dayton is not in ohio

My recent trip to New York kicked off on Wednesday after a “Chicago Red-Eye” flight by doing a slide lecture about my work at the New York Center for Art and Media Studies (NYCAMS). I was invited by my friend James Romaine who teaches art history at NYCAMS and I then stuck around with my friend and NY-based artist Albert Pedulla for a lecture by critic Merrily Kerr regarding the College Art Association (CAA) BFA exhibition currently installed at NYCAMS.

Thursday, I was off to PS1 where I enjoyed the Not For Sale exhibition and then particularly the photographs of ViK Muniz. I’ve admired Muniz’ photographs in reproductions, but his large scale works are simply mindblowing in person. I highly recommend that you visit the site and peruse if you don’t know his work.

Thursday night kicked of the International Arts Movement conference, which was good to be at. I was part of a grad student panel of Friday, and then most of the days were filled with catching up and chatting with artist friends and going to the plenary sessions. The plenary highlights were an interview with Daniel Libeskind, the lead architect of the controversial Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site, Jeremy Begbie, and a music set by New York based, Mississippi native Kelly McRae. Overall, the conference was encouraging, like most of these types of conferences; Nothing earthshaking, but a great chance for vigorous conversation and networking. The whole trip also provided a nice opportunity to get away from Chicago and my studio and do some good thinking about the direction of my work. These days were also highlighted by some awesome late-night convesations over good scotch with Albert, who graciously put me up at his home in New Jersey.

On Sunday morning, three friends from Philly, Rob Matthews, Scott Laumann and Rubens Ghenov drove up and we went to the Armory show. This is where I took all my pictures… Some highlights included: 1. an abundance of monkeys and simian-like creatures, 2. my first-ever official paparazzo shot after Rob spotted Glenn Close , and 3. just the spectacle of miles and miles of the art market laid out like a cattle show. I think someone in our entourage described it as something like a flea market for really rich people.

The crew, with me reflected in the side of this mirror plated garbage truck.

Glenn

Simian

Monkey

There was lots of good art, lots of interesting art, and lots of bad and boring art. Overall, it was fun, especially to hang out with friends from Philly!

My saga home began at 3:30 when I was dropped off at the subway for my train and bus ride to Laguardia. Laguardia is a nasty airport, but I’d rather be in Laguardia for three hours than crammed in the window seat of the last row of a stuffy plane on the tarmac. My seat didn’t recline, but the seat of the lady in front of me did. Oh, did it recline! Aren’t those things supposed to be up while we’re on the ground!? If I was from New York I would have told her as much, but being the southerner that I am, I suffered in long-legged silence.

Finally in the air, but no more comfortable, I decided to kill time by doing something creative on my computer. I looked like a praying mantis at the keyboard with the funny way I had to cock my arms to touch the mouse pad and keyboard. I’m a little nervous flying, especially with turbulence, so I ended up making a video dealing with the subject using the iSight camera built into my monitor. Actually, in the end, I could only do this because I was sitting on the last row. Anywhere else and I may have been arrested and institutionalized when I got off the flight… I guess this is my first short film.