The art center, El Matadero in Madrid, Spain inaugurated its latest project – El Ranchito last Thursday, December 15, 2011. El Matadero is dedicated to contemporary art practices and El Ranchito is a gigantic space (Nave 16) within El Matadero that is dedicated to artistic research, process and social engagement. Brooke and I collaborated with two artists in Madrid to begin a long-term project titled EXCEDENTES/EXCESS that revolves around food waste in our cities. Below are images from the final night of preparation for the opening and photos from the media tour on the morning of the opening as well as an image from the opening.

André Komatsu employed largely discarded construction materials around El Matadero to create “Landscapeknowhere – Timeout”. I enjoyed getting to now André Komatsu, however, I found his installation to be very formal, not particularly interesting and not in line with the mission of El Ranchito – research oriented and engaged with social practice.

Inteligencia Colectiva bases its practice in traveling the world to discover, document and adopt alternative means of construction. Their mission is to create a public archive of alternative modes of construction. As part of their residency, they constructed the future administrative space in El Ranchito that will be self-sustaining through a bicycle generator located at the top of the office tower.

Aesthetically one of my favorite installations or series of works is by the collective Todo para la praxis. Of all the resident artists, this group has been perhaps the busiest at designing and constructing. They have created a series of practical sculptures designed for public use. Amongst the constructions are a mobile street kitchen, a dining space, a mobile boom box, an info center. They continue building new things through workshops that they lead. Soon a children’s table and workspace will be introduced.

“EXCEDENTES/EXCESS” is a collaborative project between RICARDO MIRANDA Zuniga Y BROOKE SINGER (NUEVA YORK), JOSE LUIS BONGORE, BEATRIZ MARCOS Y SISSA VERDE and was selected as part of the public call for El Ranchito. The project revolves around the large amounts of food going to the dump when there are plenty of people hungry in the cities of New York and Madrid. In NYC the focus has been research and we hope to construct a “composting bicycle” in 2012. In Madrid, the realization of the food rescue and redistribution cart (pictured last in screen documentation) has lead the Madrid group to researching the possibility of establishing a law that would facilitate the collection and redistribution of discarded food that is safe to consume. A law similar to the Good Samaritan Law in the United States, signed by President Clinton.

Bill de Blasio believes that the government can decide what is viable free speech and what is not. de Blasio feels that he knows what messages may be censored and which may be allowed to remain in the public space. A couple years ago de Blasio demanded the removal of anti-abortion billboard and stated the following “There should never be a law prohibiting this sort of sign, Mr. de Blasio said, ‘but to have a serious debate, to have people express their outrage, and then to have a private owner of the advertising space decide that it was ultimately not appropriate, that to me is a functioning democracy.’” Read the NYTimes article.

Today the UN Assembly gathers in NYC and I comfortably sit in my office at 68th and Lexington after dodging through stand still traffic while police vehicles weaved through… all for a series of limos with international flags. If you’ve got a limo, get a flag… traffic will part for you. In preparation for the UN members’ visit Two Peoples One Future paid for posters throughout the subway system presenting Israelis and Palestinians beneath these words: “Be on our side — we are on the side of peace and justice.” Local politicians protested and now the posters are down. Just as who paid for the advertisements is public knowledge, the names of the people who demanded that freedom of speech be censored should be public knowledge. Read NYTimes article.

Now off to Wall Street to visit the protestors at Zuccotti Park, I mean Liberty Plaza.

One of the grads, Alex Mallis, in Hunter’s Integrated Media Arts (IMA) program is seeking funding for a film capturing a group of people who feed off discarded food. Support the film via it’s Kickstarter campaign.

“An aging artist, his young assistant, and blind friend arrive by rusted retro car; a Puerto Rican woman and her teenage grandson embark on foot, lead by a rattling grocery cart; a hyperactive twenty-something and his stoned companion leave a Bushwick loft to navigate the subway. Familiar faces and converging philosophies meet to take what others deem unworthy of consumption. The reward of a free and delicious discovery activates a ritual adventure – a night of extraordinary harvest.”
- Alex Mallis, Excerpt from film description on Kickstarter

As greater bandwidth allows for higher quality video, I’ve posted a 7-minute single channel edit of a 14-minute 3-channel video installation commissioned by the New Museum in 2004 for an exhibition titled “Counter Culture.” The installation presents three animated portraits reflecting on the history and the future of the Bowery neighborhood. The monitors presenting the animated portraits are installed within a sculptural work made of a series of large steel ducts that have been interwoven together.

The exhibition “Counter Culture” occurred before the ground breaking for the new New Museum building at Bowery and Prince. My contribution to the show focused on capturing three alternate perspectives on the transformation of the Bowery neighborhood at the time. The three animated portraits are based on interviews with three long time Bowery personalities – Anton Bari, manager of the Bari Restaurant Supply and Real Estate, Bruce Davis, a resident of the last “flop house” in the Bowery, the Sunshine Hotel and Pedro Bisonoro or Morocho a 30 year resident of the Bowery, originally from the Dominican Republic.

Here are images of the original installation in Freeman Alley:



And a link to the site documenting the installation: FROM DARKNESS TO DAYLIGHT

I had to take a bit of time out to create a small animation describing how I feel about online advertising and Capitalism’s consumption of the web…

If you’d like view it as a SWF (much larger, sharper and quicker download), CLICK HERE

If there is a revolution in public practice happening today it is not in a conference at a private art college. Revolutions in practice can not be captured and summarized at a conference. The very notion of Creative Time Summit conference runs against “revolution,” “public,” or “practice” and mutes anything powerful or inspring about these terms, simply because it is curated and caters to a particular audience. In many ways it is a closed session. And the term “Revolutions in Public Practice” reads as hyperbole in the context of an art elite conference.

I was at a round table discussion at Conflux today and afterwards headed to a Lower East Side Bar to meet a bunch of friends who had been at the Creative Time Summit. Once there, I asked people how the Summit had been and it was the usual conference response… what’s the point? why are we here? it was the usual conference scenario… The usual reactionary responses to a conference. And my response to people is do not be duped by the catch terms “revolutions,” “public,” and “practice” as well as “summit” and “creative time.” This is my problem with such a title, it is not revolutionary or public, so please don’t misuse these terms; these terms have already lost so much meaning or power. Most of the people I spoke with didn’t go the second day, rather they tuned in and out from home.

Creative Time Summit is however an exceptional moment to network and hear a summary of evocative creative ideas and briefly exchange perspectives with like-minded individuals.

Sadly people buy into “The Creative Time Summit” as if it is a revolutionary agent, but it’s just another conference, put on by another institution that is far removed from anything revolutionary – whatever meaning that term can carry in relation to contemporary art that is safely nested in Western networks of capital.