ArtCall Diary - From The Idea Hamster

ArtCall Diary - Entry 8/29/2000
From The Idea Hamster

Katkitty wanted to write an art call diary, so we let her. Watch out! She is a bit of an Idea Hamster.

Leaving St Anthony Park. The city has just spent 1.5M on police security in anticipation of violent protests against genetic knowledge, the ISAG convention, in the wake of the west coast NAFTA protests. The hobo jungles in Bridal Veil seem to have familiar activist faces. It is time to leave for NYC. Get the luggage out the door for the waiting cab, gather up the cat ( Norman ) into his kat kab for his first away mission, sling the Minolta 3D-1500 over my shoulder almost as an after thought, lock and check the door, and ride away to the airport. Off to Webbittown world wide, on to the romantic skid row district of Manhattan, and Red Ed. Red is on the cell phone, discussing kitty care essentials and the logistics of JFK airport.

As usual in a moving vehicle, the cat sets off incredible distress calls, or at least this is what a human hears. Each new street corner brings a barrage of new information to the animal, the sight of an unusual tree, the smell of a dangerous or unfamiliar cat or dog. Frantically, Norman tries to see out the windows, to see where he is, but it keeps changing. After about a mile, he calms down, until the turn past the Mississippi river. The smell of the river is totally new to him, and his nose is twitching at it, ears alert.

Katkitty knows the person whose cabin is the first on the river, knows they are proud of it, and how clean the river is there, five miles down stream from 'the true source'. Katkitty knows the fecal coliform count in the river makes its first big jump after the water passes that first proud cabin. Hundreds of miles further down stream, the water levels now proudly regulated to the inch by department of natural resources, changing hundreds of square miles of wetland into a valuable recreational resource, is KatKitty home town Grand Rapids Minnesota, also the home town of Judy Garland. There is no welcome to the hometown of Judy Garland sign there, however. The city council did not feel her lifestyle was appropriate.

The cab crosses the confluence of the Minnesota and the Mississippi river, and into the airport. As soon as the cat comes into the airport concourse, he becomes quiet again, as if the hundreds of people in all directions was calming to him.
...
De-planing ( I am sure they wanted to call it 'de-passengering the plane' ). The stewardess comments on the typically unusual mix of passengers in this flight. "I love this flight! We have three children who have never traveled before, none of whom speak english, we have Wall street stock brokers, we have a rock band, we have the Dalli Llama, and a TS with a carry on cat". To be fair, she did not mention the TS part, I supplied that. To be honest, it probably was not the Dalli Llama in the seats ahead of me, but some new converts to a Hindu sect. The painting outside Webbittown headquarters door. Artist unknown.

The painting outside Webbittown headquarters door. Artist unknown.

Bowrey and Delancey. Webbittown world wide. Little room on the third floor over 'The House of Lights. An oddly familiar painting is outside our door. I might have seen it in a biochemistry science conference once. The graffiti on the stairway implies it was abandoned in honor of John Lennon. The painting makes me consider the interactions between a tiny, structured catalyst, and a huge unorganized, changeable collective of receptors. Perhaps an 'ice nine' effect, where the community ( the word in biochemistry is 'rafts' ) could be forever altered by contact with a chemical of just the right shape. Perhaps forever held to its new way of being by a simple change of environment.

It is Wednesday, and a major event in television history, the final episode in the Survivor series airs. Most of NYC yawns. None the less, we invite ourselves into the Calmx studio, where there is a television to watch the show. From Calmx we learn of a new concept art gallery being established by Gail Weinstein, called the Phillip Allen Gallery. For years, I have heard of the gentrification of the East Village, and pondered the effects of ever increasing rents on the artistic community. Visions of a rich but totally dead scene outside Tompkins square park would haunt me, and thoughts of a slow drain of one artist after another to DUMBO, Prague, or Minneapolis. The inevitable eviction of Rays candy store ( symbolic of many other similar niches ) heralding the loss of a critical catalyst to the community.

The Phillip Allen Gallery, a landlord tenant collaboration, addresses the issue in a marvelous way, making a direct 'short circuit' connection between a fourth generation land owner in the Village and the artists that have lived in her three buildings over the years. And there have been many. Even Madonna! ( yawn. I am sure if we cared about pop names, we could find others as well.). The opening show will be called Artification, a play on the term gentrification. Calmx herself will be exhibiting, though technical limitations preclude the appearance of the virtual artist herself, who exists only in cyberspace.

Katkitty was eager to stand up again at the Wide Open Cabaret and try for a little applause this time. It is tough but inspiring to follow acts like Elmer Lang, whose elocution can make even a rendition of Julius Caesar entertaining and electrifying. An opening act by Stefan Eins had spilt green life blood on the floor, and Red Ed's camera captured the spirit coming from it. Katkitty's biochemistry lecture on the self similar fractal nature of evil as evidenced by how a virus works at least did not result in chairs being thrown at her. $katkitty ponders viral DNA packaging and the fractal nature of evit$ Elmer Lang ponders how many sylables in 'Woman'

Elmer Lang ponders how many sylables in 'Woman'

The ABC No Rio space is a result of political action years earlier to claim the building. The building had been warehoused, removed from use in an effort to raise the value of property in the community, actively forcing the gentrification effect to happen. The sense of community at the Wide Open Cabaret is deep. Some of these people, after all, had chained themselves to the floor at one point, to keep the space they had claimed in the East Village community.

Somehow the rumor that I would be performing again the next day surfaced, and I could not think what it might mean. Did Red Ed have something planned? The only thing on our agenda for the next day was at the Collective Unconscious, 'Getting Naked With Gecko'... oh oh. I had seen Gecko's performance work through editing the slide show for the Asylum, and looked forward to seeing her evident command of the stage first hand, but I did not know I was expected to perform, as well!

Getting Naked is about, well, getting naked. A small stage, bare but for some chairs. Gecko places them, loudly. She sets the three for a jazz combo, drum bass and sax, and two for her act. She is dressed in artfully tied light gray gunny sack rags, and a babushka wrap of the same material. Her partner has a tight sequin dress, and a beaded face veil. Her stage presence starts out theatrical and studied, in contrast to the loose familiarity of the Wide Open Cabaret. Here is a slide show of the event: Getting Naked With Gecko
The oppressors are gone.
We have become our own oppressors
A performance event deconstructing the definitions of pornography and its oppression of the collective unconscious. The display of genitalia are necessary to the end means. From U.S.C. chapter 110, section 2256 find these definitions for pornography:
(2) ''sexually explicit conduct'' means actual or simulated -
          (A) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital,
          oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between
          persons of the same or opposite sex;
          (B) bestiality;
          (C) masturbation;
          (D) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
          (E) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of
          any person.
Freedom of speech becomes a conundrum, when the words themselves are a potent drug.

Somewhere in a Kostabi painting.

Any second now the Dom will break into this narrative, upset at the constant churn of thinking, and demand action of some sort. Katkitty has to find an experimental machine shop to satisfy her needs, and get the day moving. The news katkitty brings from Kostabi studios is that living things are showing up in Mark Kostabi paintings. Lush Iris flowers and other growing things, but more importantly, a Cat! is seen slinking, lurking, stalking. A good sign. Much better than the disturbing currents of intense sado masochism flowing from cultural to personal to art photographed by Abby Rennett ( Sub Culture Gallery ) . yet another Kostabi cat

Neighborhood find: Megatech Computer service, on Clinton and Rivington. We noticed their tiny computer shop full of mother boards and parts to build your own computer systems, but really took notice of an abandonded ViewSonic 21PS, a real quality monitor. $5 for a cab, $20 for the odd cables, and hurrah!
Well, almost. We -were- warned, it was a little yellow. The monitor has no blue. Red wants to be blue, 'cause Kat is leaving today, and Webbittown still needs green.

=^.^= katkitty

Jottings: Montserrat Gallery 584 B'way 8/31 6-8, Labor Day 9/4 12-11, Kim Foster Gallery 529 W 20th St 9/7 6-8, Deepdale Gallery 248 Broome 9/8 8-12, Wide Open Cabaret ABC No Rio 9/8 9-1, Harry Druzd Bronwyn-Keenan 3 Crosby 9/9 6-8, Eleanor Ettinger Gallery 119 Spring 9/14 6-8:30, Philip Alan Gallery 30 Ave. B 9/21 6-8, All times PM unless otherwise noted.

photos ©carol braddock aka red ed,
Artwork Permission of Webbittown Corporate Collection, Mark Kostabi
artwork©Unknown, Mark Kostabi

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