Pacewildenstein, Chelsea

Performance Art

April 30, 2009

I completed 2 installations and as I quipped over dinner Friday, “is it sand painting, sculpture, installation, earthworks or performance?”


All week I’d been anxious. The previous week, Monday-Tuesday I set out to do my first “sand painting”. I’d had the idea for a year, I’d come up with the idea, a solution to drawings whose merit, even though 3 of 12 sold had seemed…incomplete.


Since the work dealt with defunct N.Y. porn theaters, male exploitation images & texts and my fine art community, art galleries, schools and institutions and their marketing practices, the work appealed most readily to New Yorkers. Work sent to the West coast seemed to languish. I did sell a 4th piece to an L.A. collector of mine but generally hardcore and likely gay New Yorkers bought.


On April 30th I caught the Amtrak into N.Y. with a backpack full of cameras, tape measures, triangles, matt knife, cardboard burnisher to sculpt with, paint brushes (since my sidewalk test at home had yielded different results, the rough textured surface required brushes to ‘sweep’ the sand out of crevices where in the barn a flat cardboard ‘squeegee’ could shape, bulldoze and separate grains) my metal straight edge to fill with sand to make strait lines, longer form quarter rounds, a hollow broom handle for laying the straight edge on keeping it off the completed work – like a long maul, and reference images of my drawing and theater ads.


A press release was worked up but on 55th street no one

took it. All “press” were my comments, talk, watching. In 

Chelseaat Pacewildenstein 22nd Street the same but with the 

added benefit of sign-ups, and bloggers and who’d posted it 

was #7 under my name googled. Power. Juliette not only

formed a blog but sent it to quonotes.com, a hot fashion 

website. In fact, she was an out of work designer and took

great interest – though Quotnotes.com dropped it after a day.

Why?


CHELSEA


I arrived few minutes late. An E train had stalled on 34th street so I took a cab. Terrenceo graciously assisted me and very often, especially after I’d instructed him, helped intervene in constructive ways.


One of the early morning conflicts that arose was a young gallery P.A. at Pac who came out, stood very close – and began scrutinizing my 55th Street Playhouse banner. 

He asked what I was doing.

“Sand Painting” I replied.

Then he got to looking at my Alex Katz image, “Are you doing this drawing, this one here? Do you have permission from the gallery?”

I said, “no”.

“You better stop. You better stop now. I don’t want you to waste any more of your time, cause this can’t stay here. I don’t know how far our ownership of the sidewalk goes but I don’t think this is allowed”.

I was concerned, “but it’s ‘sand painting’, it’ll be gone tonight”.

“It’s not glued down.” I shook my head, “you’re not going to etch it somehow?”

“It’s transient. The answer is blowing in the wind.”

He looked genuinely befuddled. Then he threw up his hands, “what do I care anyway. Go ahead,” and shot back into the gallery.


I must have gathered 20 emails, it was like an opening. Silace, over in his metal shop came and chatted, let us use his restroom and was very sweet. When I inquired what kind of work he showed he simply said, “only my own”. We talked about acid etching and sulfuric acid, chemicals that might turn my sand painting permanent.


At least Juliette Merck and 2 other bloggers shot pictures. Terrenceo kept working on pitch lines. I would sometimes have to remind him to change angles or get very wide or close. He got a tremendous amount of coverage. I was so busy pushing and shaping sand I didn’t notice him much of the time.


Sitting on my unprotected bottom on the concrete was a mistake. In a couple hours I could barely stand. It pounds the hipbones making them ache. I began to find standing and walking after an hour span difficult.


It was windy but the damage done was minor. I kept thinking of good copy lines but I’d forget them all by the end of the day. “Sand is fleeting but the memories are eternal.”


Bill Wood, an emaculately dressed fellow, stopped at the end of the day and looked genuinely intrigued. 

“That’s very beautiful”, he said.

He shot back in to the gallery. I got his name nine months later when I had a chance to speak to him. He laughed, “you have an incredible memory.” Actually, I’d been kicking myself for 9 months for not getting his name when he commented.


We were shooting to finish by 6:00 the art walk but even editing a little copy at the bottom it was 7:00 before we wrapped. The flow from the art walk was small and we realized Pace on 25th, I as at Pace 22nd Street, had a huge Chuck Close opening. I hit myself on the head. I’d reversed the locations to play off ALEX KATZ on 22nd street but missed that opening. But I could have done it at Chuck Close’s opening and just thrown his name in instead. I added Chuck’s name on the fly and realized too late that as a performance painter improvisation is easy, cheap, quick, and essential. Sad as I was that the day didn’t end in a bang being amongst those huge opening would have given me hundreds more viewings – I saw how it could be done in the future.


Terrenceo assured me we would hit big crowds. He knew a gallery scheduling website which I could coordinate with. Weather would be an issue - but not today.


Sand painting in public wearing a white tux shirt and tie, jeans and kneepads was very exciting. I don’t think of myself as a performer but I’ve always been unafraid to draw or paint in front of others. The time equation both entering, executing and dissolution all become powerful elements the more hours you labor the more honorable the exercise.


Black sand on concrete that washes away and is a non-moneymaker is much more funereal than celebratory. Terrenceo, May 1st said “your line has to be ‘this is work about the transience of community” but in honesty it’s about the major impact on art history of the gay NY community that most heterosexuals dislike honoring, discussing, even recognizing. It’s almost institutional guilt exposed.


How appropriate that I would get involved in a social cause. Terrenceo says I need to tap the gay community. I need to tap the Broadway community.