art

i just got back from nyc and i am supercharged with energy and optimism. i saw so much great work and i wanted to share some of the stuff i saw with you guys. if anyone is going to be in nyc in the coming weeks i highly recommend checking out the greater new york MFA exhibition at hunter college in midtown. it includes work from 20+ MFA programs ranging from montclair & rutgers to yale & brooklyn college. it was great to see what is happening in other programs. some of the work was great, some sucked- but it was just nice to have a bit of context for what we are doing and how other people are handling the grad experience. one of my best friends just started the program at hunter and it was great to have some insight from outside of our little pod city. i also went to PS1 and they have several great shows up. there's a vik muniz show that was so awesome i almost peed my pants. it had the toy soldier portraits, the peanut butter and jelly mona lisas and a bunch of my other favs along with a lot of stuff i had never seen. it was wonderful to be reminded that there are still people out there pushing the boundaries of photography. it seems like academia is trying to talk us out of the craft as if it "isn't enough". like when in one of daeshas critiques people kept saying she should intervene in the environments or stage some sort of public sculpture. why can't the photographs be enough??? when will we have to stop defending what we do? anyway, i just forgot how awesome vik muniz is and if you like him, get your ass down there. there was also a tom sandberg show at PS1 that was almost all gelatin silver prints. for those of us who know the significance- "the cult of silver" is alive and well- wink, wink. these photos also made me feel better about my own respect for craft and the process of photography- the respect that i was worried had been methodically brow beaten out of me, but it is still alive! and lastly, there was also a show at ps1 called "not for sale". an amazing group show that relates directly to the class. all the work was literally "not for sale". there was a broad range of stuff- richard prince, matthew richie, jeff koons, sharin neshat, robert rauschenberg, just a ton of stuff. most of the work had short explainations from the artists for why the piece was not available for purchase. the explainations were all over the place and given the status of many of the contributors, they were pretty funny to consider. especially the koons. (here's a link to the press release if you want more info: http://www.ps1.org/ps1_site/content/view/229/102/) it's well worth the trek to check these two shows out if you have time. here's some pics from the hunter show and the last one is from this funny interactive installation at ps1 that was supposed to be emulating iceland. i wanted to take more pics at PS1 but the security was on high alert or something...