Arcade Fire — Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) — UNSTAGED — Live @ MSG — 1080 HD from Théan Slabbert on Vimeo.

They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
These days my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface

‘Cause on the surface the city lights shine
They’re calling at me, come and find your kind

School starts tomorrow.

So I was looking for some money, earlier today, and I stumbled upon 25 for 25: the AOL Grant program. The Website reads:

“AOL is looking for 25 creative thinkers. We are awarding twenty-five, $25,000 grants to tomorrow’s ground breakers and visionaries—individuals with a creative spark to ignite. 25 for 25 is a call to journalists, artists and innovators who believe in the power of ideas.”

Pretty good so far. I believe in the power of ideas. I may not win, but hey, I’ll give it a shot. Can’t hurt to try, right?  Right?

Wrong!

Read the fine print:

By entering, each applicant licenses all rights to the content of his/her artwork or other work included within the submission package and the expression of ideas/concepts embodied therein in accordance with the Release detailed below.

The applicant unconditionally assigns and transfers to Sponsor all rights, title, interest and claim, which it now has or may in the future have to the submission application and submission package or any element(s) therein including, without limitation, the copyright therein; provided that AOL shall only receive a license to the artwork or other work included within the submission package in accordance with the above.

Sponsor shall have the right to modify, use, assign or dispose of such submission applications, including the artwork or other work included within the submission package however they see fit without approval of applicants or any third party.

Neither applicants nor winners shall receive any compensation or credit for use of submissions, other than that disclosed in rules.

and

You grant to the Sponsor and its assignees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, edit, market, store, distribute, have distributed, publicly and privately display, communicate, publicly and privately perform, transmit, have transmitted, create derivative works based upon, and promote all elements of the materials submitted for entry into the Program including, but not limited to, any original artwork, writings, photos, recipes, audio and visual recordings, as well as your image (including photographs and video), biographic information, and comments, (collectively, the “Submission”) in connection with the Program and such other products or services as the Sponsor may designate in any medium now known or hereafter devised for editorial, commercial, promotional and/or any other purpose.

In addition, the Sponsor shall have the right to reproduce and distribute your Submission for promotional purposes in broadcast, print and or other media as the Sponsor may determine in their sole discretion.

You retain ownership of all right, title, and interest in and to your Submission.

You agree that the Sponsor owns all right, title, and interest in any compilation, collective work, or other derivative work created by the Sponsor using or incorporating your Submission.

You hereby grant to the Sponsor the right to edit any of your Submission, in whole or in part.

In addition, you hereby grant to the Sponsor and its designees the right to use any edited Submission, or parts of a Submission, without your approval and waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Submission prior to or following publication and any right to compensation for the Submission.

Allow me to summarize: you submit, we own. A flimsy “You retain ownership of all right, title, and interest in and to your Submission” is meaningless if you’ve given away all control of your artwork. Did I mention that this is for all entries? Not just the winners, every single entry is governed by this policy. That’s not support for the arts, its stealing from people who are too clueless to read the fine print.

So, AOL, here’s an idea you can have for free: cut the crap and play fair.

I have the good fortune of living 2 blocks from  MoMA PS.1, the Queens outpost of the Museum of Modern Art. Looking for inspiration last week, I took myself on an art date to see their Summer show, Greater New York.

Some critics have panned the exhibition, but I think there were a enough gems to make it worth while. It seems  practically impossible to sum up five years of art in New York, and kind of foolish to try, so the curators can be afforded a little understanding.

Tucked in a back corner on the third floor is Deana Lawson’s giant photo-mural. Lawson’s piece presents a narrative made of appropriated images, a sort of imagined family album, but spread out edge to edge on a gallery wall. I enjoyed diving into individual photos, and looking for the contrasts and connections between the people pictured.

New York City. I made it here. Well, almost. I made it to Queens.

On my fifth night I had a fever dream. I dreamt that I was at Liberty Island, at night, to see the Statue of Liberty. I climbed up on a chair to get a better photograph, the chair tipped, and I was plunged into the cold, dark water. I wasn’t scared. It more matter of fact, “oh,” I though, “I am sinking.” Eventually, I kicked my feet free from where they were stuck in the chair and swam toward the surface. It seemed an eternity. When I finally breached the surface my father and two men in wetsuits were in the water, looking for me. I remember thinking “next time you fall into the water, make sure to put your camera bag down first.”

On Saturday I took some amazing cold-and-flu medication and went on a bike ride. First I went down from Queens to Williamsburg, crossed over the bridge and met my friends downtown (I have two, yay). Then we went up Park Avenue, which was closed from more-or-less the tip of Manhattan to 72nd St. At 72nd we did a loop of Central park, and reversed the circuit to go home. It was a great trip. Six lanes wide, silent of cars. It was one of the most joyous bike rides I’ve ever had.

On the radio they’ve been talking about a proposed mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. It’s a big controversy, with players from city, state, and federal politics pitching their weight around. Objections to this mosque, like objections to other mosques, has been about parking, or traffic flow, or “sensibilities” and other thinly veiled excuses for xenophobia.

On the topic, New York’s mayor, Micheal Bloomberg, gave a speech. It is a fantastic speech, one that makes me proud to be a temporary New Yorker. He said:

“Our doors are open to everyone. Everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it’s sustained by immigrants — by people from more than 100 different countries speaking more than 200 different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here or you came here yesterday, you are a New Yorker.”

It’s worth reading the full text of Bloomberg’s speech. The incredible diversity of voices, stories, experiences, and opportunities in New York is a big part of why I came here. It made me really happy to watch this, and on my first day too.

Welcome to New York. Now, I need to find a swimming pool around here.

This profile of Lana Šlezić is the second in a series of artist mini-biographies in the lead up to Bodies in Trouble, the summer 2010 photography exhibition at Galerie SAW Gallery.

It is a powerful image, the photograph of Lt.-Col. Malali Kakar, then the highest ranking woman in the Afghan police force, resolutely pointing a handgun. Surely it is the contrast the burqa and the gun, power-objects often seen together but rarely combined, that makes this photograph so strong. If only it  were merely that. In 2008, a few years after this photograph was taken, Kakar was assassinated. The image of a woman, not only wielding a weapon but leading men, is a powerful symbol. Too powerful for some.

Canadian photographer Lana Šlezić went to Afghanistan in 2004 on a six-week assignment and stayed for two years. Her work documenting the lives of Afghan women is collected in the highly aclaimed book Forsaken, published in 2007. Šlezić explains more about her work in an interview on PRI’s The World:

PRI the World interview with Lana Slezic

Interview available from the PRI archive here.

Bodies in Trouble includes the portrait of Malali Kakar by Lana Šlezić. Although there are many strong photographs in the exhibition, this is one of my personal favorites. Bodies in Trouble opens Thursday July 22nd, 2010 at SAW Gallery in Ottawa.

This profile of Maya Deren is the first of a series of artist mini-biographies in the lead up to Bodies in Trouble, the summer 2010 photography exhibition at Galerie SAW Gallery.

Maya Deren was an American avant-garde film maker. The Museum of Modern Art describes Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) as “one of the most influential works in American experimental cinema. Indeed, ripples of Deren’s influence can be seen throughout Western visual culture, such as the mirror-face specters in Janelle Monae’s Tightrope (which I wrote about here). I watched Deren’s films in first year cinema studies, as I am sure many have. It’s worth revisiting.

“A non-narrative work, it has been identified as a key example of the “trance film,” in which a protagonist appears in a dreamlike state, and where the camera conveys his or her subjective focus. The central figure in Meshes of the Afternoon, played by Deren, is attuned to her unconscious mind and caught in a web of dream events that spill over into reality. Symbolic objects, such as a key and a knife, recur throughout the film; events are open-ended and interrupted. Deren explained that she wanted “to put on film the feeling which a human being experiences about an incident, rather than to record the incident accurately.”

from the MoMA entry for Meshes of the Afternoon.

I was sitting in my backyard, answering email and enjoying the sun, when a female robin swooped onto the little patch of grass in front of me. Every time she ate an ant she hopped closer. I sat completely motionless, fixed by her gaze. She hopped closer still and I had the distinct feeling of being watched, of some foreign intellect sizing me up. Then as simply as she came she flew away. Off to eat bugs somewhere else, I suppose. Maybe she is meeting the male robin I have seen perched on my fence.

It is the summer, and it is beautiful.

I am happy to announce the inclusion of four photographs from Playing House in the upcoming international group show Bodies in Trouble at SAW Gallery in Ottawa, Ontario. Here is a description of the exhibition by SAW Gallery, details follow:

An exhibition featuring photojournalistic works and documentation of performance art spanning over 50 years, Bodies in Trouble takes an inspiring look at the human plight to survive and to fight for freedom. Sharing many aesthetic and conceptual concerns, photojournalistic work and performance documentation are often labeled as remnants of past events; in this exhibition, they are unabashedly presented as visual art. With subjective, poetic and at times subversive practices, the ten photographers and performers invited from Canada, Spain, France, the United States and the UK bring hope and light in a world that can be extremely dark. Bodies in Trouble includes such historical works as Leap into the Void (1960) by Yves Klein, the Pulitzer-Prize– winning The Kiss of Life (1968) by Rocco Morabito and a never-before-seen restored photographic panel (circa 1954) by acclaimed filmmaker Maya Deren. Many of the photographs presented in the exhibition will be shown in Canada for the first time.

The curator, Stefan St-Laurent, has put together a provocative and haunting exhibition. I am thrilled to exhibit with this group of photographers, including:

Maya Deren (New York, USA)
Cristina García Rodero (Madrid, Spain)
Yves Klein (Paris, France)
Rocco Morabito (Miami, USA)
Greta Pratt (Norfolk, VA, USA)
Lana Šlezić (Toronto)
Paul M. Smith (London, UK)
Jana Sterbak (Montréal)
and Alex Webb (New York, USA)

Over the next two weeks I will highlight the work of some of the artists in the show and take a closer look at my own photos. In the meantime, here are the details for the opening:

Bodies in Trouble Exhibition Opening

Thursday, July 22, 8PM — 2AM

Galerie SAW Galery
67, rue Nicholas Street, Ottawa ON, Canada K1N 7B9
galeriesawgallery.com

Music with  DJ BEAR witness (Ottawa)

Cash bar

Updates and discussion at the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/event.php?eid=134897893198482&ref=ts

There will also be a talk in September during Festival X. I will post more information at that time.

Inclusion of photographs from Playing House in Bodies in Trouble at Galerie SAW Gallery was made possible by an exhibition assistance grant from the Ontario Arts Council.

Things I have learned from going to Miami:

Miami is great. It is the most superficial, do-nothing city in the US, at least parts that I have visited. It’s awesome. There is absolutely nothing to care about in the least. All there is to do is sit on the sand and drink insanely large rum-based drinks. The city lives up to its Sodom reputation, however, watching people have sex on the beach is way more boring than you’d assume.

My suspicion is that Miami isn’t really an American city at all. It’s actually a caribean city dressed up in fabulous Art Deco. I have this vaguely familiar feeling, the tempo is a distant reminder of the frenetic energy of Peru. It’s a hot city, except the sexiness is commodified and concentrated into shopping districts in a typically American way. Maybe it is an American city after all.

Everything that Will Smith said is true:

I’m heading to New York (by way of Florida) tomorrow to search for an apartment. The thought of it fills me with fear, verging on terror. The vacancy rate is less that 1%, and competition is fierce. Finding the right housing with right mix of variables is pretty perplexing. There’s cost, of course, and then there’s proximity to work and amenities, safety, space, and character of the area. Throw in brokers, scams, slums, and sublets and you’ve got a real mess. Let’s hope my experience is a little better than Henry Miller’s.

I’ve thought long and hard about apartments. Given a certain price ceiling, the most important thing about a place to live, for me, is people. Just a little more horrible, and then some real adventure.

UPDATE: found one!