Saturday, August 6, 2011

Another Artists' Call, Answered

On the heels of both TAM's Telephone exhibition and Mat Gleason's related show comes another local example of distributed curating, or giving-up-control-curating, or process equals the point a-curating...

The LAT's art critic, Christopher Knight, reviewed yesterday Chain Letter, an exhibition at Bergamot Station's Shoshana Wayne Gallery through August 23.

Chain is said to have begun with Dough Harvey and Christian Cummings each emailing ten artists, requesting a work for the show, and requesting that those artists email ten other artists.

(Presumably, if they didn't email ten people, a great harm would befall those ten people. Probably a great harm written out in all capital letters, too.)

The end result? Some 1,600+ artworks in the Bergamot space. (See the Chain link above for photos.)

Beyond curatorial practices, what does all this demonstrate?

That exponents matter? TAM's one-artist-ask-one-artist-ask-one-artist-until-the-number-hits-forty-total-artists paled in volume when compared to SW's ten-artists-ask-ten-artists plan.

That artists and writers who are also curators like to shake the same-old up a bit? TAM's Max Presneill is a working artist and writes catalog and other texts. Doug Harvey is an artist and a highly-regarded art writer and critic.

Or that telephones and chain letters are nowadays quaint anachronisms or, like the telegraph, the precursors to links, retweets and hangouts?

Friday, July 22, 2011

TAM Jam The News
Farmers Markets Beat Starving Artists

In them olde days, starving artists were considered the key urban revitalization force.

Now, farmers markets are planners' manna.

News Item:

Market Watch: A bumper crop of new markets in the L.A. area:
Thousand Oaks, Hollywood and Torrance are among the new venues, adding to the competition for true straight-from-the-farm produce.
(From Los Angeles Times.)

Art Item:

From post-industrial artists’ den to condo community (From Baltimore Brew, but you know the story from all over, even if not this particular example.)

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Yes, Yes, And Absolutely

This blog received answers to the first trio of these recent Carmaggedon-related questions... (All the questions are here.)

Q: Did the reception take place?
A: Yes.

Q: If so, did attendance pale in comparison to recent well-attended TAM openings?
A: Yes.

Q: If so, did the stay-at-home honking about Carmaggedon have anything to do with numbers?
A: Absolutely.

Of course, attendance was still better than Saturday at the Getty.

Monday, July 18, 2011

TAM Greater Than Getty?

Continuing from this previous post....

Throughout both museum's histories...

On how many Saturdays has TAM's attendance been larger than the Getty's?

So long as TAM stayed open yesterday, then that answer is at least once.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Did Honking About Carmaggedon Hurt TAM Opening?

Baker's Dozen III, the latest TAM main gallery exhibition, was scheduled to open with a reception last night, July 16, 2011...

Did the reception take place?

If so, did attendance pale in comparison to recent well-attended TAM openings?

If so, did the stay-at-home honking about Carmaggedon have anything to do with numbers?

If so, does that indicate that TAM's mix-and-mingle occasions are heavily attended by people from outside the South Bay?

If so, does that indicate that a group show with forty or so artists (Telephone) will draw more people to an opening than a group show with thirteen? (Baker's.)

Even if bigger-named artists are part of the latter show? (Examples: Martin Durazo, Alexandra Grant.)