Hi all… I’ve got a new lenticular painting hanging in a show opening at 75 E. Broadway, Unit #230, New York, NY. It’s in Chinatown, under the bridge, in the mall, on the second floor. The opening reception takes place from 6-8pm, this Friday, March 3rd. Hope to see you there! I also wrote the exhibition text for the show, which I’ve copied below. Have a nice week everyone!
NEW LEASE
In improv classes, the rule is to “yes and” your partner. Maybe that’s how culture works too. TikTok yes and Instagram. Blue yes and red. The alive yes and the dead.
We behold twin apparitions of doom. (The media means to remind us!) We face either apocalypse—spiraling climate crises; polluted sky; nuclear war; retreat to tribal choreographies. It’s either that, or we idle at the long trough of banality—five-day work weeks; an eleventh Fast and the Furious; eating takeout with a fork; gentrification; two-step authentication; Elton John.
“In order to have evolution, you need revolution,” my grandfather said. When he died, his house had to be cleared of crystal tchotchkes. We wrapped up and stored a vase of layered sand. Sands in rough horizontal bars bearing various hues and coarseness. I learned that he had personally carried the sand; my grandmother and him collected it in jars during their travels, and when they returned home, they poured it into the vase.
Though you may be familiar with the idea of “first mover advantage,” less commonly recalled is the “handicap of a head start.” During a trip to London in 1936, a Dutch historian wonders why its streets are still lit by gas-lamps, when other European capitals had by then installed electric lights. He concludes that London’s head start—their possession of streetlights before other cities—was holding them back. The streets were already lit.