~BAZAAR TEENS: DANIEL KENT / EDWARD SNOWDEN ? . . LOSERS: KLAUS BIESENBACH of MoMA & RACHELLE HRUSKA of GUESTOFAGUEST
file under: SEEING & NON-SEEING . .
1. NON-SEEING aka . . ‘BLIND’.
DANIEL KENT, ‘Articulating Blind Movement #1’, 2014.
venetian blinds, stepper motor, arduino, dimensions variable.
note: “ARDUINO . . is an open source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures kits for building digital devices and interactive objects – that can sense and control the physical world . .”
see: ARDUINO
ps: did you note that grinning ‘face’ on the wall column. priceless.
also the faux ‘wood’ plywood siding, that covers the walls. also: priceless. the Bazaar Teens of ‘TREE-TECH’, and the other Spring Break exhibitors didn’t have to install it, that was the real USP / Postal Services office ‘decor’. if that cheezy rendition of wood paneling doesn’t speak to the ‘Tree-Tech’ mission – I don’t know what . . does.
DANIEL KENT’s articulating venetian ‘blind’, on the way back wall . . . BAZAAR TEENS – ‘TREE-TECH’ showrooms, SPRING BREAK 2015.
‘articulating’ . . meaning it had a hidden ‘stepper’ motor, which caused the blinds to violently shake from side to side, causing a most huge, angry and very annoying, abrupt and continuous clankety sound – as it swung fiercely from the side to side, obscuring the window view, as if in a great autistic rage, a temper tantrum – against its . . ‘restraints’.
if a ‘blind’ could have a epileptic fit – this was it.
interestingly, it was not a replica, or a small scale reproduction, it was the real deal – albeit infused with mad angry mechanical expression. which is good, because I am so over the micro nano trend, ever since I heard a radio commercial for ‘tiny’ marshmallows for your ‘tiny’ tots who want to make YouTube ready ‘tiny’ / ‘miniature’ food creations . . . omg enough with the tiny scale !! trend, already.
now that it’s been hit up by Walmart copywriters, big time.
but oh, way more than a Walmart commercial . . these blinds were annoying, another friggin beating bleating heartbeat gone wrong . . at ‘TREE-TECH’.
loved them. this is the gift you want to give to your worst enemy.
at the top of my worst art wannabe poser list – this year ?
GUEST OF A GUEST. more specifically . . RACHELLE HRUSKA, the clueless bimbette socialite, with the picture perfect boutique hotelier husband, 2 boys, and “homes in Manhattan and Montauk” who runs it. the worst ‘art’ – lifestyle ? news site ever, that goes without saying . . but, I’d like to wrap up one of these ‘articulating’ blinds and personally deliver it to her, in her no doubt color co-ordinated office . . with a little paper gift tag:
keep your thieving hands off my . . photos, and content – you dumb-ass, queen of aggregate – bitch.
continuing, I thought – wow, this shaking, rattling, headache-inducing DANIEL KENT ‘blind’, would make a great art trophy for “WORST” – in a broader category, seeing how dismal the art scene ‘proper’ is these days. we could even call it the . . ‘blind-ie’ , for worst ‘eye’, worse administration, worst call, and, not just outright copyright theft, etc. etc.
and we could give it out every year.
and quelle funnie, although they didn’t know it, the mainstream media, big and small – has already called this year’s winner – !!
yes, KLAUS BIESENBACH, chief curator-at-large of MoMA, apparently by popular demand . . you get the first . . . ‘BLIND-IE’ – !!
see: ‘An Unlikable Crowd-Pleaser’, WALL STREET JOURNAL. MARCH 31, 2015
2. SEEING . . and then, of course – deleting !!
A BUST OF FORMER NATIONAL-SECURITY ADVISOR EDWARD SNOWDEN WAS INSTALLED ‘ANONYMOUSLY’ EARLY MONDAY in BROOKLYN’S FORT GREENE PARK. BY AFTERNOON, PARKS AND RECREATION EMPLOYEES HAD REMOVED IT – WALL STREET JOURNAL, APRIL 7, 2015
of course, the opposite of the ‘BLIND-IE’ award, would have to be the ‘TREE-TECH’ trophy for . . vision – or: VISIONARY!!
and, the first one goes to EDWARD SNOWDEN, and the NYC guys, a-r-t-i-s-t-e-s !! who put – this up !!
hoo-ray for our home-grown rebel prankster “guerilla” / street intervention . . artists !!
the underground posse – still has heart, and, GUTS !! they just never grow-up, do they.
still popping up, no matter how hard the city fights back – to shut them down. rebel, rebel.
it’s an amazing ‘theoretical’ war zone, to observe. pick your battle, modern-day anarchists.
though you’ll note the key is to have a ‘light’ touch. nothing city-scarring. as early graff was.
and, as benefits the turn of the screw, of a new century, it’s a much more literally pop-up 3D event, these days, as opposed to the flat lined, but hard-to-erase ‘scripted’ . . graffiti of yore.
and, yeah, for the record, that replica is awesome and so is the ‘EDWARD SNOWDEN’ lettering detail. great font, great spacing. great site-specific . . placing.
you’ll note again, at least the Parks and Recreation guys didn’t have to, and did not . . destroy and sledgehammer it off. and, on their end of the game, at least these remover guys covered it nicely, with a tarp, before they hopefully, and carefully – carted it away.
the best artifact to come out of the city in long time.
you’ll also note that art doesn’t need more than a day to make a splash !!
a testament to the power of meaningful, as opposed to ‘vapid’ art, i.e. vision, empowered and dispersed by the new platforms of digital communication / media – and voila: pop-up culture !! in nano-time – !!
you’ll also note the head is actually 4 foot tall, which doesn’t make it ‘micro – but it is a . . hand-made replica format / bust !!
fashioned from . . low-fi sculpting ‘plaster’. then painted to look bronze, and nice job.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, GREATER NEW YORK SECTION – FRONT PAGE. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2015.
read all about it, yourself: ‘EDWARD SNOWDEN GETS PLACED ON A PEDESTAL’, WALL STREET JOURNAL. APRIL 7, 2015
HOO-RAY: to BUCKY TURCO and his crew at ANIMAL NEW YORK, for breaking the story !!
haha, leave it to the real artists – to be so contrarian !!
BUCKY’S headline screams . . . “MASSIVE illicit bust of . . . ”
as of this week, I’m so over micro, I’m just so ready . . to read that. massive, oh my lord !!
the backlash wave – has struck !!
but it’s still . . . artisanal, hand-crafted — AND, HAPPENING IN . . BROOKLYN !!
and it’s still . . . all about: SCALE / SIZE !! MASSIVE. too, much.
EDWARD SNOWDEN, what a bitch of a . . story.
but I can’t help pointing out, art trend micro-managing forecaster that I am, that if you read that Animal post, and it is very entertaining !! all the way down towards the end, in the, shall we say . . . small print area, and probably talking future art product !! down the road, no doubt . . .
are the words: “The artists are fully aware of the bust’s inevitable destruction and have left themselves a few options, including one that deploys an army of mini-Snowden heads.” – !!
“We have a full size mold that can be poured again and it’s been 3D rendered, so we have the ability to print smaller ones at scale.”
no doubt.
well, to conclude in a nutshell . . aka blogger-nano time.
the irony of the NYC art world at this momento-in-time is . . .
as if we didn’t already know it, the art institutions, and the people who run them – are being told to take their “vapid” empty art, and run for the hills. 6 months long exhibition runs, years in the planning, celebs, big budgets, and all.
while the scrappy fly-bye-night indie street artists, low-fi indie curators, pop-ups, and self-representers . . . and, the on-the-run indie bloggers who love them, have the city – in a love-that-art / head-lock.
AFTER-THOUGHT:
I also can’t help but ask, whether the desert rats on the other side of the world might have something to do with how ‘gently’ the NYPD has removed this “illicit” SNOWDEN bust, apart from the fact that the artists who put it up, made it so easy to – take down.
I mean, that would be be such a bad photo op. too too much, too much bad pr for the city . . . if the NYPD, or Parks and Recreation (?!!) were to be seen taking sledgehammers to art . . specifically, sculptural heads, too. just like the desert rats are doing, this very same week ?
I mean the world really feels, connected !! – now.
as connected as . . a snowball.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH, except for the Wall Street and Animal New York press photos, of course !!