I decided to go to GRNY (Giant Robot NY) tonight to the opening of a group show called “Smitten”.  I spoke to a couple of artists, including the one I liked the most, Jack Long.  Here’s some pictures I took at the opening.  I was not familar with Giant Robot, but when I got to the shop, I ended up buying a hooded sweat shirt of the latest style.

Giant Robot New York, approaching store (left) and Gallery (right - in Red).

Inside of the GRNY Gallery - it’s small and narrow - found some interesting art there tonight.

Jack Long Painting - I liked his work.

I don’t know who did this drawing but - looked interesting so I took a picture of it - it’s clearly Jolie and child.

Don’t know who did this Tribble Garbage Can art - but it was worth taking a picture. At first I thought the Tribbles were for sale - then I realized I should not touch the art.

And here’s me, just before getting a haircut.  As soon as I walked out of GRNY I got a haircut next door, then went back in again.  I’m wondering if the cute lady who hosted the show got confused because my hair was different.

I can’t say a whole lot about the GRNY show, it was OK, gave me an excuse to roam the East Village tonight, have a bite at Dojo’s (a resturant I used to eat at a lot when I lived in the East Village many years ago) and also go into PS 132 and see the last night of Project Iris Havana in NYC - a group exhibition of photographs of Cuba.  It was nice, there was a musician playing and plenty of wine and rum.

I finished up the evening by passing by Fobbidden Planet, a store that has a lot of comic book art and looking for illustrations of people I have come to learn about recently.  Saw what I needed to see, then spent a while reading Dr. Strange, Volume I - from Marvel Comics  - the old Steve Ditko issues - that was great.  And then I went home.

 

 

I got alerted to this article by an artist friend about Artists taking paintings to the masses; it makes a lot of sense.  I wrote about this subject earlier on Webmetricsguru.com, inspired by a Seth Godin post titled ”Raveling“.

“This isn’t a post about blogging or myspace or even etsy. Instead, it should be proof to you that the whole thing is raveling (which means the same as unraveling, in case you were curious). That all the systems that kept all the processes in place and leveraged mature industries and experienced players are slowly (or quickly) filtering to the masses. Faster than you thought it would happen.”

Not saying you should just sell your work online - but being open to it, that makes sense and it does work for some artists.

I’m going to try to make it over to the Journal Gallery tonight for this show by Tim Barber and if I make it I’ll have something more to write about, later.

Went to see the Walker Evans opening at The UBS Art Gallery tonight.  Quoting from the online Press Release (below)

“Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver, on view from August 24 to November 17, 2006, will explore the legacy of documentary photography by focusing on a significant moment in American history and a definitive period in Evans’ career. Presented by the Yale University School of Art, where Walker Evans served on the faculty, the exhibition will honor Evans’ innovative work and lasting influence on the medium of photography.

A self-taught photographer, Walker Evans (1903-1975) developed a “lyric documentary” style. At the height of the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration commissioned Evans to record the lives of rural families. He also worked with the writer James Agee on a project centered on Southern sharecroppers that evolved into the 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. The exhibition will feature approximately 88 photographs from 1935-1936 that exemplify Evans’ meticulously detailed and honest photojournalistic style. ”

 

Walker Evans
Roadside Stand near Birmingham, 1936

Walker Evans
Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer’s Wife, 1936

Here’s someone looking at one of Waker Evans Photos (below) at the show tonight.

The opening at the UBS Art Gallery, located in the ground floor of the UBS Building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas was packed; most of the lobby of the building was full of people looking at the photos and eating and drinking.  I had a glass of wine and had eaten dinner before I arrived.

Walker Evans photos took me back to another time - but maybe that time is not so different than ours - as the want that is in the faces of many of the subjects is similar to the pain and suffering poor familes face today.

Sometimes I look at photos with one eye only - I can see depth in the photos that is absent when looking at them with both eyes.  While I’m familar with Walker Evan’s as a name in American Art, I had not really looked at his photos in any depth before, or been that aware of them. 

This show of Walker Evans work will be on till November 9th, 2006.