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I was super busy last week and this past weekend. As a result I missed an opportunity to tell you guys about an open studio for photographer Ray Llanos. I also regret not being able to attend the event myself. Ceck Ray out online at www.rayllanos.com
IT’S A HARD POP LIFE
by Laura K. Jones
Andy Warhol, bad or good? This is the dilemma facing the poor old Tate Modern in its current blockbuster, "Pop Life: Art in a Material World." It’s a show that restages Keith Haring’s "Pop Shop," his SoHo store that opened in 1986 and lasted till 2005; Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas’ Bethnal Green "Shop," which did business during the early 1990s; Jeff Koons’ notorious and rarely reunited "Made in Heaven" series of photos of himself and his then-porn-star wife in marital congress; and Richard Prince’s provocative "Spiritual America" (1986), his appropriated image of a ten-year-old Brooke Shields from the Hollywood movie Pretty Baby (which proved its continuing vitality by being promptly removed from the show by local authorities).
"Pop Life," then, examines the brassy legacy that Warhol offered up to his epigones: Let the concept of showbiz and making money sit easily on your shoulders; Do editions; Embrace yourself as a brand; Make yourself look slightly silly but never whimsical; Branch out into TV and even a spot of party-reportage.
The show is very much a crowd-pleaser, nowadays a specialty of this behemoth of an institution. It even has its own massive shop, selling a velour reproduction of Murakami’s Flower Ball for £3,000, along with postcards and books and T-shirts which were a fair bit cheaper. (I don’t recall a Tate show that had its own shop built especially for it before.)
It’s lively and bright and involved and looks good thronged with people, milling about in front of the work. At the evening party, superdealer Jeffrey Deitch agreed with me. "I’ve flown in especially for tonight," he said. "The best thing for me is that I was there when all this happened in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Also the ‘90s. The reason you think it looks better tonight is because art always looks better with people in front of it."
"Pop Life"’s first room reminds us, just in case we’d forgotten, that Andy Warhol created a lasting impression. His red fright wig Self Portrait from 1986 is hung low down so his eyes are at our eye level, and looks across to Takashi Murakami’s leaping, manic Hiropon, that life-sized statue of a mighty-breasted Manga-esque and manic schoolgirl whose breasts sprout a world of what could be whipped cream.
Check out the rest of her review here: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/jones/pop-life10-1-09.asp
Merce Cunningham created a very unique style of choreography that broke new ground, tore down barriers between different disciplines of dance and even shunned the notion that dance required music. He was a pioneer and fierceky creative soul who has left us with a new way to see and experience movement. he will be missed.
(American Flag - Robert Mapplethorpe)
To our Friends and Supporters
Caren Golden Fine Art will suspend regular exhibitions at the close of the Nicola López's
Shadowland on July 10th. Despite our hard work and a successful string of recent exhibitions,
I have decided to take the gallery underground and focus on dealing, consulting and curating privately. While I am eager to begin the next chapter of my involvement in the contemporary art world, it is difficult to give up the energy that comes with the monthly cycle of exhibitions presented in a pubic gallery space. That said, I look forward to reducing the demands and overhead that a physical space requires, and hope that this freedom will allow me to pursue a deeper and more
varied relationship with the contemporary art scene.
I will continue to support and promote the CGFA artists and welcome inquiries about them
for sales, exhibition and representation, while I look forward to reinventing myself as a private art dealer, advisor, curator, and more. The challenge will be to keep the spirit of the gallery alive without the public presence of an exhibition space -- but, with commitment, drive and your support,
the gallery's vision will endure.
Heartfelt thanks to the many supporters of Caren Golden Fine Art and to the talented artists
whose work has hung on the walls and inspired us for fifteen years. I wish I could have contacted
each of you individually with this news, but time would not allow.
Please stop by for our final week of exhibition, July 5th through 10th,
to take a last look, reminisce and share your thoughts about the changing nature
of the today's contemporary art world.
Caren
Check out this great article I found on their website. I've experienced the reality of the content in this article and this is why I created this blog in the first place. Americans generally appreciate art, but don't respect artists. Most people tend to think what we do is a hobby as opposed to a worthwhile and very important profession that influences progress in this country as much as science or politics or our more glamorous artistic cousin popular music. It's art and artists who tend to introduce the new ideas that end up in public policy years later. It's visual artists who tend to inspire musicians to think outside of the box as they inspire us to see new harmonies in color and texture that we may have previously overlooked. Think of any moment in recent history and there is usual a song AND an image that goes with that memory. Well whether it's a painting, a photograph, a video,a sculpture or film, an ARTIST created and shared in expression of that moment and the archiving of that memory. Respect and treasure the art AND the artists themselves for they are the soothsayers in a forest of lies.
___________________________________
An American Paradox
A country that loves art, not artists
In a survey of attitudes toward artists in the US a vast majority of Americans, 96%, said they were greatly inspired by various kinds of art and highly value art in their lives and communities. But the data suggests a strange paradox.
While Americans value art, the end product, they do not value what artists do. Only 27% of respondents believe that artists contribute "a lot" to the good of society.
Further interview data from the study reflects a strong sentiment in the cultural community that society does not value art making as legitimate work worthy of compensation. Many perceive the making of art as a frivolous or recreational pursuit.
USA hopes to help close the gap between the love of art and the ambivalence toward artists in society.
Other insights further illuminate the depth of the paradox:
• A majority of parents think that teaching the arts is as important as reading, math, science, history, and geography.
• 95% believe that the arts are important in preparing children for the future.
• In the face of a changing global economy, economists increasingly emphasize that the United States will have to rely on innovation, ingenuity, creativity, and analysis for its competitive edge—the very skills that can be enhanced by engagement with the arts.
As author Daniel Pink posits in his book A Whole New Mind—Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, we have moved beyond the Information Age and into the Conceptual Age. "In short, we've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of knowledge workers. And now to a society of creators and empathizers, of pattern recognizers and meaning makers. . . . We've moved from an economy based on people's backs to an economy built on people's left brains to what is emerging today: an economy and society built more and more on people's right brains. . . . aptitudes so often disdained and dismissed—artistry, empathy, taking the long view, pursuing the transcendent—will increasingly determine who soars and who stumbles. It's a dizzying—but ultimately inspiring—change."
I came across a great art video and then I tracked back to see where it came from. It was then I discovered this cool organization call United States Artists (USA). Check out this blurb on the organization from their You Tube page and also check out their website.
In an effort to share artists' work around the globe, United States Artists (USA) and film company City Projects introduce Encounter: USA Fellows featuring video shorts profiling artists and their work. Unique in tone and content, each video provides a glimpse of the creative process.
United States Artists (USA) is a new non-profit organization celebrating the fearless impulse that compels every great artist to create and inspire us to think. USA backs up this belief by awarding 50 of America's finest artists a grant of $50,000 each year.
In collaboration with filmmaker Phillip Rodriguez, USA Broad Fellow, USA will release a total of 14 video shorts as part of Encounter:USA Fellows. The first eight videos are now live on YouTube and the USA website. Six additional videos will be released this Spring.
Learn more about USA and Encounter: USA Fellows at www.unitedstatesartists.org
Last week I posted one of my usual pieces about an upcoming exhibit. Last Friday during my visit to the D.U.M.B.O neighborhood in Brooklyn for the 2nd Annual NY Photo Festival I stopped in to Farmani Gallery to check out Jesse Diamond's show called "Drive." Boy am I glad I did. I'm not a critic as I prefer to make art as opposed to judge it, but I LOVED "Drive!"
Jesse Diamonds work hit me in a way I hadn't quite experienced before...it was kind of visceral. I'm from LA and grew up with cars as a huge part of my life. When you're behind the wheel of a car for long drives there's a sense of freedom and escape that is very unique to that experience and you recognize it when you feel it again. Jessie's photographs triggered that feeling. So much so that I intend to purchase an image for myself.
If you get a chance go check out the show for yourself. I should warn you that there was a special lighting package in place n the gallery that really enhanced the experience and made you feel like you were behind the wheel of a car. the work resonates without the lights, but the lighting definitely added to the experience.
See below for excerpts from my original post with details about the show and the gallery. Special shout out to Elizbeth Barragan the gallery director who was kind enough to spend ALOT of time talking to me about Jesse's work.
_______________________
The series entitled Drive focuses on imagery taken during the late night and documents the driver becoming the passenger to his own stream of consciousness. Lit by street lamps and traffic lights, the night filled with moist landscapes and drizzled car windows; the viewer is gently led on a path to realize the journey is truly the destination.
Diamond's photographs are documentary images. Of this series Drive, Diamond says, “it was developed during those long drives home when the inevitable moods of reflection and contemplation set in. The photographs are my reflection of those feelings."
The Farmani Gallery is proud to feature Diamond’s series Drive, in its debut exhibition and the first New York show for Mr. Diamond. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, May 14, from 6-9PM and coincides with the one-year anniversary of the Farmani Gallery in New York and the New York Photo Festival. The exhibit runs through June 12, 2009. Hossein Farmani states, “We are very proud to feature such a fantastic selection of Jesse’s imagery. We have loved what he has shown for us in Los Angeles and are very excited to exhibit him at our New York gallery, especially during a very special time for us as we celebrate our one-year anniversary. Jesse’s work is a highlighting example of the quality of work we try to present.”
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jesse attended Cal Arts where he formally trained as a musician and studied visual arts as a secondary course. After his first trip to Africa in 1994, he decided to concentrate entirely on photography. His works ranged from Sony Records to the Harper Collins publication, “A Day in the Life of the U.S. Armed Forces,” part of the highly successful “Day in the Life” book series. That assignment led his photographs to a featured role on NBC’s Dateline and subsequently, his first solo show.
The Farmani Gallery was established in 2003 and has offices in Los Angeles and New York. Its mission is to discover and cultivate emerging artists among the contemporary photography genre. The Farmani Gallery is the brainchild of the Farmani Group, whom among its many charities, businesses and organizations has created The Lucie Awards, The Lucie Foundation, The International Photography Awards, Px3-Prix De La Photographie Paris and the International Design Awards.
The Farmani Gallery was established in 2003 and has offices in Los Angeles and New York. Its’ mission is to discover and cultivate emerging artists among the contemporary photography genre.
The Farmani Gallery is the brainchild of the Farmani Group, whom among its many charities, businesses and organizations has created The Lucie Awards, The International Photography Awards, Px3-Prix De La Photographie Paris, Art for New York and the London International Creative Competition.
Email: info@farmanigallery.com
East Coast
111 Front Street.
Gallery 212
Brooklyn (dumbo), New York 11201
Phone: 718.578.4478
New York Gallery Director:
Elizabeth Barragan
Email: elizabeth@farmanigallery.com
West Coast:
550 N. Larchmont Boulevard
Suite 100
Los Angeles, California 90004
By Appointment Only
Phone: 310.657.5756
Source: Farmani Gallery
For more info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net
Ernie Barnes, an African American figurative painter and former lineman for the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos, has died. He was 70.
Barnes died Monday at a hospital of complications from a rare blood disorder, his longtime assistant and friend Luz Rodriguez said. She would not elaborate on the disorder.
His famous "Sugar Shack" dance scene appeared on the cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" in 1976 and the closing credits of the "Good Times" television show.
I was going to do a profile on him as I often do here, but due to copyright infringement concerns they asked that I don't do a profile so I will not. However, this artist is too important to ignore so I thought I'd at least mention is passing.
Rest in peace Mr. Barnes.
Supporting the Whitney has never looked this good.
We've partnered with internationally celebrated artist Jenny Holzer to commission a limited-edition "members only" t-shirt featuring one of her signature Truisms: GOOD DEEDS EVENTUALLY ARE REWARDED.
The shirt is our gift to you when you sign up to become a Whitney member at the $75 level or higher during the run of Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT, on view now through May 31.
The shirts are only available while supplies last, so purchase a NEW or GIFT membership today! Already a member? Extend or upgrade your membership to qualify for this special opportunity.
Cheers,
The Whitney
Check out this great story in the New York Times yesterday on an incredible talent in the NY Gallery scene Nicola Vassell. Nicola is a director at Dietch Projects in SoHo. She's smart, talented, accomplished, beautiful and doin her thing. I cannot claim Nicola as a friend, but we are friendly (having been introduced by my friend Malcolm Harris) and I am very happy for her.
For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net
A Shaper of Talent for a Changing Art World
By FELICIA R. LEE (from the New York Times)
The wall labels were missing. The inventory needed to be finished. And where was the sign for the shuttle bus to the gallery, a former warehouse west of the Wynwood art district in Miami? Just hours before the opening party for “It Ain’t Fair,” an exhibition of more than 30 emerging artists on the fringe of Art Basel Miami Beach, the glamorous, outsize international art fair held every year in early December, the O.H.W.O.W. gallery (for Our House West of Wynwood) was still strewn with forlorn boxes, the wall stacked with cases of beer that only hinted at the festivities to come.
“No one will ever know,” Nicola Vassell, a director at the Deitch Projects gallery in Manhattan, said of the mess. Her comment was for Kathy Grayson, also a Deitch director and, like Ms. Vassell, one of several curators of “It Ain’t Fair.”
Ms. Vassell, 30, began working as an intern at Deitch in SoHo in 2005, when both optimism and price tags ran high. But by the time “It Ain’t Fair” was poised to open, on Dec. 2, the previous month had easily seen the worst two weeks in the art market in more than a decade. A tumbling stock market and cascading problems on Wall Street had made buyers scarce, as the contemporary art world pondered the impact of broader economic woes. Ms. Vassell, a former model and a Jamaican immigrant, found herself facing the question of how to build a career in a suddenly contracting industry.
There is no single tried-and-true path to the gallery door. In interviews, dealers, curators, museum directors and others say that many successful dealers have had a mentor, academic credentials, a passion for art, a head for business and high-gloss social skills for a world that marries the aesthetic and the commercial.
Many of the front-desk gallery faces in New York City have belonged to those with money and a family pedigree. They could afford low-paying entry-level positions, or were prized for their connections to wealthy collectors. While the art world has always been sprinkled with female dealers, it was for a long time dominated by white men.
The art world was democratized, in part, by the same social upheavals that hit the larger society in the 1960s. Women increasingly hung out their own gallery shingles. The Studio Museum in Harlem opened in 1968 to showcase and nurture black artists, and by the 1980s more of them gained prominence and were part of an infrastructure of black academics, dealers and curators. In a robust economy the art market embraced globalization and multiculturalism. For all the changes, Ms. Vassell is the rare black director in a successful mainstream gallery, simultaneously the product of a changing world and the symbol of it.
“It’s not a surprise that the director of a prominent, important gallery is black or is young or is a woman,” said Arnold Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, which has showed two of Ms. Vassell’s artists. “But when you run the three together, it sends a very important signal.”
Claude Grunitzky, the chairman and editor in chief of Trace, an arts and contemporary culture magazine, called Ms. Vassell “a new kind of art gallerina,” using the term with affectionate irony. Ms. Vassell, he said, “is as comfortable with hedge fund guys as the artists on the street,” and has the intellectual chops and the charm to weather a recession.
Synthesis of Many Worlds
“Even as a newbie, I knew the center couldn’t hold,” Ms. Vassell said in retrospect of the exuberant market. “I think I represent the future of contemporary art and the synthesis of so many worlds that include contemporary art, like fashion. We can try taking it into the wider reaches of our culture in general, making it more accessible.”
Still, Ms. Vassell said she was aware that the downturn had a grim side: sales will slow, prices will fall, jobs and galleries may vanish. She does not foresee herself going anywhere, she said, but believes she has options. She ticked off work in museums, as an art adviser, or for an arts lobbying group.
“I’ve never been in a recession market in this country before,” Ms. Vassell continued. “But I am from Jamaica, where the banks collapsed when there was a recession. So many things temper my reaction to what happens in this country. I am a survivor.”
On an early January morning just weeks after Art Basel, Ms. Vassell was sitting at her desk near her boss and mentor, Jeffrey Deitch, in their loft-space office (up a spiral staircase past the Shepard Fairey poster of Barack Obama) in the Deitch Projects gallery at 76 Grand Street, one of two in SoHo. (There is a third space in Long Island City, Queens.)
Ms. Vassell had gotten in at 9:30 a.m. to check the e-mail messages from Europe. She had been out until about 2 a.m. the night before for the opening of the Stephen Sprouse retrospective at the Deitch gallery at 18 Wooster Street. One of the most important things on her plate was coordinating a meeting between Kehinde Wiley, a Los Angeles-born artist now based in New York, and the creative team from Puma, the athletic goods company.
Mr. Wiley’s subversive paintings of young black men rendered in the style of classical portraits have made him hot in the current art world. By her count, Ms. Vassell has sold Mr. Wiley’s paintings, which have gone for as much as $250,000 on the primary market, to at least a dozen museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Last year he had major solo shows at the Studio Museum in Harlem and at 18 Wooster Street.
Mr. Wiley’s legal team had just sent Ms. Vassell the Puma contract, which calls for him to create a collection of clothing and accessories for the 2010 World Cup — to be held in Africa for the first time, in soccer stadiums in South Africa — the kind of deal that Ms. Vassell sees as essential to the economic future of the contemporary art world.
Ms. Vassell set up Mr. Wiley’s meeting while juggling projects for two other artists: Tauba Auerbach, a young abstract painter from San Francisco, and Nari Ward, who is from Jamaica and makes sculptures of found objects that are meant as social commentary. Ms. Vassell also works with the established Italian artist Francesco Clemente.
Her telephone conversations were short, mingling the art of the deal with the verbal air kiss. “We’ve never bloated anything,” she told someone calling about the price of a work. “This is where we win in this market. It’s beautiful. You have to come see it.”
When she was growing up in Kingston, Ms. Vassell said, “art was the kind of thing you do when you can’t become a doctor or lawyer.” Growing to be almost 5 foot 10, she first tried her hand at modeling, arriving in New York in the summer of 1996.
In her 10 years in the fashion world Ms. Vassell appeared in major women’s magazines, landed a contract with Cover Girl makeup and walked the runway for Calvin Klein. She made “a lot more money” than she does working for the gallery, Ms. Vassell said. But “I wanted to do more with my life,” she explained.
In 2002 she entered New York University to pursue a double major in art history and business. “I just had a passion for learning about art and business,” said Ms. Vassell, who is single, dates an artist and lives in a SoHo loft.
“Art was a synthesis of the things I loved,” she said. “I could write, I could sell, I could think, I could criticize.”
In 2004 she happened to run into Mr. Deitch at the Armory Show on the Hudson piers, which she was attending with fellow students. “I heard someone call his name,” Ms. Vassell recalled. ‘We had studied him in school.”
Mr. Deitch is a legendary 56-year-old SoHo art impresario, known not just for his roster of important contemporary artists — Vanessa Beecroft, Chris Johanson, Barry McGee — but also for provocative projects. The gallery’s installations have included a 1997 bit of art theater called “I Bite America and America Bites Me,” in which the Ukrainian-born performance artist Oleg Kulik lived in the gallery as a dog for a few days.
That day at the Armory Show, Mr. Deitch and Ms. Vassell began a conversation about art “that just continued,” he said.
“I’m looking for people with an artistic vision that’s embedded in their personality,” he said. “Nicky has that.”
Mr. Deitch put Ms. Vassell to work stocking auction catalogs, but she quickly began taking on artists. In 2007 she became a director.
In the idiosyncratic gallery world the title of director comes with varying job descriptions. At his gallery, Mr. Deitch said, four directors, all women (there will be five beginning some time this month), manage artists. They can write books, organize shows, sell art and are assigned to work with their own group of artists.
At this point in her career Ms. Vassell has yet to “discover” a major star, but she helps shape careers. In the constant search for talent, she attends the master’s thesis shows of art students at a variety of colleges and universities in the spring and the fall.
Finding artists who make art history as well as money is a dealer’s dream. Last March Ms. Vassell organized her own exhibition, “Substraction,” at the Deitch gallery on Wooster Street, to showcase some of her talent: abstract paintings by six young artists, including Kristin Baker, whose canvases explore automobile racing (and crashes), and Dan Colen, whose paintings were splattered with what looked like pigeon droppings.
The public and glamorous face of the job includes the hundreds of parties held each year — where Ms. Vassell, often in black and given to heels, is actually working — and travel to the major art exhibitions in Switzerland, London, Venice and Miami. No one sees detail-oriented tasks, like creating a budget and production schedule for a forthcoming project, or sending packages of images of artists’ work and their reviews off to museums to pique their interest. “I do A to Z for the artists: if they broke their leg or left their girlfriend or they want a show in London,” Ms. Vassell said.
‘A Nose for Really Great Art’
The artist Mr. Wiley said of Ms. Vassell: “In the last few years, it’s like somebody who abides with you. She’s got a nose for really great art. She comes by the studio, and we talk, and I can paint. It’s a conversation that turns into an ability to communicate to the public what I’m trying to do.”
There is no particular career trajectory for a gallery director. These uncertain times, Ms. Vassell said, make it far less likely that any director with an urge to see her own name on the door will take that step. In the last decade, though, for those with dreams of running their own galleries, the art market’s expanding possibilities could be seen literally in Chelsea. In 1994 Matthew Marks was the first major commercial gallery to move into the neighborhood. Now there are close to 330 active galleries there (more than in SoHo at its peak), according to a count by the Web site chelseaartgalleries.com.
“During the great expansion in the last five years, a lot of people from other worlds came in,” said Sarah Thornton, author of “Seven Days in the Art World,” published by W. W. Norton last year, referring to the crosscurrents that brought models and designers into galleries and helped create and support skateboard art, surfer art, designer art.
During the boom, Ms. Thornton said, the money flowing on Wall Street meant that banks lent money to all kinds of people aspiring to become dealers, who in turn could sell art to the young hedge fund millionaires and billionaires who became the collectors driving up the prices.
One rainy Friday, Ms. Vassell used a car service to visit the San Francisco artist Ms. Auerbach, who had just moved to New York and into a roughly 1,000-square-foot studio with many windows in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.
“She has the discipline, which a lot of young artists are lacking these days,” Ms. Vassell said of Ms. Auerbach. “The thing is to get her work into all the important collections in the world.”
Ms. Auerbach told Ms. Vassell, as they looked at the paintings in her studio, “I’ve made all this work that is all half black and half white.” Some of her newer work uses spray paint on shards of glass. The painting “Shatter I,” which went to Art Basel, looked vaguely like a giant dark flower.
“I’ve made a lot of work that is about opposites,” Ms. Auerbach added. “Now I’m trying to tie the element of chaos into the work.”
Ms. Vassell said, “I’m going to have so much fun explaining this in Miami.”
In December at Art Basel Miami Beach, though, things were slow. At “It Ain’t Fair” in Miami, a few miles away, only about a dozen of the 40 works sold, although Ms. Vassell said she was happy that the right collectors saw the show.
“It was like an art fair a dozen years ago, ” Mr. Deitch said gamely of Art Basel Miami Beach, adding that he had survived previous downturns. During the boom years his inventory sold in a matter of hours on the first day, he said. This year he “covered our costs and a little more,” he said. Some people came back and canceled purchases after being warned to be careful in this market, Mr. Deitch confided.
The bubble might have burst, but Deitch Projects still threw its annual party on the beach at the Raleigh Hotel on Collins Avenue in South Beach.
The sand was cool to the touch. Groups of grungy downtown kids and young couples in expensive jewelry danced, drank and sank into plush black sofas with oversize red pillows.
Ms. Vassell was surrounded by friends she considers her new family in the art world: artists like Mr. Wiley and Shinique Smith, who both live and work in Brooklyn; Franklin Sirmans, a curator at the Menil Collection in Houston; Emil Wilbekin, the editor in chief of Giant magazine. They gossiped, talked about their careers, about Barack Obama and the world of opportunities.
“There are so many possibilities,” Ms. Vassell said hopefully. “If you cut out the excess and extravagance, what you’ll have is a return to personal creativity, a rich creativity that has nothing to do with how much money you have. It’s what many of us came into this business for.”
Check out this photo I found online of three of the most talented artists on the planet.
left to right
Iona Rozeal Brown, Kehinde Wiley and Shinique Smith
Yesterday I took an afternoon trip to the Lower East Side of Manhattan (LES). The neighborhood has a ton of history and has recently undergone yet another transformation. While it hasn't surpassed Chelsea as the center of the New York art universe, it is well on it's way.
There are a ton of new galleries in the area showing great work. When you combine this with the great vibe of the neighborhood (yes it still actually feels like a real place), it makes for the kind of neighborhood you actually want to spend an afternoon wandering through. There's real people doing real work, there are restaurants, shops, schools, residences and of course galleries.
Of the nearly 8-9 galleries I managed to visit in my travels (there are many more) the shows and atmosphere in 3-4 of them really stood out for me. My favorite stop yesterday was Collette Blanchard Gallery. I met Collette briefly at a party during Art Basel Miami Beach and she was as friendly yesterday as she was in Miami. The space is a beautiful, well lit two floor space complete with an outdoor patio in the rear. There's tons of natural light flooding the main gallery which is my favorite type of lighting. The on-going show is AARON HOBSON Cinemascapes: Close Quarter Panoramics. Open Ended Narratives. It's a solo exhibition of Aaron Hobson's recent panoramic photographs. The ten photographs span the past three years of the artist's work and will be on view from November 13 through December 31, 2008.
I also enjoyed my visits to Lehmann Maupin which presented a great show of works by the Japaneese artist Mr. He is one of several artists represented by Takshi Murakami's Kai Kai Ki Ki company. I also enjoyed DCKT Contemporary and Sunday L.E.S. and of course don't forget about The New Museum located at 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002 (212.219.1222). It serves as the anchor for the new gallery scene and more than holds it's own as one of New York's iconic art institutions.
Collette Blanchard Gallery
26 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002
917.639.3912
Wednesday - Sunday, 12-6
http://www.colletteblanchard.com/
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
212.219.1222
http://www.newmuseum.org/
Sunday
237 Eldridge Street
South Storefront
New York, NY
10002 USA
http://www.sundaynyc.com/index.html
DCKT Contemporary
Dennis Christie & Ken Tyburski
195 Bowery, ground floor
New York, NY 10002
Phone: 212.741.9955
http://www.dcktcontemporary.com/
Lehmann Maupin (Bowery)
201 Chrystie Street
New York, New York
http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/
For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net
You may love it. You may hate it. You may be confused by it, but you just can't say it's boring. Check out this piece of performance art from Jonte.
Check this out.
New York Times: Black in America, Painted Euphoric and Heroic
Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) was considered the foremost visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance. In paintings, murals, and book illustrations, he incorporated elements from music, dance, literature, and politics to produce powerful artistic forms that had a lasting impact on American art history and the nation’s cultural heritage. Working from a politicized concept of personal identity, he combined angular Cubist rhythms and seductive Art Deco dynamism with traditional African and African American imagery to develop a radically new visual vocabulary that evoked both current realities and hopes for a better future. Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, curated by the Spencer Museum of Art/The University of Kansas, is the first nationally touring retrospective to celebrate his art and legacy. This special traveling exhibition features the four Douglas murals from the Schomburg Center’s Art and Artifacts Division.
Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist
From September 11, 2008 through November 30, 2008
Latimer/Edison Gallery
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801 (directions)
Hours: Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
For Tours, please call (212) 491-2207.
The black on black numbers represent every person of African descent who has set foot in this country. The red and green numbers are the numbers that provide the context and meaning for each piece. Those numbers represent a date, event or subject of significance in African-American history. Each work has a simple title that hints at the meaning of the work and the rest is up to you. These works are a part of my on-going examination of history, image making and American pop culture and the contributions of marginalized persons of color to American history and pop culture.
"Jackie" 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas
"Dream" (sold) 36" x 48" acrylic on canvas
"Red" 36" x 48" acrylic on canvas
In addition to being a visual artist (painting, sculpture, collage and more), I spend the other 50% of my time as a photographer. I shoot landscapes, portraits, still life and fashion. I served as the first photo editor of Bleu Magazine and helped to develop the visual appeal of the now nationally acclaimed mag.
While working at Bleu I began to focus on male fashion photography and as a result I've met some great new talent. As I diversify and enter the world of female fashion and beauty photography, I will continue to shoot men as well. I will use my blog to introduce you to great new talent both signed and unsigned.
This segment is a teaser for a hot new feature on my website called the "It" Boy and Girl. I will feature hot new talent in fashion, music, art and more.
Introducing V'erdre.
I knew that would get your attention...lol. Naw we have to deal with "those police" forever, but one of my favorite bands of all time seems to have finally called it quits for good with their last concert of their record breaking tour last night.
If you know anything about me, you know that I came of age in the 80's and hve a deep love of 80's music from Prince and Michael jackson to Madonna, Culture Club, New Wave music, 80's Pop and The Police. Depending on my mood I paint to 80's music, an acoustic mix or current hip hp and R&B. My early work is almost entirely influenced by 80's music and the colors it invokes. Among my favs are songs like Roxanne, Message in A Bottle and King of Pain by The Police.
Peep this story from Billboard Magazine online and enjoy.
The Police Call It A Career At New York Show
August 08, 2008 , 12:00 AM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
The reunited Police took a final bow last night (Aug. 7) at New York's Madison Square Garden, capping a 151-show tour that will finish as the third highest-grossing of all time with $358,825,665 at the box office, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Tickets could only be obtained via donation to local public television stations Thirteen/WNET and WLIW21.
Bassist/vocalist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland began the proceedings with a surprise cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." Afterward, the New York Police Department band augmented normal set-opener "Message in a Bottle."
There was only an intermittent amount of sentimentality to the show, with Sting at one point telling the crowd, "It's been a huge honor to get back with my good friends. The real triumph of this tour is that we haven't strangled each other -- that doesn't mean it hadn't crossed my mind."
But for the men on stage, it was clearly special. Sting's daughters danced with him on stage during "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," and a grinning Sting got so close to Summers as to whisper in his ear while eating up his solo on "So Lonely."
Here is the Police's final show set list:
"Sunshine of Your Love"
"Message in a Bottle"
"Walking on the Moon"
"Demolition Man"
"Voices Inside My Head" / "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around"
"Don't Stand So Close to Me"
"Driven To Tears"
"Hole in My Life"
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
"Wrapped Around Your Finger"
"De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"
"Invisible Sun"
"Can't Stand Losing You" / "Reggatta de Blanc"
Encore one:
"Purple Haze"
"Roxanne"
"King of Pain"
"So Lonely"
"Every Breath You Take"
Encore two"
"Next To You"
Today, August 6th is the bday of one of my favorite artists of all time, fellow Leo and Pop artist Andy Warhol.
Peep the link for more details about his life and work and check below for more pics of the enigmatic superstar. He and I are much more alike than different though we are very different indeed. Did that make sense? Does anything?
Oh well.
I'm out.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol
Can someone please point me towards the really creative black music right now?
Over the past 3 years nearly every song or CD that has really resonated for me as been either a pop joint or a vanilla soul release. My favorite artists and releases recently have included: Madonna, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Amy Winehouse, Pussycat Dolls, Rihanna, Robin Thicke, Sara Barialles, Maroon 5, Ingrid Michaeleson and my latest not so guilty pleasure Duffy.
I grew up on hip hop, 70's and 80's pop, and R&B. My moms bathed my childhood in classic soul. Her favorite artists were people like Al Green, Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, The Whispers, Motown, Aretha, The O'Jays and more. I loved disco, soul, funky rock and new wave music. Some of my favs include: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, Sly and The Family Stone and of course Prince who is my fav artist of all time. I also got deep into New Wave and punk acts like The Clash, Blondie, The Police, Talking Heads, Duran Duran, Yaz, Culture Club and other 80's pop acts as well.
I liked a lot of R&B/Hip Hop in the 90's including New Jack Swing, Janet Jackson, Babyface, Whitney, Mariah, early neo-soul and I may have been the biggest Lauryn Hill fan on earth. I also got into: Usher, Mary J. Blige, Aaliyah, Missy, Beyonce, Brandy, Tupac, Biggie. Foxy Brown, Lil Kim and more. Then somewhere along the way the radio sorta started to bore me a lil.
People of color are incredibly creative and our history proves it. However, our creative instincts are often suppressed by the fear of being ostracized for "not being black enough". For me the question is this: did someone steal the soul and if so how do we get it back? Is the answer to once again become fearlessly creative, innovate at every opportunity and not be afraid to try something new EVERYTIME? Is it to just make music that is entertaining, passionate and sincere?
For now I guess imma keep Duffy, Amy Winehouse, Madonna, Britney Spears, Robin Thicke, Kanye West and Lil Wayne on shuffle. Shout out to Lil Wayne and Kanye for giving us some kind of reason to keep hope alive. Ciara, Brandy, Alicia and Jazmin Sullivan...I see you too (wink).
Yo I'm scared because I'm not sure if music has changed for the worse, changed for the better or I'm simply older now and a lil out of touch. How do you feel? What's in your ipod? I wanna hear from ya.
(photo - Kehinde Wiley, Rubin Singleton, 2008, Courtesy artist and Deitch Projects)
Last night the Studio Museum in Harlem unveiled " Kehinde Wiley - The World Stage Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar.The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar is Kehinde Wiley’s (b. 1977) first solo exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem and it's hot!!!!!!!!!
The exhibition features ten new paintings from his “The World Stage” series. Kehinde is known for his highly stylized paintings of young, urban African-American men in poses borrowed from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European figurative paintings, a practice he started in the early 2000s while an artist in residence uptown at the Studio Museum. He (Wiley) has expanded his project by living and working abroad; he temporarily relocates to different countries and opens satellite studios to become familiar with local culture, history and art. His “The World Stage” series is the result of these travels.
This was no ordinary stuffy museum opening though. The crowd was a who's who of the New York art scene with a particular focus on the prominent African-American collectors, educators, artists and patrons. The was a open bar, DJ Rich Medina spinnin every FFFFing hit of the past 30 years that you wanted to hear and sexy, smart, well dressed black people everywhere!!!!!!!!! Oh this joint was off da chain last night!
I met up with my girl (and fellow artist) Stacy Lynn Wadell. I also ran into another artist whose work I love and have gotten to know a lil bit named Wardell Milan II. On top of being a very talented artist, Wardell was recently featured in Bleu Magazine and is a former artist in residence at the museum.
Speaking of artists in residence while you're at the museum check out NEW INTUITIONS
LESLIE HEWITT, TANEA RICHARDSON AND SAYA WOOLFALK ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE 2007–08. It's an exhibit of the work of the three current artists in residence at the museum.
All in all it was a great night. Art is not just some elitist interest for rich people anymore. It's vibrant, it's exciting, it's sexy and it's fun. The Studio Museum is celebrating it's 40th Anniversary and is one of the most important art institutions in the country. It's located at 144 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell and Malcolm X (aka Lenox Ave). You have to check it out and their new weekly event Target FREE Sundays. Fellas what a great way to impress a date: lunch and a trip to the hippest museum in NYC. She (or he) will love it!
me and artist Wardell Milan II (peep my Murakami tee shirt)
my girl Stacy Lynn Waddell(she burns shit!!!!) and her artist homey whose name slips my mind
Last week I went to see Takashi Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum.
Murakami's use of color is is terrific and the technique is off the chain, but there's so much more to his work than is evident at first glance. It's powerful, political and the story of a marginalized people.
When asked about his work Murakami had this to say " If my art looks positive and cheerful, I would doubt my art was accepted in the contemporary art scene. My art is not Pop art. It is a record of the struggle of the discriminated people." - Takashi Murakami.
Understanding the true purpose of the work makes me relate to it even more. It's likely to resonate with me for a long time.
Peep this trailer from the KaiKai and KiKi movie
