TOAST

TOAST is the TriBeCa Open Artist Studio Tour. I spent a rather dispiriting afternoon touring around the studios. I started at the NY Academy of Art at 111 Franklin St. which had an exhibition of alumni and faculty work. The work was figurative and fairly conventional. It was hung like a 19th century salon, much like the royal Academy summer shows, which was probably just as well as it didn't encourage lingering over individual artworks. I only visited three artists studios because I found it rather depressing. The "studios" were in fact people's living accomodation which had been converted into make-shift gallery spaces. The artists presented a rather bohemian front which said more about their own sense of identity as an "artist' than any merit in the actual work.

On the upside I saw Julia Kristeva talk about her new novel, Murder in Byzantium. She spoke about the interweaving of autobiography, history, fiction and politics. What a treat.

ILYA KABAKOV PAINTINGS

I was really knocked out by a show in the Sean Kelly Galley at 528W 29th street. It was by Ilya Kabakov. The series of paintings are invented histories (supposedly created between 1970 and 1975) and conjures an alternative history of 20th-century Russian art, with paintings characterised by real-life Russian imagery (scenes of peasants,faactory landscapes) juxtaposed with geometric abstractions.
I also saw my first exhibition of sculptures by Mathew Barney- breathtakingly confident work and a rather beautiful show on memory by Lena Liv at Mike Weiss Gallery. Andrew Grassie who does some teaching at NSAD in painting also had an opening at Sperone Westwater on 415 W13th St. His paintings are imaculately rendered depictions of the gallery space. Small paintings made with egg tempera on board. He showed at East International a few years back. The gallery is fantastically situated next to a fish market with cobbled streets and low buildings used for all kinds of trade. It reminds me a bit of parts of London.

Ways of Doing: Re-Conceptualizing Research Practices in Arts and Humanities

The conference on Monday was really good. There were 3 main speakers Andy Ratner, Barbara Howey and James Rolling Jr. and a summing up by Graeme Sullivan and Daniel Nichols. There was also lots of time after each presentation for questions. The details of the conference are on the following website. http:www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/waysofdoing. They have called me Professor which doesn't mean I have been promoted. It is the title American institutions give to people who teach in higher education. They are planning to publish the presentations on an e-journal edited by the Spencer Foundation Research Training Program.

Late Evening

Walks in Central Park

The last few weeks of warm weather have transformed Central Park. I really love my walks through it you get a real sense of New Yorkers relaxing and socialising.

Detail of one of the works in Unframed exhibition

This is a detail of one of the pieces. It marks where the original unframed painting is housed in the archive.

Path to the archives

To view a video made by the archive team at TC Columbia go to: http://128.59.91.6/users/TCLibrary/path_to_archives_web.mov

Unframed

The problem seems to have been resolved about the use of archive material in the exhibition and it can go ahead again. The exhibition opens in the Teachers College Gallery on the 3rd floor of the library. It is based around frames that have been seperated from their paintings and seeks to raise resonances between personal and institutional memory as fragmented, displaced and reconstituted in the present in often awkward realignments.

Re-presenting the Archive

I have been in conversation over the last few weeks with the archive staff at Teachers College about putting on a small exhibition in the gallery space in the library. I have put in a proposal about using some of the archive material and recontextualising it through a re-presentation of it around issues of absence and institutional memory. I have been negotiating with them about using some gilt frames that have been in the archive for about five years. The accompanying paintings are waiting to be restored. It seemed to be plain sailing until a recent e-mail questioning the "proper" use of the archive. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Ways of Doing: Re-Conceptualizing Research Practices in Arts and Humanities

I have had my head down over the last week or so as I have been asked to be a key note speaker at the 'Ways of Doing' Conference at Teachers College Columbia University. It is being held on 24th April 2006 . "The conference is one of a series of conferences held in relation to a Spencer Research fellowship Grant "Ways of Doing." the current conference has been envisioned as a forum for discussing practices of research within contemporary contexts and multiple disciplines in the arts and humanities." (for more information on the grant related projects see website at http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/waysofdoing/

Opening at the Macy Gallery

This is an opening of an exhibition of paintings by a faculty member Joy Moser. The two people deep in discussion are Dr John Baldacchino on the right who teaches aesthetics and philosophy and Dr Graeme Sullivan who has written the excellent book Art Practice as Research;Inquiry in the Visual Arts (2005)

Comment

i went to see Karla Black talking about her work at Outpost. It was
really interesting for me as she touched on many issues that I have
felt touched by by. The main one was the slight sense of
embarrassment at producing what could be seen as 'womens work' -
intuitive work, soft sculpture, work about emotions, anything related
to childbirth. She remembered seeing Mary Kelly's work and saying to
a friend "kill me if I ever produce anything like that!" yet now she
finds the work quite interesting. It seems that my generation has a
desire/repulsion relationship with 60's femenism and it worries me
that the repulsion could win. I was thinking about this in relation
to the comment you made about Vannessa Beecroft. I remember reading a
comment somewhere that her work was all about power - she does seem
to step into a powerful male arena. There was a performance in New
York fairly recently that parodied her work but I cant remember who
it was by.

have to mop the floor now
Becky