Saturday March 24, 2007
Catching an early bird special at some polish diner we make out way out to Union Square to take in the farmers market before heading out for the artventure. At one end of the park there are stands for food, handy crafts, and random treasures, the other a crowd of bubbles emerging from gathered folks around a jamming quartette. Its a glimpse into the activities that occur in their spontaneity here in NYC, just like the pillow fight in Times Square a couple of weeks ago. Well into the subway and out to Long Island. As a group we make it to the Sculpture Center. There is a cut out message greeting us in the industrial courtyard. Curious, the reflective ness is brisk and sharp. Inside the building itself there is another cut out message only instead of metal its set up to old school reader boards or play bills. It is whimsical and invasive, due to its larger scale and low setting. I could walk through it and around it, unusual for the playbill style of bulbs and lighting sequence. Downstairs I really dug the paintings by Alex Arcadia. I found that the work was inclusive of playing card decorations. Only did I notice this after spending 5-10 minutes with one piece and make the recognition of the pattern then did I notice it popping up elaborately or subtly in the other paintings. Moving further back into the downstairs gallery I came across various video projects. Two stood out in particular because of their excessive reliance on the space that held the viewer to fully capture their attention. The carefully constructed space then became a functioning part of the video experience and requested interaction on part of the viewer. But the videos were peculiar and still I am unsure what role the content play in their context.
Moving on our way we stumbled into 5 Points, the hot graffiti spot on the edge of Queens. My pointer fingers were immediately itching. The precision and craftsmanship of this stuff, murals, messages, portraits, and pictographs is so amazing it breaches the fantastic. Upon gazing up high and around corners an artist whose studio is in the dwelling was seeking assistance. He took a few of us inside to figure out who was to get into his balloon creations and parade around with the graffiti backdrop for a few photos. This was super cool to get inside the building, witched house many studio spaces, and check out his personal studio space. His education was at some clown school where he became pretty savvy with balloons turning them into large installations.
