Monday, June 30, 2008

Garden creatures

DeerEyeBlog
"Young buck," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

JungleMadonnaBlog
"Jungle madonna," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

GnomeAloneBlog
"Gnome alone," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

I found these in the lush frontyard gardens of Astoria, Queens after thunder & a half-hour of drenching rain. They felt like treasures hidden by a child beneath the thick wet leaves. I felt a child's excitement discovering them.

All statues are a little bit alive -- & not just to children. Freud called statues & mannequins "uncanny." They're familiar, close to what we know but...different. They stir up deepseated fears that the dead are not really dead; that the dead can suddenly become alive.


No matter what the statues look like, I always feel this. I'm guessing so many people want to be around jokey statues because they can feel the pulse of connection, but without the fear.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

We hope...

HillaryObamaBlog
"Graffiti, Houston Street, NYC," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Brooklyn Museum's "Click" results are in

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"Lance & Tomoko hanging the "Click" show," Brooklyn Museum

Results are now posted for Brooklyn Museum's "Click: A Crowd-Curated Exhibition." The show got underway this spring with an open-call for artists to electronically submit one photo on the theme: "The changing face of Brooklyn" & continued with a public evaluation process in which online visitors could evaluate the photos (I wrote about the process here).

Now the museum has put up a website analyzing the results., The photos are displayed tag-cloud style -- relative size of images indicates their popularity with evaluators -- & a number of tools are provided
to search in interesting ways & select & compare photos by various criteria. All this to test the question: "...is a diverse crowd just as 'wise' at evaluating art as the trained experts?"

In the age of Flickr it's a trendy question. Because it falls across basic fault lines of class, education & politics, it's also one guaranteed to provoke riproaring (& attention-getting) arguments. But I'll give "Click" its due for making a fair run at it. The director of the project, Shelley Bernstein, seems to have made a special effort to head off dogfights (she led a recent blog entry with, "Click is not a contest...it is a study in crowds.") So maybe the way to look at is: the results are not just art -- they're also data. And sociology. And politics. And an interesting glimpse at the zeitgeist as a famous (mythical) borough morphs into... something else.

I do, however, have to respectfully disagree about the contest. You can get a sense of the competitiveness out there by taking a look at the anonymous comments on the submitted images . The ones I sampled were frequently angry , sometimes really nasty, & shockingly negative. Wow, you thought professional critics were mean?

Anyway, I'm not weighing in right now on the question "Click" poses. For one thing (full disclosure), I submitted an image & it didn't make the cut in any of the categories of the (non) contest. For another, I'm looking forward to seeing what the "Click" blog's experts have to say.

Can an anonymous crowd judge art in any meaningful way? Can they curate a diverse body of work? Let's see.

Green tree in red yard

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"Prospect Place, Brooklyn," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Friday, June 20, 2008

'Brooklyn Au Naturel' reviewed

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"Cathedral," Juliette Conroy, All rights reserved. Actual size approx. 12 feet in width.

Our show at Safe-T Gallery got a thoughtful review in today's Brooklyn Paper. It's the 1st big byline for author Kate Ray. Bravo, Kate. Not only is her piece smart & graceful, she also made my quotes sound intelligent!


Thursday, June 19, 2008

Safe-T: The place to be

Bulbs"Christmas cheer," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

Tonight from 6-8 PM I'll be joining a talented group of artists to open Brooklyn au naturel, "...an exuberant salute to Nature in New York’s most bodacious borough" at Safe-T-Gallery in DUMBO. Running through July 20th, the show will include my picture above, plus three (or four) others, printed large. Also included will be terrific works by 8 other artists in other photo media, paintings and prints.

I hope you can make it.

Directions to Safe-T-Gallery.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

'Brooklyn au naturel' to open June 19th

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"Oh deer!", Tim Connor, All rights reserved

I'll be joining a talented group of artists on the Eve of Summer, June 19th, to open Brooklyn au naturel, "...
an exuberant salute to Nature in New York’s most bodacious borough" at Safe-T-Gallery in DUMBO. Running through July 20th, the show will include my picture above, plus three others, printed large. Also included will be terrific works by 8 other artists in other photo media, paintings and prints.

I hope you can make it.

Directions to Safe-T-Gallery.