~’THE ART of NEW YORK: 1980s’ . . CONTRA GALLERIES / OPENS WED FEB 13

‘The Art of New York: 1980s’ – CURATED by LINUS CORAGGIO
OPENS TODAY – WED FEB 13 / 6 – 9 PM
the show runs thru . . . FEB 28, 2019
CONTRA GALLERIES, 122 W 26th St, Floor 5, Midtown Manhattan

The work of both late and living legends of 1980s New York City street art, graffiti and other seminal styles of urban work has been assembled by curator LINUS CORAGGIO – sculptor, painter and instigator of the notorious Rivington School & Gas Station spaces in the 80s/90s Lower East Side underground art scene.
The creative luminaries featured include living pioneers such as Fab 5 Freddy, LA2 (Angel Ortiz), Al Diaz (SAMO), Delta 2 & Rick Prol: as well as departed masters like Richard Hambleton, Keith haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat & FA-Q, along with surprise notables.
~CONTRA GALLERIES PRESS RELEASE




‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ / ROGER EBERT review from 2009 (!!)

when a little slice of the hard-core downtown art scene – was WIRED !!!!

and I mean . . w-i-r-e-d in every great way & sense of the word / you can imagine.
from 24/7 surveillance, (wired) to public real-time monitors (wired) . . to outrageous art & thought, beyond the beyond !!
wired . .
beyond your wildest dreams.
talk about . . spinning out.
guns, quilts, & orgies to . . light shows, politicians, extreme video games, and goths.
survival, comfort, Americana – before it hit / Calvin Klein & RAF SIMMONS 2018 . . big.
‘bio’ drives, zen gardens, & interrogation rooms,
and always, lots & lots of that green stuff / as Cardi says: money money money !!!!
open bars on every floor, and a 4 star chef in the kitchen.
talk about . . wired !! this was so wired.

and,
way, way before . . YOU were wired !!, on your cellphone, FB, SNAP & IG / believe it.

while, catching up with ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, this review by the renown movie critic ROGER EBERT, popped up.
published back in OCT 14, 2009 – it makes some interesting insights.


JOSH HARRIS . . in the MARIA ALEJANDRA GIUDICI / MARIANO AIRALDI transparent, communal shower at ‘Quiet’ – the millennial party / downtown art residency . . that kick-started ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’.

it starts off:

“I’d never heard of Josh Harris, who is billed in ‘We Live in public’, as “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of.’ I can be excused for thinking Harris was the fictional hero of a pseudo-documentary, until the film quickly and obviously became authentic. It’s not often you see a doc that’s been filmed over a period of 15 years.

Josh was involved in the early days of Prodigy, back in the CompuServe era, and in 1993 founded Pseudo.com which forecast audio and video Webcasting, YouTube, Hulu and countless other streamers. he was, to put it kindly, ahead of his time. In 1993, 300-baud modems were commonplace, and 1200 was fast.

Harris was a myopic visionary, a man who saw the future more vividly than his own life. He was a prototype nerd, a lonely kid who raised himself while planted in front of an old black-and-white TV set, using ‘Gilligan’s Island’, as a vistual famly . . .

In the 1990s, he became one of the early dot.com millionaires , a celebrity on New York, where he threw lavish parties intended not so much for the famous as to attract brilliant and artistic kids to work for him.”

correction: Mr. Ebert gets his $$ facts a little confused here / although he does real good with the gist of it. It was Josh’s first company ‘JUPITER.COM’ . . the very first internet / trend tracking service . . which Josh started with $700, & went on to sell, shortly thereafter for $81 million dollars (!!) / then those mega $$$$ funds when into ‘Pseudo’ – which was to become the multi-channel incubator online streaming endeavor & which threw the real wild parties.

this is true: “Pseudo.com is remembered from that time as Nerd Heaven, with good pay, perks, free creature comforts — demanding only your body and soul”, and this was esp true for the other side of the Pseudo game plan – the artists who put on the outrageous parties.

this also true, when modified: He sold Jupiter, not Pseudo . . for something like $80 million dollars, and that was the end of his good timing.”

well, financially.
he did go on to become the star of a Sundance winning doc, & is still being hailed as the godfather of ‘social media’, for better, or for worse. and now his story is about to become a bonafide Hollywood feature directed by BEN STILLER, ‘Escape From Dannemora’ (!!), and the super bad / super hot . . JONAH HILL will play Josh . . !!
Josh always claimed his goal was to be known as an artist, so if it took losing it all – so be it.
down with good timing, & up with the creative respect & social media ‘props’.

ok – back to the review !!

excerpt: “The filmmaker ONDI TIMONER had already started to document Harris’ life,”
(ps: Josh hired her after seeing ‘DIG! – nancy / for all you Brooklyn ‘DIG!’ fans ),
“and was on the scene when he began a notorious project named ‘Quiet’. Try to imagine this: About 100 of the best and brightest he could find agreed to live 24 hour a day in a cavernous space below street level. They would be under video surveillance every moment. Their lives would be streamed on the web.” (remember, this is 1999 – dial-up internet !! – nancy)
“They shared dining and recreational (!!!) facilities and even a shooting range. They were given state-of-the art computers . They lived in cubicles with the square footage of perhaps six coffins.” (actually much less, maybe 2 coffins – nancy)
“These were stacked atop each other like sleeping pods in a Japanese airport.”

“And this was to be the future, in which we would all live virtually on the Internet.”

& my fave line of all:
“Remarkably, no murders claimed any of Quiet’s eager volunteers; whether any births resulted is not reported.”

& one last correction: we were NOT volunteers – we were paid, and . . well !!!
no wonder the well, ran dry.
performance artists ? I guess so, but certainly – not scripted !!!!!!

damnit, I can’t do your homework, all the time.

well, here’s the link: go read it for yourself !! – ROGER EBERT REVIEWS ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’.




‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ / NYC SCREENING w ONDI TIMONER / WED FEB 13 – 5 PM

in celebration of its . . 10th Anniversary !!

‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . . the 2009 Sundance winning documentary,
which tells the story of web entrepreneur, social media visionary, artist / in the sense that Andy Warhol was, in the greater picture, & very outrageous master of ceremonies . . . JOSH HARRIS.
along with his very merry band of wild crazy artists !!

screens . . .
tomorrow Wed Feb 13, 2019 . .
at The Roxy Hotel, in Tribeca, NYC / a location just blocks from the original downtown ‘bunker’ !!
The Roxy Cinema, 2 Avenue of the Americas / cellar level of the Roxy Hotel.

DIRECTOR ONDI TIMONER . . . will be on hand to do a Q & A, MELISSA GIRA GRANT will be moderating.

GET TIX, here: ROXY CINEMA – WE LIVE IN PUBLIC


JOSH HARRIS . . . as the bunker, or pod hotel / for the 99+ in-house resident artists was being constructed.
it was designed & built by JEFF GOMPERTZ. it was totally wired and each pod had a screen and controls.
Josh is wearing the ‘standard’ issue / in-house crew work uniform.
actually a huge party celebrating the 2000 millennium, which Josh termed: ‘QUIET’- in a most contrarian way.
it was open 24/7 to the public, with open bars (of course) & it was a madhouse, so yeah !!
it was actually, really necessary for the ‘production’ crew – to be set apart.


the communal dining room – for the 99+ resident artist & guests !!
the party, (parties !!), and art installations . . took place in a huge 4 store / empty textile warehouse on Broadway, downtown in Tribeca, corner of . . . I wanna say, Leonard St.
but Josh also rented the empty storefront right next door, I think it used to be a Civil War era photographer’s studio ?
this inflatable, ‘bubble’ dining room ,was definitely, a showstopper.
Josh commissioned MARIA ALEJANDRA GIUDICI to make it, and damn, she did . . a great job.
Maria, and her then-husband, MARIANO AIRALDI, also built and designed the notorious transparent communal shower.


you can imagine among that group, there were . . quite a few, characters, and true-to-life, exhibitionists !!
a kid we called, ‘Cowboy’ – was one.
okay, not to break the ‘spell’
spoiler alert: there were actually a couple of standard private bathrooms, in the basement / but, as for the shower ?
just the transparent communal one. lucky the building had been a textile warehouse, and there were lots of scraps and rolls of fabric lying around, so my solution . . was to shower under a fleece ‘cape’.
because, yes !!
there were omni-present cameras – filming all the time & the footage was screened real-time /
you could be eating dinner, and there’d be somebody, or more likely somebodies (!!) naked in the shower, carrying on, carefree as a bird / on the dining room monitors.
it wasn’t called . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – for no reason.
& Ondi was actually there, in charge of all the footage.
did we mention: The Interrogation Room’ ? the zombies, and the techies.


screenshot: NANCY SMITH, in the ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ trailer.

if you notice the ‘gypsy-like’ life-force . . caught in melt-down, a classic hard-core NYC artist, in the green & yellow puffer jacket, that would be . . me.

of course, there were all kinds of ways, ‘living in public’ – could affect you, could become / ‘living in hell’.
esp when the only rule was: you couldn’t leave !!
there was nothing in place to restrain you, but: if you left, you couldn’t come back.
that was cause enough.
and if you were looking for a mayor, Josh was not . . he.
he was too busy judging live sex contests. and I was supposed to be doing a ‘quilting bee’ — ha ha ha ha.
I mean, someone else was tending a Zen garden, (RIP) Mark Enger of Exploding Sky was silk screening. it wasn’t all neon red light, and war zones, for sure. that was what was so interesting, and talent, really, talent in the end . . was what counted, incl entertainment talent, or as the straight-laced art world calls it . . performance art.
someone was growing a Zen garden, ALEX ARCADIA had goldfish swimming in a moat of water, around a life-size Zen temple (to Arcadia, btw, not to the ‘gods’.)
(RIP) MARK ENGER, of EXPLODING SKY, another cowboy, was silk-screening concentric circle ‘targets’ . . onto crew members’ work shirts.

it was a self-contained artificial world, no windows, no sunlight. things got unreal.
it was much like a spaceship, except instead of astronauts . . it was filled with knock-down artists, with nothing to lose, & (plenty of Pseudo big bucks $$$ to gain) / hardcore all-day, all-night partiers / extreme video gamers, full-on goths & not to forget, Alfredo’s full-fledged shooting gallery, with assault rifles for all (for real), in the sub-basement.
things got unreal, things got hyper, people got un-hinged.
(not to forget, the professional ‘sex workers’, Josh seeded the place with.)

forget getting naked on camera, in my case it was my my life that un-raveled before the all-seeing cameras. and I guess, imprinted into history, now.
I got provoked, taunted, in a way nasty way, and in that 24/7 hyper-speed world, I responded quite singularly.
I got . . into a fight. knocked the dumb, groupie art chick ‘art dealer’ – out with one punch.
I almost killed her, (for real). the cameras didn’t catch the action, Ondie was cursing over that / it was an obscure corner where we made ourselves coffee, but the story-line runs through-out.
lucky I didn’t kill the dumb chick, I mean, how was I to know – she was sitting on flimsy plastic 99 cent store chair, and it rocked over backwards, with a hard thwack on the old concrete floor / with just one impassioned punch to her neck. who’d I ever hit before, anyways ? ok. maybe Rene Ricard, back in the Fun gallery days. slammed a door on his face. he deserved it.

hey, don’t come into the kitchen – if you can’t take the HEAT !!!!!
I was pretty upset as it was. and I was supposed to be one of the ‘grown-ups’ at the party !!
the folk art / historian . . ‘quilt lady’.
but imagine, if that little lady, we call luck – wasn’t with me, I’d prob be in prison, and prob so would Josh.
I mean, there was a ‘toxic waste’ installation (for real), right next to the 99 sleeping pods, which could have blown up at any moment, and how many people in there – knew that ?

that was also – a big part of it.

just how willing people were to put themselves – ‘online’, in public / with no knowledge of whose watching / or who the other players are, & just what . . hidden forces could be at work.

not to mention, apparently . . . nothing fades away / on the web.




~LUKE TODD . . ‘FOURTEEN GEARS’ / PIX FROM THE OPENING

the quiet . . SPIN.

LUKE TODD – ‘FOURTEEN GEARS’
OPENED . . FRI JAN 25, 2019
GALERIE MICHAEL BARGO, CHINATOWN

PIX – FROM THE OPENING:


LUKE TODD, at the opening.


industrial, yet graceful.
set in a specific motion, opaque in color, and yet: a void / a mind-set.


the surfaces, their metallic nature . . violated the white walls.


the struggle between my camera, and the flat sculptures – was more ‘kinetic’, than the actual gear movement.
the interlocking, interloping teeth, of the almost random-shaped . . circles / ovals . . moved very very slowly,
as if grace were more important, than raw speed ?


it prob had a lot to do with the complexity of the shapes, and it might have been more effective visually, to have seen the shapes move . . more dynamically, more graphically, but then ?
would we be thinking – about them, so much ?


prob your best bet, for realizing the ‘wheels’ . . ‘turn’, and eat, or meet and greet . . each other,
would be the wired, mechanical works in the back.


that was an interesting ‘angle’, to entertain . . at an art show.


not all the ‘mechanical works’, were wall pieces . .
some were . . free-standing, yet still quite – wired.
their contrast to reality, was heightened by the Chinatown window scene.


and they weren’t all black – some were red.
but again, a perfect pitch – for a mechanical piece.

very much in contrast, to the world – we have to move through.
“your taxes were lowered / but your refund is less, much less.” / wtf
nothing is black & white.
nothing is what it seems / or what we are told. nobody really believes anything, they are told.
it’s all . . smoke & mirrors.
it’s all . . spin.


there was something about that barely moving, quiet ‘spin’ – that was so pervasive.
& in a way, in which a more aggressive, or obvious ‘gear’ spin – would not / have not been.
a kind of . . spiritual ‘temperature’.

and yet, also a . . VALENTINE.

red ‘hearts’, running along the wall.


people got real social, at the opening.
the quiet accomplishment of the show / pulsed in a warm way – strange, considering it was so mechanical ?!!
it’s hard to condense the beauty of this show, or define . . it’s effectiveness.
quiet . . interlocking ?

PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH




~LUKE TODD . . ‘FOURTEEN GEARS’ / 2 scoops of butter

LUKE TODD . . . ‘FOURTEEN GEARS’/ GALERIE MICHAEL BARGO


@lukemichaeltodd: etch bath

watch the clip: video via Instagram @lukemichaeltodd

note: it’s super fascinating to see beyond an art work’s final production, esp re: those with technical platforms /
but, in this case it’s also . . like lifting a veil, and finding pure magic.
the warm, luminous color, and the thick liquidity, of the ‘etch bath’, contrasts so brilliantly against the end-product.
the cold steel, and it’s hard surface. and then, factor in . . how like honey, the etch bath moves, in deep undulating waves.
with a rocking, rhythmical chorus – heavily sloshing back & forth, within the perimeters of the container /
versus the hard-won, rigid & measured ‘turning’ movement of the teeth of the gears.
with nothing random in that final action, that purrs silently on the wall, plugged into its electric socket.
a warm, deep ocean vs. the precise clockwork of a . . large large watch.




~LUKE TODD . . ‘FOURTEEN GEARS’, GALERIE MICHAEL BARGO / OPENS FRI JAN 25

LUKE TODD – ‘FOURTEEN GEARS’
OPENS FRI JAN 25 / 6 – 9 PM
& runs thru . . end of FEB 2019
GALERIE MICHAEL BARGO, 103 BOWERY, 3rd Fl, CHINATOWN, LOWER EAST SIDE, NYC 10002

well, better than . . eggs.
& as with regards to Cardib & her gang twerking /
to twerk, . . or NOT TO TWERK !!
NOT !!!!

the art world coming in . . . industrial, but smooth – as butter.




~’WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . honored at SUNDANCE 2019 / WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERVIEWS DIRECTOR ONDI TIMONER – TODAY / FRI JAN 25

who knew !!!!!!
our ‘turn-of-the-century’, rebel hardcore, underground downtown NYC art crew is going . . . conservative business / mainstream !!!!!!!!!

‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . . the original 2009 documentary, is being honored at Sundance today.

none less than the WALL STREET JOURNAL is honoring ‘WE LIVE In PUBLIC’,
on the 10 year anniversary of its Sundance Grand Jury Prize, by interviewing the film’s intrepid director, ONDI TIMONER. They will be asking Ondi about . . “the technological dystopia the film prophesied & where we’re headed from here.’

the talk is 4-5 PM with cocktails, from 5-7 PM on Main St at the DELL DEN.


FILE UNDER: THE FUTURE of STORY TELLING (!!!!!)

& . . . ‘THE REALITIES of the Internet – today (!!!!)


at left, ONDI TIMONER, the illustrious director of ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, 2009 . .
flying into the festival, last night.
she looks pretty happy.
as well, her newest venture, ‘MAPPLETHORPE’ is opening to great acclaim, & will come to NYC this March.
image via Instagram @onditimoner

so,
a few of my friends got together & held a BIG, BIG MILLENNIUM PARTY – the rest, apparently, is HISTORY !!!!!!!


JOSH HARRIS, “the greatest internet entrepreneur you never heard of”, or as some people like to call him: the “Andy Warhol of the web”, and the focus of the documentary, was the king of the way-off-the-mainstream, downtown art scene – when he threw the biggest art party NYC has ever seen.
that’s ALFREDO MARTINEZ, at the right of the frame. Alfredo is notorious for the live shooting gallery, with BIG GBG guns, that was in the basement of the 2 building art installion & full-on million dollar / millennial par-tay !!
Josh had recently sold his baby brainstorm, JUPITER.COM, the first internet, trend tracking company, for $81 million buckeroos.
so to say, he had deep pockets . . is NOT an exaggeration.

def, watch: the trailer – WE LIVE IN PUBLIC !!!!

lol, that’s me . . in the trailer.
I guess I became the ‘poster’ girl for . . . ‘DYSTOPIAN’.
talk about . .
when your most humiliating moment, is caught on tape, and goes on to become . . a Sundance winner.

this was the poster for the NYC premiere of ‘WE LIVE In PUBLIC’ at MOMA, back in 2009.
at the start of the doc – I was the poster girl for . . Utopia, lol.
that’s me and my kid, Theo in the pod hotel.
note the wires, cameras, and monitors !!!

over 99 artists worked & played in the week long crazy wild art party / artist residency / installation.
spread out over 2 old buildings downtown, it was open to the public 24/7 & it was PACKED !!
and probably completely illegal. above all, were the 24/7 surveillance cameras & live-streaming video.
tiny cameras & tiny screens wired beside every artist ‘pod’ / and . . (notoriously) through-out, incl showers.
the web – was being born, in real time.
it was the birth – of social media, though little did we imagine.
it was only in ‘looking back’ – that the big big picture emerges & for that, we have to thank . . Ondi Timoner , and her truly, cinematic in the fullest sense, story-telling.
she caught the action in real time, and set the story in context, 9 years later.


our fearless leader, JOSH HARRIS . . in the futuristic, ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ communal shower.
did we say, see-thru ?

& of course !!
the new elephant in the room !!

BEN STILLER . . is set to make a feature-length recreation of the doc !!!!
and the newly hot hot hot / hot as hell !!!! JONAH HILL will play . . JOSH !!!!!!!

as if BEN isn’t hot as hell now – either.
just 3 words – says it all !!
‘ESCAPE FROM DANNEMORA’ !!!!
BRETT JOHNSON, who co-wrote the SHOWTME winner, will also be scripting the ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ feature.

oh lord,
if Tilly is any example, of what I have to look forward to, even if it’s just a ‘milli-second’ of screen time / I’m gonna have to hide away, forever.




~ALFREDO MARTINEZ SUPER FAN . . !!

APPARENTLY . . Alfredo’s show in Japan – is a BLAST !!!!!

LABEL THIS: ‘A PERFECT FAN’.

ALFREDO MARTINEZ . . ‘NORMAL ACTIVITY’ / MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY, TOKYO !!


from the opening – last night:
this is such a riot – a true super fan !!
watch the clip: ALFREDO MARTINEZ – INSTAGRAM / SUPER FAN at the MEGUMI OGITA opening / JAN 24, 2019


this is the gun he is melting down – over !!
“so, I’m a Big Fan of the Mauser Broom handle . . .”


well, YEAH !!!
that is a great funny gun handle !!
Broom handle !!!!!
and, according to the kid – it has some note-worthy art world / comic book / anime ? history !!!


& check out his t-shirt: “JIHAD OF THE ABSURD” !!!


and those skinny harlequin pants (!!) & pointy toe boots.
def a . . . 10/10.

ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘Mauser C96 / Broom Handle’, 2019
on hand-made collage paper, 20 x 30 in.
in Alfredo’s studio at MANA CONTEMPORARY in Jersey City – just before it got shipped out.
fresh off the walls – so to speak.
go Jersey !!
Jersey to Tokyo, by way of NYC – now that’s traveling.

all images via Instagram @alfredomartinezartist
see: ‘A PERFECT FAN’ – POST / @alfredomartinezartist




~ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘NORMAL ACTIVITY’ . . MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY, TOKYO / OPENS FRI JAN 25

talking about . . JAPAN !!
Alfredo’s in a 2-person show – opening tomorrow, in Tokyo. Ginza District !!
‘NORMAL ACTIVITY’ . . . ?!!!
I guess, so. & great name for a show (!!)

ALFREDO MARTINEZ & BRIAN LEO – ‘NORMAL ACTIVITY’
OPENING FRI JAN 25 / 17:30 – 19:30
& running thru . . FEB 9, 2019
MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY, TOKYO

CONGRATS !!! ALFIE !!!


TOP: BRIAN LEO / BOTTOM: ALFREDO MARTINEZ / advance flyer: nice & raw !!
ps: I’m liking Brian’s work, too.
talk about strange bedfellows !!
they make for a real nice . . contrast / in both style & context.


ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘CZ (Ceska Zabrojovka) model 83.380 acp’, 2018
50.8 cm x 76.2 cm. / 20 x 30 in.
acrylic on collage paper / Alfredo’s ‘signature’ hand-made paper
image via Instagram @megumi_ogita_gallery




~’FEVER LURE: CHRISTINA YUNA KO, SHANA SADEGHI, EMMA STERN’ / SELENAS MOUNTAIN, RIDGEWOOD / OPENING SAT JAN 19

if, living in the art world feels like living in a bubble, sometimes.
well, maybe this will burst your . . . bubble ?!
POP / POP / POP !!!!!

‘FEVER LURE’ – CHRISTINA YUNA KO, SHANA SADEGHI-RAY, EMMA STERN
OPENS TO-NITE / SAT JAN 19 / 7 – 10 PM
show runs thru . . FEB 16, 2018
SELENAS MOUNTAIN, 63 WODWARD AVE, #6321, RIDGEWOOD, QUEENS, NY 11385
HRS: SAT 1- 5 PM & BY APPOINTMENT

more: ‘FEVER LURE’ – SELENAS MOUNTAIN


IMAGE via Instagram @selenasmountin
FLYER, acrylic on MDF – CHRISTINA YUNA KO
@christina_yuna_ko

ps: I spy a little Japanese ‘anime’ – top right-hand corner, lol.


3-D work by SHANA SADEGHI-RAY
@scorpioncharge: I will be showing new work such as this pearled basketball net at @selenasmountain
Image via Instagram @scorpioncharge


oil on canvas by EMMA STERN
@lava_baby: catch her & a few more . .
Image via Instagram @lava_baby