Exhibiting in NYC
The end of a long, tense saga is finally here.
You might remember I exhibited this artist book at a gallery in New York, about four months ago.
In a nutshell, the gallerists seem to have had a falling-out, and they closed the gallery with no notice in June. One gallerist stayed in New York, while the other went to Boston. No forwarding information, nothing. It wasn't technically theft, but because the gallerists must have known the gallery needed to be closed down and didn't return the artwork when they knew, their actions constituted fraud. So I filed a witness statement via my local authorities, who forwarded it to the New York police department precinct nearest the gallery.
Finally, an artist who'd posted on the gallery's FB page received word from one of the gallerists, the one in New York. He said he was shipping back each piece -- from all of their exhibits since April -- one by one, which was why he wasn't answering emails in a timely fashion. He answered two of my emails as well, but then stopped communicating. Just as I was debating my next move... my artist book arrived.
It actually was shipped from the Boston area. I suppose the other gallerist must have taken some of the art and started shipping it as well. Good thing I sent it in a (decorative) box within the shipping box.
Hinges torn right off. Look what happened to the outer box.
I must say that two or three of the artists I was in contact with have gotten back their art also, in good condition and in some cases, packed better than they had done themselves. But it makes me wonder: do you have to breathe down every gallery's neck just to get your artwork back, maybe in the same condition you sent it? Does this happen at the big-dog galleries too?
Photo courtesy Robert Skelton
It was a bit of a leap of faith to send "Someday" all the way cross-country, but I took a deep breath and did it. My college friend Robert and my cousins Tim, Simone and Jackson attended the reception for me...Photo courtesy Simone Pratt
and sent iPhone photos back so I could be there in spirit. Everything was going fine. Until it was time for the gallery to return my artwork.Courtesy Robert Skelton
The monthlong exhibit came and went, and so did the five week period during which the artwork was to be returned to the artists. I checked their website and Facebook page to see if there was anything going on, and there wasn't -- by which I mean there WASN'T a gallery, and their website had been taken down. Other artists were posting frantically on Facebook trying to find out what happened.It actually was shipped from the Boston area. I suppose the other gallerist must have taken some of the art and started shipping it as well. Good thing I sent it in a (decorative) box within the shipping box.
Courtesy Bravo TV
During this whole personal saga, I was watching "Work of Art," and there's no way I could see the Brooklyn Museum of Art treating their artists this badly. (My favorite artist -- Abdi Farah, aka "Cartoony Boy" here on the blog, won the big prize of a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum! Hurray for Abdi!!!)Courtesy Bravo
But then again, they've been around a long time and they're publicly funded and more stable. Maybe you've exhibited in a group show or a solo show. I'd love to hear about your experience, and any suggestions you might have about finding a more trustworthy gallery.
The green-eyed monster
Remember how I said I was trying to make a deadline, and that's why I delayed posting for like two weeks? Here's what I was working on.
The painted-over, resized image of my grandfather is the focal point for a piece I've submitted to a local art exhibit. The Lynnwood Arts Commission asked for "green" artwork, in either/both senses of the word. Environmentally green interested me... but it didn't grab me and smack me upside the head like the 'green-eyed monster.'
And my grandfather's love life has just been begging me to re-imagine it. Three marriages in four decades? There must be something interesting going on there. To the divorce deposition, Robin!
My grandfather rarely said more than two words at a time, the way I remember it. But I now have copies of his divorce files, which tell me a lot more than he ever would have. I copied some of them in a loooong sheet...
... and tore up regular-sized copies to create a cave of sorts, inspired by Michael deMeng's "Cave of Pages" class. For my piece, I wired and glued together cigar boxes for two parts of the story.
I altered a painting of grandpa's house that had a deliberate rip running through it, and dripped a little green onto the rip. Then I positioned grandpa and his jealousy-consumed heart beneath the drip.
In order to age the papers as if they were burnt by the Flames of Jealousy, I did a lot of painting the text and its torn edges. A LOT of painting. Oh my God, I was so sick of painting. But the piece just wouldn't leave me alone until I'd done every last page. You know how it is.
Okay, some of them were more fun than others: The shred above is from a policeman's testimony. He and his partner caught grandpa's ex-wife making out with her boyfriend one night on the steps of the public library.
And finally, I painted the caulk/"rock" of the cave's exterior, to make it more rock-like, to marry it with the divorce paper scroll, and to connect the top with the bottom more strongly.
You know, one of the best parts of being DONE! with this piece is realizing some of the choices I made subconsciously. Like the fact that I used cigar boxes -- recycled, of course, but hey, cigars are made of tobacco leaves... and my grandfather was born, lived and died in tobacco country.
Or the doll legs: I just wanted female legs to peep through the cave door, but after a while I realized that's all I really know about her -- what she allegedly did with those legs, not what she said or thought. There was no testimony from her. But it's interesting to think about what hadn't been said about that relationship.
I find out if my piece was accepted for the exhibit on September first.
You know, one of the best parts of being DONE! with this piece is realizing some of the choices I made subconsciously. Like the fact that I used cigar boxes -- recycled, of course, but hey, cigars are made of tobacco leaves... and my grandfather was born, lived and died in tobacco country.
Or the doll legs: I just wanted female legs to peep through the cave door, but after a while I realized that's all I really know about her -- what she allegedly did with those legs, not what she said or thought. There was no testimony from her. But it's interesting to think about what hadn't been said about that relationship.
I find out if my piece was accepted for the exhibit on September first.
Into the woods
Road trip!
The artists head out of town to be Inspired By Nature. The "Work of Art" show producers have decided you have to go to Connecticut to find the woods, but at least they chose a public park with an impressionist art trail. Swanky is, again, thrilled by the challenge, which also stipulates they must use something they've found in the woods. Cartoony and Designated Hotness... not so much.
For these city kids, there's too much... Nature.
And for once, the overwhelmed artist sleeping while they should be working is not Tortured -- it's DH. (Okay, her cold made it hard for her to work. Whatever.)
After a little talk with God, Cartoony gets his groove back. He gathers gravel to be used as a drawing medium. Swanky has something interesting going on with acorns that has to do with her grandfather's Algonquin heritage and his love of the outdoors.
Tortured considers making mustard gas as part of his piece, but decides it's not a good idea to kill off the competition. The Mad Hatter's experience of nature is from San Francisco's parks. So after a conversation with Tortured about what her piece needs -- oh, that can't be good --
MH goes for the public-sex-in-the-park concept, throwing some risque drawings into the branches of her artwork. The stakes are actually, as advertised, pretty high. Two will be eliminated tonight. So it really is go time.
Unfortunately for Swanky, the homage to her Native American ancestry doesn't really come through. The judges get more of an alien dinosaur egg vibe from it, and most of them don't get why the artwork is relatively small. The judges like the bottom half of MH's piece, but not the top half with the sex cartoons. DH makes another cold, distant piece, since she doesn't have the faintest connection to nature or organic substances.
Oh wait, there's one of the rocks she picked up. There's the connection. Tortured makes something that makes sense to the judges. But how he got from the fungus he brought back from the woods...
... to the torture device he used to paint a random bleach pattern on paper... WTF?
After the last two artwork debacles, 'Toony is ready to go all out and take some risks. He creates a self-portrait of himself lying down, with a wash of the gravel/paint in a water line beneath. It's called "Baptism."
It practically levitates off the page with emotion. Winner winner chicken dinner! Not a surprise: DH goes home. Big surprise: Swanky, not the Mad Hatter, gets the boot.
MH is shocked too -- she all but says to the judges, "Oh no, you've made a mistake. I'm the one you're sending home." But let's face it... 'Toony kicked ass, DH had no clue, Swanky's point wasn't clear, and Tortured is the Drama.
Maybe because this second-to-last episode had some actual drama, the show didn't bother with the fake drama of watching Swanky and DH take their artwork home. I'm so ready to see the finale but I don't want any spoilers -- no tease clips! Name the winner yourself in the comments section.