The article on Alfredo is coming out in the next issue, Isssue # 39 – APRIL 2006 – it’s not on the bookstands yet, but will surface any day.
UPDATE:
APRIL 14th – the issue is out. Issue # 39. It says: ART ATTACK ! New York’s Notorious Forger Returns – at the top right corner of the cover.
The article, titled: ‘STUDIO GANGSTER’ (no joke !! – ) is written by MacLean Jackson, with about 4 pages of text and 6 pages of photos. The article in the SLEEK MAGAZINE is more informative of Alfredo’s caper. This one is a little more atmospheric, but its amazing how guillable both authors are – although what might seem the strangest fiction are probably the truest facts .. its the little details that keep changing … a detailed comparison of both articles will give some indication as to how Alfredo continues to embellish his myth-in-the-making.
The photos by Axel Dupeux are the best part of the article, and got top priority, even including some full page photo layouts. The green tinged photos are from Alfredo’s ex-studio (with ‘the plumber’,) next to the Gowanus Canal – think ‘Fight Club’. (there’s an interesting ‘Red Bull’ product placement in one of these photos. ‘Red Bull’ is a sponsor of THE CANAL CHAPTER who got Alfredo this layout – .. that is, .. if you also agree that a product placement in an artist’s studio, a convicted forger no less, and just off the Gowanus Canal, might be a milestone in the history of product placement.
> see the last photo below, on the very right, on top of the T.V.)
The pictures of the artwork against a red brick wall, are from Alfredo’s show: ‘ARSENAL FOR DEMOCRACY – WAR CORPORATISM’ which ran from: Jan 27 – Feb 24, 2006 at THE CANAL CHAPTER.
JASON WALL & MIKHAIL (Mike) SOKOVIKOV, co-founders & directors of THE CANAL CHAPTER – aka 1134NYC – 343 Canal St – 4th FL – hooked Alfredo up with MASS APPEAL – all it took was one phone call.
THE CANAL CHAPTER
mass appeal info: mass appeal
below are some scans of photos from the MASS APPEAL article, APRIL 2006 – ISSUE # 39, on ALFREDO MARTINEZ, titled: ‘STUDIO GANGSTER’ – ALL PHOTOS BY: AXEL DUPEUX.
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ/MASS APPEAL/NYC |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 29th, 2006, 4:41pm
The article on Alfredo is available on-line.
It’s the SPRING 2006: SLEEK MAGAZINE: COMIC/TRAGIC ISSUE #10 – published out of BERLIN.
to get some sense of their website, go to: www.sleekmag.com/sitemap/home.html
then hit: ‘current issue’ in the top left hand margin
on the next screen, INDEX ISSUE 10 – hit:
208_The Consequences of Bastardising Basquiat. Interview with Alfredo Martinez
otherwise, just go directly to: Interview with Alfredo Martinez
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ/SLEEK/BERLIN |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 29th, 2006, 4:40pm
PAGE 11 – NEW YORK POST – SATURDAY – FEBRUARY 11, 2006 – PHOTO BY: FRANK ROSS
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, with some of his new work, in the back office, THE PROPOSITION GALLERY, CHELSEA, NYC. April 1, 2005
Photo: Nancy Smith
PROPOSITION artist, ALFREDO MARTINEZ, aka ‘the man who would be Basquiat’ made PAGE 11 of SATURDAY’S NEW YORK POST (FEBRUARY 11, 2006) with a breath taking publicity hound’s dream .. a 1/2 page photo of 4 of NYPD’s FINEST surrounding one of his big gun sculptures on an empty lot off Canal Street, near the Holland Tunnel. The word on the street & from sources in the know, who’d rather remain anonymous for good reason, confirm that the large gun sculpture on wheels, in the POST photo, is indeed an Alfredo Martinez Saturday night special.. Knowing Alfredo, it wouldn’t be a stretch, to assume that he himself, might have been the …civic minded “community member(s)” who tipped off the police to the ‘heavy artillery’ on Canal Street… and supplied the well-timed heads-up to the POST lensman who just happened to stroll by, in time to catch the action! Turns out Alfredo has a show, ‘Arsenal for Democracy’ in a 4th floor loft at 343 Canal St. between Greene & Wooster — who wouldn’t want a 1/2 page photo in the SATURDAY NEW YORK POST, over a 1/4 pg paid ad in ARTFORUM!
(originally posted on the artlovers home page: FEB 12, 2006)
UPDATE:
here’s the card for: ALFREDO MARTINEZ … ‘ARSENAL FOR DEMOCRACY – WAR CORPORATISM’ – which ran from JANUARY 27th – FEBRUARY 24th, 2006, at THE CANAL CHAPTER, SOHO, NYC.
the cops confiscated the piece – they hauled it away on a flatbed truck. Another big part of the story is THE CANAL CHAPTER itself. If you like your art served up straight up from the street, 100% pure juice, this is real deal. Run by GUERRILLA STREET ART CREW – 1134 NYC – aka JASON WALL & MIKHAIL (MIKE) SOKOVIKOV aka MIRF, THE CANAL CHAPTER operates a raw loft/art/gallery/event/party space on the 4th floor of 343 Canal St, between Greene & Wooster. With their street cred down, these 2 talented young artists are moving to cross over into the mainstream artworld, with their own art & the art they exhibit.
(see the item: mirf/THUNDERDOG, just below on THE BOMB)
ALFREDO MARTINEZ had a few more large scale – STAR WARS – like artillery pieces, like the one that made the POST, up in the loft … seeing is believing.
THE CANAL CHAPTER
photos of the show
UPDATE:
THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2006
Phone Interview with Ronald Sosinski, Director, THE PROPOSITION
artlovers: “has the F.B.I. been in contact with you, yet ….. about Alfredo?”
Ronald Sosinski: “do you mean today, … or ever”
artlovers: “The SLEEK MAGAZINE article is now available on-line, have you actually read it?”
Ronald: “No, what does it say?”
artlovers: “maybe you better read it for yourself. He makes a blithe comment about the President, he also invokes the Columbia Mafia …. does Alfredo have a death wish?”
Ronald: “well that was stupid …”
artlovers: “he also states that 20% of the secondary art market, albeit ‘not this currrent generation’ is composed of forgeries … claiming to have done several himself …. including a Calder.”
Ronald: “Alfredo has a funny way of showing off and will say anything to get attention.”
artlovers: “don’t Fashion magazines have fact checkers.”
Ronald: ” … in Alfredo’s universe ?”
artlovers: “Keith Haring and Jean Michel will be turning over in their graves – he seems to have appropriated other peoples’ experiences with them, as his own – he never meet them.”
Ronald: “who knows with Alfredo .. but all the rest, about shooting Kenny Schacter with a blank … at an art fair, is true.”
artlovers: “he once almost blew himself up with homemade explosives on the beach at Donald Baechler’s ….”
artlovers: “how long have you know Alfredo?”
Ronald: “.. since some time around 1994.”
artlovers: “THE PROPOSITION gave him his first one man show – ‘HE WHO DARES WINS’ – sometime around 1999 – a pretty prophetic title. Do you think he wanted to go to prison?”
Ronald: “well he dared the system re: the Basquiat forgeries. For him it was a win win no matter what, because of the publicity. His timing was excellent, he actually made it into the newly revised preface to the book on Basquiat, Phoebe Hoban’s ‘BASQUIAT – A QUICK KILLING IN ART’ .”
artlovers: “What do you think about where he is now?”
Ronald: “well, he’s in a pretty good place, finally. He actually was alright in prison, despite the hunger strikes, artists have very high status on the inside. And Alfredo’s big. However the cliche is also true, that you come out far worse, criminally, than when you go in, thanks to the high opportunity socializing contacts. When he got out, Alfredo … and his new friends were a little scary…. but a year later, he’s hooked up to some really good energy with THE CANAL CHAPTER, and now he is on a roll. Only Alfredo can go from the Gowanus Canal, to Canal St, to Soho in the space of 2 weeks.”
artlovers: “did you see the exhibit of his work on Greene St?”
Ronald: “only the beginning of it, we brought the big gun over. We had it showcased at SCOPE, in the PROPOSITION booth. It was beautiful.”
artlovers: “.. well its amazing, they built a whole rough and ready show around it, and placed this huge flowering cherry blossom tree, an actual tree, in full bloom next to it…”
artlovers: …”back to the SLEEK article … one last question: was the part about Harvey Shipley Miller buying Alfredo’s drawing from you, for the Judith Rothschild Foundation collection at the MoMA true? or just another fantasy wanna be..”
Ronald: “no, that’s true. Harvey Shipley Miller saw Alfredo’s work from prison and loved it. It was actually the very last purchase that made it into that collection’s acquistion deadline.”
THE PROPOSITION
more info & photos on the Greene St: to post soon.
to see photos from Alfredo’s trial, actually his friends demonstrating outside the courthouse, including Josh Harris, Anthony Haden Guest, and the Enger Bros aka Exploding Sky:
Federal courthouse Nov 19, 2002 and scroll down to the bottom.
note: that ‘s Leo (Lio) Malka at the end of the 3rd row, at the top of the report.
to see photos from ‘Alfredo Martinez: Drawings from Prison’ at THE PROPOSITION, an exhibit of work that was smuggled out of prison and exhibited while he was still inside, go to:
Prison show, Oct 24, 2003
~ALFREDO MARTINEZ/The Canal Chapter/The New York Post/Sosinski |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 29th, 2006, 4:38pm
…THUNDERDOG …’brainstorming a clouded world’
JEFF WALL and MIKHAIL SOKOVIKOV aka 1134 NYC aka THE CANAL CHAPTER also launched a limited edition ‘toy’ – a protoype of their collaborative tag – mirf – in the – THUNDERDOG 2006 TOY LABEL PREVIEW – which ran from Feb 11th – March 2nd at FUSE GALLERY, on the Lower East Side. Headed up by TRISTAN EATON, and roaring out of BROOKLYN, THUNDERDOG is a multi-media, multi-purpose creative agency and toy label.
thunderdogstudios.com
photos from the opening event, Feb 11, 2006
filth aka Lucas Irwin – is the Senior Art Director of THUNDERDOG.
below is the mirf prototype – the toys are in limited editions of 1,000
mirf aka 1134NYC aka THE CANAL CHAPTER – 1134NYC.com
~mirf/THUNDERDOG |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 29th, 2006, 4:37pm
the card for: ROBERT GUTIERREZ, ‘fever atlas’, February 4 – March 11, 2006.
Sixtyseven, 547 W27, suite 309
The first NYC solo show of the California based painter: ROBERT GUTIERREZ. …”intimate in scale, intensely colored and finely detailed. A combination of landscape painting, figurative work and abstraction, Gutierrez’s paintings tend to invoke open-ended narratives with a nod to Filipino-folk supernaturalism.”
His work was included in the recent exhibit, ‘Bay Area Now’, at the Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco.
Robert Gutierrez was born in Manila, The Philippines. He currently lives and works in San Jose, California.
His first showing at Sixtyseven was part of ‘Things of that Nature’ in 2005.
more info: Sixtyseven
~Robert Gutierrez |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 29th, 2006, 4:36pm
‘WE MADE IT’, January 28 – March 10, 2006. SECOND GALLERY’S INAUGRAL SHOW. INSTALLATIONS and VIDEOS BY: DIANE CARR, BRENDAN HARMAN, MICHAEL MAHALCHICK, FRANKIE MARTIN, ANDY MEEROW, PAPER RAD, EZRA RUBIN.
SECOND GALLERY, The Distillery, 516 East 2nd ST, South Boston, MASS
…. walking the beach, alone, is BEN JONES of Paper Rad, and from the looks of it, one could reasonably assume, he also designed the card.
second gallery
~We Made It, BOSTON |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 22nd, 2006, 10:45pm
‘While Interwoven Echoes Drip into a Hybrid Body’. an Exhibition about Sound, Performance and Sculpture.Rita Ackermann & Agathe Snow, Dave Allen, Peter Coffin, Chris Cunningham & Bjork, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin R, Russom, Paul Etienne Lincoln, Mileese*, Seb Patane, Banks Violette. 21. Januar – 26 Marz 2006. migros museum, Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zurich
the card was designed by: Ibrahim Zbat, Riviera Design, Zurich. The organic forms with which he worked were created from the ERNST HAECKEL book, ‘Kunstformen der Natur’.
www.migrosmuseum.ch
~Interwoven, ZURICH |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 22nd, 2006, 10:20pm
‘slow burn’, curated by Jonah Freeman, January 26 – March 11, 2006, galerie edward mitterrand, 52 rue des bains – 1205 geneve — here’s a shout-out to all our friends in the show — alexandre singh, ara peterson, blake rayne, cheyney thompson, eileen quinlan, jim shaw, john tremblay, liam gillick, lucy mckenzie, matthew brannon, michael phelan, nate lowman & peter coffin.
image: JUSTIN LOWE, ‘shadowy couple above crystal waters’, 2005, laminated custom pigment print mounted on aluminium, 23 x 30″
www.edwardmitterrand.com
~slow burn, GENEVE |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 22nd, 2006, 9:29pm
the card for ERIKA SOMOGYI, ‘Violet Dawn Love Song’, which ran from January 5 – February 11, 2006 at Monya Rowe Gallery on W 26th St.
card image: Erika Somogyi, ‘The Voice in the Fire’, 2005, watercolor, gouache, and color pencil on paper, 22 by 30 inches.
….. what was more luminous? the constellation of Erika’s paintings, with their otherworldly yet somehow politically charged implications, or the equally shining constellation of underground stars, also just on the edge of being borne into the mainstream universe, who came to Erika’s opening to celebrate their friend’s vision and achievement.
ERIKA SOMOGYI opens ‘Violet Dawn Love Song’, Monya Rowe Gallery, NYC, Jan 5, 2006
Photo: Nancy Smith
more photos from the opening
~ERIKA SOMOGYI/Violet Dawn Love Song |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 22nd, 2006, 8:58pm
the deceptively simple, yet creatively resonant card, on hard stock, 7 x 7″, spoke well for this show, JACK PIERSON, ‘Early Works and Beyond’, which ran from December 15 to January 28, 2006, at Daniel Reich Gallery. A beautifully paced overview of some of Jack’s best early work, the show worked really well in the gallery and resonanted well with the holiday season. Festive and solemn, at the same time, somehow.
(the card doesn’t scan to justice, there’s a finely defined illusion of white cloth as the background)
JACK PIERSON, ‘Early Works and Beyond’, garnered an equally sensitive review by ROBERTA SMITH in the NEW YORK TIMES, of Friday, January 20, 2006. some of Roberta’s musings:
“This small survey show of Jack Pierson’s career …. also provides a useful account of Mr. Pierson’s consistently melancholic art, its siftings through the rubble of American life and its restless roaming through photography, sculpture, drawing and language. In both medium and message, Mr. Pierson’s work is about a kind of homelessness.
Mr. Pierson emerged in the early 1990’s in a generation that reacted to the slick self-confidence of late 1980’s Neo-Geo with a dilapidated disillusionment hastened by AIDS. His approach was both Romantic and hard-nosed; it favored bits of reality or language slightly rearranged. His best known works are poignant words spelled out in the plastic letters of old signs …….
For Mr. Pierson the inanimate world brims with longing and memory waiting to be coaxed forward ….”
photos from the opening
~JACK PIERSON/DANIEL REICH |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | March 22nd, 2006, 8:32pm
