The Curators

2004-01-30T16:52:00.000-05:00

...D'amelio Terras' Le Cabinet Des Collages...neat...TEAM gallery had an interesting video/bootleg/art thing... away from Chelsea and uptown to 5th and 57th and Marian Goodman for Lothar Baumgartner...said hi to Maurizio Cattalan... I think he later pinched my butt...and home.
Thursday... Greene St's Jack Tilton's closing down show was busy and varied...Diesel had a show opening in a store on Greene st curated by Sebastian with work from an artist we know back in England, Banksy...

2004-01-29T18:03:00.000-05:00

Tuesday: Shows recalled in the bar at the Alqoncquin. Photographs at Jack Strainsaw...Fiona Banner and Dave Muller at Murray Guy...a glimpse of Decasia from Bill Morrison (lose the soundtrack please)...Anton Kern intrigued with its slacker gothic style...old kitchen, old ballroom, old rope at Sonnabend...naked youth photographs from Collier (303) Ben, David (at Marks)...CRG gallery, big ugly smelly paintings...Mike Weiss fig leaf beer beauties...Barbara Gladstone e-Merz-ing... John Torrento at Feature INc thrilling but not sure why..disapointed by Risley, Augustine, Cooper. Now rushing to Gigantic Art Space before they close and Jack Tilton's.

2004-01-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday - saw us at the Chinese New Year Parade ushering in the year of the monkey before heading over to brooklyn to look at the work of some artists. Our host for the day was Open Ground gallery. Based in willamsburg these last few years. Great to get to see such a cross section of work being produced in NY although some work was a bit heavy on the emotional investment and social commentary others stood out as being ones to watch i think would be Jason, Brandon, Luc, Radic, Michael and Zac.
Monday - Breakfast at Bergdof Goodman, couldn't afford a thing...5th Ave...Macy's...Ended the day in CBGB's....umm! Tommorrow we 'do' Chelsea. Can't wait...

2004-01-24T16:43:00.000-05:00

Over to Brooklyn's Willamsburg for an aperitif at Galapagos before the Momenta Art opening of a retrospective of the video works they have shown in the last ten years of being. A Japanese film crew snaked through the assembled guests and we hooked up with friends Genesis P-Orridge and Lady Jaye, whom i didn't recognise at first (the surgery is coming on a pace).
We all had supper before heading back to the East Village....
Meanwhile back at the gallery.... more visitors and special thanks to the Amsterdam-based Polish artist who we had an interesting dialogue with (NY art scene too commercial, Amsterdam too subsidised; Barbara Gladstone's near empty gallery during Gregor Schneider's show)...we misplaced your email so get in touch....

2004-01-23T17:24:00.000-05:00

busy busy busy
Sun - article for an art magazine in England had to be completed.
Mon - off to the opera at the Lincon Centre for production of Massenet 'The Sorrows of young Werther'
Tue - Bought a new digital camera... Met the people at great art/ performance/ venue 'the remote Lounge' on the bowery...Gagosian opening in Chelsea, big pictures of patti smith and Big models of bridges, famous or otherwise by Chris Burden and big black and white drawings of stuff, i can't recall now.
Wed - Jewish Museum and the Guggeinheim, Central Park...
Henry Street settlement and Creative time Party at the Marquee in the evening...
Thur - Meetings with Curators and artists at the gallery...in the evening dropped in at the Drawing Centre in SoHo for Arte Povera stalwart then Foxy Productions in Chelsea. Baroque Povera name checked in British National Paper the Guardian
Fri - Studio visits (thanks D.R) more meets at the gallery with curators and artists...Tonight Momenta Art in Williamsburg, meeting Genesis P-Orridge and Lady J

2004-01-22T17:59:00.000-05:00

no time to blog today! artists, curators visiting the gallery from beginning to end. Will report tomorrow.

2004-01-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

A very hectic week building up to a packed opening on Thursday. Many encouraging words from New York seer Douglas Kelley and NY artworld legend Willoughby Sharp. Some people upset. Billy Childish, Peter Kubelka...which is probably a good sign. Ihor Holubizky writes from the snowy wastes of Canada ? where the winter nights are long:

..."I sincerely hope this is meant to be funny -- and if it is ... meant to
be funny ... perhaps British cultural (commentary) has lost its sense
of humour since the death of Ian Dury.

This is "public exhibitionism." Mind you, that's my definition of what
has come to stand for "curator" -- a public exhibitionist.

The artist is not a middle-man -- the artist is a primary producer --
first, of "tokens" (I am using this in the George Kubler sense -- his
1962 book "The Shape of Time" -- and still worth reading and still
valid) -- and then ... "ideas." The problem with ideas is that they
were usurped by the "emergent curatorial class" -- and here I will
refer to (but do not defer to) Hugh Kenner's 1971 essay "Epilogue: The
Dead Letter Office," included in the compilation publication Museums in
Crisis (ed. Brian O'Doherty, George Braziller, New York).

What Kenner describes -- yes, with humour -- is the curator trying to
catch creativity "on the wing," but also the "Jurassic Park" that is
the museum today (then, in 1970 -- but even more so today). Gobbling
up fresh contemporary art that has no other place to go.

I am not being pernicious, but I've been in this game for 30 years, and
worked from many sides -- usually, overlapping -- as an artist's studio
assistant, a commercial dealer (selling [sic] VERY uncommercial work),
a teacher, lecturer, essayist, and historian. And for 25 years, a
curator in the public domain. I began my public career in a bastard
gallery that became legitimized and institutionalized as the Power
Plant (Toronto). It was the model for many other Canadian
"kunsthalles." I left in the late 80s, when it became the same game,
and went into the belly of the beast, working as a "real" curator for a
general art history museum.

It was only then that I understood something of the scrap heap of
history and ideas, as a curator in the true sense of the word -- a
custodian -- but also attempting to reflect the something else of the
changing times. That is -- a curator is a custodian of physical AND
intellectual property. I may have pioneered the subjective approach
in my writing, even the heretical route in my exhibitions, but the
prime objective -- always -- was providing a forum for the voice of the
artist, first and foremost. Dead or alive.

Curators are not that interesting. I've participated in too many think
tank symposiums. A bit like being with a group of dentists who relish
explaining the pain to their patients. Hell, musicians are not that
interesting -- and that was my other life, as a musician (live
performance and recording) and composer. But the music is -- and I
never judged music by a biographical cut. Some musicians are also
assholes -- but rarely as much of an asshole as A & R label types.

Yes, curators do have opinions -- fine -- but shouldn't have biases.
Two different beasts.

(I take out here something about Italian Cooking and Eric Clapton...Pierre)

A mid-career artist friend -- successful and ... unsuccessful -- told
me that the art world was the price he had to pay for wanting to be an
artist. Can't argue with that -- and if there are cultures that have
no specific word for art or artists, there is often an equivalent to
"curator" -- the custodian of oral traditions. They respect the makers
of things ... as "useless things" (art) can change the way we see the
world. But they don't change the world simply by "being." But a
custodian has responsibilities. I organized a fractional survey of a
senior Canadian artist Kazuo Nakamura, in 2001 (7 years in the making).
My last question to him, through an intermediary, was 'why were your
mid-1950s paintings primarily blue?' In essence, to ask -- why were a
few of them -- not blue.) The response -- "I like blue." Here was a
fact -- but not one that I could use. What does it matter if the
artist likes blue -- or brown -- or green. It is a matter of
preference -- not the work. How Nakamura applied blue and gave it
meaning, is for any viewer to determine for themselves. Not using that
information was an ETHICAL decision I had to make. Nakamura died
shortly after the survey opened. The "fact" is not destroyed -- it
sits in a file for others to decide whether or not it is important. An
ethical decision that they must make, as I must make them, almost every
day. Being a curator and historian, requires ethical conduct.

I'll leave my ramblings at that. I did contribute to a Banff Centre
Press book on the subject of "curatorial practice" -- published in
2002, and titled "The Edge of Everything." I dedicated my
contribution, by way of an "apology," to Herman Blount, a.k.a. Sun Ra.

Sincerely,
Ihor Holubizky"

Tonight private view at American Fine Arts and some video screening at Art in General

Pierre

2004-01-17T15:40:00.000-05:00

SoHo: The opening of our show The Curators, at the:artists:network in downtown NYNY was greeted with a cold snap the like of which had not been seen for over 20 years! After a great success we ended the evening with cocktails and meatballs at The View on the 48th floor of the Marriot Hotel Times Sq watching a snow covered Manhatten spin beneath us far below...
Friday. Back at the Gallery, 2-6, responding to enquries and visitors, curators and artists, Jounalists and other interested parties .The evening was spent prowling Chelsea Streets for a number of Gallery openings incl. The slick blue chip Pace McGill (said hi to Chuck Close), the wineless Gornay Bravin Lee and the inviting White Box...Stopped off at the Chelsea Hotel for cocktails before heading home to Ave. C, Alphabet City...

2004-01-02T05:51:00.000-05:00

"the curators" is a contemporary art exhibition at the:artist:network, 424 Broadway 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013

Opening party/private view: Thursday 15 January, 6 to 8 pm
Exhibition: 15 to 31 January 2004
Thursdays to Saturdays 2 to 6 pm and by appointment

You are invited to the opening reception of: the curators, Thursday 15 January, 6 to 8 pm.

In this exhibition, it is the curators of the exhibition who are on display. Cutting out the middlemen/artists allows the viewing public to directly interact with them.

As curators we felt compelled to eliminate the artist from the equation so as to explore other criteria, e.g. exhibitions as a product of the curator’s bias and opinions with accompanying illustrative flourishes. Literally and figuratively we hoped for a show that will speak for itself and be self evident.
This show/work is an opportunity to bring together a few of the predominating themes of this experimental London-based art gallery:
1 The idea that the exhibition produces the work.
2 The nature of a show, as one of flux and change
3 The performative aspect of art/life understood as a profound self conscious focus into the nature of human intercourse.
4 The notion of the gallery as an interface or nodal point where paths cross, ideas collide and texts, human as well as literal, may undergo synthesis.

Come and meet the curators in person Thursdays to Saturdays, 2 to 6pm or by appointment (email pierre@thecentreofattention.org to make an appointment or to talk to the curators online).
All information is available on:
http://www.thecentreofattention.org/exhibitions/ny.html