Art and Money Again

A few weeks back some friends and I viewed and discussed a short doc. by Robert (2009)about the decline of art and the rise of the market. (see above). I'm nut-shelling it but that is the basic premise that Hughes argues. There are plenty of broad strokes and convenient omissions but its a generally sound argument and overall fun to watch, if for no other reason than to see old footage of the "glory days" of 1960's New York.

Anyway, Peter Plagens has apparently viewed the film parallel to our little round table and has some good observations at the National Arts Journal blog.

Hughes--for those of you who've been serving on the Texas School Board for the past forty years or who write exclusively for TMZ--is the former Time magazine star who a) probably seduced more average punters (as they say in Hughes's pre-New York-home of London) into reading about serious contemporary art than anybody, ever, and b) has famously fulminated against artists, styles, impenetrable artcrit argot, and various art-world practices. One of those in the last of the latter is what he roars against in "The Mona Lisa Curse." I disagree.

The shipping of Leonardo da Vinci's painting, the Mona Lisa, to New York for exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1963 was, according to Hughes, the beginning of the descent of the art world--particularly the contemporary art world--into today's big-money morass (as Hughes sees it) of collecting for profit, naked speculation, insincere or wrongheaded or diabolical reasons behind big-time collectors saying how they just love art, undeserved celebrity for mediocre-or-worse artists, and a general vulgarity and crassness among art-world players (especially those hand-holders to the rich connoisseur wannabes, art consultants). The downward slide was supposed to have worked something like this: Showing the Mona Lisa at the Met to long lines of people who could only glimpse it from a distance for a few seconds catered to unwashed pseuds who only wanted to "get it seen"; that led to a bunch of superficial, unsophisticated people flooding into an art world that consisted theretofore of a bunch of integrity-ridden bohemian artists, several dealers more interested in determining art history than making a profit, and a few enlightened, altruistic collectors; those ambitious vulgarians, who liked the parties and the "action" as much if not more than they actually liked art, started to take over; meanwhile, the advent of Pop Art and particularly Andy Warhol and his flaunted permissiveness, propelled the takeover to warp speed and near-total control.

continue reading here

Mona Lisa Curse parts 1 - 12

Art Blogging Panel at SMartCAMP this Sunday

This looks quite good so head over to the Lab at Roger Smith Hotel tomorrow.

It’s art fair week in New York but this year Gotham’s art market orgy will coincide with SMartCAMP, which is a two-day conference jointly organized by #artstech and the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan.

A social media bootcamp of sorts, the conference is designed to:

…help those who are new to or skeptical of social media put together a course of action with the help of presentations and case studies from some leading figures working at the intersection of art and social media. For those who have already been engaging in social media, SMartCAMP offers an opportunity to deepen their knowledge, hone new skills, refine social engagement strategies and gain inspiration for future social campaigns from distinguished peers and colleagues. For social media professionals looking to work with arts organizations, SMartCAMP offers an opportunity to learn about the challenges unique to the cultural space.

For my part, I will be moderating a panel on art blogging — FINDING A VOICE IN THE ART BLOGOSPHERE — and I’m very lucky to have the following panelists in attendance:

• Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes;
• Carolina Miranda of C-Monster & WNYC; and
• Andrew Goldstein, the new executive editor of Artinfo.

read on

Secrets of the New York Art World

The above proposal from Hyperallergic is part of the ongoing think tank experiment at Edward Winkleman's new storefront gallery on West 27th Street with artists William Powhida and Jen Dalton. The artists were asked to “consider ‘alternatives/solutions’ to the market” and decided to organize a show titled #class. You can follow events via their live web cam, which broadcasts whenever the gallery is open (find it on the #class blog).

The Hyperallergic proposal:

Help Us With Our Project

When the buzz began, Hyperallergic decided to join the mix by submitting a proposal called, “$ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD,” which involved placing a ballot box in the gallery for the duration of the event that simply asked if people were owed any money from someone in the New York art world (artist, dealer, publication, etc.).

Where did the idea come from? Well, after hearing about all the heinous amounts of money that The Project and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries owed people before they closed up shop (or were forced to close, in the case of the latter), we guessed there had to be some doozies out there. While, I don’t expect that we will uncover millions of dollars owed to individuals, we want to document the stories that eat at us and frustrate us to no end. We want to hear from you about the $40 you were owed and never received. That artist who promised you an art work but never came through, or that critic who took a work from your studio with a promise of something that never happened. Consider this your confessional, and everything will stay confidential … unless you don’t want it to.

So, if you or someone you know would like to submit to our project, please fill out the form below:

DOWNLOAD THE FORM & SUBMIT YOUR $ECRET$ NOW

All submissions will be published April 1, 2010, in the form of a PDF which you will be available for download from this website.

Feel free to fill out the form in color (any color you wish) and submit via email or snail mail (all instructions are on the PDF download).

The Hoggard Wagner Art Collection

If you follow art blogging then you are likely to know Bloggy.com and JamesWagner.com as well as their collaborative arts calender artcat.com. You may not however know them as prolific art collectors and supporter of living artists. Now you can. Their personal collection is now online and open to the public: The Hoggard Wagner Art Collection. I hope this is a trend that will catch on.

The Collection

Hoggard and Wagner began collecting art as a couple in the mid 1990s, and some works were acquired by Wagner prior to their partnership. This web site is intended to publicize the collection and the artists within it. They have never sold a work of art from their collection and they do not intend to do so. Their hope is that this site will present it to a wider public than the relatively few people who are able to see it in a private home.

Image:
optimism Metrocard, 2009
Reed Seifer
New York MTA Metrocard
2.125 x 3.375 inches
Edition: 14 million
Image(s) via Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Roberta's rant

Last week Roberta Smith had a great piece on the crisis of curating within the contemporary museums here in NYC. It is a thoughtful complaint and poses strong questions for our arbiters of public display. Also, good to hear someone stand up for painting for a change. Why has painting become the ugly stepchild, yet again?

Here are some clips:

How did we get to this point? In the 1970’s the Whitney used to be committed to showing artists from across the United States; they were called regional artists in those days. That term has thankfully fallen out of fashion, but the artists have all but disappeared from museum walls. The Modern, for its part, used to present several works each by 10 to 15 artists under the rubric of its “Americans” show.

But a combination of forces threatens to herd all of our major art institutions into the same aesthetic pen. The need to raise and make money sends curators hunting for artists with international star power who work big at least some of the time, deploy multiple entertaining mediums and make for good ad campaigns (like the self-portrait featured in the MoMA ads for its coming exhibition of William Kentridge). The small show devoted to an artist who doesn’t have an immense reputation and worldwide market becomes rarer and rarer.

The consistent exposure to the big-statement solo exhibition becomes self-perpetuating, as these shows condition not only curators but the public to expect more of the same. I realize to my horror, for example, that the idea of seeing a survey of contemporary painting at the Modern makes me squirm. It would look — I don’t know — too messy and emotional, too flat, too un-MoMA.

But shows where we encounter an artist’s single-minded, highly personal pursuit that proceeds one object at a time tend to feature past masters. The Guggenheim’s recent, fantastic Kandinsky exhibition was an example (as was the Modern’s Ensor show). Yet there are plenty of artists working this way now. They may not be making history (or entertainment, either), but they are still making really good art whose very unfolding has its own integrity and is exciting to see.

Museum curators need to think less about an artist’s career, its breakthroughs and its place in the big picture and more in terms of an artist’s life’s work pursued over time with increasing concentration and singularity.

They have a responsibility to their public and to history to be more ecumenical, to do things that seem to come from left field. They owe it to the public to present a balanced menu that involves painting as well as video and photography and sculpture. They need to think outside the hive-mind, both distancing themselves from their personal feelings to consider what’s being wrongly omitted and tapping into their own subjectivity to show us what they really love.

studio of light

This is hilarious. A wonderful addition to the Studio Visit.





hat tip: Tim Buckwalter

the art market's neo-liberalism

I've lamented for some time to friends about the nature of the market side of the visual arts. Specifically that it resembled neo-liberal economics too much to square with its crafted self-image of progressivism. LA Times art critic Christopher Knight expresses this sentiment in a a recent look at the last decade - L.A.'s growing pains, status. Reaganomics, 30 years later still runs the show.

Something else also happened a generation ago that tossed-and-turned the cultural life of the Aughts in ways we have yet to sort out. Reaganomics, the trickle-down fairy tale that says economic growth is most effectively created by dismantling corporate regulation and slashing top tax-brackets, began a massive, upward redistribution of wealth. It went into hyper-drive in the new millennium. The once-secure American middle class got shredded, while the richest got the gated precincts of a new Gilded Age.

The last time that happened, late in the 19th century, extravagant displays of New World wealth included amassing great collections of Old World art and artifacts. Now, with most of that art long-since spoken for (and transferred into museums), the super-rich angle for what's left: Modern and, since those gems are mostly gone, contemporary art.

There's nothing wrong with a robust art market. Rather, market gigantism is what's dysfunctional, pushing everything else aside. In 2007, Damien Hirst's tacky, diamond-encrusted platinum skull, with its phony-baloney $100-million price tag reportedly paid by a consortium of investors that included the artist, became its farcical symbol.

hat tip: Hyperallergic

Living the permanent recession

Over at NYFA Current, Hrag Vartanian has a group of interviews with artists regarding how the "great recession" has affected them and their work. Artists reading this will likely find that their personal experience in this downturn is shared by many in the field. Despite many diminishing returns, perhaps things aren't quite as bad as they seem.

We are in the midst of one of the worst economic recessions in living memory. As a result, there has been a great deal of talk about gallery closings and plummeting art market prices as the barometers of the economic affects on the art world—but what about the artists themselves?

I reached out to dozens of artists in New York and was initially surprised that many artists I spoke with seemed unfazed by the recession, though many expressed anxiety about the future. When I posted my request on Twitter for stories from the frontlines, I received a tweet from Brooklyn-based video painter Jason Varone who summed it up best, "...most artists I know live in a permanent recession."

My conversations with artists highlighted the fact that most of them do not support themselves exclusively through their art. Their personal finances are not as deeply effected by the downturn in the art market as much as the general economic malaise that has caused lay-offs in all fields. I was struck by the general optimism shared by most artists, who are appreciative of having more time to concentrate on their work. What follows here are their stories of navigating the current economic maelstrom. (Vartanian)

continue reading

Old Masters

I just came across Old Masters/New Perspectives which has been online for over a year. Haven't spent that much time with the site yet but it seems promising. Might be a nice counterpoint to frenzy of the contemp. scene.

the artist as public intellectual

I received a blurb about the upcoming fairs in Miami that went something like this:

" the return of decadence to Art Basel Miami Beach this year just might signal the economy’s comeback"

I'll pass on the decadence and the spin that this is a good thing for us. I would rather have more of the following on display in Miami.

The essay puts [Edward] Burtynsky’s work not in the context of art history, but in the context of research on recent environmental scholarship. It indirectly makes a powerful case for including artists among the ranks of our most significant public intellectuals. It aggressively pushes art out of the contemporary art ghetto and places it in the mainstream of discourse on the future of our planet. (MAN)

Via Hrag Vartanian

Why Are Artists Poor ?

I’ve been trying to read more sources regarding notions of value and systems of exchange in both expired societies and our own. A year of scraping by can remind you about the importance such primary questions.

Most artists assume that economic success will be fleeting if not outright unattainable. The current economic downturn after the gilded oughts serves as a stern reminder to the vast majority of artists. If you’ve been an artist for any amount of time you must have come to the cynical observation that the economics feel more like a pyramid scheme than a means to earn a living. A very small number at the top seem to hold almost all of the wealth. The tens of thousands of practitioners who keep missing the booms and bubbles are often waiting for the trickle down affect. It’s an ugly reality that contrasts sharply with general assumptions that the Arts represent progressive values and open mindedness. The Artworld likes the idea that it is a platform for societal critique, boundary breaking and intellectual rigor but often these aspirations appear to be nothing more than window dressing for an economic structure that creates more destruction than anyone wants to admit to. Although many of us have more than enough anecdotal evidence of economic disparity, there seems to be little factual analysis on the subject despite the fact that billions of dollars are generated annually.

Why Are Artists Poor? (authored by Hans Abbing), a visual artist and professor of Art-Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. The basic premise of the book is timely: in the world of contemporary art, the poverty of artists is misunderstood. This isn’t just some starving artist cliché perpetuated by the society at large but a blind spot within the community itself.

excerpt from the book review:

“Why Are Artists Poor?” explores the panoply of truisms about the art market, the role of the state, the public, and the attitudes of artists themselves. Abbing proposes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on the insights of economics, sociology, and psychology. Briefly, he argues that art is shrouded in a pervasive mystique, but that the economy of art is also unique, resembling no other sector of production. The argument is based primarily on a study of the West (Europe, U.K., the Americas), though Abbing feels that his broader conclusions apply equally to the situation in Asia.

In fact, the poverty of artists is a recent phenomenon, with numbers increasing dramatically since WWII. A study of Holland indicates that the vast majority of artists (77%) are living at or below subsistence levels, and cannot make a living from art alone. A second job is necessary, and it typically generates twice the income of the art job. A graph of total income distribution of the artists in Abbing’s study resembles an asymptotic curve, with fewer than 1% at the top who are extraordinarily well off. Paradoxically, with the increase of prosperity in the industrialized nations, the number of impoverished artists has increased as well. Abbing argues that these developments are, in fact, connected.

In economic terms, this suggests an oversupply of artists, but unlike other sectors of the economy, artists do not quit. That they seemingly “cannot do otherwise”, leads Abbing to his first claim: the economy of the arts is exceptional. The usual mechanisms of supply and demand do not function. The question is: why not? Why do people become artists, knowing their compensation will be poor, and why don’t they quit when they have trouble surviving?

A dizzying number of reasons are interrogated and, unsurprisingly, money, fame, and recognition are not decisive factors. The most fundamental explanation for Abbing turns upon a sense that “art is special”, i.e., that to be involved in the art world with a capital-A is a special activity, that artists are driven not merely by their urge to create, but almost by a sense of social obligation. Since the nineteenth century, the practice of art has become a mode of authenticity. Many non-artists tend to see artists as somehow more authentic than themselves. This desire to give expression to an “authentic self” seems to be one of the main forces that attract young people into the arts.

Logically, one would expect that putting more money into the arts, either via state support or other forms of subsidy, would alleviate the poverty of artists. In fact, the opposite seems to be true: the number of poor artists actually increases. To understand why, Abbing distinguishes three groups: a small group who are not poor; second, poor artists, but seen from outside, seem that they “could have” avoided poverty; third, artists who are altogether poor, with the majority belonging to these latter two groups. The third is in the danger zone, but both second and third share a common work ethic: when money comes in, they invest it into their art, buying more equipment, putting more hours into their art job, etc. Their economic condition remains unchanged.

Continue reading at Tokyo Art Beat




Review by M. Downing Roberts

Artists and the Economic Recession

I saw this item last week over at Winkleman's blog regarding the recession and the numerous takes on "where are we now". Some positive observations on the fairs and the gallery situation here in New York. What interested me the most however is the survey Ed linked to. I took the survey and found it comprehensive so I've pasted below the relevant details and encourage artists to take the survey and pass it along to others.

via Winkleman:

Enter Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) [link via the Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America] who have posted an online survey to help gather exactly such data:

Welcome to the Artists and the Economic Recession Survey

Is the recession over for you, or still going strong? As an artist, the conditions you face in this current economic climate should be heard and addressed. The Artists and the Economic Recession Survey invites you to share your experience. This survey is being conducted by Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year national initiative to improve conditions for artists, and supervised by Helicon Collaborative and Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

There is strength in numbers.

LINC has been working with organizations around the country to distribute the survey…but we want to make sure we reach the widest range of artist voices possible, especially artists who may not be part of formal organizational networks. Reaching as many artists as possible improves the quality of this important research, and better equips everyone who advocates for artists and the arts.

In addition to completing the survey yourself, could you forward this to every artist you know?

Completing the survey takes about 15 minutes, and it is offered in both English and Spanish. All responses will be completely anonymous. If you have already taken the survey, please do not take it again. If you complete the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for one of four $100 prizes.

Letters of Note

I'm very excited to have been introduced to Letters of Note. Letters of Note is a blog based archive of correspondence - an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. A fantastic idea and contribution to us all - well done Shaun Usher! The site accepts contributions so if you are a holder of letters you have an audience now. In looking through the site (which is updated several times a day) I'm moved by the scope and historical reach of the content. Truly fascinating stuff.

The above is a rejection letter from MOMA's Alfred Barr to an unknown but not entirely off the radar Andy Warhol.

Transcript
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
19 THE MUSEUM COLLECTIONS 11 WEST 53rd STREET
TELEPHONE: CIRCLE 5-8900 CABLES:
MODERN ART, NEW YORK

October 18, 1956


Dear Mr. Warhol:

Last week our Committee on the Museum Collections held its first meeting of the fall season and had a chance to study your drawing entitled Shoe which you so generously offered as a gift to the Museum.

I regret that I must report to you that the Committee decided, after careful consideration, that they ought not to accept it for our Collection.

Let me explain that because of our severely limited gallery and storage space we must turn down many gifts offered, since we feel it is not fair to accept as a gift a work which may be shown only infrequently.

Nevertheless, the Committee has asked me to pass on to you their thanks for your generous expression of interest in our Collection.

Sincerely, (Signed) Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Director of Museum Collections

Mr. Andy Warhol
242 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York

AHB:bj

P.S. The drawing may be picked up from the museum at your convenience.

Hyperallergic: the 20 most powerless people

Riffing on Art Review's top 100 power players in the art world, Hyperallergic presents the 20 least powerful. I think most of us can identify with this list.

My personal fave:

8 – Anyone living in only one place, as opposed to “between Berlin and Beijing,” or “based in London, Amsterdam, Sao Paolo, and Los Angeles.” Where have you been, mono-urbanity is so 20th century. How do you expect to address globalism by staying put? You probably feel even more like a failure if you were born and grew up in the same city that you currently live in. If that’s the case, you should just fake an accent.

continue reading



(Image via Plugimi Photostream.)

Greenpoint Open Studios - sign up

CALL FOR ARTISTS, VOLUNTEERS AND SPONSORS!

If you are an artist in Greenpoint, you should welcome the news of an open studio event. Long overdo. Here is the link to get involved.

Details:

Greenpoint Open Studios: September 18 – 20, 2009

Greenpoint Open Studios is a weekend long event celebrating a burgeoning art scene in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It is a collaborative effort between artists, organizations, businesses and volunteers to build a creative platform in which all members of the community can foster and contribute to a support system that encourages the sharing of ideas and relationships. As artist studios and exhibition spaces continue to emerge in the neighborhood we hope to facilitate the growth of a thriving art community.

We are currently registering artists interested in participating in the event. All forms and mediums of creative practice are welcomed and everyone is encouraged to organize activities or assist throughout the weekend. There are no set guidelines other than to make the space available during event hours. We are also looking for local businesses and donors to aid in covering costs of the event from fliers and postcards to napkins and bags of ice. Volunteers are the feeding backbone of GOS and we’ll need all the organizational help possible from logo design and blog maintenance to promotional distribution and bartending.

If you’d like to be a participating artist, sponsor, donor or volunteer for the event, or have any questions send us an email at greenpointopenstudios@gmail.com. Until then, please check the blog for updated information and details!
Thank you!

India Street Mural Project launch

North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) and Council Member David Yassky are proud to present the completion of the India Street Mural Project.

After braving Brooklyn’s wettest June in recorded history, the artists are now finished and we are excited to reveal these stunning works with a celebratory day of drinks, music by local bands Japanther, Ninjasonik, Dilian, Small Black and others; chalk drawing sessions and street games; designs by Brooklyn Printmaking Collective, and more. Featuring goods from Cafecito Bogota, Cookie Road, and Plates & Records. Launch Day! also celebrates the neighborhood of Greenpoint!

Launch Day! After-Party will be held at t.b.d bar with mural drink specials from 6-8!

India Street Mural Project Artists:

Ali Aschman, Untitled

Eve Biddle & Joshua Frankel, India Street Rocket

Joshua Abram Howard, Super Duper Sound System

Robert Seng, Knock, Knock

Skewville, Welcome to Greenpoint

Chris Soria, Antiquated Giant

The murals are located on India Street between West Street and the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

There will be a press conference and ribbon cutting ceremony with Council Member David Yassky, NbPac, and other elected officials beginning at 2:15pm.

About the Project:

This project aims to revitalize one of Greenpoint’s many post industrial spaces that have been either ignored or under-utilized by renewing them for the community through public art. Six artists were chosen by a panel that included Charlotte Cohen, (Regional Fine Arts Officer, GSA), Tom Finkelpearl, (Executive Director of the Queens Museum of Art) and Marisa Sage, (founder, Like the Spice Gallery and President of the Williamsburg Gallery Association) to paint six murals at the waterfront end of India Street.

The India Street Mural Project is the kickoff project for North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) and is part of a greater urban revitalization for India Street, the waterfront, and the surrounding neighborhood. It is our hope that these deserted, industrial streets be re-claimed by the community and surrounding neighborhoods.

RE/PAINT RE/BUILD

The North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) is proud to present:

The North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) is proud to present:

RE/PAINT RE/BUILD

A fundraiser to benefit the India Street Mural Project.

The India Street Mural Project is the kickoff project for the North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac), a new initiative whose goal is to work with local artists, community members, arts organizations and businesses in order to increase the presence of public art in North Brooklyn. By doing so, NbPac hopes to beautify, revitalize, and energize the Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick neighborhoods through public art. Visit our website for more details.

RE/PAINT RE/BUILD will take place at Gallery 1889 on June 24th, 2009, from 7PM to 11PM. The event will feature:

· RE/WARD - Silent auction featuring art from the mural project artists (8-10pm)

· RE/FUEL - Food by Chef Michael Sullivan from new Greenpoint restaurant Anella

· RE/CLAIM - Live found object portraits by artist Zito

· RE/DESIGN - Live screenprinting by the Brooklyn Printmaking Collective (bring your screenprintable goods!)

· RE/IMAGINE – Haircuts by designer/inventor/sculptor Dan Harper

DJ Painted will be mixing music all night, and we’ll have wine and beer on hand from North Brooklyn businesses Brooklyn Oenology and Brouwerij Lane.

Tickets are only $20 and can be purchased through PayPal here or by paying cash at the door. All proceeds go to benefit the India Street Mural Project.

Gallery 1889 is a new gallery and event space located at 1066 Manhattan Avenue and Eagle Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The space has been transformed from a long-vacant storefront to a bustling site for art, design, architecture, and unique events. For a map and to find out more about Gallery 1889, visit the website.

India Street Mural Project begins

If you reside in Greenpoint you might want to head over to India St. to view the progress on the new mural project. The artists involved are Ali Aschman, Eve Biddle and Joshua Frankel, Joshua Abram Howard, Bob Seng, Skewville and Chris Soria.

Joann Kim has more at the North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition.

Mass Firings of Faculty at Parsons The New School for Design

Things just get better and better! Now mass firings at Parsons New School of Design. Hrag Vartanian and artcritical.com have the ins and outs.

via Hrag:

This would be ugly under any circumstances but it is particularly ugly in this economy. It is also particularly hypocritical –and socially irresponsible– for an administration and a school that prides itself on its progressive history to take it upon itself to undermine a union so capriciously.

Some background:
You may have heard or read about some of the chaos that surrounds President Bob Kerrey’s stewardship of the New School. The New York Times and The Village Voice (see links) have written about it extensively. There have been multiple firings of Provosts, a vote of no confidence in the president, student occupations of campus sites and overall considerable unhappiness amongst the students and faculty.

[links: NY Times (1, 2), Village Voice (1)]

Despite all this the Fine Arts Department enrollment has been consistently increasing these past five years. The department has been healthy and the community of students and faculty has been lively and progressive.

These firings are part of a larger restructuring of the Fine Arts program aimed at moving away from a focus on art making and contemporary art theory. These curricular changes were arrived at without consultation of part-time faculty and in an atmosphere of fear and secrecy, similar to the nature of the initial reasons for the full-time faculty’s December 2008 vote of no-confidence in President Bob Kerrey. The firings are paired with demotions of senior faculty who have distinguished reputations and many years of service at the New School and Parsons, and the promotions of faculty with less seniority, against union rules.

We wrote a letter condemning these actions and more than 90 percent of the Fine Arts faculty signed it. (Some could not be reached precisely because this was all done during the spring break) As the present administration fears more additional negative press it is our hope that you will join our efforts to reverse these actions by writing an email to the addresses listed below. We have included the original text that our Fine Art faculty sent as its petition. Please feel free to cut and paste from it for your email.

We would also be grateful if you pass the word on to any other concerned academics, artists, union members or –especially– members of the press.

Please identify your email in the subject line: “We stand opposed to the mass firings at Parsons”

PLEASE SEND EMAILS TO:

• President Bob Kerrey: KerreyB@newschool.edu
• Provost Tim Marshall: MarshalT@newschool.edu
• Parsons Interim Dean Sven Travis: TRAVISS@newschool.edu

Transcript of original petition:

We the undersigned hereby affirm our opposition to the summary firing of our valued colleagues from the Parsons Fine Arts department. These fellow teachers and artists have given their time and energy to Parsons for many, many years. They, like all adjunct faculty at Parsons, have worked many hours beyond their contractual commitments and have provided scholarship, skill and guidance to countless students. Furthermore to not rehire faculty in this economic climate is both cruel and socially irresponsible.

While we support the innovations of the school of Art, Media and Technology we cannot do so at the expense of our colleague’s livelihoods. We therefore insist upon an immediate reversal of aforementioned summary firings.

image: NY Times

Office of Blame rising

I was quite pleased to see a mention of the Office of Blame over at Paddy's AFC! The project is the brainchild of artists Carla Repice and Geoff Cunningham, The Office of Blame (OBA) highlights a few fieldwork samples from their archive of blame forms and recorded conversations.

During the presidential elections, I blogged about the project a couple times as they made the rounds of the conventions. I even had the surreal pleasure of subbing in one day here in NY. I'm happy they are getting a much deserved bigger platform. It's a fantastic project with huge potential to screen the national mood and the ghosts that haunt each of us.


Image via: OBA