Through Sept. 20: Bronx Calling @ the Bronx Museum

Participants are invited to string together the flags representing their strengths. Connect the toggles to the loops.

Participants are invited to string together the flags representing their strengths. Will shows how it’s done: connecting toggles to the loops.

July 9–September 20, 2015
Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial
Bronx Museum, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY
Always free.
Open Thursdays–Sundays 11–6 and until 8 on Fridays.

I’m very pleased that this exhibition, which has been two years in the making, is now open. It includes work from 72 participants in the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ Artists in the Marketplace program, who have diverse, strong practices (whose praises I sing in the Time Out article below).

On July 15, the museum held an open house for Bronx Calling as well as ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York (recommended!). Over 1,000 people attended. See photos of the open house, which included numerous performances.

I’m debuting Character Strengths Signal Flags. This project has been three years in the making—I designed and sewed 24 signal flags in an edition of three. Each flag has a letterpress-printed label identifying the character strength and one of the six categories developed by positive psychologists Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman. The flags are installed with a legend and flagpoles. Viewers are invited to find and fly the flags of their strengths. See more pics on my website.

Character Strengths Signal Flags, 2015, linen, twill tape, letterpress-printed ribbon, rope, wood, flagpoles; 24 flags: 12.5 x 12 inches each; edition of three; flagpoles: 72–84 x 12 x 12 inches each; display: 73.5 x 20.5 x 27 inches.

See Time Out New York!

Dana Varinsky. “Emerging Artists Take the Bronx,” Time Out New York, July 15, 2015.

Bonus: You can top off your visit with a street festival!
Sundays, August 2, 9 and 16, 12–4pm
Boogie on the Boulevard
Right in front of the Bronx Museum, Grand Concourse from 161st Street to 167th Street will be closed to cars and open to a world of fun with free music, activities, and programs hosted by artists and organizations from the Bronx and beyond. What’s not to like?

Meta-Practice

“The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose.

…modern writing at its worst … consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug….

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

—George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946)

George Orwell on vagueness in writing

Art & Development

Dream a little group show for you

The Bronx AIM program has started and I am enjoying the first assignment immensely. We were asked to present the artists who would be in our dream group show–to convey the ideal context for showing one’s own works. I started thinking of all the artists I love, all the projects that share sympatico with my practice, and the potential of new site-specific commissions. I imagined very established artists in dialogue with less recognized but completely worthy friends. I envisioned an exhibition copy of a high value seminal work of a blue chip artist made as a public sculpture. Then I situated it all at a local non-art site brimming with potential. This exercise made me think of many people, actions, and possibilities that make art seem like an expansive, generous realm. It provided me with welcome hope and enthusiasm. Try it!

Art & Development

2013 Year-end Roundup

phtos from residency at the Tides Institute and Museum of Art, Montalvo Art Center, Happiness Is... Chinese Arts Centre, more

2013 year-in-review. Highlights include the residency at the Tides Institute and Museum of Art in Eastport, Maine; Happiness Is…, at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California; Irrational Exuberance Flags at Southern Exposure; Irrational Exuberance (Asst. Colors) at Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester, UK; Obsolete Californias in San Francisco; Jenkins Johnson Gallery in NYC; publications such as Temporary Art Review and The Dark Would.

Looking back at 2013, I’m grateful for the generosity and passion of many people…

• the dedicated staff at arts organizations providing residencies and exhibition opportunities to artists like myself…

• whipsmart collaborators Leah Rosenberg and Susan O’Malley… and

• inspiring, fearless women artists like Torreya Cummings, Sarrita Hunn and Lauren Adams who shape the art worlds they would like to participate in.

In 2014, I’m looking forward to…

Bronx AIM informal studio visits. Visiting photographer Martyna Szczesna‘s studio.

• participating in the Bronx Museum of Art’s AIM program, and helping to organize mutual studio visits in the interim…

• contributing to artist’s publications: the next Ortega y Gasset Gazette, and Land and Sea, slated to debut at the LA Book Fair…

• launching a new version of my website…

• continuing to read and participate in book clubs about class, community, and engagement.

R+D

On Be(com)ing an Artist, Citizen and Arts Community member, by Christine Wong Yap

Tag Archives: Artists in the Marketplace program