Instead of drawing or painting tonight, I spent 3 hours recording a mix CD soundtrack for an office party we're holding tomorrow. It's one of my famous hi-variety(TM) types with everything from Erykah Badu to Nick Drake to Snoop Dogg. I left all the "bitches" and "motherfuckers" in for the enjoyment of upper management.

current music: Personal mix

There are two blogs that form little bookends of art world psychology to me: Mat Gleason's Editor's Life Unedited is young and angry, and full of dreamcrushing (yet hilarious) little insights about how totally random artworld success really is, while Eva Lake's Lovelake is the voice of someone who's lived through a great deal of the art world bullshit, and still finds passion, love and beauty in the making of art.

This blog's been in and out of journalistic art criticism, in and out of the online sketchbook, in and out of the personal diary. I have no idea where it's going next. Thanks for taking this journey with me.

current music: 2PAC, All Eyez on Me

Never mind my occassional New York City bashing. I would have loved to have been there more than anywhere else.

Up all night working on Book Project No. 2. I can't wait till I'm down to just 2 jobs.

Meanwhile, I received yet another brochure for yet another graphic design conference. It struck me this time how much I miss that world and at the same time I thank God I'll never go back to it. At least not the kind of cutting edge, ultra-hip design arenas I used to be involved with. It's all books for me from now on. Graphic designers are about 10 times worse than fine artists when it comes to propagating hipness for hip's sake--they have to; it's their job.

Unfortunately, about 95% of all graphic design products are utterly disposable. The water bill sitting in your garbage can, the magazine you just threw out, the coupon book, last year's calendar, the empty box of cereal, the poster for last weekend's concert, the 2003 telephone directory, the brochures for Gulf Coast travel, affordable car insurance and proper nutrition for newborns, all of which will end up in a land fill...it was all brought to you courtesy of a graphic designer. Graphic designers literally design trash. Add to this the fact that 3 out of 4 graphic designers are closet fine artists who bought the line that they had to do something "practical" with their artistic impulse and you've got an explosive cocktail of sublimated frustration.

I'm speaking from experience. Can you tell?

Still and all, good design still turns me on. As I've said before, graphic design taught me how to use color and space. And most of all, graphic design is almost always about organizing information, and if there's one common thread through all of my art, my writing, my whole life, it's my endless quest to organize information. That, I miss.

So here's to you, graphic designers. I'll think of you on garbage day.

current music: Joao Gilberto, Joao

I've heard that the Sisters show at Fresh Up Club is coming down early due to the general annoyance of what it takes to run a gallery space. The closing party is cancelled. If you want to see the show, see it during Wednesday evening gallery hours--and be there early; the show won't even last out the night.

current music: Angelo Badalamenti, Soundtrack from Twin Peaks

So just after I ask for reasons to leave Austin, I am provided with several all in one weekend. The following is not a slam on any art, but rather a slam on Austin's anachronistic and stultifying racial politics, which made themselves visible in dramatic ways during my weekend art touring.

I started Saturday afternoon at the grand reopening of the George Washington Carver Museum and Library. I'd known this was coming and had heard about the galleries, the studios, the yadda, yadda, yadda, but man, the place is huge! I did not realize until I was actually in the place, the scope of it all.

Before:


After:


There are dance studios, recording facilities, a kitchen, classrooms, a theater, and multiple exhibition spaces. Now, this complex was definitely designed in the "community center" model of public buildings. It's got that utopian, all-in-one, this-will-solve-all-our-community-needs feel to it, which is not in itself a bad thing. It's worth a trip from anywhere in Austin to see it and I plan at some point to take yoga classes, which start next week there.

For art, though, I already know there are going to be serious constraints on it. Because it's more community center than museum, properly speaking, everything that comes through there is sure to have that family-friendly, city-approved sheen to it. It's the kind of place where you might see the Gees Bend quilts, but don't look for a Yinka Shonibare show anytime soon. Curator Bernadette Phieffer as much as announced this fact at last fall's art symposium when she said that all artists seeking exhibition would be screened for the family friendliness of their art. Not those words, but the intent was clear. I imagine even a Tana Hargest or Susan Smith-Pinelo would have trouble getting through a net that tight. At least no one has yet uttered the eye-roll inducing u-word ("uplifting"), which is usually just a nice way of saying litmus-test censorship. This is the same bullshit I complained about here and here.

If you see the space, however, the constraints seem to be built right into the architecture. It's more YMCA than "AMOA East." And I don't mean that in a dismissive way; the facilities are amazing. But if there was any lingering thought that this space could be a home to Austin's emerging, black, on-the-edge artists, think again. It will take a concerted constellation of events to make that happen. (below, clickable Carver images)

Notably absent from the opening were the bulk of the east-side hipsters who chimed in with great enthusiasm when Jason Neulander talked last April about inhabiting the east side not as a gentrifying colonist, but as a responsible citizen who participates in and engages with the community that's already there. Their absence was not a surprise. In fact, Joseph Phillips predicted that such do-gooderist notions would have no real applicable value, even though I disagreed with him at the time. Well, it's events like this that confirm that his glass-half-empty view is probably pretty dead on.

The hipster contingent did, however, show up in force at JD DiFabbio's Plan B Gallery for a group show of earthwork artists. Readers from more sophisticated cities are not likely to grasp the starkness of Austin's pre-war levels of segregation. Houston? Nope, not like Austin. San Francisco? Boston? Not even close. In Austin, Interstate-35 might as well be an iron wall topped with razor wire. Sure there are some interlopers on either side, but there is almost no communication between these communities. And seemingly no recognition that there's even a problem. (right, Ledia Carroll, Six Lenses, detail)

So the crowd at Plan B was as white as the crowd at the Carver was black. There's no way to say that without sounding as though it's a judgement. It's not; it's just a fact that I won't pretend not to have noticed.

Anyway, I don't know how I've missed the Plan B space all these years. It is easily one of the most gracious spaces for art viewing in the city. With enough space to give the artwork room to breathe, which is to say, to respect the act of viewing, it's rather a rarity. Plus there's the elegant interplay of internal and external spaces, which further beautifies both the art and the space.

None of the artwork hit it out of the park for me, but nothing went terribly awry either. Ryan Thomson's digital C prints depicted vapor trails elegantly juxtaposed against similarly-patterned markings made in the dirt. Earth and sky, body and spirit, corporal and spiritual. The compositions were uniformly beautiful. Unfortunately, they were held back by that flat digital-photography look that people have come to accept as normal. This was especially apparent on the sides of the photographs depicting earth, where subtle magenta and green hues appear in all the wrong places, to say nothing of the lack of density in the darks. I'm all for digital modes of reproduction, but for fine art, you gotta either control that digital artifact or use it with purpose. (left, Ryan Thompson, Trails #2)

It was nice to see the space though, finally. If all goes according to plan, I'll be showing there in April. That is, if this posting doesn't get me kicked out of the show.

Another, less toney, set of hipsters could be found at Gallery Lombardi's Scion show. I find it impossible not to be charmed by the utterly pretension-less setting of Gallery Lombardi. Clearly, the current Scion graffiti show mounted anywhere else would have come across as neutered, corporate-packaged "cool," designed to let the hiperati feel superior to and annoyed by the products being shoved under their noses, thus safely opening the door to a later purchase when they realize that, well, they have to drive something. But at Lombardi it was just no-brow fun.

It's become obvious that graffiti culture is following the same trajectory as blues music. Pioneered by working- and lower-class black artists, it is first seen as unambiguously dangerous, degenerate, even criminal. Eventually it gets coopted by the white middle class, passes through edgy-but-safe and finally comes to rest as a plaything of the culturally refined. Meanwhile, middle-class black folks trip over each other to distance themselves from the practice as fast as possible even as it becomes more and more mainstream. I mean really, can you imagine such a show going up at the "family-friendly" Carver? And when was the last time you attended a blues concert with a black audience? Obviously, that's an exaggeration (there are outposts), but one made to illustrate a point. It's just the weird way culture migrates in this country. (above, artist S. Donovan bombs a panel realtime; click to enlarge)

So, the crowd was rawkus at Lombardi, which is normal because Lombardi always turns into a street fair. I ran into Charles Randolph who just now tells me about his space that opened weeks ago, and also DJ Fuckin' A, who tells me Action Figure is working on a spot for PBS on downtown DJs. So I leave there in a good mood, though in so doing I reduce the black population of the gallery by exactly 50%.

From there it was a quick turnaround at home, slipped into a silver, crushed-velvet shirt and headed off with Kazki to the decadence that is Carnaval Brasiliero. That was just purely awesome and for a minute I was able to let go of my artworld hangups. Inspired by the sound and the movement and the music, I just got all swept up. Then I remembered I'm a portrait artist and started taking pictures of people. (below, clickable Carnaval pics)



Obviously there is political strife everywhere, but from what I can glean Brazilian culture seems much more like Manhattan culture or even LA culture; mixing along racial, religious and cultural lines is endemic to who they are as a people. So unlike Austin, so unlike the land of the Concrete Curtain between East and West.

Reposted from the GAC web site:

FIRE at the GAC - HOW YOU CAN HELP

Donations for Art Supplies
Starting February 3, on first Thursday, the West End Galleries (Stephen L. Clark, Wally Workman, F8, Lotus, ArtWorks, and Art on 5th) will be accepting donations to help purchase new art supplies for the tenants of the Guadalupe Arts Building. For maps and more information, visit the In the Galleries Web site.

Idea: as New Year's gifts I gave money to Tsunami relief and other charities in other people's names. My friends and family were uniformly thankful and appreciative of the gift. Perhaps if you know an artist whose birthday is coming up, you'd consider making a donation to the GAC artists in that person's name.

UPDATE
Completely wiped out were: Diverse Arts, Austin FilmWorks, Pro-Jex, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Jerm Pollet, Bob Livingston, and Slam Channel's Mike Henry and Kyle Fuller, among others.

I swear I was planning on posting this even before I saw this post. In descending order of popularity, here are the top names (other than my own) that pulled people to this site last month:

istvan kantor
sarah stolfa
christie turlington*
peat duggins
kojo griffin
jonas koffler
hernan bas
chloe piene

I'm pretty surprised Griffin, Bas and Piene made the list. I'd think there would be about a thousand other, more popular sites that would jump to the top of the search engines. Apparently, y'all want the real deal.


*She is only on the list because I misspelled her name--it's actually "Christy". So I actually get the people searching for a nonexistent person.

Chris Hand over at Zeke's Gallery has been imploring us for a couple of months now to remember and act on the case of Montréal graffiti artist Roadsworth. Roadsworth was arrested in medias graffitum several weeks ago and has been slapped with huge fines and penalties. (right, Roadsworth stencil)

I love good graffiti, street art. Or maybe I should call it unsanctioned public art. But I don't love it without problems. This one's tricky.

See, for every piece of "good" graffiti, there's tons and tons of "bad" graffiti. And whom do we appoint to officially judge the difference, given that we all have to live with the results either way? Can you imagine any scenario that doesn't just reify existing power structures, e.g., graffiti is ok if you're an art school grad? if you're over 30? if you have an official patron from the art world? if a panel of art experts says it's good? if you're from the 'burbs?

Or what about if someone sets out to do "good" graffiti, but they suck at it and cock it up? Should we only arrest bad artists? If we applied the same criterion to galleries, the prison population would double overnight. We could just save the artists one by one with letter campaigns whenever the "wrong" ones have been targetted (and I probably will write a letter in support of Roadsworth), but without a doubt the "saved" artists will invariably be those with access to people in positions of relative power or artworld authority. Hardly the democratic ideal that street art typically espouses.

I don't know what the answer to this is.

OK, let 'em all do their thing and let the citizens sort it out for themselves! Cool, but that's easy for me to say when I don't have a home and declining property values to worry about, or a small corner grocery that relies on people feeling good about coming in in order to feed my family. Not to mention that these declining values almost always disproportionately hit communities of color and the poor.

Last time I was in LA, I found my way back to my grandparents' old house on East 54th street--against all odds, considering I hadn't been there since I was 8 or 9 years old and only vaguely remembered where it was. Both my grandparents are dead now and the family doesn't own the house anymore. When I got there, the entire fence and parts of the house were covered in graffiti tags. It broke my heart. I can't lay any claim to that house morally or financially, but still...it broke my heart.

Roadsworth is in an entirely different category. His work is surprising, transformative, thoughtful. It seems to energize the city. But the taggers of my grandparents' house also thought that what they were doing had merit, that it was an act of transformative expression.

So who decides? Whose value wins?

UPDATE: Gallery Lombardi is hosting the Scion Art Tour Friday night at 6, including a graffiti show with live taggers. I assume it's strictly BYOG (Bring Your Own Gasmask).

Another reason I love Austin that I never anticipated before moving here:

I get a message from Kazki, saying he'll be at Bouldin Creek later on. I pick up the phone and call the restaurant.

"Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse."
"Hi, I'm looking for Kazki. Do you know him?"
"Yeah, hold on ... Hey, Cinqué, what's up?"

Try that in L.A.

It's official: I've put in my notice at my day job and will soon be taking the leap into focusing (almost) completely on making art and working on other art-related projects.

I haven't talked too much here about my day job in publishing, mainly because I thought of this as a refuge away from that world. I have been quietly socking away extra cash for years in preparation for this moment. Now, thanks to some extremely flexible contract arrangements I've made and will be making, I'll be able to focus as much as I want to on artmaking and still take piecemeal book production contracts as I need them. Also, I've been assured that I can come back at any time if I want/need to. I hope that I won't, but it's nice to know the option is there.

This is pretty much the next best scenario to simply making my entire living as a fine artist. Not to tempt fate, but I'm pretty much set for a good, long while. (knocks on wood)

In other blog news: to any artists who thinks they'll get recognized if they just have enough talent and work hard, check out Mat Gleason's post today at the Coagula blog. An excellent in vivo demonstration of how good work gets overlooked, without any grand conspiracy or evil intent, but just out of the need to find some way of wading through the sheer volume of production. I think the lesson here is that if you care about some sort of official recognition, don't ignore the networking, relationship building aspect of your career. I think it gets somewhat unfairly tarred as "schmoozing," but since when in the history of the human species have people not taken interpersonal relationships into account when making important decisions?

current music: Cake, Pressure Chief