DIY Margiela Fusion Sneakers (2018) Tabasko Sweet. (Yet another) Artist learning to cope in queer plasticity futures. Very inspirational craftsmanship.
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Got a semi-bad sun burn on my shoulders.
Preparing for tomorrows test-shoots (more on that later).
Met with the July batch of ISCP artists (fun looking people, mainly painters and photographers) and got a breakdown of the “services” ISCP provides for residents. I didn’t write everything down (which I regret as there was a lot to take in). ISCP takes residents on field trips and to gallery/museum openings, organizes various types of open studio events (Open Doors Thursday, Summer / Winter open house events), they organise artist talks (between visitors, residents & staff), third Thursday (of the month) informal gallery tours, critic visits (to which we can book appointments, I booked an appointment with Sara Reisman), aid in productions, some sort of coaching services and there are a lot of tools artist can borrow too. It’s great.. Like a Art-School-Social-Factory-Rehabilitation-Center. Residents are expected to spend 20h a week at the ISCP facilities and to be on location on Thursdays (and to have their studio doors open, for talks and informal meetings). I’m learning to cope with having my home and studio in separate addresses… Constantly forgetting to take gear (hard-disks or flash-drives) with me.
HP Lovecraft’s Racism (2018) Zero Book. A short extract on a longer podcast investigating Lovecrafts political views on others (he’s a racist but it’s complicated).
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Launched the New York Sock Repair & Exchange service. I’ll send invitations to friends tomorrow right now.
Collected a set of bike tires from Harlem yesterday. On the C train back to 14th st. – 8th Ave I accidentally touched a lady with my elbow when reaching for my phone. She responded immediately by pushing back. I didn’t sense any hostility in her act, she only wanted me to acknowledge her boundaries. I apologised but she didn’t acknowledge me.
People in the public (and free!) McCarren Park Pool changing area hide their nude bodies by arranging towels as wall high barricades. They crouch behind vertical towel towers just slip into their bathing suits. There are different changing ares for males and females, but nobody was nude! It’s weird to see grown men act so immaturely. Everyone is afraid to be though of as a pervert – Which is why they execute weird performances to show that they are not perverts (which is a perverse in itself).
Old Hippie Remembers His Commune Experiences (198?) David Hoffman. A man remembering how a hippy community collapsed.
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50% min. 80% chocolate + 50% credit = Profit.
Thousands of Tiny Futures (2018) Jussi Parikka. Complicated but interesting… The text introduces useful concepts such as “fossilized sunshine” (oil). There is strong emphasis on infrastructure. Geomancer (2017) by Lawrence Lek seems worthwhile. The short extract portrays the horror an AI will feel moments before it becomes self-aware (Just like in the Lovecraft I just read!).
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Visited galleries with other residents of ISCP (Didn’t get to know people yet but at least I recognise them). We went to Ronald Feldman Gallery and got an introduction to the space by Mr. Feldman himself (and gallery staff). Feldman was excited about the works he talked about (the works on display had an artist-as-archivist/witness emphasis). Their summer exhibition includes Dressing to Go Out / Undressing to Go In (1973) by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who is represented by the gallery! The frame of the artwork had a cleaning cloth attached to it. Feldman talked very highly of Ukeles and made her sound like a superstar, which strangely, made me doubt Ukeles. Her work as the Artist-in-Residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation was framed as the foundation for contemporary artist-to-institution residencies. We were told that Ukeles started to work with sanitation workers because they were underappreciated and that their work was considered “dirty”. This made me feel uneasy. Why were the sanitation workers considered “dirty” and by whom? How does her art effect this? The “dirtyness” and underappreciation of sanitation workers made her initiative to work with them appear more noble (which is definitely not intended). Someone should do a project with Wall Street Bankers – They are surely more dirty then sanitation workers! Her exhibitions in Europe were celebrated.
After Feldman we visited The Drawing Center. There was an exhibition by Terry Winters but I wasn’t in the mood for drawings. The center had worked with The Center of Urban Pedagogy which seems like a really interesting organization. They have produced a comicbook called I Got Arrested! Now What? (2010) which is intended for juveniles who need to learn more about their rights.
The tour ended at the The Grey Art Gallery which presented the “Landscapes after Ruskin” exhibition. Lucy Oakley’s (Head of Education and Programs) gave us a very convincing tour (she was backed up by an intern whose name I forgot). The curator of the show had developed an interesting interpretation of “The Sublime”. The sublime is not about experiencing universal beauty (in landscapes, forms etc.) which is impossible to describe & becoming aware how insignificance humans are compared to nature… It is also awareness of ones mortality and a sense of the frailness of human life. The exhibition linked the anthropocene with the sublime, arguing that these are similar experiences! In both cases we (the spectators) feel ashamed of ourselves… Either for our pompous believe that humans are the owners of the world (The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is humbled by the majesty of the mountains) or for the fact that we have tainted the world with pollution.
This has an interesting link to horses! Students of the Horse & Performance course felt ashamed in the face of the horse (when they failed to execute care taking tasks in an orderly fashion).
The galleries used miniature Greek columns as space dividers or as roofing panels – This is extremely interesting. I think we don’t need to see artworks… We need texts which frame the way we see the world (or fail to frame it, which is fun to witness too). What the curator intended to pass with the “Landscapes after Ruskin” exhibition would have been accomplished with a clever text. After reading it we would have understood media like this in the context of the contemporary sublime.
I’m riding my bike shirtless (it the only way to go).