CO-OP at b.j. spoke Gallery [Opening Reception, 9/8 report-back]

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Photo Credit: Katherine Criss

Saturday, September 8 marked the opening of CO-OP in Huntington, Long Island at the venerable b.j. spoke gallery. CO-OP is the Occupy with Art experimental collective project to integrate the 99% art economy with the cooperative food economy. Many of the bj spoke artists in the front and back galleries displayed powerful political artworks for the exhibit. True to Occupy form, we started the evening with street protest, thanks to Occupy Huntington. The good people of Occupy Storefront contributed a couple of last minute entries to our exhibition component, which added a lot of color to the array. The food spread and beverages were terrific, shared by the bj spoke artist community, the OwA participants (Chris baked a great pie and tarts) and our generous sponsors, Blind Bat Brewery. We had a terrific crowd for the reception, starting before the door opened at 6pm and continuing well into the evening. At 7pm, I made a performance art, throwing darts at my portrait of Mayor Bloomberg. It was a hit (actually all of them were)! Then, Chris and I gave brief talks about the project and Occupy with Art. Thank you to all who contributed to what was a wonderful evening of sharing art, convivials + passionate resistance and/or creative insistence. Special thanks goes to Marilyn Lavi, bj spoke director, Katherine Criss, and the bjs crews and committees who were vital in the actualization of this worthy collaborative project. Artist-owned and operated co-operative businesses are essential in a healthy arts ecology, and bj spoke is a great example and demonstration of that fact! - PJM

[OAS NODE #1]: More about Bat Haus & things to do in our Bushwick neighborhood

Here is the current look of Bat Haus, a co-working space and community nexus in Bushwick.[FROM THE BAT HAUS BLOG]:

Bat Haus is located at 279 Starr Street, Brooklyn NY, 11237 (Bushwick). We are right off Jefferson stop on L train, about 25 mins away from Manhattan.

Here are some of our neighbors:

1. The famous Tortillera Mexico taco joint is right next door from Bat Haus! 
2. Awesome local dive bar, Pearl’s Social & Billy Club (one block away),
3. One of our favorite get-together places, The Bodega Wine Bar (one block away), 
4. Great local food at Northeast Kingdom (one block away),
5. Organic and natural food market, Hana Natural (one block away), 
6. Super chill Wyckoff Starr Café (one block away), 
7. Delicious brunch at Café Ghia (two blocks away),
8. Ridiculous cheap but delicious food at Tina’s (ten min walk), 
9. Great brunch, great drinks, great dance parties at Tandem Bar (five min walk),
10. New cafe down the block, The Cobra Club (one block away).

Bat Haus is a coworking space (what is that?), co-founded by Cody Sullivan and Natalie Chan. You can find our little story here and an article with Natalie’s crazy jumping pics here. 

[CO-OP]: @b.j. spoke Gallery [BETA][Draft]

Image by Paul McLeanCO-OP at b.j. spoke gallery
by Paul McLean
Co-organizer, Occupy with Art

1

A half-block from the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street in Huntington, Long Island, you'll find b.j. spoke gallery. Here's its history, from the gallery website:

>>
b. j. spoke gallery, incorporated and not-for-profit, is an artist-run gallery of professional artists with a broad diversification of styles and media.

April 1990 marked the inaugural show of two newly merged Long Island cooperative galleries, Northport Galleries and B. J. Spoke Gallery.

Spoke Gallery began in 1976 at a Port Washington site and later moved to neighboring Sea Cliff, New York. In 1980 Northport Galleries was established in Northport and seven years later moved to Huntington, NY.

Because of the ongoing friendship of the two galleries, the idea of a merger was enthusiastically accepted in 1990 by both memberships.
<<

2

b.j. spoke is divided into three areas. Occupy with Art in September of 2012 will present CO-OP in b.j. spokes' central gallery. Our location within the brackets of the other two galleries, which will show member artists, reflects OwA's desire to support the mission of this important Long Island art organization, which has long advocated partnership between the artist and public as an "essential relationship."

Since the first exhibit OwA facilitated, "Occupy Printed Matter," in 2011, Occupy with Art has sought to establish bridges between Occupy Wall Street's artist activism and the artist activism that has emerged since the 70s in New York, and around the world. In "Wall Street to Main Street," for example, we partnered with renowned curator Geno Rodriquez, founder and former director of the Alternative Museum. OwA worked with Yoko Ono to manifest her project in support of OWS, "Wish Tree for Zuccotti Park." Now, with CO-OP, we are calling attention to the important contributions of artist-operated non-profits like b.j. spoke in providing important venues for underserved artist communities in areas outside major retail art markets. b.j. spoke and galleries like it have done great service to the 99% art world and the people for whom art is more than a luxury item or vehicle for speculation.

3

CO-OP is a dimensional art project. CO-OP is first and foremost a small collective show, an exhibit, as such. It is a template or model for occupational art practice, demonstrating one way that Occupy artists can partner with pre-existing arts organizations as an expression of solidarity. among 99% artists and our communities. CO-OP is a conceptual project, in which we will link co-operative food networks and artists within the medium of gift exchange for mutual aid and benefits.

4

Conceptual art typically requires an explanation for the viewer to engage the artwork or process fully. Concept, or idea art, is often meant to start conversations. OWS, which has started or re-started many important conversations, has itself been described in terms of art. CO-OP is meant to start conversations about sustainable art and artist economies for the 99%. OwA co-organizers are drawing on the successful history of co-operative food networks, as inspiration for propositions about new methods of exchange for art.

To summarize what has been a discussion spanning many months, OwA will partner with the Huntington food co-op (OwA co-organizer and Huntington resident Chris Moylan is one of the owners) to intertwine the exchange of art for co-op members, with the exchange of food for artists (or money, as a default or swap). Our art for food exchange, in this initial attempt, is rudimentary: the values are based on 1 to 1 ratios. An artwork valued at $20 can be exchanged for $20 worth of food. Huntington co-op members will be invited to select art and the artists will select food items for straight barter.

We will consider variations on the exchange (enthusiastically). The paper bags installed in the space with the art work are included primarily as symbols and signs of our micro-economy. CO-OP permits contemporary art to enter the consumer portable sector of the cultural economy, for which the brown paper bag has long been a staple. However, you'll see that our shopping bags are not exactly like those branded types a shopper fills with goods in SOHO, for example.

Gallery visitors are welcome to purchase art exhibited by CO-OP artists at full retail prices. b.j. spoke artists' work will not be included in this iteration of CO-OP, which is being conducted as a test of the process, essentially. CO-OP is also meant to raise awareness of local alternatives to the global art markets of Chelsea, for example, or the international art fair circuits.

We hope you enjoy CO-OP. Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions or feedback.

artforhumans [at] gmail [dot] com


OAS Node #1 [Prospectus][BETA]

Updated on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 01:34PM by admin

[SUMMARY]:

The Occupational Art School proposes to conduct a three-month long residency at Bat Haus in Bushwick. The programming will consist of workshops, screening series, a reading group, exhibits and other arts, cultural and educational exchanges. What follows is a suggested outline of the residency, created with the idea that we can adapt it to better suit the space, to meet client needs and interests, and to accommodate artists and instructors who approach us with interest in participating in OAS@Bat Haus. 

Click to read more ...

WS2MS Wins AMO Grant Award!

OCCUPY WITH ART is pleased to announce that our project with Greene Arts, "Wall Street to Main Street" is one of the first Art Is My Occupation support grant recipients! Thanks to AMO (Gan, et al.) for your recognition and material assistance, and congratulations to all the other recipients!

Click HERE to see all the winners!

OPEN CALL: FREE ART FOR FAIR EXCHANGE AT THE 2012 ARMORY SHOW

Piers 92 & 94, New York City
Saturday and Sunday, March 10th & 11th
1-4pm
FB event page

Occupy Museums invites all artists and non-artists to join a mobile exchange art fair on the sidewalk outside of this year’s Armory Show in New York City. Participants are encouraged to bring items such as paintings, drawings, sculpture, conceptual art, crafts, food, and other objects to exchange with Armory attendees and each other. We particularly welcome modes of exchange are not based on profit.

Click to read more ...

OWS Arts & Labor [M4 Meet-up]: Alternative Economies

Alternative Economies: Seeing, Naming, Connecting, Strengthening, Creating

• March 4, 2012
• 3-6 PM
  

#OccupyWallStreet has cracked open a little hole in history, creating a moment where some of the very core institutions of our economy are called into question. Along with indignation and outrage, there is a certain excitement in the air. Things that have been terrifyingl...y stuck seem to be moving. Something seems possible today that wasn't just a month ago. In this space, our conversations and our imaginations are buzzing. What are we doing? What should we do? What's coming next? -Ethan Miller, Occupy! Connect! Create! Imagining Life Beyond ‘The Economy’

The second Arts and Labor Alternative Economies Teach-In looks to the model of the Solidarity Economy as a strategy for organizing new art economies. Rather than waiting for revolution, the solidarity framework allows us to begin where we are, to identify the struggles within our current economic structures, and to imagine alternatives. Built around values such as cooperation, individual and collective well being, social justice, ecological health, democracy, and diversity, the chief principle behind the Solidarity Economy is that rather than creating a new blueprint for society, our task is to identify the alternatives that already exist through the activities of seeing, naming, connecting, strengthening, and creating. How can we apply these principles of the solidarity economy to organize different alternative structures for work, life, art, and labor? Come be part of the conversation.

Schedule: 3:15 PM: Tour of 4th Arts Block led by Tamara Greenfield, Executive Director. Maximum Capacity: 20. Please RSVP at owsartsandlabor@gmail.com.
4-5 PM: Presentation by Cheyenna Weber and Caroline Woolard of SolidarityNYC
5-6 PM: Discussion

Contact: owsartsandlabor@gmail.com
http://artsandlabor.org/alternative-economies/

Click to read more ...

OWS ARTS & LABOR TEACH-IN: Alternative Economies: Occupy, Resist, Produce

OWS ARTS & LABOR TEACH-IN
Alternative Economies: Occupy, Resist, Produce
300 Nevins St., Brooklyn
February 19, 2012, 3-6pm
Contact: owsartsandlabor@gmail.com

So far remotely done power and glory–as via government, big business, formal education, church–has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains, a real intimate, personal power is developing–the power of individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Preface to the Whole Earth Catalog (excerpt)

Like Stewart Brand’s infamous Whole Earth Catalog, this first installment of the Arts and Labor Alternative Economies Teach-Ins is chock-a-block with practical tools and impossible ideas. Today, people talk about alternative economies using all kinds of terms: The Commons, Solidarity Economies, Communization, Inclusive Democracy, Participatory Economy, Anarchist Consensual Democracy, Libertarian Municipalism, and even bolo’bolo. Whatever their partisan affiliation, these diverse thinkers and doers agree that the current economy is a mess, something must be done about it, right now, by any means necessary.

Despite a resurgent interest in collective and social practice, little emphasis has been placed on the internal relationships that allow creativity to prosper; the labor of nurturing and maintaining often goes under-recognized. As a start, reassessing invisible forms of labor and instituting models that emphasize care underscores the fact that even a solo art practice requires collaboration.

Bring your wired minds, your open hearts, talky mouths and listening ears. We can discuss what we like in the current art economy and what we don’t. We can familiarize ourselves with ideas like Participatory Budgeting, Living Wage, Cohousing, Economically Targeted Investment Programs (ETIs), Worker Cooperatives, Loft Law, Collective Bargaining, Community Land Trusts (CLT), and Worker Justice Centers. We can share our desires and visions for the future. We can just hang out and get to know each other.

Related Event:
OWS MAKING WORLDS: THE COMMONS FORUM
FEBRUARY 16 – 18, 2012, Location TBD

http://makingworlds.wikispaces.com/

Suggested Readings:
Ethan Miller, Solidarity Economy: Key Concepts and Issues: http://www.communityeconomies.org/site/assets/media/Ethan_Miller/Miller_Solidarity_Economy_Key_Issues_2010.pdf

Christian Siefke, The Commons of the Future: Building Blocks for a Commons-based Society: http://www.commoner.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/siefkes_future-commons.pdf

Endnotes, Communisation and Value Form-Theory: http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/4



Art Is My Occupation Launches!

ABOUT [From the AMO website (click image to visit)]

WHAT WE DO
Artismyoccupation.org (AMO) offers direct support to artists and cultural workers dedicated to advancing the stories, struggles and ideas of the 99%. Directly engaged with occupy and other grassroots movements, AMO provides support to cultural workers who seek to impact the national conversation on the Economy, including production grants, distribution, and PR support. AMO aims to support artists across a diverse spectrum of artforms, from visual art to music to public interventions to videos to street theatre and more, while creating a national network of artists focused on exposing the real costs of the current crisis and envisioning a future that puts people before profits.

Click to read more ...

The Festival of Reason, the art of Common Sense

Graphic by Paul McLean

[NOTE: The following supporting text is the second part of a two-part essay by Chris Moylan for the OwA collab "CO-OP|occuburbs," slated for 2012 in Huntington, NY]; in this project we will be envisioning alternate art economies, inspired by the co-operative food and farm networks. Our point of origination as locus is the suburban (American) community, although we hope the applications can extend beyond that start-point.]

The Festival of Reason, the art of Common Sense

By Christopher Moylan

Plans are underway for an Occupy arts festival in the suburbs: Occufest in the Occuburbs. The initial contacts with different cultural organizations have been promising. People are enthusiastic; there are promises of space and other resources. Over and again, however, certain questions arise; what is this—the festival and Occupy Wall street-- about? What is the connection between Occupy Wall Street and the arts? What point would a festival make? What would it do?

One response is to turn such questions back on the person asking them; what does the Occupy movement mean to you? What kind of connection would you like to see between the arts and the Occupy movement? What point would you want such a festival to make? That kind of exchange tends to go only so far. People are asking for information and background, not for a daily dose of empowerment. To be fair, however, the Occupy movement has received a good deal of publicity and news attention; one would expect that most people would be familiar with the movement and what it is attempting to do. The discussion, then, probably has more to do with expectations based on personal history rather than with social policy or aesthetics.

 The subtext of such questions seems to be something like this; my experience with politics has been disillusioning, will this be any different? And, my experience with art --as in paintings, sculpture, installations, art in galleries--has been disappointing, and puzzling so will this be any better?

By way of attempting a constructive answer, one consistent with an inclusive Occupy spirit, the questions can be reframed to emphasize the central position of the .99 in everything that the movement does and attempts to do.

So, preliminary to discussing what an Occufest might be like, one might ask what does cultural democracy look like? Under what conditions might art for the .99 emerge, and how would we recognize such work if we saw it?

Click to read more ...

[From The Guardian - click image to see the slideshow.]

Writers and artists design money fit for modern times - in pictures

Global economic meltdown, the euro crisis and Occupy protests – this year has been dominated by financial issues. But what is money anyway? We invited writers and artists including Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood and Naomi Klein to invent new currencies and banknotes for a changed world

Occuburbs

Among the most widespread and enduring forms of progressive organization in the suburbs are environmental groups, food co-ops, and politically oriented arts groups and small galleries. These work with the domestic ethos of home and garden rather than against it, and they do a lot of good. They support open space preservation and local farms, particularly organic farms, and establish neighborly micro-economies as alternatives to the mall and highway hegemony.

Much of what the Occupy Wall Street movement advocates in the way of human-scale, participatory, and sustainable social organization already exists amidst the country clubs and ranch houses of the suburbs. It is small in scale and particular organizations tend to struggle with the attrition of a difficult economy and, alongside that, the general drift toward the preoccupied life; people have kids to take care of, things to do. Nonetheless, the alternative economy persists, resistance is fed in the most seductive way by local honey, herbs, cheese, beer and vegetables, and in a more spiritual sense by local art, music, and poetry. Seduction is not revolution, clearly, but it is something not to be scorned.

In thinking about Occupying culture in the suburbs, then, the coop and the alternative arts space came to mind as institutions to enlist. The challenge is to introduce the dynamic of a vanguard social movement, Occupy Wall Street, into these institutions and, beyond that, to determine a format that would best encourage a creative exchange of ideas and approaches among the participants in a given project. This is partly a matter of striking a balance between contributions from local artists and those based outside the area. It wouldn’t do simply to install an exhibition of Occupy-related work from downtown Manhattan in a suburban gallery; this would run the risk of being a show rather than an action. Similarly, one would hope that any event would advance the principles of the movement rather than support or illustrate them.

Occupy Wall Street is inherently transformative; it arose, and continues to arise outside of and in contradistinction to the parameters of party politics, class and social divisions, established forms of mobilization and resistance; it is a profoundly cohesive and inclusive civil rights movement, civil rights understood in terms of economic as well as political enfranchisement. If an expression of art and social activism in the suburbs is to reflect and engage the Occupy movement, it should be internally transformative, not just another cultural event in the suburbs but one that is informed by the questions that have impelled the occupations and street demonstrations worldwide: what does democracy look like? What does art for the ninety-nine per cent look like? Is an occupied suburb possible, an occupied suburban culture and social expression?

Click to read more ...