Another Project while working at ABC No Rio

This Spring to Summer was pretty busy. Nina and I did first collaborating performance together at Inchon, South Korea. It went well.

Last Summer curator from Buffalo Arts Studio visited my studio in NYC. She knew my New Orleans project and she felt along the line of this project will be perfect for City of Buffalo where 20,000 of abandoned houses sitting all over the city due to the economic change past 2 decades.

Past one year, pretty slowly researching all sorts of info of Buffalo or Lake Erie area of cities like Detroit. Although it is not so updated, I looked through many streets by Google street photos. I found more active NPO working for their community.

PUSH Buffalo
Buffalo ReUSE

Beyond these two organizations, so many different group, organizations are actively working.
It is true that without gaining new jobs the city still lose population and nothing easily change. However, I was able to see how still effective to put garden in vacant lots and plan trees along each street.

One thing I noticed there was each neighbor is in slightly different housing situation.
I wondered knowing other neighbor might be very important for them.

Anyhow,
my idea for this project (will happen June 2010) is to go all different neighbor and cast part of abandoned house with latex with High School and College students as teams, and build Geodesic Dome in a vacant lot. It is not representation of our clueless hope or unrealized Utopia. It is our active progress go toward real utopia we believe. It would be cool if we could have such feeling by this project.

We'll see...


Next time, I will talk more about current project at ABC No Rio. Such a wonderful organization who really made it past 20 years. great example, not just hope.

ABC No Rio Gallery

This Summer to early Fall, I am involved in group Artists' collectives project/ exhibition entitled, "Hanging out" at ABC No Rio Gallery in Lower East Side, Manhattan, NYC, NY. This gallery has very unique grass root history. Recently Steve, the director was invited to talk at Louisiana Artworks. It was just by chance, though. So anyone went to the lecture might have been familiar with this gallery.

Essentially, in mid 80s in Lower East Side in NYC, group of artists purposefully broke in to NYC property, which was taken from private landlord who could not pay tax and abandoned, and did art exhibition to claim about the slam issue. It was new action at the time so it became big news in NYC although it sounds normal part of practice now. From that beginning, they acted together and eventually NYC gave small property with a four story building by one dollar to the group. It became ABC No Rio Gallery as non-profit Art organization. It has silkscreen shop, B&W photo shop, Zine library, Computer Shop and gallery/ Punk Rock show space. This building has been falling apart. Amazingly last week, they got funding from NY to build new facility. It took good 10 years of negotiation.

Anyhow, I as 4 years old young New Yorker Artist, it was fascinating to listen and learn the history. Many of known old generation artists went through this organization. Our show purpose is to learn the history, meet old hidden artists, think about how we could inherit the spirits in this time of the year as young artists, and do something as well as promoting this old hidden gallery since even NY young artists do not necessary know the name even!

Sorry, it takes time to get into my latex oriented project.

I wonder if I could cast specific wall with latex one by one with people coming in this building.
I have to show you how crazy building it is and then you get it why.

Today, I went to the gallery around 3pm. Bad Luck! No one was there. Just locked. No way I can get in touch with people from outside. No inter phone. Low low budget organization can hire only one director. Usually active after 6pm. So, what a hell, I rather do something. Spontaneously I decided to cast entrance. Its color is golden and full of graffiti, signature, stickers. You could say it is beautiful. You might think it is not.

The surface is very slicky because they painted enamel paint. They probably repainted recently. So, even if I paint latex and peel it off, it does not get any graffiti except for stickers. I wondered what would be the best for this. I was looking at each anonymous people's self expression. I got interested in tracing all the signature by my hand painting latex. I made similar color of latex to the graffiti. I carefully followed the signs. As non native speaker, it was more difficult what alphabets they were. By examining order, brush strokes, I figured it out and found it was like Japanese calligraphy lesson. It took forever. Only just 1' x 3' around area, I spent 6 hours. Oh wow. By the time I finish the entrance area (8' x 12' total wall space w/ two doors) I could be pretty good at others graffiti sign by paint brush....? (So far, thin lines are not really same at all!)

Photo coming soon.

New Phase (7/9/'09)

I have been thinking about how I could use this blog from now on. Originally I thought I use this for Social Dress New Orleans project blog only. However, I myself found the fact using latex with this technique still opens new way of expression as art form.

Last early Summer, I did group show at Smack Mellon Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY. I found another way of using latex to cast building as site specific project. In this case, I made same colors of brick wall and painted on the brick wall yet very thinly. I then peeled off partially so that it looks as though thin skin of building came off from the building surface. It was extremely thin so through the sun light from outside, you saw the color and texture. I like to upload the image later here. This is about the history of the building itself.

So maybe, projects utilizing latex cast and similar concept behind could be in this blog even if the blog title suggests about New Orleans project since the readers might be interested in such similar projects as well as it is good for my project diary, thought memo, inventory of the date and photo archives.

Let's begin!

1/28/2009 - Storage!

Prospect .1 New Orleans Biennial ended.

Now I need to look for storage for Social Dress New Orleans - 1941 Caffin Avenue.

I am looking for approximately 200sqft space wither in New Orleans or New York area.
If you know any inexpensive storage place or could give me good deal, let me know please!!!!!!!

It seems it will be taken down in the beginning of February.

PBS News Hour Showed Prospect .1

New Orleans Art Exhibit Aims to Help City Heal

Last night on PBS TV at Jim Lehrer's News Hour Prospect .1 New Orleans Biennial was reported by Jeffrey Brown.

Keith & Chandra running L9, community Art center on Caffin ave in Lower Ninth Ward explained how Art could heal them and people in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina still now. Willie and Deborah shared their thoughts through their pieces. If you are further interested in how Dan Cameron conceived this Biennial you can listen to it on this show and more from here.

My project was explained 2:30 - 2:40 in this show. This is amazing.

Thanks!

Holiday Season Prospect .1 Business Hours

I asked Prospect .1 New Orleans Biennial office about their holiday season business hours. They sent me the info.

They have the visitor's Hotline: 504-715-3968

For people from outside of NOLA,

Cab is not running all over the streets. You have to call the cab and wait.
I am not getting money from certain company, but I always used,

United Cab: 504-522-9771

Airport to downtown:

Airport Shuttle:504-522-3500
http://www.airportshuttleneworleans.com/

Happy Holidays! Snow in NOLA (week of 12/8/08)

Friends living in New Orleans sent me photos. While NYC does not have snow, New Orleans got lots of snow. It's NOT lots of snow, but for New Orleans where very rarely has snow will usually get, it must be.

Rebecca Rapp is on the photo. We went to school together at Loyola University in New Orleans.
Very recently we reconnected through Facebook.

Two Weeks Printmaking Residency in NOLA - Apply now!

My friend, Kyle and Jenny's print shop, Hot Iron Press is now accepting artists living outside of New Orleans for two weeks printmaking residency at their wonderful studio.

It seems they even provide flight, place to stay and all the equipments!
If you as an artist missed many time to visit New Orleans even if you heard cool things in NOLA Art before, this is one of the best opportunities for sure. I know them well and their skill sets are amazing.

http://www.hotironpress.com/visitingartists.htm

I am sure they still look for applications.
Let's apply now!

======

By the way,
my house sculpture is still on view till January 18th, 2009 at the Hefler Warehouse, 851 Magazine Street, one block from Contemporary Art Center. (Wed. - Sun. 11am-6pm)

Please come visit.




http://www.hotironpress.com/visitingartists.htm

http://www.hotironpress.com/

Chalk Board at the Charles J. Colton School

I was able to visit One of the Prospect.1 sites, Colton School, on Halloween day this year. My wife and I rode my friends' bikes all the way to St. Claude Avenue just before the industrial canal.

This school gave me so much emptiness. Or rather void and sadness. A friend of mine told me that he had to clean up a lot before the opening of the exhibition. The feeling I got when I re-visited my elementary or junior high school during the summer-time long time ago was something similar to this.

When we went into one of the classrooms on the third floor, we could not breathe. We were shocked by what remained on the chalkboard.

Please look at what was written. I darkened some of the parts to make it more visible. I could not stop crying after seeing this. It is something much more powerful than any artwork. I know we cannot compare like that.

I wonder if we could preserve this room as a reminder.

Dave Bachli

Dave Bachli is one of the wonderfully helpful New Orleanians. Yet he is also still suffering from after K.

Right after Hurricane Katrina, he wanted to support his New Orleans-based neighbor artists and started an artists' space called X/0 studios (http://web.mac.com/v00d00/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html) in Bywater, just one block from NOCCA. It opened in 2007.

He actually is not from NOLA originally, but he has been there for a good two decades. He totally fell in love with New Orleans and never wanted to leave.

However, he had to make that decision recently. It is incredibly sad for us that he needed to move his home. Perhaps I have no right to describe this part since I have never experienced real life in New Orleans after Katrina. Yet, if I am allowed, he told me last month when I visited there that he was extremely tired and disappointed and frustrated about the situation there.

He opened a gallery space, but not really for profit. Rather, he just wanted to get started helping and supporting each other to bring his neighborhood back. I feel that since he is a down-to-earth person and likes to help out as a normal part of his life, he was overly exhausted about the past 3 years' living situation.

A couple years ago while cleaning up his house from the flooding, my good friend Michael tripped and broke his left arm, and is still trying to recover from it. His wife recently mistakenly fell on a step and broke her right wrist while evacuating from Gustav. This is NOT necessarily just because of simple mistakes or clumsiness. People from there and people who love the town are willing to stay, but are continuing to suffer from immense fatigue and stress.

Dave already put a "For Sale" sign at his home and X/0 studios. He is ready to move out of town, yet possibly not for good. He said he's excited about going back to his home town up in the Northeast, yet his face did not look like he was excited.

I honestly do not want to talk about this here, never, and I don't want to misrepresent him. But, I guess I did want the chance to say "thank you" for his generosity.

In NYC, many galleries are disappearing right now, due to the current financial situation. It is really rather amazing. But the closing of X/O studios is not the same as what is happening in NYC. Rather it is a sign of the continuing struggle in NOLA.

Metro Poles: Art in Action Exhibition at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning

Just right after finishing up my friend Carol's installation at Mixed Greens, I jumped into a group exhibition last Thursday evening.

Three Non-Profit galleries in three different Boroughs in NYC got together proposing that artists work in collaborative groups, building off each others' works to experiment with a non-commercial semi-spontaneous method of creation.


This show system is: one leading artist makes a new work at the gallery for one week during the first week of the exhibition. Then, the next artist comes and takes over the piece to create a new piece for themselves during the next one week. In that way each group of 4-5 artists keeps creating new works from the previous work at the gallery space.

I originally proposed something about visual information from tourist souvenir postcards.
I am more attached to NOLA now and quite aware of the reality after Hurricane K. Over the past month, I walked around tourists' stops and checked out postcards. It's interesting. They are all pretty much similar to what I first bought and sent to my grandparents eight years ago. Then, I thought that we as tourists maybe take a bunch of digital photos or even cell phone camera photos all the time and send the images to friends at home right away. Also, the images on the souvenir postcards do not necessarily convey what I feel about NOLA. It's nothing wrong, but my NOLA is not at all about Bourbon Street for instance. Yet, I like Mardi Gras or any festivity there while my friends grew up there are usually saying that they are a bit tired of it.

So, since I have many many photos I have taken in New Orleans over the past eight years, I decided to create my own NOLA postcards. It has my own notes already on the back as well as my address. Viewers are free to take some, address them and send them to their friends.

Probably everybody has their own idea/image of each region, city, country. I often enjoy others' images of Japan for instance.

I am not sure how the next artist, Claudia Weber will work on my postcards........ (She is nervous since she is very much a studio practice artist who creates her installation work at her studio, not spontaneously. ) It's a huge artistic challenge, and she just got sick. I hope she is all right, but I'm sure she'll do something interesting.

Catching up with my Life (11/13/08)

Now I understand over three weeks of out of town causes a bit of a time lag and/or culture shock. It is taking time for me to get back to my own life; my brain takes time to get back to where I am.

This evening, I had a group show opening for an exhibition called Metro Poles at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Several groups of artists work on their own art at the gallery over the next two months. Every week a different artist takes over and work on a new work from the previous work exhibited at the gallery.

It looked like an artists' party with a reunion kind of feeling. I enjoyed it a lot.
Coincidentally, I met two Jasons at the show who are also participating in this exhibition.
One Jason asked if I worked for Boxart before. I said kind of. He said, "hey you made that latex door?" Oh wow how did he know that? It turned out they made the crates for the Social Dress New Orleans piece. Jason liked the colorful door. We were very glad to meet and work together.

In NYC or anywhere this happens a lot. Most artists work for other artists or in art services such as installation at museums or being a crater. I finished Carol Salmanson's beautiful LED light architectural installation at Mixed Greens Gallery this week. I came back 3 am on Thursday morning!

Whenever I can see and meet people related to our activities, I am very happy. Now we know that the humongous crates were made by Jason and Jason (and probably more people as well) at Boxart!

By the way, I am making my version of New Orleans' tourist postcards for the Metro Poles exhibiton. I have more than a thousand pictures I took in New Orleans over the past 5 years, off and on. I wonder about tourist postcards, now that it's digital camera or cell phone camera era. Postcards are not renewed often, and tend to be a set of image of the city. I thought it might be fun to make my own postcards write my commentary on the back where you usually write a message, but let visitors take them and address them to their friends. These are free to take by anyone at the gallery, but if you take one, I'd like you to send it to your friends.

One Extra (11/03/08)

My wife, Sculptor, curator Nina wanted to get started on her video project since Spring 2007 related to Post-Katrina New Orleans. We were not sure if we would have the chance but fortunately, at the very last moment, we were able to stop by our friends' house, in Uptown New Orleans, to do filming. In the afternoon, Nina wore a T-shirt and jeans and jumped into the pool to swim for a few hours. The water is a bit cold this time of year. We set up a video camera and shot only the part of the pool where she waded. I am not sure about the details of how she will complete the artwork, but it is both about floating for long time after Hurricane Katrina hit and flooded, and a metaphor for the waiting residents have experienced in reconstruction (The flood in the city is not directly because of the Hurricane. It's because of levee, pump system and what not.) She talked about wondering how people were able to swim for long periods of time or stay in the water for a long time after the city flooded. She originally wanted to do floating in a pool or any place she could do this for more than 8 hours. She wanted to experience that length of time to understand physically how it was actually harder than we may imagine to wait for rescue anywhere it was not dry. Anyhow, she told me that as she was wading she started feeling her fingers became freezing and stiffening. So she decided to stop after just a couple hours. Although the water must have been a bit warmer in August-September 2005 than what it is right now, being in the water a long time must make us totally burned out. We'll see how Nina's project goes later.

By the way, after filming, we quickly packed up and called a cab, and left for the airport. However, the traffic was pretty bad and we ended up missing the flight but got one for the next morning instead. Oh well, at least we got to see interesting art, and stay one more night with our friends!

After the Installation (10/31/08)

Last Wednesday 29th, Nina (my wife and life saver) arrived from NYC. She did not have time to sleep before coming due to her many tasks at a non-profit gallery. Tara, one of the wonderful volunteers for Prospect.1, nicely gave us a ride to and from the Airport. In the end, we actually picked up two art writers who had just arrived there but were waiting for their rides. At the airport, it is quite obvious who does not belong to NOLA;) I just asked if they came for Prospect .1 and if they needed a ride.

During the first day of previews for the media, Thursday 10/30, parts of the installation at the Hefler were still in-process due to a few unexpected delays. My house, itself, was done last Tuesday, but the Welcome Center behind my installation was still under construction. When Nina and I visited there around 2pm, the carpenter, Christian, was on top of the welcome center. However, compared to the day before, when it was still a skeleton, the center was almost done. Yaay! Unfortunately, the electrical circuits at the warehouse were not done so they took electricity from next door by extension cords. They ran just next to my house making it look like it was still under installation. Also, it seemed a bit unsafe as people could trip over them, so I added more extension cords so they could be run right against the wall. The final touch-up was done! I packed the rest of my equipment and left for the hotel. It's just amazing the fact that overall we still complete our installation for Prospect .1 in time. I felt that Prospect .1 showed some energy and possibility to us in New Orleans.

Day #8 Lighting Done (Monday, 10/27/08)

1:45am Tuesday 10/28:

All the lighting has been set up so that the electricians can hook them up properly tomorrow.

A volunteer Tara came to help me. That saved me a lot. We went to the hardware store to buy all the lights: 6 flood lights and six clip lamps. On the way back to our warehouse, we ran into Gene who works at the Art Council and who helped this project whole a lot last year. That was a nice coincidence.

In the afternoon, unfortunately one of the contractors' car ran into one of the aircraft cables supporting the latex panels and cut it off. Fortunately there were no injuries. Late in the evening, James came to help me. All the damage was fixed and we got a new, better idea about how to support the section.

Lighting is very difficult. It took forever to find the right direction and amount, and I am constantly wanting to change things slightly.

After all the contractors left, Kurt from DDD came to visit and we just talked about this project.

In the end, I feel pretty good. I think this is finally it. Tomorrow Tara and I will clean up all of the stuff and help the electricians if needed.

Oh wow, I missed dinner. I guess I should eat now!