In the Field 09 - Reconstructing my search for situated art - spring and summer 2013

For a better understanding of the transformative power of art(-ists) I've been searching for situated art practices. In situated art artists include the physical and social environment in their work. In these situated art settings I'm looking for learning oportunities offered to the public. 

March 28th 2013 I had my first meeting with professor Victoria Marsick and professor Lyle Yorks at Columbia University at the upper west side of Manhattan. They appeared to be very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. With Victoria - who is an expert in informal learning or "learning without knowing that you are learning" - I planned to have regular meetings with her together with her husband Peter Neaman who is well informed about the New York art scene. Professor Lyle Yorks immediately gave me a booklet called: "Can art change the world?” reporting a research he had conducted in 2005 on the transformative power of community art. This reading material appeared to be very useful and since the author of the report, Abby Scher, was living in NYC I managed to contact her for an appointment.

I also had conversations with several professors of the Art and Education department of Columbia University and with a number of artists and experts I had been introduced to by my fellow graduate student Lynda Hallmark. So I started with the back up of a dozen experts I could talk to about my quest. First I asked them where to start looking for research cases in NYC. And by the end of April I had a substantial list of people to meet and places to visit. In this blog I will tell you about those who where most interesting to me. This list would expand and specify as I dug into the cases that emerged and talked to curators and artists on the spot.

On hindsight it appeared that two of the three cases I ended up with were already on this early list. Professor Richard Jochum suggested I should check out the Flux Factory in Queens and Sean Justice mentioned an artist group called the Bruce High Quality Foundation (BHQF). But to get to the point of selecting these cases I had to check all the other options, evaluate them and see if I could get a proper entrance into the setting. During this search I made a lot of notes with I will combine with this journal to a final report for my dissertation. 

But I did not come to NYC to just talk to people. I wanted to be part of it and so I paid a lot of visits to museums and institutions like the "Cultural and Educational Centre Clemente Soto Velez" on the lower east side and an artist production and development facility "3rd Ward" in Brooklyn. Events I attended to during this period were "Ideas City" organized by the New Museum and the "Red Bull Music Academy". All these institutions and events had adopted the mission to combine arts and education in a public setting. 

Looking for a place to stay I decided to look for private bed and breakfast on the Internet. So for the period I stayed in NYC I wandered from one place to another living out of a suitcase. This gave me the opportunity to get to know the city very well from different angles and from the inside out. During this first period I stayed in Manhattan at the Upper west side, East Harlem aka "El Bareo", the university quarter Morningside Heights, West and East Village, and in Brooklyn at Prospect Heights, Williamsburg and Cobble Hill.

Sculpture garden and cafe at the Met

As a workspace I decided to use NYC's famous art venues. So I became member of the Metropolitan, the Moma, the New Museum and the Brooklyn museum and used their lobbies and cafeterias to write, meet and study. These surroundings were very inspiring of course, and by checking the libraries and media centers regularly I had a good view on the institutional art scene of the city.

At the same time I also got a good impression of New York's public, popular and informal art because I was changing work and living spaces frequently. By constantly traveling up and about to and from my appointments and visits (I had bought a bike), I prevented getting stuck in a single corner of the city. This way I got a very good feel of NYC's enormous variety of formal, non-formal and informal art, not being guided by institutionalized and commercialized information channels but in the same way as average New York citizens were living their everyday cultural life.

Community Garden Theatre @ Avenue B

This way I ran into lots of venues and events varying from traditional exhibitions and concerts to public pitches in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral presenting creative ideas for NYC's public space. There were also all sorts of cultural neighborhood gatherings at local bookstores, community centers or urban gardens or farms. Whenever my informants had a suggestion concerning my research goals I went to see and check it out, from the Bronx to Rockaway Beach. Besides that I found out that several of my B&B hosts were artists and I used them as random informants. One of them later introduced me to Alison Knowles a prominent member of the Fluxus movement living in NYC.

One simple visit could lead to a whole string of investigation, like my visit to the symposium I mentioned earlier in this blog called "the post modern hangover" dealing with present Avant-garde in literature and art. At this symposium I heard about an anonymous art movement by the name of "Tiqqun" that on first sight reminded me of the Situationiste Internationale. Inquiring this movement I was led to a couple of galleries on the lower east side of Manhattan and I found out that their ideas, especially their writings were helpful in order to articulate my thoughts about my research on the subject of art and social change. It made me understand that I entered a realm that includes not only politics of merry progress but of dark views as well. The movement however seemed to be based in Paris and one of the members appeared to be involved in illegal political activities, so I decided to let this lead go.

Or my acquaintance with artist and professor Richard Jochum who invited me from the moment we met to take part in several of his performances and presentations. This way I ended up as a participant in several galleries and art events: the Elgar Wimmer gallery in Chelsea, the Emily Harvey Foundation in Soho and the Bushwick open studios. 

During these early explorations two cases got most of my attention: Flux factory and a group of artists active within the Occupy movement.

"Jane" (Monica Hunken) speaks to the audience

I encountered the latter during a so-called Jane Jacobs walk in the Meat Packing district organized by the Metropolitan Art Society.Together with other visitors I was led through the neighborhood by a guide who told us about the history and future perspectives of this part of town. His story was regularly interrupted by small and short theatrical performances on location. At the end of the tour I contacted the performing artists who appeared to be activists of the occupy movement seeking ways to inform and mobilize the public on the fracked-gas pipeline currently under construction in Manhattan's West Village.. Since this could be an interesting case for my study I joined their organization for a couple of weeks attending to meetings and rallies.

At the same time I was visiting Flux Factory in Queens. They had a workshop going on in which a group consisted of artists, architects and neighborhood kids were designing and building a "kitty city". (check my earlier report in this blog) 

Opening of Kitty City at Flux Factory

It was a typical setting of situated art: parents, kids, artists and educators working together and at the same time they themselves were actually a part of the work of art. Not in an educational setting or as part of a sucial cultural intervention program but just as they were: creative citizens making art.

Investigating the history of the Flux Factory I found out that they had organized many projects of this type of situated art through the years. They started twenty years ago as early creative settlers in Williamsburg where they lived in an abandoned factory at the now so hip and gentle Kent Avenue. They appeared to be an authentic New York streetwise Avant-garde. So I got in touch with their curator, showed him my art portfolio and he invited me to their "Flux Thursday". This event is a monthly potluck gathering where the artists of FF present and discuss their work in progress. From that moment on I was in the scene as a peer at the work floor and I picked FF up as a case. Now I attend to most of their activities and talk a lot to many of the people involved.

Early Summer June/July

It was my goal to have found and selected at least two cases to study by the end of May. Scrutinizing the settings found so far I had to conclude that only one of them, the flux factory, was really suitable as a case for my research. Becoming slightly nervous I started digging into this case while contacting my supporters to inform them about my very interesting but slow progress. Beside the conclusion to keep calm and to carry on Ruud van der Veen suggested that I should try to focus on the performing arts. Until now most of my inquiry was concerning mostly visual arts he argued and I agreed.

Todd Patrick

So for the upcoming summer months I changed course. I looked up a performance night at "CultureFix", an art space for performance art called "Here", and a circus theatre called "House of Yes" affiliated to the famous "Yes Men". I also talked to Todd Patrick, a Brooklyn based, street famous, cultural entrepreneur who had set up many music and art venues in Brooklyn but also in other towns like Tijuana Mexico.

One of my supporters put me into contact with Thomas Fichter director of the "Earl Brownfoundation" for contemporary music with whom I had several very interesting conversations about the New York art world. He suggested me to check out the "Gramsci Monument" in the Bronx by Thomas Hirschhorn.

Gramsci Monument in the Bronx

In the mean time I found out that Moma's department of education was bringing together contemporary artists in dialogue with Moma educators to conceptualize ideas for developing innovative and experimental public interactions. This project was called: "artists experiment".  In their studio Caroline Woolard had set up an Exchange Cafe where people were invited to barter their talents. These artist experiments are very interesting for my research so I visited the Moma studio several times. However talking to the artist I found out she seriously doubted if this project could be considered to be art and so her practice could not be considered an optional research case. Besides that it was clear that these activities in Moma were set up as a formal or non-formal education program and my focus is on informal (unnoticed, unintended) learning in and around art practices. 

 So I returned to the streets and visited events like the Figment pavilion, the Peace Parade, both on Governors Island and the Mermaid parade on Coney Island. I also watched a "global water dance", an artist initiative also with strong connections to the occupy movement. Later I met one of the choreographers and one of the organizers of these public dance events that intended to raise awareness on water issues in the world. Still I came to a similar conclusion then my prior investigations into the occupy movement: their primary goal was raising awareness and promote social change and according to the definitions I had adapted they belonged to the category "community art", not "situated art".

Left: BHQF rat in the streets of Brooklyn. Right: BHQF rat in theBrooklyn museum

Besides this shift of focus to the performing arts I persisted on the approach of one the cases recommended to me early on: the BHQF. Several experts I talked to mentioned them so I took a second look at the group. During my earlier investigations the problem was that this group operated anonymously and therefore was very hard to approach except through the prestigious agency of Vito Schnabel. If I managed to approach the BHQF through this front door it would be hard to reach the work floor in a low profile way so I had to find another access.

Now on second look I found out that, although Brooklyn based, the BHQF were especially active in the east village. So I started to dig into the rich variety of cultural community life in this neighborhood, visited poetry readings in Tompkins Park, public painting sessions and the many performances in the numerous community gardens of this part of the city.

"Art in the Park" in Alphabeth City

By July I still had just this one case and I was getting a little nervous. It was at this moment when I was working hard to "keep calm and carry on" that new perspectives opened up. And by the end of the month I ended up with three instead of the intended number of two cases.

The second case I ran into during the last Flux Thursday of the season. I was talking to a couple of the resident artists at flux, and after I had explained my research one of them introduced me to Anne Apparu also present at the potluck. She appeared to be the working on another experimental project at Moma called "theColony" at nearby Ps1 also in Queens.

The colony was designed by the Argentinean architecture firm a77 on invitation of the Moma curator of architecture Pedro Gaganho. It actually formed a living space for artists, scholars, architects, and other cultural agents within the Ps1 premises. During the course of the summer several guests were invited by curator Jenny Schlenzka to live at this colony for a week while organizing and hosting public activities.

Anne Apparu and visitors

Artist Anne Apparu would live at the colony permanently as a hostess for these visitors. So I talked to Anne and since the project was already in progress I immediately made appointments for visits and conversations that continued during the rest of the summer. Besides my observations and conversations I also got involved in the debate, presenting my research and my work as an artist, and participating in a think tank at the last day of the colony. Here at this last gathering Anne asked a group of people she had met during the course of the project for ideas and support to continue the colony on location in the city or to redistribute the materials and means.

BHQFU on Avenue A

The third case appeared when visiting the BHQF retrospective exhibit at the Brooklyn museum. I found out that these artists had started a university called the BHQFU that was directly approachable by email. So I sent them a mail and enlisted as a student for this university of which they themselves are not certain whether it is a university or an art practice. So next academic semester I will attend to several workshops, discussions, presentations and events at the BHQFU studio in the east village.

In the mean time I continued my investigations into the first case at the Flux factory. During summer there was not much activity so I used this period to dig into the past of this artist initiative. So I had a couple of meetings and conversations with Flux Factory veterans. I will report on these observations and conversations in the specific case journal.

I also had a meeting with Fluxus artist Alison Knowles and asked her about what she knew about the Flux Factory. There appeared to be no connection and both groups only heard about each other but never engaged. The words "Flux" just like "Factory" were in fashion at that time and expressed nothing more then the space and activities these people were involved in as one of the early Fluxers explained.

So by September my mood was completely reversed. I entered the summer quite desperately and left it behind with the comfortable position of studying three cases instead of two. I also can say that I managed to enter three settings of situation art practices from the bottom up, keeping aloof from data input that might be biased by pr and marketing, and enforcing the credibility of my findings in this way.

And my discoveries continue even after I stopped seeking actively. At the colony I met Alex White Mazzarella, a situation artist with who I share a passion for situated art and a view on what art may mean for common people and every day life. At a recent flux factory event I met Sarah Murkett, an experienced curator working as an art trader at Chelsea. With her I have had very interesting discussions on the value and benefits of art, and the distinctions between high art, commercial art, popular art, mass culture etc.

But from now on I will focus on these three cases and harvest these rich data.