But here we layer up and watch fog tsunamis take over the earth in slow motion.  It’s sortof awesome.

New Langton Arts’ Archive for Sale: A Sacrificial Act by Tercerunquinto (a collaborative group), 2008

Thinking about new models of funding and new ways that the art world could work is not new.  But recently, whether because the economic climate has forced us to rethink our methods, or simply because it’s time in some larger cycle, there has been not only a birth of new models of funding art projects, but also a lot of writing and energy about it.

Part of this effort is simply to understand what is happening now and in the past.
The Art Spaces Archive Project is a non-profit initiative to help preserve, present, and protect the archival heritage of living and defunct for- and not-for-profit spaces of the “alternative” or “avant-garde” movement of the 1950s to the present throughout the United States.
The California Cultural Data Project is an online data reporting system that was created to produce a variety of reports designed to help increase management capacity, identify strengths and challenges and inform decision-making for California’s Cultural Institutions.

But the other part is writing about and archiving what is being borne out now.  This is a list of some of the writing I’ve come across in the past month that works towards an understanding of how the funding mechanisms are changing in the art world, envisions how it could be, and starts to catalog the new efforts and models that are emerging today.

How Things Work by Aimee Le Duc, Art Practical
Part 1, Part 2, Part 2 cont.
Le Duc investigates the trajectory of more established art spaces in SF, their success or failure, and follows up with a look at new spaces/organizations are utilizing hybrid models of funding and programming.

A Catalog of Strategies, Proximity Magazine #7, Summer 2010
The Catalog is a special annotated directory of inspirational groups, organizations, projects, and individuals from around the world. With over 350 entries the directory features the best practices and celebrated failures of interventionist art practitioners.

Survival Strategies for the Arts, John Killacky on Blue Avocado, 2009
Though aimed at non-profits, the thinking behind these strategies applies to everyone.  John Killacky, artist and arts funder, not only knows that we need the arts now more than ever, but gives us ten survival strategies for arts organizations and one for audience members — and reminds us that all of us are audience members.

Project Space Survival Strategies:  a research project by the artist Elysa Lozano for Autonomous Organization, produced in collaboration with Invisible Venue.  I found this idea especially striking: “The motivations behind these initiatives are inextricably linked to the manner of funding them. What constitutes an acceptable way to get funding is as much a question of the integrity of the intention as it is a question of survival.”

Art Infrastructure, cmagazine 103, Autumn 2009
A bunch of articles discussing exhibition strategies and platforms that provide alternative models for how art is exhibited and experienced by its viewers.  If we take the idea from Lozano (above,) then these alternative models would inevitably be thinking of new funding models as well.

In her comment in her response to Long Day’s Journey: 8 Hours With Artist Marina Abramovic, starzshine taps into the value of art.

Try as I may I was unable to get him to understand the sadness I felt when looking into the depth of a Rothko, but it kept comming back to the Abramovic performance. He would go to the window… look, and then comment again on how pointless the whole thing was. Over, and over.

I finally had to say, “I don’t care how you feel about it. The point is that you feel something. You keep looking, you keep talking about it. Isn’t that what art is about? To convey an emotion, to make you participate in an experience?”

He didn’t know.

All I could do was shake my head.

FYI this roundup is totally unfair to people working in video or performance.  The opening show is much too chaotic, crowded, and loud to experience those things.

Jen Susman

Jack Leamy

Emily Dippo made viewers that correlate with walks around the city “to encourage wonder while experiencing the city”

Kim Cook made water bottle backpacks and drawings of their (impractical) usage

Ashley Harris

Thinking about money and how it can work in the art world is on a lot of people’s minds these days.  Elysa Lozano, an artist working as “Autonomous Organization”, has created a compendium of project spaces around the world, all talking about how and why they started and how their funding works.

From her statement:

The motivations behind these initiatives are inextricably linked to the manner of funding them. What constitutes an acceptable way to get funding is as much a question of the integrity of the intention as it is a question of survival… It is also my hope that by publishing the anecdotes and experiences of the people who run these spaces that the creative ideas and strategies will become a resource to anyone currently running an independent project or thinking of starting one up.

Project Space Survival Strategies was produced in collaboration with Invisible Venue.  The project is ongoing, and accepts contributions from anyone running project spaces.  You can find the survey here.

I’m aware that this is a bit old, but I just watched this interview with Steve Lambert for Prix Ars Electronica and really loved how he spoke about the idea of a new form of activism.  There is something stale about the march and this paper in it’s positive message as opposed to a march’s (usually) negative message feels different and good.

Steve Lambert on The New York Times Special Edition from Steve Lambert on Vimeo.

Once a year, we produce a Subscriber’s Choice Edition.  We narrow down the proposals to five and allow our subscribers and the past year of artists and critics to vote.  I think we have a really strong group of proposals this year. Check them out here.

The finalists are:

• j.morrison
• Nava Lubelski
• Christine Wong Yap
• Skye Gilkerson
• Matthew Rana

This is exciting.  City Car Share is teaming up with Spride to develop a system that allows individual car owners to add their cars to the city car share fleet in their unused hours.  This is good in so many ways.  Non car owners get access to many more cars and locations, car owners get paid to help them with the costs of owning a car, yet have control over when they need the car, and life is better for everyone when less cars are owned.  (except car dealers).   People without cars are much more likely to take public transportation, even when the commute is longer and save greenhouse gases like crazy.  Case in point: I am writing this on the Dumbarton Express during my two hour commute to Palo Alto.

Yet before this can go into effect, the law has to change so that insurance companies can allow this to happen.  Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento has introduced a bill (AB 1871) that would amend state car insurance laws to allow personal vehicles to be used in car-sharing programs. Currently, auto insurers prohibit individual policyholders from renting out their personal vehicles.  Read more about this here or view the bill here.

If you want this to happen, contact your legislators and let them know what you think:
Assembly
Senate

Or sign this petition!

Karen Ryan: Cabinet Chair with Blanket, 2010

I loved this piece by Karen Ryan.  There is something so evocative, anthropomorphic, and nostalgic about old wooden furniture.

Anne Toebbe, Vacuming the Dining Room, 2009

Pello Irazu, FR, 2008

Pello Irazu, Untitled, 2010 (left) and La Fabrica, Miami II, 2008

Yun Jeong Hong, Episteme, 2009

Jason Dunda, 2008-2010

Kirsten Kindler, stairwells salon, 2009

Cordy Ryman

Abel Rodriguez, Untitled 1, 2009

Over the next bit o time, I’m going to post about some themes I saw popping up at Artropolis.  Most are NEXT heavy, except this post, which has three artists’ works found in Art Chicago.

Elizabeth Jaeger:  BFF, 2009  Throughout the weekend, three ladies would perform around this sculpture.  Wearing tights, jockstraps, black pumps, and nylons tied around them in odd ways, they would strike a pose and gaze off into nowhere for hours at a time.  Here’s a picture.

Mary Ellen Mark:  Heather and Kelsey Dietrick, 7 years old, Kelsey older by 66 minutes, 2002  from her book, Twins

Bill Durgin:  Nude and Still Life I

Chechu Alava painted almost exclusively staring young ladies in multiple: Sisters

Chechu Alava: The Romanovs

Alec Soth: Sandra and Indre, Milan, 2010

Langdon Graves, not exactly, 2008

PJ Smalley sent us this lovely picture as soon as he opened his package to prove his love.   Thanks PJ!

If anyone’s interested, this t-shirt could be yours too.

Exciting!  Another player on the subscription scene, St. Paul’s Springboard for the Arts and mnartists.org have teamed up for a hyper local version of this idea to support local art, artists and collectors.   Over the course of 3 months, collectors will receive 3 boxes containing (I think) three works each.  There are 9 artists who will be commissioned to make an edition of 50 and the cost for a share is $300.  It is pretty exciting to see that their network is so involved that they sold out in less than 12 hours!  And they are already taking reservations (for a $100 price) for the fall season.  Similar to Art in a Box, they will have local “Pick up Parties” at different art organizations, furthering the feeling of being part of a community.

From their press release:

The goals of the CSA program are to support artists and to create a community of engaged local arts supporters.  CSA supports artists: in the creation of new work, to establish relationships with local collectors and patrons, and to participate in the launch of an exciting new model of art support and distribution.  CSA Share member benefits include multiple works of art from local emerging and mid-career artists at a fantastic value! Additionally, CSA Share members have the opportunity to develop relationships with the local artists and art community, discover new artists, explore a variety of disciplines and support artists’ careers and a vibrant community.

Watches have a long  history of having a little dial that indicates the moon phase.  But as many of us now refer to our cell phones for the time instead of a wristwatch, some people are rethinking the watch and what it’s focus could be.

The Emotion Lab‘s prototype for a MoonWatch reminded me so much of Helena Keeffe‘s Moon Phase Lapel Pins (TPG11)  that I had to post them.  It appears that this is just a design project at this time, not an actual product. It would be really neat.
Found via dvdp

However, the Citizen Astrodea Moon Age Watch is actually in production and is limited to 300 pieces a year. It’s a serious astrological device.

Real-time measurements makes it possible to tell sidereal time, current time, and position as well as the outline of the sun on the earth. Once mastered, you can know where and when the sun and moon will rise and set, in addition to a seemingly endless list of functions.

We’re very excited and honored to have been interviewed by Brian Andrews of Bad at Sports and to show up in Art Practical.

Click Here to read the full interview

The audio version of the interview will be released on Bad at Sports on this Sunday 4/25.

One of the nice things about art is that it provides refuge from other people’s chaos, a place to think, quietly.

-Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes via Twitter

It was a beautiful day

Tucker Nichols

Lindsey White

Colette Campbell-Jones

For two years, Southern Exposure, enabled by the Graue Family Foundation, is going to offer a 15K award for Public Art Projects in the Bay Area.  Artists nationally and internationally are encouraged to apply.  It is really wonderful to see some significant awards coming out of the Bay Area.

The Graue Award is an initiative of SoEx Off-Site, a program of Southern Exposure’s founded in 2006 that seeks to commission and present new public work by emerging artists that intervenes and interacts in the social and political spheres beyond the space of gallery. SoEx supports and encourages these practices as few venues support emerging artists working in the public. The artists selected through the program will make a proposal and develop their work in relation the San Francisco Bay Area.

It is an Open Call!  Applications for the 2011 project are due May 26th, 2010.
Details Here.

We’re honored to be included in this roundup by Emilie Raguso of Oakland Local of Art Subscriptions in the Bay Area.  There’s starting to be quite a number of us! It is really wonderful how this idea is spreading, and people are making it their own.  Thanks to Emilie and Oakland Local, and Welcome to any new visitors!

From the Brochure (my italics):

The Sea Ranch Chapel is a gift of two Sea Ranch residents who wished to offer a nondenominational sanctuary for prayer, meditation, and spiritual renewal.  It was their hope that all who enter will find a measure of peace in the blending of art and purpose amid surroundings of beauty and inspiration.

The chapel is dedicated to the memory of a young man, navy aviator, artist, and zoologist, who believed that art is the intermediary between the physical and the spiritual.

more images here (LMGTFY).

From upcoming TPG#14 artist Matt Cella:

don’t mind my messy fingers.