THE PIT

Friday is Fun Day

Friday is Fun Day. It's also an exhibition opening day. If you're in the mood for some Friday fun, check out Schroeder Romero's group show The Main Event, opening tonight from 6-8pm.

The Main Event includes work by Maria Dumlao, Jane Johnston & Elain Kaufman, Alex Brown, Rob Carter, Institute for Aesthletics, Marisa Olson, Javier Piñón, Shannon Plumb, Justin Rancourt & Chuck Yatsuk, Fernando Sanchez, Tom Sanford, Jessica Tam, and Lee Walton. [curated by Thomas Seely and Trey Edwards]

above: Rob Carter's "Wrigley Castle," 2006.

*and if this exhibition leaves you wanting more Rob Carter, you can always check out his video "Metropolis" in the upcoming group show Paper City at Mixed Greens, opening July 10. Shameless Plug. Shameless, shameless plug.

Eliasson's waterfalls

Thank you to CNN for reminding me this morning that The NYC Waterfall Project by Olafur Eliasson begins today. Check out this nice listing of best places to view the work here.

Submitting, part 2: what NOT to do (and what TO do)

An incredibly outrageous submission "packet" was brought to my attention today. "Outrageous" isn't exactly the right word to describe it. Neither is "packet". I'll explain in a few. But to begin, let me preface this by explaining that this was NOT a submission to Mixed Greens (it was actually dropped off at another NYC gallery, but the buzz about the theatrics of it all managed to reach us. And so I blog…)

This submission is not a packet. It is a series of laminated pages that have been bound between two wire-latticed sheets. Eye-catching though it is, it also looks like a tetanus shot waiting to happen. The pages include images of artwork, though none are accompanied by descriptions of materials, dimensions, etc. The art works are obviously very involved sculptures, but we found ourselves asking, "what the heck is this?"; Descriptions would have been nice. And, the cover letter is not an invitation to look over, but more of a business inquiry announcing "Contemporary art that has never been seen, shown, or offered for sale at any price…until now." Instead of including a self-addressed & stamped return envelope, it was made apparent that the artist would be "Taking appointments in New York City…to discuss areas of mutual benefit." Only the contact phone number for an agent is provided.

The real issue with this submission is that the submitter didn't know his/her audience. Most contemporary galleries dealing with emerging artists are in the business of consigning work, not buying directly off an artist (as the example above suggests). There is a standard for submission packets for the majority of contemporary fine art galleries (if they even accept submissions at all). Of course these standards may differ slightly from gallery to gallery (ex: some might prefer slides to a CD), but other than that, I'm fairly positive that this would fulfill most requirements:

-an up-to-date CV
-an artist's statement
-images (probably somewhere in the realm of 10-20)
-self-addressed & stamped return envelope
-contact info (mailing address and EMAIL) should be included somewhere

I hope any gallery workers out there will comment if they consider additional materials!

This brings up a point I've been dying to make--that there will soon be a resource book for artists that will outline these very sorts of procedures. Artist manager/Curator Heather Darcy Bhandari and arts lawyer Jonathan Melber realized the need for this type of publication. Entitled ART WORK: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career, (that's one heck of a title), you can preorder it here. Or put it on your summer reading list for 2009.

Above: Guess which Mixed Greener is pictured, and which Mixed Green's artist participated in the photo shoot for the authors' head shots.

Experience Florence, by treadmill.

What summer exhibition is more fun than Grand Theft Auto IV, and better exercise than Wii Fit? Check out Marnix de Nijs' latest installation Remapping Firenze here. And the best part is that it's actually in Firenze (which, btw, if you decide to visit, you should get some insider city tips here.)

In case you missed it

Adia Millett's Week 19 from her ongoing installation series Change.

collect your favorite artists, on a summer budget

On a summer budget? You can still rack up a pretty cool collection by collecting editioned work, multiples, or merchandise by some of your favorite artists. Here are a few ideas I ran across--hope you're inspired to explore these sites for other finds!

Printed Matter had the best variety of media available, from DVDs and posters, to artist books and multiples. My favorite finds were these Artkards ($20) and artist-designed wallpaper ($60). The description of the ArtKards was priceless: "Synopsis: Meet the movers and shakers of the contemporary art world. Important statistics on the coolest artists, curators, dealers and writers on 15 trading cards."

Imperfect Articles is the place to fill out your summer wardrobe with t-shirts designed by emerging artists. You can pick up a snazzy one by Royal Art Lodge or Amy Chan ($45 each).

Need to bring a gift to a dinner party? Nicholls Wine offers bottles with labels designed by artists such as Kammy Roulner (yay!). Pick up a bottle here ($35).

Possibly the best deal out there is Jen Bekman's 20x200.com, where you can pick up a 8x10" print (Edition of 200) for only $20. Awesome.

Cereal Art will fill your desire for more tchotzkes. You can pick up a band of Marcel Dzama "Action Figures" ($35), or an Allan McCollum "Thanks" bar ($50). Your desk will look cooler. You will seem cooler.

And here's perhaps your cheapest option: Giant Robot has all sorts of options to own merchandise highlighting works by artists. Decorate your weekend duffle with Murakami buttons ($4.50 each).

*But the best advice is to peruse flatfiles at your favorite gallery, where you very well might find a deal. Pictured above is Joan Linder's "Twelve $ (1)," 2007. Her series of stacked bills all sell at face value! [hint: deal, deal, deal]

Remembering Russert - And the apparent Conger Curse

above: Rob Conger's "Tim Russert," 2007, 56 x 36 inches, woven acrylic on quarter inch mesh.

It's not a coincidence that an artist who has made portraits of several living people will eventually see them pass away. However, a few people have died shortly after my having made a hook rug of them.

The first known death of my subject was Mr. Rogers. He was old, it's no great shakes that he passed away. However, as he was a part of a series I (loosely) titled, "good people and bad people," it does seem somewhat telling that more of the "good people" are no longer with us than the "bad people".

The next death was Johnny Perry. He was "The World's Strongest Man", or almost. The actual world's strongest man wasn't as photogenic, and oddly, Johnny Perry was an intuitive choice. In any case, I have my reasons why I put Fred Rogers and Johnny Perry in the same show, but those reasons have faded from importance, if they ever had any. Perhaps more interesting was that he died while the show was up. I called the Associated Press reporter in North Carolina who wrote the story about his death, who said that he died in the family trailer next to the house (no, I didn't ask if it was a double-wide or single-wide). It was apparently a tragic drug overdose of performance-enhancing drugs and possibly alcohol and other substances. His girlfriend was with him at the time of death, and she called the gallery and was really touched that a fan had immortalized him.

The show I had after Johnny and Fred was about death at Disneyland. I had thought about the show for years, but I went ahead with it, instead of a few other ideas for a show, after the weird fog of the news items hovered over the last exhibition. When I was doing the Disney show, I went to Trinidad for some help on the rugs. This isn't as sinister off-shoring as it seems. My girlfriend's dad has a spare room in his house, and we hired a neighbor of theirs to help me hook the rugs.

Long story short: There's someone there that didn't like me. Every morning when we woke up, we would see little flecks of what appeared to be rust on my bed and clothes. We washed them, and they showed up again the next day.

We thought it was the washing machine putting rust on the clothes, but it didn't do it to anyone else's clothes. Then, Danielle got a spark in her eye, and went to a fortune teller that she knew from high-school.

"Yes. It's chicken blood. Someone is putting a curse on him. And frankly, it's a fairly pricey curse, so he must really be out to get him." The curse involves, among other rituals, spattering chicken blood with a feather on the accursed's belongings.

So, I was covered in chicken blood while doing the Deaths of Disney rugs... from a voodoo curse.

Finally, you may have heard, Tim Russert has died.
This posed a particularly troubling issue for me, not only because I watched his shows pretty religiously, but because I was looking to him as the "mainstream needle" that gauged zero on the political spectrum. He pointed American-hegemony-north, represented exactly what was acceptable to ask and not ask, in this country as normal and "the correct path" (much like Alan Greenspan did at one time, much like a very strong person would when we invaded Iraq). In addition, I thought that my show at Mixed Greens was going to foreshadow the elections as more and more people switched off American Idol (as well as Fox News, and Keith Oberman) and turned to Meet the Press to see what "normal" meant. I thought it was very obvious: people would see Tim Russert in the window and go "Why? oh, duh. election year." Now, the rug has a really different meaning, because of his emphasis on father-child relationships. This isn't a terribly pressing issue in my mind, but I now challenge Mixed Greens to match me on a donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters upon sale of the thing.

-Rob Conger

Trend-Spotting

Image screenshot from Artinfo.com, courtesy Patrick McMullen Photography.

What is the trend, you ask? Well, that tinsel-town + all of it's related fields (TV + music industries) have apparently had an increased interest in the art world this summer thus far.

Brad Pitt enjoys Art Basel.

HBO documents "The Art of Failure".

Santogold even titled their song "L.E.S. Artistes". And since we love multimedia, you can check out the youtube video here.

Strange Culture

A wonderful interview with artist Steve Kurtz was made available online the other day. The artist was arrested and held on suspicion of bio-terrorism in 2004. Kurtz's four year ordeal was made into a movie, Strange Culture, released this past year. See the trailer here.

SHOUT OUT to The Art Law Blog for keeping this story fresh in our minds.

High (on no Mimran) Line

If the image above makes you shudder, it's probably because you work in West Chelsea and hate to be reminded of the Mimran billboards that used to be mounted to the train overpasses on 24th, 25th, and 26th streets. The past few glorious months, the High Line construction made it necessary for the eyesores to come down, yet it's still unclear as to whether or not they'll go back up after the park is finished. Here's a glimpse of some High Line progress. Guess what: High Line even has it's own blog.

Image above screenshot from mimran.com.