christopherlee-DADA TO PRADA

Roland Barthes

2010-06-03T10:40:00.002-04:00

Reading Barthes, the art of "rhetorical persuasion" ..invention of shat to say, lexis- ornaments and words....proof- techne. Technique is the speculative methodology of production of that which will or will not be. Technique is "artfulness" ability, craftsmanship and diligence. The is the "power" to pull something off, manifest and demonstrated.

Business Poems

2010-06-03T10:19:00.005-04:00

Sorry coupla pics of my temp room mate and her dog slipped in there

Dada to Prada- Explained...

2010-03-20T11:53:00.002-04:00

Almost done reading "Le Tumulte Noir" by Jody Blake. The basic premise is that Modernism was born out of mother country white male artist's reaction to learning of and appropriating the language and vocabularies of exploited colonial people, esp West African..this fascination with "l'ame negre" and le mentalite primitiv" would permeate pop culture thruout the twentieth century, and be the logic behind the "black superstar icon starting with Josephine Baker going on up to Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson, Jordan, Basquiat and so on.

2010 finds the Modernist narrative having lost it's teeth. We exist well into the so called "Post-Modern" era. Colonialism is long since dismantled, universal conscription (white males HAVING to fight in wars against their choosing ) is gone, gay rights, minority rights, women's rights, labor rights are the norm in Bourgeois countries..today's would be revolutionary confronts a "bohemia" like Williamsburg, Brooklyn as a condo and boutique filled playground for dull and bored refugees from sub-urbia and Middle America..being black aint no big thing, Hip-Hop is a multi-million dollar given, rather than a scandalous refuge..and yet people COMPLAIN about how NICE life is now..to be cont'd

2010-03-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

Black Male (Warning Adult Content )

2010-03-13T14:17:00.004-05:00

Reading "Das Kapital"

2010-03-02T15:31:00.002-05:00

Reading "Das Kapital" for the first time, applying it to the art project.
Commodity: A commodity is an object produced by man, brought into being by labour power of some sort or other and satistying a human need or want. Art is like that as it satisfies the needs of fancy if not the stomach per se. An object also presented in the social product of "the market". The commodity isn't a given. Neither is the market, but both are social products.

Use value/Exchange value: The object of art must be something that "fits" into the market lest it be something destined for collapse into it's base materials..as such it is a matter of time before it winds up in the dumpster or cannibalised and recycled in the project of another "artist".

Money: Money is the third relation between the object, and the people involved in it's evaluation. It is the method of exchange which mediates it's "value".

Naked Painting Party, 120 Orchard Street Last Nite

2010-02-25T12:21:00.004-05:00

Damien Hirst

2010-02-01T23:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=152950&id=643156565&l=f0846602ac

thurs nite Chelsea then Gavin Brown

2010-01-22T15:58:00.003-05:00

Tim Nye/ Jacqueline Miro Party

2010-01-18T20:48:00.001-05:00

2009 Brief Summary..the Studio

2010-01-05T13:46:00.002-05:00

The year started out with me being laid off from my crummy job at the Visa and Passport agy..this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as my unemployment benefits and savings would see me thru to Sept. I was basically allowed to be in the Studio 24/7..this meant I was free to "make of things as I might". Time mgmt was an issue. I spent a great deal of time partying, drinking and being on FB but I did make some major moves. For beginners, I executed some large ptgs, deciding to get around the problem of buying stretchers by stretching pieces in the "Basquiat cock-eyed" style using the quotatians of early Imperial European art. This happened around late April and Early May. Thru the Summer I was working on these and some prepared found wood panels. As the Fall approached, things started moving out of the studio with Guillermo Creus' DIY show and being chosen for "Found on FB" show this Feb..also Susan Eley offered me a spot in Summer group show. So things are moving in the right direction at an understandable pace. Had several studio visits. Re-connected with people in the Hamptons and took trip up to RISD, got back in touch with old classmates. Also had 3 stellar love affairs. Not too shabby.

Missionary Positions

2009-12-29T18:10:00.002-05:00

The domination of the African by European Culture. There is no "Africa" for Africans..almost all of the countries and borders we know of are the effect of European colonialism and cartography. "We" were fucked by white europe.."royally". :)

Misionary Positions..Victoria's Family

2009-12-29T17:56:00.004-05:00

Closing the Performance Gap

2009-12-26T08:23:00.001-05:00

Description.Projection. Implementation. Evaluation. Behaviour Motivation. Adjustment. Audience. Feedback.

The Object

2009-12-13T17:44:00.001-05:00

As itself. Independent of outside reference as in hackneyed overwrought illustration. I like the idea of the shiny surface and the "deep unconscious" connection the viewer may have with the "presence" of the object.

Visitors...

2009-12-08T23:39:00.001-05:00

Thanx for visiting the blog..have been seduced more by the ease and immediacy of Facebook, but will promise to post more writing and images, soon..best.

tools..situ

2009-12-08T23:13:00.003-05:00

Visitors...new content is coming soon

2009-11-28T15:12:00.001-05:00

..promise

Sorry for the hiatus

2009-11-04T09:20:00.001-05:00

had some problems logging in..more later

Heidegger and Optimal Grip

2009-08-25T09:32:00.002-04:00

Issues-
1. Perceiver strategies and intervention action on behalf of Dasein "thirst, hunger, desire" schemata..I wanna be rich, wanna have sex and sex and sex with this one, that one, those one..wanna live there not here..." I want I want I want..sitting around doing nothing because the opportunity presented does not provide the adequate pathway to "happiness" sequence..inauthenticity..refusal to accurately disclose being..suppressed anxiety..dissolution into the "theyself"..disguise..alienation..

Subjectivity, Subject Matter, The Matter of Subjects

2009-08-23T14:20:00.002-04:00

So my problem right now and has always been the issue of subject matter, what I could really get into and get behind. I was taken from the streets of Harlem and delivered to a proper "English" Education with Dalton and so was denied the street authenticity of a Basquiat and the earnest strivings of Kara Walker, Leonardo Drew etc..my mind and soul were "fucked" by the whitewash of pre-Spike and Public Enemy "black po-mo" culture..What to do?..why not PAINT THE WHITEWASH ITSELF? Equestrian paintings, Brooks Brother's ads..Ralph Lauren..try it.

Optimal Grip

2009-08-23T00:07:00.002-04:00

Projects

1. Music project with Ken Butler- Object: put together a set list of say 12 songs and gig within the area.

2. Gregory de la Haba- Object: collaborate with a fellow artist interested in cultural theory

3. Lisa Levy/ Paul Overacker- Object: documentation of existing artworld scene.

recent pics

2009-08-19T15:50:00.004-04:00

Embodiment- Merleau Ponty, Heidegger ..money

2009-08-17T11:43:00.002-04:00

Living in LIC..sitting at my computer typing this..dicking around on FB. Hiding and disclosing as my facade permits. Behind the scenes within the arena..ready to hand, present at hand..the receding and ever accumulating facticity..the problem of optimal grip..Bridgehampton..identity politics in art and a problematic unsure identity..

Optimal Grip- P Diddy

2009-08-15T15:50:00.001-04:00

P Diddy has a home in the E Hampton and is the darling of the Summer Set..he's not a Heideggerian scholar..doesn't think about what he does in the language of academic philosophy. He doesn't "just do it " tho' ..there is method and contingency.

Refinement

2009-08-15T13:33:00.002-04:00

of Da-sein's directionality..hunger and desire transmuted from primitive need gratification to the elaborated technological modern economy from jungle abjection to rarefied discourse and gormande indulgences.

Being There

2009-08-15T13:18:00.002-04:00

Being there in the situation. The perception of right brain present at hands political economy..goods and services..homes, clothes, cars, beer, sandwiches...contributor strategies intervening in the environment..molding the shape and direction of social transactions..good business resulting in maximization of utility and pleasure..Beverly Hills, East Hamptons, Monaco, success, success..love, money, attention, words and plastic effects..

attn new guests

2009-08-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

scroll down to see art..more to come

The Good Life

2009-07-28T10:51:00.002-04:00

I have been living in Long Island City for a little more than a year. Before that I was in Bushwick for a few months...I guess I need a relationship to Bohemia..white-ish bohemia mostly but a diversified slant. Why do I consider this good? Why is this lifestyle better than say...Pasadena or Westchester? Well there is more freedom of expression even if said expression is the tedious indulgences of amateurs. There are more personal "liberties", more self destructive drug abuse and alcoholism..(is there) ..fewer children..fewer (white) children, schools (good ones) swimming pools..conformity ... routine...

pure art

2009-07-15T15:44:00.001-04:00

The rich and educated..who are your audience..don't want to be bogged down with your point of view..you REALLY don't know anything that they don't..they just want something that they can live with day after day...

Art..The Hamptons

2009-07-14T11:24:00.002-04:00

My years in the Hamptons from 1989 to 1993 and beyond were possibly the most significant adult adventure in my life to date. They were my REAL art schooling. I had dropped out of RISD in 1983. I lived with my mom, did est, moved to NoVa with her and was really desperate to get out on my own. I joined the Coast Guard in 1987 and eventually got stationed on dry land in East Moriches Long Island. They gave me a small house in Flanders for a short while and in my mind I fancied myself as Jackson Pollock or Wilhem de Kooning doing these hopelessly amateur slap dash pieces that were derivative of my pedestrian understanding of Larry Rivers, Basquiat, Richard Prince..jeez you name it. Things didn't get rolling until I met a girl, Miranda Gatewood, a photographer who lived in Sag Harbor. She was terrific. She introduced me to Joey Weyand who ran a gallery in So Hampton called "Arts 1" his ambition was to meet Henry Geldzahler and become famous. That's the way it was in the Hamptons. It was so easy to meet power people, you thought that sooner or later they would just get you "in". Joey introduced me to Michael Knigin and so on..I started to connect with the artistic community in the East End..Ruth Vered Gallery, Rene Fotouhi, John Chamberlain, Robert Dash, Ross Bleckner, Larry Rivers etc. My dream to this day is to make it to that level of beingness..the floating cultural elite..I always tried to "think" my way in..reading Sartre "Search for a Method", Scientology books and tapes, Penguin classics..always trying to "decode" access..I felt like the answer was right in front of me but I wasn't seeing the "pattern"...my ticket to the salt box studio in
Sagaponack.

East Hampton /Bridgehampton

2009-07-12T09:05:00.004-04:00

Ontology, Phenomenology

2009-07-09T11:20:00.002-04:00

The blog is going to take a much more theoretical turn now. I have noticed that I have been much more "distracted" of late w/regard to the art project. I am trying to formulate AS SUCH..as a "SOCIAL" project as much as technical and practical. I (the agent) installed in a contemporary situation exercise my freedom to choose a given social direction, mobilizing my energies and those of others in a specific path and direction. It's a trial and error opus involving self-generated ends and goals.

Arrival cont'd..The Project

2009-07-08T11:09:00.003-04:00

What is the project of "the Artist"? An Artist..A particular artist..or me? To me. from my viewpoint I live in Post-War consumer culture america. I was a young man in the turbulence of the 60's and 70's where the radical pose experienced a heyday..as the 80's morphed into the 90's so much had now been accomplished that "radicalism as such" now became another lifestyle commodity. It was harder to justify your "refusal" of the bourgeois when blacks, gays, women, the disabled, asians, hispanics, and so on had more access and protection than ever. Anyhow why even THINK that all art aims at radical subversion of the mainstream? Can we just come out now and say "Hey I LIKE Gainsbourough, Vivaldi, Andrew Wyeth..etc.."?
An artist.."I" want recognition, money, "security" a house in Bridgehampton..to be one of the "chosen" showing in the better/best galleries commanding the highest prices..while young enuff to enjoy it..

The Arrival

2009-07-07T11:22:00.002-04:00

What is the best outcome here?
1. The Hamptons
2. Christies
3. Williamsburg
4. Chelsea
5. Existentialism
6. Harlem
7. Crestview Fla
8. Foucalt, Freud, Paglia
9. Basquiat
10. Richard Prince
11. Day jobs
12. RISD
13. est, Hubbard, Watts, Perls
14. Dalton
15. 47 yrs old

Art Professing

2009-07-04T09:34:00.003-04:00

I guess it was at Dalton where I forged the fundamental considerations about doing it for a living..or WHAT to do for a living. As a kid I just DID it you know. No big deal. Dalton of course showed me REALLY wealthy successful people, whereas in the ghetto or my black background, everyone was more or less an abject failure. I met Ivan Chermayeff, the Glimchers, Michael Rosenfeld, Mort Janklow, Saul Steinberg's kids..etc.
I experienced the GOOD life as over there and rejected or ran away from my own beginnings..but how could I realistically do what Sabine Howard and Jacob Collins do? That western traditionalist stuff? White nudes, still lifes, judges and dentists?
I was and still am conflicted about subject matter. I failed to connect with other black artists of my generation, Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker, Leonardo Drew, and Thelma Golden all actively dislike me...

Art and Such

2009-07-03T21:51:00.002-04:00

When I was bussed to school in 2nd and 3rd Grade ( Crestview Fla) I got my first art "award"..I won first place for a tempera painting of a black dog, my black dog. A sherriff's son asked me to do a drawing for a fifty cent piece. My grandmother made me give it back.
By 4th grade I had discovered comic books. I was in love. I bought a ton of them before finally throwing them out after college.
I got a scholarship to Dalton in 1972, 5th grade, that was when I really began my studies of the "white man's world of art". Robert Lahotan was my first Dalton art teacher. He had us drawing these dull, dull, dull still lives and all that. I pretended to be allergic to charcoal. I think I really was kinda...

Art as such..

2009-07-02T22:38:00.002-04:00

When I was like, y'know 5 years old I started drawing on my mother's envelopes and any suitable drawing surface. I drew the Flintstones, Batman and Robin..those were my first subjects. Next was people. Black people, in the surrounding "ghetto". Eventually my mom recognized my interest and bought me a Grumbacher sketchbook. I don't have ANY of them. I was never good at saving things. She never took it seriously enuff to save anything either. I think white people "save" art more. They have a diff attitude about objects and property in general. There are no "museums" in African societies. My Jewish 4th grade teacher bought me my first set of oil pastels and gave me a couple of volumes of the encyclopaedia of art. That was my first real encounter with white art history, semi-nude white people in Rennaissance friezes. I was more interested in comic books. I loved Neal Adams.

Grindhouse

2009-06-22T13:48:00.002-04:00

Have been unemployed for more than four months. Realized a couple of weeks into it that it would be unlikely that I would return to work soon. Also realized I didn't HAVE to and didn't WANT to. Settled into the idea of a taste of F/T artist status. Over that 4 month process have come to where I am today. Yes I spend alot of wasted time in the studio. Distractions and indulgences like the web, tv, movies, and partying..but the lifestyle is nothing but indulgent anyway..and alot of time is spent letting ideas develop and or come to you..in any event, the inevitable has arrived and I have to look for a full time "grind". Fortunately, the turning point of late May has left me with a direction to make it interesting and worthwhile to continue the studio practice which I shall.
The biggest win was the realization that I could make interesting larger items using found wood, and cheap large masonite. Then also the canvases stretched on cheap plywood.

In three weeks I find myself with at least 6 or 7 pieces that I would be willing to submit in a small exhibition and look forward to a deeper commitment this fall and winter.

Status Update

2009-06-22T00:12:00.003-04:00

So this is a look at some of the major pieces after that period of prepping the found wood and the bought masonite. I still haven't begun work on the large canvasses but that will come soon. The unemployment period has got to be coming to an end. In it I allowed myself a taste of "total commitment" to studio practice uninterrupted by the "survival job" of CIBT or any other drudge work..the "turning point" came in late May when I decided to do larger pieces and stretched canvas, I overcame the logistical problem of stretching on expensive stretchers by trying the large masonite and the Basquiat method of cock-eyed stretching. Now I have a sense of a direction but know that I will have to continue to explore beyond the facile and superficial.

6/3 Wednesday

2009-06-04T10:39:00.002-04:00

Began work on several of the primed surfaces. Just laying down backgrounds. the only attempt at real imagery was on a couple of drawings while watching "Brother from Another Planet". Working from iconic photo of Tuskegee airmen and some of Basquiat's more recognizable figures. Mostly working on approaching all this with a little more method and restraint vis a vis the pallette.

content.content-ment

2009-06-02T16:12:00.002-04:00

have alot of surfaces prepped...now the fun starts..the issue of content..had a friend over..she said when I try to get to 'cheeky' and conceptual it leaves her cold, and the ones that come from my own voice..not referring too far outside myself, that's the most interesting. then there is the question of 'relevance', mastery of technique, pure art etc

signs

2009-05-31T10:42:00.003-04:00

Robert Hughes in a lecture or essay brought up the distinction between a painting and a sign. I mean the flat, superficial gesture meant to point to or point out..and the comprehensively and conscientiously created objet...

Pure art..Chelseaism

2009-05-30T14:28:00.002-04:00

I dropped out of college in 1983 then started hanging out in the East Village. I think in retrospect because Basquiat and Haring symbolized the Romantic idea of gaining an education "in the streets " with the common people, that's what I was after. I think I had come to a rupture in the Dalton/RISD education in the Western Tradition and prep for the "American Dream"..all the unspoken conflicts in my psyche had to be addressed as I entered adulthood and I sought in the artists of the early 80's a visceral, immediate model of self expression and artistic achievement.
This was the height of "East Village-ism" the successor to SOHO bohemianism. The general look of alot of it was ad-hoc..ugly, abject..homely..perfect for the continuation of that "beat" era..it was also the period where black , latino, feminist and Stonewall-ish gayness was seen more and more in the arts. It was the perfect anti-dote to the mainstreaming I was supposed to be pursuiing in Dalton and RISD..
Of course nothing came of it and neither of those guys ever made it out of the 80's.
I of course did nothing of any worth in the period except get drunk and doodle..my contemporaries were beginning to set themselves up here and there..little galleries..studios in Wburg, Tribeca, Hoboken etc..
By the time the 90's rolled around and we were in our dirty thirties the East Village was gentrified and ossified...Chelsea and Wburg were the new scenes in NYC. Artists and dealers had entered the scene now with very different attitudes than the reckless and self-destructive "beats"..Chelsea for instance was the "new" gayness..not Stonewall but post-Warhol conformist. Politics, polemics and so-on was on the way out and pure aesthetics on it's way in. Work had to look more "worked on" than "worked over"..things were shinier, more professionally crafted..more of a fit for your new condo.

Ceci n'est pas une Basquiat Project

2009-05-29T14:42:00.002-04:00

Stretched two canvasses. Wanted for the longest time to do a series of works using Basquiat's stretching technique. The title of the project is "Ceci n'est pas une Basquiat"..referencing Magritte and Baquiat and even Rauschenberg. By Rauschenberg I am talking about the erased de Kooning piece..this is me surpassing my emotional connection to the Basquiat myth.

Phenomenology

2009-05-26T22:07:00.003-04:00

5/19 possibles-hards and easies

2009-05-19T12:55:00.002-04:00

Went to Tri-State lumber. Bought panel of masonite that I had cut into two 4' x 4' panels. Jazzed about the possibility of REALLY painting..that's the real thing to paint and make objects that COULD be sold for big $. Drawings isn't the ticket alone. Excited about the possibility of really authentically pouring myself into studio practice. But now the savings are thinning and I have to think about going back to work. Doing what? Wish I could find an investor so I could buy about seven more panels and REALLY paint..I could use about five thousand dollars worth of capitalization..ha-ha.
But for what? What's the point?

The content is the next big question. Want to do the "ceci n'est pas une Basquiat" piece again. Want to do some serious oils..all of this means time and money.

The Pure Gaze and the hack amateur

2009-05-14T13:04:00.001-04:00

I am pretty far from the pure gaze quality of Agnes Martin, Margaret Thatcher Projects, Gary Hume, Vanessa Beescroft..not necessarily because I engage abjection..just because I AM..

Process..program etc

2009-05-14T12:53:00.003-04:00

I am gessoeing alot of newsprint..The New York Times to be exact..for some reason it HAS to be the New York Times..maybe it's symbolism as the STANDARD..of something..a class cache..trying to have alot of sheets prepared before I start a single drawing. That way I can REALLY get into the project, without stopping at my usual dilletante level.

Went to a lumber store on Quay Street in Greenpoint to buy some lumber strips. Two 3" by 1" by 10' and two 3" by 1" by 8'..only cost about 8 bucks. I want to experiment with making my own frames in that cockeyed Basquiat style..with the x and y axes overlapping like a cross. Yes I'm a gonna paint! The key thing is finding suitable surfaces. I will call them about masonite panels too.

Quality..I think about Leonardo Drew, Alexis Rockman, Brenda Zlamany, Damien Loeb..people I have met whose approach to quality in the work they do is exemplary to me..where I am on the other end of the spectrum in terms of transience and superficiality..I with I could have that unassailable integrity in my pieces.

The point

2009-05-06T11:39:00.005-04:00

I am unemployed..not true.. I am employed in the service to my true vision..the trick is to admit it and give it muscle and reality..to impress myself on the spirit of my generation..to matter in the arts..but from here? My generation is the "art school" generation..the cadre of MFA's from Yale, RISD, CalArts..etc who transformed Williamsburg, Chelsea, the East End of London into the happening scenes of the last 20 years..and I..an attendent lord standing on the sidelines...in LIC..ready to deliver some kinda "YAWP"..or "squeek"..outside of the committed MFA track..hacking away at derivatives and doodles..

My Contemporaries_ Warren Neidich

2009-05-01T12:09:00.005-04:00

I dropped out..responding to the "Basquiat-Amateur Genius Myth" most of my contemporaries continued their studies and achieved much more than I. I met Warren during Biblo's days back in late 90's..he had his own spread on Van Dam and turned it into a gallery called "Spot". He and I kinda liked each other as we were both really into writers like Heidegger, Bourdieu etc..but Warren was serious and had something to show where as I was a lost cause to some degree.

Let's Begin

2009-04-30T15:02:00.002-04:00

Facebook IS what I wanted the blog experiment to be but now I am back to the blog to use IT like I want. I started this blog AS-IF it would be a way of reaching out to my friends and larger community..facebook has achieved THAT goal..but the "web-log"..let's begin with where we ARE..I started this blog..Dada-to Prada..back in I think..2005 or 6..not sure..I was in DC..the big goal was to make it back to NYC..which I kinda though t was near impossible..I found a job with a corporate travel company..moved to Bushwick then LIC and voila..now I'm laid off and confronted with what I want...24 hours of studio time and sufficient unemployment checks..but OK..the next level..many of my friends are very supportive but AS-IS..I am a nobody in the REAL field of cultural production..the project is to confront the situation and change it. I am an autodidact..dropped out of RISD..drifted thru the artscene in the 80's, 90's and 00's...now I am approaching middle age ready to take a stand..what is ART for Christopher Lee..my fellow black artists..Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Leonardo Drew, Chris Offili, Renee Cox, Gary Simmons..took responsibility for their identities where I spent my young adult years lost in a "pink-wash" fantasy..the Hamptons, Wildwood, Reston..etc..what positiion will I assume..I am an amateur living in LIC with a roommate..I dabble, delay, avoid and fiddle..what am I REALLY here for? What will my real impact be? I just mounted a group show in an off the Radar LIC gallery..www.licweb.com..Artomat..Zeitgeist 2009..next stop is more gallery trolling "The Drawing Center" and Chelsea..what I need is to start some serious pieces right away.

Project Kiele

2009-04-29T10:33:00.013-04:00

Amateur to Overture

2009-04-03T11:42:00.002-04:00

I have a show coming up that I curated called "Zeitgeist 2009" it's a modest exhibition in LIC. It won't make history or put me on the map. It's from the viewpoint of the REAL players " a salon of the refused"..but it's where I am at and a needed gesture in the progress of events. I do think it will be very well attended and boost the gallery's status.

I am thinking of where to go next. I am toying with a big political statement.. The grand idea or just the exploration of abstract themes..it's all up there on the canvas..

Art and responsibility

2009-03-08T17:06:00.003-04:00

Just read the article on real estate values and condo-buyer's remorse in NY real estate market... then read Gagosian article. I saw him alot and knew Cecily Brown... back in the day.
I am an amateur artist. I am not a player. I dabble here and there..there is a dialectic between the amateurs and the pro's. The pro's are never QUITE as secure as they wanna be..they feel uncomfortable around amateurs..they want to know as few as possible..if any..they don't wanna come out and be MEAN to your face but you can read the uncomfortableness...how does one take responsibilty for his historical totality..?

historicism cont'd...

2009-02-24T09:25:00.002-05:00

Got let GO from CIBT. have some $ from severance and savings. feels good to be free, did drawings below but still not working for cash. looking forward to really investing myself in the ouerve I am creating with the new sketches below. That's the way to go. to find an ouerve that's really your'n like Miro, Basquiat, de Kooning and Dubuffett..
Is this it though? I need a job now, that will allow me to work and stay in NYC, that will justify spending money on framing, oil paints, canvas and stretchers..

Abnegation

2009-02-24T09:10:00.009-05:00

Historicism

2009-02-05T16:07:00.003-05:00

So.. I work at the CIBT day job, I have 557 friends on FB, I am organizing a group show this Spring in an off the radar LIC gallery, I intend to take classes at Natl Academy of Fine Arts...what's needed to make this thing REALLY happen?

1. Show in April
2. Register for classes in Mar
3. Set myself up to make more paintings on large board and stretched canvas

The "Artworld" as constitutive field

2009-02-03T09:42:00.002-05:00

"Everbody" draws, paints, sings or writes poetry, but for our purposes for a work to become "officially" recognized it needs an "artworld". In the 80's there was a specific transformation of the modern "artworld" as such. The Basquiat, Keith Haring stories are indicative of those changes. The idea of the charismatic outsider who "accidentally" makes it in on sheer genius and charisma alone is long gone. Now artists "know" they want in and invest themselves financially and diligently to amassing their credentials.

The Space of Possibles

2009-02-02T16:33:00.002-05:00

I think I am going home tonight to work on ink drawings. I want to initiate the theory of chelseaism. It's the feyish viewpoint of the leisure oriented design savvy international style..but it's not an ethno centric black position taking. Basquiat, Iona Rozeal Brown, Chris Offili, Leonardo Drew, Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, David Hammons, Gary Simmons , Lennon Baptiste..all came up with a workable position to take them to the top THAT FITS WHO THEY LOOK LIKE..mine is like a woman painting about..I don't know..football.

The Chelsea Manifesto- The Pure Gaze cont'd.

2009-02-02T10:10:00.002-05:00

Matthew Marks was a classmate of mine at Dalton. I remember reading about him in New York Magazine back in like 1993 I think. I thought, gee, my buddy Matthew has a gallery how nice. I put together a book of snapshots of some drawings and paintings I had hobbled together and sent them to him. After a long while I called him because I didn't get a response. I got hold of one of his assistants and he sort of politely said "We don't show this kind of thing.." I mean I was really clueless. Later I ran into Matthew on Madison Avenue after a Tony Bennett opening and he invited me out to the Carlysle Hotel to hear Bobby Short. I got drunk and argued with one of Matthew's buddies, probably some famous artist now, about the Pop artists, then I got up and started banging on the piano in the bar..the maitre de politely asked me to stop. Matthew hasn't spoken to me since. Whenever he sees me he hides.
I once asked Cecily Brown if she was a painter.

The Pure Gaze

2009-02-02T09:18:00.002-05:00

I was selling portfolio cases in 1994 at Sam Flax on like 20th Street in the Flatiron District. I worked for like $6 an hour, union wages. I hated it. But I was there to witness the rejuvenation of the Flatiron District and the subsequent emergence of the "Chelsea" scene.
Chelsea was more than just a new "art" neighborhood, it represented a succession in attitudes about art, artists and presentation. Chelsea of course is synonymous with "gay" culture. But not the "downtown" and "downscale" scene of Stonewall or Al Pacino's "Cruising". It is a high toned, buffed, professional gayness, and perfect for the new art world and new art attitude.
Gone is the Basquiat, de Kooning paradigm of "look what the cat dragged in"..art now is made and sold by professionals in a professional adult atmosphere..to be cont'd.

Consecration, Production of Belief as possibility

2009-01-11T11:09:00.002-05:00

Dalton, Mark Glimcher, Pace Gallery, Joseph Kosuth, White Walls, Paul Ha, Ruth Vered, pierogi 2000, Gaven Brown, Damien Loeb, Alexis Rockman, East Hampton, Morgan Rank, Guild Hall, Rene Fotouhi, Riverhead Art Gallery, RISD, laziness, industry, Christies, lucky breaks

The Search for a Method

2009-01-09T10:30:00.002-05:00

Class ..situation..art is an indicator of class and boundary..I was born amidst the black peasant classes of the USA..I got a scholarship to attend an upper middle class jewish private school..now I am a confused adult with no comfortable footing of his own..

The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology

2009-01-07T10:42:00.002-05:00

I was and am interested in ideology, theory and "philosophy" , I think though my attitude has changed quite abit and I "situate" discourses more in terms of sociology and materialist political science.

Man, individual men and women, are always situated, I used to by some floppy eared used copy of Karl Marx, Freud or Nietzsche and then go out and try to preach to people, ultimately retiring to my ratty apartment in LIC...

Bourdieu and the concept of Social Capital

2009-01-07T10:14:00.002-05:00

Many of my Dalton friends have the admirable benefit of an "intact" social circle. In other words -they are in conformity with the Upper Middle class social norm..their daily social role is consistent with their family, friends , work life, etc..their "habitus and habits" are more or less stable.
Mine is not. My family background is RADICALLY different than my habitus..they have NO idea of the NYC Contemporary artworld..don't listen to Joni Mitchell etc.. Likewise my DALTON friends don't know about the urban or rural black experience either.
However a person has gotta make a stand..that's my dilemma. I will be 47 years old 01/26/2009..I am not married, live with a roommate like two overgrown college grad students in an alcoholic, pop music permeated haze, frankly it's embarrassing...it's time to grow up and cash in some social capital.

Positions Paper

2009-01-05T09:27:00.002-05:00

I always had trouble determining a "major" in High School and College. I dropped out of RISD, still owing a paper on "Art and Human Values"..the late 80's thru Mid-90's was a flowering in my capacity for and appreciation of "critical discourse"..I consumed everything from Hubert Dreyfus, Ortega y Gassett, Sartre, WF Buckley Jr, C Wright Mills, Guy DeBord, Frantz Fanon, Eldridge Cleaver, Marx and so on.

I never saw myself in the camp of the Kara Walkers, Glennn Ligons, Bettye Saars, Bell Hooks, Dread Scotts..those "aint it awful" types cataloguing the victimization of African Americans..I love their work but I thought they had basically said it best and there was nothing I could add of any substance..

Basquiat and Kehinde Wiley's affirmation of black pop youth culture was also not my arena.

Martin Puryear and Leonardo Drew seem more interesting to me.

Wrap up

2009-01-05T08:19:00.002-05:00

The end is the beginning. Facebook I have 445 friends, Dalton, RISD, Chelsea, Wburg and the artworld in general. My first art event since being back in NYC was poorly attended, not the least reason of which being the level of quality of the work. As stated before the substance of the social relation that MY work is will be the focus of this project..how do you connect Dalton, Crestview FLA, Harlem and my "essential" self in a comprehensive ouerve? The 64K$ question.

Warhol/Spielberg

2009-01-03T22:50:00.000-05:00

My "War is Over" Show 12/20-12/31/2008

2009-01-03T12:42:00.014-05:00

archived photos

2008-12-29T09:19:00.003-05:00

Failure

2008-12-26T12:51:00.002-05:00

No one (well ,one guest and her friends) attended the show. The one guest who did, avoided commenting on the show. She didn't like it and didn't feel engaged enuff to say anything to my face. Which is ok. I told her time and again that I didn't care to hear "that she loved it.." just how she really felt about it good or bad. I just want to get a sense of what's so for people HERE and NOW> many of the people I see most of the time are hesitant to just be honest in the moment and that FRUSTRATES THE HELL out of me. I get alot of poker faces and phony exchanges. This is a process, an experiment and inquiry and I am in search of people who want to take the journey honestly.

Social-ism

2008-12-19T13:08:00.002-05:00

Therefore what's at issue is not necessarily the painting of this or that "pit-cher" but the intelligent appropriation, bringing into the forefront of the underlying relation that produces..East Hampton 1992...Amy Lumet 1984..Eric Fishl, Mary Boone, Paris, Dalton, Chelsea, Beverly Hills and so on..not social climbing but social realizing...

The Artworld as Spectacle

2008-12-19T12:43:00.004-05:00

"art is not a collection of images, it's a social relation mediated by images" more accurately it's the social relation which is PRIMARY to the phenomenon we call "ARTWORLD"..my opening tomorrow takes place in my off the radar gallery in LIC. I am an artist who has no meaningful body of work, has participated in no meaningful exhibition to date. I amongst my RISD, Wburg and Chelsea peers have no REAL identity in the artworld proper, and yet I am ...somehow.. a fixture on the theme..the next few years will be an ongoing ontological experiment...

right now I am working at CIBT..cruising the web..daydreaming.

2008-12-17T15:48:00.000-05:00

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/people/laster/laster12-16-08.asp

First Exhibition in NYC

2008-12-16T17:21:00.001-05:00

This Sat the opening reception for my first NYC exhibition takes place in a gallery in LIC> very excited. Will have another solo show in April 2009. Facebook has facilitated publicizing. Alot of interesting social politics. I think the work is ok. appropriate to this stage of the game. You only get better by getting in there and taking your lumps. Windows Gallery 1303a Jackson Ave 7pm- 12am 12/20

polybilus

2008-11-29T11:37:00.015-05:00

Barnaby Furnas

2008-11-14T11:28:00.003-05:00

Thurs nite went out to Barnaby Furnas show. Love his work. Think it connects to my "Life During Wartime" show. Bought his book at galley and he signed it for me. found a huge masonite board in Chelsea, carried it home on the E Train.

Sat nite Richard Prince at Gagosian and Keith Haring at Deitch LIC

2008-11-09T06:44:00.004-05:00

Arts and leisure ..Chelsea 1994

2008-10-25T10:33:00.002-04:00

When I returned to NYC in 1994, after abruptly packing my shit from mom's house in Reston, Va..I encountered the renovation of the Flatiron District and the emergence of Chelsea as the new art scene. By this time the East Village scene had peaked and died, with it had died that whole "down and out, with a beat-ific vision" aesthetic myth which was born in the DeKooning era and reached it's apotheosis with Basquiat and Haring.
Chelsea was where Warhol'ism bi-furcates. Andy was downtown, but once he got shot he decided to be more UP-town for the rest of his life. Chelsea was where the gay scene left Stonewall behind for martini bars and Dolce Gabana. It was also where the artworld demanded it's products be now high gloss and produced by MFA's with resumes and dense ideological premises.
to be cont'd

The Hamptons 1989-1993

2008-10-25T10:21:00.002-04:00

I joined the Coast Guard when I was 25, in 1987. They sent me to Cape May for boot camp, Wildwood NJ for first Seaman's station , up to Governor's Island..that's where I studied marine electronics and got to choose my next station. I chose Coast Guard Group (East) Moriches...gateway to the Hamptons and reasonably close to NYC.

My previous experience with the Hamptons had been with Dalton Schools friend, Doug Zang's Summer home in Westhampton. We all used to hang out there fairly often in 11th and 12th grade. So I called up some of those old friends clueless about the area, and asked them what "Mastic Shirley" was like. They joked with me.."Like 'Queens' only more intimate.."..I had alot to learn about the Hamptons...and I did. to be cont-d

New York 2009

2008-10-24T07:53:00.002-04:00

Let's begin with the end. When you start to think on "paper" or virtual paper people often take the approach of "castles in the air". But I will start with where we are and where we want to go. I will focus on myself as "already installed" in a world but free to "write and draft up" other involvements.

Themes..
1. Artworld
2. Race
3. Sex and loving
4. Success, income
5. Friends, social circles
6. Political Science
7. fringe philosophies
8. the Hamptons
9. Bohemia
10. CIBT
11. Family

Central Park Be-In Sept and Life During Wartime..Lucky Cat Oct 9th

2008-10-10T10:46:00.018-04:00

California 2006

2008-10-10T10:31:00.008-04:00

Be it, do it, no matter what the circumstance.The Basquiat Legend

2008-10-05T03:23:00.000-04:00

Christopher Lee's great drama of being to doing...

2008-10-05T03:16:00.000-04:00

Have you stepped out into a new career, or your life-long dream and found that it’s not working out? So now you are angry with God for holding out a promise (“follow your bliss,” etc.) and not keeping it. Yet God has not failed you. What has happened is that you have confused “Doingness” with “Beingness,” and therein seen failure. (There is a lot said about this in Bringers of the Light, which discusses, among other things, the concept of Right Livelihood.) Let me just state a principle here which I believe I can reduce to one sentence.

It is from Beingness that Doingness springs... not the other way around.

In other words, let’s say you feel you are a writer. You would really be happy if you could “do” the thing called “write.” It could be poetry, prose, novels, whatever. You just want to write. But you can’t “do” that, because you’re “caught in the corporate world,” or whatever the particular “trap” seems to be that you are in. Okay, so you can’t write for a living, and therefore you are not “being” the thing called “happy.”

The above paradigm suggests that “beingness” springs from “doingness,” and is dependent upon it. That suggestion is false. In Ultimate Reality, it is just the other way around. Your “doingness” is a demonstration of what you are Now Being (consciously or unconsciously).

If you want to “be” the thing called “writer,” “be” that thing no matter what you are “doing.” In other words, you could be a dishwasher at the Stork Club, and still “be” the other thing called “writer.” (Half the writers in New York are.) Put another way, writers write to be happy, no matter what they are doing to stay alive! A true writer never stops writing, no matter what he is doing, no matter where she is working, no matter how little time there is. There is always time to be who you are, because the time to Be Who You Are is all the time.

So write, write, and write some more! Write day and night! On the bus! In the john! During the coffee breaks and after the day is done. Write. Write! Write from the heart of what you think is good and beautiful and wondrous about the world. Or about what you think needs changing, if you prefer. Just write your truth, and write it truthfully. Then send it off. And keep sending it off! Keep writing and keep sending it off! For days. Weeks. Months. Years.

Insist to the Universe that you Are who you Are... no matter what it “looks like” you are “doing.”

For further clarity on this question of being, please reread CwG Book 1, Chapter 12. Also Chapter 11 while you’re at it.

Beingness must always precede creating. The person who gets the “perfect” job is not being “rewarded” by the universe, but is simply being presented with that which he has already created through his beingness. The universe did not “reward” the man, but simply presented that which he had already created through his beingness. The universe does not “reward” as such. Rather, it only presents us with the opportunity to make use of that which our beingness has manifested in our lives.

Your responsibility is to be the Greatest Version of the Grandest Vision you ever had about yourself. In this, you have total responsibility. Your beingness will attract unlike things like a magnet, but, if you can continue to be that which you have chosen to be despite the appearances of these “unwanted” occurrences, an amazing thing happens. By maintaining your beingness despite everything else, it is as if a vacuum is created which draws opportunities to you for you to experience your beingness to an ever-increasing degree.

Back to Neale Donald Walsch
Back to Avenarius’ Book of Quotations

The Hangover of the last 20 years

2008-09-21T11:00:00.000-04:00

Life During Wartime Project--my art

2008-09-18T23:14:00.006-04:00

butter

2008-09-15T17:59:00.000-04:00

dionysus

2008-09-15T17:32:00.000-04:00

I drink alot, I like to drink..I LOVE TO DRINK...

Julian Schnabel- My Cannon

2008-09-12T07:36:00.001-04:00

Bowie- My Cannon

2008-09-12T07:34:00.001-04:00

Basquiat- My Cannon

2008-09-12T07:32:00.000-04:00

Business as usual

2008-09-10T08:12:00.001-04:00

me ca. 2005

2008-09-08T22:53:00.000-04:00

mastery

2008-09-06T12:13:00.001-04:00

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skateboards

2008-09-06T10:57:00.003-04:00

one thing I know about the contemporary artscene is that I HATE the skateboard, comic book crap you see in Bushwick start up galleries and elsewhere. It's a phenomenon of straight from sub-urban high school to artschool. From my composition notebook to the "DIY gallery" walls. I hate ALL of that crap.

My Life

2008-09-06T10:29:00.003-04:00

Went out to Chelsea openings and Wmsburg openings, saw a slice of the artworld. Ran in to a friend of mine a very talented painter with her daughter. Felt like an outsider, nothing going on myself, no after parties. Watching "Talented Mr Ripley.." What is arts and leisure these days in the \NYC artworld? I was never very disciplined as an artist and I have reaped what I have "not" sewn. That's the narrative now. "What shall I do? But what shall I do?" Classicism of the European arts and the Romanticism of negritude and NYC's "beat" history. So many kids and black kids especially fall for the Basquiat myth. Basquiat is the ultimate symbol of the art "easy" button, I LOVE his work but regrettably it has spawned a horde of failed "wannabes". What would be the dramatic possibilities of a black artist negotiating the tensions between the classical ideal and the romantic spontaneousness of negritude?

arts and leisure

2008-09-06T10:23:00.001-04:00

Hearts and Minds

2008-09-01T21:11:00.001-04:00