New York Trip

Ian, Ben, Danielle and myself went to New York City last Thursday! It was great! I don’t think we spent more than $40, food included, and we had a BLAST. Here are some great things you should know about and go see:

  • EYEBEAM: Even though there wasn’t much going on that day, (except for a feel-good Jacob Ciocci video in the lobby) it was clear that they were doing great work and pushing the boundaries between art and education. They had a huge space set up for X-LAB, (10/26-1/29) which had workstations and “projects in progress” set up all over the room. It offered a great model for working collaboratively with different kinds of media. They also offer fellowships and residencies and have an after school youth program.
  • Creative Time Presents: Spencer Finch Creative Time! Remember the summit?!? They funded this piece of public art which is on the Chelsea Highline. Everytime a bell tolls, something something jelly rolls.
    • Dia Art Foundation Since the 1960’s, Dia’s mission has been to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public. They enable lots of Land Art, or “earthworks”, and projects that might not otherwise be realized because of their scale or ambition. We went to Soho to see Walter De Maria’s “Broken Kilometer” and “Earth Room”, which have both been installed there for the past 30 years, almost untouched, and probably rent controlled. You’d never know they were there amidst all the designer boutiques, but they are AMAZING and 100% FREE and open to the public. Do your art history homework.
    • The New Museum  We were pretty much zombie dead by the time this happened, but I still soaked it up as much as I could, and was basically in infowikicyberdatasocialmedianetwork heaven at Free. They also had a show on  newspapers.
    • Electronic Arts Intermix   I use their website all the time for video art research, it’s a really comprehensive database of video art and video artists and a fantastic resource. I was disappointed when we visited on Thursday and they didn’t have a gallery, but I saw on the postcard that you could make appointments for their viewing room. We had no idea what to expect, but they put us in a room with a TV and said “who do you want to see?”. They gave us HUNDREDS of VHS tapes and DVDs and we curated an impromptu show for ourselves, starting with this gem from Michael Bell-Smith. I’ve never watched video art with a remote control in my hand before, and I don’t know how I can ever go back. They were super friendly and said that MassArt faculty can rent video art for class screenings. (?!?) Next time we’ll bring popcorn and look at the catalog beforehand.


    Two other big surprises that night included a Seth Price show at the Friedrich Petzel gallery in the same building as EAI. Then we went around the corner to the Jim Kempner gallery, where we saw Evidence by Robert Attanasio, a hilarious tongue and cheek look at the art world. We also told Jim Kempner that we would tell everyone about The Madness of Art, his webshow that he’s trying to make viral.