January 27, 2005

Samm Cohen

THE FOUNTAINHEAD

“Impressionism has depth but is also pretty. I definitely turn my back on it.” With those words, artist Samm Cohen stirs up more questions than she answers.

By Lauren Cerand

Samm Cohen has a friendly and open manner and sitting across from her, one can’t help but think of the same pixie-ish appeal of Scarlett Johansson or Fairuza Balk. Her large, luminous blue-green eyes are a striking contrast to the shock of cropped blond hair that bursts into view when she pulls off her ski cap and sits down to talk with Trigger at DT/UT, a local café.

She sees paintings, photographs, and jewelry as essential expressions of her art, and although she doesn’t claim to prefer any one medium, she eventually admits, “painting is by far the closest to me.” The immediate accessibility of painting appeals to her, while both photography and jewelry involve less instantaneous production methods. Cohen likes that she can touch a painting with her hands and have that tactile experience with the canvas and the paint, or even just savor the sense of holding a brush in her hands. Jewelry requires tools to make, and a completed piece almost always involves collaboration with other skilled artisans. As a result, the results aren’t nearly as immediate by comparison with other forms of expression. Nonetheless, she likes the distance photography can offer: “I have to breathe and walk away a little to take it in.”

When asked what inspires or influences her, she is slightly evasive for the first time: “Inspiration isn’t something intentional.” When pushed, she notes that she favors the work of German Expressionists these days. It seems as timely an influence as one can have these days, given the artistic seed that the movement blossomed around, described by critic Hilton Kramer as, “Weltschmerz (romantic pessimism) in response to the upheavals of war and revolution.” Cohen’s other influences include Klimt, Munch and El Greco. Emotion is a critical element of her work and she admires it in theirs. She acknowledges the fact that she is constantly looking to push emotional boundaries in her work, noting that, “In some of my paintings, I use reflective surfaces too. I use them because I’m attracted to them, of course, but I think if I break this down to a unconscious cognitive level, I can say that I would like the viewer not to experience the piece as an outsider, but to be part of it, including themselves in the reflection and feeling the emotion.”

As is the case with most creative souls, the conflict between making art and surviving in a capitalist society is very real to her. A native New Yorker, whose years of soul-searching took her to London, Paris, Israel, Mexico City, and back again, Cohen has now dedicated herself to the study of art therapy. Already an experienced teaching artist, she is close to completing her studies to become a practitioner in the field.

Raised in Queens, Cohen attended the prestigious LaGuardia High School of The Arts, which is indeed famous for having served as the inspiration for the movie Fame. It was very competitive, but she felt the emphasis was on aesthetic considerations rather than career aspirations and when she graduated she felt directionless. She had already been to art school, after all, and she still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life.

She decided to be pragmatic and pursue a degree in advertising at Syracuse University. Although she felt parental and societal pressure to do something practical with her life, she never turned her back on her art. She found it impossible to ignore her inner need for creative expression. Sooner or later she had to pick up a brush again. A brief stint in photography school seemed like a chance to marry art and commerce, but it was a rocky union. At one point, Cohen traveled for the better part of a year, and upon her eventual return to New York she had a moment of awakening: for the first time in her life, she gave herself permission to define herself first and foremost as an artist. She put together a photography portfolio and pursued commercial work. She started going to galleries, but became disillusioned with the insular nature of the New York art scene.

Cohen has shown her work in several group shows at the cooperative, artist-run Ward-Nasse Gallery in SoHo, and likes the concept of working with nonprofit, community-oriented alternative spaces although she is not averse to working with anyone in the commercial art scene, either, despite a few frustrating experiences thus far. According to Biliana Videnova, curator for the gallery’s recent exhibition, “The Eye of The Camera,” which featured some of the mixed-media digital art Cohen has been exploring recently, “She has a very distinctive style: it’s expressionistic, and she is very unique and versatile in how she works. She combines photographic media with text and manipulates it digitally. She has also created images with a broken mirror, in which she painted on the pieces.” Says Videnova, “She is using different mediums and techniques to create something exciting.”

Recently, commercial galleries have begun seeking Cohen out, finally. Her next show opens January 12th, and runs through February 7th, at A Taste of Art, “the first gourmet art gallery in Tribeca,” founded by art collector and curator Laurence Asseraf. A joint exhibition with artist Pamela Thompson, Cohen has half a dozen photographs in the show, entitled “Altered Images.”

Says Cohen, “My work is all about emotions, both the process and the product. I could cleverly describe things or intuitively analyze them, but really I do them because I feel compelled, usually in times of emotional stress or pensive weightyness, to create. I think creation is the most magical wonderful thing I know. And I could go on about it, but really, I create because I can not not create: It comes pouring out of me.” It seems fitting then, that, as an artist, it’s Samm Cohen’s turn now to come into her own.

See Samm Cohen’s work in an eclectic small works show:

"Free Fall"
11/4/2005 to 12/30/2005

Bottom feeders Studio Gallery
195 Chrystie St., Rm. 203-A, NYC, 10009
Ph:917- 974 -9664

Fridays, from 1 to 5 p.m.
More info:
jah48@mindspring.com
http://home.mindspring.com/~jah48/

On The Web | www.sammcohen.com

Lauren Cerand is a writer based in New York.

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Gonzalo Papantonakis

by Dennis Spafford

Gonzalo Papantonakis recent exhibition in New York, "See Music", was a successful attempt to incorporate music into a visual medium. From laminated music standards to crudely hand written lyrics directly on the canvas, all of the pieces in this show adhere to Papantonakis’s goal of “seeing” music.

Recently I was able to sit down and speak with Mr. Papantonakis about what his latest exhibition was trying to convey to the world at large. In the handsomest of accents, and in the most genuine manner, he said, “Life and how music is in everything we do”. Mr. Papantonakis went on and explained to me how important music has been to him all his life. For him, music is an interpreter of emotion, a social beacon, and a liberator. Each piece that Mr. Papantonakis painted for this exhibition was created with the purpose of showing the world how music impacts his life as well as how music can be so much more that an audible sensation, it can also be a visual sensation.

Four pieces in particular are highlights of this show, in that they are able to not only share the artist vision of visual music, but they also employee design, energy and emotion in their composition.

The Homage to Vivaldi’s violin concerto “The Four Seasons” (which is aptly named The Four Seasons, mixed media on canvas 24"x24”) perfectly embodies Papantonakis’s aim in this exhibition of showing visual music. This piece also breaches the gap between art and design that so many artists fall short of.

Another homage piece in this exhibition is “Estrella Flamenca” (mixed media on canvas 30"x40”). Created to honor a Latin American female composer, Papantonakis uses music sheets that contain her music as the background of this work (As a matter of fact this technique of laminating formal music sheets on canvas is Mr. Papantonakis’ signature effect). He then paints a Jackson Pollock like picture over the laminated sheets, creating this conflict between formality and informality, between order and chaos, between active and inactive energy. This piece is explosive in its quiet revolution of conflicting paradigms.

The emotional power of music for Mr. Papantonakis is displayed in two larger canvas paintings. The first one called “U.S.”(mixed media on canvas 68"x58”), which depicts the social problems humanity is experiencing, while at the same time all of these problems are captured on the canvas with in a guitar shape. Seemingly this is meant to express the overall “song” of which we are a part. Also to stress the point of the influences of music and its social importance, Papantonkis incorporates lyrics from Lennon and Dylan into this painting. The imagery alone is powerful, especially the image of the blue eyed woman in a hijab wearing an "I love NY” pin. This image is profound, and enables the viewer to have a completely different perspective of a scorned cultural costume. And while “U.S.” reminds us of the horrors of war and mankind’s hopes and fears, the piece entitled “Marilyn" (mixed media on canvas 54"x24”) is a journey into the shadows of primordial fear and power. Mr. Papantonakis explained to me that he had painted this picture after having seen a Marilyn Manson concert. A large ominous skull and dark symbols emerge from the darkness, while Manson’s lyrics of despair and sadness haunt this painting.

Overall, Gonzalo Papantonakis accomplishes his goal to transfer the emotional and social significance of music to the canvas for us to interpret. We interface with familiar symbols, which transport us to memories which popular culture has made a common bond for all of us to share in. Papantonakis is a force to be reckoned with, and I will forever be grateful for being able to experience music with my eyes.

On The Web | www.seemusic.org

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January 16, 2005

Bates Wilson

The Art of Alchemy and Iconography by Liberation Iannillo

America loves its icons. We fawn over our ill-fated silver-screen bombshells and we incredulously stare at our art deco skyscrapers, so it should be of no surprise that our culture isn’t lacking incredible imagery to offer the rest of the world for consumption. Icons fascinate us not only for their intended meaning but for the many interpretations and ideals that get projected onto them. To most Americans our office buildings have come to symbolize success, that after years of education and working your way up the corporate ladder, you have finally ‘made it’ or so the myth goes. But to some in other countries, those same buildings are 110 stories of pure evil and represent everything that is wrong with Western culture.

Whether our icons are being reinterpreted like Salvador Dali’s ‘Crucifixion’ or purposely taken out of context as is the case with Andy Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Can’, with each new mutation we are reminded of something we often see and take for granted when it’s presented to us in a fresh perspective. Our most famous icon, the American flag, is one of them. They fly outside of our Post Offices and groggy school children salute them each morning but it’s not until we are attacked by terrorists or the government sends our families off to fight losing battles that we realize how much we take it for granted. It’s also artists like Bates Wilson that remind us as well.

Bates Wilson moved from L.A. to New York in the late 80’s to further pursue his acting career. Out of necessity he began to furnish his apartment with pieces of furniture made from discarded metal. “Wood was too hard to work with, especially in my apartment. Originally what I was making was all from recycled materials. I’d use what I could find like sheet metal or drywall beams that I would flatten out. I made some really big pieces.”

Visiting Wilson’s studio in Dumbo I was surprised at how large some of his pieces actually are. One piece in particular, a gorgeous War Of The Worlds, pod-like TV cabinet, is about 9 feet long and stands about 5 feet high. Unfortunately it’s the size of my apartment. “Furniture is hard to sell in New York, there’s a market but I think I’d do better in LA. I think the West Coast would be more receptive to larger pieces. New York is conservative, it’s a minimal town, the spaces are small and everyone likes minimalism.”

Aside from furniture, the other standout pieces in Wilson’s body of work are a series of American flags. “I like working with icons, taking something that people see every day and seeing how I can express something a little different with that idea. I like stars and stripes, it’s a very powerful symbol especially in our society.” Ranging in style from sleek, minimal and polished to deconstructed, involved weavings of copper shards, tubing and knurled strips of metal, they all radiate a sense of strength and power. And not unlike the original American flag, one of Wilson’s creations came to symbolize unity, strength and solidarity to a whole new generation.

During an artist’s residency in Canada during 2001, Bates was commissioned to create an American flag. The 4’ x 5’ flag, made from aluminum and copper, was completed by the end of summer in 2001. Having lost a friend in the attacks on September 11th, Bates returned the money he was given for the commission and kept the flag. He brought it to Union Square and left it there for about a week. People visiting the makeshift memorial on 14th Street used ice picks to scribe their names and their thoughts on it. No easy feat, to some the aggressive carving may have been the only outlet they had to share their thoughts on the tragedy and vent their frustrations in a time when we all felt so helpless. After a brief trip to Chicago, Bates donated the flag to the New York Historical Society where it resides in their permanent collection.

In 2004 Bates had five shows including one at Broadway Windows in which his flags were featured though he has his reservations about the scene. “Shows are great but you have to sell. I got a lot of interest but it’s tough. The art scene is as unique and individual as the creative process is, it’s all about the collective. I didn’t go to art school so I’m classified as an outsider artist. As subjective as art is, and as expressive as art is, there’s a huge conservatism and nepotism involved in arts. People are secure with artists who are associated with something. With conceptual art, you’re not going to find many blue-collared conceptual artists because people are not going to want to look at garbage bags with garbage strewn all around the floor if it’s done by the postman. But if it’s done by Damian Hirst than that’s fine because they’re safe, they know he’s from conceptive background.”

Wilson’s new work is taking a minimal approach, in which he’s using a lot of heavy steel. “Metal will never wear out, I like the way it ages, I like the patina. I enjoy exploring the medium, discovering something things and finding new ways to satisfy myself.”

On The Web | www.bateswilson.com

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January 15, 2005

Peter Hujar

Peter Hujar: NIGHT

Matthew Marks Gallery
January 15th - March 5th, 2005

By Dennis Spafford

On tall, plain, crisp, white walls in Chelsea, hang the photographic memoirs of Peter Hujar. These forty-three images, many of which are being shown for the first time, offer all of us a more intimate view of who Peter Hujar was and what he saw through the lense of his camera. In contrast to the space in which these pictures are being exhibited, Hujar’s pictures are far from innocent and new. The images he captures all portray an overwhelming sadness, doused with urban and social decay, that leave an almost tangible feeling of despair. Also in this exhibition we are introduced to Hujar’s experiments with perception and how that influenced his objectivity, but also the viewers as well.

When viewing pieces like, San Gennaro (1976), Girl in My Hallway (1976), and Wreck (1980) the feelings of loneliness and sadness are so evident. These images offer us the opportunity to see exactly how much of a voyeur Hujar actually was. In other words, the events leading up to the images in the photos have already happened, and Hujar is there to view the end result completely detached from any involvement in their creation. None the less despite Hujar propensity to go chasing shadows in the dark, he more often than not had direct contact with his subjects such as in the photographs, Brintzenhofe Putting on Make-Up (1982) and DOA Halloween (1979). In these two photographs, be it positive or not, Hujar captures the moments as they happened. Throughout the whole exhibition, Hujar experiments with the role of participant and spectator.

Playing with the role of participator and spectator is part of his homosexual photographic images as well. Besides a few exceptions, Hujar captures scenes of gay men in sexual situations that cast the darkest light on the sexual freedom they enjoyed before AIDS. It is widely known that Hujar was a gay man himself, who professed (on his death bed) to having have slept with over thousand men, and allegedly did it only to be able to connect with others. If this bit of information is true that it is very telling about Hujar’s vulnerability in concerns to his relationships with men, which apparently he was incapable of having. Understanding this enables us to see the true brilliance of Hujar. Because of his issues with his sexuality, and how he expresses this in his art, he crosses over the line of being an objective viewer or momentary participant and completely exposes himself to us. This is what art is truly about. He crosses the bridge between viewer and artist and makes a connection that is utterly human and pure. Hujar shares with us in his gay photographs what he saw gay life as. Here in lay the true importance of Peter Hujar.

An empathetic mind will take a moment to picture ones self wandering the cold and lonely streets of NYC, searching for meaning that seems ever elusive. I would venture to guess that many of us feel or have felt that same sense of despair as Peter Hujar shares with us. Perhaps on higher level there is another lesson Hujar offers us, that being compassion.

Matthew Marks Gallery
523 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 | 212 243-0200
www.matthewmarks.com

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January 5, 2005

Zephyr

by Jessica Cogan

In the 1960's, New York City commissioned artist Peter Max to trick out a fleet of city buses. His bold, psychedelic designs proved magical for at least one ten-year old waiting for the #10 cross town – that boy became legendary graffiti artist Zephyr. As he puts it, “When one of those tripped out buses pulled up at the curb, it was something so magical. Words don’t convey the experience…and riding those buses had a huge impact on me.”

Perhaps it was the democratic nature of public transportation that influenced Zephyr to take up graffiti, an art form accessible to all. “It feels free to me because it is. It’s the art of the people. Anyone can do it. Everyone sees it,” Zephyr mused in a recent interview with Trigger Magazine’s publisher, Liberation Iannillo.

Graffiti exists, according to Zephyr, in contrast to most of the art world. “Art, and specifically the so-called ‘art world’ exist in an elite never-never land. Art in the west is presented as something for those who can afford the luxury of dallying in it…I am a purist, and I don’t believe this is how things should be. Art needs to be for everyone. It has to be public….So I’m doing my part to change it, one graffiti piece at a time.”

Zephyr is one of the best known names in the graffiti-writing world. His career began in the late 70's – just after the first wave of the guerilla art form. But in the fast-paced world of graffiti art, he and his young friends found that by the time they wanted to contribute, many of their idols’ interests had shifted - some had even soured to the art form. “It was a complete mind-fuck, and it gave us pause. But only for a moment. We were already intoxicated with the act of writing, so we were not about to be put off.” So Zephyr and his friends had to find their own way in a landscape just recently carved out. “I’d have to say that for me and some of my cohorts like Revolt, a major turning point was when we decided to leave the past behind and form our own writing crew, RTW (Rolling Thunder Writers).”

Zephyr’s graffiti writing crew were focused on train painting and street tagging – activities that required stealth. “We fancied ourselves kind of sneaky and such. Of course, we really weren’t sneaky at all, being that we were longhaired freaks. But that’s another story…In the 70s, being a graffiti writer had no sex appeal and no commercial potential, and you did not tell anyone you were doing it. In many cases, not even our non-graffiti friends knew we did it, and sometimes not even our girlfriends (and certainly not our parents). The ‘graffiti artist hero’ thing is an 80's invention.”

If it wasn’t cool, it was at least peopled with interesting characters. While Zephyr collaborated briefly in the early 80's with renowned Lower East Side artist Jean-Michel Basquiat on a backdrop for a music video, it’s their friendship that he best remembers. “The backdrop we did for Clem Burke's band The Colors was just a one-off thing, no big deal. But I have much fonder, older memories of him coming by my place on 89th Street back in the late 70's, with a 40 ounce Rheingold beer. We’d sit and talk and smoke joints and draw cartoons with Radiograph pens. Damn, I’m getting sentimental here, but those were some good times.”

But things are different now for graffiti artists and the city that is their canvas. In Zephyr’s view, New York has become “a place that’s too expensive for its own inhabitants, designed by urban planners from other parts of the world for the inhabitation of people from other parts of the world. If you are part of this dying breed known as “native New Yorkers,” this city no longer gives a rat’s ass about you or what you think… but if you are a tourist from Kansas coming to New York, there’s a bunch of Starbucks, Disney Stores and Imax theaters so now you’ll feel right at home because it looks and feels just like the shitty mall in your town.”

And the commercial aspects of graffiti art that began in the 80s continue even now. “In today’s money-driven world, it’s tough not to question the motivation behind some street artists… discovering that many of these artists have simply used the streets as a premeditated vehicle to get into the WWW (what I call the ‘white-walled world’) is tragic to me.” But that’s not enough to negate the beneficial aspects of graffiti: “We need more public art, so anyone working unsanctioned on the streets is welcome, and it’s good news that they’re out there, taking the risks and doing it, despite what their motivations might be.”

Nowadays Zephyr writes and lectures about visual culture – advertising, tattooing, skateboard and surf culture, psychedelic art, album covers, comics and graffiti. He does some logo design, mostly for smaller independent companies. And he stays on top of his game with frequent “aerosol adventures” (in fact, he was out painting the night before this interview). Zephyr is also included in the New Museum's "East Village USA" exhibition which runs until March 19th of this year.

Despite some disappointment with the current scene, Zephyr argues that we’re living in an important moment for graffiti. “I’m feeling that we are in the midst of a very strange and interesting seismic shift in terms of attitudes. As best as I can tell, the ‘mainstreaming’ of graffiti is having a fascinating effect…The bottom line is this: if the basic person on the street is starting to think of graffiti as less of a horrendous and dangerous assault on their person (which was the 80's mindset) and more as an accepted part of the visual matrix, for me as a graffiti writer, this is good news. Getting shot at by vigilantes was very unnerving.”

On The Web | www.zephyrgraffiti.com
More About Graffiti | www.at149st.com

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January 4, 2005

It's an Accessory

It is essential to have the latest fashion accessory, to gain instant peer approval. The transformation of 'tech' to 'essential accessory' is all about selling things, and I fall for it everytime. If you need a thing, why not have a pretty, shiny version of it?

My latest purchase was an Iomagic external floppy drive for my laptop. I didn't really need it, but I convinced myself it would round out my kit. And when I made my last minute selection at the jewelry counter at Computer City the extra slots for compact card and memory stick seemed convenient.

When I got the new drive home and out of its packaging, I found a little switch on the back labeled red/blue. The purpose of this switch is to change the color of the led strip on the top of the device. It's hard to decide how to choose a color.....red for days, blue for nights? red for "I have been programming all day and I am really irritated with you so just you DON'T" and blue for "Ahhh that's nice"?

I pondered the extra thought and engineering that went into building a device that not only looks like a personal accessory, but behaves as one. I'm blue! I'm red! I don't know what I am, but my floppy drive displays it!

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January 2, 2005

It's Raining

In a recent post, I said that the Weatherbug software was full of 'spyware nastiness'. An article on Lockergnome quoting a letter from the the people at Weatherbug.com persuaded me to give it another chance, for the sake of fairness.

The dept of Homeland Security, the National Weather Service (and its NOAA agency), 7000 schools including some of the largest universities in the country, military bases/coast guard bases and the US Naval Academy and over 100 TV stations all have our weather stations and partner with us.

I have been using Weatherbug on my desktop for about 2 weeks now. As noted, the MySearch toolbar, which is a pretty mild form of adware but which does hi-jack your Internet Explorer searches, is now an optional part of the installation.

I enjoyed having the temperature and weather in my task tray, and might appreciate it more if I didn't have a television or radio in my office. After fooling around with the preferences, I was able to turn off the automatic display of the Weatherbug window upon boot, a 'feature' that would have definitely caused me to uninstall.

On the other hand, the application is still very advertiser oriented. Sometimes it opens a browser window and prompts me to select a sponsor. I usually close this window, but I can imagine many people would assume that they had to follow the instructions on their screens.

You can read Weatherbug's claim to be spyware and adware free on their site. They also have an "Internet User's" Bill of Rights. However, the real focus of its application is obvious from their web site navigation. Links to Support, their "not adware not spyware" page and their Privacy Policy can be found in small print at the bottom of each page. Their sales pitch to advertisers is part of their main navigation, and that section includes detailed information about audience sectors and purchasing behavior.

Weatherbug is apparently harmless software and can be convenient. It's business model is selling targeted advertising based on aggregated information about its users. You can buy an ad free version of the service for $20 a year but that doesn't allow you to opt out of user information aggregation. This doesn't make me morally indignant as long as I understand what the deal is, but you make your own decision. Mine is to uninstall 'cause I just am not that interested.

Other ways to get the weather on your desktop:

Commercial (non-free) software:
Wetsock - haven't tried it
Konfabulator and Stardock both have weather widgets. I like and will use the Stardock widget now that I have gone through all this testing.

Web sites
Weather.com - the Weather Channel's online presence
You can pay $20 per year and get a personal Weather.com Gold home page or just give then your zip code and select 'health' as your interest for local weather with ads. Their Desktop Weather application looks like a co-branded version of Weatherbug. You can pay for an ad-free version for $30/year.

Accuweather.com - this looks like a great site-if you are a weather nut. You can pay for a premium or professional subscription ($40 or $150/year for personal users). They also have a ad-supported desktop application.

Desktop Weather Applications:
Weatherbug
Weather.com Desktop Weather
Accuweather.com Desktop Weather
Intellicast - have not evaluated it-claims to be ad free - collects information for personalization
Free Weather - have not evaluated but am not impressed with 'offer' for free search toolbar

It's all a little bit too much weather for me, though! Looking out the window also works.

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January 1, 2005

How Much to Give? Whatever you can, but give.

We've been 'absent' for a few days for a number of reasons. I hadn't planned to post during the holidays in the first place, then the horrific events in Asia made it difficult to think about anything else. And on a petty and personal note, our publisher's workstation was attacked simultaneously by spyware and viruses (don't let the techno-blind surf on your primary work computer) and it's taken a 15 hour effort to recover data and restore an operating system. I promise to outline my suggestions for keeping your computer virus and spyware free later this week.

In the meantime, when you think about donating money to the relief effort in Asia (and money to save lives is what is desperately needed) you can be guided by this chart from IndiaTogether.org, which can help you calculate how much money you could donate, in any currency, to give the equivalent to a day's wages.

To those reading this, I hope you are happy and well and spent the holiday season with people you love.

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