Ai Weiwei in Beijing. Photo by Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
A couple of days ago I posted a photo of the sculpture Ai Weiwei’s has in the courtyard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has been in the news and on my mind for weeks now. The Chinese Government put him in jail for 81 days recently and grilled him about his activism. They released him and ordered him to stay off Twitter. He refused and now they claim he owes $2.4 million in back taxes. The bill is due on Tuesday and he has collected a million so far, some of it tossed over the fence in front of his house by supporters. Ai Weiwei says he considers the aid a loan and he will repay it. His art is wrapped in activism and this is your chance to buy a piece from one of the world’s hottest artists. Fold a dollar bill into a paper airplane and send it over his fence.
Dock behind Hungerford Building at night in Rochester. New York
After our recent LA art bender First Friday in Rochester was bound to be a bit of a let down but it provided some wonderful surprises instead. It was almost impossible to find a parking space near the Hungerford buildings so we invented one out back by a loading dock. This place feels like ground zero for funky art but we found a few jewels. By contrast the “Scapes” electronic media arts show at RoCo was pretty sophisticated. Jason and Debora Beragozzi, husband and wife video geeks, each had engaging installations. I used the word “geeks” because they both are intrigued by the relatively low tech nature of live image processing, no whiz bang image manipulation software or fast cut editing, more like watching the snowy static when a station went off the air or watching a station you couldn’t quite tune in in the pre-digital days. Jason plays with settings to intentionally achieve video errors triggering startling effects. Judd Williams’ “Sandpapers” at Philips Fine Art, exquisite collages made entirely with used sandpaper, was as good as anything we saw in LA.
Chuck Cuminale aka Colorblind James opening for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Photo by Gary Brandt.
The headline in the “Local Beat” section of today’s paper reads “Colorblind James Experience Reunites.” I wish! Chuck Cuminale, aka Colorblind James (both colorblind and real name, James), song writer extraordinaire, lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player, has been dead ten years now. Chuck insisted that the lyrics to his songs be included in any lp or cd package. They address life’s big themes and read like poetry, dark and funny and sweet, a world away from trendy punk or new wave of the day. Chuck was humble but opinionated. He knew exactly what he wanted in a backing band and he ran a tight ship.
Gary Brandt took this photo of Chuck when Colorblind James opened for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Gary worked at Midtown and MotoPhoto and used to shoot black and white film and run it through the color processor at work to achieve this look. It was Colorblind’s first gig at Scorgies and Bernie Heveron, PE’s former bass player was on stand up bass. The band had recently settled in Rochester after a stint in San Francisco and Phil Marshall, Chuck’s brother-in-law, moved back with the band on lead guitar. Gary Miexner, who was with Colorblind when we first saw them at Red Creek in 1980, was back in the band as well. Jim McAvaney was the perfect drummer for Chuck’s theatrical numbers.
Chuck is seen performing “Considering A Move To Memphis” above. The band could move mountains and continued to do so with Ken Frank, now with Margaret Explosion, on bass. Tonight, with Chuck’s son Mark standing in for his father, they pay their respects at Abilene.
Chuck gave us a copy of their first 45 at that Red Creek gig. Jan Marshall did the cover art. This is the B side.
Pete and Shelley are coming down from the mountains for tonight’s gig at the George Eastman House. Shelley emailed from the library that she was bringing her shakers so we’re in for a special treat. How do you think this tree lost it’s needles?
Members of the Basque separatist group, ETA, announce cease fire in San Sebastian, Spain
I look at the Spanish papers most days, El Pais, El Mundo and ABC. I look at the headlines mostly and if I must read an article I’ll ask Peggi to translate it or use Google. Big news there today with the Basque separatist group ETA announcing an end to their violent tactics with this theatrical video.
Mickey Mantle would have turned 80 today if he was still alive. We’re watching our first baseball game of the season and it’s almost November. I’m not really crazy about red but I’m partial to the National League unless the Yankees or Detroit Tigers are in the series. The Rochester Red Wings used to be a farm team for the Saint Louis Cardinals so that’s reason enough to root for them and George W. used to own the Texas Rangers so that’s reason enough not to root for them.
Lake Ontario from Webster Park outside of Rochester, NY
Interesting that the shoreline at Charlotte beach and Durand beach in Rochester is sandy while what used to be the beach at Webster Park is all rocks. I guess the bay that forms the Rochester harbor is more protected from the rough seas. I feel a lot better now.
While walking out the Charlotte pier on Labor Day weekend I kept looking over at the funkier, slightly shorter Summerville Pier on the other side of the Genesee River. On Sunday we rode our bikes over to the east pier and walked out past the warning signs, “No Hand Rails, Uneven Surfaces, Deep Water.” There were a handful of fishermen and woman out there, plenty of trash and really uneven surfaces. It was a mini vacation.
We stopped in O’Laughlins to go to the bathroom and the Bills were down 21-0. We heard cheers coming from the homes along Rock Beach so assumed they were catching up but we were really surprised to hear they won by the time we got back home.
We expected a slightly more irreverent send off for Barbara Stewart but her funeral service was quite beautiful. She had more sides than we knew. We first met her when we did a website for her government consulting consortium, SWI. And then we found out about her kazoo side and lifelong efforts to make the kazoo the national instrument. Along the way we learned she had won an Olympic gold medal for pole vaulting, appeared on Conan O’Brien, worked with Tony Randall, held a violinist chair in the Philharmonic and Dave Ripton was her handyman.
At first we found it hard to shut her up and get down to the work at hand but she had so many fantastic stories to tell and she was so much fun that she won us over and we’d look forward to her visits no matter how much time they ate up. She planned her final service and it was an eclectic mixture of classical and camp with an operatic closing number, “Climb Every Mountain.”
View across Genesee river from High Falls district in Rochester New York
LED lightbulbs, electric cars, handmade soap and organic local produce was all represented at this weekend’s Greentopia Festival in Rochester’s High Falls District and the gorgeous weather ensured a great turnout. Hard to square the pepperoni pizza vendors in the ideal green future but the view of the Pont de Rennes Pedestrian Bridge was pretty green.
I was happy to see that Lucinda Storms and Ann McCracken won exhibitors awards at Sunday’s Public Market Artist’s Row event but my favorite vendor was Polixeni Theodorou. I bought one of her recycled Poloroid greeting cards (mine is a shot of Lake Ontario where it is impossible to distinguish the horizon line as grey green blue water meets grey blue sky) mounted on hand made cards. The penciled text on my card reads, “It is too much – Polixni. The card came packaged inside of a pamphlet entitled “How I Met My Lover, a flow chart: my path through Japanese cinema of the 60’s and 70’s.” There’s a small photo of the Japanese new wave film star, Tatsuya Nakadai, in a heart shape on the cover and the “the amazing music by Toru Takemitsu” mention in the flow chart got me tracking down some amazing video clips with his sound tracks.
We concluded our Greentopia weekend at an old fashioned garden party as Jim and Marie Via celebrated the 100th anniversary of their California bungalow style home.
Jason Bernagozzi sound installation, part of “Transitions Rochester” exhibit at Visual Studies Workshop
Even vital cities can be revitalized but gallery shows centered around this theme can make for some pretty dreary art. The program notes for “Transitions, Rochester” at Visual Studies Workshop lay out the facts. “Rochester’s days as a company town are over and urban sprawl and ineffective city planning have left a disabled core surrounded by middle-class wealth.” Curators Rick Hock of Visual Studies Workshop and Alison Nordström of Eastman House have put together a show that drenches dreary in urban beauty. This is a sister show or (maybe the parent) to Rochester Contemporary’s “In The Loop” and there is an upcoming, related show at the Eastman House.
At the VSW I especially liked Dan Verenka’s video shot from a slow moving car as he cruised Rochester’s so called Urban Renewal projects. And Jason Bernagozzi has a room devoted to the sounds of underground Rochester, recordings he made downtown below street level. This piece looks and sounds gorgeous.
Visual Studies is an underutilized space and Rick Hock is determined to change that. He has put out an All Points Bulletin. They are at an exciting juncture over there as the city tears up the street in front and ArtWalk extends it’s strolling grounds. They’re sitting on a fantastic trove of visual resources, a worldclass collection of photo publications and a box with Robert Frank’s shoes (he did a workshop here in ’72 and donated the shoes he wore while photographing the “The Americans”). Who knows we may even see init.three over there.
Half Price Ice Cream Cones sign in Hammondsport, New York
I took my Nikon P7000, a point and shoot that David Pogue described as “like carrying a brick in your pocket”, out to the UPS Store yesterday to have Nikon repair the lens cover again. It is less than a year old and it spent a full month at the Nikon plant in New Jersey about five months ago when they repaired this problem for the first time. Little black blades spin open to uncover the lens when you push the power button but over time they only open part way and you wind up with Lomo style photos. I have the camera in my pocket at all times and feel naked without it. Maybe I should wait for it to return and put it on eBay.
Our big garage sale was a real eye opener to the underground economy. The dealers who stormed the gates in the two hours before the sale began and the Craigslist “Curb Alert” responders at the end of the sale are the unseen American worker bees. And of course the casual garage sailors are the backbone of economy. My brother-in-law sold our old 8-tracks on eBay.
We were too exhausted after the sale to fully appreciate our neighbor, Rick Simpson’s, performance art. All our neighbors had watched us fuss with the boxes of stuff in our garage for weeks leading up to the sale and little did we know Rick was hatching this plan to bring us back to earth, clown style. He is a professional clown after all so while we manned the tables in Alice and Julio’s driveway Rick filled our empty garage with his stuff, a boat, lawnmower, bicycles and a couple stacks of old tires. When we popped the door that night we were stunned!
Old rock magazines headed for garage sale on Saturday in Rochester, New York
I was going to toss these old magazines in the 50 cent box for Saturday’s yard sale but I stopped to check the eBay price of the Rock Scene with the dorky picture of Keith and I found it just sold for $26. There is so much anxiety involved with this whole garage sale thing.
I had this U2 cd single of a song called “Numb” from the Zooropa album. It was a promo sent to us when we were doing the print version of the Refrigerator and our friend, Duane, told us it was valuable so I put it right by my monitor for the day when we decided to liquidate. I guess it’s more like downsizing or miniaturizing as in mp3 files. Ironically, the precious cd” wasn’t there when I reached for it. I had to laugh. I never even ripped it either. Its probably in one of the cd boxes out in the garage.
I spot-checked the thousands of cds and vinyl records and found that vinyl was worth more than the cds so I decided to go with $3 for the vinyl and $4 for the cds and I will probably lower the price in the afternoon.
I never expected to get any money back when I finished with our books and records and Rock Scene magazines yet the value we placed in these things while we owned them gets devalued when we look them up on line. It’s all kind of weird. A lot of our stuff came from garage sales in the first place. Maybe this is what makes the world go ’round. This is our first garage sale and I hope its the last.
Jennifer Hecher’s “Martyr Dress #2” in Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY
I guess my favorite piece in the Finger Lakes Show, which opened last night at the Memorial Art Gallery, was Jennifer Hecher’s “Martyr Dress #2”. It was the most intriguing and quite beautiful, made mostly with broken white and brown egg shells (click photo for enlargement). Just what did she do with all those eggs? Her cholesterol could be sky high.
It’s a bigger show than the last few with quite bit of variety and unevenness. I have some watercolors near the exit, a perfect location, but my two pieces are hug too close together. A revved-up Krypton 88 with Jim Via on guitar, Jenna Weintraub on pipes and left handed Dana Gregory on drums made it a party in the ballroom.
Our neighbor emailed us that there has been a rash of car break-ins and mail theft in our neighborhood. She said the police believe they have the kids that were responsible. Mail theft is kind of a big deal. The kids probably didn’t even know how serious an offense it is.
It reminded me of a story I did for the Refrigerator in 1999 when the Post Office was defacing their own mailboxes. They had come up with a new logo, one that looked completely wrong in context, and they were in the process of pasting the new, slightly bigger, logo on top of every perfectly fine old logo on every mailbox in the country. At that time there were still a few of the old logos left on overlooked mailboxes and we encouraged readers to send in their old mailbox sitings.
I wondered what the penalty would be if you got caught defacing every classic, tank-like mailbox in the country the new, hideous, speedy-like-FedEx, italicized logo. Here we are thirteen years down the road. The mailboxes still look like 49′ Fords. They aren’t going anywhere, they’re fixtures of stability in our neighborhood and the “new” logo makes them look like they’re falling over.
Paddlewheel boat on Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York
We had read that the lake levels were unusually high and we had to see it for ourselves so we walked that way. We got there too late to see Chuck Schumer make his announcement about new measures to clean up the lake. There is hardly any beach at all at Durand. They control the lake level but they pick a level in the Spring and when we have a lot of rain they sort of have to live with the consequences. They could lower it but Montreal has a dam up there that allows water to run through it while they generate power from it and they don’t want to just dump the water for our sake.
Lucky Peterson backstage with his drummer and bass player at the Rochester International Jazz Fest
There’s one extra in this picture, the guy sitting behind Lucky Peterson. His Cuban born drummer and New Orleans’ bass player are to his right. Lucky grew up in Buffalo. You can tell by looking at his boots. He played with Little Milton and Bobby Blue Bland so his blues has soul. He is a monster on the organ, piano and guitar. He has a voice big enough to comand attention in a full house (in this case a tent) while off mic. He has the showmanship thing down with spades!
Is it my imagination or is the city falling apart? This view of downtown Rochester contrasts nicely with yesterday’s post of Madrid’s skyline. Midtown Plaza was built in 1960 and they are already tearing it down or at least we thought that was the case. We were scurrying to our next Jazz Fest stop at the Xerox Auditorium when we stopped to take in this view. I said “I thought they were tearing this whole thing down” to Peggi but a guy on the street behind us said “Oh no. They’re going to save that part of the building.”
I was thinking of the time Personal Effects had 2000 people up in that overhanging portion of this building for a record release party in the early eighties. It was called the Top Of The Plaza back then.
El flamenco es filosofía pura,anõs de filosofía condensada. It is the heart of Andulasia in Southern Spain. We had to see some flamenco on our last night in Sevilla so we asked a number of people what they recommended and decided our best bet was the Museo de Flamenco founded by the famous flamenco singer Cristina Hoyos. They have a nightly show and this one included a man and woman who sang and danced, a man who sat and sang while clapping and a virtuoso guitar player. An earthy art form that came from the gypsy streets, flamenco is culturally rich. Antonia Mercé, “La Argentina,” Lorca’s muse, said “There are no schools to create flamenco just as there are no schools to create poets.”
Bull and matador in Madrid
And of course we had to take in a bullfight before leaving Spain, there is so much pomp and ceremony and rich color palette in this ritualized life and death spectacle. It’s pretty certain who is going to die here and it is sometimes messy. As a Taurus I feel sorry for the bull and almost want to root for el toro
Juan Francisco Isidro painting on display in Sevilla, Espana
We got up so late today that they were putting away the breakfast food at the café we stopped at. And they were preparing the tapas for the glass display cases that line the bar between you and the barista. We watched as they put out a display tray of Pimientos del Padrón and made a note to come back here later.
First thing we heard on the street today was an American woman telling her male friend, “Don’t you go thinking you know more Spanish than me.” Lots of Germans walking around Sevilla’s Centro district too, French and Italian, all butchering Spanish no worse than I would if I opened my mouth. I used to think art was the universal language but really good art doesn’t always translate. Food is probably the universal language.
Our guide book said, “Nothing much happens in La Macarena district,” “It is the least altered by tourist hype,” and “Entertainment value is substantially compromised by authenticity,” so that became our day’s destination. We spent a good bit of time ducking the sun and at one point felt overcome by it so we dashed to a fruit stand. We bought some small exotic peaches and and asked the owner if he could recommend a good restaurant. He pointed down the street and said, “Todo recto. Al fin. A la derecha. El Rinconcillo. Es muy bueno.”
This place was established in 1625. It’s older than Guinness. We ordered the house salad for two (asparagus, roasted red peppers, salchitas, grilled shrimp, bonito, calamari stuffed with ?) and we split a spinach and chick pea dish that must have been influenced by our proximity to Morocco. Both were out of this world.
Musa Meyer, Philip Guston’s daughter, wrote an engrossing but brutal memoir about her experience growing up with an artist whose first priority was his work. The critic, novelist and poet Ross Feld wrote a beautiful book about his friendship with the artist and the art itself. Both of these both books brought more depth to the earthshaking experience of standing in front of his paintings.
So I snatched a few more books, “Philip Guston’s Late Work: A Memoir” by the poet William Corbett and “Telling Stories: Philip Guston’s Later Works” by David Kaufmann, the latter too dense in high brow criticism but the subject matter is thrilling.
Amazon thought I might like the recently released “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”. I do. It’s the Gutson mother load. Great artists (Rembrandt, Matisse, and Guston) get better with age, they certainly don’t retire. Just look at the amazing Guston trajectory. Guston was a painter first but also a teacher and somewhat of a philosophy nut so his lectures knock me out. His casual conversation, say hanging with Morton Feldman and a cassette recorder, knocks me out. It’s all here.
