ArtsBeat

Grachos on deaccessioning

In a commentary by Daniel Grant published today in the Wall Street Journal, Albright-Knox Art Gallery Director Louis Grachos talks about why the gallery decided to sell its items at auction in 2007 as opposed to making private deals with other museums and collectors. It's an interesting take on the decision that we haven't heard before:

In most cases, museums prefer going to auction. Whatever criticism these institutions receive for selling objects only increases if they don't do it that way. Take, for example, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., a museum devoted to contemporary art that sold 207 of its older artworks at Sotheby's, raising $67.2 million. There was some discussion at the board level of selling pieces directly to other museums or through art dealers, said Louis Grachos, the Albright-Knox's director, "but in the end, it just seemed like going the auction route was the safest and wisest choice."

Certainly wise in this case, but why safest? "We were under a microscope, and people were looking for any reason whatsoever to attack us," he said. "Going to public auction made all our actions transparent. No one could claim that we were pursuing back-room deals."

--Colin Dabkowski

Flarf poetry: From the outhouse to the art house

How do we arrive at our judgements about "good" and "bad" in art, music, and writing?   Are matters of aesthetic judgement in certain respects objective and a priori (as some philosophers would have it) or are they a posteriori and the result of social and cultural conditioning?  Is there "no disputing about tastes," as the Latin phrase de gustibus non est disputandum suggests, or is cultural "taste" normative and determined by "difference" and social class?
 
These are among the questions raised by the controversial phenomenon known as "Flarf" poetry.  Flarf, which originated a little over a decade ago as a series of pranks orchestrated by a cell of experimental poets but has since emerged as a full scale insurgency, is a sophisticated attempt to challenge our assumptions about reading in general and what counts as "good" poetry in particular.  It's by no means the first effort to create a body of writing that deliberately violates the standards of "good" writing and good taste, but it is the first 21st century attempt to lay a preemptory claim to the avant garde critique of late 20th century capitalism and postmodernist culture advanced by "language-centered " poetry and Critical Theory.  (In a future posting, we'll look at "Slow Poetry," which also has its roots in Language poetry's critique.)
 
Of late, Flarf is everywhere.  In April, New York City's Whitney Museum of American Art hosted its own "Flarf  vs. Conceptualist" poetry reading and panel discussion.  "Can Flarf Ever Be Taken Seriously? " asks a feature in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.   Chicago-based Poetry Magazine--long considered the pantheon of American prosody--includes a special section on Flarf and Conceptual Poetry edited by Kenny Goldsmith in its July/August issue.  This fall, Washington, D.C. based independent publisher Rod Smith's Edge Books will release a 400 page anthology, Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf, featuring the work of over thirty poets including the five most closely associated with the term: Drew Gardener, Nada Gordon,  Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, and Gary Sullivan.  It's no longer a question of being taken seriously, Flarf has arrived on the threshold of widespread cultural notoriety.

Hallwalls launches digital timeline

 

Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, one of Western New York's claims to fame in the art world at large, avant garde and otherwise, has been quietly working for the past several years to digitize its extensive archive of exhibition information and documentation that stretches back to the center's opening in 1974.

The center recently put a searchable timeline of performances and exhibitions online, and it's a fascinating chronicle of the hundreds of important art-world figures Hallwalls has hosted in its storied history. These include performance artists like Karen Finley (see above), exhibitions from founders and pivotal early artists like Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and Charles Clough, and all manner of esoterica that people interested in Buffalo's legacy as a bastion of the avant garde might be interested in checking out.

Give it a look!

--Colin Dabkowsk

Nickard reflects on "Monsters"

 
University at Buffalo Professors Gary Nickard and Reinhardt Reitzenstein perform "Monsters of Nature and Design II" at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery last September. Buffalo News / Harry Scull.

My most recent ArtsBeat column reflected on the very public, very perplexing art project "Monsters of Nature and Design," which a pair of University at Buffalo professors have been working on for the last couple of years. And in response to the column and the blog entry that accompanied it, one of the professors (and chief conceiver of the "Monsters" project) sent another reply that sheds even more light on the issue at hand.

That issue is the public's ability to interpret conceptual art that can sometimes be more confusing than a quantum physics equation. My point was that everybody -- professors, art critics, artists and the public at large -- shares responsibility for the ease with which a lot of conceptual art is dismissed. The artists, professors and critics for not explaining it in English, and some segments of the public for stifling curiosity before the art even has a chance to reveal itself.

All this is vastly more important as art continues to become more and more wrapped up in ideas that seem, on the surface, esoteric, inaccessible, narcissistic Ivory Tower drivel. Which a lot of it very well may be. Check out what Nickard had to say after the jump, and then jump in yourself if you feel so inclined.

--Colin Dabkowski

Christie's minstrels

Michael Christie, the conductor from Buffalo who is now the music director of the Phoenix Symphony, had a high-profile engagement recently. He conducted John Corigliano's opera "The Ghosts of Versailles" at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. The six-performance run wound up Saturday.

There are a lot of notes and features on the performance here at the St. Louis troupe's Web site. the arresting poster for the production is pictured at left.

Here in Buffalo we have gotten to know Corigliano's music through his visits here and the performances of his music by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

The production Christie conducted in St. Louis was described as new and improved. Musical America just published this assessment of it that suggests that "new and improved" means streamlined and simplified.

When it premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1991, John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles celebrated and exploited the wealth and resources of the company that commissioned it. A new version, heard at Opera Theater of Saint Louis at its opening on June 17, makes a strong case for intimacy within a score designed for ostentatious display.

In its first iteration, Ghosts had Big Name star power, a supporting cast of dozens, a big chorus, an onstage orchestra in full costume and sets that included a 35-foot tall puppet Pasha whose turban exploded. The spectacle tended to overwhelm the storyline, which is confusing anyway. Ghosts had one other outing at the Met, as well as one at Lyric Opera of Chicago. And there, professionally speaking, it ended. Ghosts was just too big for anyone else to consider – including, in this economy, the Met itself, which cancelled a revival scheduled for 2009-2010 due to its cost. Too big until now, that is.

You can watch a clip of Renee Fleming in the 1991 production of "Ghosts" here.

Christie is on Twitter and recently he wrote: "Thanks to all for a great run.. .. We will miss St. Louis and all the great people we met."

He twittered a few days later: "Turning 35 today. Holy smokes time moves."

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

Concert remembering Russert

Most felt like they knew him, and nearly all adored him.

We're talking about the late Tim Russert, former host of NBC's "Meet the Press" who passed away just over a year ago.

While his following is decidedly less national than Russert's, jazz guitarist Tony Scozzaro has amassed an almost equally impressive list of accomplishments .

Scozzaro, Russert's brother-in-law, played a memorial concert to the national icon at East Aurora's Roycroft Inn on Friday night. The concert celebrated the release of Scozzaro's new CD,"A Special Musical Tribute to Tim Russert," a three-track acoustic set that includes "Amazing Grace," "Born to Run," "Rainbow" and a bonus video track of Scozzaro's moving performance at the Kennedy Center during a memorial service in Washington remembering Russert.

Ruminski & Co.

 

Opera fans have a lot to talk about after this weekend. On Friday and Sunday, North Tonawanda's Riviera Theatre played host to Rossini's "The Barber of Seville," the first production of Nickel City Opera.

Nickel City Opera is the brainchild of Buffalo bass-baritone Valerian Ruminski, pictured above in the lobby of the recently restored Riviera. Last week, I got to interview Valerian last week about the project. You can read about him here.

It was also a pleasure to review the opera, which was quite the musical success. Here is the review.

Here is Ruminski starring in the chilling final scene of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" in a production by Ottawa Lyric Opera. Marvelous! I could not resist including it even though it cuts off at an awkward point.

Monsters of Nature and Design

"Monsters of Nature and Design," a performance art project headed by University at Buffalo professors Gary Nickard and Reinhardt Reitzenstein, has caused a good deal of public confusion -- and in some circles, outrage. (Read today's ArtsBeat column on the project here.)

That's owing, mostly, to the fact that the first two "Monsters" performances involved the very public ritualized smashing of pianos (see this 2008 ArtsBeat blog for more), a glimpse of which you can see in this video of the first "Monsters" performance at Babeville in 2007:

I asked Nickard for a little clarity on the issue, and he sent along an essay he wrote on the intellectual basis for the project that makes a reasoned (though practically impenetrable) analysis of the relationship between James Joyce and Wyndham Lewis. But his e-mail explaining the impetus behind "Monsters" is far more illuminating. I'll post it in its entirety after the jump. Giving it a read might just change your mind about whether Nickard's project ranks, indeed, as a piece of art. And then again it might not. 

Either way, please share your thoughts in the comment section. And if anyone was at Friday's performance, chime in!

--Colin Dabkowski

The Best Picture Oscars -- Now Twice the Size

When is the last time the Motion Picture Academy actually had a certifiable 24-carat good idea?

It's been so long that frankly I don't even remember when it was.

Well, bless them, they had one Wednesday — or at least that's when they announced it to the world. That's when they told us they decided to double the number of Best Picture Oscar nominees from 5 to 10. Under such a system, for instance, there's no way on God's green and glorious earth that "The Dark Knight" and "WALL-E" would have been left out of the Best Picture contest last year.

I'll have more to say on this in my column in Tuesday's Buffalo News.

In the meantime, what's your take on the newest wrinkle in Oscar-dom?

--Jeff Simon

The Tuesday jazz jam

I stopped by McGee's lastnight in University Plaza and caught Danny Hull's jazz jam. If you are in the neighborhood of UB's South Campus, that is a great thing to do on Tuesday nights.

Last night Hull, on drums as usual, was joined by a trio of Eastman students led by Christopher Ziemba, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing for The Buffalo News a couple of months ago when he appeared on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio show. Ziemba and his buddies, led by a talented trumpet player, played great throughout their two sets, which included standards like "You Stepped Out of a Dream" and "Alone Together."

I believe "Alone Together" was a song Ziemba mentioned he played on the McPartland show.

The audience lastnight included such prominent local musicians as pianist and vibes ace Wally Jedermann and pianist George Caldwell. Caldwell came to town a few years ago to play at Studio Arena in the show about Alberta Hunter, "Cooking at the Cookery." He married Connie McEwen, who was then the publicist for Studio Arena. So now -- ta da -- though George tours a lot and plays often in New York City, Buffalo is his home base.

That is a picture of George Caldwell at left. He sat down at the bar next to my mom and we were all talking and having fun and I was thinking how lucky we are, having a hang like McGee's. That is how Danny Hull always puts it, a hang. It is great to have a place where you know there will be jazz every Tuesday and the performers vary from week to week and musicians show up just to relax.

Wally Jedermann was wishing he had brought his vibes, which he does from time to time when we are lucky. He was thinking he would bring them next week. I am planning on showing up again in hopes that he does. He is a monster on those vibes.

There is a kind of cover charge at McGee's, but it is just $5 and includes a drink.

The jazz jam begins every Tuesday at 8 p.m.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman