there must be something in the air

So far, I have not been able to write about Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century," the inaugural exhibit at the New Museum on the Bowery that inspired my recent homage to collage and that closes on March 30. It's been overwhelming not because I'm not interested in teasing out my response to the show, in general, and certain pieces, specifically, but because every time thus far that I have turned to focus on Unmonumental, I've not been able to get past my newly-identified obsession with collage as a form.
Incidentally, I'm not alone. In grappling with his thoughts about the Whitney Biennial in the March 24, 2008 issue of New York magazine, Jerry Saltz describes the show's "resultant assemblage-collage aesthetic" as "the style du jour right now." He writes: "Huldisch and Momin [the youthful curators] assert that current art is exploring what Samuel Beckett called “lessness,” and that it’s in a “do-over” phase. ... artists are working in modes of “anti-spectacle” and “ephemerality,” and employing “modest, found, or scavenged materials.” ... artists are working together and off one another, and that they’re making use of the open-source systems, self-replicating strategies, and decentralized networks of our YouTube-MySpace world."
Yes, yes, yes! To cite that candy-colored sign announcing the New Museum's presence on the Bowery: Hell yes!


What Saltz fails to mention—or maybe doesn't agree with—is the whimsy, often surreality, of this mode of art. Collage is playful. A sumptuous full moon adorned in chains of faux pearls, fur pelts, foam-stuffed fishnet stockings, fringe, curling horns shaped out of silver, shiny aluminum foil, a pair of long johns, plastic tubular hose and gourds, among other miscellany, is the focal point of Wangechi Mutu's wall-size mural (50x25 feet, I'm guessing) titled, "Perhaps the Moon Will Save Us." Small pink blossoms blown from a crooked, wind-bent tree drift toward the moon. Except, look closer: They aren't blossoms. Look closer: They are small, pink, (presumably) dead pigs, affixed with a tuft of animal fur. Light as a feather, (they are tiny), they drift on the breeze. The realization doesn't shake one from one's dreamlike reverie—at least it didn't me. Any more than Madame moon's tacky-trashy accoutrements.
Artists who work in collage generally do not shy away from the grotesque, the grit and grime of life—literally, when working with found objects. What they create is all the more soulful for it.

Thanks to Wooster Collective for the photo of the New Museum. Street arts aren't unrelated to collage: juxtaposition of textures, colors, surfaces. layers of meaning. irreplicable process. surprising results. the transformation of a wall, a lamppost, into something ... else.

these eyes ain't ever seen a party like this

Yes, I made it inside Salon Aleman, Eduardo Sarabia's tequila bar at the Park Avenue Armory, on the 14th. Yes, the same night of "The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black." And yes, that shit was hoppin'.
If I could, I would have lived at the armory these last few weeks, dance-danceathoning with Gang Gang Dance, modeling for Ellen Harvey ("100 Biennial Visitors Immortalized"), asking astute questions about Scarface (which I still have never seen) during Mario Ybarra Jr.'s tour of "The Scarface Museum," flitting about the looped braids and prayers of Mk Guth's "Ties of Protection and Safekeeping," umm sleeping over at Walead Beshty's 24-hour sleepover in the hugest space in manhattan just because... and so on, and so forth.
Essentially, the installations at the armory—an annex of the Whitney Biennial only open March 6-23— just blew my mind.
Why? Because of the creative unknown of each of these pieces. Much (most?) of what was on display at the armory was incomplete. A call, in solicitation of a response. The tentative putting of oneself out there, an act of hope, the nudging of the meatball. The x-factor being whoever the hell shows up.
The success of many of the pieces at the armory was derivative of the response of people. Which turned out en masse. Which made me very, very happy.
So free tequila, si! Voluptuous horrific stage show, latex body paint, pretty shiny things (devious smiley faces bouncing off all interior surfaces of an airport hangar in the middle of Manhattan). Easy sells, right.

Yet, the Park Avenue Armory is such a place that one cannot make it a destination unless it is part of the adventure—at least, that was the spirit that haunted these old halls on the night I was there.
The Field and Staff Room (the last room to the right, if you hang a left down the grand central corridor of the ground floor of the Armory)—was temporarily redubbed "Salon Alena," an oasis serving cerveza and "Tequila Sarabia," or so promised a pair of pink neon signs bracketing Sarabia's tiled Babylon Bar.
Folding aluminum tables topped with a checkerboard aplique, short stools in the shape of elephant feet, loud brassa, tequila, the cast of the neon glow, gave that room a warmth, that glow of life, in utter juxtaposition to the stoic, solid nature of the heavy, dark wood, the glassy-eyed trophies (a moose, two deer, an eagle, a buffalo) and the meticulously-painted oil portraits of wars, men and pride.
To hear these stately halls echo with the brassy tapestry of Latin culture—a DJ set mixed by sir Sarabia himself—it was the site of two great prides meeting.

what collage means to me

Collage is:
The collective unconsciousness of a subway car, or an airplane cabin.
A waking dream.
Leaves leftover from last season tangled in spring.
Simultaneous tabbed web browsing, emailing and IMing.
Spontaneous decisions.
Mismatched sheets.
May involve paper, scissors and glue.
However, any source material will do. (rhyme!)
— Always pieced together to make one new thing.
There is an eye which sees,
Like how a photographer frames X for desired effect (only with more imprecise edges).
There's a thought there, to tease out. Call it inspiration, idea, inquiry.
It's a nudge. of Life's pieces. Some make sense. Others don't (until you tilt your head). (And then still maybe not).
A shattered mirror's fragmented views is still always a reflection.
An different perception, perhaps?
Always a labor of love, inherent opinion.
Perceived as a Frankenstein to some,
A celebration of living, in the best case scenario.
Always a public record. And art, entangled.

(pushed over the edge by Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century at the New Museum)

Post script: From where, oh where, did I get my love of collage?
Junking (garage sale scavenging) with Grandma. Loosing oneself in the layers of beats and vocals, looped—hallmarks of the music defining my generation. A result of living amid the ebb and flow of city life. Three instances of how collage inspires life—this one, at least.