j. morgan puett

All images from J. Morgan Puett's website.







Just perusing her website can lead to hours of inspiration, may I present: j. morgan puett

Tonight there will be a closing reception for J. Morgan Puett exhibition and artist residency at Alexander Gray Associates, starting this afternoon at 4:00 pm and lasting until 6:00 pm.

For the past four weeks, J. Morgan Puett has been working at Alexander Gray Associates in her concept of “workstyles”, an integrative approach to artmaking, lifestyle, sustainability, and industrial life; {of, with, as, for, them, and, it} Workstylings.
In the gallery space, Puett works with a moving platform of burnt wood and steel, on which a tableau of personal artifacts and research materials are gathered: books, sewing machines, measuring tools, antique textiles, benches, chairs, shelves and surfaces. Hand pressed invitation were sent to those who have contributed to Puett’s life and work: artists, designers, performers, scientists, academics, business leaders and journalists. Allowing the work to evolve organically, the installation changed daily, as emotions, stories, objects and texts were considered and arranged by Puett and the participants. This approach further implements Puett’s commitment to community activity, shared experience, and exchanged labor. The experience has enabled Puett to continue her on-going investigations on the history and changing frameworks of fashion and retail. The result has been an intensive research stage and development, with emphasis on patterns for a new clothing design and fabric-based artworks incorporating algorithms developed in the process. Puett has set the groundings for this piece to move to the Queens Museum of Art with support from the Smithsonian Institution’s Artist Research Fellowship Program where it will continue to take shape into what will be a new clothing system.

Since 2006, Puett has re-imagined community and learning environments through her summer project, Mildred’s Lane, a hybridized art education institute and residency program co-founded with Mark Dion in rural Pennsylvania; this approach to collaborative practice has also taken place at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Headlands Center for the Arts/California College of Arts.

J. Morgan Puett (b. 1957, Hahira, GA) emerged in the mid-1980s in New York as a celebrated fashion designer, rising to prominence for her hand-made and richly textured clothing, and for the quirky and patinated environments she designed as stores and creative generators in SoHo and TriBeCa neighborhoods until 2001. Since then, she has focused her endeavors on large-scale collaborative projects that extend her interest in the cultural manifestations of fashion and site; projects have been commissioned by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum; the Abington Art Center, Philadelphia; Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA; Artex, Arnhern, Amsterdam; The Fabric Workshop Museum, Philadelphia; Wave Hill, Bronx, New York; the Serpentine Gallery, London; and the 2002 Spoletto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Puett received her BFA and MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago.

Alexander Gray Associates
526 West 26 Street #1019
New York NY 10001
Tel: 212-399-2636
www.alexandergray.com

BookS of Pages: New Work by Mira Schor

BookS of Pages: New Work by Mira Schor
Feb 1th – 26th, M-F 12-6 Opening Feb 4th, 6-8pm

Fragile paper, the page as an iconic image, or as template for modular painting installations on page-sized canvases, and the notebook as both a sculptural object and as a primary site for investigative drawing have been constants in Mira Schor’s art work for many years. Since 2007 she has intensified her use of a variety of small notebooks to develop ideas for her paintings of empty thought balloons as clouds, as self-portraits, and as figures in a spare landscape of thoughts. As part of Schor’s strong affinity with narrativity, each notebook improvises its own narrative as ink bleeds through from one page to the other, setting into motion the next set of drawings. In BookS of Pages Schor presents digital prints of some of the hi-resolution scans of individual page spreads that she has created, so that she can make visible the intimate spaces of these notebooks, altering the scale of the image from the intimate to the public while maintaining the physical integrity and privacy of the original notebooks

Opening Feb 4th, 6-8pm
Exhibition dates Feb 1th – 26th, M-F 12-6
February 1, open at 11am
Melville House Bookstore
Tues to Sun, 12 to 6pm

Mira Schor is a painter and writer living in New York City.

more BYOA

Claudia Schwalb's artwork at X. Read more about BYOA on the NYT's blog piece by Karen Rosenberg.

BYOA

Here I am, reporting from the 2nd floor of the X-Initiative's

BRING YOUR OWN ART


X INITIATIVE TO EXHIBIT ALL ARTWORK DELIVERED WITHIN 24 HOUR PERIOD BETWEEN 11 AM FEBRUARY 3RD AND 11 AM FEBRUARY 4TH 2010

BRING YOUR OWN ART is a 24-hour marathon that will take place at X Initiative from February 3rd to February 4th and will be open to everyone. Artists, galleries, curators, collectors and art lovers are invited to come to X and hang their own artworks with no restriction. BRING YOUR OWN ART is literally a free for all – a temporary occupation that will start on the second floor of X Initiative and expand to the upper floors as more and more art works are delivered and hung on the exhibition walls.

A celebration of the chaotic energies of art and a joyful subversion of hierarchies, BYOA is a spontaneous gathering that offers a DIY platform where any kind of art can be exhibited in a museum-quality space. Inspired by Walter Hopps’s experimental Thirty-Six Hours, an event that the legendary curator organized in Washington in 1978, during which he installed anything anybody brought that would fit through the door, BYOA is a festive occasion that fosters unusual collaborations between artists, art professionals and dilettantes, while offering an alternative to curated group shows.

During BYOA, on the ground floor, X Initiative will make available a simple stage and basic PA system for bands, musicians and DJs. Performers are welcome to play any kind of music for 30 minutes each.

BYOA is a collaboration with the Fine Art Adoption Network (FAAN), an online network originally commissioned by Art in General that connects artists and potential collectors (adopters). Adopters acquire an artwork without purchasing it by soliciting the artists through FAAN. The artists choose to whom they will give their work. At BYOA, artists can exhibit work they are making available for adoption through the FAAN website, in addition to whatever other work they choose to exhibit. For more info, visit FAAN at www.fineartadoption.net. To post work for adoption, please contact info@fineartadoption.net.

BYOA marks the end of X Initiative, an experimental program for contemporary art, which was founded in March 2009 and will end its activities at 548 West 22nd Street on February 6th, 2010.

Founded by Elizabeth Dee and directed by Cecilia Alemani, X Initiative has functioned as an exhibition space and gathering spot for the global art community, with a goal to inspire new possibilities for experiencing and producing contemporary art. Since its beginning, X Initiative has hosted 12 exhibitions and more than 50 events such as panel discussions, lectures, performances and screenings.

BRING YOUR OWN ART RULES OF ENGAGEMENT:

- Free access for all, doors open on February 3rd at 11 AM
- No advance registration required
- 30.000 square feet space to occupy (2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors @ X Initiative)
- Participants can bring any kind of art they like
- Participants need to come with their own tools (X Initiative can only provide two ladders)
- The works will not be insured: X Initiative is not responsible for any loss or damage to works
- The space will have security guards
-All works must be deinstalled and removed from the premises by February 4th at 2 pm. All
works not removed by 2 PM on February 4th will be disposed of.

Location:
X Initiative, 548 West 22nd Street,
NY 10011, www.x-initiative.org

Date:
From Wednesday, February 3rd, 11 AM to Thursday, February 4th, 11 AM

SELECTED PERFORMERS INCLUDE:

Black Lake

Big Game

Black Waterfall and Bobby Service

XOX

Crippler

ALEXCALIBUR

Light Asylum:

Dance on Camera

I was lucky to catch the tail end of the Dance on Camera festival and the debut of Michael Blackwood's film New York Dance: States of Performance.

Blackwood interviews seven choreographers: Christopher Wheeldon, Jennifer Monson, Sara Michelson, John Jasperse, Ralph Lemon, Beth Gill and Ann Liv Young, who express their ideas and dance aesthetic in rehearsal and performance.

It was Ann Liv Young pictured above as Snow White (the naked version) that stole the show in the film. While the other choreographers were discussing being post, post modern and spending money or not, Ann Liv Young was having sex on stage as a naked, pregnant Snow White and it still looked liked dance but it was really funny. Young has amazing stage presence and she told me that she's working on a version of Cinderella! I'm a fan.

More on Molly

Molly has sent me pictures of what she did last night. She attended "You Can Heal Your Life!" the Circus Gallery closing party. The party included a performance by Dawn Kasper which included special guest; The Worship in Truth Mass Choir from Rancho Cucamonga under the Directorship of Tyanta Snow. Supposedly everyone was healed! Good luck to John Knuth! And more kudos to Dawn...and thanks Molly for the tip and pics!

Touching in NY

Back home, New York City.

I was struck by the city's closeness immediately upon my return. Where in LA everything seems far away, here everything seems close. You can touch it.

Small windows of inspiration on the LIRR back from JKF.

Round Placed Square 2010 42 x 42 Collage with pen and pencil