~BAZAAR TEENS . . JOHN GORDON GAULD & MIA BERG
it’s a . . bunny, not a . . piggy !!!!
imagine a bunny and a piggy having . . sex.
yuk. or, is that yuck. so much for art criticism, NYC 101.
o.k. – not ready for that ?
take two:
follow me . . down the mighty distressed garden path by which we discover MR. PIGGY – is really MR. BUNNY – !!
JOHN GORDON GAULD . . at the BAZAAR TEENS ‘TREE TECH’ OFFICES & SHOWROOM – SPRING BREAK 2015, curated by DUSTIN YELLIN.
just as YELLIN screams ART BOSS of RED HOOK, and perhaps even the decade, GAULD spells . . G-o-l-d.
doesn’t matter – how you cut it, or . . cast it.
solid gold. plaster, wax, or paint.
whether set on fire, bathed in neon blue light, or hang on a wall.
piggy, bunny, or naked damsel in . . distress.
this BAZAAR TEENS money machine, atm ? tucked away in a small janitor closet behind their entryway, had caught my notice, at the last minute – at the Spring Break opening.
well, it was . . a bonafide nano-moment, of half attention, on my part.
when I returned 2 d days later, it was at the top of my list – to look at again.
just what was that – that had sneaked by me, like a thief in the night.
loved the ‘piggy’ banks, I assumed, lined up on the shelf above the money machine.
that ‘pink’ shading of the light – also spoke ‘piggy’ to me.
my impulse was: I wanted to grab one, and run.
just how some people want to grab the money, (fortune and fame), and run, too.
p.s., in the tiny closet – nano-exhibit, dot dot … dot.
in the ‘closet’ – in general, dot. dot – dot.
art thou, art product – piggy banks ?
or, put forth art critic-wise . . ‘art product’ that I liked way better than all that pasted and shredded . . . (great p.r.) m-o-n-e-y.
the neon blue lit entryway to the ‘TREE-TECH’ operation, was even more fab than I had remembered.
how many times does that . . happen.
so, things were looking good.
yep, it was a total full-on FAB NANO-MOMENT – !!
I was thinking piggies, and here was MIA BERG, the BAZAAR TEENS ‘TREE-TECH’ crew member of the random moment, and she was thinking . . piggies, too.
in fact, she was drawing one, that she had just placed on the ‘showroom’ . . info desk.
this was her drawing, and so I came to see – that it wasn’t a piggy after all, all money assumptions be gone out the window, just like all the rest of the money assumptions in my life.
yep, Mr. Piggy was a Mr. Bunny !! it was a . . BUNNY on top of the cash machine, all along.
now how about that, for a distressed, transformational . . garden fable.
in fact, the drawing seemed to be a love letter, to MR. BUNNY, from . . BUNNY (femme) !!
so, back to the fable: it’s gone from a piggy bank to a rabbit. a magic rabbit, dig the hat. the story has taken a wild turn, from . . saving dough, it’s jumped to saving the species, i.e. in more coarse terminology . . ‘breeding’.
so, there’s hope in the garden ?
a little bio-magic, some spring-time romance ? even in the (mighty) distressed garden of the dirty plastic ‘TREE-TECH’ future ?
this JOHN GORDON GAULD bunny, also played into the current artisan-all-the-rage ceramics – wave crashing over us – like a monster tsunami . . out of Brooklyn.
it was low-fi version, plaster. but still !! and . . no matter.
and, even better, it was . . signed on the bottom by the artist !!
it could have had a slit at the top for coins, and a hole at the bottom, for coin retrieval, then I guess it would have been a . . bunny-bank ?
maybe, next time.
for now, it was more about saving the human race, i.e. the world, than saving . . money.
and, for ‘TREE-TECH’ it was not a moment too soon.
all seemed to be well, if not a roaring-ly fantastic utopia, with the teen bio future, living as they do, in an increasingly . . bio-hazard challenged world.
in fact there were even . . ‘home decor’ candle format Mr. Bunnies, for $100 a pop.
but no signature, and well, a disappearing act . . if put into action.
another ‘TRANSACTION’, a truly nano-to-dot moment – art product ?
so, where were you . . Mr. LARRY WARSH, man of the BROOKLYN MUSEUM hour/nano-moment, famed, and justifiably so / self-styled collector of artistic, translate: ‘BASQUIAT’ . . . ‘ephemera’ ?
does . . art ever move on, to the NEXT BIG MOMENT, as it . . happens ?
besides, what a difference a candle ‘camera’ angle makes, for some reason, I’m not sure of, I think it was important to note, that this was a male Mr. Bunny, and not a ‘femme’.
as in . . PULL THE MAGIC RABBIT out of the HAT ?
and even further, as opposed to . . follow that, more organic ? Mr. Rabbit . . down the rabbit hole ?
Mr. BUNNY, on fire – !!
really dig that ‘shabby chic’ industrial setting – !!
crate and barrel, not. though it’s getting there.
‘TREE-TECH’, yes.
bye the way, the chalky bunny ‘bank’ opaque plaster surface, as well as the soft waxy surface of the bunny candle, and its warm glow when lit . . went well with the shiny industrial BAZAAR TEENS theme – in general.
so, I thought that was the end of the garden path story, and asked Ms. Berg to kindly stand up and show me her ‘TREE-TECH’ decal . . all the better, to see you, my dear.
BAZAAR TEENS, blue light and all, great graphics, props, set and design, concept and message – in a nutshell.
JOHN GORDON GAULT, ‘Blue Ghost’, 2013. oil on linen, 42 x 60 in.
and then, my lucky day, or what. JOHN GORDON GAULD himself . . entered the picture.
and told me, that it was he – who had in fact painted that show-stopping hyper-realist ‘nude’ in one of sub-text ‘TREE-TECH’ . . ‘satellite’ exhibit rooms.
all radar, no money. like I said.
that’s myself I’m talking about, guess you really can’t have it all.
damn.
yes, it was . . a Damsel in Distress.
her hands were going cold white and powdery – with death.
and, just like that, THE TALE OF BENJAMIN BUNNY, and the happy ending that went with it, went up in – smoke.
just like a candle.
the survival garden fable – got all twisted up, right at the very end.
like a final parting shot . . Tarot card, ‘To Mr. Bunny, with love . . from Ms. Bunny’, got shut down. the whole thing ended, on a most ominous note . . . PARADISE LOST.
if the shabby chic industrial futuristic distress scenario, that was the ‘TREE-TECH’ office installation, with its glossy, pitch perfect gibberish-full color brochure, and its muddy stale day-old bread, and day old, more like weeks old coffee-spewing DIY fountain, including a generous piling on of out-of-place dirt lining the bare walls, everywhere, at every nook and cranny of their uber-fabricated ‘TREE-TECH’ offices – didn’t nail the future for ya, the crew of BAZAAR TEENS socked it to ya, with Mr. GAULD’S endgame painting.
‘BAZAAR’ becoming less a metaphor for ‘cash’ transaction – and, more a case for . . genetic mutation, i.e. that’s, ‘BIZARRE’ . . in case you can’t make the deconstructionist . . leap.
yep, leave it to the hyper-realist painting, to set you straight.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH