I admit it, I didn’t watch the winter olympics. However hard I was rooting for Canada to win a gold in hockey, my lack of TV kept me from the games. But one olympics I was sure not to miss was the first, and hopefully not the last, Art Handling Olympics held today at Ramiken Crucible in Manhattan Chinatown. A bunch of teams of art handlers from institutions, companies and galleries competed in activities like packing, delivering, hanging, the “static hold” (holding really heavy art while a “curator” with a fake German accent barked at them), and “the eliminator,” which included uncrating, assembling, and recrateing a “work of art.”
Before I started working in museums I didn’t know what an art handler was, but quickly realized they are the backbone of the arts world, especially here in NYC. Very few run of the mill people really think about how art makes in from the studio to the gallery or auction house to the museum to the wall, but this is what these guys and ladies deal with everyday. Trucks. Heavy stuff. Impatient dealers, gallerists, curators, and registrars.
Being there felt a little bit like being at Duke Riley’s piece “Those about to Die, we salute you” that took place at the Queens Museum this past summer. It was an art world event. However, it was also really fun to get together and make fun of ourselves in the art world a little bit and make an invisible community a little more visible. Maybe this is what it felt like when bike messengers started having races. Maybe art handling is going to become the next hip thing? Probably not, because I can’t see how it’s marketable in the way bikes are, but I was surprised at how many media reps were at the event, so it definitely sparked some curiosity. It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Category Archives: New York
Appalachian Trail Metro North Stop
Thanks to SMH and other friends the weekends have been full of adventure that is accessible via public transit. We finally explored the section of the Appalachian trail accessible via Metro North (though we had to take a bus from South East due to weekend track work) and it was lovely. I am always so surprised at the idyllic landscapes accessible to NYC. I am beginning to understand the Hudson River school painters and their obsession with the landscape upstate. We had a lovely temperate day, got started down by a herd of cattle and had the Pawling Nature Reserve to ourselves! As a child I hiked the AT frequently during the summers in Maine and New Hampshire and it was pretty amazing to see another segment of it and imagine that I could keep going to Maine… or Georgia.
Those About to Die Salute You
There are few times working as a museum educator and public programmer that I get to feel like an art world star. Usually I’m the one behind the scenes, checking the logistics and making sure everything goes off without a hitch. This week I, along with some of my colleagues, got a chance to be the stars of the show for a change.
When Peter called me and asked me to be involved in something after work on the 13th I agreed, not really sure what he was asking me to do. Little did I know, I had committed myself to taking part in the “art party of the summer,” Duke Riley’s project “Those About to Die Salute You,” the culmination of his residency at the Queens Museum of Art. Duke constructed boats for teams from 5 Museums in the city (Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, el Museo del Barrio, Snug Harbor Cultural Center?) out of reeds that grow in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and fashioned a project based on a Naumacia, a Roman battle in the flooded colosseum, held especially during times of hunger and strife. How fitting, I thought. Little did I know what I was in for.
Despite arriving early and being briefed on the rules, both participants and spectators were given copious amounts of free alcohol and the event began to feel a little more like a bacchanal and less like a scripted Roman battle. I was nervous when we got on our boat and were pushed out into the pool, only to have drunken visitors lobbing rotten tomatoes at our heads and kids ran around in the pool. This was not a family program, people and hey, we were supposed to be the spectacle, not them!
Everything that happened after that was a blur, but I do remember the Queens Museum team illegally boarding and capsizing our boat and me scrambling aboard their boat while beefy guys tried to throw me off. Heck no was I going to let that happen. I couldn’t help but remember my great-grandfather, Captain Patrick, who saved his family by lashing them to the mast of his sinking clipper ship. While the Queens Museum celebrated victory, a climbed up their boat and flipped them (and the crowd) the bird. It probably only lasted 5 seconds, but it was an eternity in my mind.
I climbed out of the pool to find myself bleeding. My wounds got a lot of play and made me a rock star at work today, though my head was still pounding from tomato impact.
See the whole story unfold on the Brooklyn Museum’s flickr stream. Gothamist also did a pretty good write up (and took great photos). The New York Times’ City Room Blog also has a pretty good write up.
Opportunus Gladiators Eleanor quod Mary Jane
I am really looking forward to the Duke Riley organized naval battle on Thursday in the World’s Fair reflecting pool in flushing meadows Corona park in Queens. I love how the artist is basing this project off of the fact that the Romans staged these kind of battles in a flooded colosseum during times of extreme hunger to amuse the pleebs. How fitting for the recession! I hear it will be the summer’s ultimate art party, so please join us (in a toga) at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 13th. For more information, please read Will Cary’s excellent blog entry here: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/bloggers/2009/08/11/the-heat-is-on-2/
Brooklyn Museum vs. MoMA
Now, I say to each their own and I enjoy visiting the MoMA, though I am not sure how I feel about their invasion of the Atlantic Pacific subway stop. I would say “it’s better than advertising,” but it IS advertising. However, this article from the Brooklyn Paper made me laugh, because officially even though the Brooklyn Museum is like “Hey, we’re cool with it,” the journalist and the people interviewed are like “Brooklyn is better! Back of MoMA!” I like the idea of the Brooklyn Museum plastering Times Square with reproductions of their works of art though…
Cheryl “Thanks for Ruining My Prom, Thanks for Ruining My Life”
Oh, I am so excited, another Cheryl and another Cheryl video! See you next Thursday!
Corita “False Maria” Video!
For the past few months I have been playing guitar and singing in a new new band called Corita (for the artist and former nun Corita Kent) with my new and old friends Nick (drums), Marisha (guitar and vocals), and Aileen (bass and vocals). I am so excited to share the video of our song “False Maria” with you all. Marisha filmed this and her husband James recorded us for her school project, so exciting! More from us soon, but for now, enjoy!
False Maria
I Love Mondo!
My new favorite thing to do the first and third Friday of every month is go to Mondo at Don Hill’s. Admittedly, Don Hill’s is a lame bar, but Mondo is an awesome indie rock dance party where they play the best, most danceable songs. They play all the songs I secretly wish I could dance to when I listen to them on my iPod on my morning commute. They also recently played at First Saturday and I loved it (as evidenced by the totally dorky photo here that Dominick took). Dominick shot their set at the Brooklyn Museum and also shot the party last week at Mondo and they are some of the best night life photo’s I’ve ever seen, but of course, I’m biased.
New Favorite Blog
R. bookmarked a his favorite blog for me and I really appreciate it! Bikesnob NYC! So hilarious! So much writing, how does this guy have time to make all his charts and graphs that comment on the state of the world, or at least the state of cycling, all through bike-related nerdiness. I especially like the post about Velibs in Paris and the Great Hipster Silk Route.
Paris first, before the rest…
In July my family went on a huge trip to the South of France, where I had never been. Before joining them, I flew to Paris and spent a jetlagged day and evening there before getting on the TGV with Gael to go to Avignon. Of course our city wanderings took us to Belleville, a neighborhood that has excited and intrigued me since I first set foot in it. To me it seems more “real,” more gritty, less perfect (shall we say, because it’s more working class) than the sparkling neighborhoods of central and western Paris. I’m not the only one who thinks this though, as Belleville is gentrifying rapidly, especially the street in this picture.
Killerfemme 