Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I Am The New Robert Rauschenberger!

While I was running the excellent panel discussion or so-called, "Art Wake," at the Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, Sunday night, it occurred to me that we were there on behalf of the ARTBLAHG – not in attendance – of Philadelphia and explaining their manifesto to several New York artists! So, Kudos to those guys at AB, whoever they are! I suggest you change the name to ARTBLAG, which is easier to say and utilizes the concise British term, blag, which refers to making yourself appear more important than you are. I don't say this to be critical; believe me, an artist needs to be able to blag at a moment's notice. I learned that when living in London. See, that is a "blag," right there; a namedropping of yourself.

You'll be glad to know it went well and I don't get the opportunity to do that sort of thing often, so thanks. To sum it up, we gave a bit of back story about our feuding art blogs scenario in this fair city of BL while also discussing the manipulations within the contemporary art market. We are by our nature, outsiders, so our panel was a coup of sorts and we know how to discuss disenfranchisement in detail. I think we even impressed some insiders!

There may be another of these discussions planned for Philly and I hope I can again be moderator. It's a buzz. What I would like to focus on is forming a loose consortium which will focus on showing the best contemporary art from this city. To do this we need to stop squabbling and come up with a real strategy which benefits our burgeoning artist community and our few "with it" galleries that barely tick over. I'll be glad to furnish the working definition of "contemporary" because I have a concise one. This is the first hurdle.

2 comments:

Harry + Harrietta said...

Dear Poked Insteadagentshehaha,

What you speak of "showing the bestest", dis is very simple and shouldn't take a long time or a lot of money to doo. It will take cooperation, ah, the most difficult of currencies to acquire here in sillytown. If yous can doo dat, this thang can work gangbusters-like.

Here's all that needs to be done in our humble jumble opine.

Contact all the co-ops and galleries and even the big wigged orgs. They are told that the artiste want to present a large survey of local contempt-poor-airy art. This is called a feasibility thangie. If enough folks say yes then it's a go. Yippee!!!!!!!!!

The Ice Cock or Skylox or other large space could be rented for around 3-4 big ones. Wee thinkith to wait for the typical grant funding wheels to turn will be death this the idea. So if each co-op, gallery, institution and individual can contribute some money, then it can be done in a few months time. Simple, no? si? The Brucennial is a good model as is the ancient Armory Show way back wence that took place here in fillytowne.

If you try and do it with too much thematic acrobatics and curatorial soaring it will devolve into an insider fest we thinkith. But of course maybe yous and others have idees of how to dance 'round this potentially huge problem.

Maybe once the word getz around some nice bizzmess people will offer a free space that they are notwsitting on vacantly.

Many of the artiste we know have talked about this kinda thang for years. Hopefully now is the right time and wee believe it could happen pretty painlessly if the filly folk really want it too.

Let us know if we can help!!!!!!! Wee would luv to have sumptin nice to say, har, har!!!!!!!!!!!

loooooooooovvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeee ya hon!!!!!!!!!!!

James Rosenthal said...

I totally agree with you!!!!!!!!