E-vite: CO-OP at b.j. spoke Gallery [Panel]

Neighborhood Metal [OASN1@BH][August 24]

Clif Hawkins. Click the image to visit Clif's Tumblr.

Some reflections on Clif Hawkins' visit to Occupational Art School.

By Paul McLean

Friday night, and the Bushwick sidewalk and street outside Bat Haus are quiet. We haven't really got a handle on the traffic flow in the neighborhood, yet. The conversation around it reminds me of gallery talk in Santa Fe, which relies, or did when I was there, on a significant walk-in demographic. Gallerinas and -rinos would pass the time conjecturing on what might responsible for a slow spell, and what the duration might be. I thought of it as an equivalent to dowsing. The lights in BH are low. It's an altogether pleasant moment. Clif and I and some friends sat in the ergonomic office chairs and carried on a relaxed conversation.

First, Clif passed me the obituary for Manning Williams. Clif apprenticed with Manning, who became a lifelong inspiration, mentor and friend to Clif. The first lesson in Clif's "Neighborhood Metal" teach-in is the value of the community artist. We go through photos on the laptop, briefly summarizing a life of art and culture. While scrolling quickly through images, Hawkins quietly interjects anecdotes about Williams, what his studio looked like, the kinds of tasks Clif would carry out for him. Eventually, a picture begins to emerge of an exchange that over years helped Clif shape his relationship to art, craft and the artist's life.

Clif enjoyed describing his first metalwork occupations, which he took in his teens. Now Hawkins reached into a beautiful leather bag and produced several portfolios. We leafed through them, stopping at this or that print for my questions or compliments. Clif shares very quickly a progression through his past creations, and after a few minutes of this, it's clear that by his late 20s he had amassed an impressive catalogue of pieces, created for many applications, from stage sets to puppet shows, architectural conservation to sculpture, his own and others'.

We covered territory that for a mid-career artisan, artist, craftsman, tradesman is fairly common, especially after the gloss and ambitions of youth-driven desire for recognition has settled into a programmatic endurance. Again, the discussion revolves around examples of experiences, changing ideas about the fields and options available to a technician, the effect of the economy on culture. It isn't a philosophical talk, as such. It isn't about theory. Clif talks about making things, about people and projects, and the social currents that flow through a life in materials, a life in the shop, a life of manifesting ideas as things.

One can sense respect for fine work, and a keen limit for bullshit, particularly the sort that derives from a desire for great output unaccompanied by recognition of its real cost. It's clear Clif doesn't begrudge a haggler. It's more than this. The sensibility is attached somehow to Clif's willingness, even pride in being a neighborhood shop guy. Ash, his partner at AWS shares this local boy headset. I can verify on my account, having stopped in a time or two with little jobs that Clif and Ash have attended to. Neither one grew up in Brooklyn, but both spend time and energy serving the community.

The last thing I'll mention about "Neighborhood Metal" are Clif's closing thoughts. He seemed genuinely to have enjoyed the evening. I asked him why. He told me that the kind of talk we had seems lost in today's wired world of ever-texting creative classers barhopping and posting about it on Twitter in real time.

Steel Plant Stands

@CUE Art Foundation: Occupy Wall Street with Chris Cobb

Occupy Wall Street with Chris Cobb

April 28 - May 5

SHOULD THE ARTS LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY?

A week of talks exploring leadership in the arts. Organized by Chris Cobb.

Click to read more ...

6 Months of OWS: Time for Theoretical & Practical Assessments

Marxist-Humanist Initiative invites you to participate in a discussion
Friday March 23, 7:00-9:00p.m.

6 Months of OWS: Time for Theoretical & Practical Assessments

Members of MHI and students and activists organizing within OWS will
lead off an open discussion about what Occupy Wall Street has
accomplished, what it has not, and whether its direction might
instigate a reorganization of society. We will emphasize the theories—
explicit and implicit—on which OWS has been based, examining some
ideas advanced by David Graeber, Marina Sitrin, Rick Wolff, and other
popular speakers, as well as its practice in relation to working class
and other struggles.

Is OWS anti-capitalist because it adds "capitalism" to the list of
evils in the world? Is every left movement doomed to replicate the
separation between thought and activity that characterizes life under
capitalism? These questions and more will be addressed as we attempt
an evaluation that is largely absent within the OWS movement itself.
All are welcome to participate.

At TRS Inc. Professional Suite, 44 East 32nd Street, 11th floor
(between Madison and Park Avenues, Manhattan). Contribution voluntary.

www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org

Illustration by Paul McLean

Tonight: Art v. OWS

Date + time: March 21, 8pm
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City

Flux Factory is pleased to present Flux Death Match, a new initiative that takes online debates into real-space at the Flux gallery. Conceived as lively discussions between influential members of the art, tech, and political communities, panelists will illustrate their points with slides, web references, and other materials in a rapid-fire way that will challenge convictions on critical issues.

In this first Flux Death Match, art critics Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City and Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic and artists John Powers and William Powhida will face off in a heated debate. The panelists will argue over the strategies artists use to engage with the Occupy Wall Street movement and confront the concentration of wealth and power within the art world. Johnson and Powers have a history of online skirmishes, most recently a Twitter debate that resulted in an 18 part discussion posted to YouTube on the merits of the recent ArtPrize city-wide competition in Grand Rapids, MI. Vartanian and Powhida have traded barbs publicly, both in person and through various online platforms; their epic disagreements have undoubtedly shaped the discourse surrounding the NYC art scene.

Click to read more ...

LIT THE FUSE, FLAMING THE FIRE

OCULARPATION: WALL STREET AND OTHER ILLUMINATING ACTS OF ART

Zefrey Throwell, 2011, c-print, 48 x 32 in.

Carlo McCormick moderates a conversation with artists / activists Zefrey Throwell and Sam Gould (Red 76 – nomadic artist collective) and Clark Winter, strategist on geopolitics and financial markets.
Date: Tuesday, February 7. 6:30-7:30pm.

Place: Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert,
524 W. 19th Street, NYC.
FREE

[From Joseph]

The State of the Occupation Address: Where We’ve Gone and What to Expect from Occupy in 2012

Monday, January 30 at 7:00pm

A discussion and launch party for the publication of The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, Second Edition.

Join Dr. Benjamin Chavis, co-founder of Occupy the Dream; Allison Kilkenny, contributor for The Nation  and co-host of Citizen Radio; Malik Rhasaan, co-founder of Occupy the Hood; Rachel Schragis, designer of the Flow Chart of the Declaration of the Occupation, Ryan Devereaux reporter for The Guardian by way of Democracy Now!; with Julie Gueraseva and Andy Stepanian of The Sparrow Project as they discuss where Occupy has taken us, where it can bring us, and what to expect in 2012.

The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City booklet is a collection of the official statements drafted by the New York City General Assembly, a Letter from the Occupiers at Tahrir Square to the Occupiers of Wall Street, and an expanded resource list for occupiers to organize and network with. Taking inspiration from the pamphlet that sparked the Mai 1968 uprisings in Paris, France, the crowd-funded, design-savvy Declaration has already received acclaim from Vanity Fair, Current Television, and other forward-thinking media outlets.

Twenty thousand copies of The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City will be made available for free during the event. Attendees are encouraged to each take a bundle and help distribute them around the city.

Related video http://vimeo.com/32069003.

MORE INFO HERE.

Bookstore Cafe

126 Crosby Street

Map | Directions

Arts & Labor Informal Discussion: Thinking Through Collectivity

Arts & Labor is a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for Occupy Wall Street. We are artists and interns, writers and educators, art handlers and designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students. We are all art workers and members of the 99%. Arts & Labor is dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions in our fields through direct action and educational initiatives. By forging coalitions, fighting for fair labor practices, and re-imagining the structures and institutions that frame our work, Arts & Labor aims to achieve parity for every member of the 99%

Arts & Labor Informal Discussion: Thinking Through Collectivity

When: Friday, December 16^th, 7:30-9PM

Where: H.E.N.S. (Hanns Eisler Nail Salon Gallery/Solidarity Center)

Southwest Corner of Bergen and 3^rd Avenue

Directions: H.E.N.S.  is located 3 blocks from the 2,3,4,5,B,Q,D,M,N,R stop at Atlantic/Pacific Ave. or 4 blocks from the A,C,G train to Hoyt/Schermerhorn. (It is a gallery with glass windows).

PLEASE JOIN ARTS & LABOR FOR AN OPEN, UNSTRUCTURED DISCUSSION at 7:30PM:

What are the challenges of maintaining one’s place in the “real world” vs. striving for the utopian goals of OWS? 

What are the challenges of maintaining the concerns of the singular/particularistic within the framework of the collective embodied in the GA model? 

How is curatorial practice implicated in perpetuating the 1%?

Is the notion of “singular authorship” incompatible with a notion of a politically engaged art activism?

What is the “turning point” at which an artist leaves their studio practice and makes activism their main focus? Is this a false dichotomy? Can studio practice ever be activism? Have we all reached that turning point?

Is it necessary to share our personal histories in order to effectively organize together? How do we define efficacity, and is that our highest goal?

OWS Temporality: because time moves so fast within the landscape of OWS, and within the space of a week an entirely new situation on the ground may transpire, how does this effect our process and thinking within OWS?

The above is but a provisional sampling. To see the full list of questions compiled by Arts and Labor Members, join our discussion list at ows-arts-and-labor@googlegroups.com!

After the informal discussion, join us for a potluck and Holiday Party from 9 to 12AM as we make banners and signs for D17!

Cam-vid by Jim Costanza

16 Beaver [10.28.11]

Friday - 10.28.11 – Occupation: Calls and Responses

Contents:
1. About this Friday
2. A call
3. A note on the format
4. Links

__________________________________________________
1. About this Friday

What: Presentations and discussion
When: Friday -- 10.28.11 @ 7:00PM
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th Floor
Who: Free and open to all

As Occupy Wall Street stretches into its sixth week and spreads across the
globe, a variety of questions have emerged about the directions it can
take.

What are the modes in which artists and cultural workers have contributed
or could imagine contributing to the ongoing occupation(s)? What
situations or processes can be constructed (collectively)?

As people form affinity groups and begin to find experiences of a unitary
time, what new forms of life are potentially emerging? What kinds of
actions and infrastructures could support generalizing and supporting the
reproduction of such forms of life or culture?

If one of the strengths of this emergent movement is its ability to embody
a different politics, what kinds of consequences does it have in the
sphere of culture? How might the know-how and know-what of architects,
artists, filmmakers, writers, thinkers, teachers, and students contribute
toward the development of a new political culture / movement?

We would like to use the space this Friday evening to consider some of
these different approaches and imagine together potential ways in which
these processes can be intensified.

Aside from the risks of any police actions, are the risks of certain
normalizing processes entering, which risk delimiting the potential growth
and experimentation inherent in this process? And at what stage and in
what manner do we implicate (occupy?) the institutions (from universities
to museums) which have assumed (often uncritically) the same neoliberal
values, measures and cultures which have produced this crisis?

Of course, there is already an aesthetic dimension to the ongoing
occupation, one that links bodies laying claim to the space of the street,
with images and sounds of those bodies transmitted across the planet.
Moreover, artists and cultural workers have participated in organization,
planning, logistics, and practice of the occupation in varied ways. From
working inside the various work groups of the general assembly, to others
who have contributed with ‘protest art’ of slogans, chants, signs,
puppets, music, screenings, programming, hacking, diverse interventions,
teach-ins, performances, acts of civil disobedience, and audio-video
documentation of all of the above.

While acknowledging the importance of these manifestations, and wanting to
see and hear more of them, we also wonder what ways can our particular
know-how be elaborated at this juncture? What else can be made visible,
audible, legible?

What we want to do is give space to consider and bring various positions
and proposals together in one room. The hope is to create a space oriented
toward amelioration and development of actions, new uses of this context,
development of new proposals, rather than appearing smart or right or
taking the position of a spectator (however emancipated).

__________________________________________________
2. A call

Bring proposals, sketches, ideas for actions, events, words, images,
demonstrations, both possible and impossible. Share reports or
documentation of things that have happened, may have happened, failed, or
could be done.

________________________________________________
3. A note on the format

Everyone is welcome to come and to contribute to discussion.

For those interested in presenting, a computer and projector will be
available to amplify sound and show images. In order to speed up
transitions between presenters, interested contributors are encouraged to
submit materials in advance via file-sharing services (dropbox, yousendit,
etc.). Please send a link to the materials to the following email address:

16beaversubmit@gmail.com

Those who are not able to submit materials in advance are still invited to
bring them on Friday, but also encouraged to arrive a bit early.

Please anticipate short presentations, approximately 5-7 minutes each. We
will try to adjust the timing of the presentations (shorter or longer) to
accommodate the number of respondents.

__________________________________________________
4. Links

NYC General Assembly: http://nycga.net/
NYCGA Arts & Culture working group:
http://www.nycga.net/groups/arts-and-culture/
NYCGA Direct Action working group:
http://www.nycga.net/groups/direct-action/
NYCGA Media working group: http://www.nycga.net/groups/media/

Occupy Wall Street: http://occupywallst.org/

Global Revolution: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Franco Berardi & Geert Lovink
"A Call to the Army of Love and to the Army of Software"
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2011/10/12/franco-berardi-geert-lovink-a-call-to-the-army-of-love-and-to-the-army-of-software/

And And And
"Letter To the General Assembly and Affinity Groups of Occupy Wall Street"
http://andandand.org/event10_letter_to_ows.pdf

__________________________________________________
16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 4th fl.
New York, NY 10004

for directions/subscriptions/info visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org

TRAINS:
4,5 -- Bowling Green
2,3 -- Wall Street
J,Z -- Broad Street
R -- Whitehall
1 -- South Ferry