~NANCY SMITH . . DANIEL GIORDANO / NEWBURGH, NY
NEW YORK WRITERS – ON THE MOVE !!
NANCY SMITH, and DANIEL GIORDANO, just outside Newburgh / Bloominghill Farms, New York. Aug 10, 2019.
Photo: Kate Cerigo
took the tribe / Kate, Theo & big poochie Zora . . upstate to visit – Daniel Giordano !!
a few weekends back.
now, that’s some – visit !!
it was the first time me & Daniel got to meet – in person.
I have been following his work / ever since I first got invited to a small / 3 person group show / the inaugural show, in fact: for Daniel’s friend Samuel Boehm’s . . ‘roving’ curatorial pop-up: ‘Gazebo’.
titled: ‘Love of the Common Man’, which was already intriguing, I super liked the advance p.r. graphics, concept & images – but it being my birthday (!!) and a big sushi dinner in the works, we got there too early, and then couldn’t return in time to make the actual opening / but I’ve been following them all on IG, & have been hooked ever since.
that’s also how I knew about Babayaga’s . . huge great, fearless, fresh & fiery, often ‘industrial’, punk & goth / raw energy blow-out . . Memorial Day summer fest art show – that took place in an ole Chinese buffet diner, up there – in Hudson Valley / Daniel and Sam were in the show !!
go, Hudson !!
def, see: BABA YAGA, big group show / Memorial Day Weekend 2019 / Grand Buffet & Pulvers Glass
def, see: BABA YAGA, Hudson
def, see: GAZEBO.SPACE
def, see: ‘Love of the Common Man’ / archival photos & text – Gazebo
(the eerie golden mask hanging on the wall at right, and the free-standing sculpture ‘column’ are Daniel’s.)
def, see: DANIEL GIORDANO – ARTIST WEBSITE
def, see: SAMUEL BOEHM – ARTIST WEBSITE / with a one-person show coming up, in NYC in SEPT
but, back to NEWBURGH !!
we checked out some large on-site sculptures of Daniel’s, which were scattered about Newburgh, an old industrial hub, situated on the water / Hudson River, and now on ‘fast forward’ to gentrification; spent a great time exploring his huge studio, where we saw many finished works, and varied works-in-progress. Located on the ground floor of the same, huge old building, we also got to see where super indie, cutting-edge VICKI, which Daniel and Sam founded / & which they run intermittently, throws it’s . . hit-the-wall art shows & block parties !!
Both Daniel’s studio, on an entire upper floor, and VICKI, an almost triangular space on the ground floor, with a storefront window . . are located in a big ole, once heavy humming with sewing machines & other manufacturing industry, that had been pretty much ‘abandoned’, and is now teeming with enough energy, to make Brooklyn jealous.
A big red brick industrial era factory / warehouse . . it sits there, square & squat / come back to life, re-purposed as an artist & artisan workshop hub !!
and, which just shouted: History !! American history !!
it reminded me so much, of where I raised my young family, back in the early 80s, on the now legendary Lower East Side, in an abandoned, run-down storefront, on Rivington and the Bowery. old run-down spaces are the greatest places to make art. just an old, long empty storefront, just barely functional . . a remnant of a once teeming tenement, immigrant world / where, new art was now taking life / as tough & scratchy, as the start-up weeds – in the cracked concrete sidewalks outside.
just the same first impression: so, ole time-y turn-of-the-century New York.
industrial. raw. but full of history, slowly going . . under.
ladies & gents, step into the future . . in the arms of the – past.
def, see: VICKI
and, we also got upstate . . just in time, to catch the last weekend of a really great, knock-out group show, titled ‘Soft Temple’, and aptly so . . . that Daniel was in, at super contemporary & plenty ambitious . . Mother Gallery, in Beacon.
def, see: MOTHER GALLERY, BEACON
great opening coming up !!
def, see: ‘SOFT TEMPLE’, MOTHER GALLERY / June 22-Aug 11, 2019 – gallery archive
ps: the big raw, severely distressed motorcycle – & yet, way raised up . . to the uber goth & ‘fantastical’ !! . . is Daniel’s, of course.
more pix, soon.
happy Labor Day Weekend, y’all !!