Who wants to hear more about this penis wall? Read on for details.

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Mon

e-flux

311 East Broadway
Lower East Side
2-6Website

Spectres of Communism: Contemporary Russian Art

If you leave now, 3 PM on Monday, you still have time to run over to e-flux for the symposium “Spectres of Communism: Contemporary Russian Art”. Reasons for seeing this should be obvious to anyone who’s been reading the news over the past few years. This show better explains how Russian artist-activists’ particular Leftist activist attitudes have been shaped by communist history. Says the press release:

On the one hand, [contemporary Russian artists] do not want to close the utopian perspective that was opened by the October revolution and art of the Russian avant-garde. But, on the other hand, they cannot forget the long history of post-revolutionary violence, where artists are haunted by these specters in the middle of reality that does not welcome them.

Among the list are artists who’ve been front and center in free speech battles: Alina and Jeff Bliumis, Chto Delat, Keti Chukhrov, Anton Ginzburg, Pussy Riot, Anton Vidokle, and Arseny Zhilyaev. The official opening is at e-flux tomorrow night 6-8 PM, and there’s already another part open at The James Gallery.

 

The Bell House

149 7th Street
Brooklyn
7:30Website

IRL Club 4

The IRL club meets again for internet-related commentary. We’ll get presentations “by people who make the internet a better”: Peiqi Su and Her Amazing Penis Wall, above; The Cool Freaks Wikipedia Club, a 33K-member Facebook archive of all the weird bloggy tidbits on wiki; Paul Ford, recently, of the savepublishing lit tweeter tool; Brian Droitcour, net art curator; the teenage “outlaw Instagrammer” Humza Deas; and Leon Chang, IRL Club regular/viral marketing mocker. Over 700 people RSVP’ed on Facebook, so get there early. No word on whether they’ve raised the $450 to transport Penis Wall, which was a problem last we checked the Facebook page. Fingers crossed.

$5

Wed

Sargent’s Daughters

179 East Broadway
Lower East Side
6-8 PMWebsite

Ross Bleckner and Volker Eichelmann

Not sure exactly what these two painters have to do with each other other than a tendency to paint light on dark, but Ross Bleckner’s darkly emotive paintings responding to the AIDS crisis are beautiful and tragic, and we get to see a mini review of his smaller paintings over twenty years. Volker Eichelmann will make text paintings respond to diary entries by the wealthy 19th century art collector William Beckford and 1920s fashion icon Stephen Tennant.

El Museo del Barrio

1230 Fifth Ave
Harlem
6:30-9 PMWebsite

Latinos in the Media

Recently, El Museo curator Rocío Aranda-Alvarado wrote about how large populations in the Bronx are entirely shut out of public view. This makes me want to see a talk/panel discussion about Latinos in the media by Arlene Davila and Yeidy Rivero, to mark the release of their co-edited book “Contemporary Latin@ Media: Production, Circulation, and Media”. They’ll be joined by media activists Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now; Jillian Baez, Staten Island University; and D. Ines Casillas, University of California Santa Barbara.

Thu

James Cohan Gallery

533 West 26th Street
Chelsea
10 AM - 6 PMWebsite

Nam June Paik

Famed video artist Nam June Paik has a show. There is no press release.

Fri

Klaus von Nichtssagend

54 Ludlow Street
Lower East Side
6-8 PMWebsite

Flames on the Side of My Face

A welcome alternative to easy breezy provisional painting, “Flames on the Side of My Face” conveys silent, boiling fury. The title comes from the 1985 Hollywood comedy “Clue”, when Madeline Kahn admits she’s the murderer. Artists are Judith Bernstein, Sam Contis, Tony Feher, and Daniel Ingroff.

Novella Gallery

164 Orchard Street
Lower East Side
7 PMWebsite

HOWL

Aggro is cool again! Right down the street from Klaus, another show is inspired by “HOWL”. Like the poem, the show aims to encapsulate the state of American contemporary culture (in art) by combatting tasteful restraint. Rageful paintings by Alicia Gibson and Alan Crockett and miniature drawings/stage sets by Clara Crockett.

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

26 Wooster Street
Soho
6-8 PMWebsite

Irreverent: A Celebration of Censorship

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a sexuality-themed show about how censorship continues to suppress gay and lesbian voices in art. Think Robert Mapplethorpe and David Wojnarowicz. We’re hoping for some all-out dick wagging, vagina splurting, and tittie juggling. Forwarding our nonprofit mission one sentence at a time.

Sat

The High Line

14 Street Passage
Chelsea
2-5 PMWebsite

In Search Of

For those of you who will not be joining us at White Castle (a romantic tradition brought to you by the marketing experts at the fast food purveyor), you can always spend Valentine’s Day on the High Line. You’ll get performances by DJs Andrew Andrew and Whoop Dee Doo’s Jaimie Warren and Matt Roche while getting match-made by Amy Van Doran and having your tarot read by Molly Burkett. Bring cash for sweets, meatball subs, and “broths”.

Sun

Odetta

229 Cook Street
Bushwick
4-6 PMWebsite

PAY TO PLAY

Another anger-related show: artists who make art about class and social inequality. Thank. you. Joe Amrhein, Rico Gatson, William Powhida, Rita Valley. Curated by Ellen Hackl Fagan.

In New York, there’s no such thing as recovery from last weekend’s art orgy at Bushwick Open Studios. There’s just more events. This week we’ve got what we expect to be a heady exhibition from Whitney ISP, a hypothetical, queer revision of history, and a room full of found and solicited cum shots. Good times!

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Tue

The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts

323 W. 39th Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10018
5–8 PMWebsite

Whitney Independent Studio Program Exhibition

The 2015 Whitney Independent Study Studio Program is generally regarded to be the most rigorous and selective conceptual program an artist can attend. This Tuesday students present their end of year show.
John Almanza, Emanuel Almborg, Harold Batista, Maura Brewer, Elaine Byrne, Davey Hawkins, Anastasia Hill, Jeremy Hutchison, Andy Robert,Margarita Sanchez Urdaneta, Effi ibok, Kenneth White, Marisa Williamson

 

 

 

Trestle Gallery

168 7th Street
Brooklyn, NY
6:00 PMWebsite

Wendy White, art talk

Wendy White began the MFA Rutgers program one year after AFC’s Paddy Johnson graduated from the same program and thus has a special place in our hearts. Plus, it’s rare to see a painter develop quite as much White has over the years. Her sense of composition and paint handling in her abstract paintings that employ spray paint and text have improved tremendously. Hear her talk about how she got there.

Wed

Pioneer Works

159 Pioneer Street
Brooklyn, New York
6:00pm - 9:00pm

Robyn Hasty: Z

In a world of ever more alternatives for gender pronouns, “Z” is an option that’s stuck around for a while, despite its somewhat unfortunate goofyness. Here, Robyn Hasty uses non-binary presentations of gender as a vehicle to subvert 19th-century portraiture. Hasty uses anachronistic photography techniques such as wet-plate collodion tintype and ambrotype developing processes to capture sitters who exist outside of the strict “male” and “female” roles assumed by the subjects of the historical photos being referenced. While the images are undeniably contemporary, they allude to a hypothetical, queer revision of history—retroactively documenting a demographic that lacked visibility for the majority of photography’s existence.

Thu

Half Gallery

43 East 78th Street
New York, New York
12:00 PMWebsite

Intimate Paintings

A think-y show from the point of view of a collector; this exhibition asks whether who owns a work changes art work or the perception of it. Half Gallery owner Bill Powers teases out the lineage of a few—an atypical camouflage painting by Joe Bradley that’s on loan from artist Michael Williams. A Jackson Pollock that’s been passed down from Mercedes Matter (a friend of Pollock’s) to Richard Prince. Most of the provenance is invisible, but if the press release is any indication, this isn’t so much about ownership as it is provenance as storytelling. And that’s where the intimacy of this show lies.

Artists (of which there are a sea of dudes) include: Jackson Pollock, Brian Calvin, Math Bass, Michael Williams, Dana Schutz, Josh Smith, Justin Adian, Dirk Bell, Joe Bradley, Genieve Figgis, Henry Taylor, Lucien Smith, George Condo, Sean Brian McDonald, Richard Pettibone, Rene Ricard, John Currin, and Jules de Balincourt

 

Jacob Lewis Gallery

521 West 26th Street
New York, New York
6 PM to 8 PMWebsite

Between Two Worlds Michael Bevilacqua, Matthew Ronay, Dean Sameshima, and Dani Tull

Oh, how the art world loves between states; this show explores the stage of art making after the conception of an art work and after its completion by showing a bunch of finished work. The concept is pretty dumb, but the show gets a recommendation from us regardless because a bunch of artists whose we like; Michael Bevilacqua, Matthew Ronay, Dean Sameshima, and Dani Tull. In particular we’re looking forward to seeing Dani Tull’s sci-fi new agey shell and totem sculptures as well as Matthew Ronay’s mini golf-course like sculptures made of MDF. These are some good looking sculptures.

Basilica Hudson

110 South Front Street
Hudson, NY
8:00 PMWebsite

“Citizenfour” by Laura Poitras

Watch one of the most important documentaries made this century. In 2013 Director Laura Poitras shoots four days of interviews with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong and is present when he reveals his identity to the public and United States requests the Hong Kong government extradite Snowden. His crime? Revealing the United States’ mass illegal wiretapping program run by the NSA.

Fri

One Art Space

23 Warren Street
New York, NY
8:00 AM to 11:00 PMWebsite

Williamsburg on Warren

Regionalist pride as exhibition concept: Cris Dam & Leah Stuhltrager bring together artists they believe are forever associated with Williamsburg. See this show; you’ll wax nostalgic for the days Williamsburg wasn’t a 20 something lifestyle brand.

Artists include: Mark Andreas, Ken Butler, Cris Dam, Mark Esper, Anna Frants, Ruth Marshall, Loren J. Munk, Disney Nasa Borg, Randy Polumbo, William Powhida, Carol Salmanson, Jeff Schneider, Kathleen Vance, and Ryan W

chashama 266 gallery

266 west 37th street
New York, NY
5:00 PM to 8:00 PMWebsite

Ropes Fragments Drafts

More people need to know about the architecturally inspired paintings of Sara Jones; they build from memory and spacial perception and just generally tend to be gorgeous. The work on view will respond to the gallery space and the garment district its located within.

Ortega Y Gasset Projects

363 Third Ave
Brooklyn, New York
6:00 PM to 9:00 PMWebsite

Love Child

We never thought we’d see a show that included the hermaphrodite couple Eva and Adele and slick art stars Anna Gaskell and Douglas Gordon, so this show gets a nod just for that. It’s a showcase of work by artist couples.

They include: Eva and Adele, Anna Gaskell and Douglas Gordon, Nyeema Morgan and Mike Cloud, Rachel Debuque and Justin Plakas, Maria Walker and Jonathan Allmaier, Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe, Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey.

Sat

Transfer

1030 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
6:00 PM to 11:00 PM

Faith Holland, TECHNOPHILIA

Faith Holland sees even the use of technology as erotic. Thus she spends a lot of time thinking about porn. For ‘TECHNOPHILIA’, she’s created a bunch of GIFs that look like orgasms and created an installation of abstract compositions composed of cum-shots composed from her porn collections and her own open call for submitted photographs. This exhibition appeals because cum is only represented here—it’s not an actual medium. Thankfully, we’re finally past the days of Dash Snow cum drawings.

An affordable workspace conference for visual artists organized by Art F City and launched in partnership with the Queens Museum. The conference aims to give creative New Yorkers the tools to help create better neighborhoods, find and keep their rents low, and even purchase real estate and studio space. Alongside the conference, our resource center participants will be on hand to talk you through the ins and outs of affordable workspace. See the panelist bios here and the list of resource center participants here.

Schedule & Speakers

*All events take place in the Queens Museum atrium unless otherwise noted.

ArtBuilt Mobile Studio, Open Hours 11:30-2:15

Check out the ArtBuilt Mobile Studio, located next to the Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. These small, affordable mobile workspaces are designed to help artists, social-service providers and micro-businesses work in new ways and in new places. Artists Patrick Rowe and Matthew Jensen will be in residence in the mobile studio throughout the summer as part of the Studio in the Park residency program, a partnership between ArtBuilt, Queens Museum and NYC Parks.  ArtBuilt founders Guy Buckles and Esther Robinson will give tours of the studio space and discuss details of the residency and the innovative mobile studio that houses it.

Coffee, seating, and resource center 12:00 p.m. – 12:10 p.m.

Welcome 12:10 p.m.

Community, gentrification, and displacement 12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

How is gentrification affecting artists today and how can these communities use their assets to push beyond the barriers of wealth and influence? What sectors or partners can we find allies with—whether public or private—and what are the benefits and drawbacks of these arrangements?

• Nat Roe, moderator
• Chloë Bass
• Shawn McLearen
• Ambre Kelly
• Stephanie Diamond
• Wayne Hodge

Lunch and resource center check-in 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.

*My Brooklyn runs on a continuous loop in the museum’s theater.

Securing affordable workspace, lobbying, and activism 2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.

In what ways can artists preserve and protect spaces and rights we already have within our communities? How can we align our need for workspace with small business, light manufacturing, and other industries struggling to stay in New York? The panelists will explore this issue and discuss existing resources and activist efforts currently underway. They will also outline proposals for further progress.

• William Powhida, moderator
• Jenny Dubnau
• Eve Sussman
• Tamara Greenfield
• Adeola Enigbokan

Break 3:15 pm–3:30 pm

Ownership 3:30 pm–4:30 pm

How can ownership empower artists, and in a city of sky-high real estate prices, how can artists enter the market? This panel assembles artists and administrators who have practical experience securing and or administering property in the public and private spheres, and asks them how that work can empower artists today.

• Deborah Brown, moderator
• Risa Shoup
• Steven Englander
• Gabriel Florenz
• Esther Robinson

Keynote: Tom Angotti Q&A with Paddy Johnson 4:30 pm–5:00 pm

Urban-planning expert and author Tom Angotti discusses the subjects of community, activism, and ownership with Paddy Johnson and puts forward suggestions on how to move forward.

Thank you and wrap up 5:00 pm–5:30 pm

Panelist & Keynote Biographies

Tom Angotti	Chloë Bass	Deborah Brown
Keynote, professor, author	Artist	Artist, community board member

Stephanie Diamond	Jenny Dubnau	Steven Englander
Artist, Listings Project	Artist, A.S.A.P.	Director of ABC No Rio

Gabriel Florenz	Paddy Johnson	Tamara Greenfield
Artist, Pioneer Works	Editorial Director, Art F City	Spaceworks

Wayne Hodge	Ambre Kelly	Shawn McLearen
Artist	The They Co, Spring Break	Real estate developer, consultant

William Powhida	Nat Roe	Risa Shoup
Artist, Placeholder	Flux Factory, Silent Barn	REIC

Eve Sussman	Esther Robinson	Adeola Enigbokan
Artist, Loft Law	ArtHome	Artist and writer

Resource Center Participants

Navigating the New York real estate world isn’t easy. The organizations in our resource center can help.

ArtCondo
Art F City
ArtHome
ArtSpace
Artist Studio Affordability Project (ASAP)
Listings Project
New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)
Real Estate Investment Cooperative (REIC)
SpaceWorks
Triangle Arts Association
Two Trees
Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

If you’re heading out to “Stay in New York,” Art F City’s affordable workspace conference, there’s no better time than now to catch up on the issues: artists kicked out of studios, community-building legislation, and whether artists can afford real-estate in New York. Not going? We’ve compiled a lengthy guide on the state of affordable workspace in New York City, with articles from Art F City and other online publications, professional and academic studies, and books to get you started on knowing the current state of affordable studio space in New York City. Some of these resources you may be familiar with. Others have been made publicly available here for the first time.

Got any additions to the list? Leave them in the comments section below.

Art F City

• Industry City Forces Artists Out of Studios Then Launches Giant Art Show, Art F City’s first major report on developers raising rents and kicking out long-term tenants.
• Industry City Forces Artists to Move Out of Sunset Park Studios by the End of Month, a follow-up to the Industry City article, with a focus on how artist tenants were replaced by commercial clients.
• In East Williamsburg, Artist-Studio Leases Create Woes, and Some Winners, on how rents can vary greatly, even within a single building.
• The 1717 Troutman Building Kicks Out Its Galleries, landlord kicks out all artist-run galleries from the 1717 Troutman studio building.
• Redefining the Role of the Artist, a recap of “Studio in Crisis,” a panel organized by Skowhegan, Art F City, and held at Cabinet. William Powhida discusses the hard truth that artists are seen as the “enemy” by many working-class members of their communities.
• An In-Depth Discussion on How Artists Can Save Studios in NYC, Soundcloud and verbatim highlights from “Studio in Crisis.”
• A Bill to Save Your Studios, New Yorkers, on how the “Small Business Jobs Survival Act” would give small business owners (and artists) more negotiating power when renewing leases.
• Free Studio Space Does Exist and You Can Apply for It, one instance of free studio space, by the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program.
• A Look at the Creative Time Summit: Gentrification, Gentrification, and Gentrification, on what’s up with that term everyone’s using, “creative placemaking”?
• Surviving Rent: Why Artists Can’t Afford Critical Neutrality, “From the capitalist’s perspective, artists are great tenants until there is someone else willing and able to pay more.”

More Blogs! More Publications!

• Are Artists Gentrifying Sunset Park?, The L Magazine. On the precarious life of an artist, Paddy’s precursor article to Industry City pushing artists out of Sunset Park.
• Mapping New York Neighborhoods Hit Hardest By High Rents, Curbed NY. Just so you know, it’s everywhere that rent is rising.
• Can Mobile Architecture Alleviate the Affordable Studio Space Crisis? (ArtHome and Art Building), Hyperallergic. On ownership of mobile artist studios.
• Pension Fund Buys Popular Bushwick Studio Building, Hyperallergic. 90-unit studio building sold for $20.8 million under dubious circumstances.
• Hundreds Join a New Kind of Co-op to Buy Commercial Property in High-rent Areas (Caroline Woolard), Crain’s New York. Artist Caroline Woolard, with approximately 200 others, formed the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative, so that together they can purchase property.
• De Blasio to Unveil New Artist Housing, Workspace, WNYC. Will New York’s mayor be able to fulfill promises to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing, including the annual plan to build 150 units of live-work space for artists?
• The Real-Estate Artist (Theaster Gates), The New Yorker. Artist Theaster Gates buys real-estate to revitalize forgotten parts of Chicago’s South Side.
• Council to Set a Cultural Plan for New York City, The New York Times. New York plans to create a comprehensive series of goals for arts and culture in all boroughs of New York.
• Who Owns a Vacant Lot?, Shifter. W.A.G.E.’s Lise Soskolne on how developers ended up monetizing the artist’s studio, and a history of Industry City, and her personal experience with landlords.
• Brooklyn for Sale: The Price of Gentrification, a community town-hall meeting. The best panel discussion we’ve seen on gentrification in New York, ever. Race, policy, community—all the hard topics get covered here, and intelligently. Watch the whole discussion. It doesn’t get any better than this.
• Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space, Priced Out of New York, Plans Move to Detroit, M Live. Citing rising costs of real estate, the nonprofit Galapagos, made a high-profile move to Detroit.
• Where Big Art Meets Luxe Real Estate, Wall Street Journal. Even blue-chip galleries are forced to move because of property developers.
• Tenants Begin Battle for Brooklyn Loft Law, The Indypendent. Some highlights from the early history of the Brooklyn Live/Work Coalition (BLWC), which fought for protections of loft tenants.

Studies

• On the Relationship Between Social Well-Being and Economic Well-Being, University of Pennsylvania, Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert. A four-city study on economic and racial diversity and cultural assets that attempts to measure the economic impact of art on economies. This isn’t leisure reading.
• Creative New York: June 2015, Center for an Urban Future. A detailed analysis of what has changed in the city’s creative landscape over the past decade and a document of the most pressing challenges facing the city’s artists, nonprofit arts organizations, and for-profit creative firms. More optimism here than you would think: affordability is a huge issue, but New York’s creative class is growing.
• Artist’s Housing: A Survey of Live/Work Space, Carmi Bee. From 1983, a 100-plus page study on how and where artists live, beginning nearly all at once with the comment “Where do these artists live on their minimum wage?”.
• API PS109 Report. A 2006 report leading to the formation of Artspace in East Harlem. Statistics abound, including that 89 percent of artists in East Harlem were interested in relocating their practice to a multi-use facility at PS109.
• APA Manhattan 2014 Sales Report. Wondering who’s actually buying real estate in Manhattan? Wonder no longer. (Thanks to the New York Economic Development Corporation for providing the above three PDFs.)

Books

• New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate (Urban and Industrial Environments), Tom Angotti
• Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, Sharon Zukin
• Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City, Christopher Mele
• Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City (Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation), Julian Brash
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
• The Brooklyn Wars, Neil deMause (forthcoming)

As many readers know, some of the writers at Art F City have been involved in the building protest over the Brooklyn Real Estate Summit. The event will be hosted at the Brooklyn Museum, a venue many find contentious as the population it serves is currently being pushed out by the development plans proposed at this very conference. In response, AFC’s Paddy Johnson and artist William Powhida invite you to join them at their cocktail reception for “Double Crossing Brooklyn” on November 17th at 4:30. Expect dissonance.

November 8, 2015

Brooklyn Museum Presents Major Survey of Work by Brooklyn Artists On View Tuesday, November 17th,  2015

The Brooklyn Museum continues its long tradition of focusing on Brooklyn-based artists with a follow up to our landmark survey, “Crossing Brooklyn,” with a new show featuring works by over forty-five artists who live and/or work in Brooklyn. “Double Crossing Brooklyn: 6th Annual Real Estate Summit,” on view Tuesday November 17th featuring practices that span what Johanna Drucker has called “complicit aesthetics’ to Julia Bryan-Wilson’s identification of “Occupational Realism” the artists in the exhibition operate in the field of real estate that seek to erase boundaries between art and Capitalism. While most of the exhibition will take place in the museum’s galleries, there will also be counter programming off-site in the streets and public spaces of the Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibition has been organized by the collaborative team GreenPearl, founded by members  Ryan Slack, Mark Schacknies, and Nima Negahban. Slack is perhaps best known for his collaborative work, “PropertyShark”, 2002-2006, and is the lead curator of GreenPearl.  As suggested by the exhibition title, “Double Crossing Brooklyn,” the organizers have traversed the borough, in search of the area’s most successful principals in the innovative field of for-profit creative placemaking. Critiquing notions of diversity, they have selected an almost all white male roster of artists from the same field, to present the burgeoning monoculture within the borough of Brooklyn.

Art Critic Ben Davis has lavished praise on the exhibition, saying “The organizers of the Brooklyn Real Estate Summit are on the front lines of ‘complicit aesthetics.’Through their bold innovation of raising everyone’s rent, they have found a new and possibly final way to ‘dematerialize’ the art object for good, by pushing artists completely out of New York.”

The show extends the tradition of collaborations between artists and real estate developers exemplified by Lucien Smith’s one night “Macabre Suite” and No Longer Empty’s “When You Cut into the Present the Future Leaks Out”. The discussion will be continued further in “Agitprop!,” the museum’s premier winter show organized by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

Highlights from the exhibition include: David Pfeffer’s construction-based practice, “The Next Phase in Brooklyn’s Development”, Brandon Weber’s “The Second Wave: How a New Breed of Innovation will Reshape the CRE Industry Over the Next 5 Years”, and Timothy Oberweger’s project “There Goes the Neighborhood!”, which explores the bleeding edge of neighborhood transformation.  For a full list of performances and events click here.

Please join us at 4:15 pm for our networking cocktail reception in front of the Brooklyn Museum to celebrate the opening of “Double Crossing Brooklyn”.

List of artists included in the exhibition:

Richard Mack, CEO Mack Real Estate Group
Elliot Spitzer, Former NY Governor & CEO Spitzer Enterprises
Eric Adams, Borough President, Brooklyn
Brendan Aguayo, Managing Director Halstead Property Development Marketing
Andrew Barrocas, Chief Executive Officer MNS
Kunal Chothani, Regional VP – New York City Area, Akelius Residential
Jared Della Valle, President Alloy Development
Michael D’Onofrio, Managing Director Engineered Tax Services
Michael Eglit, Principal Blackstone Group
David Ehrenberg, President & CEO Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation
David Ennis, Founder & Principal The Daten Group
Chris Fischer, Chief Technology Officer Reonomy
Boaz Gilad, Co-Founder Brookland Capital
James Hedden, Chief Development Officer Rose Associates
David Heiden, Managing Partner & Director of Loan Origination W Financial
Paul Hoffmann, SVP – Special Inspections HAKS
Stephen Kliegerman, President Halstead Property Development Marketing
Jonathan Landau, Senior Account Executive Online Marketing Group
David Manheimer, Partner Brooklyn Standard
David Maundrell III, EVP – New Development, Brooklyn & Queens Citi Habitats
Andrew Miller, Owner Excelsior Equities
Jeffrey Moerdler, Member Mintz Levin
Toby Moskovits, CEO & Founder Heritage Equity Partners
Timothy Oberweger, VP – Business Development Fidelity National Title Insurance Company
David Pfeffer, Chair – Construction Practice Tarter Krinsky & Drogin
Seth Pinsky, Executive Vice President RXR Realty
Adam Popper, Managing Principal Westbrook Partners
Tucker Reed, President Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
William Robertson, Principal & Architect NBBJ
Jordan Sachs, Co-Founder & CEO Bold New York
Richard Sarkis, Chief Executive Officer Reonomy
Andrew Sasson, Director Eastern Consolidated
David Schwartz Principal Slate Property Group
Ilana Schwartz COO & EVP Online Marketing Group
Edward Setton Managing Partner  Shamah Properties
Samvir Sidhu, Founder & CEO Megalith Capital Management
Alan Silver, Director – Acquisitions Toll Brothers
Jeff Simpson, CEO Property Development Greystone
Adam Spagnolo, Director – Business Development & Marketing SGA
Jim Stein, Senior Vice President Lincoln Property
Donald Tallerman, President Online Marketing Group
Can Tavsanoglu, Director – Acquisitions & Finance XIN
Paul Travis, Managing Partner Washington Square Partners
Jameson Weber, VP – Product Strategy Hightower
Susi Yu, EVP – Development Forest City Ratner

Contact: artiststudioap@gmail.com

Detail of a Walter Scott’s “Ask Wendy” advice column for The Hairpin (August 2015).

Back in 2011 AFC asked the question, “Should I get an MFA?” At the time we leaned towards “No”. There were a number of reasons cited, the most pressing being that we believed it was too expensive and most artists could get the equivalent experience in the real world.

Five years later, has much changed? Let’s take a look:

PROS

The Studio of Eugène Delacroix. Engraving from: L’Illustration, 25 September 1852, 205, The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, T 1788.

2011/2016: Two Solid Years of Studio Time.

This benefit hasn’t changed: having the time to make your work is invaluable, and will definitely impact your artistic and intellectual growth. “The transformation of young artists during graduate school is astonishing, both in terms of the sophistication and accomplishment of the work made and because they come to understand the kind of commitment and intensity they must bring to their work to sustain it,” says Deborah Bright, Chair of Fine Arts Department at Pratt Institute in an 2014 interview with The Artist’s Magazine.

2011: Four Solid Years of Studio Time (Part-Time).

Hunter’s three-year full-time programme allows students access to studio space for longer periods of time and attend school part-time for four years. Other upside: popular open studios frequented by critics and gallerists.

Pioneered by Bard in 1981, this low-residency model offers multi-week sessions of intense on-campus work with long periods of independent study. “The idea,” said the poet Robert Kelly, who wrote the graduate school’s constitution, in a 2012 Brooklyn Rail Magazine interview, “was to create a graduate school for people who didn’t usually go to graduate school—people in the midst of their lives who wanted to reanimate their connection to art.”

2016: Three Solid Years of “Low-Residency”.

Baltimore’s Maryland Institute for the Arts and New York’s School of Visual Arts now have low-residency MFA programmes. But, according to Artsy’s recent survey of alternate MFA options, a low-residency programme, such as the one at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute, will still rack up a $90,000 tuition for the 60 credits to graduate.

 2016: MFA Subsidies and Alternatives Emerge.

Artsy mentioned Kara Walker’s decision to teach at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts as an encouraging sign that “moving away from the big brand-name programs is a better option.” Also encouraging is Rutgers’ recent decision to grant all incoming fall 2016 visual arts grad students with scholarships equivalent to a first year’s full out-of-state tuition and full in-state tuition for their second year. “As a public university, we feel that critical art practice should be the focus of our graduate program and that access should be as democratic as possible,” said Gerry Beegan, chair of the Visual Arts Department at Mason Gross when the news was reported.

But let’s not forget the existence of free artist-run schools. AFC favourite BHQFU offers a full slate of free artist-taught classes, a summer residency and even a gallery. And this fall, as reported by Artsy, they’ll be launching MFU, a new year-long programme offering five artists studio spaces at the Bruce High Quality Foundation in Brooklyn. While it’s not accredited, BHQFU outreach director and faculty member Sean J. Patrick Carney quips that “we’re going to offer everything an MFA offers including visiting artist critiques, studio visits, and an opportunity to reach, and it costs zero dollars.”

2011: You Can’t Teach Without an MFA.

Thanks to the ongoing professionalization of the art world, most teaching positions require a MFA.

2016: You Really Can’t Teach Without an MFA.

MFA remains the terminal degree for a teaching position, and in some cases, has been replaced by the PhD as a desired requirement.

2011/2016: A Built-In Lifetime Network.

While this shouldn’t be a primary motivation for getting an MFA, there’s definitely a value in the connections made with fellow students and teachers. Being a part of a supportive community, face-time with visiting gallerists and curators furthers careers; this amounts to the professional pay-off of recommendations, introductions, and even group show invitations.

2011: You’ll Learn Theory.

Theory, according to Coco Fusco in her 2013 Modern Painters Magazine rundown on a MFA’s worth, is an “aura still hang[ing] over a handful of high-profile MFA programs.” Being able to talk up the intellectual and philosophical merits of your work with critical theory artspeak terminology has traditionally given artists the intellectual arsenal to get their work picked up by critics and curators. Understanding the “contemporary art moment” (read: art world trends) can help artists navigate the changing tides of opinion, not to mention beef up their grant writing skills. Since grants can cover a huge chunk of living and work expenses, this is invaluable.

CONS

“Why are artists so fucking poor? (detail),” 2012. William Powhida for W.A.G.E., courtesy the artist

2016: Theory is Out.

As Fusco pointed out in the same article, theory is a “double-edged sword”. If the glut of artspeak-ladened e-flux press releases not to mention Alix Rule and David Levine’s International Art Speak project has taught us anything, theory can overshadow art work. Often, art speak can seem like overcompensation and worst, exclusionary, suggesting that a viewer without a certain level of higher education won’t get the work. It’s an artificial re-enforcement of the value of education. Artists should realize that being able to plainly speak about their work is a valuable skill in itself.

And, honestly? Most of us don’t need school for that. If an artist keeps up with their favourite art world blogs and publications, actively attend shows and read catalogues, they’ll easily come away with an understanding of the de rigueur theory. As well, a lot of artist-run centres offer a seasonal slate of professional development workshops that include crash courses on how to write artist’s statement.

2011: Earning Potential Improves Slightly, Slim Job Prospects.

When Paddy surveyed the following art world jobs boosted by a MFA, she reported the following pay grade:

• Art Handler (MFA recommended): $35,000-$60,000 a year
• Visual Arts Professor (MFA/MA required): $50,000-80,000 a year
• Full-Time Artist (MFA not necessary, but having it does improve your chances of commercial gallery representation and being considered for grants and residencies): $47,000 a year
• Art Critic (MA helpful, but not necessary): $30,000-$60,000 a year

2016: Earning Potential Increases for the One Percent.

If the MFA needed to secure a gallery job lands you a position of director at a blue chip contemporary gallery, the degree will more than pay for itself on sale commissions. If you have designs to work as an artist, and are hoping a gallery administrative position will sustain, those days are gone. In AFC’s 2014 interview with arts and culture recruiter Geri Thomas, she notes that the middle class squeeze is problem that affects all industries, including the art world, and administrative positions “have terribly low salaries”.

Updated data on the previously cited art world jobs supports this:

• Art Handler: $30,000 average yearly salary
• Visual Arts Professor: $49,472-$75,018 a year (this ranges from the average salary of an assistant professor to the average salary of a tenured professor)
• Full-Time Artist: $43,000 average yearly salary
• Art Critic: $35,600 average yearly salary [Executive Director’s Note: True, sadly.]

Well, that’s depressing. However, silver lining! While this is mostly focused on the job prospects of museum curators, a good point is made that with the ongoing trend of boomers retiring, there will likely be a “changing of the guard” in the job market.

2011: An MFA is Expensive.

Five years ago, the most inexpensive MFA cost a minimum of 35K. At the time, that kind of debt could be crippling for those entering the job market. There simply weren’t enough entry-level jobs that paid a fair wage. Two years later, this continued to be the takeaway: in a summary of the BFAMFAPhd collective’s Artists Report Back: A National Study on the Lives of Arts Graduates and Working Artists report, it was noted that “our higher education system is producing a vast quantity of workers with educations and expectations for high-level and high-paying jobs that simply do not exist in the quantity needed to employ all these people.”

2015: An MFA is Still Expensive.

In 2014, Jerry Saltz calls a MFA “straight-up highway robbery”. And, as The Atlantic later calculates, with the average tuition for the ten most influential MFA programs (think the usual suspects like Yale, Columbia and Goldsmiths) being 38K per year, artists are likely looking at a two-year program with the addition of room and board costing a grand total of $100,000. The Atlantic notes PayScale continues to rank MFA earnings at the bottom of their Highest Paying Graduate Degrees by Salary Potential List: “Fine Arts” is #257, with an average mid-career pay off of a $61,700 year salary. Increasingly, an MFA accounts for a very small group of the American workforce — 1.3 percent, to be precise — that adds further fuel that only those with an elite status can afford to work in the art world.

2011: Shady For-Profit Schools.

While this wasn’t noted in our piece, around this time, we all started to pick up the stench of sham degrees and schools offering a quality of education not on par with its tuition fees.

2016: Really Shady For-Profit Schools.

If the unethical treatment of USC’s MFA students taught us anything, graduate schools can be shady AF. Last year, Pell Grant Data revealed that even though only 13% of the overall college student population attend for-profit schools, “they account for nearly one-third (31 percent) of all student loans and are responsible for more than half (51 percent) of all student loan defaults”. Meanwhile, Forbes’s expose on San Francisco’s Academy of Art University pulled the curtain back on what an institution with a whopping $22,000 annual tuition offered students: not much in the diploma mill game, especially since only 32% of full-time students actually graduated.

The weather might suck today, but tomorrow, life’s a beach.

That’s right: the annual AFC fundraiser party SPRNG BRK is happening tomorrow, 6:00 p.m. at Otto’s Shrunken Head in the East Village. If you don’t have your tickets yet, act now, because they’re selling fast.

We’re going to party like it’s the MTV Beach House in 1999, with vegan jello shots, a “Best Man Boobs in the Art World” wet t-shirt contest (email us to enter for a free ticket!) hosted by Jaimie Warren, a limbo contest hosted by drag superstar Whitney Biennial and Monica Lopez de Victoria of the TM Sisters, and much, much more. We’re also honoring the decades-long career of feminist artist Carol Cole, screening a piece by Ryan Trecartin, and dancing all night to the musical stylings of international DJ Marcelo Cunning. That’s just the tip of the iceberg in our margarita. It will be a gala gone wild.

To get yourself psyched, check out our Paddle8 auction featuring pieces from artists such as William Powhida, Carlos Rigau, and more. And check out these Spring Break GIFs:

Even FOX News is excited:

Ralph Wolfe Cowan’s “The Entrepreneur” (2002). Credit: Artist/Hyperallergic

• Meet Ralph Wolfe Cowan, the man who painted an “oil sketch” portrait of Donald Trump and was then hounded for 15 years to “finish” it. [Hyperallergic]
• Psychologist Vittoria Ardino, president of the Italian Society for the Study of Traumatic Stress, looks at drawings left behind by Syrian refugee children in a Milan train station. Yes, this is as depressing as you’d expect. [NPR]
• Bad news for parts of Bushwick and pretty much all of Ridgewood: the last leg of the M train will close for repairs next summer. This is to prepare the line for the expected overcrowding when the MTA shuts down the L train in 2017. [New York Post]
• David Pagel slams Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis’s show at Gagosian’s Beverly Hills branch: “if Israel and Ellis collaborate again, do it on billboards. Or in magazines. Leave the canvas for painters.” [Los Angeles Times]
• Tom Sachs has two exhibitions and one film opening this Spring. I (Michael) love Tom Sachs, but both of these things sound like Tom Sachs has run out of stuff to make out of other stuff. Now we’re left with boomboxes and tea ceremonies? What? Both of these sound like projects that would come about as the result of (two very different) commissions sponsored by a sneaker brand or Japan’s tourism board, respectively. [The Wall Street Journal]
• Two major Asian collectors have announced plans to build major museums in South and Southeast Asia. One of them, Indonesian businessman Haryanto Adikoesoemo, is funding all by himself a 43,000 square foot museum that will be part of his new business and residential development in Jakarta’s western Kebon Jeruk district. The institution’s director says that the museum won’t revolve around Adikoesoemo’s collection. (Yeah, I know.) [Art Newspaper]
• The TL;DR version of this feature on making it as a working artist in New York? Don’t expect to survive on the gallery system. It’s a long read, but the two depressing takeaways are as follows: Ryder Ripps compares himself to Donald Trump, adding credence to the theory that he has built his career success on being a troll, suggesting that the internet’s attention economics has finally trickled down into the art world. If you wanna get on top, embrace personal brand valuation (read: ego fascism). And even if you have gallery representation, you can still lose out: William Powhida, also profiled, says he’s represented by four galleries but lost 12k last year on his art. [Crain’s]

Cao Fei’s photographs of Chinese cosplayers, among other works, will be on view at MoMA PS1 starting Sunday

Spring is in the New York air, and with it, a sense of fantastical possibility. Tuesday, head to BRIC to hear from powerful women in the music industry who overcame the glass ceiling to live the dream. Wednesday, Simone Subal Gallery has a show of reality-warping paintings and Thursday the New Museum is hosting a panel discussion with artists who try to do it all. Friday night, Nic Rad’s solo show at Victori + Mo imagines an art-historical alter ego to combat zombie formalism with Ab-Ex passion and millennial pop references. At Bannerette, Ash Ferlito and Clare Torina explore the potentials of oil and other media in a playful two person show. End the night drinking maybe-imaginary beer at Brooklyn’s ALL WHITE MALE ART SHOW (don’t worry, that name’s just a fantasy too).

But the weekend is where things get really surreal: Saturday is an all-day virtual reality team hackathon that invites visitors to construct their own immersive dreamscapes using a high-tech installation at Storefront for Art and Architecture. Sunday, Cao Fei gets her first museum show in the US at MoMA PS1. Expect photos of live-action-roleplaying Chinese anime fans and narratives from her Second Life avatar.

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Tue

BRIC

647 Fulton St
Brooklyn, NY
7:00 p.m.Website

The Stoop Series: Breaking the Glass Ceiling; A Conversation with Women Executives in the Music Industry

I can’t say I recognize the names of any of the executives in this talk, which is almost certainly the result of being stuck in an art bubble. We recommend bursting that bubble. The last talk we say at BRIC focused on gentrification and was literally the best discussion we saw that year. This discussion includes Leota Blacknor VP, Urban Marketing & Label Acquisitions at Caroline Records; Katie Schlosser, Head of Label Relations for North America at Spotify; Nicole George-Middleton, Vice President of Membership, Rhythm & Soul, at ASCAP; and others. The discussion will be moderated by Anastasia Wright, owner of communications company IMG Agency, and Executive Director of Minds Behind the Music, Inc.

Wed

Simone Subal Gallery

131 Bowery
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.Website

Surface Tension

No information what this show is even about exists on any listings we’ve seen or the gallery’s website. But, Margot Bergman’s fucked up portrait titled Lulu, in which she renders a face within a face has us curious. And we’ve written about Gavin Kenyon before—he offers a similarly bleak view of humanity with his homicidal axes and plaster beef carcasses. We don’t expect this show to offer much of a “pick me up”.

Artists: Margot Bergman, Anna Glantz, Philip Hanson, Gavin Kenyon, Grace Weaver

Thu

New Museum

235 Bowery
New York, NY
7:00 p.m.Website

First Look: SOPHIE Presents Pupture

 

Let’s start off by acknowledging that yes, the photo for this event is a terrifying-looking sex toy. But perhaps that’s an apt metaphor for the often uncomfortable challenges (or rewards?) faced by artists who want to have their fingers in all the pies. Artist/music producer SOPHIE will be hosting this panel discussion on the idea of “synthesis” in one’s artistic practice. There’s a great line-up of genre-blurring artists invited: Gerry Bibby, Hayden Dunham, FlucT, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, and Henrik Oleson. If you’re interested in collaboration, sculptors becoming dancers becoming video artists, and the crossover between the worlds of music and visual art, this is the talk for you.

Fri

Victori + Mo

56 Bogart St
Brooklyn, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.Website

Nic Rad: Perennial Millennial

Expressionist mark-making, an overload of accumulated found objects and symbols, absurd text—there’s a lot going on in Nic Rad’s colorful canvasses. And they’re bigger than they look in photos, some are as tall as the artist himself. Rad’s equally colorful artist statement is larger-than-life, featuring a mythological hybrid of Ab-Ex legends, “Jackson Johns”, who returns from exile in the midwest as a millennial in order to do battle with zombie formalism, and this anecdote from AFC’s very own SPRNG BRK Fundraiser:

“Last week at Otto’s Shrunken Head, just before the Man Boob competition, and right after Carol Cole gave a nice speech about her work and journey as an artist, William Powhida was telling me about his upcoming museum show, based 50 years in the future. ‘Maybe all shows from now on should be genre shows,’ he told me. Yes dude! Maybe they already are.”

Bannerette

52 Tompkins Ave,
Brooklyn, NY
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.Website

Everybody’s Fool

This is a two-person show from Ash Ferlito and Clare Torina that’s likely to be a little bit cute, a little bit funny, and peppered with moments of unexpected poignancy. We’re not sure what will be on display here, but Ash Ferlito works in a variety of 2D and 3D media—from embroidery and papier-mâché to oil painting—with a sensitivity to different materials’ graphic qualities and how those might construct an image (or not). Clare Torina is a painter whose compositions might include elements of naïve still life, patterning, cartoon-like illustration, and provisional painting. They have a goofy quality that feels calculated without coming across as flippant, and they’re really, really enjoyable to look at. 

272 Seigel

272 Seigel St,
Brooklyn, NY
7:00 p.m.- 1:00 a.m.Website

ALL WHITE MALE ART SHOW

This April Fools themed show gets inclusion just for its appropriately deliberately misleading title. A quick skim of the invite reveals no familiar names, but we’re going because the event promises affordable works such as multiples and bottomless beer (while supplies last) for $5. Then again, it is an April Fools show and “Free Beer” is the oldest trick in the book. Crap. Did I just fall for that?

Audrey Lyall, Allin Skiba, Sarah Aineb, Astrid Terrazas, Lorra Barile, Nikki Freyermuth, Cordelia Trupin, Janice Taylor, Jem Kurbanova, Kate Sherman, Safat Ara, Mallory Smith, Helen Warren, Ben Evans, Jonell Josiah, Jeremy Wood, Ruojin Wang, Moran Smithwick, Tessa Kerpan, Mars Murray, Justine Reyes, Sunny Pojdl, Jacob Consenstein, Tyler Schoeber, Savannah Galvin, Amira Hasib, Sinjun Strom, Maddy Franklin.

Sat

Storefront for Art and Architecture

97 Kenmare St
New York, NY
11:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.Website

Some More World Games: Virtual Reality Hackathon

The future is now and it’s pretty damn cool.

The Storefront for Art and Architecture has a VR installation from Farzin Farzin up right now that comprises a custom headset affixed to a track on the ceiling. Visitors can use this to navigate a wholly immersive world. But Saturday, teams are invited to spend the day creating their own environments which will be displayed at the end of the hack-a-thon. If you’d like to participate, register now—space is limited to 20 people.

SCHEDULE

Hackathon 

11:00 am – 11:15 am – Introductions with lead hackers; tour of installation

11:15 am – 11:30 am – Overview of assets; team assignments

11:30 am – 2:30 pm – Breakout hacking and world creation

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm – Break

3:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Projects uploaded to headsets; testing on track; group troubleshooting

5:30 pm – 6:00 pm – Break

Public Presentation

6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Public presentation and testing followed by Q&A and wine reception

With team leaders: Kaho Abe, Ezio Blasseti, Nick Fox-Geig, Tims Gardner, Farzin Lotfi-Jam, Ramsey Nasser, Daniel Perlin, Dan Taeyoung, George Valdes + team

Sun

MoMA PS1

22-25 Jackson Ave.
Long Island City, NY
12:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Website

Cao Fei

How is it possible this is the first museum show in the US for artist Cao Fei? She’s been an art star for at least 10 years. In any event, we’ve got one now and it will look at the work she’s made over the last twelve years. In her 2004 piece “Cos Players” Fei created a surrealist plot and invited Cos Players—Chinese groups of young people that gather to dress up as imaginary Japanese anime characters—to enact it. In 2007, she spent over a year in Second Life as her avatar “China Tracy” to produce a three part documentary on life in the city. Expect to see all this work and more in the show. 

James Mellick, Wounded Warrior Dogs. Image via: MLive.com

• Ooooh. Production drawings from the 1960’s T.V. series, “Batman”. [Batgirl Bat-trap]
• Don’t buy your art off e-bay. The company reportedly made 1.4 billion in the in the UK, but paid just 1 million in taxes. (hat tip: Paul B. Davis) [The Guardian]
• James Mellick and Stacey Kirby win ArtPrize’s top honors this year. Mellick produced a series of wooden dog sculptures with prosthetics and Kirby a series of performances set within site-specific installations that examine government processes [artnet News]
• More on Chinatown’s gentrification—this time with some good news. A small 20-unit apartment building in Chinatown will receive $2.2 million towards not only preserving its affordability but making it more sustainable. [Curbed]
• Why You Shouldn’t Live in New York. A new 20×200 print by William Powhida. My favorite line item: Graffiti tours. [20×200]
• Speaking of getting away: here are the best places to escape the art world (in L.A.) [Artillery]
• File under fodder: according to Time, Ronald McDonald is lying low until the crown craze is over. Is this a bullshit story dreamed up by McDonalds? That mascot’s been laying low for the last 15 years. I thought the company had moved on to new touchstones—like Dash Snow. [Time]

When I did sleep last night, I dreamed I was stuck in a small hovel trying to hide from an evil demon. I told my friend there was a demon outside, but he let him in anyway and then left me to defend myself. Somehow, I knew I’d be doing it for a long time—this wasn’t the first time I had the nightmare.

The symbolism in my dreams—when it exists at all—has never been anything but obvious. I woke up to the light of my phone. It was 3 am, but there was so much activity in response to the election, that the battery was drained and the screen was on.  Donald Trump’s win of the election was already taking a toll. No one I knew slept for more than three hours.

Now, a few short hours later, I sit at my desk contemplating  my role as an art blogger and critic—one I generally define as tying larger subjects back to art. Today, I don’t see the benefit in doing that. I don’t think the world needs a briefing on the art world’s reactions to this. Anyone who cares can look it up on facebook (or our links).

But past that, Donald Trump’s presidency is a problem larger than art can solve. He’s a threat to the nation state, our democracy and almost certainly, the world economy and any semblance of peace. We know this because over the course of the election we’ve heard him talk about tearing up our trade agreements, disengaging from NATO, and ending any effort to address climate change. He’s threatened the freedom of the press, the civil rights of American Citizens and the autonomy of the courts and the Federal Reserve. That’s to say nothing of what will happen to health care, or the effects of his actions towards women.

With the Senate, the House and the White House now in Republican control, the prospect of containing the damage feels like an insurmountable challenge—one even the best of us feel daunted by. Early this morning I got a text from satirical artist William Powhida informing me that he’d deleted all of his social media accounts. “There isn’t a symbolic way out,” he wrote. I started to cry.

There’s isn’t a positive way to spin this. I am afraid for our future, which is uncertain at best. But I also know that if we want to survive the next four years we need to find some hope. Three words and gestures this morning helped me inch towards that.

David Remnick at 2:40 am at the New Yorker describing the job ahead:

…despair is no answer. To combat authoritarianism, to call out lies, to struggle honorably and fiercely in the name of American ideals—that is what is left to do. That is all there is to do.

This morning, Slack founder Stewart Butterfield paraphrasing Winston Churchill over twitter. “Never waste a crisis.”

And this afternoon, a pick-me-up from good friend, who sharing my despair, invited me to the opening of BRIC’s Biennial because “it is important to remind [ourselves] that good things exist still.”

Each gave me a different lens with which to look towards the future, but it was the art I so readily disavowed earlier in this post, that reminded me how important it is to keep going. Paintings and sculptures can’t solve our problems, but they can give us the courage to address them. On a day like today, the value of those qualities can not be overstated.

The entrance to UNTITLED.

Evidence that the election results have had any impact on the art fairs were scant at best yesterday. Artist Jason Lazarus told me he kept hearing that this was the year artists would skip, but as I walked around UNTITLED., I didn’t notice any fewer artists then usual. I witnessed plenty of sales, though, and the dealers mostly seemed pleased. Collectors are aware of their upcoming tax windfall.

The only visible sign of negative election effects I noticed was a quiet anxiety amongst the non-collector class. One American artist currently living in China told me he arrived nervously looking to see if he could spot Donald Trump supporters — he spoke about them if they were a curiously new and potentially dangerous species. Robert Dimin, a partner at Denny Gallery lamented the short term thinking of collectors who voted for bank deregulation over the safety of the planet. “Best case scenario, the country’s economy is destroyed” I told him. “Worst case we’re all dead,” he replied laughing. Neither one of us thought this was a funny joke, but that didn’t stop me from laughing so hard I nearly cried.

Meanwhile, a steady stream of men in suits and women wearing patterned capes flowed in and out of the UNTITLED. “It was really busy between 4-6” Lindsay Stapleton of GRIN told me. “then they all left for a mystery event.” “Dinner,” I told her.

All and all the show looked good, thanks in no small part to their trademark tent, which is brightly lit and notable for its wide aisles spacious booths. Notably, though, it lacked in political art. Given that this is the only show that boasts a curator it’s hard not to be a little disappointed with this outcome. I get that this is a shopping mall for collectors who mostly voted for Republican President-Elect Donald Trump, but if artists overwhelmingly didn’t support him, perhaps there should be more than a t-shirt making stand with Rirkrit Taravanjia in the programming. (To be fair, there are political statements on some of those t-shirts, but it’s not enough.) Artistic Director Omar López-Chahoud with curators Christophe Boutin and Melanie Scarciglia could do better.

Donald Trump coronation

In the end, it was up to the galleries that carried politically motivated artists to present work of that nature, and most of them didn’t. Postmasters stepped up to the plate with works by Molly Crabapple and William Powhida (amongst others) and that was about it. A Molly Crabapple drawing of Trump’s coronation made up for a lot of what this fair was missing, though. In the piece, a tiny naked Trump figure in yellow stands in front of a larger than life screen picturing an angry Trump about to put on a crown made of the American flag. Red splotches of paint read like blood splatters. The drawing works for its simplicity. There’s no mistaking that media amplification is a real and dangerous thing.  And there is no mistaking that in reality, Donald Trump is just a pathetic little man.

HIGHLIGHTS

Orkideh Torabi at Western Exhibitions. Torabi’s images showcase different types of masculine identity in Iran. Her paint looks like silkscreen ink.

A phenomenal installation design by Postmasters Gallery. This is the way to do it. I’m told the blue stripe was matched to the Miami sky.

Brenna Murphy at UPFOR. An incredible jump in skill by Brenna Murphy here. It’s a lot of what she’s known for—3D renderings and prints inspired by labyrinth like structures, but the addition of reflective surface adds another necessarily level to the maze. This is a must see booth.

Dittrich & Schlechtriem consistently brings a selection of cheeseball work to UNTITLED., so I’m surprised to be listing them here. But, the ceramic patterns so well match the black and white pattern paintings in this booth that I found myself returning to this section.

A bizarre collection of cat drawings and mermaids by Irena Jurek at Jeff Bailey. As a disclaimer Jurek is an occasional contributor to AFC, but these drawings would have made our highlights regardless as I like most things I could never have imagined myself.

These Matthew Stone collages of scanned images and paint at The Hole are pretty good, but the booth gets a nod for owner Kathy Grayson posing with her dog in front of the painting for this photographer. And to be fair, the dog does match the painting perfectly.

Rachel Stern. who will be presenting work at Crushed: The Brooklyn Dirty Book Fair. 

While the big galleries are still at the beach, the city’s museums and artist-run initiatives continue to keep us on our toes. Case and point: the Whitney’s opening the first US retrospective of Brazilian art/activism pioneer Hélio Oiticica on Friday. Speaking of art/activism, there are plenty of opportunities to get engaged this week, including talks at SVA on Wednesday and SOHO20 gallery on Sunday. The weekend’s real highlight, though, is Crushed, the inaugural Brooklyn Dirty Book Fair. Organized by former AFC teammate Matthew Leifheit, we’re expecting that to be great. Artist-made porn? Weird performances involving cake? A pop-up exhibition of vintage queer zines? Check, check, and check! We’ll see you there!

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Wed

Whitney Museum of American Art

99 Gansevort Street
New York, NY
2:00 p.m. Website

Calder Activation: Goldfish Bowl

The Whitney’s current Alexander Calder show offers something different: staff “activate” his sculptures  by gently prodding them so visitors can see them in motion, as the artist intended. Wednesday afternoon, head to the Hurst Family Galleries on the 8th floor, where Calder’s 1929 “Goldfish Bowl” will be brought to life. “Goldfish Bowl” is a really cute piece, and seeing it in motion is a rare opportunity.

SVA

335 West 16th Street
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Website

Talk: The Artist as Activist

These days, it seems like we all have to become activists. Here’s a panel discussion from artists who have been doing it for years, including AFC friend William Powhida. The other panellists include critic Ben Davis, Brooklyn artist Shaun Leonardo, artist/organizer/documentarian Daniel Tucker, and the conceptual/social practice artist Caroline Woolard. This is a room of some seriously smart (and opinionated) people.

 

Thu

Kate Werble Gallery

83 Vandam St.
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Website

in the hopes of not being considered

Curated by Nick Morgan, this exhibition focuses on artists working at the height of the AIDS epidemic when it hit the art world hardest. This might be a tear-jerker, but the curatorial statement sounds uplifting as well, with works “share a yen for the decorative, the opaque and the ravishing. These artists don’t countenance a divide between their visual and conceptual approaches and their modes of opposition in times of strife. Mixing the gritty and the glittery, they instead explore the extravagant, the outmoded, the decadent, the degenerate, the outré, the déclassé, the scandalous, the gross, the indecipherable, and, with special urgency, the melancholic. They present messages that can’t be easily decoded, and images that do not wish to be identified. “

Artists: Ross Bleckner, Chris Bogia, Julien Ceccaldi, Arch Connelly, Howard Cruse, Arnold Fern, Eve Fowler, Richard Hawkins, Roberto Juarez, Bradley Kronz, Sam Lipp, Libby Rothfeld, Ahbe Sulit, Ken Tisa, and Carrie Yamaoka

Fri

Whitney Museum of American Art

99 Gansevort Street
New York, NY
10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.Website

Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium

When I think about an optimism and aesthetic so vibrant that it can’t be contained in just one creative practice, Hélio Oiticica comes to mind. The Brazilian artist’s colorful oeuvre spilled across painting, sculpture, film, immersive architectural spaces—all with a socially-conscious political sensibility and seemingly incongruous cheery tropical-pop vibe. What all of Oiticica’s work shares in common is a passionate appeal for engagement from the viewer. It’s remarkable that this is the artist’s first major retrospective in a US museum, and should make for a memorable experience.

Arsenal Contemporary

214 Bowery
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Website

Sticky Fingers

This multidisciplinary group show promises “works evoke the fragile tangibility of the human body, intertwining materiality with theatrical playfulness.” In the case of Meriem Bennani’s multimedia works, that can mean humorous takes on gender and cultural difference  (she once made a fake reality TV starring herself as an over-the-top hijab designer). Elizabeth McIntosh, on the other hand, might evoke the body through slightly-feminine abstract paintings with allusions to flesh. This should be a good group show.

Artists: Meriem Bennani, Elizabeth Jaeger, Wanda Koop, Piotr Lakomy, An Te Liu, Elizabeth McIntosh, Caroline Mesquita, Louise Sartor

Sat

Point Green

260 Java St.
Brooklyn, New York
11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.Website

Crushed: Brooklyn Dirty Book Fair

In the increasingly crowded world of artist-run book fairs, this one stands out for several reasons. First of all, it’s organized by AFC alum and former VICE photo editor Matthew Leifheit (publisher of MATTE  Magazine). Secondly, it’s dedicated to “dirty books”. Think lots of sex-positive art smut.

The fair runs all day Saturday and Sunday, with secret-address after parties, screenings, performances, and the exhibition Nudes & Eroticism: in memory of George Pitts, which will feature queer zines from the collection of Phil Aarons.

Here’s a full list of participants:

Alphachanneling, Heather Benjamin, Lex Brown/Badlands Unlimited, Jeffrey Cheung/Unity Press, Anthony Cudahy/Slow Youth, Lindsay Dye, John Edmonds, Vivian Fu, Gay Sex is the Answer, Jeremy O. Harris, Gideon Jacobs, Math Magazine, Mark W. McKnight, Ben McNutt, Azikiwe Mohammed, Momma Tried, Heinzfeller Nileisist, Larissa Pham/Badlands Unlimited, Signe Pierce, Jack Pierson, Bella Provan, Kyle Quinn/Raw Meat Collective, Elizabeth Renstrom, Alex Thebez/Tag Tag Tag, Gabriel Sacco, Ben Shapiro, Rachel Stern, Chloe Wise, Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez/Picture Newspaper

Printed Matter

231 Eleventh Ave.
New York, NY
4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Website

Summer Clearance Sale – Kick-Off Party

Everyone might be freaking out about Amazon Prime Day this week, but the real deals for art lovers are to be had at Printed Matter. For the rest of the month, the art bookstore will be offering discounts up to 50%, so it’s a good time to stock up on some weird summer reading. They’re kicking off the sale with a party featuring drinks and music from DJ Mira Mira (Chulita Vinyl Club) and DJ Elosi.

Re: Art Show

630 Flushing Avenue,
Brooklyn, New York
6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. Website

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: One Year Anniversary

For a year now, artist/curators Erin Davis and Max C Lee have taken over the former Pfizer building in Bushwick and transformed it into an ongoing, evolving art exhibition. Artists are invited to respond to the postindustrial context as well as interventions left by other artists. The result is a big fun show that always includes something interesting. The anniversary party also sounds like it will be a blast, and features eclectic attractions such as “Live hair painting” (?) by Jarrett Key, an installation of “leftover Pfizer-junk” from KC Tidemand, music from trans latinx noise artist Reagan Holiday.

This iteration of the show includes works by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Peter Clough, Jarrett Key, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Tiffany Smith, Mike Hack, Phoebe Grip, Patrick McNabb, Erin Davis / Max C Lee, Nick Alciati, I-Chuan Lee, Marvin Touré, Banrei, Reagan Holiday, Liz Zito, Sessa Englund, Fana Feng, UV Production House, KC Tidemand, and Dana Davenport.

Sun

Point Green

260 Java Street
Brooklyn, NY
5:00 p.m.Website

Lindsay Dye and M Lamar at Crushed

We’re intrigued by Lindsay Dye’s performance, described as “Live Cake Sitting”. That’s the kind of thing you usually only see in the most specific corners of the internet. Sunday at 5, you’ll be able to experience this magic in the flesh in Greenpoint.

Then at 6 p.m., the always fabulous M Lamar will be debuting the work in progress “multi-sensory live performance ‘American Cuck’.” Don’t miss this opportunity.

SOHO20 Gallery

56 Bogart Street
Brooklyn, NY
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Website

Tool Share Roundtable: Art and Activism

2017 Residency Lab artist Sarah G. Sharp has organized this event for artists to talk and skill-share activist strategies. Panelists will address everything from the global political crisis to the local.

Speakers include Tali Hinkis (half of art duo LoVid), Wazhmah Osman (a professor and documentary maker who focuses on globalization and war), Lizzie Scott (artist and public education activist) and Douglas Everett Turner (founder of Architecture of Tomorrow).

Good evening! Hello! I started a podcast with artist William Powhida! You read that right. This right here is the inaugural episode of “Explain Me”, an art podcast that talks about the latest art news and exhibitions through the lens of politics, money and the moral of responsibility of artists. To do this, we bring together the point of view of an artist and a critic, a perspective you won’t get anywhere else.

We release a new episode on Mondays of the first and third week each month. We’ll always update the blog with a link, but you can also find us on iTunes and Stitcher.

In this first pod, we discuss Documenta’s massive overspending and near bankruptcy, the closure of Bruce High Quality Foundation University, and a new development along the 7 line describing itself as New York’s best installation. We also talk about a few shows we’ve seen recently in Chelsea: Kara Walker at Sikkema Jenkins, Christian Marclay at Paula Cooper, Tom Friedman at Luhring Augustine, Franklin Evans at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, Maya Lin at Pace, Robert Motherwell at Paul Kasmin, and Celeste Dupuy Spencer at Marlborough Gallery. Expect honesty. Expect opinions. And expect freewheeling conversation fueled by camaraderie and a general disappointment with the ways are turning out for us all.

Omer Fast installation at James Cohan Gallery

The new Explain Me podcasts have dropped! This week William Powhida and I did more than we anticipated, so there are two podcasts. The first is a discussion with L.A.Times Staff Writer Carolina A. Miranda (also known as @cmonstah on Twitter) about what David Geffen’s $150 million donation to The Los Angeles County Museum of Art means to the institution. We get into the politics of architecture and discuss speculation over where Geffen’s own collection will land. Later we discuss the recent anti-gentrification protests  in Boyle Heights, and how their take-no-prisoners approach has forced one gallery, PSSST to close. Long story short, when it comes to the LA art scene, Miranda is pretty much the most informed human being on the planet. So, we had her on the show. Listen to the podcast below, on Stitcher, and on iTunes.

In part two, “Making Monstrosity Visible in Three Parts”, Powhida and I get to discussing some art. We talk about the Trevor Paglen exhibition at Metro Pictures, which is creepy as fuck. (We also take issue with New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz’s review on the subject.) We look at Ellie Ga at Bureau, who sensitively touches on the horror of the Syrian refugee crisis. And finally, we take a look Omer Fast show at James Cohen gallery, which is currently at the center of controversy. Numerous protestors have taken issue with Fast’s decision to transform the gallery into a Chinese bus station, and have accused the artist of yellowface. We take a look at the protestors message, Fast’s installation and videos and try to identify where things went wrong. It’s a great discussion and one I hope you’ll tune into. Listen to this podcast below, on Stitcher and on iTunes.

This week on Explain Me, William Powhida and I talk to Kenny Schachter about the art world and it’s problem with truth. In addition to a bunch of talk about the upper tier—Schachter’s speciality—we grill him on the troubles of the middle tier, which he mostly describes as cyclical and thus not as bad as they seem. Tune in for the back and forth on this—we disagreed. We also discuss the market for Yayoi Kusama, Joe Bradley, Israel Lund, and a slew of unnamed middle tier artists trying to make a go of it in an unfriendly market environment.

You can always find the podcast on Art F City, but remember we’re also on iTunes and Stitcher. Also, we have another bonus episode slated to run at the end of the week filled with reviews and news, so look forward to that.

William Powhida

Charity auctions are a great way to acquire art while supporting the arts organizations you love. So, if you’ve listened to our new podcast, “Explain Me” hosted by yours truly (Paddy Johnson) and artist William Powhida, or would like to see “We’re So Not Getting the Security Deposit Back: A Guide to Defunct Artist Spaces” come to your town, consider bidding in our paddle8 auction. William Powhida has donated a letterpress print (shown above) that will directly benefit the production of our podcast, Richard Kern has offered a butt, Zoe Crosher‘s photograph from her Manifest Destiny Billboard Project is damn near canonical (and missing a bid), and there are plenty of other artists to chose from. The auction ends November 14th at 5 pm, so get your bids in now!

Meanwhile, if you have chance, I spent a bit of time chatting with Paddle8 over text message and the conversation turned out really well. (I was asked who my dream “Explain Me” guest was and decided it was economist Paul Krugman. If any readers have an in, let me know!) The texts are worth checking out, if for no other reason, than for the amazing AILADI stickers I had a chance to use!)

Bobby Anspach’s “Bobby’s World”. Image: Art F City

Last week William Powhida and I spent an enormous amount of time at the Spring Break Art Show. We had so much to say about the show we produced two podcasts and discussed many booths at length. In the first podcast, we give the lay of the land in art fair world (we discuss the character of other fairs, and SPRING/BREAK), identify themes, and get the bad art out of the way. We also collect a few pitches from those in booths, so those who couldn’t attend the fair could get a sense of what it was like. In the second podcast we go deep on a few booths and try to give a more thorough analysis of what we saw.

There are however some limitations to what we can do with a podcast, and one of them is visuals. Handily, Art F City manages those just fine, so in this post I assemble images of a lot of the work we discuss so that listeners have a few cues.  That said, a disclaimer needs to be made: some of these photographs suck. I’ve tried whenever possible to use press images, but in some cases, I wasn’t able to make that happen. You’ll know the difference, and I’m sorry.

Download us on iTunes and Stitcher. 

TRENDS: Immigration

Goodbye Columbus curated by Aden and Auyers

Souvenir Shop: Cultural Tips for New American Under Trump. Curated by: Ksenia M. Soboleva

Material Girls: Xenomorphs

TRENDS: Queer Political Art

Macon Reed’s “A Pressing Conference” curated by Helen Toomer.

TRENDS: Wellness and Meditation

Evan Yee, “The Museum From the Future”

TRENDS: Science Fiction and Escapism

Kellesimone Waits “AstroBunnies and Astro Kitties”  curated by Sara Driver

Ryan Michael Ford

TRENDS: Protest Art

 Fernando Orellana, “You’ll Never Know We Were Here”.

TRENDS: Horror

Michael Gaughran’s “Horrorscapes”

When Darkness Loves Us curated by Kelsey and Remy Bennet

MEDIUM TRENDS: Interactive

Self on the Shelf curated by Christine Mealy

Skou Echochamber curated by Gabriel Barcia Colombo Foo

INSTAGRAM FRIENDLY ART

Installation view of James Ostrer, “Johnny Just Came,” curated by Azu Nwgbogu at Spring/Break, 2018. Courtesy of Spring/Break Art Show. Photo by Samuel Morgan Photography.

BAD ART

A VR Experience by Rigiobody curated by Maria Kozak and Jane Hamil

Andy Harman

Cade Tompkins Art

ART DISCUSSED AT LENGTH

“Secret Identities The Amazing Blackman and other comics” – Kumasi J Barnett. Curated by Jac Lahav of “Who Let the Dogs Out” at last year’s Spring Break

Fall On Your Sword’s “Hard or Soft Option” curated by Amber Kelly and Andrew Gori

Elektra KB’s “Freedom School”

Macon Reed’s “A Pressing Conference” curated by Helen Toomer.

Bobby Anspach’s “Bobby’s World”. Image: Art F City

Howard Hurst: Pscyhic Pharmacy. “Fuck Your Salad”, incorrectly identified in the podcast as “Toss Your Salad”.

I bought this little basket! View of “Ours,” curated by Dominic Nurre and Lynn Sullivan, at the 2018 Spring/Break Art Show. Photo: MAXIMILÍANO DURÓN/ARTNEWS

“Goodbye Columbus” curated by Aden and Ayers. Joseph Ayers, “Nat’l Beauty”

From The Last Equestrian Portrait.  “The Pasture no. 14, by Christopher K Ho,

Wong Ping, Wong Ping’s Fables 1, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong

In this episode of Explain Me, Paddy Johnson and William Powhida discuss the New Museum Triennial Songs for Sabotage. Both Johnson and Powhida agree this show has more of its fair share of bad art but only Powhida sees this as a dealbreaker. Debate ensues. The ad in which Pepsi and model Kendall Jenner create world peace gets a mention.

Thanks to Explain Me sponsor, Superfine

Lydia Ourahmane, “Finitude, 2018, Courtesy of the Artist

Chemu Ng’ok Image via: Hyperallergic

Anupam Roy installation view

Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, The New Zimbabwe (2018) at “2018 Triennial: Songs

Manolis D. Lemos, dusk and dawn look just the same (riot tourism), 2017 (still). Courtesy of the artist and CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery, Athens

Haroon Gunn-Salie “Senzenina” (2018), an installation by the South African artist Haroon Gunn- Salie, memorializes the 2012 police massacre of striking miners in his homeland.

Hardeep Pandhal, Pool Party Pilot Episode, 2018, 4K animation, color, sound; 8:10 min. Hardeep Pandhal.

Tomm El-Saieh

Tiril Hasselknippe, installation view

PRONOUNCIATION GUIDE

Gary Carrion-Murayari

** Carry-on Mur-uh-yar-ee

Tomm El-Saieh

** El-say

Lydia Ourahmane

** Oura-ha-mane

Chemu Ng’ok

** Chem-oo Nuh-gok

Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude

** Tap-ee-wa Naw-u-deh

Manolis D. Lemos

** Man-o-lis Lem-os

Tiril Hasselknippe

** Tir-ill Has-ul-nip

Hardeep Pandhal

** Pand-al

Haroon Gunn-Salie ** Sal-ley

Anupam Roy

** A-new-pam

We cover a lot of ground in this episode of Explain Me. That ground looks something like this:

• The Velvet Buzzsaw is a bad movie.
• Mary Boone is still awaiting sentencing for falsifying tax documents—a whistleblower could get as much as $300,000 in reward for the tip.
• Dawn Clements is remembered at Pierogi.
• Dana Schutz’s first show since the controversy over her painting of Emmitt Till at the Whitney Biennial.
• Chelsea is more woke.
• W.A.G.E. is asking artists to withhold their art from the Whitney Biennial until the museum adequately address the issue of their board chair selling tear gas used on children at the border.
• Amazon is reaching out to artists in attempts to buy their support. Listeners who want to organize against this kind of practice should attend the next Artist Studio Affordability Project meeting. Contact the organization for details.