I saw this while walking on Bedford Street in Williamsburg yesterday. It is her project for Conflux, described on the website as “the the annual NYC festival for contemporary psychogeography where international artists, technologists, urban adventurers and the public put investigations of everyday city life into practice on the streets.”
You can find out more about the artist and the project on her blog.
A big percentage of NYPD officers live outside of the city. They probably don’t know why it matters when they block a crosswalk for 15 minutes to talk to someone on the sidewalk. There was even enough space to back up and not block it when I first walked by.
Does anyone know an up-to-date source on the percentage that live in the city? I see a 1997 estimate of 45%.
James and I are thrilled with the description of Susan C. Dessel work on Artinfo.com:
Poli See
Speaking of predictions, maybe it was the forecast that gallerists Edward Winkleman and Daniel Papkin recently gave to ArtInfo, or maybe it was the blaring media volume on the pending 9/11 anniversary, but when we joined the crowds in Chelsea, we were expecting to see a number of artists engaging with our charged political climate. And that did, indeed, prove to be the case at a few galleries. And, we’re happy to report, most of the work that could reasonably be read as carrying political overtones was well-crafted; there was little pat sloganeering going on (although there was some).
But while Chelsea had its fair share of political art, it was indefatigable gallery visitors who hit openings in Brooklyn on Friday who got to see an especially strong work that explicitly evoked the political climate. Susan C. Dessel’s installation, Our Backyard, A Cautionary Tale, in the sculpture garden at Dam, Stuhltrager, featured a series of white plastic body bags lined up on a patch of grass. To get from the back door of the gallery to the outdoor bar, visitors had to either navigate a narrow path or step over the body bags to reach the far side of the outdoor space. As the opening got crowded, it provided perhaps the most apt metaphor for why we may see more “political” art this fall—under contemporary circumstances, it’s simply unavoidable.
More information on the exhibition is here.
Related: Opening night photo from James.
Tonight is our Muse Fuse event, presented by NURTUREart at 7PM. Details are here.
The work in the window is
The Memory of Truth, 2003
Ligorano/Reese
Digital print on Duratrans
96 × 113 inches
It is part of a show curated by Marshall Reese titled The Medium is the Message.
They also did the ice sculpture I photographed in April at the same gallery.
The State of Things
Ligorano/Reese
If you’re voting in the New York Democratic primary today, and still undecided on Hillary Clinton versus Jonathan Tasini, just choose based on your beliefs:
Gay Marriage
Tasini: for
Clinton: against
PATRIOT Act
Clinton: for
Tasini: against
Iraq War
Clinton: for
Tasini: against
Death Penalty
Clinton: for
Tasini: against
Cluster Bombs
Clinton: for
Tasini: against
I realize he has little chance to defeat her, but a big turnout for Tasini would certainly help put some fear into her plans to win elections by moving ever rightward.
Gay City News has two good articles on Tasini:
From the endorsement:
On a shoestring campaign, Tasini has raised critical questions—most prominently about this nation’s disastrous policy in Iraq. Not incidentally, he is also a supporter of same-sex marriage.
Clinton has ducked fair dialogue on where she stands on the most pressing foreign policy question facing the nation. Just because she can get away with it does not make it the right thing to do. Clinton has also bobbed and weaved this year on gay rights. Activists have pressed her on her opposition to gay marriage—and come away disappointed that did not even speak out on the dignity of gay families on the Senate floor when Congress debated the ugly Marriage Protection Amendment.
Note that I’m not saying the gay issue overrides all. I think the fact that both of New York’s senators voted for the Iraq War, when the overwhelming majority of their constituents were opposed to it (and millions demonstrated on the streets), should be enough reason to get rid of both as soon as possible. The Democratic primary is really our only chance to have a say in this.
Matt Marello, Footprint in World Trade Center Dust, 2006, Digital ink jet print on watercolor paper, 30 × 40 inches
Pierogi 2000 has a 9/11-themed set of exhibitions opening tonight from 7-9. I can’t think of a better community with whom to spend this evening.
This hangs above the desks in the office.
From Robert Scheer’s column published on May 22, 2001:
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that “rogue regime” for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban’s estimation, are most human activities, but it’s the ban on drugs that catches this administration’s attention.
Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.