THESIS: workin on leavin the living

It took a lot of frustrating days but I finally got set up with a studio at LAB. I've had some ideas floating around so I began locking them down into working drawings and seeking out materials to start making maquettes. I spent this past weekend in New York. On Friday I took the train up and met some people from my art history class, "Women and Art", to see some exhibitions in Chelsea by female artists. The first show we saw was Siona Brown's My Magic Carpet. Her work was based on her experience growing up as a member of an extremely small Jewish sect in Mumbai. She showed mostly gouache paintings on mylar along with some larger works on board and a tent installation. We were fortunate enough to be able to speak Siona in the presence of her work. To be honest I was a little unimpressed by what I saw and heard. I questioned her about a painting of a woman with a comic book speech bubble saying "Who goes there...Friend or Foe?" in regards to her decision to include text in a painting, especially text that beats the meaning of the work onto the viewer. Her response was not satisfactory and so I dropped the issue, not wanting to be an asshole to her in her own exhibition.

We moved on to some other shows down the street. None of them struck me as significantly interesting, they just happened to be shows by women artists. Eventually we stumbled into Mixed Greens, where I have seen several good shows in the past, and I experienced Stacy Fisher's work for the first time. I was not expecting to be so pleasantly surprised but when I turned the corner into the back room of the gallery I immediately fell in love with her work. Rory told me it wasn't the best representation of her work, she only showed 3 pieces, but the one I really liked was Green Sculpture with Painting.

After Mixed Greens we walked over to see David Byrne's Globe piece as well as the Social Media show at Pace. I really enjoyed this exhibition because it explored a lot of ideas that I had been thinking about over the summer while I was taking classes. One was a Sociology of Mass Communication and the other was a Cultural Anthropology class with a focus on Social Networking. The show at Pace explored the boundaries of public and private on the internet and within social networking platforms.

After Pace our class was free to go so Rory and I walked around the corner to the Edward Thorp Galery opening. I really liked the paintings by Anthony Masullo, Craig Taylor and Gary Petersen. Next we headed uptown to 45th st. and 9th ave. I forget the name of the gallery we went to but they were having an opening and it was very crowded. The artists was showing three paintings and a sculpture. We saw a guy who teaches painting at Rutgers that Rory asked about the show. Apparently the artist had a very large body of work that had been leading up to this show and at the last minute decided to cutback and only show a few pieces. It was an interesting experience and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

After that, Rory headed back to New Brunswick and I headed uptown to the Bronx to stay with a friend. The next morning I woke up and walked to the Riverdale Metro North station. I walked up Independence Ave through a crazy-beautiful neighborhood with huge houses and well groomed yards. It did not feel like the Bronx at all. I stopped by Wave Hill Park, since it was a Target sponsored free admission day, and took in one of the greatest views of the Hudson River. Eventually I made it to the Riverdale stop and hopped on a north bound train headed for Beacon.

An hour and a half later I arrived at Beacon and began walking to Dia Beacon, an amazing sculpture museum that I have been waiting a long time to visit. The museum was everything I expected it to be. It houses works from a lot of artists I admire including Richard Serra, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Beuys and many more. They also had a special exhibition showing the work of Blinky Palermo.

It was really great to get away from New Brunswick for a few days and see a bunch of great art. The following are some photos of my studio and random things I have been working on...