~15 WARREN . .


musician CHRIS COLTON in front of a wall section that says: ‘I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU’ . . by CYRUS RA.

now, that’s one amazing piece.

that’s a force of improv . . . to reckon with. site specific, raw, and coming down.
don’t blink, it might be resurrected, but it will never be the same.
a statement of creative energy that has just this exact life for just this night. this week.
the eternal / internal drama, we all feel . . played out on a rough old wall.
the endless human narrative. the timeless mark of man, expressing his depth . . on a ‘cave’ wall.
the NYC script.
true grit. a warning. a sign. a gorgeous ‘script’ . . a gorgeous piece of graf / ‘writing’.

truthfully, I just liked the way it looked, esp with the warning ‘no exit’ type graphics playing out against the raw wall, with the electric pipes running around it.
it was a real, visual ‘live’ wire . .
in play.
and at . . heart / i.e. meaning & concept.


I’m thinking, is it too much to read into these single rectangular shapes, the ‘cube’ face was also on top of a ‘tower’ . . the exact silhouette of the downed Twin Towers ?
in whose shadow . . these kids grew up.
I mean, it’s not a round mythic Greco/Roman mirror. nor a JEFF KOONS flower/goat-shaped mirror.
it’s certainly not . . MURAKAMI.
it’s most def, Lower Manhattan.
the fluctuation, the reference floats in the air . . like smoke.
a double tower would be too obvious.
too much .. a sense of being ‘played’ by others.
keeping it ‘single’, is more STANLEY KUBRICK, is the best I can put it.
it’s a refection, it worked as a ‘reflection’ . . not only of the past, but of YOU, the viewer . . in the present.
I can’t live without you, the other.
and I can’t live without YOU !! that is . . me, looking in at myself.
you have been engaged, socially. artistically. you have been warned.
you are also part of the wall, the story, the time, the place, the night, the exhibit.


just to the left, is a far flung, non-narrative piece by HAKEEM LEWIS.
a blow-out, none the less.
and an elegant one, at that.


around the corner, dramatically ‘lit’, small realist paintings by CAROLINE CERUSSI, stared back at you.
I mean, that’s the way it went. no words, no titles.
no artist captions, no limits. the best way to work the scene, was just to ask, is that yours.
do you know who did it . . ?


‘LIFE IS A RORSCHACH’ – a site-specific wall painting by CHRIS COLTON, I guess that . .
could sum it up.


CHRIS COLTON, is friends with the curators, he is a jazz musician . . seriously, he is studying music at the Conservatory at McGILL, in Montreal. this is probably his first, or at least his biggest foray into the world of art, and painting, per se . . a ‘shake-up’ of your usual format / mode of expression . . . was one of the main things the 3 curators were going for.


a huge walk-in rorschach field, an endless warren. the creative impulse worked to the max.
thrown up against this ancient NYC building. the ground floor and 2 sub-levels, blurring into one.
raw, flat-out . . ‘soul’ immersion.
think: like a kind-of, graphic . . ‘waterfall’.


I was told OLIVIA BALLARD made this piece, this corner.


kind of a sensual shock, it repeated a theme that broke down a lot, here. which was the use of very common and cheap materials, such as empty bottles . . that worked against the site, as is. to produce something new and magical, and full of meaning if you cared to cross the line.
a physical outpost, as well as one rich in whatever metaphor you might care to spin around it.
art is more like music to me, I don’t need the metaphor, but . . pick your own battles.

the other thing was the play of ‘light’.
for such a dark, unlit ‘theatre’, or stage . . the installation had many works, that worked with light, as a pure resource . . whether as an element of the work itself, the entire viewing field, or simply as . . reflection, as in reflected light. as seen here.
you didn’t quite realize it, as you moved through what had an overwhelming sense of being: ‘underground’, but you were engaged by this use, this dance of light at all corners.

‘light’ . . the pure ‘water’. the ‘TRON’ of the digital generation.
that flat computer screen . . is ‘illuminated’. it’s not matte.
press on, it ‘flickers’ . . to life.


and yes. in some old dark recesses, that held the industrial ‘tools’ of old school function .. digital screens did . . flicker, and come . . to life.

15 WARREN STREET, 10007

MORE PIX, to follow.

PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH