . outrageous !!
‘RED ENVELOPE SHOW’
OPENS FRI FEB 23, 2018 / 7 – 10 PM
the show runs thru MARCH 11, 2018
GRUMPY BERT, 82 BOND ST, BROOKLYN
see: GRUMPY BERT, RED ENVELOPE SHOW, YEAR OF THE DRAGON / OPENING PIX / ARTLOVERS ARCHIVE
here are some previews from . . this year’s event.
what’s really great is, you get to see alot of really off-the-wall, illustrators work, which you normally don’t get to see too much of in New York, on ‘exhibition’ walls.
‘YEAR OF THE DOG’ – RED ENVELOPE by . . MARK WANG (@ouch_you_slouch)
originally from Tucson, Arizona, now based in NYC.
see: MARK WANG – ILLUSTRATOR PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
‘YEAR OF THE DOG’ – RED ENVELOPE by . . HELLEN JO (helllllenjjjjjo)
L.A. based
see: HELLEN JO – ILLUSTRATOR PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
all images via Instagram @grumpybert
~RED ENVELOPE SHOW . . ‘YEAR OF THE DOG’ / GRUMPY BERT / PREVIEW |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 9th, 2018, 9:05am
OLIVIA SWIDER . .
might not have had ‘scale’ in mind as a priority, when she made this symbol-loaded, fade-out . . but, though she is talking ‘want’ (emotion), and ‘texture’ (plasticity) . . she is playing with everyday ‘scale’ signifiers / ordinary shapes & things, whose size we are all familiar with, and which really do the heavy lifting – in terms of our coming to grips with the piece.
esp as to . . .’how big is that ‘teen-age crush’ lush, plush soft pink carpet triangle ?’
esp as to how, it is presented: solely, as a digital photograph, with no other clues – as to size. no background, no dimensions in the accompanying text.
which is the way most things are presented now, btw.
it is a ghost . . in our comprehension of its reality. an ‘advance’ image. digital, published on the gossamer walls of social media – way before, we have ever even seen it.
we are only doing our best guessing, when we try to process it /shake it down.
we see it as ‘life-size’ / keyed to the ‘rosary’ and the 2 other clues . . the tiny plastic rosary sleeve, & the must-be tiny trophy. we are already evaluating dimension. from the get-go.
because . . .
that is . . unless.
unless . . it’s a replica. mini-me. miniature . . ‘dollhouse’ rosary, a necklace for a Barbie type doll (?) in which case – that will be, quite the surprise.
& which somehow, I highly doubt.
esp with regard to the length of the chain.
the trophy, on the other hand . . is more curious.
it must be a ‘tiny’ souvenir bell, or a paper weight ?
after the past few weekends, I’ve been through, I’m def NOT taking ‘scale’ – for granted.
starting with the startling ‘The Big Short’, and ending in a glorious cathouse free-fall, the NICHOLAS SULLIVAN pieces were made to fit the catbox, yet at ‘The Big Short’ ELIZABETH FERRY’s tiny bronze-like ‘matchbox’, hanging on the tiny wall . . of a teeny tiny Water McBeer ‘gallery’, with immaculate mini white walls, & even with tiny floor trim, and imposing miniature wood floors, called all things ‘scale’ into question.
replica of a larger piece ? illusion ? or, real matchbox – tiny gallery ?
tiny sculpture ?
while at the ESSEX FLOWERS presentation . . MARGARET LEE produced 2 tiny perfect potatoes, that look real, and big / life-size, even in photos, but are not so much, on a tiny bathroom shelf !!
these things have me . . all . . size-spooked out !! tread lightly.
is it for real ? is it an illusion.
does it matter – in context ? yes.
and then, there’s the size of the venues, themselves.
tiny apt / living room gallery . . to tiny Catbox platform, in a living room, is apparently not that far-fetched.
it’s some kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ meets ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ . . moment.
get that art up, and out there . . is the only rule.
OLIVIA SWIDER. image via Instagram @mountain.bushwick
SAVE THE DATE !!
OLIVIA SWIDER & DALIA AMARA – ‘THE TEXTURE of WANT’
OPENS . . SAT FEB 24, 2018 / EVENING
MOUNTAIN (APT) GALLERY – BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN
~OLIVIA SWIDER . . ‘THE TEXTURE Of WANT’ / MOUNTAIN GALLERY / PREVIEW (with a side of ‘The Big Short’ & Catbox Contemporary) |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 7th, 2018, 8:20pm
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN , ‘O’
thru MARCH 11, 2018 – BY APPOINTMENT
CATBOX CONTEMPORARY
Q: I wonder if you want to buy some of this work, if you can just buy the whole install as is, with the incorporated, site specific . . . ‘O’ catbox as a collector Catbox ‘Catellite’ / i.e. off-site . . satellite ??
I mean, how else ???
image via Instagram @catboxcontemporary
SCALE . . is a such a many splendored thing.
it’s so relative. it can be so illusion-ary, esp in the digital age.
it so depends on your past experiences for . . understanding.
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ . . installation shot
image via CATBOX CONTEMPORARY
see: more photos of the installation – NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ / CATBOX CONTEMPORARY
~NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ . . CATBOX CONTEMPORARY / INSTALLATION SHOT |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 7th, 2018, 8:15am
MR. UN-HINGED !!!!!!!!
the race to be the smallest & most inventive . . is on !!
or: the tiny canary that ate, the . . big cat !!
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN . . . O
OPENS TODAY SUN FEB 4 2018 / 3 – 6 PM
the show runs thru MARCH 11, 2018
CATBOX CONTEMPORARY, RIDGEWOOD, N.Y.
contact the gallery for exact address
after the opening reception, viewing is by appointment only
artist PHILIP HINGE . . runs CATBOX CONTEMPORARY.
it seems to have started up, just about this time last year.
“The gallery is located in my cat’s cat-tree in Ridgewood, NY. The unique size circumstances make for some really inventive and exciting shows.”
Mr. Hinge . . appears to be quite the conceptual goth, zany lyricist & way whacky pictorialist, himself. not to forget . . super challenging of convention, by the way !!
It seems only (non)logically right, then, that in his desire to up-end the art world shopping ‘cart’, he would arrive at some kind of very equally zany, provocative, contrarian & absolutely original, self-proclaimed exhibition venue, with which to stake a claim, for his serious, art world ambitions.
the strange part: he seems to be succeeding !!
I saw my first Catbox outing, last weekend . . at ‘The Big Short’, a group show of 9 very very different alternative curatorial projects / presented in the Hunter hunting grounds uptown, by artist curators: EMILY JANOWICK and PATRICK MOHUNDRO.
it sounded kind of iffy on paper, and didn’t really strike me as more than ‘too cute’, upon first sight. but close-up was – the epiphany !!
m-e-o-w.
the artist CATBOX presented, MIKE LINSKIE . . rose to the challenge, with a teeny, tiny one man show that fully celebrated what is not only a micro-space, but . . a curvaceous one, at that !!
the postage stamp size drawings (3 x 3 in.) were a delight, and the magic only kept on growing, in tiny increments . . with the ‘wall-sized’ murals, (watercolor, 11 x 14 in.) the hand-painted hermit crab shell sculptures packed a totemic punch, despite their tiny, DIY ‘beach souvenir’ stance.
totemic . . which also brings up the deeper philosophy of the Catbox – as art venue. under Philip Hinge’s guidance, not only are the artists asked to innovate, and switch up the scale, but ‘meaning’ is just as important, as plasticity, or art for arts sake.
see: MIKE LINSKIE,’Morning Sand’, CATBOX CATELLITE, for ‘The Big Short’ – CATBOX CONTEMPORARY WEBSITE
see: PHILIP HINGE – ARTIST PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
from the gallery press release:
For, O, Sullivan transforms both the upper and lower galleries (!!) into incubators for visual and formal oddities, creating an observed stasis for the characters and objects contained within. His use of familiar objects and pop-icons like Snoopy, the Pink Panther, or a bar of butter allow the viewer to assert their visual and emotional response into the space. An overarching narrative about personal and collective experience is given a coded history through the mixed means of Sullivan’s installation . . . . .
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, (b. 1987) lives & works in Brooklyn. He is an assistant professor in Studio Foundations at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
see: NICHOLAS SULLIVAN – ARTIST PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘Upsidedown Dog’, 2016.
Steel, Magic Sculpt, flashe
image via: NICHOLAS SULLIVAN WEBSITE
~NICHOLAS SULLIVAN, ‘O’ . . CATBOX / w MIKE LINSKIE & PHILIP HINGE side notes / OPENS SUN FEB 4, 3-6 PM |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 4th, 2018, 11:32am
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – SAT FEB 3 / 12 – 6 PM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
def, GET YOURSELF T-H-E-R-E.
THIS IS THE LAST DAY !!!!!!
CURATED BY: EMILY JANOWICK & PATRICK MOHUNDRO
THIS SLIVER of a SHOW . . is a KEEPER.
about the size of a glass shard,
compared to . . . ‘QUIET’ and ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ (!!),
this artist-curated show, and the 9 ‘alternative’ gallery-indie curators it presents,
are examples of how underground ‘projects’ have to work now.
just literally get your foot in the door, and put up a show.
‘THE BIG SHORT’ – CURATED BY EMILY JANOWICK & PATRICK MOHUNDRO
FEATURING . . . 9 INDIE / ALTERNATIVE CURATORIAL PROJECTS:
75 CELL, CATBOX CONTEMPORARY, CUSTOM PROGRAM, ESSEX FLOWERS, PAY FAUXN, PLUG DUMPSTER, TETE-A-TETE, WATER MCBEER, & HELPER
‘THE BIG SHORT’ . . WILL BE OPEN THIS / SAT FEB 3, 2018 / 12 – 6 PM / FOR ITS VIEWING.
THE ARTISTS INSTITUTE BASEMENT – IN THE DIRECTORS ‘CLOSET’ OFFICE / 132 E.65th Street at Lexington
“No one can see a bubble. That’s what makes it a bubble.” -MARK BAUM, THE BIG SHORT, (2015)
~gallery press release
the show’s artist curator producers . . . EMILY JANOWICK (@cyclone_bomb) & PATRICK MOHUNDRO (@mo_hun_dro),
are 2nd year MFA grad students at Hunter. I guess they could be anywhere, from this angle.
but here they are, in a small, tiny closet of an academic’s office, in the low-ceiling basement, of a grand old brownstone-type building. their show’s entire area looks to be 200 sq. ft. , if that.
including a tiny bathroom to the right, & a small couch to the right of that.
and a desk or two. a back wall lined with bookcases.
behind them is a found piece by . . . PAY FAUXN.
Pay Fauxn couldn’t exactly drag in their actual venue, which is an abandoned pay phone box, so in came the next best thing: a ‘distressed’ urban cardboard sign, which was then enshrined in a vacuum seal baggie.
very raw, Pay Fauxn is the project of . . MARY KOSUT.
“PAY FAUXN is an obsolete pay phone on the grounds of a defunct nursing home at a bus stop in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.”
the best way to follow them, besides just walking by, would be by IG / @payfauxn
or via the website: www.payfauxn.com/.
yes, definite hit – that link.
JULIE MALEN . . . soft sculpture, looking very bloody, bad meaty !!
in the small bathroom’s exhibit curated by ESSEX FLOWERS.
JULIE MALEN.
scale is a whole other ‘bag’ of body parts, in the digital age.
what can be big can be made small, and what is small . . can seem large.
look at that, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ . . still relevant.
ESSEX FLOWERS . . put on a tiny show called ‘Please Mister Postman’, last April 2017 . . with tiny reproduction paintings by 5 contemporary artists, displayed in the gallery hallway mailbox, curated by NICHOLAS MOENICH.
referenced to, in passing conversation by ‘THE BIG SHORT’ curators, it seems to have set the bar / for mini shows, in very small & off-the-grid . . places.
still in the ESSEX FLOWERS bathroom, the back wall:
painting by . . JASON STOPA.
the black vase with the strange green plant, is also by . . JULIE MALEN.
NICKOLAUS TYPLALDOS made . . the surreal BANANA.
the set of very real looking potatoes are by . . MARGARET LEE.
curiously, they are made of plaster. strange, how compelling they were.
the Essex Flowers display even has a title: ‘Watch Out For the Water’.
it’s about . . “the etymology of 2 terms: gare a l’eau and trompe l’oeil”.
it also serves:
“as an exercise in provisional curating as it was organized from idea to installation in 72 hours.”
JULIE MALEN . . black vase and flowering cactus.
MARGARET LEE . . 2 potatoes, plaster.
I found these such compelling objects, just something about them.
CATBOX CONTEMPORARY is a gallery space run by PHILIP HINGE, “in his cat’s cat-tree in Ridgewood, N.Y.”.
‘Catbox Catellite’ – is their ‘visiting’, off-site platform.
the low fi light provided by this flood lamp, casts a dramatic spell on the tiny totemic sculptures & paintings.
miniature offerings by . . MIKE LINSKIE.
the tiny ‘Untitled (Starmen)’ drawings are 3 x 3 in., pen on paper, 2018.
the little sculptures sitting on the floor, are ‘Hermit-Man Remains’. 4 x 4 x 3 in., hand-painted hermit crab shells, plaster and sand. 2014.
a tiny mural.
MIKE LINSKIE, ‘Palm Grove’, 11 x 14 in., watercolor on paper, 2016.
the WATER McBEER install, on the couch.
“Water McBeer presents a selection from his private collection.”
the 2 framed pieces: CHRIS MARKER in ‘Nanomuseum’ curated by HANS ULRICH OBRIST; the electric naked woman painting is by JAMIAN JULIANO-VILLANI. the strange concrete circle on the floor is by IGNACIO GATICA, and the even weirder 3 prong piece is by BRENDAN LYNCH.
also, in the tiny Water McBeer gallery:
a wonderful, teeny tiny bronze-looking book of matches, by ELIZABETH FERRY !!
or, is that a real book of matches, painted to look bronzed – I asked myself later.
and, check out the detail on that miniature wood floor.
CUSTOM PROGRAM, an alternative gallery space in Brooklyn . . presented ‘The Active Denial System’ by MEGAN SNOWE.
“The Active Denial System (ADS) is a less-than-lethal, millimeter-wave direct-energy weapon developed by the US military for the purposes of perimeter security and crowd control …”
tucked in a bookshelf a tiny, but radical . .
Rasta tableau by . . HELPER !!
less scary tech !!
more Rasta magic !!
57 CELL . . an alternative publishing / curatorial project, had a retrospective of all 4 booklets to date, offered up for browsing. interestingly, 57 cell publications are only offered as hard copy, there is no online digital archive available.
57 CELL is a GREGORY KALLICHE PROJECT, see: 57 CELL
each ‘booklet’ presents the work of one artist, this is a page from:
‘ALEE PEOPLES / DOWN THE DEEP’. you would want to flip through all four.
while TETE-A-TETE had its many digital projects playing . . on multiple laptops, around the room.
see: tete-ahh-tete.net
perhaps most ethereal,
PLUG DUMPSTER . . presented a performance by EMIL BOGNAR-NADOR on the opening night.
‘Listen To The Space / An Invitation To Hear Listening’
@plugspace . . is a CRAIG MONTEITH project.
PHOTO COURTESY: THE BIG SHORT – CURATORS
leaving behind . . the infinite world in a closet of an office,
that was ‘The Big Short’.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH – unless otherwise noted
~’THE BIG SHORT’ . . . 9 ‘ALTERNATIVE’ CURATOR-PROJECTS / HUNTER BASEMENT OFFICE POP-UP / OPEN SAT / 12 – 6 PM |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 2nd, 2018, 1:59pm
ALFREDO . . wants BENICIO DEL TORO to play him in the new ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ flick.
APART FROM from his huge & fully functional shooting gallery installation at ‘QUIET’, Alfredo is also famous for his real . . ‘FAKE BASQUIAT’ caper, which merited him 2 years in the ‘THE BIG HOUSE’ / Metropolitan Corrections.
this is a recent one, from late last year 2017.
he’s just born that way. he can Basquiat standing on his head.
he can do Basquiat better than Basquiat can.
ps: if you look at the ‘texts’, swirling around in the background, though . . you will see references . . . to stuff that is happening now, so they can’t possibly be . . by the real Basquiat.
except now, he signs them off as his own, as the ‘REAL FAKE BASQUIAT FORGER’, instead of pasing them off for the real goods – to unsuspecting big ticket collectors, phony artist ‘certificate’ and all.
This is one of Alfredo’s newest pieces of his own . . work.
a portrait. he usually does guns, but he’s actually a wild portrait artist & he takes great photo head shots.
it is done in the collaged / hand-made Elmer’s white glued paper diy technique he perfected in prison, because he wans’t allowed to have any drawing or painting materials. he did portraits of the mobsters & con men around him, using coffee packages and jello as pigments, apparently he was a huge sensation.
they are quite lifelike.
Alfredo has this portrait, and maybe more . . in a show opening tonight.
FRI FEB 2, 2018 / 8 – 10 PM
‘PROJECT GHANA’ / ‘BEAUTY FOR FREEDOM’ at THE FLAT NYC
23 W 24TH ST, NYC, NY 10010
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC ‘ / ‘PROJECT GHANA’ OPENING TO-NIGHT FRI |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 2nd, 2018, 12:26pm
J.H. meet J.H.
JONAH HILL as JOSH HARRIS.
you may as well just fall off your chair, now.
You can just see Jonah as Josh, looking up at the Livingston apple orchard, wondering where the hell, did all the . . money go,
and wtf, just happened.
JONAH HILL in . . .
‘DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT’, directed by GUS VAN SANT.
watch: ‘DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT’ – OFFICIAL TRAILER – YouTube
see: ‘DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT’ – NYT / JAN 18, 2018
~JONAH HILL . . as JOSH. |
Posted in Movie Reviews, The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | February 1st, 2018, 1:33pm
if BEN STILLER . .
can do his just announced, upcoming feature adaption . ..
of ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, the Sundance winning documentary about JOSH HARRIS, the so-called Andy Warhol of the web, and art world bad boy . . .
just as gently; but really funny in parts, all too human, bitter-sweet, sad and even harsh in others . . .
as is the tone of the recent ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’ (2017) . . . where he plays older brother to a failed bro (musician), and successful son (wealth management for rich hipster clients) to an oppressively narcissistic forgotten artist dad,
then things are looking good for a Hollywood re-make.
though of course, ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’, though it often hit very close to home, and sometimes even . . too close to home, is a fictional though very accurate portrayal.
it kind of makes you realize just how delicate a task it might be to come up with a great, funny, sad serious, twisty, biopic on Josh, esp as ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . moves very fast through a time frame of several years, and is characterized by Josh’s interactions with many different, but all high-octane ‘players’, who though individually brought a lot of wild antics, collectively imploded with great gusto, along with some hard knocks, . . within the so-called ‘social experiment’, that Josh said he made, but that really – made him !!
ADAM DRIVER, has a wild cameo . . in ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’.
he plays a young wannabe rock star, who is maybe going through his first cash payday – a little bit too fast. Ben Stiller in his role as Matt, the older Meyerowitz bro – who runs a budding, start-up celebrity wealth management for hipsters business, has come in, to put a lid on the money action, but still stay .. cool af.
in that fast-paced, tone-perfect scene, I could definitely see the potential . . for a perfect storm . . of a JOSH HARRIS / ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’. BIO-PIC.
they should try to find a equally brief, in & out, cameo role for Driver . .
in the ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ project.
maybe: as ALEX ARCADIA, lol.
he built that Nazi-like, real goldfish swimming in pond / moat . . ran around a 3D temple, that Alex reportedly got $80K to build, & where Josh like some the mad leader of a futuristic cult, often gave his . . ‘mission’ speeches.
with JONAH HILL . . already on-board to play . . Josh, & I can just see it, come to L-I-F-E.
it could be real big win.
‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – HELLO, H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D.
‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’,
came out last fall, directed & written by NOAH BAUMBACH.
it stars BEN STILLER & ADAM SANDLER (in very tapped-down comedic modes – hurray), as the very different, almost equally damaged grown (half !!) sons of the cranky, semi-seedy self-obsessed old school NYC artist, played by DUSTIN HOFFMAN, and he’s . . nailing it. performance-wise.
you know, or you will, one day . . . the grumpy guy who never made it, won’t be the faculty group show, and his best friend is having a retrospection at the Whitney.
‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’ . . won the PALM DOG award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
COMEDY-DRAMA ?!!!
REAL LIFE / DOCU-DRAMA ?!!!
JOSH HARRIS & CREW / ARE IN YOUR HANDS, . . . BEN STILLER !!!!!
BEN STILLER, as MATTHEW MEYEROWITZ . . . in ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’.
def, def def !! watch the trailer: ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’ – OFFICIAL TRAILER / YouTube
in fact, you can watch the entire film right now, it’s now on . . NETFLIX !!
more background . . .
see: ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’ – Wikipedia
here’s how that wiki post / re: Plot . . begins:
“After separating from his wife, unemployed DANNY MEYEROWITZ (Adam Sandler) moves in with his father, HAROLD (Dustin Hoffman), a retired Bard College (!!) art professor and sculptor, and his 3rd wife, MAUREEN (Emma Thompson) . . .”
and btw:
DANNY has a daughter (Grace Van Patten) who is just starting film school, at Bard College, who makes . . “sexually obsessed” art films.
and, we can all . . relate.
~BEN STILLER: ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ & ‘THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES’ . . . yes !!!!!! |
Posted in Movie Reviews, The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | January 30th, 2018, 11:20am
note: JOSH HARRIS says, LUVVY is his virtual self / & not his alter ego, inner evil twin,
secret persona / or performance vehicle. etc. etc.
shhhhhhh…….
QUIET !!!!!,
WE LIVE IN PUBLIC !!!!!
EVERYBODY talks about the drama, & the future vision, but if ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ had a bleeding, beating heart . . it was the ART.
exhibition / hard copy art, even framed art, silkscreen, installation, both site-specific & not / performance art of all kinds, video, digital, computer, light, sound, architectural, food art, xxx rated burlesque: you name it.
I mean even the video footage, that went on to become the basis for Sundance winning ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, was . . art. video done as – art.
the 24-7 reality camera surveillance, was part & parcel of the ‘QUIET / WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ art game . . . from the very get-go. prob the single most important element.
in the end the footage was stored on cassette tapes, with hand-lettered labels.
I know because I hand-labeled them.
it was year 2000.
I don’t even know what kind of computer storage existed / if it was even possible for ‘amateurs’ to upload video ?
ONDI TIMONER was hired . . as a film artist !!
her project was to document this crazy wild / 2 week long millennium party . . that Josh called ‘Quiet’ / in a spit of contrary that is very characteristic of his mindset. She was so very low-key through-out, but so focused.
she was like the – breathing & inhaling of the whole.
she was on everything – like a cat.
she was also given an additional budget, something like $100,000 to archive, and store the tapes & hopefully form them into some kind of summation / a rough edit. Josh was in doubt the project was even going to amount to anything. Sundance . . been there, done that. won. hello, Hollywood.
‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ seems to jerk forward in 9 year leaps.
anything in the Mayan calendar about that ?
ONDI was one of the first artists – to be taken on specifically for ‘Quiet’, who did not come out of Josh’s usual crew.
He watched ‘DIG!’ & she got the green light. that was it.
if it was green light / it was . . Go !!
along with a production budget, that was to most of us . . an astounding cash flow.
that’s the way the dot.com boys played at the time. cash hardball. cash moneyball / double-time.
the mainstream NYC art world had no idea what was being bounced down on them, and they still . . don’t.
that . . was Josh’s best & greatest m.o.
you pitched him an idea, from any corner – and if it caught his fancy / you were up & running.
and, I mean .. up & running.
payroll ?
payroll . . rock n’roll.
you got the kind of cash budget / sometimes you even got Josh’s credit card lol, that made it possible for you to build that art / that dream, and build it . . well. if not downright glorious. and absolutely – outside the box.
way way outside the prevailing standard white wall box gallery exhibition budget, then or, now.
CASH / CASH / CASH
CASH 4 ART
I think in part that, ‘QUIET’ & the immediately following solo Josh (& the fake GF) project, the original ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . .
and then 9 years later, Ondi’s cumulative Sundance winning documentary ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . went basically unnoticed & definitely unremarked upon by the mainstream / usual suspects / NYC ‘art critics’ . . just, simply because of that big 90s tech dollars – cash throw-down.
one: there was a very real / very uninspired bias happening in the staid art press vs. the kind of incredible ‘art parties’ that the young tech millionaires were throwing at that time, to compete with each other, even though they were bonafide installations, which made the conventional art scene look stale & seedy, btw.
it was: they were techie parties. they weren’t art. the art critics in this town are such stupid snobs. no wonder rebel rebel Brooklyn is so alive.
(btw the tabloid press & NEW YORK mag loved Josh. they could not get enough of his ‘staged art’ installation photos.)
two: apart from the bias against who was putting on the party / install exhibits . . the institutional art critics . . just couldn’t get their small minds around a huge conceptual art ‘performance’ – that was made on such a big budget. and which was so multi-layered. at the most, all they had seen till then were Jeffrey Deitch’s small one room, ok ‘big’ room events . .
I mean, even Damien Hirst was still yet to produce his shark-in-a-tank / OBGYN-chair-in-a-tank in a room in a gallery.
Josh had 4 floors of a warehouse going on, with 2 sub-basements, not to mention a bubble-wrapped 100+ person sit-down dining room / performance space next door !!
we are talking over 100+ live-in artists incl. in-house crew . . . making art, and the whole place was open to the public 24/7 / open bars and it was a mob scene.
in a way, looking back . . it was ‘infinite’ compared to the standard art exhibit.
it was . . proto-web.
three: not only were the so-called critics not up to speed on ‘conceptual’ art as an umbrella / financed by an unthinkable budget, but Josh and his Pseudo production crew – were already on the web !!
nascent as it was. they had $81 mill in the bank !!
they were completely independent . . of the staid old gallery / old boy system.
the whole Josh Harris-curated wonderland . . just went right over their heads.
it couldn’t fit inside their tiny idea – of an art box.
IN A WAY – AN ‘INVERTED’ WAY !!!!
‘QUIET’ / ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . was kind of like the art scene today, with its many, tiny indie curators bypassing the stultifying mainstream art scene, by showing art wherever they can, whether from inside their tiny apt living rooms, to stuffing stuff in old abandoned phone booths !! to sabotaging advertising boxes on the street. kind of like the shattered ‘Terminator’.
Josh was the ‘Terminator’ . . whole.
Josh had the dough (supposedly $81 million) & an insane drive . . to bankroll & produce art.
He was like the Medici of the tech world. damn it, if he didn’t rent a huge 4 story abandoned warehouse, & its abandoned storefront neighbor in Tribeca, in which to throw the biggest art party this town has still never seen seen beat, & also . . splash down the megabucks for a huge hi-end loft on Spring & Broadway in Soho, in which to run his own solo / project.
we are talking: god-almighty tech million dollar art productions.
sometimes, as we all know . . CASH is a four letter word.
and so is art critic. and it’s not a pretty one.
but the downtown art scene – never ever saw better times.
here’s just a small small sampling from my own archives:
JEFF GOMPERTZ, now based in Thailand, built the incredible jaw-dropping pod hotel / art installation that housed over 100 artists. based on Japanese pod hotels, it was super functional, and sleek.
other digital artists, and technicians, whose names I don’t know, but they were masters . . wired & built the equivalent . . of a in-house proto-internet / Facebook / instagram social media / social network.
the pods were wired with surveillance cameras re: output.
re: input . .
every pod had its own screen and a few, maybe 3 channels of broadcast access . . to the 24/7 ongoing surveillance.
if, the Citizens Band was marching buck naked on the dining room table – you could see it from your pod.
if someone was having sex in the pods, you might be watching it while you ate dinner.
‘bio’ – in all its grand meaning – was a big big part of the show.
Josh – was a very curious guy. yeah, he was out to shock. and, why not ?!!
AI & Computer learning, algorithms . . take note. humans at work.
are you getting a sense of .. just how big / the big brother picture here, was ???
just how big . . the art picture was ?
this was a hardcore artist – ARMY !!!
go fit that . . in your Brooklyn living room, lol.
a birds-eye-view of the surveillance / digital HQ.
off limits . . to most of the crew.
in fact, I believe that’s ONDI TIMONER, to the extreme right, with some kind of bandana around her head.
you have to remember . . it was year 1999 – turning the corner onto 2000.
I personally didn’t even know how to email. people had cellphones, but there were no smartphones.
what was that, even the concept did not exist.
internet service was dial-up. there was no communal social media platform / this was the proto-type, in fact. a self-contained / but inter-connected 24-7 wired hub / hive.
sometimes I go to openings, and I realize . . that these kids were like . . only 4 !!
when we did this.
it was . . MEGA.
site-specific / install artist DAVID LESLIE . . concocted pretty much the whole entire basement, that wasn’t the gaming room or the shooting gallery, lol. or were those on the lower lower sub-basement ?
the opening night . . snowy ‘target practice’ / was life-size arcade blow-out . . & it was his.
it didn’t even make the cut / documentary. but all of those cheesy live action sex games, that weren’t in the pods, all those set-ups are his.
Josh’s evil alter ego Luvvy, came to life – in the footsteps of David Leslie.
eternal red-neck cowboy, MARK ENGER, R.I.P . . . of EXPLODING SKY, did a lot of the graphics, & most vividly, it was he who silk-screened circle ‘targets’ onto the in-house crew’s grey work shirts.
before there was Swizz Beatz silk-screening all over his jackets – there was Mark.
the bubble-walled dining room sat 100+ & had its own kitchen in back, with its own in-house pro chef serving 4 star meals. it totally blew everybody away. walking in, it was like turning on the Discovery channel. it made non-believers into believers. it was stunning.
commissioned by Josh himself, as were all the installations, this future-reaching, site-specific installation, shockingly visual & tactile . . was designed & made by MARIA ALEJANDRA GIUDICI.
also note, GABRRIELLE LATESSA ORTIZ ran the the food. nailed it.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ built and ran the . . SHOOTING GALLERY. licensed as a film ‘prop’. . anybody could come & safely learn how to hold & fire off a big big gun.
yeah, that’s my kid Theo, who was 9 at the time – shooting the gun.
Columbine had just happened, April 20, 1999, and, you bet: I wanted my kid to know how to handle guns.
& sad story short. high school shootings have not gone away.
the master of ceremonies, the man himself, JOSH HARRIS . . in the transparent / communal shower.
I got around that by showering under a blanket.
you had to figure out how to work it, for yourself. it was kind of a maze, a daily ritual maze.
site-specific, & very much working: lots of hot water. this functional, totally radical, transparent live in public, communal shower – was commissioned by Josh from . . and, designed by the cutting-edge design team of: MARIA ALEJANDRA GIUDICI, (who did the Bubble dining room), & her husband at the time . . MARIANO AIRALDI, who also built & installed it.
Photo via WE LIVE IN PUBLIC archives / courtesy: JOSH HARRIS
I was supposed to put on a . . . ‘live action quilt / sewing bee’ !!!!!!
alas, this was as far as I got, before I got usurped to be Josh’s right-hand production assistant.
‘QUIET’ was as quick – as the future internet was going to be, too.
you got liked or disliked . . in a blink of an Josh Harris . . eye-lash.
or . . usurped.
don’t get me wrong, he liked the quilt idea !! alot !!
just the skills that made for quilting – also made for excellent production assistant, esp in a very busy & wild ‘organic’ hive of an install – like this one.
which also seems very future vision, just check out how your IG / Instagram feed is organized.
classic 3 patch.
x digital infinity.
so, I took to building, prob the ‘tiniest’ creative units at ‘QUIET’ / DIY paper lanterns made from two sheets of standard 8 x 10 in. typing paper, glued together at the seams.
I then collaged them with various found ‘photographic’ scraps, that were all over the place.also tiny lost sequins, beads, red glitter & red Xmas thread, and hung them from the ceiling pipes, in random places, as I raced around doing Josh’s bidding.
. . & if that isn’t very FUTURE BROOKLYN – I don’t know what is.
what was so cool, was I would string em up at night, un-announced.
very private. very anonymous. no artist credit whatsover, no signature anywhere . .
and the next day, they would have colored professional lights projected on them.
I felt, in that great creative chaos, of huge $$$ artist projects, and even huger artist egos, someone was creepin’ on me.
someone . . got me !!
looking back, yeah, I was . . self-publishing.
I was making ‘comments’ ’emojis’ ?
in the proto-zone / Pseudo internet.
I was a tiny nano unit – that ‘vibes’ the communal hive, & keeps the bizz/buzz level up.
I reached in, to connect.
I was the tiny singular voice – that had . . a voice !!
I was just one outsider / in the insider singularity of the whole.
I had nothing but my own strong primal / prey driven desire . . to make art.
create . . a beat in the background, a response. articulate a skill.
I was commenting . . on the vibe of the underground, & I was diggin’ it.
yeah, someone got me.
and that someone was: Josh.
and that’s how we all felt working & making art . . for JOSH.
LONG LIVE – PSEUDO !! LONG LIVE INDIE REBEL ART !!
just we got to do it on a scale, that would blow all – your Brooklyn minds, apart !!
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH / unless otherwise noted
~THE ART . . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC ‘ !! / w new corrections as of JAN 30, 2018 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | January 26th, 2018, 12:10pm
