Storage in the studio

I moved everything out of storage and into my studio this weekend. It wasn't as bad as I anticipated and it didn't feel like I had as much stuff as when I first moved it in. It actually packed up quite nicely into the corner and doesn't take up too much of my work space. Eventually I'll probably put up some sort of permanent storage system.

Part of my motivation for doing this was to save a little bit of money each month, but more importantly, I'm hoping that having to physically face the amount of stuff I have everytime I walk into my studio will help me be more careful and thoughtful about what I make. My relationship to "stuff" is conflicted, in that I'm reluctant to throw things out, but aspire to minimize my belongings down to a few favorites or heavily used items and I hate to generate waste. Already I'm looking at the pile and plotting about what I can get rid of. This situation has been playing a big role in the way I'm trying to change the way I make my art.

The Upsetter (quick review)

After seeing The Upsetter movie this past weekend, I have to say that it is really good. Lee "Scratch" Perry is an amazingly unique and interesting artist who has fully integrated his art into his life. His music, art and life are one and the same -- he lives his work. For that reason, I'm glad that Ethan and Adam chose to let Scratch tell his story mostly through his own words and actions. Seeing Scratch perform various actions and ritualistic performances puts his work in context so that you can really begin to understand where it ultimately comes from. An accompanying narrative fills in the blanks and touches on Scratch's tremendous influence on other musicians, without turning it into every other music documentary or VH1 special by leaning heavily on artist interviews. I've been listening to Radio Scratch on upsetter.net for the past two days now.

The Upsetter

This Saturday, July 5, 9:30 PM at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is the NYC premiere of The Upsetter: The Music and Genius of Lee "Scratch" Perry. The film is part of BAM's Afro Punk Festival.

Over the last two years, my friends, Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough, have traveled the globe with Lee "Scratch" Perry, visiting his roots in Jamaica, his home and studio in Switzerland, and touring with him while he played various venues across the United States. Last year I had the pleasure of seeing Scratch perform at B.B. King Blues Club. It was an amazing show and Adam said it was one of the better performances he saw throughout the filming.

Anyway, I'm really excited about the movie, so I'll definitely be at the premiere. Ethan and Adam will both be there to introduce the film. It looks like it's the only showing currently scheduled in New York, so I recommend not missing it. Check out the teaser above.

Scratch in his studio.

Sew what?

My mom gave me her old Singer sewing machine. She recently had it tuned up and the guy who fixed it said it was a good machine. I'm going to bring it to my studio this weekend and if I have enough time I'll play around with it a little bit . I don't know how to use it yet, but it came with a book written during a time period when apparently the idea of a man using a sewing machine was inconceivable.

"A wonderful world of color and design is open to the woman who sews."

The book seems like it will be helpful as far as figuring out the various parts and functions of the machine, as well as learning proper sewing techniques. One of the projects that I'm currently working on will require lots of sewing, so I hope I get the hang of it pretty quickly. If this works out, it could open up a whole lot of options for making work that avoids the typical weight and storage issues of most sculpture. Either way, I figure it's a useful skill to have.

Don't plan too far in advance

Last night I finally watched Fitzcarraldo, directed by Werner Herzog, after having it sit around my apartment since April (it's hard to find time to watch a 2 hour and 40 minute movie).

Klaus Kinski plays Fitzcarraldo, an Irishman obsessed with the idea of bringing an Italian opera house to the natives of the Peruvian jungle. After a few false starts trying to raise money for his project by selling ice in the Amazon and trying to obtain sponsorship from local rubber barons, Fitzcarraldo comes up with a far-fetched plan to raise the money by starting his own rubber empire.

First he purchases a remote parcel of land in the Amazon, rehabs an old steamboat, and hires a crew. He maps out a route up the river which involves clearing the jungle and hauling the steamboat across a narrow strip of land in order to relaunch the vessel in the parallel river. Now here's the part that I thought was particularly crazy, but perhaps also the most believable: I don't think he ever really knew exactly how he would get the boat into the other river. I think he had some vague idea, but I think he planned on figuring it out once he got there. Despite the fact that this step was absolutely crucial to his plan, he basically winged it.

The interesting thing to me is that I'm starting to think that perhaps this is how extraordinarily big things get down. You can't possibly plan for every unknown when undertaking a large project. Certain aspects will simply have to be dealt with in the present as the obstacles arrive. If you try to solve every problem from the very beginning, everything would either go wrong at the first unforseen problem or it would be too discouraging to even start.

Perhaps a slight spoiler, but I'm leaving out all of the details which make the ending interesting: Fitzcarraldo eventually gets the opera to the Amazon, even if it's not exactly how he planned it in the beginning.

images: stills from Fitzcarraldo, found on the Internet

Busy month

I haven't had much reason to post anything lately. June has been a very busy month of social obligations for me and it's not over yet. I've only managed to get to my studio once so far, and I've got unfinished work that I've started waiting for me in my studio, plus a bunch of other ideas I'm anxious to get working on. It's a little frustrating, but next week I switch to 4 day weekends which will mostly be spent on my new projects.

In the meantime, I'm hoping I can find some time to see Werner Herzog's new film at the Film Forum before it closes. Encounters at the End of the World, filmed in Antarctica. Here's an interview with Herzog on Gothamist.

Here's the trailer:

The Assasination of __________

I just found this on the NY Times City Room blog:

<snip - from City Room>

"This morning, a Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama,” in neatly stenciled letters on the plate glass windows at street level."

</snip>

My immediate reaction was just another hack artist relying on controversy to support an easy, dumb project. However there's much more to this than some inflammatory text stenciled on a storefront window. Yazmany Arboleda created a fake exhibition for each candidate which only exist on the Internet in the form of 2 websites documenting the work:

The Assassination of Hillary Clinton
The Assassination of Barack Obama

I don't know if any of the artworks in the exhibition are real or not, but they are really good. The show goes beyond simply being controversial and really probes at the way these public figures have been portrayed by the media and are perceived by the public. All of the tensions, prejudices, and insults underlying the entire campaign are magnified and exagerrated to the point of ridiculousness. Outstanding.

If you read the comments on the City Room blog, it's clear that either the work went waaay over the heads of most people, or they really weren't looking at it at all.

image: from Yazmany Arboleda's Hillary Clinton website