Please join me and James for the 2013 edition of Moment Art’s art auction and raffle party. It’s always a good party, and we have quite a few artist friends whose work we first discovered via Momenta Art’s benefits and exhibitions.

Preview the artworks here.

Details:

Raffle Drawing + Silent Auction Party
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
6-7PM: Cocktail Party + Silent Auction
7PM: Silent Auction closes.
7:30PM: Raffle Drawing starts.

at

Momenta Art
56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
(Adjacent to Morgan L-stop)

All the artworks will be displayed for the preview during May 10-20, Friday through Monday, 12-6pm and the afternoon of the 22nd.

Raffle Tickets are on sale NOW!
Until May 9, 2013: $200
After May 10, 2013: $250

Momenta Art presents its seventeenth annual benefit to support its ongoing mission to exhibit the work of emerging and underrepresented artists. A ticket guarantees you a work of art and entrance for two to the silent auction and raffle drawing held at 56 Bogart Street on May 22nd. Tickets are limited to the number of artworks available fpr the raffle auction.

Momenta’s 2013 Benefit will present approximately 175 works by both emerging and established artists. Raffle tickets may be purchased until all the tickets are sold. The work will be on view at Momenta for two weeks prior to the raffle drawing party. The raffle will begin at 7pm continuing until all works have been offered, with the first randomly drawn ticket giving its holder first choice of one work displayed.

In addition, Momenta will offer a number of higher-valued works for silent auction. Bidding on these works will begin on May 10th and end on May 22nd before the raffle begins. Silent auction artists will include Sarah Braman, David Diao, Mark Dion, William Powhida, Hunter Reynolds, Federico Solmi.

As a not for profit exhibition organization, Momenta depends on the contributions of people like you. We sincerely thank all participating artists, event sponsors, committee members, ticket buyers and auction bidders for their generous support.

You can view it here if you can’t see the embed above.. The artist Man Bartlett recommended me because of this blog post from 2010 about deleting my Facebook account.

James and I watched this documentary about The Pirate Bay over the weekend. AFK stands for “away from the keyboard”, as opposed to the usual IRL “in real life”. Peter Sunde explains AFK at the trial of The Pirate Bay’s co-founders: “because we think the Internet is real”.

Here is a quote by Peter Sunde from the film.

The copyright industry is digging a grave for the internet. They don’t take into account the public benefits of a free internet. The problem is that old people are running the companies. They know how you made money before and they don’t want to change. They’re like the Amish. They don’t want electricity. They know how to make do without electricity.

You can watch the film on YouTube or download it at The Pirate Bay.

Of the many benefits James and I attend this year, this is always one of the best parties. Great art in the silent auction, wandering “bootleg” artists, and a well-stocked bar! Join us on December 19th to celebrate Flux Factory, and say happy birthday to James while you’re at it. Tickets start at only $40.

Date: Wednesday, December 19th
Location: 79 Walker Street, 6th Floor, NYC
Time: Cocktails begin at 7pm, award ceremony at 8:00pm, with silent bidding until 10pm

Come party with us and celebrate an exciting year of programming at Flux Factory’s Not-So-Silent Auction. This spirited cocktail event will feature a silent auction of over 75 artworks by NYC’s rising stars and celebrated artists who reflect the scope of Flux Factory’s extensive community.

We will honor Martha Wilson, artist and founding director of Franklin Furnace, and Shelley Rubin, founder and chair of A Blade of Grass, for the work they are doing to support artists who engage with diverse audiences and interests. Expect a bountiful open bar with free-flowing cocktails, tasty hors d’oeurves, jpg light portraits in The Rainbow Machine by Double One Design (Reid Bingham & Sean McIntyre), aesthetic palm readings by Bean Gilsdorf, and a steady stream of entertainment provided by DJ We Are Architects and our emcee Daupo. There will be a dedicated team of “knock-off artists” working the crowd and making customized copies of auction items on demand, including Stephanie Avery, Louise Barry, Aliya Bonar, Doulgas Paulson, Angela Washko, and Alex Young. We’ll also debut a new Flux logo silk screened on tote bags, designed by one of our very own Flux Artists-in-Residence, as well as our 2013 Sexy (Wo)(Men) of Flux calendar.

Participating artists: The silent auction will include artworks by Daniel Bejar, Eric Doeringer, Carla Gannis, Jason Lazarus, Michelle Levy, John Powers, William Powhida, Ward Shelley, SWOON, Martha Wilson, and many others.

[Wondering about the ads on bloggy/ArtCat/IDIOM? We're a sponsor.]

The first version of ArtCat calendar (then called ArtCal) launched in November 2004. I wrote the first version in one weekend, to make it easier for James and me to keep track of shows we wanted to see, especially once Chelsea reached 300 galleries. For a long time it was a minimal website with locations, shows, and their dates — not even images. Over time I added images, iCal and RSS feeds, and a weekly newsletter.

Over 16,000 exhibitions at more than 2,000 venues have appeared on ArtCat. We average 200-300 current exhibitions on the site. While forms for galleries to add their exhibits have existed since late 2010, we still view each submission to approve it, for quality control and to prevent duplicates. That is the most time-consuming part of running the site. We also spend a lot of time processing corrections due to galleries submitting new version of press releases, or correcting typos and erroneously-submitted dates.

Advertising revenue, even if one assumes my time is free, does not currently cover the cost of hosting the site plus paying someone to help me with approving submissions and responding to corrections. The calendar does serve as promotion for ArtCat Hosting, but the value of that, versus having more time to improve ArtCat Hosting, is unclear. Most of my hosting clients do not mention the calendar when signing up.

Advertising revenue has averaged $250/month over the last year, primarily due to the support of Storefront Bushwick and Deborah Brown. Other advertisers have included Theodore:Art and Kianga Ellis Projects. Note that all of these are Brooklyn-based. Since I ended the Culture Pundits advertising network, there have been no advertisements from a Chelsea or Lower East Side gallery. During the entire 4 1/2 year run of Culture Pundits, only two commercial galleries in New York advertised with the network.

Charging for listings, for a calendar that wants to maintain quality and promote underknown artists and galleries, is a non-starter. It is apparent to me, after eight years, that there is no financial support for an art calendar of this kind.

I don’t have the resources and time to continue to run the calendar by myself in its current form. I am spread too thinly to do a good job of running ArtCat, improving ArtCat Hosting, promoting and publishing IDIOM, documenting our art collection, and actually getting out to see art. Of course, I also have to make a living through my freelance work. My goal is to narrow the focus of my work I do within the art world, and do one or two things very well, rather than provide lesser versions of many things. As the wonderful Michael Mandiberg pointed out here, there are limits to one’s time/labor/capital and it’s healthy to move one when the time feels right.

I will convert the site to an archive as of January 1, 2013. If someone is interested in the code and data (it is a Ruby on Rails 2.3 application), I’m ready to talk. The ArtCat name and domain will stay with me, as I own the trademark for it, to be used specifically for my art website hosting business.

If you would like to express your gratitude in some way, please consider a tax-deductible donation to IDIOM.

In the early evening of October 31, with the power having been out for almost 48 hours, James cooked dinner for my mother and me. She was in town to attend the closing of our show at English Kills, and thanks to Hurricane Sandy, got to extend her stay by four days.

James wore a headlamp brought to us by the wonderful Michelle Vaughan, so that we was able to cook using our gas stove and oven, including boiling water for washing dishes. We had gas and running water, but no electricity, from Monday (10/29) at 8:40pm until Friday (11/2) at 6pm.

We ate pan-grilled duck breast, roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and pan-grilled plum tomatoes. We drank Argyle Pinot Noir from Oregon and Vineland Estates Pinot Meunier from Ontario.

Our table was lit with an assortment of candles in American candlesticks acquired by James over the decades. The ones pictured below date from about 1680 to 1830.

We were wondering if Mom’s trip would seem dull after her two-week trip with us to Germany earlier in the year, but thanks to Sandy it was an adventure. It was quite odd, having streets a few blocks north of our West 23rd Street building with full power. We ate out a few times, and also made regular runs for ice, batteries, or phone charging. Miraculously, we had to throw out almost none of our food that had been in the refrigerator or freezer, but James is definitely cooking nice meals each night, to make sure nothing is wasted, since the power returned. Mom’s flight out of Newark left on time Friday morning, well before we had electricity again in the apartment.

This will not be one of my more eloquent posts. I struggle how to fit all of my thoughts on this subject into one blog post.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but I cannot at this point endorse his record on civil liberties, whistleblowers, and war crimes. It does not matter that Romney can be expected to be worse on those issues. Romney has not committed war crimes yet. Obama has.

I’ll begin with the Geneva Conventions, Article 146.

Art. 146. The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.

Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.

Under Obama, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute torture, even in cases where CIA detainees died. The administration has pressured countries such as Spain to prevent investigations into torture by the Bush administration.

Not only has Obama failed to punish torturers, he has instead chosen to prosecute whistleblowers, at a pace unknown in American history. He has charged more people under the Espionage Act than all other administrations combined, and some of those charges are for revealing evidence of torture such as waterboarding. Some alleged whistleblowers, such as Bradley Manning, haven’t even been charged. Manning has now been held in military custody, often under conditions we would call torture if another country did it, for 900 days.

The treatment of Manning is not likely to be a unique case. President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into American law for the first time in our history. His administration continues to defend indefinite military detention in court.

Back to war crimes. It is also a war crime to target civilians, or to fail to discriminate between civilians and legitimate targets in attacks. It is a particularly grievous crime to use secondary strikes, meaning attacks on people who are attempting to rescue or assist those wounded after an attack. Those tactics are being used in Pakistan. The people in those areas are also living under threat of strikes 24 hours per day.

There is no judicial review of these attacks. Obama and his staff decide whom to kill without any oversight from another branch. They also admit to counting all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

I don’t know what the answer is — how an ethical citizen should behave in an alleged constitutional republic when our top leaders are free of impunity for crimes against our own laws as well as international law. Yes, Obama is better on a woman’s right to control her body. He is supposedly better on gay rights, but that is mostly rhetoric which has not been backed up by concrete action. Still, what is our responsibility when international crimes are committed in our name? Why do Obama supporters believe that crimes committed by a Democratic President are less bad than similar crimes committed by George W. Bush? I think back to a post I wrote in 2007 in which I talked about the firebombing of Dresden. If many Americans feel those civilians warranted the horrible death we and the British inflicted upon them, what is our deserved punishment for continuing to vote for these leaders without loudly protesting their actions?

Corydon Cowansage, Fence #20, 2012, oil on paper, 14.5 x 11.5 inches (framed)

James and I have befriended, and collected the work of, many artists we first discovered via the annual NURTUREart benefits. The next one happens on October 29, with a preview on October 28 if you buy a VIP ticket. Please support this non-profit. I have been consistently impressed by their exhibitions and programs.

Note: Benefit Tickets are $200 if purchased before October 15! Afterwards, the price will go up to $250.

The work above is one of the 265 available, and they can all be viewed on the preview site now.

Installation view from collection, with works by Daniel Rushton and Kim Schifino. Photo by Fette.

The press release:

English Kills Art Gallery has installed a few dozen works from the Hoggard Wagner Art Collection in an exhibition which opens with a reception this Friday, September 21, 2012 from 7 to 10 pm.

Barry Hoggard and James Wagner, who share an interest in all of the arts, have assembled a large, very personal and extremely diverse collection of visual art begun modestly by Wagner ten years before the two met in 1991.

They began by acquiring a few works to enjoy in their own home, but very soon realized that part of that enjoyment came from supporting artists, galleries and non-profits which they believed should be encouraged. They were concerned, however, that there are limits to the number of people who could see the work they took into their home (and only a fraction of the collection can actually be displayed there). It was largely to make it accessible to as many people as possible, and for information purposes, that they created the Hoggard/Wagner Collection website.

For the same reason, the couple enthusiastically agreed to the suggestion of English Kills that a part of the collection itself be installed in Bushwick for six weeks. The Gallery alone is responsible for the choice of works displayed; the selection was made from among the 300+ pieces visible on the walls and surfaces of their home. There are approximately 600 more in flat files.

Hoggard and Wagner have never sold a single work from the collection and they do not intend to do so. No sale of any kind is involved in the English Kills exhibition.

Artists include: Nancy Spero, Keith Haring, David Reed, Wolfgang Tillmans, Clement Valla, Eric Doeringer, Sharon Louden, Felix Droese, Jules de Balincourt, Marco Breuer, Tom Fuhs, Bryan Zimmerman, Yasser Aggour, Michael J. Dvorkin, Deborah Mesa-Pelly, Jason Simon, Louise Fishman, Clarina Bezzola, Michael Meads, Mike Asente, Tracey Baran, Teresa Moro, Jaishri Abichandani, Rupert Deese, Alejandro Diaz, David Humphrey, Matt Dojny, Dan Golden, Gregory Botts, Rochelle Feinstein, Robert Wilson, Hiroshi Sunairi, Charles Goldman, Michael Williams, Wijnanda Deroo, Amy Feldman, Janine Gordon, Joe Ovelman, Kim Schifino, Joyce Pensato, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Margaret Lee, Ben Godward, Kiki Smith

If you look closely, you can see me in the crowd a couple of times.

The first of a number of videos from Varispeed’s performance of Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives presented as part of Performa ’11 at Essex St Market in New York City’s Lower East Side.

Featuring: Gelsey Bell, Dave Grollman, Brian McCorkle, Paul Pinto, Erin Rogers, Dave Ruder, Aliza Simons, and Jeffrey Young