ArtCall Diary - Entry 5/20/2000
Leased at Last!
Leased at last! Leased at last! Thank God Almighty we're leased at
last! Now before we jump too far ahead on the timeline, let's get back
to the beginning and clowning around about burgers. Heidi Follin of Follin
Gallery and Paul Kosabi of Poshboy
Records knew that, they checked into Paul's Place (next to Gem Spa)
and ordered some burgers that 'could not be beat'. After a quick trip to
Harlem to get Calmx and friend Marc from Montreal, it was then off to Team
Gallery at 527 26th St.
Chelsea holds a spot in our hearts, particularly on Saturday nights. I
like the desertedness of the area most of the time and once in a
while in all of this desertedness an event breaks out. Team Gallery had
such an event, "Sweden" was the bands name and they seemed to fit right
after Thursday's opening rejection at the American
Fine Arts Co. "Branding - by Territory" was an apt description of the
CD release party, every second person was from Sweden even if the band
members were not. All band members have day jobs as web designers, perhaps
that's why their music was such slick electro-pop material.
PS1 held their annual artist open studio
day on Sunday. I didn't actually have it on the ArtCall
agenda. It was Paul "DJCapital.com" Kostabi that suggested going there
at 4:15pm, and as 4:45pm came and went we waited for his return to Follin
Gallery, the downtrodden chauffeurs that we are. Calmx had her friend,
Marc Fraser in from Montreal, who needed some quick NY culture so off we
chugged in the corporate limo. The drive was extremely fast even for a
Sunday. It seemed as though folks were getting out of our way to help us
get over the 59th St. bridge.
There were tons and tons of folks and bricks around as we entered PS1.
Security seemed to appear from nowhere as we looked at the construction
pit and brick wall art pieces. We were tailed until we finally entered
the building (maybe they thought we were going to piss on the wall). But
I wondered what they thought, we were gonna steal air or something. I hung
out on the steps of the entry and watched some girl rape some guy. I should
have taken a picture, but that would have ruined the moment. I hadn't seen
a girl soooo worked up in awhile.
The art in the place was stunning. I saw this painting of pandas encrusted
with diamond dust and had this opposing free-standing panda on the exhibition
floor, the pandas were talking to each other. The bee-girl performance
video was in the cafeteria where coffee could be had for the reasonable
price of $1.50. I was mesmerized by the video as I drank my coffee. I finally
found my way up to the action on the 3rd floor to find Mark Kostabi shmoozing
with Debora (no H) Warner, the fab sound installation artist. According
to Mark, Baird Jones (nightclub impresario) had been by around 3pm, announced
that "no one was here" and left in a frump. However, it was right after
the Baird left that art world heavyweights such as Julian Schnabel, Will
Cotton and others arrived. We jitneyed Mark back to his Chelsea loft and
then ran over to Tribes Gallery to
find out from Orion Feig that I was two hours late. I decided to call it
a night and get ready for Monday morning and the real estate dealings.
A quick pick-me-up at The Pink Pony and we were decompressed and ready
for a drizzly Monday and whatever it brought. We rang the buzzer at the
185 Bowery office of Jack Soffer, the agent for the building. We were lucky,
no one had made any offers since we were there last on Wednesday. We made
our counter-offer of $650 a month. He accepted it. There was only had one
minor snag, we had only $1,800 in money orders, a quick call to Paul "DJCapital.com"
Kostabi, and we were in business. Payback to Paul was a quick side trip
to Willyburg and a stop at Greenpoint bank for another money order. (Mellon
Bank had screwed up remember? No checks)
At 2:25pm, I rang the buzzer again with $1,950 in the pocket. We shook
hands and the office was ours. I signed the six money orders, two months
of which went into a security deposit. "A one year CD at money market rate
minus 1%" Mr Soffer quipped as he gave us the keys, "The lease will be
ready on the 31st. It (the lease) will start the first of June and be for
one year. You have until the fifth of the month to get your rent in, after
that there is a 3% penalty. Call ConEd and change the electricity and you'll
have to call Bell Atlantic as the room is not wired!" All of this digested,
I grabbed the Office for Rent sign off the door, put it on the table and
snapped the above jpeg. We went over to Kostabi
World where Mark was busy signing paintings. Now that the ArtCall finally
had a headquarters we needed something fitting to do administrative chores.
We picked up this lovely sculpture from Mark entitled "Work Desk" for the
tidy price of 100 options on our I.P.O. stock price, whatever and whenever
that is. We made arrangements to pick it up and get it to headquarters
the next day.
Next entry: A trip to Newark, broken artwork, Hasidic
Depot, CB's 313, The Emergency, computer hostage, laundry on Elizabeth,
midtown mania w/Tina Louise at the Gershwin Hotel/Greeley Sq. Gallery scenes,
and a KONA coffeepot!
Jottings: katkitty
hits town, Matthew Courtney's Wide-Open Cabaret
at 8PM today!, and Headquarters
starts the party June 1st!
photos ©carol
braddock aka red ed
artwork©Mark Kostabi, Tracey Baran, unknown(3),
Sweden
ArtCall Archives
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