Emvergeoning

Some of you may have been a bit surprised to see Emvergeoning turn into a platform for a political campaign yesterday (I must admit I was a bit surprised myself, despite my own flirtations with political themes). Yes, the contemporary art community in San Antonio seems to be coalescing around Obama’s campaign, but what does this really have to do with the artistic project, especially considering our previous criticisms of politically driven art?

Let me try to explain why this presidential campaign is relevant to Emvergeoning’s overall mission. In a nutshell: we are here to open up the dialog that exists within the San Antonio art community, to help draw new voices in, both from the local community and from distant cities. We want to bring more people into the conversation. This is, I think, exactly the kind of change that Barack Obama is offering America: to break down barriers in the dialog. No, he’s not going to instantly launch the United States into a post-racial, post-partisan social dynamic. No, he’s not going to end corruption and corporate influence in Washington. But Obama does represent our best chance to mollify the cynicism of our political discourse, and move partisan bickering a little closer to sincere and honest dialog.

As an example, look at Obama’s strategy while working to expand health care options in Illinois. As reported by health care expert Jonathan Cohn in the New Republic, Obama worked to build a coalition of health care activists, doctors, and hospitals, while holding direct talks with insurance and business lobbyists. Because he brought all interested parties on board as he crafted a health care task force, “He could not be accused of partisan aggression. But he got his way,” according to John Bouman, director of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.

Contrast this approach to Hillary Clinton’s when she headed the Task Force on National Health Care Reform created by then-president Bill Clinton. The task force’s members and meetings were kept secret, so that by the time the plan was unveiled, the task force had already been sued for violating regulations related to government transparency. Meanwhile, a number of fellow Democrats crafted their own, competing health care plans, while conservatives and business interests lined up an intense PR campaign to kill the idea.

These episodes exemplify the approaches of the two Democratic candidates, one of whom works closely with both allies and opponents to build consensus through open dialog, and one of whom works within a tight political network to push things through. It could be argued that Hillary Clinton has learned her lesson from her health care debacle, if it weren’t for her campaign’s use of some of these same kinds of tactics in this primary season. Her insistence on seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan after agreeing with the Democratic National Committee’s decision to strip these states of delegates smacks of cynical political manipulation, and threatens to create an enormous rift within the Democratic party.

I don’t have much hope that Obama will be able to live up to all of his soaring rhetoric; but I do know that that rhetoric is supported by a strong record of good judgment and open discourse. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of his opponent. It is for this reason that I see Obama as a candidate who is aligned with the goals of Emvergeoning, goals that I think are also central to the task of contemporary art.

26 Comments »

(sorry about the political intrusion, folks)

Local artists Cruz Ortiz, Bunnyphonic, Joe De La Cruz and myself spent 3 or 4 hours earlier tonight screening our own Obama campaign signs. We made one for every voter’s personality. Apparently nobody thought Texas was going to be very important in the whole scheme of things, so very few campaign signs have made it down our way yet. Cruz thought it better that we represent in grassroots style for the TV cameras coming through town when he speaks. If you would like one of these, there are more than 70 from tonight alone and plans for more in the next few weeks. Call to get one or to volunteer time or ideas for more. These are 2-sided, hand-screened and can come with a stake.

9 Comments »

This last weekend, I got the opportunity to shoot some photos of Bill FitzGibbons‘ recent work Katonah Lights at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York. (Can I say Katonah again?) Creighton Michael & Leslie Cecil were amazing hosts for the weekend, and I can’t say enough nice things about the show (Shattering Glass: New Perspectives). I’m a longtime fan of innovative glass art after having taken a short study in borosilicate lampworking a few years back. The show did a good job of melding together increasingly versatile genres and styles of glasswork, from poured crystal rope to offhand glass jellyfish charged with neon and incorporating pyrex tubing. Bill’s Katonah Lights, made up of glass L.E.D.’s pulsing to an elaborate 8 minute program, became really great ever-changing eye candy for the steady stream of traffic going down Route 22 in Katonah.

(thats Bill in the photo above)

Katonah Lights will be on view @ the Katonah Museum of Art until Feb 24, 2008.

4 Comments »

The New York Earth Room by Walter de Maria

Cities & The Dead

What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling, on every stair another stairway is set in negative, over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist: the dampness destroys people’s bodies, and they have scant strength; everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway, it is dark.

From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say “It’s down below there,” and we can only believe them. The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam.

— Italo Calvino, (trans. William Weaver)

2 Comments »

Ever since I got a subscription to the now-defunct Emigre magazine, I’ve been interested in how obsessed a lot graphic designers are with ethics. On one level it makes sense, with graphic design being, along with architecture, one of the art few forms that ordinary people have to deal with on a daily basis. On another level it always seemed strange, since ethical considerations don’t seem to factor into the calculations of most of the designers’ clients. But perhaps this is why many designers feel compelled to grapple with morality: there’s a lot of pressure from their clients not to think about it. At any rate, there’s a new article at Design Observer does a good job of exploring the ethical implications of the Enron logo, one of the last logos created by uber-designer Paul Rand. The point that branding empowers consumers (as made in this Economist article) is an important one that is too often overlooked.

PS What is up with this new Hyatt Place logo? Does anyone find this compelling?

PPS Check out Brand New, a blog on corporate identity for more discussion of logos and branding.

4 Comments »

That’s still another thing about the Correspondence School, it’s not just the letters, the postcards, the drawings, the poems, it’s also the New York Correspondence School objects. The Spam radio, for example, was a radio in the shape of a Spam can, which had a little handle on it, it was a thing the Spam Corporation made one year as an advertising gimmick. It was something they gave to people, and you could go to the beach with your Spam radio, and play your radio on the beach, it was a little radio inside of a Spam can, and I didn’t really treasure it very much so I gave it to Jim Bohn.

…

But to get back to that radio, I gave it to Jim Bohn — which is BOHN and not BONE — and the following week he was in Soho walking around with his wife and carrying the Spam radio as a kind of prize trophy. He was taking it out for a walk, and the minute I saw him with it I realized that he had given it some kind of notoriety and importance, and I was intensely jealous that he was walking around with the Spam radio and that I hadn’t thought of walking around with a Spam radio, like the time I had once walked around with the head of Candy Darling in a plastic bag. So still another week later, I was in Soho again and went to the supermarket and bought a real can of Spam and put a little handle on it, and then I was walking around with that.

— Ray Johnson

1 Comment »

The Spiral Jetty oil drilling story (broken by MAN) is picking up steam, with a little mention in the NYT, and a couple of hot-out-of-the-oven press releases. The Dia Foundation “adamantly opposes” the drilling, which it says would take place within 5 miles of Smithson’s iconic land art masterpiece. The National Trust for Historic preservation has also entered the fray. I can’t find a link to a press release from them, but the Trust’s president Richard Moe is quoted as saying “The National Trust for Historic Preservation believes that Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake is a significant cultural site from the recent past, merging art, the environment, and the landscape. We are deeply concerned about the potential harm that energy development could bring to the Spiral Jetty.”

Interestingly, the Spiral Jetty was originally situated “a few hundred yards” from another industrial jetty, which was used for oil exploration for 60 years, and was actively being used for at least 10 years after Smithson built the piece. As Tyler Green noted in a piece on the Jetty from 2005:

A few hundred yards east of Smithson’s spiral is an old industrial jetty, used for oil exploration from the 1920’s to the 1980’s. It is rotting toward dissolution. While he didn’t write about it, Smithson saw it when he was building Spiral Jetty. He must have known that the oil jetty would eventually decay and disappear, while his artwork would survive, forming a partnership with nature. It will last.

So I have to wonder how detrimental this drilling really is to the Spiral Jetty Experience, considering oil exploration was happening within a few hundred yards of the piece for 10 years or more after its creation (Smithson completed the Spiral Jetty in 1970). Maybe this new drilling operation would be more invasive somehow, or maybe I’m misunderstanding the role of the older jetty. But if Smithson picked a location where he knew oil exploration was ongoing, maybe it doesn’t really impact the work in a negative way. Did any of our readers visit the Spiral Jetty in the ’70s or ’80s while this oil exploration was active?

On the other hand, I’m inclined to trust the Dia Foundation to understand the intended presentation of the Spiral Jetty about as well as anyone. And the fact that they only put out their press release today suggests that they spent some time considering the issues before reacting. Anyway, if you want to weight in officially, Dia has put together a form letter to express opposition to the project, along with relevant contact info.

There’s more: I just caught wind of this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, which fleshes out some of the legal and ecological issues surrounding the proposed drilling. Near the end, the author of the piece states that “the state must honor mineral rights.” It sounds like the company already has a lease on the land, which was exempted from a conservation agreement between the state of Utah and several conservation groups.

2 Comments »

An interesting story out of LA, a bit like this tale from San Antonio, but with a happy ending:

Luckily, REVOK carried his camera that day, and L.A. Weekly received the photo; we were wowed. So, it turns out, was Murakami, whose Kaikai Kiki studio found the evidence via the Internet and had the billboard surreptitiously removed. Murakami buffing billboards all the way from Japan? On the contrary, according to his representatives, he found it “so wonderful, he had to have it for his collection.” Our billboard is now on its way to Tokyo.

(Hat tip: MAN)

3 Comments »

The opening scenes of Bela Tarr’s brilliant Werckmeister Harmonies (music by Víg Mihály):

1 Comment »

Portrait d’une jeune fille américaine dans l’état de nudité (Portrait of a Young American Girl in the State of Nudity) by Francis Picabia (Published in the magazine 291 in 1915)

Spiritual America by Richard Prince (1983)

4 Comments »

Andrew Sullivan humbles bloggers everywhere by announcing that after deciding to go “balls to the wall” during the primary season, he posted over 1,600 items in one month. His Daily Dish has been a big inspiration to me by providing a steady stream of interesting political, social, and cultural commentary that defies the standard ideological structures. Congratulations to him on completing his first year under the Atlantic masthead.

10 Comments »

A little while back we did a series of posts on publicly accessible outsider artwork in San Antonio. One of the artists we covered was the Rev. Seymour Perkins, a controversial figure who lives on the east side of town. While others argue over whether he harbors drugs and prostitutes, and his lawyer battles with the city over the fate of his home, we here at Emvergeoning decided to take another peak at the work that isn’t so publicly accessible — the work inside his home. As Rev. Perkins gave us the tour I tried to absorb all the details, while Justin Parr snapped shot after shot of the inner sanctuary. From what I was able to gather, Seymour Perkins’ daughter, Debbie Jo Christi, was killed in a drug-related conflict on February 22, 1994. Here is a drawing on one of the walls that depicts her murder:

On the same day, the tallest angel in Heaven appeared to Seymour Perkins, revealing to him a tunnel that runs under his home, which is in fact the famous Underground Railroad. This tunnel connects his home to the Alamo and the Menger Hotel, and runs on down into Mexico. After receiving this prophecy (which I am recounting in only a very fragmentary and woefully incomplete way), Perkins founded the Debbie Jo Christi Museum, and Hanging Tough Ministries. Here is a painting of the tunnel running under the Perkins estate:

Here are a few shots inside the Debbie Jo Christi Museum:

The Museum is located in a small building in the back of the house. But within the actual house, where Rev. Perkins delivers most of his sermons, there are a number of fascinating works. In his bedroom, the pieces below are painted on the wall. The first is a self-portrait of Rev. Perkins with his son:

Next to this painting, is a larger work depicting one of his assistants, whose ass is stuck to his ass (i.e. he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going):

Below are a few details of one work painted on a window shade, depicting a man named Timothy Ringer, “the funkiest man in San Antonio”:

In addition to these works, dealing with himself, his family, and other meaningful people in his life, Perkins showed us a few pieces dealing with his relationship with God and History:

Now, this post isn’t intended to rally support around Rev. Seymour Perkins, or to say anything about his proper place in our community. I’ll leave that to his neighbors, his lawyers, and the city’s elected officials. But I did think it would be good for people to see what is inside his home — if it is destroyed in the coming months, this may sadly be one of the most complete documents of what it contained. To see more of his work, please visit the San Angel Folk Art gallery in the Blue Star arts complex.

11 Comments »

Forget about baby seals, now Big Oil is endangering the pristine ecosystem of the Spiral Jetty. MAN has more details. (NOTE: if you want to act on this, you have to do it this afternoon).

UPDATE: While I was having fun in Photoshop, Kriston Capps was actually doing research on where the proposed oil development would take place in relation to the Spiral Jetty. Please refer to his informative post on the drilling.

UPDATE 2: Yet more research by Michael Buitron reveals that the staging area will be about 50 miles from the Spiral Jetty. If the staging area is the only visible infrastructure, it’s hard to see how this would be a big deal. And anyway, I’m sure there are bigger concerns than the aesthetic pleasures of the Smithson Pilgrims. Not to be flippant (I hope to be one of those pilgrims myself someday), but when I’m making my list of concerns about energy sources, the impact on modern art isn’t in the #1 slot.

4 Comments »

The American Prospect is hosting a dialogue on The Wire between some young political, cultural, and arts journalists. It’s much more probing than my recent post on the show, and if I hadn’t already watched through episode 7, I would think they are being a bit hard on it (they have only watched through episode 3). But the fact is, the show is descending into caricature, and with only three episodes to go, I don’t see much chance for redemption. I’ll explain more when the episodes actually air, but I think the problems with season 5 are summed up pretty well by the TAP crew (they just don’t realize yet how ridiculous it becomes).

One point that some of their commenters make is that since these are all journalists writing about the show, they find the newsroom dynamics to be lacking in subtlety, but those of us who haven’t worked in a newsroom find these interactions much more interesting. This sounds about right to me. It’s also worth pointing out that the “evil bosses” butting heads with the “virtuous editor” in the newsroom is not so different from interactions between McNulty and Rawls in the first season. McNulty wasn’t revealed in all his self-destructive, egomaniacal glory until pretty far into the first season. But I think we also need to face the fact that the show hasn’t been quite as subtle or complex as people make it out to be. This isn’t great literature, although it certainly raises the bar for TV dramas.

Finally, there’s been some discussion of “meta commentary” as The Wire becomes flatter and more caricatured. Is it possible that David Simon and Ed Burns are intentionally commenting on their own professional need to pull in viewers, much like the boss at the Sun who is obsessed with the “Dickensian aspect” of everything? Well, maybe. There is an episode called “The Dickensian Aspect” (episode 6); and, as Spencer Ackerman says, “consider that all our disbelief, objections and disappointments are voiced by Bunk. This is a big tell. Bunk stands in for the audience, thereby suggesting that we’re in for some serious misdirection.” I guess we’ll see. My feeling is that if this is true, after seven episodes The Wire’s writers have gone way too far down the rabbit hole of self-awareness and popped out on the other side: navel-gazing self-absorption. Alternatively, David Simon and Ed Burns aren’t quite as brilliant as everyone makes them out to be, and perhaps face real pressures from HBO that constricts their ability to effectively use the considerable talents they do have.

But I still can’t wait to see the final showdown between Omar and Marlo.

11 Comments »