~ALFREDO MARTINEZ .. DEAD or ALIVE
ALFREDO MARTINEZ – MEMORIAL ‘CARD’ – BY MATT ENGER. NYC, APRIL 2013.
actually not so funny, esp since the guys behind this wanted me to post an obit – like it was for real. they weren’t really being mean, they just wanted to, I’m guessing .. pump up the price of the artwork and get the money flow started ?
as if . . .
I think what I really responded to was the poetic text .. living on thru flowers.
that was the good part.
and that the deep dark edge .. of black humor, even in the face of real-time tragedy, still lives on in the deepest, darkest reaches of the NYC underground .. art scene.
just saying, as opposed to Sagmeister’s ‘NOW is BETTER’ package.
which is worse ?
if you even want to follow, I know .. it’s a s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
too many ghosts and too much violence. the human condition is pretty s-a-d.
we’re just so damn b-i-o. what do we expect. literally .. we are just blood and guts.
and top of it all. if it’s not for being totally messed up. psycho. faulty wiring, bad genes. then it’s for being competitive. greedy. territorial. and lost. and then accidents kick in too. fate ? how come nobody talks about ‘fate’, anymore.
if we weren’t bio – and totally lived on as ciphers, avatars .. then what ?
what if they could just put your brain on a hard drive, and into another test tube matched body. would you opt to be a drone .. to escape tragedy.
a world without tragedy, I mean isn’t that the ultimate future shock .. nightmare.
TOP TEN WAYS TO BUG – ALFREDO MARTINEZ
1. Start a false campaign announcing that he is dead.
2. Add 10 years to his actual age.
3. Invoke his dad Pedro’s name as the RSVP contact for the soon to-be-announced memorial.
4. Refuse to sell a phony Basquiat for him.
5. Get evicted from your tony Park Ave Apt for throwing loud, drug-fueled all-night parties .. so he has nowhere to crash.
6. Lose the farm .. so he has nowhere to crash.
7. Tell him CHINA .. is on the phone.
8. Tell him FEMA .. is on the phone regarding that little SHOOTING GALLERY GIG .. in WE LIVE IN PUBLIC.
9. No, just because Simon died, doesn’t mean you can move in.
10. and, yes the SENATE wants YOU – as poster boy for gun control.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘REPLICATE WEAPONS’, hand-built from found parts, 2001.
COLLECTION: ANDY MORRIS
first exhibited in …
‘QUIET, GUNS & QUILTS – JOSH HARRIS, ALFREDO MARTINEZ & NANCY SMITH’
JUNE 26 – JULY 20, 2001
SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, 520 West 21st St, Chelsea, NYC
on the left: ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘PIG MAN’, life size sculpture, found parts, 2001.
‘QUIET, GUNS & QUILTS’.
that’s SISSEL KARDEL, on the right.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ with ‘PIG MAN’ at the opening.
‘QUIET, GUNS & QUILTS’.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ with one of his home-made ‘Saturday Night Specials’. NYC.
OCT 30, 2001 .. yep a couple of weeks, after 9-11.
yes, that 9-11.
CHECK OUT: WE LIVE IN PUBLIC – THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE
ALL PHOTO BY & COPYRIGHT: NANCY SMITH