I Am Still Alive

“Temporary Space: The Contemporary Tent (May 26-Jul. 15, 1984) was a free outdoor exhibition curated by Jacqueline Crist. The show featured approximately seventy-five of the most innovative and durable mountaineering tents currently in use around the world, which were all erected under the chain-link canopy in front of the Temporary Contemporary.”

I gather this show is from before the museum building on Grand was actually finished (‘Temporary Contemporary’).

The MOCA just launched an archive of their exhibitions from 1983-2004. With the financial difficulties they are going through right now, it’s good to be able to look back on the shows they’ve put out there and to get a real sense for the distinct place the museum has occupied in Los Angeles.

In other news, Eli Broad is stepping up to the plate to invest in MOCA and is challenging other Los Angeles philanthropists to do the same.

Hilarious letterpress print by No Days Off in the UK. Printed in an edition of 60 by Adams of Rye on Fenner Colourset 120gsm uncoated paper (100% recycled).

“At AllthingsD.com, our website, we have coined a term for the economy; we’re calling it the ‘econaclypse’...”

And then

“Just because the market is in the eight thousands instead of the eleven thousands or unemployment – which is actually the more serious number in my opinion for gauging the length of the recession – is 8.5 percent, which it might get to rather than 4 percent, it doesn’t mean people stop working on new ideas, particularly in tech and particularly in consumer tech.”

‘Econaclypse’ is a phenomenal contraction.

An example of one of the aforementioned overgrown lots in New Orleans’ 9th Ward.

A good profile of poet and Creative Capital co-founder Lewis Hyde:

After the lecture, as we walked across the darkened campus, I mentioned to Hyde that I had found [Lawrence] Lessig’s talk to be logical and well crafted.

“A little too well crafted, if you ask me,” Hyde said.

This took me by surprise – Hyde is a polite man who rarely speaks critically of others – and I later asked him to elaborate. “Look, Lessig is a lawyer,” he said. “I like him, I think he’s solid. But it’s a very particular way of thinking.” Hyde himself makes use of the Creative Commons, yet there’s a formality to the setup that troubles him. “All of the C.C. licenses use the lever of the law,” he said. “They have the assumption of private ownership behind them. So Lessig, in a certain sense, is confining himself to one slice of this stuff, which is not as capacious as a true commons would be.”

I saw this sign in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward this past October. Most every lot in this area was overgrown.

I dig the ligature here in the word ‘tall.’

“With the holiday season kicking into gear, we’ve prepared a helpful shopping and business guide to help you support the many local businesses that have helped support the fight against Bruce Ratner’s ‘Atlantic Yards’ project.”

The MOCA in Los Angeles is apparently nearly insolvent; bummer – it’s always been one of my favorites. Proposed solutions include merging w/ LACMA.

“In the wake of Wednesday’s board meeting to discuss options for the fiscal crisis at the Museum of Contemporary Art, here is what I’m told the board is now prepared to do: formally approach the Los Angeles County Museum of Art about a merger, which will effectively mean a transfer of MOCA’s extraordinary collection to the Mid-Wilshire complex.”

LATimes art critic, Christopher Knight writes about why he reckons this is the wrong move.

“Walkability is not just an amenity. Is it not a lifestyle accessory for the well-heeled. It is, for many people, an issue of basic social and economic justice. Zoning that segregates housing from retail – and that reduces walkability and transit access – has serious consequences for equity. “

Better late than never

Eric Triantafillou writes a great essay in this month’s Brooklyn Rail about Signs of Change @Exit Art:

“I’m not advocating we stop mounting shows like Signs of Change in order to sit around and think about how to mount shows like this. Our practices – the process of putting this exhibition together and the work in it – are, as the curators have said, a site for thought, a beginning. If it maintains a self-reflective component, active experimentation can be a form of thinking and rethinking. But constant doing sometimes precludes us from ever really asking certain questions, questions that would necessarily place more value on certain ideas and actions and less on others. It is when we become trapped in doing – in a compulsion to act, then to affirm that act with more of the same – places us at risk of making history rhyme.”

Finally getting over this cold/flu/whatever in Brooklyn, NY. posted to twitter