MAGNIFICENT MIST

THE SHEER ELEGANCE of this young Ukrainian artist and her work leaves me not with tears but with a sudden urge to jump up in the bleacher section and shout until the sky shouts back, but we cannot, now silenced by that pure unblemished admiration only an ancient echo knows...

The accompanying score is nearly perfect.

I am very jealous, and profoundly inspired.

(Please scroll down to stop the automatic sidebar jukebox before starting this video. While VNV Nation might very well lend her performance its due, the medley the artist has chosen to accompany her, enhance perfectly the mood she beseeches us to share...)

TEXT ON THE FLUXUS

Artistic snares in flux where philosophy flutters and fair guerillas wink.

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED in the 1997 Fluxus Subjectiv catalogue. The formatting here mimics the original version.

Today there is great interest but also great confusion as to the Fluxus movement;

There are those who keep theorizing about Fluxus.

They say that after Dadaism and Duchamp, Fluxus is "the most radical movement"; those who make a fetish of Fluxus. They collect the trouser buttons by Maciunas, the handkerchief by Beuys or the dirty bath water by Ben;

those who speculate with the Fluxus. "If van Gogh's ear is worth 100.000 million dollars and the bottle rack by Duchamp is worth 300.000 dollar, how much will the water glass by George Brecht then be worth on the fair in Basel in two year's time?"

those who say that the Fluxus movement does only consist of spoiled children who make art by stating that they are against art, who expect to win fame by saying "we are against fame", who want to get back into the Louvre by staying in the bistro vis-á-vis;

those who say, okay, Fluxus is something mad, but still it's better than those who produce works of art for the consumer society;

those who say that Fluxus is rather a story of attitude towards life and art than towards products;

those who say Fluxus is individuals and not works of art;

those who say that Fluxus contradicts itself, that it consists of failures who happen to be succesful just now, anti-art stars;

As far as I am concerned, I think that
Fluxus is not a production of objects, of handicraft articles to be used as a decoration in the waiting rooms of dentists and professionals,
Fluxus is not professionalism
Fluxus is not the production of works of art,
Fluxus is not naked women,
Fluxus is not pop art,
Fluxus is not an intellectual avant-garde or light entertainment theatre,
Fluxus is not German expressionism,
Fluxus is not visual poetry for secretaries who are getting bored.

NO

Fluxus is the "event" according to George Brecht:
putting the flower vase on the piano.
Fluxus is the action of life/music: sending for a tango
expert in order to be able to dance on stage.
Fluxus is the creation of a relationship between life and art,
Fluxus is gag, pleasure and shock,
Fluxus is an attitude towards art, towards the non-art of anti-art, towards the negation of one's ego,
Fluxus is the major part of the education as to John Cage, Dadaism and Zen,
Fluxus is light and has a sense of humor.

Snagged off a page created by Ben Vautier and barely modified with just enough impulse to render this recreation pure fluxus, or not...

ART'S LAST GASP?

“In the last years of the boom, numerous artists came to the fore who have their aesthetic heads up the aesthetic asses of Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Cady Noland, and Christopher Wool. They make punkish black-and-white art and ad hoc arrangements of disheveled stuff, architectural fragments, and Xeroxed photos. This art deals in received ideas about appropriation, conceptualism, and institutional critique. It’s a cool school, admired by jargon-wielding academics who write barely readable rhetoric explaining why looking at next to nothing is good for you. Many of these artists have sold a lot of work, and most will be part of a lost generation. They thought they were playing the system; it turned out that they were themselves being played.”

Seems I've been having this thought myself, ever more frequently since abandoning the DC art scene in a hail of sinking financials. Now, several months into my exile, I have created a phlegmatic video short to explain that defection. Glad I've gotten off that whirligig. Still, weaning oneself off ambition and the need to express oneself is difficult.

Indeed, who are the experts, and who are the fakirs?

Read it all.

GALLERY CLOSES AFTER THREATS

The following entry is adapted from an earlier quick comment I posted on another website earlier this year after it reported the news that a Berlin gallery had temporarily closed an exhibition of satirical works by a group of Danish artists after six Muslim youths threatened violence unless one of the posters depicting the Kaaba shrine in Mecca was removed.

IT'S ABOUT TIME a few extraordinary Western artists step up to the plate to take a swing or two at this crucial issue. This is a very serious issue in terms of defending our own culture against the egregious assaults made on it by ruthless newcomers with their strange gods and ideas, and since I work in the arts myself, a painter, I know that few artists are tackling the Islamic problem with anything more than fearless silence.

In fact, just the opposite position rules. I'd surmize that 95% of the art being created today in this most political of cities, and I speak from the underground art movement, is frivolous and redundant, lost in fairy tales and harmless charm, and anything remotely "controversial" is dismissed. The so-called controversial art is hardly controversial any more because how many times can Christianity or homophobia or the president be attacked in the generic way that artists depict their hyperventilated disgust with religion, sexual mores, or politics, and it still be new, iconoclastic, or controversial? But with all the world in flames and blood, hovering at the brink of financial crisis, most of the "ruthless honesty" work is anti-American at worst, anti-war (pseudo-lofty) at best, and nothing is ever presented that even hints of global incrimination due the jihadists and their copious allies in shepherd's clothing.

But what can be expected otherwise? The art world, unlike the more recently abducted halls of lower and higher education, has long been the high-browed bastion of the liberal cognoscente, and today's system of wine-tasting galleries and its stiltifying air of mass dementia is now vigorously geared to the boilerplate Left.

Scandal is often the fast track in the whirl to "make" an artist, but history seems to prove that this model holds only when breaking "preferred" molds.

Let's hope Berlin doesn't bend knee to this Islamic nonsense compounded by thuggery. It will only encourage more outrage. Don't we all deserve better than this?

STUDIO GALLERY

I DELIVERED MY MATERIALS to the Studio Gallery this afternoon. Tonight the membership will jury some 65 selections in considering my application for membership. Studio Gallery is Washington's oldest artist owned gallery, located in a beautiful brownstone in historic Dupont Circle. The director, Adah Rose Bitterbaum, has been most helpful and courteous in guiding me through the application process.

I don't know if I am overwrought in the explanation of process of at the expense of highlighting the transliterative matter of the work itself. Below is the statement I offered along with three canvases 1200 square inches or better, and two smaller 24"x18" ones. In addition to these five paintings, I presented a portfolio of over 60 images—photographic glossy 10"x8" digital prints of other work.

My statement:

I work from the gesture, or rather, wherever my quivering stroke takes the brush.

Each painting I complete is nothing but the conflicted wonderment of an angst-driven subconscious on the prowl for a brutal honesty, urged to sniff out those personal heresies residing somewhere between a humble arrogance and an arrogant humility, harnessing hidden energies which instruct the flow of imagination. Rarely do I start with a pre-conceived notion of what "I would like to imagine" but instead, I struggle against the common elements of mind and materials the status quo presents. So, when painting, I follow the paint from first splash to finished canvas, making choices of color, syntax, and narrative.

Believing I privately owe each image to the Muse of Idea, to the God of Permanent Arrival, my attack of the canvas is best described as a tension-loosening charge of inertia transfixed in sequence as a terse mixture of hesitation, followed by an explosive jolt of fierce joy at what is happening, almost always followed in the end by a weak fear, anxious worry and misgivings until I eventually reach a plateau of reflex gratitude, or flat acceptance of what has transpired.

Concerning the veracity of any paint, I presume that my art begins from a "condition of need" and is a matter of ambiguous perception with carry-on luggage both in sociopolitical and metaphysical terms, and while I often struggle against my operative senses when confronted with an uneasy thought or a complexity I can't easily deconstruct, a certain unexpected beauty and intelligence are often the reward for faith and diligence, hence, each canvas is the physical battleground where an immutable struggle works itself out.

"Does this painting resolve itself in an apt equation? Is it a valid expression of real concerns, rooted in its own space and time and asthethic experience?" I ask. If I affirm that it does on all counts, I accept it as a finished painting, or mixed media work.

As a conflicted idealist, I find myself continually drawn to the manifested contradictions of global society in all its metaphysical flux. I use a strained figure, a rough erratic line, oscillative texture and virilent color to speak of that battleground where art and politics beat each other up while few are they who seem the wiser.

Self-taught, I work full-time from my 52 O Street Studios loft located in the northernmost reaches of the NoMa neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Yeah, maybe a bit too overwrought...

DEFACING ART THE ISLAMIC WAY

NYC street piece by Swoon before defacement. See below for links.

PRO-TALIBAN MILITANTS in Pakistan have used electric drills to chisel off the face of a massive 7th century Buddha sculpture, raising concerns that hundreds of other Gandhara-era relics located nearby could also be at risk.

The picturesque Swat Valley has become infested with Taliban militants in recent weeks as the influence of the radical Islamic movement sweeps rapidly across northwest Pakistan.

The militants have launched a bloody vice campaign that has left 47 dead, decimated the valley's tourism industry and terrorized the local community. Locals tell ABC News authorities have made no effort to stop the spread of "Talibanization" in a normally peaceful region, often described as "Pakistan's Switzerland."

One Pakistani archaeologist described the Jehanabad Buddha as the second most important Gandhara monument after the Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, which were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.

"For me at least, the Jehanabad Buddha was the most beautiful," said Fidaullah Sehrai, a retired professor of archaeology and a leading expert in ancient Buddhist art.

Buddhism flourished in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the 7th century, and the Swat Valley is considered the birthplace of Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism. In his memories, the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang described hundreds of Buddha sculptures, monasteries and stupas in the valley. Only a handful has been excavated so far.

The Jehanabad Buddha watched over a stretch of the ancient Silk Route, said Professor Sehrai, and was believed to offer protection for travelers and traders. It is the second Buddha destroyed by the Taliban in recent months.

Read it all.

Now in New York City, the same sort of art defacement is being charted by an unknown assailant who has been dubbed simply—the Splasher. Two different NYC street artists have had their works scarred recently. Two female artists, known only as Swoon and Gaia have had their work partially sprayed out or marked over in deliberate fashion. Any connection to the NYC phenomenon and the Pakistani one? Probably not, but have no fear. What the Taliban is doing in Pakistan, the keepers of the Koran have done all over the world whenever the Islamic regimes gain a modicum of power over a previous culture.

But let's be clear here, thee is no solid evidence that the defacement has been carried out by Muslims on the prowl. But those Muslim youths who agitate in the shadows against Western targets (evidenced here and here and here) often roam in packs and attack single defenseless victims, male or female.

THE WAKING LIFE

JUST FOR THE RECORD, my painting is not a hobby, it's a work of pernicious desperation. And to be clear about that, allow me to put it another way. After fifty years of trench warfare, flailing, wounding and being wounded on the battlefield of words, I have chosen another weapon with which to wage battle against those who would demand from me my soul and insist upon my allegiance to any and sunder of these grotesque, viciously competitive arguments contemporary life offers. The inquisitive mind of the diligent seeker hacking through the kudzu of civilization, its sleepwalkers, and its enemies is always at peril. Whether delivered with a calm whisper or a bone-chilling rant, it's the same shouting of which side are you on? It's the same seductive shell game aimed to recruit and implicate, taking you off your own uniquely, sweat-and solace-inspired path. For what? the same old, same old, but now we are substituted a host of new partners who may or may not have one's best interests in mind as they squiggle in pursuit of their own. What rubbish! The Organization. Sanctified. Polished. Well-funded, or NOT. Either way, the trap is set before you.

Where on God's Green Acre is the DMZ in all this ? There is none. Not in one's own home. Not in one's own mind. There's always some entity ready to step up with you to the firing post or down with you in the dirty ditch as long as you agree to pursue the party line. Yes sir. Marching off as to war. Stuffed to the gills with pamphlets and profiteers piled high upon your back.

War and Peace. Brother against brother.

I may cherish and respect them both but only at arm's length. Or I may loathe them with every ounce of integrity I command, but I reject them all as tightly torqued gears of the consumer society, eager to pounce and package me with the same wrapping they adorn themselves. The anti-uniformity packaging is easily pierced with a hard look beyond the surface tension of its delivery system.

Painting, painting exactly as I do, is my own brutalized response to each and every one of them. To quote the poet of my generation, sometimes the devil comes as a man of war, but sometimes he comes as a man of peace. I ask then, where is the false consciousness of those who would portray the Luxmachina of my own aspirations as merely the illusion of a "sensitive" personal constitution?

Not even Pablo Picasso (that asshole) could be ursurped by an ideology's need for famous lynchpins and reputations in their stable of tools and weapons for further recruitment. In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso explains:

"If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean."

Death may be lonely, but life among the recruiters is far lonelier. Condescension is the law. The only mass movement I am interested in, is the movement of my own mass upon the path I am already storming so as to inspire my own sense of fear, awe and love, disappointment, recovery, crass numerology, entitlement and peace.

For our dear magnificent, delirious Picasso also said, "Painting is not made to decorate apartments, it's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy." (Tery, Picasso, n'est pas officer dans l'Armee francaise, Les Lettres Francaises, March 24, 1945)

Me? I've narrowed it down to occasionally wanting to hang out and talk the talk with fellow painters. To smash the knots governing painting. That's personal. Then there's the whatnot dealers, the galleries, the special collectors. If I have any say so in my future, it is that I want to confine myself to these people. To meet the mark. That's the challenge. Global politics IS about peace. And I think I am already in that combat, and have been for all of my conscious life, with exception of playing soldiers as a kid. But that kidstuff came natural as a result of heritage and culture. Not that it's been easy. I have blood on my hands, maybe, maybe not so much, but it's a life of bruises and egos. We have ALL, each and every one of us, contributed to the crimes of our own natures. Basic sin. We've all had to be dusted off every once in a while. All that is in my blood, and by deed of hand of head. Yours too, no doubt. And as the story goes I am staging myself from a family of pioneers, kings, governors, soldiers, bankers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, numbers keepers, carpenters, peach peddlers, drunks, and now, here I am barely in my fifties, but not yet thirty, the eldest son five of a navy piss drunk carpenter and his woman, my mother, a woman trailed by a remarkable track record of dog-eared discontent which become a staple in her childrearing arsenal. Then we rock on into MY generation.

That's the narrative I am poised to paint and weave into my worldview (without appearing passè).

The world is full of stories. I am one. We are another. I don't presume to presume a lot about other people except general nicety, but how so often even that small portion of human kindness is missing. Fortunately, I have my true spruce with Liberty Sue, and a handful of nice friends these days. But friends, well, as Jim Morrison put it, he preferred the feast of friends to the giant family, yet it's been one of the twisted poverties of my own peculiar life to have found neither to be much comfort or strength, both somewhat suspect, both very competent at failing to meet fair chunks of their own words even halfway. But my own corruptions and failures and spotty loyalty (in terms of ALWAYS putting THEM first) across the tracks can't be avoided either.

Go figure. Stuck. Stuckism.

Did I fail to mention that I watched Richard Linklater's Waking Life again this morning? Tough flick. Delivers an existential punch to philosophy framers everywhere they groom themselves. Third or fourth time I guess I've watched it over the years. A tough, intelligent objectivist-collapsing device at endgame. Awesome animation technique that Linklater picked up from a few pioneers.

I'd love to be able to say I can memorize the entire dialogue, do it, and then converse dazzlingly at fashionable dinner parties all across this brave land, but I'm just a painter now, and besides, I pretty much have internalized most of the chicanery, and had done so before sitting for Linklater. But it's still a cheeky flick to check out...

Five elephant trumpets.

Then there's Martine and Norman's Midnight Movie tonight. I do very much want to go, but with Liberty Sue gone to the Florida, me in a dietary rush, so much weight to lose, so little time, I tell myself I can't afford to place myself in a jovial crowd with lots and lots of calories to be passed around, with so much studio work awaiting me. But here's Norman's great plan for tonight:

"In lieu of true independence, Martine and I have decided to celebrate films that said "Fuck you" to standard Hollywood ideals, and are hosting the first of our "Midnight Movie Madness" series. We're kicking it off with the film that has been credited as being the first movie to be intentionally shown at midnight because the distributors had no idea what else to do with it: El Topo.

"This surreal western has been listed as favorites by John Lennon (who actually persuaded a friend to buy the rights and get its first distribution in the U.S. going), directors David Lynch and Samuel Fuller, actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, and performers Bob Dylan, Marilyn Manson, and Peter Gabriel. It has been claimed that this movie was the beginning of Gabriel's inspiration for the classic Genesis concept album, 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'.

So get your late night faces on and come enjoy "El Topo" with us! BYOB and snacks."

See what I mean? It sounds divine and delicious...

I'll decide later. I have a few hours before curtains.

DANCE FOR ME, BUTTERCUP

L-R: Dana Ellyn, Matt Sesow, Chris Schott, Gary Gill, Sue Hedrick

SOME NOTIONS OF ART are strategic impulses which create a snapshot of reality seen through keen eyes, others seek to depict a healthy disregard of reality viewed through a lens of distorting fantasy. The key to understanding a work of art is understanding which of these two strategic impulses best satisfy the work. All the rest in window dressing.
—Gabriel Thy

"Still, I've had my reservations. Not so much on the eventual outcome, but rather the timing of it all. In Lin's last show, I saw too much centered and seemingly static work that didn't quite get up and dance for me. Shafts of brilliance are mixed with moments of weakness, as befits the process of artistic growth. At 29, Lin's best work is most assuredly ahead of her."

Artist and critic Kevin Mellema wrote the paragraph excerpted above in his essay for the Falls Church News-Press. Because this is a criticism I often level at my own work, I felt compelled to clip his words for my own present and future edification, even though my work, and the work of Amy Lin have absolutely nothing in common.

Additionally, from the Washington Post:

Amy Lin is infatuated with dots. "Hybrid," a colored-pencil drawing that's part of the artist's show, "Amy Lin: Silence," at Heineman Myers Contemporary Art, features almost 350 of the li'l devils, strewn across the paper in blue and green strings like strands of broken costume jewelry.

And that's just a medium-size work. At nine feet tall, one picture, titled "Persuasion," boasts—well, you count them; I started to get a headache when I tried.

That's all the 28-year-old artist draws. A couple of years ago, when she was first starting out, Lin says she got a lot of "questionable comments" from folks who just didn't get her chosen medium. Although her dot-based pictures can call to mind everything from microbes on a glass slide to Mardi Gras beads to an overhead shot of crowds milling on the Mall, they are almost stoic in their open-ended abstraction. So much so that her dealer, Zoe Heineman Myers, was discouraged by those closest to her from even giving the artist a solo show, Lin's first in a commercial gallery.

Such misgivings may be starting to fade with the appearance of another kind of dot around Lin's work these days: the little red ones traditionally used in galleries to show that a work has been sold. At press time, five of the 13 works on view had found buyers.

Eghads, the question of making and selling art in Washington, DC seems to have a simple answer. But I'll keep that secret under my hat for a time.

ART RACE TV SHOW, OR 2%?

Gallery HD and Illuminations Media are looking for two fearless, charismatic, passionate & Informed ARTISTS to take the definitive chutzpah road trip.

Two Artists (Art Racers) must cross the US in 40 days, surviving only on Art. Armed with art materials, cameras and a $1 dollar budget, the Artist/Art Racers must “trade” Art for food, shelter and other artworks.

Starting on opposite coasts (one in NYC and one in LA), the Art Racers’ odyssey culminates in a home-city exhibition of all the works they have created and collected along the way. The winner is the Art Racer who sells/trades the most artwork. Or at least the one who survives.

Looking for great communicators who interact well with all sorts of people and can make smart commentary as life happens. Intelligent, sassy and witty are good too. All participants must live in the New York or Los Angeles areas, be at least 21 years old and a US citizen or legal resident alien.

ART RACE shoots May 26–July 11 for appx 40 days on the road, plus up to 5 additional shoot days & voice over work. Each Art Racer will receive $25,000 US for participating.

Twenty years ago, maybe. Today, no way possible. Middle-agedness has its own set of perks.

INVESTING IN THE ART MARKET

Looking out from Bertha's in Fells Point, Baltimore

By Deborah Brewster of The Financial Times. The article was originally published on July 13, 2007.

ART HAS EMERGED as a serious alternative asset class in the past few years, in spite of the disdain of art lovers and the scepticism of many dealers and collectors.

Randall Willette, who advises collectors, says: "There are increasingly two types of buyer in the market. The idea that you should buy purely because of your passion is becoming less common. More buyers are coming from a financial background and people want to support their buying decisions with financial information. Increasingly, art is part of the balance sheet of private clients."

There are two questions for investors to consider before treating art as part of their financial portfolio. The broader one is whether the art world can be considered a true market in the same way as the stock market is. The second is whether the price boom is cyclical, or part of a longer-term trend that will see prices move higher permanently. The answers may not be conclusive, but it is important to bear them in mind before following the legions of new buyers with the idea of making a killing.

Artworks are bought and sold at prices reflecting perceptions of their value, and these can change sharply. In that sense, it is a market, but many are unconvinced that it can ever operate according to the rules that govern other asset classes.

"I love art, and I love a bargain, but the fact is you cannot apply any kind of valuation analysis to artworks," says one longstanding collector who is prominent in the financial world.

"When I analyse a stock, I look at future income stream, how it is priced in relation to its competitors and the quality of management, and other criteria that can be measured quantitatively. The sole measure of an artwork is the cultural perception of value attributed to it. That is not something you can make any reasonable prediction about in relation to its future value."

This has not stopped an avalanche of financial analysis on the art market. Much of it sheds light on which types of works command value and how that value has changed over time.

Some of it bears out what dealers might intuitively understand. Research has shown that figurative works are valued more highly than landscapes; that the larger any given painting is, the higher the price per square inch; and that middle-tier works are likely to rise in value further than top-priced masterpieces. However, most people who have built up collections that have risen in value did not pay a great deal of attention to price, but rather to a unifying aesthetic.

As records topple at each auction, the stories of profits are encouraging more buyers into the market.

Adam Sender, a New York hedge fund manager, has said he had made more money from his art collection than his hedge fund.

Art market cycles usually last six to seven years, and the present upswing has been going for six. By that measure, a correction can be expected soon. The most recent Impressionist and contemporary auctions surpassed the price and volumes of the peak of the last boom in 1990.

However, the market is not monolithic. It spans collectables such as stamps, fountain pens and teddy bears (which have rocketed in value), to contemporary sculpture and photography, to decorative arts, to paintings by Picasso.

Each cycle has its favourites. Last time round, in the late 1980s, the Impressionists had their day. Japanese property tycoons formed a passion for works by Van Gogh and Rembrandt. A few years later, the value of such works had plummeted. The latest cycle has seen a huge rise in the value of contemporary works. However, another new aspect to the present cycle is the global nature of demand. It is not just one group of people buying one type of painting.

Newly wealthy people in Russia, China and India are buying works by indigenous artists as well as by western artists. US and European hedge fund managers are buying Chinese contemporary art as well as Andy Warhol. Demand is lifting prices across a range of categories. Michael Moses, who, with Jianping Mei, devised an Impressionist and contemporary art market index, has launched a Latin American index. But even the most optimistic believe some sectors, such as contemporary art, are due for a drop in prices.

BERLIN GALLERY HARASSED BY MUSLIMS

A BERLIN GALLERY has temporarily closed an exhibition of satirical works by a group of Danish artists after six Muslim youths threatened violence unless one of the posters depicting the Kaaba shrine in Mecca was removed, it said on Thursday.

The Galerie Nord in central Berlin said it had closed its “Zionist Occupied Government” show of works by Surrend, a group of artists who say they poke fun at powerful people and ideological conflicts. Four days after the exhibition opened, a group of angry Muslims stormed into the gallery, shouting demands that one of the 21 posters should be removed, said the gallery.“They were very aggressive and shouted at an employee that the poster should be taken down otherwise they would throw stones and use violence,” the gallery’s artistic director Ralf Hartmann told Reuters. The Muslims objected to a depiction of the Kaaba—the ancient shrine in Mecca’s Grand Mosque which Muslims face to say their prayers—which gave a “bitingly satirical commentary against radicalism,” said the gallery in a statement.

To his credit, Hartmann has said the gallery was working with German authorities to improve security and he hoped to re-open the show as soon as possible.“It would be unacceptable if individual social groups were in a position to exercise censorship over art and the freedom of expression,” said the gallery in a statement.

It’s about time some Western artists stepped up to the plate on this issue. This is a very serious issue, and since I am in the arts myself, a humble painter in Washington, DC, I know that few "political" artists are tackling the Islamic problem with anything more than smug indifference.

In fact, just the opposite position rules. Sadly, 95% of the art being created today in this most political of cities, and I speak from the underground art movement, is frivolous and redundant, lost in fairy tales and harmless charm, and anything remotely “controversial” and it’s not anymore because how many times can Christianity or homophobia or the president be attacked in the generic way that artists depict their hyperventilated disgust with religion, sexual mores, or politics, and it still be new, iconoclastic, or controversial? But with all the world in flames and blood, hovering at the brink of financial crisis, most of the “ruthless honesty” work is anti-American at worst, anti-war (lofty) at best, and nothing is ever presented that even hints of global incrimination due the jihadists and their copious allies strutting about in shepherd’s clothing and Brooks Brothers suits.

But what can be expected otherwise? The art world, unlike the more recently abducted halls of lower and higher education, has long been the high-browed bastion of the liberal cognoscente, and today’s system of wine-tasting galleries and its stiltifying air of mass dementia is now vigorously geared to the Left.

Scandal is often the fast track in the whirl to “make” an artist, but history probably proves that this model holds only if breaking “preferred” molds. Let’s hope Berlin doesn’t bend knee to this Islamic thuggery. It will only encourage more outrage. Don’t we all deserve better than this?

WAREHOUSE ARTS COMPLEX SHOW 2/22/08

I AM PLEASED to announce that I will be showing several works at the Warehouse Arts Complex Group Show “PEACE NOW!”

Artist Reception: February 22, 2008. 6-9 PM.

The show will stay up for the observance of the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the March 19, 2008 “March for Peace” in Washington and other cities around the country. The show will feature painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, et cetera.

Curated by Molly Ruppert. Come out and join the spectacle!

ANNOUNCING ARTOMATIC '07

String Theory - Gabriel Thy - 40"x30" acrylic on canvas

IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING! Artomatic 2007 has been announced. I will be there next Saturday as one of the first registrants to pick prime real estate in this, my first Artomatic show. Two floors (the 6th and 8th floor) in the Old Patent Office Building in Crystal City—each floor is 45,000 sq. ft. and one has around 130 offices still walled in while the other one has been gutted. I hear it’s a nifty location and quite easy to navigate to either by car, bus, subway or even Virginia rail.

There are some spectacular views of the city from all the outer walls. The other cool thing about this location is that thousands and thousands of people both work and live right around this area.

Artomatic is a month-long multimedia arts event that draws together visual artists, musicians and performers and brings their work to the community without charge. Originally conceived as a way to break down the geographical and social segmentation of the Washington arts scene, to bring art directly to the public and to build cohesion among artists, the city’s ongoing development in recent years has diffused the arts community by breaking up pockets of artist studios. Unfortunately, local artists are frequently overshadowed by national blockbuster shows and federal landmarks, thus Artomatic provides a forum for all of our area’s artists to convene, perform and exhibit, strengthening the visibility, cohesion, and marketplace of Washington’s arts community.

Artomatic began in 1999 in the historic Manhattan Laundry building. A dozen or so artists originally toured the empty building and within a month, three hundred and fifty artists had cleaned, lit, painted and colonized the 100,000 square feet. Over 20,000 visitors attended the first Artomatic over 6 weeks. From there, it grew organically, as buildings were made available to Artomatic by community developers. Music and performance of all kinds were added.

In 2000, 665 artists exhibited and 200 performed at the old Hechinger’s building; more than 1000 artists and performers took part in 2002 at the Southwest Waterfront and even more in 2004 at the old Capitol Children’s Museum in Northeast. The number of visitors has also more than doubled to over 40,000.

Stay tuned…

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

This past weekend I was back at the Wheeling Wailing Wall, not with brush and acrylics this time, but for a post-wedding reception party for my young friends—Justin and Laura—who were bethrothed that St. Patrick’s Day afternoon in a traditional Catholic ceremony at the St. James Chapel in McMechen.

It had snowed rather briskly the afternoon prior, as we barrelled forth from DC in the new Liberty Renegade, from Hagerstown beyond Frostsburg, but to my chagrin, all points westward toward Wheeling had only been dusted. Still, a somewhat edgy but safe trip.

As I stared down the cruel wall past the folks gathered to crank on the snarling four metal band celebrations, I realized I still carried a strong desire to finish this seminal work on the Wailing Wall, someday soon perhaps, should adequate funds ever materialize, but those young Turks—Chuck & Raj—will definitely have to step up to the plate if the future is to change. Measuring some 80′ x 11′ the mural wall is about 90% completed, a massive piece as she stands, but abruptly unfinished nevertheless.

And this, dear reader, was my first blog about art, as humble as it is, published on another blog service nearly a year ago. My recent frustration with that service has finally reached the boiling point, and today I have decided I am moving back to the service from which you read these words. I was sayed by the polished look of the other service, and without understanding what went wrong with that approach, I have abandoned aesthetics for functionality. Editing text, and keeping those edits in place, had become sheer madness. I know know when precisely things broke down, but something went terribly wrong, and who among us has time to struggle with a persnickety HTML editor.

So here I am, a few old posts to recall the foundation, then onward into the harrumphing world of serious art as a subject matter worthy of these crucial times.