I may be attending this opening on Sustainability in a World of Consumption but in any case want to highlight the event.  I often get contacted by groups and artists telling me of their openings and I have been remiss in posting them often enough.  I had an excuse lately – traveling and being extremely busy with Social Media Analytics.  In fact, I was in Exeter, UK just last weekend, the very place this blog is hosted from – but missed connecting with the publisher of ArtNewYorkCity.com while I was there.

Sustainability in a World of Consumptionis  first exhibit claiming to explore the presence of excess exists in our day-to-day lives, but often hides behind masks of disposal systems, social acceptance, and misinformation.

You can also help  raise money for this organization by buying it’s art.

Art for Global Justice group seeks to use the power of art to create social change both locally and globally. Youth workshops, art exhibits, and an art exchange program will facilitate this movement towards seeing other perspectives and creating a more just world.

Information about  Excess and Environment: Sustainability in a World of Consumption

The presence of excess exists in our day-to-day lives, but often hides behind masks of disposal systems, social acceptance, and misinformation. This exhibit explores the idea of the impact of excess on our natural environment both visually and theoretically.

The art involved will relate to the effect of mass consumption and waste on the environment. All sales of art will benefit the non-profit organization, Art for Global Justice.

Opening:

Friday, April 16th 2010  7:00 pm to 11:00 pm  AE Studios LIC, 39-06 Crescent Street (off the corner of 39th Ave.) Long Island City, Queens, NY 11101 7, E, V, N, R, or W trains to Queensboro Plaza

Exhibit will be open by appointment from April 16th – April 23rd Free admission

Contact 212-537-5869 artforglobaljustice@gmail.com artforglobaljustice.org for more information

Artists showing work include Chris Jordan, Eve Mosher, Walter “Tinho” Nomura, Justin Gignac, Akirash, Mikal Hameed, Erwin Timmers, Paul Villinski, Joseph Heidecker, Tyrome Tripoli, Michael Yinger, Austin Shull, Olek, Chanika Svetvilas, Chris Sollars, Miles Wickham, Beau Stanton, Destroy and Rebuild, Christina Chobot, Laura Larocca, Trash Track, and more.

I’m at an opening at Clic Gallery of Jody Morlock tonight. As I write this, Jon Stewart, of the Daily Show walks in, I guess that tells me a little about the company I’m in.

In fact, that’s me with Jon Stewart, in the photo, below! What’s weird is the how Jon looks like he’s photo shopped behind me, but I’m actually holding his sholder. However, I suspect the reason why I appear distinct from Jon Stewart is that he projects a wall, due to his celebrity – I’m sure that’s it, and the camera picks it up.

I talked with the artist for a few minutes about her obession with numbers and writings on her photos.

Talking to Jody, it turns out her day job as a makeup artist for John Stewart, and he also collects her work.

Jody Morlock says her imagery comes lately from the photoshoots she does, the makeup work, and life in New York.

When I think of my life, now writing for VentureBeat.com, and for Entrepreneur.com, along with my industry blog, WebMetricsGuru, I feel blessed that I don’t have to find out where the party is, my life is the party, and it comes to me, especially when I just “be” and don’t try to make life be anything more than it is.

Getting back to Jody, I go back to her picture of “Lucky” and the other, “Naughty”, prints with writing all over them, but not the face. I asked her why she puts phone numbers and personal info in her photo paintings, and she mentioned there’s no bank accounts on her works, but there is interesting information in Jody Worlock’s work if you take the time to look … I did.

And you know what, she doesn’t usually paint the faces in her photo art, because that’s what she does for a living; however, there are works where she did …. Paint the face.

Jody Worlock … Glad I stumbled into your show.. And Jon Stewart, too.

Found an interesting piece in the New York Times tonight on how Banks Hoard Troves of Art where …

Deutsche Bank is believed to own the largest corporate collection in the world, with some 60,000 pieces of contemporary art. UBS owns 40,000 pieces, and JPMorgan Chase 30,000. Combined, that approaches the Museum of Modern Art’s trove. Banks have various explanations for their hoarding instincts: lots of walls to cover, clients to impress, corporate identities to build. Or perhaps just some past director was a devoted patron.

If banks were temples of culture rather than lucre, the collections would be easy to justify. As a financial asset, however, much of the art is of dubious value. Some 400 works owned by Lehman Brothers, including ones by Roy Lichtenstein, are expected to fetch only about $1 million at a coming auction. And it’s hard to believe Andy Warholor Damien Hirst ever helped get an initial public offering off the ground.

There’s been some outcry lately for Banks to do humanitarian work and Paul Krugman says it best in a post titled The Banks are not all right…

“…Ask the people at Goldman, and they’ll tell you that it’s nobody’s business but their own how much they earn. But as one critic recently put it: “There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of trillions of dollars of taxpayer support for the financial system.” Indeed: Goldman has made a lot of money in its trading operations, but it was only able to stay in that game thanks to policies that put vast amounts of public money at risk, from the bailout of A.I.G. to the guarantees extended to many of Goldman’s bonds.

So, from my point of view, and Krugman’s – if Banks can give back to the people in various forms, including lending Art out – they should.

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN muses on why visitors to the Louvre, or any modern museum, don’t look at the Art, anymore, they just snap a picture.    By the way, I do tend to stop and look and would rather take in a place the the Louvre, in several visits – trying to see it all at once is too hard, and the value of a visit like that – is much less.

See …

At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus

But, of course, if all you have is one visit – maybe there’s little choice but to snap pictures or videos and I did it myself, two years ago, when I spent a few afternoons at the Louvre and at Delacroix‘s museum and then Aix in Provence and Cezanne’s studio, etc.

In Museums and the Public Understanding of Science -By John Durant, Committee on the Public Understanding of Science it’s put forward, on page 28, point 3, below,  that most of the value of a visit to a museum happens in the first 30 minutes:

On page 29, Museum Fatigue is mentioned – with the attempt to understand it – but I think the modern tendincy of the visitor to an Art Museum is not to look, but to snap a picture – and if that happens, according to this study, quoted above, your maximum value of what you want to look at is going to happen soon after you arrive.

With that in mind, I think a modern viewer ought to plan the first 30 minutes to exactly what they want to see first, if they know what that is, with out taking photos or videos, and then, afterwards, once attention span is less, to take pictures as one can, to process the information later.