I go to gallery openings the way some people go to the movies. The fact that I have the opportunity to see some of the freshest, most interesting, and beautiful art objects and ideas – several times a month is a true luxury and pleasure of living in a vibrant metropolitan city. I’ve gone to 10-12 art openings a month for the last two years in Dallas. Sometimes the opening is at a person’s home, sometimes via a nonprofit, sometimes in Deep Ellum or Expo Park, other times in the Design District. However, what most gallery openings, especially those in the Design District, have in common is that I will see no one who looks like me. Namely, sometimes I am by far the youngest person in attendance (although with a recent 25th birthday that will soon no longer be the case). Often I am by far the blackest person in attendance (although occasionally there are some other friendly brown faces I run into). Almost always I am the only young black male for miles and miles around. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this. An art gallery is not a non-profit. It is a business who has a defined market and limited resources. As such there is no obligation for an art gallery to “serve the community”. However, this raises a very important question: Who Is Art For? Contemporary art is often for rich people. In the past art was for the church, nobility, the Dutch merchant class, and now anyone who can afford the art. However, unlike music with the vinyl turn tape turn cd turn mp3 (turn free?) for the most part art never figured out how to become small, cheap, and easily replicable. So, it has stayed elite. In fact, even more so than wine, there is a certain amount of knowledge that is necessary to appreciate a lot of contemporary art, or even know what is going on. This is one reason sports are more popular than contemporary art – I might not know the rules but I can see people in different colored jerseys and someone can tell me the score. The score in visual art is much less intuitive but there is a score – contemporary art is competitive. First there is the simple question of how many galleries can be supported by a finite collector base. Then there is which artists those galleries choose to exhibit in the finite amount of shows they can have per year. Then there are the competing ideas about what art should be (which often includes an answer to who is art for) and what art matters. Curators, critics, collectors, gallery directors, auction houses, schools, and museums all have their say – they all pick winners and losers. And there are people who believe that art should exist outside of all of these factors – and that is but another competing idea. I want the art I show to be for anyone with a sense of upward mobility. In the words of Dave Hickey, I believe art is for those who still have hopes of moving from food service to cocktail. The art that most excites me right now utilizes new technologies, incorporates modern ideas, but roots them back into a physical object or an image that is startling and beautiful. I think any media is capable of this – but artists working in mixed media, installations, new media, and event/performance art tend to be arriving at more interesting solutions for the age-old questions of how best to express our hopes, desires, feelings, spirituality, and reality. 1111 Gallery will do additional programming outside of the normal coordinated Design District walks that will focus on getting a younger market to not just look at the art, but to become art patrons. Because although I don’t believe it is an art galleries purpose to serve a community – I do believe that galleries work best when they can create a community. And that is the beautiful thing about creating a community – you can do it, and you can do it now. Although 1111 won’t necessarily be a revolution or art by democracy – we will be intentional about creating an environment that is appealing to a wide breadth of intellectually curious individuals. And we will also be intentional on figuring out how a wider range of people can financially have a stake in this game we call contemporary art. Why You? Because there is no one better. Why Now? Because tomorrow isn’t good enough. I hope you join us on our journey. 
Yeats, Monet, Bach… In the daily turmoil of our lives, we often forget about art. We don’t read as much as we think we should, we don’t watch all the films we’ve been recommended, and a trip to a museum is a once-a-year (if that) kind of occasion. We’ve shoved art aside; it has lost its importance. Or so we think.
What we seem to frequently forget, however, is that the very act of living itself is made up of artistic masterpieces, one by one, colliding into each other. Human relationships are art, and the most exquisite of these is the one single connection that has managed to evade capture by our feeble words, hands, and minds: love.
Love has been pursued by the most capable of hunters, and as a result we have libraries, museums, and iTunes playlists full of homages to the one ethereal higher power we all seem to be capable of worshipping. We have tried to capture love by giving it a name (the insufficient “love/amor/愛/etc.”), turning it into a symbol (the “heart,” which is really just a variation on a circle, indicating love’s endlessness), and rallying behind it as a mantra (all you need is love). But love is a fickle beast; it manages to skitter away right when even the most capable of human thinkers and creators believe they have cornered it.
To put it simply, love is a masterful combination of ineffable emotions and chemicals. It’s the driving force of humanity, the reason we work, the reason we dream, the reason we breathe. We each long to catch a glimpse of the deity Love at least once in our short lives, even if it may only be through a muddled reflection in a broken mirror. Though incomplete, that one shimmer of the Divine, as philosophers of yore might attempt to label it, will be enough. Love, and the simple knowledge that it exists, is enough to sustain us through our journeys through the dark valleys, because we are confident in its ability to supply the nirvana that occurs when we finally reach the summit, even if we are not meant to linger there for long.
The greatest pieces of art are not, then, comprised of our insufficient mortal imitations, but rather the source of our inspiration itself: love. Love is the most effective and yet the simplest form of communication we have yet devised. Love, in its many infinite and equally meaningful forms, can exist anywhere two people are together, sharing a moment in the swirling current of time, as they each acknowledge the pulsing beat of life radiating from within the other and know, without a doubt, that they are not alone. We live to love, which is to say we live to appreciate the life in others and have our own reality similarly validated. Every piece of “art” that stems from this force is really just a microscopic piece of a cosmic puzzle that all humans across the ages have been trying to put together. Our art attempts to capture the essence of the only real art in our reality, the great and powerful crazy-little-thing called Love.
--Amy Kristen
The tactfully side-stepped charade, the superficial patter of plastic tongues clicking against plastic roofs of mouths rattling in plastic heads garnished in metallic sparking shine
And the constant hummmm, the bass beneath my feet at 3:00 on a Tuesday night/morning and the vibrations of hills of encased iPhones being answered with headsets and insincere HELLO?s bellowed at maximum volume to disguise the insecurities hidden beneath the words
And the tap tap tap of five-inch-high heels and glinting patent leather on glass, marble, gold floors walking to a hollow destination at a pace that suggests the end is near, leaving trails of glitter glistening in the heels' red-traced path
And the clouds of dollar bills resting on the thick green layer of smog that hovers above the city, wilting and crumpling and decaying as the ragged frail underbelly stretches out its withered hands from miles below, watching as the paper crinkles into ashen dust
And the rush and dip and swirl of a world disguised by a shot or a smoke or a snort or a swallow and the thud as her head hits the wall and the wet warmth in the dark
And the colors and flash of lights and the big grand display, come one come all to the greatest show on earth, and the swiveling heads with hungry hypnotic eyes leering and luring and reaching into the pockets of the entranced
And the nails, the claws, the jagged teeth of fights staged in cages amongst the lions and bears and tigers but tastefully adorned with a lace pink bow and stardust and the rusty dagger dragging down his back
And me
And this city.
--Amy Kristen
We use it all the time: hard
But only they know what it means
The electricity in your veins
The foot that twitches
The pounding in your head
Bang-bang-bang
Sending a message
Maybe I hurt
But the source cannot be found
And the source hardly even matters
There’s a bicycle that makes a noise
Clank-clank-clank
The wheels turn, the rider flies smoothly on
And yet.
The multitude of voices
Singing praises, sending prayers
Attempting aid with their minds
But it sounds more like a
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
A sea of love that never reaches the dry, awaiting sands
What good can the vibrations of a larynx do
When the grounds of the earth are shaking
When the ants have stopped marching
When at last the only sound is silence.
--Amy Kristen
Dear Diary,
I find myself constantly saying, “Things are always the same”, but they never are.
I have a friend; we used to be the best of friends, but lately, we just don’t land on the same page like we used to. I’m not sure whether she’s growing bored of me, or if I’m growing bored of her, but I just don’t see that light that used to shine bright. It has grown dull, unoriginal, and desperate to intrigue, or maybe I’m just now noticing. That is how I know things are constantly changing. That is how I know I am not stuck in the same spiral of good laughs and new, interesting conversations.
The year, it passes through, attempting to be discreet about its development, though it only accentuates its growth by making some pleasantly extroverted, while others, it keeps locked away in memories of the year before. It makes some chipper with its annual warming and those afraid to melt, are left like popsicles out of an icebox. That is how I know things are constantly changing. That is how I know I have the opportunity to burn and go out without heavy layers of skin.
I am different; I am forever changing.
- astruso.
I just got back from a service trip with my middle schoolers in Little Haiti.* It's amazing how much energy you get from teaching (though it always leaves you dog tired). After 10 hours in the van, with another hour of driving ahead of us, I turned to my kids and said, “I love y’all but I am ready to go home.” Undoubtedly they agreed. Not that we weren’t having a good time! We filled the hours with stories and sleep but mostly music.
Music flowed throughout the whole trip as we picked our themesong, danced on the streets of Little Haiti and all of us, students and chaperones alike, felt the joy and pressure of sharing our music with the masses.
Initially we played it safe, sharing music that you’d hear on the radio or that you knew would be appreciated by your friends. The generational gap furthered the divide; students inundated the car with contemporary hits while chaperones dug into our ipod’s crates to find that “You ain’t up on this!” classic of yesteryear.
But really, how many times can one listen to Black and Yellow** or No Hands?
When it was my turn to plug in my iPod I didn’t know where to start.
I got caught between playing music that is dope and music that they (my fellow passengers) would like. My taste is fairly eclectic and I generally listen to music that helps me write (lyrics and otherwise) but it got me thinking about the difficulty that comes into making any kind of art.
I think the best art hits people on a variety of levels. You get the high end, intellectually stimulating stuff that still gets people interested who are like, “Ooh, that’s shiny!”
I’d much rather make an artifact than be hot but isn’t the truly timeless able to do both?
I don’t buy albums as much as I used to*** but one album I’m absurdly excited for is Lupe Fiasco’s latest effort.
I thought this album was NEVER going to come out after fans had to protest and petition just to get a release date but the fantasy is now reality.
I’d read that Atlantic wanted him to have a more commercial appeal and I believe Lupe has been able to achieve that with the records I have heard thus far off of Lasers.
Lupe is an emcee after KRS’ own heart. He is a master of edutainment. From I’m Beamin’, to The Show Goes On, Lupe uplifts and empowers while giving you a lil’ something to dance to.
On an interview with DJ Semtex, Lupe called “All Black Everything” his best song yet. And he is absolutely right.
I’ve been playing it all day! Reminds me of a sermon I heard that talks about how one can tell unconditional love. When it's real, it adds value.
It’s not just about the hottest song, or using music to pass the time, the best art feeds the soul.
*They managed a fantastic blog with a ridiculously long name.
**Black and Yellow has successfully supplanted A Milli as the most over-remixed song of all time. (Sidenote: Did you know the official video has 45 million hits on youtube?! Applaud this man.) There should be a Rushmore for this sort of thing.
***As it is currently, mixtapes>>>albums
My first Star Wars toys
Originally uploaded by Mike McInnis
Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This "pre-adulthood" has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men.
Tyler "The Creator" of OFWGKTA , the "Golf Wang" west coast skateboarding crew is pushing forth odd.future culture along with some awesome music and blogging to match.
Yonkers from Tylers upcoming album entitled Goblin is enough to make Lil Wayne and his "a milli" Young Money troupe of clowns actually sit down a write something mainstream that could possibly stand up with the greats, the hip hop narrators and poets, the rappers instead of the entertainers. An obvious artist, Tylers' word play and delivery are unlike anything that I have ever seen in West coast hip-hop. He's not rapping solely about weed and California girls, he's posing thoughts about masculinity, consciousness and absentee fathers.
An image that the youth is currently attracted to...dark, uninhibited, and strong enough to shock the lovers of indie-turned-commercial innovators such as B.o.B and Bruno Mars who had to change up their sound and style to adapt to mainstream music, art like this takes me back to a few questions I've posed on Art Star in the past.
Can you sell art without "selling out"?
I was watching a clip on T.V. One where Cathy Hughes (Founder of TV & Radio One) interviewed comedian Martin Lawrence and inquired on why producers always place black male actors in dresses, Many believe this is conspiracy to feminize black men in the media, something I don't believe is necessarily true as male comedians of all ethnicities have portrayed the opposite sex at some point in their careers, He responded with this: If they saw those fat checks I get for wearing a dress they wouldn't have nothin to say.
Would you "sell out" for a few bucks? Trade your dignity and values in for mere...stuff? What happens when public figures such as artists, journalists, and politicians start taking checks as opposed to informing and being the voice of the people? We are in a time where individuals are stepping up to be heard, voicing their opinions and fighting for their rights.
What happens when that voice is silenced, when people stop saying things that are worth knowing?
I heard Yonkers when it first came out and debated on whether I should publish it because of Tylers negative lyrics about Jesus and his obvious need to point out that he's an atheist (What is the point of constantly commenting on what you don't believe in?), over a million views (and 10 replays) later and its apparent that although "Tyler had to hang himself to get a million views" and his delivery is a bit atypical, people are now listening and I'm excited to hear what else he's got to say.
And pick up Stevie Wonder to be the wide receiver
Green paper, gold teeth and pregnant gold retrievers
All I want, fuck money, diamonds and bitches, don't need 'em
But where the fat ones at? I got somethin' to feed 'em
In some cookin' books, the black kids never wanted to read 'em"...
8<3Track Honey
Sipkin, Antonelli/News, Mordovets/Getty
I had two friends in college who, during overlapping eras, were generally considered the flyest sisters on campus. They both pretended to not know this while wielding their power.
One sister had them flocking from the summer before her orientation. Facebook was still a novelty then but fellas knew enough to use it like Mel Kiper’s Big Board. Her everyday photos were the talk of the town, upperclassmen and incoming students alike undoubtedly anticipated their chance.
I was in a relationship at the time and viewed the sister as just that. I had no intentions toward her, having known her from the independent school circles back home (where one of my homeboys ADORED her), it was just cool that she was coming to Davidson. As wholesome as I was, even I subconsciously engaged in the free agent pursuit.*
Now, I told you that I knew everybody was going after her but it wasn’t until one particular evening that I realized how absurd it really was. I went down to her dorm room to see how she was doing and literally saw a line of brothers waiting to chop it up. Her fineness transformed a dorm room into the DMV.
She was braiding one guy’s hair (the frontrunner at the time), getting help with class from another, talking about music with a third, and getting invited to a step show by a fourth! Having known her the longest (and still having no untoward feelings, consciously at least) I stepped past the crowd and exchanged pleasantries. The intrigue had its ebb and flow; (it’s not like she got less fine) but no one really succeeded (I define success in this situation as being a publicly acknowledged situation). Many found solace in saying “whatever” but still found time to ridicule her ex-boyfriend—another student—for letting her get away.
This episode taught me a valuable lesson that I want to share with you in light of the Carmelo Anthony situation. Teams, like thirsty upperclassmen, often fail to realize when they are being used. They might have valuable assets but it’s all about timing.
Let’s take the Nets for example. Do they have a bright future? Absolutely. Young players, cap flexibility, draft picks (and the win drought that guarantees the quality of those picks) and the eventual move to the county of Kings. And it is those things, save Brooklyn, that they are offering for Melo’s services. If he did wind up in Newark, is Carmelo really getting anything better than what he had in Denver?** No.
For longtime Art Stars, y’all know I’m a Knicks fan til eternity. Bias aside, Melo makes sense for the Knicks. It took me a while—had to let the burns heal—but I’ve talked myself into the proposed trade of Felton, Gallo, Eddy Curry’s snacks, and Chandler for Melo, Billups, and etc. I really believe this trade lets us walk away with a better team for the playoffs and Billups will be washed up right in time for us to chase Deron Williams. (I want no parts of Chris Paul’s knees. Him and Amar’e will look like a couple of Golden Girls by the time that arthritis sets in.)
It’s not even like Melo on the Nets makes them a threat. They’re being used. (In this analogy Denver is the girl and Melo is said girl’s fineness.) The Nets are driving up the price to the point where the Knicks (if Jim Dolan can find somewhere to sit down and shut the hell up) might have to say, “You alright but…nah I’m good.”
Without the Nets being so thirsty, the Knicks could just wait til free agency and give Melo a max offer under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. But just like all the brothers in the dorm room, the Knicks are gonna have to do a little bit more to stand out.
Which sucks.***
But I understand where the Nets are coming from. Melo is a great player and if you can make the move for him, you’ve got to, right? I’m reminded of the many times I’ve chased a girl that a friend of mine also fancied. The second girl, aforementioned in the first paragraph, created a rivalry between one of my homeboys and I. I didn’t stand a chance but kept on trying, unfortunately driving up the price for him. He ended up with her and now they are far from friends. I kept it moving with my proverbial draft picks (read: my dignity and sanity) and will be married in June.
Peace.
*At least that’s how the lady I was with saw it. Perhaps this was because I—once again, subconsciously—walked my own girlfriend off the sidewalk to talk to her or would end arguments by saying, “Screw this, I’m gonna go see how (aforementioned sister) is doin!”
**Aside from helping to create a murderer's row of player's wives/girlfriends (Kim Kardashian, LaLa, and occassional visits from Beyonce is a legendary lineup)
***This is not like LeBron being a free agent and every team having a right to throw their hat in. Melo ain’t even that good. And the Nets are the only ones messing this up for my squad!****
****If the Nets really do mess this up for the Knicks by either obtaining him or making us trade everybody but Amar’e and Spike, I hereby renounce New Jersey. It’s that real.
I was not born an Art Star.
Not that there is anything wrong with that – it just isn’t my life.
Jeff Koons
2. Confidence
3) Daring
Myth #1 You need to be “qualified.”
Debunk#1 You need to have relationships
Myth #2 : You should set “realistic” goals.
4. The Internet
5. Maximize Strengths first, then worry about weaknesses.
6. Ignorance is Bliss
7. Persistence
8. Tell a good story.
Activity #3
9. Successful People do what unsuccessful people don't.
10. Kickstarter
Two of my closest friends are modern art haters, they "just don't like it", opting for more classical and ancient art styles while remaining unappreciative of contemporary works. I have separate appreciations for both, I love the majesty of classic art and the fresh exciting and unconventional ways that modern artists push the envelope. There are so many mediums available today such as a/v and certain establishments in science that have completely changed the art game, and in a time where everyone thinks they can become an artist (thanks to blogs, social media, photoshop etc.) we need to regroup and reinvent now more than ever. Modern art does the unthinkable, not many individuals can morph woman into alien insect, make every human being on earth share one skin color, and redefine film making.
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| Select images for photographer credits via flick |
From global artists to neighborhood innovators, every meaningful work counts and London based artist Ben Wilson has re-purposed a substantially unconventional canvas to send his messages to a broad scope of viewers.
Wilson began working with chewing gum paintings in 1998 and in 2004 they became his primary project. There are currently over 10,000 of Wilson's works in the UK extending across all countries in Europe. Each message tells a story, whether it be a current event, life lesson, death of a loved one, or a tale of British culture. Taking up to 10 hours to create, Wilson torches the gum, applies lacquer to harden its surface and begins painting his miniature works using acrylics.
8<3Track Honey
