NEWSgrist: *Meow Mix* Whitney Biennial + The Armory Show...

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Vol.5, no.3 (Mar 15, 2004)

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*Underbelly*

Bulletin board: post your own news, press releases, urls:

http://pub11.bravenet.com/forum/show.php?usernum=870870569

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CONTENTS:

- *Splash* Meow Mix: Whitney Biennial + The Armory Show

- *Quote/s* We’re here to be bad (designobserver.com)

- *Url/s* 50 Voices (hiphopmusic.com); Together We Can Defeat...

- *Demon from Sweden* whitneybiennial.COM (neen.org)

- *Meow Mix* list of articles covering the Whitney Bi & Armory ‘04

- *Dirty Martini* Creative Time’s Burlesque Bash

- *Gray Day* Spalding Gray’s ‘Life Interrupted,’ excerpted (NYtimes)

- *Rite of Spring* Losing Spalding Gray (bazima.com)

- *Flame War* Jack Smith’s legacy (Village Voice)

- *Avast, me hearties! * Lessig on piracy + creativity (Wired)

- *Book Grist* Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture

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*Splash* http://newsgrist.net

Meow Mix: The Whitney Biennial + The Armory Show 2004

splash archived at: http://www.newsgrist.net/Splash_ArtFairs.html

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*Quote/s*

"We have to be brave and we have to be bad. If were bad, we can be

the esthetic conscience of the business world. We can break the cycle

of blandness. We can jam up the assembly line that spills out one dull,

look-alike piece of crap after another. We can say, "Why not do

something with artistic integrity and ideological courage?" We can say,

"Why not do something that forces us to rewrite the definition of good

design?" Most of all, bad is about recapturing the idea that a designer

is the representative - almost like a missionary - of art, within the

world of business. Were not here to give them what’s safe and

expedient. Were not here to help clients eradicate everything of visual

interest from the face of the earth. Were here to make them think

about design that’s dangerous and unpredictable. Were here to inject

art into commerce. Were here to be bad."

- Tibor Kalman

[see: http://www.designobserver.com/archives/000110.html#more ]

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*Url/s*

50 Voices for Madrid

http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000460.html

Together We Can Defeat...

http://www.whitneybiennial.org/

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*Demon from Sweden*

Whitney Biennial.COM

http://www.whitneybiennial.com

more info: http://www.neen.org/wb2/info.htm

Färgfabriken is proud to present the opening of:

Celebrating the Demon:

The Whitneybiennial.com, two years later.

On the occasion of the opening of the Whitney Biennial 2004:

“The Best of Our Stuff against the Best of your Art.”

Opening March 12 at 18.00

At Färgfabriken, Stockholm

The project will be presented until March 28.

On March 12 at Färgfabriken:

A cocktail party.

A presentation of the most beautiful websites in the world.

Selected websites from whitneybiennial.com 2002 and new works.

Introducing Neen in Sweden.

Special appearance by Mai Ueda, her Iammai songs.

Live music by Autohorse. Two DJ's. Two bars..

Logo designed by Angelo Plessas.

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*Meow Mix*

Whitney Biennial

http://www.whitney.org/biennial/

...or:

http://www.whitneybiennial.org/

;)

The Armory Show

http://www.thearmoryshow.com/index2.php

John Baldessari and Jeremy Blake in conversation

Art Forum - March 2004

http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=6389

Whitney Biennial Top 10 Favorite Artists (New York Magazine)

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/arts/articles/04/whitney/

Art Throb: It's official.

The art fair is the chic new matrix between fashion and commerce.

By ROBERTA SMITH

NYTimes MAGAZINE, March 7, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/magazine/07STYLE.html

Duck! It's Whitney Biennial Season Again

By HOLLAND COTTER

NYTimes, March 7, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/arts/design/07COTT.html

Art That Speaks to You. Literally.

By ROBERTA SMITH

NYTimes, March 7, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/arts/design/07SMIT.html

In the Flesh:

Talking about goth and gore with Whitney Biennial front-runner Banks

Violette. by Ana Finel Honigman

Artnet Magazine, March 8, 2004

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/honigman/honigman3-8-04.asp

Artnet News, 3/9/04

THE ART OF COLLECTING AT THE ARMORY SHOW

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artnetnews2/artnetnews3-9-04.asp

Cocktail party in honor of the 2004 Whitney Biennial artists

at La Cicala (March 8, 2004)

http://www.patrickmcmullan.com/site/e2004march08_whitney.html

Opening Reception for the 2004 Whitney Biennial at

The Whitney Museum of American Art (March 9, 2004)

http://www.patrickmcmullan.com/site/e2004march09_whitney.html

The Whitney Biennial After Party at Hero at The Maritime Hotel (March 9, 2004)

http://www.patrickmcmullan.com/site/e2004march09_whitneyap.html

Whitney Biennial Opening pics (March 9, 2004)

http://www.choiresicha.com/archives/000358.html

Art fair tips

(Art fairs are the new black).

by Tyler Green

Modern Art Notes, March 11, 2004

http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20040301.shtml#72549

Touching all Bases at the Biennial

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

NYTimes, March 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/12/arts/design/12KIMM.html

Emerging Talent, and Plenty of It

By ROBERTA SMITH

NYTimes, March 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/12/arts/design/12SMIT.html

And, of Course, There's the Art

By PHOEBE HOBAN

NYTimes, March 14, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/fashion/14WHIT.html?8hpib

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*Dirty Martini*

Artnet News, 3/9/04

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artnetnews2/artnetnews3-9-04.asp

BURLESQUE FUNDRAISER FROM CREATIVE TIME

Those crazy kids over at Creative Time, who specialize in organizing

art shows in far-out places like the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage or the

Spectacolor lightboard in Times Square, is now taking to the stage –

the burlesque stage. Specifically, Creative Time's Burlesque Bash, a

one-night gala benefit featuring pole-dancing and "burlesque teases,"

is scheduled for Mar. 18, 2004, at the Show Nightclub at 135 West 41st

Street in Manhattan. Performance diva Karen Finley has signed on as

emcee; the bill includes pole-dancing performances by artists Lisa Kirk

and Vanessa Walters, samba dances by Andrea Fraser, songs by Mother

Inc. (featuring Yvonne Force Villareal & Sandra Hamburg), and burlesque

by Miss Dirty Martini, the World Famous BOB, the Wau-Wau Sisters, Julie

Atlas Muz, James "Tigger" Ferguson and others. Tickets start at $175;

for more info, see http://www.creativetime.org

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*Gray Day*

EXCERPT: Spalding Gray's 'Life Interrupted'

NYTimes, March 14, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/theater/14EXCE.html

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*Rite of Spring*

Spring Came Too Early This Year

09 March 2004

http://bazima.com/

I called my mom last night. "They found Spalding Gray," I said. A

collection of "oh no's" and "ohhh's" came through the receiver. My

mom was -- is -- was -- a huge Spalding Gray fan. We changed the

subject, but a few moments later she said, "I'm really upset about

this. I mean, I knew it was over, but now it's really over."

She sent me this later last night in an email:

Years ago (I'm talking about the mid-'80s here) I was thought to be

Spalding's wife. Or rather, my husband was thought to be Spalding

by a waitress in a restaurant in Boston's theater district. As she

handed us the menu, I noticed that she was staring.

"You're Spalding Gray," she said to my husband.

"Who's Spalding Gray?" he asked her.

The waitress laughed. "That's exactly what Spalding Gray would say,"

she said. "You're him. I know you're him; you're performing here this

weekend."

"I don't even know who you're talking about," my husband said as he

took out his driver's license and showed the waitress.

"Well, I'm telling you; you look like Spalding Gray," she said.

The next morning in The Boston Globe, there was a review of

Spalding's performance - and a photograph.

"Look at this," I said to my husband. "You sort of do look like Spalding

Gray."

The review made me want to see Spalding perform.

Over the years, I saw all of his monologues, all of his movies, read all

of his books, and played my "Monster in the Box" tape every morning

on the way to work, until it broke. Once I flew to New York just to see

him at Lincoln Center. But then the demographics changed in South

Florida where I live, and Spalding came to perform, and one would hope,

get a little sun. In fact, he was scheduled to appear this past January at

the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach to do his latest monologue, "Life

Interrupted." He never made it.

The hardest part was returning the tickets to get a refund. I had to rip

the tickets in half, make a copy of them, and fax them to the Kravis

Center. It felt awful when the refund check came in the mail. I cashed

the check, but I still have the torn tickets.

In the brochure, the Kravis Center described Spalding as a "Monologist

who balances pathos with humor." Not anymore; he lost his balance.

The ice thawed in the East River; they found his body. I can't help but

feel like spring came too early this year.

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*Flame War*

What’s happening to the legacy of an avant-garde legend?

Flaming Intrigue

by C. Carr

The Village Voice - March 10 - 16, 2004

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0410/carr.php

On January 30, Surrogate Court Judge Eve Preminger ruled that the

archive of Jack Smith belongs, in effect, to the artist's younger sister, a

70-year-old Texas housewife named Mary Sue Slater.

Auteur of the notorious Flaming Creatures, performance artist before

such a term existed, photographer of unlikely incandescences, "the

Alfred Jarry of the East Village," Smith died without a will in 1989.

Known to the cognoscenti but incapable of promoting himself, Smith

influenced many who became more famous. He gave Robert Wilson his

glacial pacing. He gave Andy Warhol the idea of using non-actors for

his films and incorporating mistakes. Smith was the original DIY artist,

scavenging on the streets to get material for props, sets, and costumes.

A chapter called "The Sheer Beauty of Junk" in Stefan Brecht's Queer

Theatre sets Smith up as the forefather to Charles Ludlam, John Waters,

and others who dared to mix the sublime with the Ridiculous. Richard

Foreman called him "the hidden source of practically everything that's

of any interest in the so-called experimental American theater today."

Born in 1932, Smith came of age with other cultural rebels, but he wasn't

so much unwilling as genuinely unable to conform. What interested him

was that state of mind one enters while creating, and that's what he

wanted to show on stage or screen. He didn't care about finished

products. He made the most important avant-garde film in America, then

never completed any of his other films. He was known for actually re-

editing during screenings. As for performances, no two were alike. He

did not believe in acting, which was "hoodwinking," or in memorizing

lines, which rendered one "a mynah bird."

In his manifesto, "The Perfect Film Appositeness of Maria Montez," Smith

explained that the B-movie actress became his muse because she could

not act. Instead, she believed in her own beauty, infusing her dreadful

filmography with what Smith saw as "imaginative life and truth."

Emulating his idol, Smith made his own persona the center of each

performance, and dressed for Montezland, usually a faux desert, as a

sheikh or a pharaoh. Smith had a consistent worldview, and his shows,

for all their exoticism, came from his daily obsessions. Many dealt, for

example, with landlordism, "the central social evil of our time." He did

not understand why people had to keep endlessly paying. Thus, his

Hamlet (never realized, sadly) would have been titled Hamlet and the

1001 Psychological Jingoleanisms of Prehistoric Landlordism of Rima-Puu.

Since Smith's death, his film, scripts, costumes, photos, drawings,

posters, props, slides, and ephemera have been looked after by

performance artist Penny Arcade, a friend of his, and J. Hoberman,

Voice film critic (author of the Jarry quote above) and long a champion

of Smith's work. In 1997, Arcade and Hoberman formed an entity to

preserve and promote Smith's art--the Plaster Foundation, named after

the Greene Street loft where the artist once lived and staged many a

midnight show.

Currently, the parties are trying to reach a settlement, so the story

would appear to be cut-and-dried. But no. It's been a strangely Smithian

drama of indirection. An old friend of Smith's actually set the sister's

lawsuit in motion from behind the scenes. After years of caring for

Smith's work, unpaid, Hoberman and Arcade have been rewarded with

attacks on their integrity.

Mary Sue Slater last saw her brother in 1956. In the deposition she filed

to recover the archive, she testified that her husband "did not approve of

Jack's homosexual lifestyle and did not want our sons to be tainted by

it"though Slater now seems troubled by this characterization. One of her

sons clarified: "That goes back to the '50s and '60s," adding, "Jack chose

to alienate himself." Indeed, Mary Sue Slater does not remember ever

getting a letter from her brother.

Their mother passed information to her--though not, for example, about

the Flaming Creatures scandal that made Smith infamous. (The film was

banned as obscene in 1964 and denounced on the Senate floor by Strom

Thurmond.) By the time their mother died in 1976, Slater did not even

know where her brother lived. She came to New York to look for him,

"went around to the addresses I had, and no one had ever heard of him."

Smith did not turn up at his mother's funeral, but the lawyer for her

estate located him about a year later by running an ad in the Voice.

Brother and sister had a last talk, on the phone, in 1980.

"He turned against me because I was normal," Slater speculates. "That's

the only thing I can think of. Because he hated normal people." Still, she

was distraught at her brother's death from AIDS. She hadn't even known

he was ill. "I just went into a funk because it brought up all the way our

life turned out. It's sad."

Her first visit to Smith's sixth-floor walk-up the day after his memorial

must have been bewildering. The artist had been in the process of turning

his East Village railroad flat into a set for his never-to-be-filmed

Sinbad in a Rented World. He'd converted door frames into Moorish

arches, camouflaged the bathroom as a Tahitian garden with thousands

of plastic vines and plants, and painted a Scheherazade figure with three

breasts (and embedded custom-made bra) on his living room wall. Here

Mary Sue Slater first encountered Penny Arcade (a/k/a Susana Ventura).

At that point, all Arcade knew about the family was that Smith had not

wanted them contacted during his illness. She remembers the sister as

keen to get jewelry she could sell at a flea market, when all Smith had

was the "junk jewelry" he had altered for use with his costumes. Slater

says she sells at antique shows, not flea markets, that Arcade told her

she had "a bushel basket of costume jewelry," then didn't produce it,

and, worst of all, couldn't find the jewelry Smith had inherited from their

mother.

Ultimately, Slater got her brother's end table ("the only thing of beauty

that he had") and a small box of jewelry. Arcade also handed over

$50,000 in bearer bonds--Smith had told her where he'd hidden them in

the floor—but this does not impress Slater now as proof of Arcade's

honesty. "Wouldn't you give up $50,000," the sister asks, "if you thought

you could make millions?"

Millions? We'll get to that.

[...] full article: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0410/carr.php

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*Avast, me hearties!*

Some Like It Hot

OK, P2P is "piracy." But so was the birth of Hollywood, radio, cable TV,

and (yes) the music industry.

By Lawrence Lessig

Wired - Issue 12.03 - March 2004

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html?tw=wn_tophead_6

If piracy means using the creative property of others without their

permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of

piracy. Every important sector of big media today - film, music, radio,

and cable TV - was born of a kind of piracy. The consistent story is how

each generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Each generation -

until now.

The Hollywood film industry was built by fleeing pirates. Creators and

directors migrated from the East Coast to California in the early 20th

century in part to escape controls that film patents granted the inventor

Thomas Edison. These controls were exercised through the Motion

Pictures Patents Company, a monopoly "trust" based on Edison's

creative property and formed to vigorously protect his patent rights.

California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers like

Fox and Paramount could move there and, without fear of the law, pirate

his inventions. Hollywood grew quickly, and enforcement of federal law