AFH UPDATE [September 2018]

AFHstudioBK Is Closed.

The move-out was completed on August 30th, but preparations occupied much of the month, which the road trip from Bushwick to Oregon interrupted. I have learned that every studio opening and closing possesses a unique flavor and resonance. Each produces a particular sensation that will eventually congeal into a narrative, with attaching summary, list of evocative memories and notable anecdotes. Some get a soundtrack. Moving my studios over the years from room to room, building to building, state to state, etc., has reinforced an awareness of the physical nature of art. Achy back, damaged hands, bruises and bumps, sleep deprivation - all are symptoms of the studio move. The raw 269 Powers [BK] moves were accomplished with the help of Metropolis Moving, and my Godkid Misha, but I still did the prodigious prep work, alone. The artist life involves un-romantic scenarios galore, that may look fine in a montage. The sort of psychic upheaval that attends the shuttering of an atelier is difficult to adequately translate to fictional and illusory media. Maybe VR will be a better medium for capturing the transitional state of artists whose labor has no permanent home. I have known some artists who settled in studios for decades at a time. When I was working for LA Packing, Crating and Transport (that's me on the short ladder in the pic/slideshow on the LAPC&T site front page installing Jonathon Borofsky numbers), I was on a crew helping break down Sam Francis' studio after his passing. It was a huge job. Sam employed a crack team of top-shelf logistics people. We coordinated with them. The atmosphere was palpable, visceral and tangible. I don't know how to adequately frame it, and won't try. I don't like the idea of being a tourist for that singular project. I participated on a few operations, picking up monumental-sized canvases, disposing of materials, and so on, but there were many others other guys handled. That job installed in my mind a perception of artist ghosts who haunt studios and the people who enter the haunts of artists, living and dead.

Traversing America [Again]

I am consistently stunned when someone reveals to me in conversation that they have never taken to the USA highway system (red + blue) and explored this country by automobile. The span of the nation is contained in the proverbial road trip in a way that's inaccessible by plane, bus or other mode of transportation. I would contend that a working comprehension of America is not complete absent the cross-country driving experience. Each traversal of the US by car is fraught with danger, mystery, wonder and a range of often conflicting phenomena. Music is an essential component. Maps also. A navigator is the proper foil for the driver's task. Monuments, diners, marvelous landscapes and a sequence of encounters with local characters define the journey to some extent. The time element is a contiguous presence. If there is a mission, that colors the trip. If one is adrift, or otherwise actively not directed by motivation or intent, the road tripper generates a speculative circumstance for the trek. Whether one is a practitioner or novice on the Road clearly affects the receptivity of the traveler to external and internal momentum/inertia, or entropy. Tensions and capacity (i.e., endurance) play within the dynamic unfolding of every long form transnational crossing. Shane Kennedy and I have shared the road together often over the past couple of decades, in all sorts of vehicles and conditions. This most recent iteration of the Epic USA Bi-Coastal Ride, originating in Bushwick and culminating in Astoria, OR (actually Portland by PDX), will I believe rank highly on the Best of- list. Technically, glitches were rare and minor. In keeping with the protocols of the medium, most of the details will remain our own treasure. If the American Road Trip is not art, at minimum it is art worthy. The experience is a form of saturation, in the context of conditioned programming. Like any 4D proposition, it is specific and unrepeatable. I am thinking of Lewis & Clark, the Oregon Trail, but also Kerouac, and some bards, too. I am also thinking about the state of the country I love, and that love has been shaped over time by the Road Trip, which at this point in my life has expanded into a sequential order, a serial affair, a sensational mix of countless moments and layered images. No one can understand my art and person, absent acknowledgement of the Road's effects upon it. The fool who discounts the import of the Road on the American culture and consciousness will be frequently shocked by the citizen's dimensional, sophisticated perspective on machine-enabled coming & going, day & night. The soul of those uninitiated in the US Highway, its weird dreams and harsh reality, is shallow and unequipped to analyze the nation's modern sons and daughters. 

Sale Graphic by PJM [Credit: Little Yellow Miner + Canary by Bryce McCloud of Isle of Printing for SEAM01 at TAG (Nashville, 2001)]

Starting September with a Labor Day Sale at Good Faith Space!

Our new tagline at GFS is "GET SOME!" Thoughts?

State of the Artz Section

Much of the summertime art news in 2018 ping pongs among talking points that in many aspects  don't reconcile. The collapsing mid-range economy for art (in the West, anyway) will not be adequately supplanted by photo-op mills that are branded "museums," nor will Basel announcing progressive booth pricing solve the inequality among the Art Bigs like Gagosian and everybody else. Tech art is still a bizarre wrinkle in the fabric of culture. Bruce Sterling's SXSW 2018 (above) keynote reveals much about the emerging field, which in parts is swiftly normalizing [see SRL at the Seattle Art Fair, now directed by Nato Thompson (Can you find Bruce in the article - the dude's all over the place!)]. The real subtext here is that the tech sector is consolidating wealth and power at an alarming rate, so much so that the other social sectors (political, military, police, etc.) are pivoting to reign in the advance of Big 5 mega-corporations through diverse approaches. "Art" is traditionally a means by which the rich and powerful elites diffuse animosity from those who are distressed by the control of massive resources by a fortunate few individuals and companies or syndicates. Sterling's exhortation seems well-enough defined to serve as a practical guide for pushing a tech-art movement into and through the budgets of major players. Clearly, the programming of "art" into tech-evolution is a prospect that is nothing new. It can be tracked at least as far as Leonardo, and arguably the Greeks, which Kittler and others have pointed out. The question is whether any artifying of tech apps (robots, social media, Big Data, etc.) will adequately soften a public that is threatening to turn on the various fields of science and technology that are producing obviously negative effects in the lives of so many people. Are art/tech hype campaigns like THIS in any manner really digestible as real solutions? The shine of ubiquitous, useful "toys" for network communications, computing and connecting People to Things and Things to each other is quickly wearing off. Will art polish tech's dangerous edges? I don't know, but I found a book that I hope clarifies my projections of our tech-affected collective future (enthusiastically recommended by Bruce Sterling and SF/Tech Thinker Bigs like William Gibson & Rudy Rucker):

Frankly, I am bemused of the general confusion expressed by analysts who refuse to acknowledge the stark lessons and unequivocal systemic information uncovered through the dimensional movements of the past decade (mainly OWS, Bernie's Presidential campaign, Standing Rock, but also plenty of others, appearing and disappeared around the globe). The precarious state of most of the art world parallels the precarity of democracy itself, of the economy, of international relations, etc. Nature itself feels very precarious and menacing simultaneously (for humanity, anyway). The primary problems have been accurately identified. Actionable orders are obvious. Precedents demonstrate that the necessary changes are not only feasible, but proven effective. Anyone pretending otherwise now, or falling for any of the distractions pushed by those in great measure responsible for our big problems, and who derive great benefits from those problems remaining unsolved ~ well, pretense itself has become intolerable, and pretenders, too. Talk about Fake.

"Wings" ~ graphic for CD design (ca. 2003, PJM)

On Leaving NYC and Moving to Oregon

Many have breathlessly inquired as to the nature of our migration from Brooklyn to the Northwest coast. On the NYC side, the quality of the inquiry is almost invariably hued by a peculiar cognitive disjunction, which might be characterized as disbelief in the possibility that such a dramatic relocation is possible, wise, even conceivable. More than anything the inquisitor is basing the incredulity on rudimentary assumptions and cultural projections. Why would someone choose small town living over the cosmopolitan offerings of an international destination and trendy hot spot like Bushwick? Did I not notice the movie set on the street in front of our loft building this morning, or the runway models wandering in robes, under umbrellas through the neighborhood all day? Will I not miss the easy felafel dinner option we are enjoying from a couple blocks down, by the House of Yes, next to the Jefferson St. L stop (~ Queen of Felafel)? Shane and I discussed this sort of interrogation by confused New Yorker friends and acquaintances at some length on our road trip. It is symptomatic of a certain stultifying mindset among what I would call captured or captive persons, many of whom will express amazement that anyone could think to leave the city with one sentence, and follow that sentence with a dozen more describing the horrid aspects they despise, which definitely accompany NYC/Brooklyn life. The truth is, my list of things I will miss about NYC/BK is short, and the list of things I will not miss is long. Mostly, it is not things I will miss, but people whom I have grown to love and value over the past eight years of being a New Yorker. I have resided, visited and worked in a fair sample of American communities and a few abroad. A spectrum of experience in congregations big and small, rural and urban, tribal and civilized, productive and destructive, virtual and actual, affords me (I hope) an accurate sense of cost-benefit, with respect to home. At least for the moment, an American citizen can still up and move to another part of the country and start fresh, hoping to improve her or his life and circumstances. That is exactly what we are up to. The proposition is alternately scary and exhilarating, and both feelings are moderated through healthy doses of research, planning and logistical know-how. I won't share my special secret for navigating big change in locus here ~ it's not the proper forum. But I will say I believe we all ought to be in the right place at the right time to do what needs doing. Which is one definition of courage. Still, speaking for myself for emphasis, the people one leaves behind tug at the heart most. It helps to have confidence that new friends await on the opposite end of this beautiful, myriad continent.

YONDER [Reflections]

Mobility as a practical matter activates the process of narrative formation. Mobile narratives are naturally dimensional. They scan the past for clues (reasons), shift in the changing topology of a blurry present, and propose possible futures arising from former conditions, circumstances and scenarios.

My family and I are preparing to move across the North American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. The immediate quality of our daily activities suggests miasma. Impulsive ordering of the material and immaterial is practically reflexive. 

A few days ago I found myself diverted to a project that led to a sequential revelation of motivations, pertinent to my artist life. The catalyst was a search for photographic portraits of my friend Jennifer (Niederst) Robbins made in the 80s during our Notre Dame studies. Searching through a pile of scrapbooks and folders, I haven't yet found the pictures I originally set out to find. What I discovered instead was a trove of photos documenting my earliest, formative artist experiences.

Of these, a handful emerged as particularly relevant in shaping my views of the art business, art world, and patronage. Reflecting on some specific episodes, I today revel at my tenacity, in pursuit of artistic success. Despite what strike me (now) as horrible experiences, I somehow did not abandon the art enterprise in those first years of my so-called artist career. The act of reflection generates a variant definition of what I do and have done for more than three decades. Art is more a vocation, than a commercial identity, in my mind. Otherwise, I might be compelled by the data to conclude that no sane individual would choose fine art as a professional enterprise, given the typical state of the game for artists, especially those just starting out.

In the text that follows, I will share some anecdotes that hopefully clarify the statement above for the reader. If this chronicle helps another artist, one way or another, all the better. If it starts or adds to a discussion about the systematically brutal and wasteful American arts topology, with its sparkly, rigged vertical fixtures, more to the greater good. 

God
8' x 4'
Mixed media [plywood, car door lining, acrylic paint, found materials + more]
1985

1. GOD

This was one of my first art commissions. My memory of the details are a bit vague. I have a foggy recollection of how the thing went down. Maybe the pastor of a local South Bend (IN) Catholic church approached the ND art department, in a search for an artist to do an altarpiece for his chapel? We met, and I got the gig, which I completed between my Junior and Senior years. He had to fight to get approval from the church council. He won the commission funding ($480) in a bingo game, which he figured was a divine intervention. I stayed at the rectory for about a month and made the art. I was drinking a lot then, driving a '78 Trans Am outfitted like the Smokey and the Bandit sports car. When I finished, we hung the art. Almost immediately, the congregation rebelled. The pastor (whose name I can't remember) defended the art and insisted it remain. He passed away about a year later, and I learned that "God" had summarily been disposed of. In hindsight, the experience on the whole proved very educational, with regards the vicissitudes of art/collective/patronage/production, + more. I have never entertained the notion of creating art for churches, since then (although I have received a few inquiries, over the years).

I put everything I could muster into this project. Looking at the image, greatly benefited/restored to close-to-realism by the editing tools of Photoshop, I am proud of the effort. I especially appreciate the iconography, the use of materials and their implications, my Vision of It, of God, at the age of 21. I sure would love to sit down with the young man who painted/assembled this art, to share a meal, to have a chat. I would love to meet the Me of 33 years ago (pretty much to the day).

One of the valuable things about art is it bridges time spans like that 33-year one. I don't really need a time machine, because I have art. Reflection via art is to my mind better in some important respects than the Back to the Future movie version of "time travel." The differences between art enabled time travel and the cinematic imagination's - that's a big topic for another text.

Liberty
6' x 6'
Mixed Media [1/4" steel, railroad ties, acrylic paint, barbed wire, spray paint + more]
1986 (Process photo)

2. LIBERTY

I wrote about this recently. "Liberty" was created shortly after I graduated from ND, and almost died in a motorcycle wreck less than a week later. Maria Rand was the wife of notable NY-based sculptor Archie Rand and curator/buyer for Unique Boutique in Manhattan. Unique was one of the cool shops that sold my FunkShunArt tee shirts in the city. Maria invited me to contribute an art for a show she was putting together, marking the Centennial Celebration of the Statue of Liberty. She said the show was going to be a big deal happening at Herald Square. Archie would be in the show. Maybe Keith Haring, Andy. We spoke on the phone a few times, and when I visited the shop with new FunkShunArt, over a period of weeks or months. It was a long time ago, and the details are a bit fuzzy, now.

..."Liberty" was my offering. "Liberty" was painted on a big sheet of steel and framed in railroad ties and barbed wire. I found the source image in a Playboy magazine. You can't really tell from the Photoshop-improved, old photograph that the finished painting really shimmered, thanks to (relatively new) iridescent acrylics, gel medium, glitter, etc. When completed "Liberty" weighed a couple hundred pounds. JP Keyes drove to Beckley, WV, where I made the art in my parents' garage (during my rehab from the MC-crash-caused head injury), and we loaded it into the Par 3 tour van and drove back to Jersey City, where the band based. JP had just installed a multi-channel sound system in the van, and we listened to a selection of tapes during the ride. It was an educational experience. The art was ready to be delivered on the previously agreed upon deadline date.

The next day, I reached out to Maria. I got the "NY shuffle." Over the next few days, I got the runaround. When I finally got Maria on the phone, she was rude, to put it mildly. Our conversation was colorful. I think my recent brain trauma had an effect on my reaction. The gist? Maria: No show, whatever, GTFO. The next evening, Par 3 & I delivered "Liberty" to Unique. Maria wasn't there. We installed it in the front area of the shop and left. A security dude tried to stop us and wisely stopped doing that.

My righteous anger/rebellion/triumph moment was short-lived. When I took the train to the city, maybe the next day, to see/photograph "Liberty" at Unique, the art was gone. I was furious, although I don't think the UB staffer had a clue, when I curiously asked, "What happened to the big Statue of Liberty painting that I saw here yesterday?" He shrugged and said, "I think some guys threw it in the dumpster in the alley. That thing was heavy. One of them broke his hand moving it."

I can pretend otherwise, but I was alternately brokenhearted and filled with rage. In hindsight, the experience on the whole was a valuable, instructive, initial encounter with the "NY art world." I've been skeptical of curators and their speculative plans ever since.

Angel Series [FunkShunArt (ca. 1984-5)] / Silkscreen + acrylic paint on tee shirt

3. FALLEN ANGEL (No Photo Documentation)

The details of this episode are hazy. A fellow Domer (ND student) offered me - I think - $60 or $80 to paint a mini-mural in his dorm room. I completed the task in short order. I never got the opportunity to photograph my work. As I recall, the figure of a downcast, wrenched angel was directly painted on the wall with bright acrylic primary colors. Really, "Fallen Angel" was more drawing with paint than painting proper. My student-patron did compensate me, and then within a few days overpainted "Fallen Angel" without telling me. When I visited him with friends to share with them what I had made and photograph "Fallen Angel," the guy/patron answered the door and sheepishly admitted to his art destruction. I cursed him out. He apologized.  I can't recall ever painting on a wall again, indoors or outside, with one exception (see below).

I admit to a consequent, jaundiced notion of street art, murals, interior wall treatments by artists, probably due to this experience. The negativity association extends to euphemisms like "creative destruction," "erasure," and so on.  & Unilateral wall-art obliteration by an owner, like the infamous 5Pointz whitewashing, which had a happy/unhappy ending.

Violence toward art as a prerogative of ownership, or as problematic cultural expression or critique or whatever (see Rauschenberg/de Kooning incident/history) is an uncomfortable subtext in the art/cultural continuum. On the international stage in recent times, ISIS, the Taliban and Al Queda have practiced art/culture obliteration on a massive scale. Being aware of such phenomena, I try not to take others' art-destructive urges and rationalizations personally anymore ~ with a modicum of success. The key is channeling outrage into productive outcomes, and it doesn't hurt to know one's legal options. However, as the 5Pointz case illustrates, it is not obvious that legal recourse can sufficiently address the problem. After all a unique art/cultural expression, once eradicated or vandalized, is not necessarily recoverable.

Yesterday, a man hijacked an airliner, conversed in-flight with air traffic controllers with war planes in hot pursuit of his stolen aircraft, which he subsequently crashed on an island. The man's suicide-by-plane can be interpreted endlessly. Many in the media questioned, "What was his motive?" This artist responds that the definition of performance art is so broad that the incident might be described as a creative expression culminating in the immolation of the plane and the practitioner. Is my ironic explanation really so farfetched, nowadays? What is permissible, if any-everything can be construed as art, and any-/everyone can self-identify as an artist?

Clearly, human beings' struggle with our contradictory impulses for creation and destruction takes many forms, and is scalable. The fundamental issue is of course, Why?

Sneaky Petes
48" x 36"
Acrylic and Tempera on Canvas
1986

4. SNEAKY PETE (No Photo Documentation)

The owner of a local ice cream shop approached the ND Art Department with a proposal for students to decorate his newly opened or renovated store. He would provide materials and ice cream. A graduate student who had been one of my first instructors brought the project to my attention. I agreed to participate, as did a handful of other art students. Each of us was assigned a booth, with an inset, shadowbox wall, upon which we could paint what we wished. I think the owner suggested ice cream-oriented content, but wasn't very strident about it. I promptly began to paint one of my Sneaky Pete creatures in the assigned area, which was about 6' x 5', with two 6' tall, maybe 2.5' wide panels perpendicular to the centerpiece (as I recall). I worked feverishly for about five days during business hours between classes, about 40-50 hours or more total. The Sneaky Pete figure was dramatic, unsettling and jarring. His Eye was a textured swirl of technicolor paint, eventually animated and complex enough to give viewers the impression Pete was watching them as they moved through the shop. The painting contained many layers. Although the color field behind the figure eventually took on a vibrant cerulean blue hue, it shimmered, and contained text elements in applique and hand-painted renderings. Hovering on either side and above Pete were words, such as "WAR" and "PEACE" and "LOVE" and "HATE." At the end of the week I was exhausted and deeply satisfied, proud of the completed art. I couldn't wait to bring my friends (the Keyes bros. + Scott O'Grady) to see it. We hopped in someone's car, maybe Jim's "Grey Ghost," and drove over.

It was yet another disaster. The shop owner, uncomfortable about the text and eye effect, had dipped a 4" or 6" in a can of blue paint and wiped out the words and the "eye." I couldn't speak. My buddies and I drove back to the dorm. They followed me downstairs and looked on as I threw chairs around the room and howled.

A couple of years later, I returned to that ice cream shop. I was outfitted in the manner of Road Warrior. I outlined for the owner some options, all of which ended with my covering my art with white paint. He chose the one that did not also entail harm to his family (who were seated nearby, enjoying sundaes, shakes and cones) and himself, and time-permitting, the burning down of the ice cream store, before the police arrived. I put some music on [Allman Bros., "Whipping Post" (live)], savored some sipping whiskey, and painted over the disfigured art. As I was leaving, I keyed the owner's beloved Corvette.

I haven't entered into any similar commission arrangements, since then. & I'm not really proud of what happened. That said, to this day, I marvel at what people will do without any concern about the repercussions, the consequences, of their behavior, power dynamics be damned. The Chinese just destroyed Ai Wei Wei's studio. Wonder what will come of that this time?