tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36372544081615108542024-03-05T04:11:41.504-05:00dérive in a gridded worldwalking, thinking, and being - semi-aimlessly - in the summer of 2008. NYC and beyond.jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-2219374604178655742011-06-08T16:12:00.047-04:002011-06-17T13:56:58.660-04:00[flo#4] - Long Island City<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXITlt0qdRn6EMdN6ZSr4rzC-kmIs-DKaJf4MSDA0hlmIO8MzPkmZQpP0210-0a70g7SCnExJG-0rGk8QCm_-hcWslN9Bp057CiFj5t0UmzR0MsrGzh7Bnzk0J0ZrxKUVUwcenNp48E8/s1600/flo-4-front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXITlt0qdRn6EMdN6ZSr4rzC-kmIs-DKaJf4MSDA0hlmIO8MzPkmZQpP0210-0a70g7SCnExJG-0rGk8QCm_-hcWslN9Bp057CiFj5t0UmzR0MsrGzh7Bnzk0J0ZrxKUVUwcenNp48E8/s400/flo-4-front.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="http://jennifer-williams.com/section/182796_flo_4_LIC.html" target="_blank">[flo#4] -LIC</a> (click on images to enlarge)</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">In the summer of 2010 I had an exhibition my work at <a href="http://www.thehomefrontgallery.com/" target="_blank">The Homefront</a>, a gallery in Long Island City, Queens, New York. It's in a central location, right off Jackson Avenue very near the E,M, and 7 trains, close to the Sculpture Center, not too far from PS1, but also directly in the whirlwind of several HUGE construction sites for office buildings.<br />
<br />
I began exploring the neighborhood in the direction of Queensboro Plaza (roughly north and west). This area is mostly huge construction sites, some waiting to be started, others slowly rising, but unlike Williamsburg (where I was shooting images of building sites for my series "<a href="http://jennifer-williams.com/section/137414_stalled.html" target="_blank">Stalled</a>") these sites are not all condos but primarily office buildings. Surrounding the area are a bunch of low rise commercial warehouse spaces, a few aging tenements, some loft condo warehouse conversions, and several overpasses from the Queensboro Bridge. It's like a dystopian novel where the office-y business people are gentrifying aliens, building huge glass cities in the midst of the native species' brick and mortar villages.<br />
<br />
One thing that I honed in on was the proliferation of mark making. The streets are ripe with brightly colored shapes and lines, some freshly painted, all denoting a code that the transient construction workers can translate; they are foreign to the average passerby . Buildings, conversely, display identifiable vestiges of time, fading handmade signs warning of obsolete violations, worn metal doors to shuttered garages, house numbers scribbled in sharpie. Construction barricades contain and endless variety of "sidewalk closed" or "sidewalk" with an arrow texts.<br />
<br />
here are some images of the neighborhood:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUK1joc-i5t95odYzLSqN9oqpGhzxL6j98863AVw85Zi4gOUIAgQOzxCNYBzG7JUJqaGuoLt52uuXtZLq7mxogGr-l7BCSg-EqKsQKlAm7tLvuADOIU2Pfl_1bZQtpaejXgB1UvqAY9Ik/s1600/3_big_buildings.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491921193741479426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUK1joc-i5t95odYzLSqN9oqpGhzxL6j98863AVw85Zi4gOUIAgQOzxCNYBzG7JUJqaGuoLt52uuXtZLq7mxogGr-l7BCSg-EqKsQKlAm7tLvuADOIU2Pfl_1bZQtpaejXgB1UvqAY9Ik/s400/3_big_buildings.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 288px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Some new buildings near the gallery (the tall <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Court_Square" target="_blank">Citibank building</a> completed in 1990 has been there for quite awhile though)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYjzIUCMOUbZR8CenbTwm21B9U_nowO_tq1ZZzUoL2vuIs99qyU0AYnkBdgiLzAcbMS8mtjkB1x_Lczu38mT6AxHKoyUxtSTSa5ThpXqzdIqfuDq9t2gSZShhboV8axdfRwwvJbRthbo/s1600/_MG_4385.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221165126283538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYjzIUCMOUbZR8CenbTwm21B9U_nowO_tq1ZZzUoL2vuIs99qyU0AYnkBdgiLzAcbMS8mtjkB1x_Lczu38mT6AxHKoyUxtSTSa5ThpXqzdIqfuDq9t2gSZShhboV8axdfRwwvJbRthbo/s400/_MG_4385.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 400px; width: 267px;" /></a> <br />
Empty lot waiting to be developed<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWesG6LPauP9wvth6_OR8qOCUlwob-hKelohKE_WYIGosNVem8tAi_tN_I2E4UzjnZ0MwolorBXpcPbvFTMbGxaFxSXlmF34RCcbXsqUuhGC0MTMU1Fvfd1A2MwJfJXBMiB-rwzvpu9U/s1600/_MG_4333-2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493217720573205954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWesG6LPauP9wvth6_OR8qOCUlwob-hKelohKE_WYIGosNVem8tAi_tN_I2E4UzjnZ0MwolorBXpcPbvFTMbGxaFxSXlmF34RCcbXsqUuhGC0MTMU1Fvfd1A2MwJfJXBMiB-rwzvpu9U/s400/_MG_4333-2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 262px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Typical LIC buildings<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUewF5YAB2n_rbdzBcl_r60S8tnsNj_QFJR0psz9hzHA0rV6D4Tbm8wVe09PNYBoBD23ouvUTtuZBRQHZ-hcUVVAN5l99VRZAxVNAZfxjXBaWMGbpK6V0FZfMqsAm_xG2TDVkdskSJHts/s1600/moody-sky-condos.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493218135984392210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUewF5YAB2n_rbdzBcl_r60S8tnsNj_QFJR0psz9hzHA0rV6D4Tbm8wVe09PNYBoBD23ouvUTtuZBRQHZ-hcUVVAN5l99VRZAxVNAZfxjXBaWMGbpK6V0FZfMqsAm_xG2TDVkdskSJHts/s400/moody-sky-condos.jpg" style="height: 253px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
View towards Manhattan from near <a href="http://5ptz.com/graff/" target="_blank">5 Pointz</a>, a building filled with legal graffitti<br />
<br />
</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiTqUIbY6-tahqJ-FQ7BhPWNSx87bFBYlAqyCVtd-n2Foa10sQ8GXbaIWmoGMYDgJHQBBWs5KUmB6ukWHGwDOrZy8UzXub-nkp416C8F-2BtOpEkKBFsWEk2gHCJQ-FImKxfHspl1e5MI/s1600/_MG_4354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdF9A3MU7BoNRdQ1rRs_bxe8A-6CUh0uBkUkTXesY8ZVcfdtHuGmDRy-3SX7MIJod8e6el64dyEF-l1ORRCdvAAAE5CliI5vMeAsQmtFqF6f4t51caWjPB7BM65dr18gTC3W0NM11FSA/s1600/_MG_3831.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221172540686434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdF9A3MU7BoNRdQ1rRs_bxe8A-6CUh0uBkUkTXesY8ZVcfdtHuGmDRy-3SX7MIJod8e6el64dyEF-l1ORRCdvAAAE5CliI5vMeAsQmtFqF6f4t51caWjPB7BM65dr18gTC3W0NM11FSA/s400/_MG_3831.jpg" style="height: 267px; width: 400px;" /> </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvbaTd00b421OXlVu8GMRyTLPRXHLmJnQAl4bc4etkXW20hdqqz-2bmWQzn_qAAs7VTx4FnQ-brXEEb-IksCpc9xVLEnnd2k8x-DukmMRgamEp1re8f2oIBdTSQvyj93ENuyJwKOVYSM/s1600/_MG_3821.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221720651341618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvbaTd00b421OXlVu8GMRyTLPRXHLmJnQAl4bc4etkXW20hdqqz-2bmWQzn_qAAs7VTx4FnQ-brXEEb-IksCpc9xVLEnnd2k8x-DukmMRgamEp1re8f2oIBdTSQvyj93ENuyJwKOVYSM/s400/_MG_3821.jpg" style="height: 267px; width: 400px;" /> </a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwNRQDBF8LzYABFiQ4iMZ8wOQuyvDBxnPsVAnSPTjRnDGrb9SE-pnxZGi9xb32b0ABTqAQMupywGdjwipIip7swXIgAOj-w09s4Pa0OeplzAmGjRA15Hf-JH0K_iuKpIilxJJd8wNkWy4/s1600/_MG_3773.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwNRQDBF8LzYABFiQ4iMZ8wOQuyvDBxnPsVAnSPTjRnDGrb9SE-pnxZGi9xb32b0ABTqAQMupywGdjwipIip7swXIgAOj-w09s4Pa0OeplzAmGjRA15Hf-JH0K_iuKpIilxJJd8wNkWy4/s400/_MG_3773.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZoKqZc2uwxFXC8MkdFGXwbwxlGchW7nmgJz5jsm14b7SIEQA_CoiASLmm94XguVp80S3uvZr8BnlQrUIlUQTH4oeUNcvkKcDh2hoUiOw5irejNB6O4qa4uiGW1pgfrTpKkO4LJNkzS4A/s1600/_MG_3776.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZoKqZc2uwxFXC8MkdFGXwbwxlGchW7nmgJz5jsm14b7SIEQA_CoiASLmm94XguVp80S3uvZr8BnlQrUIlUQTH4oeUNcvkKcDh2hoUiOw5irejNB6O4qa4uiGW1pgfrTpKkO4LJNkzS4A/s400/_MG_3776.jpg" width="282" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlw2LNnecb9Nug8S7RHtBX013agOp40kkYGkHXzi4R1Q0i8U71s6tjXo9ZaD6krcexQ9N5Hc2l_1qzlABkfbe8heerZ4LF54FjYwuDkHMepVkxr1mSO5mklBuzk0Ldek3_Ws-3RravY8/s1600/_MG_3806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlw2LNnecb9Nug8S7RHtBX013agOp40kkYGkHXzi4R1Q0i8U71s6tjXo9ZaD6krcexQ9N5Hc2l_1qzlABkfbe8heerZ4LF54FjYwuDkHMepVkxr1mSO5mklBuzk0Ldek3_Ws-3RravY8/s400/_MG_3806.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8qbt3R-G4tMDBKDsAVZvPKZd_RlLkXVsez9BPPB7PljpRkmV9YVbr0IM4VngohC42EfDa-YkamNBxdDswIi9fehTZBQ-qLihyphenhyphen8nk2iXO5Vfx9G9UuuG3zxW7VsGm23tqE54yD4Gd1Fw/s1600/_MG_3817.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8qbt3R-G4tMDBKDsAVZvPKZd_RlLkXVsez9BPPB7PljpRkmV9YVbr0IM4VngohC42EfDa-YkamNBxdDswIi9fehTZBQ-qLihyphenhyphen8nk2iXO5Vfx9G9UuuG3zxW7VsGm23tqE54yD4Gd1Fw/s400/_MG_3817.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN9I4JR5nwDZm114lf9HNPOsGE024IilDJ6VAFYTV3svvHtdAOK8YZ5GxhPRC8Avke7El0T-t5NcWLzrNFrN3etprkThZObytE6x3rsAoRrw5SVo_A86GcSrQrapmR6vY48iUpTB_wMLk/s1600/_MG_3842.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN9I4JR5nwDZm114lf9HNPOsGE024IilDJ6VAFYTV3svvHtdAOK8YZ5GxhPRC8Avke7El0T-t5NcWLzrNFrN3etprkThZObytE6x3rsAoRrw5SVo_A86GcSrQrapmR6vY48iUpTB_wMLk/s400/_MG_3842.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXk1JiMIUt9OhpO5YfeB03J1egdKO3paaHdewLuPV-y9fVaeE5qWlcJ5bdvc9y-3EGOGPDRLULFKVN9ULWOEKY-cdaa_mOedz0w7xhmTXPsD-Sutm6toQ6CZL_x1Ag1Y_MCHs47rKA7c/s1600/_MG_4311.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXk1JiMIUt9OhpO5YfeB03J1egdKO3paaHdewLuPV-y9fVaeE5qWlcJ5bdvc9y-3EGOGPDRLULFKVN9ULWOEKY-cdaa_mOedz0w7xhmTXPsD-Sutm6toQ6CZL_x1Ag1Y_MCHs47rKA7c/s400/_MG_4311.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMaPLIhICd85nTkEzRHIevXLn8BXgvQ1sI-ZJW2VWWonUC9dMlC31cZtpc3-blJEwuYWT1l29TwBmXZ-2bzXhBVCGPGNpEYi44_b9Jcfdpl5gYAlKgd9aCYOb7Dz6BGVW7-TAcaNIpjA/s1600/_MG_4335.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMaPLIhICd85nTkEzRHIevXLn8BXgvQ1sI-ZJW2VWWonUC9dMlC31cZtpc3-blJEwuYWT1l29TwBmXZ-2bzXhBVCGPGNpEYi44_b9Jcfdpl5gYAlKgd9aCYOb7Dz6BGVW7-TAcaNIpjA/s400/_MG_4335.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZZEwEbZn5kvIRFqqDYIltk4MwP3F7DCDtTXWNB88Up8_KJeN3X_XcJJ7KTyxq20nNGkx_WKQnhH1OqtuuuoDBk8B-J9MSDW54wE7LWjXGttdXbEFen9WIW0fc_lSTwO1cnHeUMr-xRjs/s1600/_MG_4338.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZZEwEbZn5kvIRFqqDYIltk4MwP3F7DCDtTXWNB88Up8_KJeN3X_XcJJ7KTyxq20nNGkx_WKQnhH1OqtuuuoDBk8B-J9MSDW54wE7LWjXGttdXbEFen9WIW0fc_lSTwO1cnHeUMr-xRjs/s400/_MG_4338.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWeEBXfmiYr0ZDnGxBFI8FrHjT8_FFASJeDbA7azRoAtb8JMGuobnAcZOQvxGHeQkZIY3A4iYmlKLROsynyDEUHHbpG-qYr-1ze1fGrL5rz9zUoVaPHnsJk6BX1nVpEVJe1wKFf_6vb58/s1600/flo-4-back-cmyk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWeEBXfmiYr0ZDnGxBFI8FrHjT8_FFASJeDbA7azRoAtb8JMGuobnAcZOQvxGHeQkZIY3A4iYmlKLROsynyDEUHHbpG-qYr-1ze1fGrL5rz9zUoVaPHnsJk6BX1nVpEVJe1wKFf_6vb58/s400/flo-4-back-cmyk.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><br />
</span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-819843586602547082010-11-19T14:41:00.001-05:002010-11-19T14:43:17.635-05:00Bowery btwn 5th + 6th streets circa 2004"Coming soon" site of the Cooper Square Hotel, 2004, often called "Dubai on the Bowery".<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqRli0qteAsO5MfKcbwZTa5OHR4IxEaIDSOXOgs6QaGFrduNxe_KqmYSzzPyD2G_7vJ1w1UMNdnaymii7UvPV_jJF1IKReS9Yaf5spRsGFiZtWWJyHdtNLwC29MRqiU7otRyNUmrKRpw0/s1600/j_williams-bowery-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqRli0qteAsO5MfKcbwZTa5OHR4IxEaIDSOXOgs6QaGFrduNxe_KqmYSzzPyD2G_7vJ1w1UMNdnaymii7UvPV_jJF1IKReS9Yaf5spRsGFiZtWWJyHdtNLwC29MRqiU7otRyNUmrKRpw0/s1600/j_williams-bowery-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqRli0qteAsO5MfKcbwZTa5OHR4IxEaIDSOXOgs6QaGFrduNxe_KqmYSzzPyD2G_7vJ1w1UMNdnaymii7UvPV_jJF1IKReS9Yaf5spRsGFiZtWWJyHdtNLwC29MRqiU7otRyNUmrKRpw0/s400/j_williams-bowery-1.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Same site circa 2007:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYf8FOi2zt2pb_5DvqyDY8P_hjlGtOtd_oIDHIZ4H3Ux7QOhk22X6NeXPViDZJUbu8cgmlvgfaAl1iTErfVXSK9A4wUigmKN_dDSSeisyj16_Nvs4ll6JPI-TTuqq-7UOtFbbeRC69rA/s1600/coopersqhotel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYf8FOi2zt2pb_5DvqyDY8P_hjlGtOtd_oIDHIZ4H3Ux7QOhk22X6NeXPViDZJUbu8cgmlvgfaAl1iTErfVXSK9A4wUigmKN_dDSSeisyj16_Nvs4ll6JPI-TTuqq-7UOtFbbeRC69rA/s400/coopersqhotel.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-17590883491829705982010-11-19T14:15:00.001-05:002010-11-19T14:16:37.688-05:00"Oh, It's Not What It Used to Be" - Bowery circa 2000NY Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/16/arts/oh-it-s-not-what-it-used-to-be.html?pagewanted=all">article</a> circa 2000 about the Bowery, written by someone who spent a lot of time there as a child in the 60's probably.<br />
<br />
Notes:<br />
<br />
"Today on the Bowery the tallest building -- other than the 1970's Confucius Plaza in Chatham Square -- is the 10-story Salvation Army Chinatown Corps, No. 225, near Rivington Street; most are three or four stories."<br />
<br />
"Still seedy around the edges, the Bowery is not yet gentrified -- there's no Starbucks, no Gap -- and it's not clear whether it will soon look more like SoHo, to the west." <br />
<br />
"Old-timers gape at a two-story terraced gray penthouse, recently erected atop a dark orange brick building." ---- (While there are other seemingly older penthouse structures visible, I think this one is the first real sign of the beginning of what the Bowery has become.)<br />
<br />
Also, another mention of its unique street arrangement:<br />
<br />
"The Bowery interrupts the city's straightforward grid. Streets like Prince, Spring and Bleecker on the west side, and Stanton, Rivington and First on the east, end -- or begin -- at the Bowery. In some cases, the names change: Delancey becomes Kenmare; Bond becomes East Second; Great Jones becomes East Third."jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-79486503106194693602010-11-18T17:46:00.000-05:002010-11-18T17:46:20.840-05:00Asian Pub Will Close to Make Way for Bowery 2.0<a href="http://ny.eater.com/archives/2010/11/asian_pub_will_close_to_make_way_for_bowery_20.php" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">http://ny.eater.com/archives/2010/11/asian_pub_will_close_to_make_way_for_bowery_20.php</a>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-46230470320289336482010-11-17T21:09:00.001-05:002010-11-17T21:19:05.092-05:00EV Transitions: A.T. Stewart, John Wanamaker, the Great Fire, and the Great Flood (Part II)<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://evtransitions.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-stewart-john-wanamaker-great-fire_16.html">EV Transitions: A.T. Stewart, John Wanamaker, the Great Fire, and the Great Flood (Part II)</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The "new" Wanamaker building is where K-Mart is on Astor Place......one of my favorite buildings in NY, so well proportioned (1903 - Burnham). This shows a film of the old building burning down. Fascinating.</span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-54163422151578016082010-11-17T20:40:00.002-05:002010-11-17T21:15:38.015-05:00"This is where streets go to die" - Bowery circa 2003<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/magazine/palimpsest-street.html">NY Times article</a> titled "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest">Palimpsest</a> Street" from 2003 gives you a mini rundown of the the Bowery's history, and details some sensibility of its different manifestations. Originally the article probably had pictures (I wish it still did). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">During this time period there was no way of knowing that the Bowery was on the precipice of massive change, just that things were generally shifting in a more upscale direction. No one knew if it was sustainable at this point.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I like the author's hypothesis as to why the Bowery had essentially sat unchanged for so many decades:</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"One answer is surely physical. Like most of New York, the Bowery is much cleaner than it used to be, but it is still an ungainly street, singularly devoid of shade. An informal survey counted only 19 trees, many of them little more than saplings. And in its northern reaches, particularly, the Bowery is almost as broad and as busy as a highway. Trucks rumble constantly up and down its six lanes, either serving the avenue's many wholesalers or on their way somewhere else. And if geography is destiny, then the Bowery will never change. This is where streets go to die. Prince and Spring Streets from the west; Rivington, Stanton and First Streets from the east. All come to dead ends here, creating the impression that the Bowery is somehow cosmically misaligned -- an ineluctable border area, permanently detached from any of the neighborhoods surrounding it.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Or perhaps there's a simpler reason that the Bowery has remained the Bowery. Modern cities developed for the most practical of reasons, as marketplaces of goods, services and ideas. It is only when the markets leave that cities and neighborhoods begin casting around existentially for reasons to exist. On the Bowery, neither the industrial markets nor the artists ever left. The street remained more or less content unto itself. In a way, the Bowery is the only part of the ''real'' city left in Manhattan."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">You can check out some aerial photos taken from different time periods by using </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">the NYC.gov </span><a href="http://gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">interactive map feature</a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> (super cool).</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN31_V7rYv1oo-c8y7NzWegMiDnsSV9_fQzWXmmkDiF_UaRcPC72M38sabnGSjSmAFEQSmnnjHDKh4KRJW2F_YiIWUPBti4uARWEvpjyb8YxDWSTHknnyGfpMj-SjGhePBNuTj1r_c-RA/s1600/Picture+10.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN31_V7rYv1oo-c8y7NzWegMiDnsSV9_fQzWXmmkDiF_UaRcPC72M38sabnGSjSmAFEQSmnnjHDKh4KRJW2F_YiIWUPBti4uARWEvpjyb8YxDWSTHknnyGfpMj-SjGhePBNuTj1r_c-RA/s320/Picture+10.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bowery and Houston circa 1924</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBj9Iru8AxlZRTdM1uaL2ur4x9ucnN1rpT2WUCIQBMGZp4osO2nIs3Of8DRlajAbVV9AcpsS2ewc8mmOlNgP4_StKrBZIJD_nEtgDzFE_9xp7oCHyHTHFaHxJ1HEspm_vi9O9GQmviY1Y/s1600/Picture+9.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBj9Iru8AxlZRTdM1uaL2ur4x9ucnN1rpT2WUCIQBMGZp4osO2nIs3Of8DRlajAbVV9AcpsS2ewc8mmOlNgP4_StKrBZIJD_nEtgDzFE_9xp7oCHyHTHFaHxJ1HEspm_vi9O9GQmviY1Y/s320/Picture+9.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bowery and Houston circa 1996</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZmgPfONB3DZjPsRzOpS2wQFQdWITG6nBCulm6_d0RDK29V-iq8vl-h4gE2DmzXCvbPT5jyq707JRJ6KFXgV_fn5gL82E6mf-2jIsH6reiE3dt5VgHAJzJxnjATXZd5bcx0oIeZxHpmA/s1600/Picture+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmL2djVw7BhZcFsj_k-sUEbvAKWBHKZc5f0Y4KXrcQ4NTgwJ6tn3NY9HN7GwQI26wVkCvuHOz3opMPYZHUfU7GPGPK-ej9H6oxjjCrn0cjJTC-pkUD_hxPVjDOg3ZeuTvtWZZMblHSqFE/s1600/Picture+11.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmL2djVw7BhZcFsj_k-sUEbvAKWBHKZc5f0Y4KXrcQ4NTgwJ6tn3NY9HN7GwQI26wVkCvuHOz3opMPYZHUfU7GPGPK-ej9H6oxjjCrn0cjJTC-pkUD_hxPVjDOg3ZeuTvtWZZMblHSqFE/s320/Picture+11.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bowery and Houston circa 2008</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZmgPfONB3DZjPsRzOpS2wQFQdWITG6nBCulm6_d0RDK29V-iq8vl-h4gE2DmzXCvbPT5jyq707JRJ6KFXgV_fn5gL82E6mf-2jIsH6reiE3dt5VgHAJzJxnjATXZd5bcx0oIeZxHpmA/s1600/Picture+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-69621177681468632872010-11-17T00:07:00.003-05:002010-11-17T21:16:47.137-05:00Dive bars in NY circa 1996<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm working on a big piece for a show I'm doing at La Mama Gallery in January (also showing <a href="http://www.wilortega.com/">Wil Ortega</a>'s work). La Mama is located right off the Bowery, on 1st street, near the Liz Christy garden. Also, I suppose I should mention its also nowadays sandwiched between one of the largest (luxury) housing developments built in recent times in the neighborhood, built by Avalon Bay, who previous to this complex on the Bowery had mostly build suburban apartment complexes in places like New Jersey. Anyway, if I can pull it off, my portion of the show will incorporate some of the last 20 years of history in terms of the Bowery - pretty much the time person when I would have traversed it as a Cooper Union student, then staff and faculty, and a general NYC downtown resident.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have a lot of memories, but they tend to be a bit fuzzy. Images are in my heads, but dates are uncertain. I've started doing some research, mostly using the NY Times archive, which so far has been very helpful. I typed in Bowery and Houston and a bunch of stuff popped up. I was tryign to determine when the aforementioned housing development was proposed, because i remember seeing a rendering in a book in the Cooper Library circa 1999? 2000? and thinking "well, thats never going to happen". And it didn't, at least as far as I can tell. Originally it was proposed as city housing. Then it was sold to a private developer. So, big difference there in terms of what it represents. Still looking into finding that rendering. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, from time to time I'm going to post some of the articles/images I find, and my thoughts here. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Note the date. This one is from 1996:</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/lives-bar-none.html?scp=98&sq=houston+and+bowery&st=nyt">http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/lives-bar-none.html?scp=98&sq=houston+and+bowery&st=nyt</a></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">enjoy</span>.jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-57856247591522798732010-11-16T20:46:00.008-05:002010-11-16T21:16:55.592-05:00concrete misplots<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"> <a href="http://zeitguised.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/concrete-misplots/">concrete misplots</a> - click for article + more pix</span><br />
<br />
</div><a href="http://zeitguised.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/auau_single_bulge19.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" src="http://zeitguised.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/auau_single_bulge19.jpg" style="height: 600px; width: 400px;" width="213" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><br />
<br />
</span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-58177351593829088042010-09-12T13:56:00.002-04:002010-11-16T21:10:18.133-05:00Race and ethnicity: New York City<div style="padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4981444199/">Race and ethnicity: New York City</a>, some fascinating maps originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/walkingsf/">Eric Fischer</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</span></div></div>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-84009074915164209992010-07-19T17:46:00.004-04:002010-11-16T21:11:30.910-05:00The Homefront's website is up!<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">go to: <a href="http://www.thehomefrontgallery.com/2010/exhibition-grand-opening/">here </a> to read the press release for my upcoming show, and see a sk</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">etch of the collage! also read about other stuff going on at The Homefront (other art will be on display, including some of <a href="http://simonemeltesen.com/artwork/241994_Soft_House_Boat_1.html">Simone Meltesen's</a></span> wonderful houseboats) busy printing and working on some new images for the "stalled" series of photos (from williamsburg construction sites...)</span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-90872166533398666092010-07-01T11:38:00.011-04:002011-06-08T15:42:41.059-04:00Summer project in Long Island City<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">I wrote this last week in a stream of consciousness, its part of the process of working on an artist statement for the new collage. More thoughts and pix soon.....<br />
<br />
-------------<br />
<br />
I've been very kindly asked to exhibit my work in a new space opening up in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_City,_Queens">Long Island City</a> called <a href="http://www.thehomefrontgallery.com/">The Homefront</a>. It's in a central location, right off Jackson Ave. very near the E and V (or is it it M now?), towards the Sculpture Center, not too far from PS1, but also directly in the whirlwind of several HUGE construction sites for office buildings.<br />
<br />
Since last fall I've been using a large format 4x5 camera to shoot a project based on the large number of <a href="http://jennifer-williams.com/section/137414_stalled.html">stalled building sites</a> in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Half of the show at The Homefront will consist of a selection of these images. The other half will be a large site specific collage installed on the walls.<br />
<br />
I began exploring the neighborhood in the direction of Queensboro Plaza (roughly north and west). This area is mostly huge construction sites, some waiting to be started, others slowly rising, but unlike Williamsburg these sites are not all condos but primarily office buildings. Surrounding these sites are a bunch of low rise commercial spaces, a few aging tenements, some loft condo warehouse conversions, and several overpasses from the Queensboro Bridge. It's like a dystopian novel where the office-y business people are gentrifying aliens, building huge glass cities in the midst of the native species' brick and mortar villages.<br />
<br />
One thing that I honed in on was the proliferation of mark making. The streets are ripe with brightly colored shapes and lines, some freshly painted, all denoting a code that the transient construction workers can translate; they are foreign to the average passerby . Buildings, conversely, display identifiable vestiges of time, fading handmade signs warning of obsolete violations, worn metal doors to shuttered garages, house numbers scribbled in sharpie. Construction barricades contain and endless variety of "sidewalk closed" or "sidewalk" with an arrow texts.<br />
<br />
here are some images:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUK1joc-i5t95odYzLSqN9oqpGhzxL6j98863AVw85Zi4gOUIAgQOzxCNYBzG7JUJqaGuoLt52uuXtZLq7mxogGr-l7BCSg-EqKsQKlAm7tLvuADOIU2Pfl_1bZQtpaejXgB1UvqAY9Ik/s1600/3_big_buildings.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491921193741479426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUK1joc-i5t95odYzLSqN9oqpGhzxL6j98863AVw85Zi4gOUIAgQOzxCNYBzG7JUJqaGuoLt52uuXtZLq7mxogGr-l7BCSg-EqKsQKlAm7tLvuADOIU2Pfl_1bZQtpaejXgB1UvqAY9Ik/s400/3_big_buildings.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 288px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Some new buildings near the gallery (the tall <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Court_Square">Citibank building</a> completed in 1990 has been there for quite awhile though)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYjzIUCMOUbZR8CenbTwm21B9U_nowO_tq1ZZzUoL2vuIs99qyU0AYnkBdgiLzAcbMS8mtjkB1x_Lczu38mT6AxHKoyUxtSTSa5ThpXqzdIqfuDq9t2gSZShhboV8axdfRwwvJbRthbo/s1600/_MG_4385.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221165126283538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYjzIUCMOUbZR8CenbTwm21B9U_nowO_tq1ZZzUoL2vuIs99qyU0AYnkBdgiLzAcbMS8mtjkB1x_Lczu38mT6AxHKoyUxtSTSa5ThpXqzdIqfuDq9t2gSZShhboV8axdfRwwvJbRthbo/s400/_MG_4385.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 400px; width: 267px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWesG6LPauP9wvth6_OR8qOCUlwob-hKelohKE_WYIGosNVem8tAi_tN_I2E4UzjnZ0MwolorBXpcPbvFTMbGxaFxSXlmF34RCcbXsqUuhGC0MTMU1Fvfd1A2MwJfJXBMiB-rwzvpu9U/s1600/_MG_4333-2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493217720573205954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWesG6LPauP9wvth6_OR8qOCUlwob-hKelohKE_WYIGosNVem8tAi_tN_I2E4UzjnZ0MwolorBXpcPbvFTMbGxaFxSXlmF34RCcbXsqUuhGC0MTMU1Fvfd1A2MwJfJXBMiB-rwzvpu9U/s400/_MG_4333-2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 262px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Typical LIC buildings<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUewF5YAB2n_rbdzBcl_r60S8tnsNj_QFJR0psz9hzHA0rV6D4Tbm8wVe09PNYBoBD23ouvUTtuZBRQHZ-hcUVVAN5l99VRZAxVNAZfxjXBaWMGbpK6V0FZfMqsAm_xG2TDVkdskSJHts/s1600/moody-sky-condos.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493218135984392210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUewF5YAB2n_rbdzBcl_r60S8tnsNj_QFJR0psz9hzHA0rV6D4Tbm8wVe09PNYBoBD23ouvUTtuZBRQHZ-hcUVVAN5l99VRZAxVNAZfxjXBaWMGbpK6V0FZfMqsAm_xG2TDVkdskSJHts/s400/moody-sky-condos.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 253px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
View towards Manhattan from near 5 Pointz<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUU7OuHLjM4VtmoYz6-hg1L14Knple8ckRK0DExW3XCJFZrXoknWefJ4jqi6CeooEd3nY4mwPU1quC03jTnkpxQlU9o-qEFuW2kScB2_kGTHltkZiJV7my0ugvkj6BVKnebe1WyNzg-lo/s1600/_MG_3828.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221178051838018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUU7OuHLjM4VtmoYz6-hg1L14Knple8ckRK0DExW3XCJFZrXoknWefJ4jqi6CeooEd3nY4mwPU1quC03jTnkpxQlU9o-qEFuW2kScB2_kGTHltkZiJV7my0ugvkj6BVKnebe1WyNzg-lo/s400/_MG_3828.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 267px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdF9A3MU7BoNRdQ1rRs_bxe8A-6CUh0uBkUkTXesY8ZVcfdtHuGmDRy-3SX7MIJod8e6el64dyEF-l1ORRCdvAAAE5CliI5vMeAsQmtFqF6f4t51caWjPB7BM65dr18gTC3W0NM11FSA/s1600/_MG_3831.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221172540686434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJdF9A3MU7BoNRdQ1rRs_bxe8A-6CUh0uBkUkTXesY8ZVcfdtHuGmDRy-3SX7MIJod8e6el64dyEF-l1ORRCdvAAAE5CliI5vMeAsQmtFqF6f4t51caWjPB7BM65dr18gTC3W0NM11FSA/s400/_MG_3831.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 267px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvbaTd00b421OXlVu8GMRyTLPRXHLmJnQAl4bc4etkXW20hdqqz-2bmWQzn_qAAs7VTx4FnQ-brXEEb-IksCpc9xVLEnnd2k8x-DukmMRgamEp1re8f2oIBdTSQvyj93ENuyJwKOVYSM/s1600/_MG_3821.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493221720651341618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvbaTd00b421OXlVu8GMRyTLPRXHLmJnQAl4bc4etkXW20hdqqz-2bmWQzn_qAAs7VTx4FnQ-brXEEb-IksCpc9xVLEnnd2k8x-DukmMRgamEp1re8f2oIBdTSQvyj93ENuyJwKOVYSM/s400/_MG_3821.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 267px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
</span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-64748092530902400702010-06-16T20:46:00.002-04:002010-11-16T21:15:25.404-05:00Locals and Tourists #2 (GTWA #1): New York<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4671594023/">Locals and Tourists #2 (GTWA #1): New York</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/walkingsf/">Eric Fischer</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4671594023/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="photo sharing"><img alt="" height="320" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/4671594023_b41c2ee662.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This visually beautiful project has convinced me to start to use Flickr in a more active way, in terms of comprehending the power of the modern photograph's metadata and geotagging. <br />
<br />
I'm beginning to understand this idea that there is this collective archive of space, place, time, and technology which is happening almost unconsciously worldwide. People put pictures up as a record of an event/moment and through their metadata they are instantly linked with everyone else who has posted images from that same location throughout time. I've always thought about metadata in a creepy way, as a sort of surveillance tool (how can you not having lived though the 90's), but now i can almost see it as a transcendent way of creating a collective memory of a place/time/space. One that, though mediated, is directed by the masses and not a professional eye. Yes, most of the millions of photos uploaded everyday are mediocre, banal, compositionally horrible, and technically lacking, but if I think of them less as "photographs" and more as "artifacts" they come alive. They are documents. Documents which now live in cyberspace and have gained meaning in history by their relationship to other "documents" - i.e photos.</span> <span style="font-size: small;"><br />
<br />
I've been lamenting the fact that we are losing these sorts of moments because people no longer print out pictures. They get shot, downloaded, and put into a folder, which gets put in a folder then onto a hard drive or CD/DVD somewhere and forgotten. In the old days everything would have been printed. Everything had a negative, somewhere, even if it was blurry or out of focus. "mistake" photos could be thrown away, but some record of them still existed. Often nowadays people delete the photos they think are not perfect, erasing potential histories. While this will forever be true, I see now that places like Flickr can/will/are actually may, in effect, become the dresser drawers of the future. Publicly accessible dresser drawers. Kinda mind blowing.</span> <span style="font-size: small;"><br />
<br />
Ugh, more to say but I have to get some other work done tonight. More soon.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-26923059011473785812010-03-31T00:15:00.002-04:002010-03-31T12:31:44.273-04:00very wet day, late march, wandering from midtown to union square<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/beatricethecat/sets/72157623738648552/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/beatricethecat/sets/72157623738648552/</a></span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-81793099701024243052010-03-19T21:49:00.002-04:002010-03-19T21:52:38.924-04:00two more stalled williamsburg projects rise from the grave<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/03/19/two_more_stalled_williamsburg_projects_rise_from_the_grave.php">via curbed.com (click to go to article)</a> </span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-2202079484418093732010-03-18T20:10:00.003-04:002010-03-18T20:39:06.841-04:00its a thursday night<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGOTO9S3Ljp2tCTDCxHq0r894Ox6q34EP8-bi7s5pcL2_AqiNCQ6yClZLKVzprbtfz6Rg5fy9yZzAxqmkbxGvdAFsCasNWQqBkYet0VJtLfMsiVDRGxpNVhqmBpvtg41iiBQNdZuzBAY/s1600-h/15021_373607780841_697545841_3516228_5807067_n.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGOTO9S3Ljp2tCTDCxHq0r894Ox6q34EP8-bi7s5pcL2_AqiNCQ6yClZLKVzprbtfz6Rg5fy9yZzAxqmkbxGvdAFsCasNWQqBkYet0VJtLfMsiVDRGxpNVhqmBpvtg41iiBQNdZuzBAY/s400/15021_373607780841_697545841_3516228_5807067_n.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450135940461367874" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >haven't been able to focus very well all week. not sure why, been taking my vitamins, getting almost enough sleep. on the way back from eating dinner tonight I looked at the sunset sky and though "that looks photoshopped" (we learned the "Liquidfy" tool today in class). Walking across the Brown campus today I thought "this is just too perfect, like a facsimile of what an ivy league college is supposed to look like". I've always said it felt like being in a movie. People I meet are often meant to be on their way to somewhere else. I get there at the very end of their "this-ness". I myself am in my own bubble. I've started photographing my apartment again. It has many dustbunnies. when i get in the car I want TO GO. Not across town, but away. wherever, anywhere. until I run out of gas. my new job is intense. the students are great, they challenge me. i need to clean off surfaces. the state of my desk is the state of my mind. its 8:30 already. damn. gonna try to put things here on blogger more, more streamline, though the cacophony of facebook seems to suit my state of mind. but i can try. seems like when echo and the bunnymen got to "ocean rain" they lost steam. too poppy. </span>jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-34593496149941223252010-02-25T21:23:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.867-04:00Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography) (1967-1970)a work by Mel Bochner<br /><br />Originally published by Multiples Inc. New York as part of "Artists and Photographs" (1970). The project consists of ten photo-offset prints on note cards (5x8 in each)<br /><br />(handwritten) <br />(apparently three of these may not be not true quotes, but he may have made them up)<br /><br />"I would like to see photography make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable" - Marcel Duchamp<br /><br />"I want to reproduce the objects as they are or as they would be even if I did not exist" - Taine<br /><br />"Photography cannot record abstract ideas" - Encyclopedia Britannica<br /><br />"Let us remember too, that we don't have to translate such pictures into realistic ones in order to 'understand' them, any more than we need to translate photographs into colored pictures, although black-and-white men or plans in reality would strike us as unspeakable strange and frightful. Suppose we were to say at this point: 'something is a picture only in a picture language'" - Ludwig Wittenstein<br /><br />"The true function of revolutionary art is the crystallization of phenomena into organized forms" - Mao Tse-Tung<br /><br />"In my opinion, you cannot say you have thoroughly seen anything until you have a photograph of it" - Emile Zola<br /><br />"Photography is the product of complete alienation" - Marcel Proust<br /><br />"The photography keeps open the instants which the onrush of time closes up; it destroys the overtaking, the overlapping of time" - Maurice Merleau-Ponty<br /><br />"Photographs provide for a kind of perception that is mediated instead of direct....what might be called 'Perception at Second Hand'" - James J. Gibsonjwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-84303132785660240822010-02-23T09:40:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.868-04:00new york state of mindI'm eating breakfast at 7A again before driving up in the rain to Providence. They are playing Billy Joel's "The Stranger" album. This is one my parents had when I was a little kid, like grade school (I'd fogotten abot this one, and can now put this with the Donna Summer, Dolly Parton, and Bee Gee's version of Sargent Pepper as things I vaguey remember). <br /><br />Anyway, hearing this album (it's pretty good actually) made me think about what my perception of New York was back then, o even before I moved here. And while you may think, from knowing me, it would have been shaped by music, I think it was really formed from television. Pittsburgh was far enough away, and different enough that New York really was very foreign to me when I got here. <br /><br />Thinking back, Sesame Street was very informative. We had no sidewalks where I lived, no apartment buildings, no stoop, no deli's. It was this glimpse into urbanity that I didn't understNd but I think probably penetrated my unconscious and stayed there in terms of understanding that there was a bigger world out there than Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. <br /><br />Taxi is the other show that comes to mind. I always felt it was kind of gritty and mean and I know I didn't get all the jokes but you could identify with these characters and their struggles as a diverse group. This was not "Friends". <br /><br />Then there was Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Sanford and son (were these all in NY? I chat remember). But they all offered a glimpse into this world I never touched living in the country. I also vaguely remember watching Soap, obviously not getting much of the plot but watching it now.....<br /><br />Even The Facts of Life had Jo from Brooklyn. <br /><br />Strangely I don't rememer any tv from the 80's set in NY. At least at the moment. Maybe I mean mid 80's, because i bet a lot of these shows were actually from the early 80's. I wonder what shifted, but then reappeared on the 90's in totally different way. Should "Friends" be blamed for creating all these condos and kickstarting the city's plunge towards suburbanism? <br /><br />Hm, not enough time to exlore this right now. Parking meter is up in 5. So I will leave you with that thought.jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-77049366754204406242010-01-14T16:17:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.870-04:001984 French Industrial/Noise/New Wave Complilation (from cassette)OK, 80's industrial French Complilation cassette from 1984 with a terrible title - but aparantly a rare Psychic TV track on here. Some it is mostly (slightly unlistenable) free form noise but then towards an early sonic youth direction, some more coherent, but i'm liking a bunch of it so I'm sharing. <br /><br />The Son of Sam single "nature makes a mistake" track is on here too. early electro indeed!<br /><br />Sex & Bestiality - 4 x Cassette, Compilation - France [1984]<br /><br />http://rapidshare.com/files/221924569/k.1.rar<br /><br />http://rapidshare.com/files/221928928/k.2.rar<br /><br />http://rapidshare.com/files/221929143/k.3.rar<br /><br />http://rapidshare.com/files/221929807/k.4.rar<br /><br />originally found here: http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/10/vasex-bestiality4xtape1984france.html<br /><br />also good resource for info: http://www.french-new-wave.com/compilation.php?annee=1984<br />jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-75670706154812201192010-01-11T17:53:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.871-04:00Kylie mix for you all....<Photo 1> Back to work mode means back to Minimal Wave, so i'm putting Kylie to rest for now. <br /><br />Made this mix, mostly of remixes i found, which makes me energized, helps me to turn OFF my brain, and provides a sunny feeling during these cold winter days. I'll admit its the gayest thing i've ever put together, in every sense of the word, but you know what, i'm ok with that. (because as you know i'm all about being "cool" haaaa)<br /><br />and just for the record, i heard her cover of "Love is the Drug" and got hooked from there. after much research I found some tunes/remixes that pleased my ears.<br /><br />I KNOW there are many of you that would enjoy this just for its bubblegum pop qualities. this is why i'm sharing. do the songs all kind of sound the same? YES! does she sound like Madonna/Fergie/Bjork/Gwen Stephanie at times. YES! but she can hit the high notes like Donna Summer - YES! all the same, she is Kylie, not the others. I think i "get" her now. and she's awesome.<br /><br />so here you go, enjoy!<br /><br />jen's kylie mix: http://www.zshare.net/download/7104312402f7c8ac/<br /><br />also, some repeats here but i quite like this compilation:<br /><br />Rare and Unreleased: http://www.zshare.net/download/710445675ce35d4a/<br /><br />In order for me to concentrate, i will be turning back to some serious Minimal German techno very soon (i.e. Kompakt). not as fun, but helps the gears turn when writing *new* multi-disciplinary course descriptions.<br /><br />and to watch! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTLBnf7bPHA&feature=rec-fresh+div-r-2-HM<br /><br />jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-21692824197908874102010-01-04T10:33:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.873-04:00Watch This! Queens of British Pop on the BBCList of collected youtube clips.<br /><br />I quite enjoyed this series, esp Annie Lennox, Siouxsie, and Kate Bush! <br /><br />Dusty Springfield<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/7/HLvo7yBbE9Q<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/2/WoI9iJ_4fiI<br /><br />Marianne Faithful<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/1/KnBSXB5bGQY<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/6/2UJ0oiYHGXg<br /><br />Sandie Shaw<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/5/U00NnAbzisc<br /><br />Susie Quatro<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/7/HLvo7yBbE9Q<br /><br />Siouxsie Sioux<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/4/5nz-QX_1XFs<br /><br />Kate Bush<br />http://www.youtube.com/user/AGY1962#p/search/3/GiQCt5PAcIg<br /><br />Annie Lennox<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMHtzQmmOXw<br /><br />Alison Moyet<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8w-3HV2Wg4<br /><br />Kylie Minogue<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D868UeemBFE&feature=related<br /><br />Geri Haliwell<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D868UeemBFE<br /><br />Leona Lewis<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxolkZGXMAY&feature=related<br /><br />Amy Winehouse<br />(couldn't find a link....)<br />jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-34714836089137547182009-11-29T14:45:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.874-04:00its going to be dark again alreadyso this daylight savings time is still messing with my head, i often have no idea what time it is or what day it is for that matter. and ok, i'll admit, staying out til 2 or 3 (or 4)AM probably does not help any, but a) hanging out with old and new friends is very important to being a healthy, happy human being and b) i can do this easily in NY - this is what being in the city is for. if i went to bed at 10 I might as well live in ......ahem.... Providence (sorry people).<br /><br />absorbing the car into city life as well is a bit of a mind-bender......i HAVE been using it to facilitate the creation of art, but then i put it "away" and grab my bike to run around or hop in the subway. its like i have too may choices. i know i sound like i'm complaining, but really i'm not. <br /><br />additionally, i've been spending most of my daylight hours in Williamsburg (and photo stores but mostly Williamsburg), because my recent project revolves around stalled building sites there. I haven't spent much time there since i worked building audio furniture on Berry street in 1995, and then in East Williamsburg on Scholes street in 1998-99ish, so you can imagine its changed dramatically since then, esp. the northside. Every now and then i'd go over to meet with friends, see a show, get a drink, but usually just riding my bike down bedford to my studio in Greenpoint sent chills down my spine due to the intensity of hipster-y people all hanging out even on a weekday. One day, last summer, Betsy and i had a girls afternoon out and she showed me some nice bars near grand that had craft beer and back gardens. i was sort of impressed, as anywhere in the LES with nice beer like that is full of wannabe yuppies. the Williamsburg places felt way more like Berlin. (or, i guess Berlin became Williamsburg, right?). I feel like more and more the East Village and LES is full of generic NYU/SVA students and people who moved here because they think it makes them cool (but they work for an investment fund company or something). Williamsburg is sort of the same but there are no dorms and the people who move there to be cool actually probably work at cooler jobs. (or don't need one - trust funds). anyway, as of right now, i feel like it seems like a nice place to retire. plenty of nightlife, good record stores, maybe a little full of itself but i so is Manhattan. Now, i can say this because i never have had to live in Brooklyn, while most people have. yes, i am on my high horse. sorry again peoples.<br /><br />Another good (and bad) fact about Williamsburg is that the rabid trend of massive condo building has stopped. in its wake a series of abandoned empty lots have been left adjacent to the hulking shiny new structures. so, weirdly, while more destiny has been created in previously desolate spots, once populated blocks have now become dangerous and empty wastelands.<br /><br />I started photographing some of the structures built to shield the public from construction sites this summer, though mostly structures in Manhattan. I began scouring Williamsburg in earnest about a month ago, and have noted several spots which i have been visiting weekly. To my amazement i've witnessed an incredible amount of transfiguration within a short time period. Typically we are meant to ignore the crude structures, and to the untrained eye not much may have changed. The areas they exist in seem like desolate wastelands, their facades invite interaction on a scale like no other in the city. There is a battle being forged, between nature and man as well as man and man. hostile external forces are constantly on the attack, driving the internal occupiers to perpetually shore up their fortifications. creating a visually rich and layered dialog back and forth. this trail of mark making on these sculptural piecemeal structures tells a universal yet anonymous time sensitive story. <br /><br />blah blah blah...ok, putting this artist statement part of this on a word document and working on it separately......cos you all don't need to go though THAT. this was meant to be more informal but, well, i guess it just started me off.<br /><br />4PM = 26 pieces of 4x5 film to pick up from manhattan color! yeah!!!!! i wish i would have waited until today to shoot, as yesterday the wind was terrible (but created some cool destroyed construction barricades which got knocked over. my camera was swaying at times though)jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-63818900064568000752009-11-08T18:33:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.876-04:00video connections:hollaback girl just came up on my itunes, so i watched the video again (yes, procrastinating again in stead of using the computer for work purposes.....)<br /><br />so watching this made me think about the history of high school band-ish videos (amoungst other things intangible at this moment)<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AU-kAnB24I<br /><br />then i thought of tony basil:<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CyNvEfWoE<br /><br />then i thought of one of my fav kate bush (and ok, not as wide of an audience saw this video) (and ooh, the rollerskates)<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEVMfG8z490<br /><br />crazy.<br /><br />jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-11242282288844573452009-11-05T21:07:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:44:56.878-04:00bill viola/james turrell - 1980's- pittsburgh peeps some help? please.....uber rambly, beware, this is the contents of my brain after teaching 9-5:<br /><br />something today compelled me to look up, yet again, the line up of artists from the 1988 Carnegie International. I looked it up once at Bobst (NYU's library) and like most books you'd actually want there, it said they had it, but it was missing. Jump to now and well, Brown has the catalog from 1988 and 1991. They are fascinating to me because, well, i'm sure i saw at least one of them, and have very vague memories about what i saw. nothing in these catalogs, though, seems to be the work i remember the most vividly, so i'm imaging there must have been a show somewhere in between the two.<br /><br />looking back i've put names to two pieces, though maybe the names are wrong. there was what i've determined was a james turrell piece, a larger than life size mesmerizing blue glowing circle seamlessly placed on the wall which had a path towards it lined with small speakers which gave pout a faint buzzing sound. i'm not sure how long i stood staring at it, trying to figure out how it worked. it was the most amazing thing i had ever seen. i think its interesting that it resonated on some basic level in my teenage brain.<br /><br />the other was a video piece, in a dark, thin, tall space. there was an image of fire projected on the top of the walls and ceiling. it sort of dived across the space fleetingly, it was there for an instant then gone. there was sound. it was scary, but not terrifying. i feel like there were also hands instead of fire sometimes. hmm, now that i'm thinking about it maybe it was bruce nauman. will look up now. ok just checked and no it wasn't.<br /><br />so i'm stumped and there isn't an exhibition archive online for the Carnegie Museum that goes back that far. does anyone remember these pieces?<br /><br />in coming back to this memory, and placing it in time with other memories, i think i have begun to identify my displaced feelings about being here at Brown. its not just taking myslef out of New York, but there are many levels. i keep saying things like "i feel like i'm in a movie which is about going to a University", in that my college experiences were very much not like this. Sure, there was some "bubble" ness, but not this "University" experience. but its not entirely alien, i've only just uncovered. I spent nearly 3 years of saturdays and 2 years of summers going to pre-college at Carnegie Mellon. I never lived there, but i could take book sout of their library all year round and use their studios in the summer. it has a campus, you could eat in their cafeteria. i could walk into Oakland and buy records, and go to the museum. while not everyone in the program was talented, they were all much more serious about art than i'd encounter on a daily basis in high school. <br /><br />i don't remember much about visiting RISD back in 1989, except that the tour around RISD and Brown gave me a familiar feeling, it was like Carnegie Mellon but far away form home. it felt do-able. very do-able. i have no idea what my life would have turned out like had i gone to RISD, but i bet it would be very different. no, i know it would have. being in NY set me on a different path entirely. So i bet in some ways being here is some weird continuation of that thought from 1989, but now instead of familiar it just feels foreign and maybe just a tad restrictive in some unconscious way. i'm beginning to make connections between here and pittsburgh now, and maybe that way it will make more sense. <br /><br />the reason i looked up the Carnegie International in the first place was for my Brown artist talk, before i got this job. i was trying to pinpoint when, and where, my sensibilities came from in terms of how i relate to photography/art. looking at these catalogs now, i'm not 100% convinced it was any of the Carnegie Internationals, but instead two things i saw in college......Christine Osinski took us to see "Special Collections: The Photographic Order From Pop To Now" in 1992 at ICP, and the Gordon Matta-Clark retrospective at the Serpentine in London in 1993. Things started to congeal after this point. something clicked. i think, perhaps, it was one of the first times i'd seen photographs used in a sculptural way. <br /><br />but back to these here catalogs.......i'm sort of shocked to see all these household names were in these exhibitions in 88 and 91 (thomas struth, anish kapoor, jeff koons) who i though had risen a little later that that. its also hillarious to see an agnes martin painting then turn the page to an elizabeth murray. another aspect though it that a lot of the work doesn't look dated. i'm not sure if its because people my age grew up with this and are now producing work which sort of references it, or if its the younger generation of artists which are a) maybe not aware of this work and some kind of similar aesthetic is happening or b) HAVE (or are) discovered(ing) this work and think its awesome and are just going with it or c) it never really went away. <br /><br />I mean, Phillip Taaffe is back. fischli & weiss, bruce nauman, michael asher, richard artschwager, hiroshi sugimto. but then again some of the curator/critics are the same now as then, lynne cooke, barbara london, thomas mcevilley. (i didn't take out the catalog for '85 but Saskia Bos has an essay in it i think.....)<br /><br />also looking at the Mattress Factory's past exhibition lineup......maybe i just think i'm younger than i really am, i mean if Tracy emin did a performance there in '94......hmmmmjwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-22116495046119404282009-10-31T11:55:00.000-04:002010-03-18T19:44:56.880-04:00the early 90's are definitely in the airok so i bought several flannel shirts the other day, at Uniqlo. why does this matter? i'd like to discuss.<br /><br />recently i gave a portrait assignment to my photo 2 class. on tuesday durn g our preliminary crit we were discussing the difference between the photographer dressing up the model for the shoot, the model dressing themselves up for the shoot, and the model just being shot as they were a that moment. how do these factors add/detract from the sense of "portrait"? but anyway thats a whole big can of worms and not really where i was going.<br /><br />one student directed her roommate to dress in a certain way, tough she said it was in a style the roommate would wear. her model was wearing a red flannel shirt, black spandex-y paints, and those girly faux combat boots. the student photographer said she was gong for a "my so called life" aesthetic, and so we discussed what that meant to all of us, me being in my late 30's, my TA being 30, the students being in their early 20's.<br /><br />which, in my head, led me back to the buying of flannel shirts. my initial motivation was because Jersey, who i used to work with at Cooper Union, was wearing them and they looked good on her. i suddenly remembered they used to exist in my life too. She's the one who initially told me about the Uniqlo store on Broadway (big Japanese clothing store, men's and women's clothes cut very unisex. their women's button down shirts fit me and that never happens). so i went there recently and lo and behold there was a large selection of flannel shirts. so i bought 3. (and ok, they only have like 2 stores in the US, so they aren't really a trend but they def. can be starting one, though i think its started already where it left off maybe in 1994?)<br /><br />NOW....Jersey is 25. she grew up in Italy. grunge was happening when she was like 10. i was there. you did not buy flannel shirts, you acquired them. "New" was not cool, used, preferably with holes in it, was. and of course baggy baggy baggy. <br /><br />but now is not baggy at all, but slim. and come to think of it while re-reading this, my thoughts on this topic really didn't start with Jersey at all, but Alannah last semester, a Cooper student who i noticed wearing a red flannel shirt, who's style is kinda rather on the other end from Jersey. Alannah is rather fashion forward though. hm.<br /><br />then on Wednesday night i had a chat with my TA again, this time about what the hell happened exactly in the mid 90's......when did the shift happen, where did grunge go? also earlier in the week i had a chat with Simone at A.I.R. about riot grrl, so the early 90's are definitely in the air. <br /><br />so in my aged state (haa) i've started to look back at the early 90's with a different kind of filter than i would have when i was living in them. (Simone kindly asked me if i was able to discuss this because i was listening to all these BBC documentaries about music and, well, yes, but the truth is i'm old enough that i was actually there.). what things were in place to make grunge happen, and why did it fizzle out so completely by the mid/end of the 90's?<br /><br />american radio has always been the blandest of the bland (i mean compare to British radio). why i just don't know. but there was a time in the late 80's when we had a syndicated alternative radio station, all over the states. it wasn't quite college radio, but it was rather radical compared to most. here you could hear the cure, siouxsie, echo and the bunnymen, and a host of lesser names making what was, arguably, kinda crappy late 80's overproduced music, but still, it wasn't milli vanilli. we had 120 minutes on MTV and Night Flight on USA (someday we'll have that discussion Terri). and as much as we might have thought it was ours individually, we were living in a countrywide "i have cable" (and its new) cultural moment. this stuff was being made available on a level it had never quite been before. <br /><br />what i'm not 100% sure about is why. Reagan was in power, so everyone had something to rebel against. then it was Bush Sr. I remember being at an election party in NY when Clinton won, and it was joyous everywhere. The world changed, the economy changed, people changed. but as soon and the country equilbrisallized (ok thats not a word but, whatever) and there were "good times" (i.e. people being able to pay me to walk their dog, park their car, and eat lunch....i.e. artist assistant), the music situation turned to crap. the rein of grunge ended (its been touted as an anomaly anyway in terms of "popular" music if you read any theory). so i wonder why, with Bush Jr., we didn't see a resurgence (or did we and i missed it)? what kept mainstream music bland? i know the way music "happens" now has changed radically with the internet and all, and that probably no one really listens to radio at all anymore (i know i plug my iphone straight into the car, though when it crashed one night i was very pleased to be able to find Providence College radio playing some "Future Sounds of London" tracks at 12:30 AM). <br /><br />which brings me back to flannel shirts. and "my so called life". we have had a large dose of the 80's revived over the past few years, though happily its been all mixed up, so much to the point that all the meaning has been drained out of it (pennyloafers and oxford sweaters on grungy art boys with bad mullet haircuts is just kinda funny and wrong). so what's going to happen now in popular culture now that that "reality bites" and "slackers" might be back, and Pearl Jam has reformed? <br /><br />i'll keep you informed. since i'm working at a university now and not an art school, i'll be experiencing a larger demographic of students. we'll see how they morph......<br /><br />http://www.uniqlo.com/us/explorer.html#/code:058985-000-63/jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637254408161510854.post-63218775129724046692009-10-30T21:55:00.000-04:002010-03-18T19:44:56.883-04:00the reading.......after reading terri's post about goodreads earlier and almost posting "i'm a member but don't read books", i was compelled to look up some spatial politics books i might want to re-read from grad school for a course proposal. and you know what, now as was then, the ones i'd want are all checked out of the library already. the article "'New Wave' interchanges: Celine and Julie and Desperately Seeking Susan by Laura Mulvey" was of particular interest, in a book called "Hollywood and Europe : economics, culture, national identity, 1945-95", which has an image from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" on the cover. NOT related to the course proposal, but you know, whatever. its checked out anyway. instead i think i'll go home now and watch my roommates DVD's of "the Sarah Connor Chronicles", and be able to say I TRIED to be scholarly........ jwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02320281494496235159noreply@blogger.com0