NEW YORK ANONYMOUS

We will be publishing a series of diary entries by New York Anonymous, an artist, among other things, kind of guy. This ishis first post. Let's welcome him to idadabase.

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A few days ago a friend of mine called to inform me he was moving to a new apt and asked if I was interested in getting back a painting I had given to him in 2001.meanwhile, I had not seen that painting since 2001 and was anxious to get it back. My first thought, when I saw it? How awful it was.

An abstract painting with swirls and half circles and Pollack strokes, with scribbles and not good colors. The Untitled 20"x54" piece was done on recycled Corian board. I must have been very angry or very unbalanced, no drug enhancement needed.



I brought it home and hung it in my bedroom. Viewing it daily. There were few elements in the painting I liked but compared to what I'm doing now, I felt I had progressed tremendously. I am content with everything creative I have released to the world and was so pleased that Untitled 20"x54" had been returned to me never to see the light of day.

Sunday night, I get a text message from a friend in Chicago. He was in charge of a benefit/auction that I had three works in, All 3 from 2008. None of my work had sold; not even a bid. By the time I got to bed I felt awful and really down in the dumps.

I have participated in so many Auctions/Benefits and the "new work" never sells. Then I started thinking even though my work had progressed, I'd never sold any, maybe 2 in total. The rest were bartered or given away as gifts. I'm going to continue making them anyway.

I thought contemporary art was about new ideas and practices. My new paintings are new and different. I've been told repeatedly (in a good way) they have never seen such a concept before. Yet I am in NYC and a cum shot on Page 6 or photos of naked teens vomiting, or DVD of open-heart surgery projected on a brick wall has more relevance than a 3D abstract painting made from paper.

I compare Untitled 20"x 54" to my (no bid) auction/benefit works and wonder if I had accomplished anything at all since that early awful painting. A Friend of mine tells me it's a good thing, meaning "I'm waaay ahead of everyone else".

BACK IN NYC... A BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH A CITY IN CRISIS

Shops are empty, so as restaurants and the streets. Unlike every other year, tourists are missing from the streets. Shopkeepers are aggressive, but they can't magically put money in the pockets and enthusiasm in the hearts of the few who dare to go in. Obama's hope posters and change buttons are on the walls and on people's jackets, but nobody really talks about politics, instead, everyone keeps checking the stocks on their smart phones.

Last Friday, on the first day of our visit, We ran into a bunch of Vancouver art people in the Art Book Fair. The artist Noam Gonick took us to their booth and treated us with Canadian hospitality. Jeff Khonsari of Fillip mentioned my passionate performance at Jaque Rancier talk in UBC last winter. He had the courage to admit to me how pinpoint accurate I was to calling the French theorist on his bullshit about the impossibility of the end of Capitalism.

melanie O'brien at Artspeak table seemed worried about the state of the economy and the silence of the Canadian media regarding the state of our ever weakening dollar.

Thanks to Illingworth Kerr Gallery, I was able to score a copy of Tim Lee's new catalogue. I may hate the artist for his lack of social skills and his indiscreet display of self importance, but I have to admit, the more I read on his work, the more I like it. Can we like the art and dislike the artist? I think so. But we also can dislike the art and the artist, which is my case with the crap, oh sorry the craft of Brian Jungen. He had donated envelopes of 'art ideas' on sale at the Artspeak for 50 dollars. Excuse my bluntness, but do i need Brian to tell me how I can take some sport thing and remake it into an art object like his now very boring Nike Masks?

Here is a very good article on the state of contemporary art from New York Magazine. I quite enjoyed reading it and happen to agree with the writer.

To be continued...