Behind: the Art Scene

by Drew Martin
A couple years ago I was a little obsessed with Fiverr, a site where people offer a range of services for only $5. Recently, I realized I still had $5 credit so I scrolled through a range of options. I found an illustrator, Alastair Laird, from South Africa who did a four-frame cartoon about a woman checking out and commenting on her butt so I asked him to place her in a museum/gallery setting. This is the result:

Museums and galleries are interesting places to watch people. There is always the couple where the guy who is clueless about the art is there merely to comply or, if he is a bit more ambitious, he will engage in the situation as a kind of foreplay. And now, with the ubiquity of smartphones, these places are more about being backdrops for selfies. 

When Kim Kardashian's butt graced the cover of the Winter 2014 issue of Paper magazine, and "broke the Internet," the Metropolitan Museum of Art joined in the public conversation. Their it's-nothing-we-have-not-seen-before twitter response was accompanied by a 6,500+ year-old bootylicious fertility statue.

So I like Alastair's cartoon here, catered for my request, because he plays with that updated meaning of self-reflection, and also pulls in the hapless fellow.

Related articles:
Freedom from Want: Kim Kardashian's Buttocks
The Jeff Koons Retrospective At The Whitney: Shiny Reflections But No Self-Reflection

Interestingly, as a cartoonist myself, I have never really done cartoons about art except for my posters for Freak Show and Freak Show II. It is a new thing for me - to pay for someone else's creativity and work. As an artist that is always from within.

Open Wide: Freak Show II

by Drew Martin

I just got back from the opening of Freak Show II in Prague. I used to shy away from openings because I wanted to focus on the art work and not the socializing but this opening (which I attended because I am in the show) has changed my opinion because of the access to the artists and peripheral events; all in the spirit of the work.

At the opening, the American artist, Clint Takeda, performed on his electric guitar with an array of feedback pedals. Wearing a long red wig and cloaked in a hooded jacket, Clint piled on overlapping layers of noise amongst a crowded gallery of cheerful, beer-in-hand Bohemians, which restored a grunge-Prague I recall from the early 1990's. He performed in a corner with his creature sculptures, which he had displayed last year at the first Freak Show, and in front of new books he made for this occasion, which were nailed to the wall, with dangling ribbon placeholders.

I regret not spending more time with the little books because they are probably the most intimate and formal pieces in the show. They are small and filled with delicate line drawings and patches of color. I remember Clint making similar visual diaries last year, which were equally interesting. A page in one of this year's books included an iodine transfer from the gauze bandage that had dressed his head wound (gash is probably a better term) he earned from a fall during a dash for a tram at the beginning of the week. It is hard for me to think of a Freak Show without Clint. He flies in from Philadelphia, where he currently works and lives. He has the time of his life for a week, often disappearing in the labyrinth of Prague, and surfaces before the show to install his work and perform at the opening.

I prepared two projects for the show. One was a microscope projection piece that failed miserably but was fortunately small enough and in a neglected corner of a backroom that it went unnoticed and its absence had no impact on the overall show. The other was a photography project, which was a serial extension to my Under the Hood - Portraits of My Neighbors show which I had done in Ridgewood, New Jersey and Los Angeles, California. When the curator, Tony Ozuna, asked me to do this kind of project in Prague, I was at first reluctant because I did not think about how it could work. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

The am180 collective gallery is a small, alternative space, that draws its crowds from a cool and connected Prague art world but is somewhat removed from its surrounding neighborhood, physically and culturally. That I could possibly create a visual survey of the gallery's neighbors and attempt to get them to into the space, was very attractive. I flew in two days before the show and the day before the opening, at a quarter to eight in the morning, I started walking within a few block radius of the gallery with my old Ricoh camera and five rolls of black and white film.

My home town neighborhood was all too willing to participate in my shoot and everyone I asked in the Silver Lake and Echo Park areas of Los Angeles agreed to have his or her picture taken. I know Czechs well enough, having lived amongst them for five years, and knew I was going the have some problems. Though Tony later said I should have shot at different times of the day (and he's right), I like to capture a place in a span of a couple hours. A lot of the rejections were indeed because people were running off to catch a tram or metro to work, but the average Czech is a bit more guarded than the average Californian.

The result of the shoot was just shy of 200 black and white photo portraits of many Czechs, one Russian, one Ukrainian, a Vietnamese shopkeeper, two young Chinese tourists staying at the neighboring hostel, a handful of foreign laborers at various jobsites (whose backgrounds I did not inquire about), several dogs, two cats, found objects, some signage and graffiti.

My favorite rejection was from one guy hurrying down the street, who stopped for a second to say "Fakt?" before continuing on. This word can often sound like "f---ked" and combined with his facial expressions and a shaking of his hand was short for "Are you f---king kidding me. I don't have time for this sh-t."

The ease and confidence of the Los Angeles participants was replaced by shyness and bewilderment by many people in my Prague turf. It was not so much that the decline of my Czech language put them off as it was something about the Czechs themselves. All of the fetching women expressed they were not photogenic and that they might break my camera.

My spiel, in Czech, was "Good day. I am an artist from America taking pictures of people who live and work in this area for an exhibition tomorrow night..."

I approached every one I could, even a gypsy prostitute and her pimp who were making a house call (they declined), and gave all the participants an invitation to the opening and told each person he or she could come and take his or her pictures off the wall or from a clothesline that bisected the front garden. Sadly, only one person from my survey showed up (perhaps because it was pouring rain at the start). I hope the others will make their way there during the gallery hours over the next month and have a look.

The participant who did show up made the shoot worthwhile. He was one of the first people I shot and we probably spent about fifteen minutes together. I meet him after I started talking to a young gypsy who was drunk (or drugged) and was stumbling down the street with a very fancy camera he had apparently lifted from a tourist. The young thief agreed to let me take his picture with the camera but not on that open street. He asked me to walk down a side street with him and then things got a little awkward so I retreated and bumped into the man I ended up photographing.

He was a street sweeper and was embarrassed and reluctant but said I could take his picture for 20 crowns (about a dollar) because said he wasn't doing well and needed to buy bread. He settled for the 13 crowns jingling in my pocket and was the last person I expected to show up but he actually arrived a half hour early with his partner, a sophisticated and lovely, well-dressed woman who spoke English flawlessly and had once worked for Czech Airlines.

Even without the others showing up, I think the project works here because they are all part of the show now and hanging on the gallery walls. Tony's first comment when seeing the pictures was that they were "wholesome", which I think is accurate.

Czechs have interesting faces with handsome features and many of the participants were not merely compliant but liked the idea and giggled between shutter clicks. They seem out of place in the club-like gallery and perhaps this sits well with Tony's original concept of the show: that artists are seen as freaks by the common pedestrian; I certainly must have been to most of the people I met.

While the two Freak Shows have displayed artists and works that perhaps support this notion, what I wanted to do here was to introduce the other side of the equation. Without such an explanation, however, this will be lost on most viewers, who will wonder why these pictures are amongst grittier work. What I especially like about the concept behind my shoot is that it is entirely specific to this time and place. It makes my being there purposeful and necessary: I would feel odd traveling all this way to hang something I did elsewhere for another reason.

Clint and I were the only two Americans and foreigners in the show. The majority of the exhibit is filled with 14 drawings by Josef Bolf (pictured at the top), two paintings (and one silhouette cut-out of a head) by Lenka Vítková, a video loop and drawing by Veronika Bromová, a mural/photo collage by Jolana Ruchařová, three carved dildo/phallusses ending in fetuses of various stages/sizes by Lenka Klodová (pictured left) and a wonderful big diorama by Marie Hladíková (detail below).

This last piece is my favorite in the show and one that best fits the show name, in my opinion. The diorama puts you deep underground in a cavern that is full of stalactites and stalagmites, protruding coal and rock formations and accents of gems and crystals. The internally lit diorama is big enough to crawl into and sits on top of slabs of styrofoam. Two creatures, a larger black bat-like thing and a smaller white mate are tethered from their hearts by a common artery. A little angel-like creature looks on from above, crying chains of tears.

I fell in love with Marie's work before meeting her last year when I was looking at the other artists' works on their respective websites. It's edgy and punkish but also soulful and sweet. Although it is made from cheaper materials (foam and glue-gun silicone) she has amazing surfaces, such as the body of the white lover, made with air-drying clay and covered in nail polish. Despite the fact that I respond immediately to its fantasy and quirkiness, Marie has a great sense of volume and spatial relations.

During a slightly chaotic moment the night before the show, Tony expressed a little concern that Marie was going to show "a cloud", which was something other than he was expecting, although he did not see it. I saw the cloud in parts the next day when I went with Marie to her studio. Even though it was not assembled, it was fantastic. It looked like a huge silver foam meteorite, which is to be pinned with strings of silicon raindrops.

The opening was attended mostly by Czechs with some American expats and a few other Eastern Europeans. There was one walk-in; a young French man who happened to be strolling by this off-the-beaten-path place and immediately embraced the interesting crowd.

To view an online book of a larger selection from my photos in Prague, click here>>>

Freak Show II

I will be taking a break from posting this week in order to travel to the Czech Republic and set up for Lil' Freaks: Freak Show II.

This year, the show will run from August 13th to September 27th at the a.m. 180 collective in Prague. Returning from last year's show with new works are the Czech artists Lenka Vítková, Josef Bolf, Veronika Bromová, Marie Hladíková and Jolana Ruchařová along with the two American artists: Clint Takeda and me (Drew Martin). New to this year's show with be the well known Czech artist Lenka Klodová.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia

Friggatriskaidekaphobia and paraskevidekatriaphobia are both terms for fear of Friday the 13th. Today is Tuesday the 13th, which is the unlucky day in Spanish speaking countries.

Whichever the case, the tales and myths worked their way through history to give these dates an unnerving significance, which is why the curator, Tony Ozuna, has chosen the next Friday the 13th, this August, for the opening of a return of his Freak Show, reworked as Lil' Freaks: Freak Show II.

Last year the show was in the Galerie Califia in Hořazdovice, Czech Republic and ran from August 21st to October 31st. This year the show will run from August 13th to September 27th at the a.m. 180 collective in Prague.

Returning from last year's show with new works are the Czech artists Lenka Vítková, Josef Bolf, Veronika Bromová, Marie Hladíková and Jolana Ruchařová along with the two American artists: Clint Takeda and me (Drew Martin). New to this year's show with be the well known Czech artist Lenka Klodová whose work deals with themes of sexuality, love and motherhood through uninhibited expressions of the female body, including her own.

Poster design by Drew Martin

Homeless Art: Can You Spare Some Change?

by Drew Martin

I was recently contacted by Rebecca Kevill, a 23 year old student in the UK, studying for her degree in Visual Art at Salford University in Manchester. Her practice is print based but she has expanded into some interesting site specific works to challenge the public’s perception of homelessness. Rebecca recently did an intervention in Manchester city centre, where she created a dummy of a homeless person and left him begging to see how the public reacted. She also made a sculpture of a sleeping man out of cardboard that is currently homeless and returns to him every day to see how the weather and the outdoors has affected him. Rebecca is now creating prints and casts of coins with resin and in place of the Queen's head she inserts a homeless person's face: playing off the phrase "loose change" and all the social meanings of the word "change" which empowers her work.

In this posting the table has been turned. Rebecca asked me ten questions about my own homeless man project, which I have written about before. I like her questions and the responses they created:

Is the sculpture a personal reflection of your own experience from riches to rags?

In a way yes. I grew up in a very comfortable, safe and educated household in suburbia New Jersey. There aren't homeless people in suburbia. There is no place for them. Of course we saw plenty of them in New York City but in my youth I could not recognize those as individual tragedies. They were more like performers in a city with so many prostitutes, drag queens, thugs, etc. Even upon closer inspection, the homeless in New York seemed to be the result of some vice so that the moral barrier between us made us seem immune to such an existence.

Homelessness was not a state I pitied but something I detested because I had a lot of rough encounters with guys on the street in New York, when it was a tougher place. Once I had a knife held to my stomach by a homeless junkie. Another time I was chased a few blocks down the street by a homeless man with an aluminum baseball bat. I shocked most by the homeless men having sex with each other in the Port Authority Bus Terminal men's restrooms, out in the open. I was a young teenager and it was not something I should have seen at that time. So all of my experiences until I was 18 with the homeless were quite negative.

When I went to college in California I met a whole different class of homeless men that I really connected with. They were either leftover free-spirited hippies or absent minded physicists who never married. They were more like prophets or scholars from ancient Greece. They lived a lifestyle I could imagine, especially in California, where you have beautiful weather, beaches and mountains. I remember telling myself that if I ever became homeless in New York, that I would make my way out West.

In college, I started squatting the art studio my school gave me as an honors student. I was caught and kicked out of the space for living. I spent a night on a flat roof at school and then started couch surfing. I moved into a trailer and eventually went to Prague where I lived in a squat for eight months. We burned coal in rooms, gathered water from a leaking pipe in the basement and used hallway toilets in other buildings. It was Bohemian but was really on that edge of not being romantic had we been a little older or less artsy. I had a personal problem with rats. One big one, the size of a cat, jumped on me two nights in a row. That really freaked me out and I quickly moved out, cut my natural dreadlocks and cleaned up my act. Ever since then (that was 1992, when I was still 22) I feared anything close to that lack of civility.

What inspired you to make the sculpture and how has your use of materials impacted the development of the piece?

(Fast forward 17 years later)...I am married with three young children, a lovely wife and a professional job in New York. I am the breadwinner. Our house, car, health insurance and education for our kids are all dependent on the fact that I have a job in a teetering economy. The fall from grace in America is a pretty hard one. The European social net does not apply here so you always have the fear of losing it all, very quickly and not necessarily because you did anything wrong: with gambling, drug addictions or other vices.

I have always made art but in school we were discouraged from the representational and the human form. About two years ago I wanted to make a life-sized sculpture but I am back in suburbia New Jersey and the classic materials of marble and bronze are neither economically or logistically possible and I did not want to get into toxic materials. So I decided to make something with materials I was comfortable with and was easy and inexpensive: chicken wire and fabrics. Using my own clothes moved the project towards a self portrait by default.

Why is the sculpture only a self portrait by default?

I made the general form of the homeless man and dressed it with my clothes...it simply became a self-portrait because of the personal affects, especially the shoes, which I had walked hundreds of miles in over the years. The suit on him was an old suit I wore every week for a couple years. Another thing about it being a self portrait is that one's most natural sense of proportion and scale is based on your own body. You are the measure. Anyone smaller than you is short, anyone heavier is overweight, etc. You are the norm and your own Vitruvian Man. And so, when I made this homeless man he was simply based on me. I used myself as the model for how he should be on the ground. When you paint or sculpt or make music, you reach a certain point in a project where you say "That's it!". Everything seems right. With a self portrait you get to that point and you are simultaneously feeling like you are having an out of body experience because you recognize yourself, in front of you.

Why do you want the sculpture to “strike a chord” with the viewer?

Making a homeless self portrait was like meeting my greatest fear as a husband and father, head on...but it was also endearing, because I looked after him. If I were an African American making the sculpture, it would have a very different meaning, but I am a 40 year old white male and I am tall, have all my teeth and hair and I am educated. I am in the most advantageous demographic possible and so the work is not a social commentary as much as it as a projection of fear.

Originally I had the homeless man my house; at first in a little front room gallery and then in the hallway so my family had to walk around him. They were the first viewers and found him a bit alarming. I would be at work while my homeless self portrait was on the floor in the house. It was kind of a statement about my needing to go to work, which is often unappreciated by spouses and children.

Then I put him outside, right in front of my house. I live in a fancy town, but on the least attractive street; a busy street heading into the center, where if there were a homeless person, it would be his turf. I had him outside for a couple hours and then I needed to go to the dentist. My wife asked me to take it inside. Just as I did the police arrived and were met by an old lady in a car who had called it in. She pointed at the empty spot, a bit confused, the police looked at her like she was crazy. It was an interesting moment. Did she call the police to help the man or simply get him out of her view? I think the latter. If I were a minute later, I would of had to explain it to the police and I probably would have gotten a ticket for something but I am not sure what: vagrancy? littering?

What are your intentions with this piece?

My intention was to make a sculpture of a homeless version of me, with all of those implications, but also to treat it as a homeless piece of art to comment on art without gallery representation or a permanent place in a museum. That was just as an important discussion for me. I liked how the first impression, that it was a homeless man, brought people up close to it with a series of questions, which lingered even after discovering he might not be real, that he might just be a sculpture. This kind of flips the normal comment from artist, that through art the questions of life are raised or answered. Francis Bacon said the purpose of art was to return one to life more violently. I wanted to make something that made life a bit rawer before it was revealed as art.

Why make the sculpture homeless instead of displaying it in a gallery or museum? What does the act of making this piece homeless add to your work?

I work as a marketing manager right on Houston Street in Manhattan, which means I saddle SoHo and the West Village. There are more galleries than food stores and they all have that ART barrier, which means you should act a certain way and dress a certain way. They are not friendly places or places I feel relaxed in to appreciate art...and so they breed a certain kind of flippant art. I like the pedestrian. I like to appeal to passersby because there is no pretense. Galleries in NY are more concerned about paying rent than connecting with people. Museums are not interested in art unless there is a big name around it, which they can market to draw crowds. Making the homeless man, knowing he would be homeless as art kept me honest, instead of thinking I should have to play a certain game.

How long do you plan on keeping the sculpture homeless for?

That being said...a long-time friend was curating a small group show in a Czech village last summer. The show was called Freak Show and my friend asked me to be in it and bring the homeless man over. I liked the show idea and the small gallery was so off the beaten path that it seemed like a good place for him. I had already thrown out the first homeless man outfit so I boxed up wire frame and another outfit of mine and put him together last August and showed him for a couple months. In the gallery he was originally in the courtyard but was eventually brought into the hallway. This curator suggested the homeless man be dismantled at the end of the show and that he would give the clothing, shoes, blankets etc. to homeless people in Prague. I thought this was a great idea, a nice cycle but he was never shipped up to Prague. I requested he been used locally but to be honest with you I am not sure of what happened to him.

Is the weathering of the piece something you took into account to change the work over a period of time? How has the weather altered the piece already?

The way I made my homeless self portrait was pretty temporary. I think it would disintegrate fairly quickly outside and it would lose its convincing realness. It is an idea/project I would like to explore...making the weathering a key element. Maybe its is about documenting how it just falls apart or maybe the piece is about preserving it. One of the things that got me thinking about homeless sculpture was a trip I took to Japan six or seven years ago. I spent a week in Tokyo, walking around the city about fourteen hours a day and spending only a dollar or two on food. I was amazed by their homeless culture. Most homeless men built little box huts out of pallets, cardboard. They were raised up on milk crates and covered in blue tarps and they built them under elevated highways. Some of them had clothes lines and bicycles parked outside. They had ingenious rolling screen doors and kept their shoes outside.

They really blew me away because in homelessness there is an expression of the society in which they are raised. In Key West, Florida, for example, the homeless, named Conchs, are like a band of shipwrecked sailors. In New York you really feel a sense of neglect and despair in the homeless, like they just could not "make it" in the Big Apple. In Japan they were so self-engineered and so polite that they the general feeling was that they could take care of themselves.

I think I want to explore that side of homeless: the Robinson Crusoe type. I had actually put together a project proposal after I came back from Japan to return to Tokyo with nothing and live off the streets for month and document how the homeless lived and make my own shelter and find my own food. But I cannot do such a project while raising my family. We talk a lot about sustainable buildings now, I wanted to explore sustainable people.

Did you gain different reactions from the different cities you visited with the sculpture?

My homeless man has only been in two places now. In America, I think the old lady calling the police was pretty typical. The Czechs saw it around an art show, but when I was setting him up outside the gallery in a square the people seemed a bit suspicious. I would expect the reations to widely vary and be in line with how each particular culture treats its homeless populations and how its citizens view art. I used to busk around Europe and the reactions were very different depending on the city. I had a fake-snake charming act, which I started after I was mugged in Spain and needed to make money.

In Figueras, the boys were taunting and the girls supportive. In Amsterdam, people saw the act as woven into the fabric of the city, the same way the prostitutes are integrated into their "shop" windows. I had a copy of Homer's The Odyssey on the original homeless man to comment on that cultural difference: the way a poor man may really be a disguised god in Greek thinking. I think one's religion/beliefs would weigh in on this depending if the reaction would be of charity or reform or simply relegating him to a lower caste.

What prompted the initial idea?

In addition, to what I have already discussed as influences for the homeless man sculpture, another thing that prompted this project is something even deeper in American culture. It is a history in which man emerged from the woods and this myth was perpetuated in popular shows such as Little House on the Prairie. I was a boy scout and we were taught real survival skills and spent a lot of time in the woods. There is that survival thinking of many Americans, which is combined with a general suspicion of cities. There is no going back to isolated nature...the survival skills should be geared more towards urban existence. The old clothes on my homeless man were basically trash. The homeless in New York are treated like trash. The homeless sculpture was about personifying trash and making it personal to me.

Freak Show: An Interview with Curator, Tony Ozuna

Works by Marie Hladikova and Lenka Vitkova in Freak Show

Drew:
First, I must congratulate you for the successful opening on August 21, 2009 of your Freak Show at the Califia Gallery in Horazdovice, Czech Republic. Before the opening you seemed a bit overwhelmed, perhaps frustrated, and then a week later you had a kind of post partum depression and expressed wanting to do this kind of work full time. What is it about curating a show that is so taxing and emotional? I always thought of it as a very controlled experiment.

Tony:
When you saw me at the beginning of the week—it is true that I was overwhelmed and frustrated. (Just as I am now because I am typing this in again a second time since the last version got lost in ether-space). I had certain expectations regarding a number of factors involving the show that were not met. On the other hand, perhaps my expectations were unrealistic. It was my first experience as a curator and the next time around, I know now what not to expect and also what to do differently in order to meet certain expectations.

Drew:
In 2007 you were the Chief Editor for an issue of Umelec (a contemporary arts magazine based in Prague), which was devoted to Hispanic artists as well as foreign artists working in Latin countries. Though curating seems much more logistically challenging, isn't the role of Editor and Curator similar: identifying contributors, getting pieces, filling space?

Tony:
That issue turned out to be the Mexican Issue, though there were key articles, contributions from and about non-Mexican artists, including Luis Camnitzer of Uruguay/NYC. This was also a very taxing project especially, especially since Umelec publishes identical issues in German/Czech/English/Spanish. I controlled the English edition more than the others. My Spanish is not fluent, though Umelec/Divus thought that it was when I accepted responsibility for that issue. And so, also for the record, Marisol Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed immensely to the actualization of that project. I only got the applause for it in Prague. The Embassy of Mexico in Prague, by the way, provided funds for a good opening and party afterwards for that issue.

Especially since so many factors have to come together from a wide range of people/personalities/expertise it is more like producing a film and co-directing it as well (though I've never made a film). I will emphasize co-directing because I have realized that the artists (or at least some artists) can play a much bigger role in curating than is generally viewed. In my case, Marie Hladikova and Lenka Vitkova made some curatorial adjustments at the last minute and I was quite shocked to even consider it, at first, but finally I am glad I succumbed to their advice. A greater ego would have resisted simply out of principle.

Drew:
I would assume curating, in the end, is more satisfying...simply because it is more tangible, communal and you really see how what you have pulled together is immediately received by viewers. In addition to the curating and editing, you have also written many art reviews and articles about art for Umelec and The Prague Post. Does this curating experience change how you want people to experience art: firsthand versus through (your) writing?

Tony:
Yes, you are right regarding your first point. The greatest compliment or feedback I get from my reviews is that I have convinced someone to go and see a show that they would not have otherwise. Whether they agree with my take on the exhibit or not is beside the point. I prefer to write about shows that I have liked—that have given me something—though that is not always the case. I had the same attitude with this show, since I really wanted to get non-regulars into the gallery space at Horazdovice. Whether they liked it or not was secondary.

Drew:
You lived half of your life in California and half of your life in the Prague. You speak English, Spanish and Czech. What insight do you have on the visual arts from this perspective? Are they universal and unifying or are there so many cultural and lingusitic references that the arts have almost as great a challenge as a language, or even a currency for that matter: getting lost in translation or losing value in conversion? I felt that your Freak Show, for example, was really accessible.

Tony:
An important point of the Freak Show was to make it more accessible to the towns folk, than a regular contemporary art exhibit. That is why we plastered the town with flyers/posters as if it were a rock concert or a circus-sideshow the night before the opening. Still the opening did not attract as many non-regular locals as I was hoping. Through the week that we were installing the show, we had put posters in front of the gallery, and a lot of people wanted to come in to see the show, but we had to tell them to just come back. I hope they did, but it's likely that most didn't because they were probably just visiting the city that day. THEN only at the end or rather at the opening, did I fully realize that Freak Show as I understood the meaning in English had no comparison in Czech. In Czech we used the term “Oblidarium” which is the term for circus-sideshow or “freak show”, which was my main intention. But there is another layer of usage for the word “freak” (in English) which was lost in translation. Comics in the 1960s has something to do with this. For instance, Gilbert Shelton created a strip called the Fabulous Freak Brothers who were drug fiends (stoners), and so hippies claimed the term in an affectionate way. On the other side, it was used (then and now) in a pejorative way, as you can imagine the hatred that a “god-damned long-haired hippie freak” can meet in many places, especially in the USA.... the redneck or a policeman mumbling this to himself before he pulls the trigger of his gun. So on one hand the term was a badge of honor or it could also cost you your life. The Plastic People of the Universe were Freaks, in the definition above, and that was their only crime really. Then in the mid 1970s, there was a disco song called Le Freak by Chic, and it is great song to this day. A dance was created for it. This reclaimed the term for a different world, in a different era. And on in subculture lingo in the 80s, 90s, 00s, freaks change form, they have different styles—it is always changing and yet there is something constant about the term itself. And so this was a layer of meaning in the title Freak Show that I was not able to communicate to the Czechs as well as I thought.

Drew:
At the opening you were quite articulate in introducing and explaining Freak Show to the guests and journalists and I remember when you first told me about the idea for the show about a year ago. Can you express the importance of having a real theme to a show and sticking to that vision as a curator.

Tony:
I think I ended up answering this in the last question, but to follow up just a little bit... I did not think this theme would work in Prague—I thought of it specifically for a small town and Horazdovice in South Bohemia in particular. However, now I think the concept could be transferred to a city like Prague. It would still be imperative to get local-community promotion on the streets to get excitement about the show, but I can imagine certain neighborhoods in Prague with appropriate galleries, where I think this could be even more successful than in Horazdovice.

Drew:
You have quite a range of talent in Freak Show artists showing for the first time sharing the space with pretty big names. How do you balance those levels?

Tony:
Two bigger names, Veronika Bromova (from Prague) and Doro Krol (from Holland) are friends of mine for many years, and so they agreed immediately. They fit the bill perfectly from their previous works. Then Josef Bolf is one of the busiest (most sought after) Czech artists these days, finally getting the international attention that he deserves. I'm very glad he agreed to do it, as he easily could have said that he didn't have the time. The other artists were chosen based on the theme, their prior works, their locale (accessibility), or charisma! Clint Takeda is also a long-time friend and I thought it was necessary for him to finally show his work in Europe, since he only shows in the Philadelphia area.

Drew:
I hear there might be a possibility to bring this show to Prague within the next year. How will you change things for a different venue and a different audience? And what would you change in the current installment is you had your druthers?

Tony:
I'm trying to settle this now....There is one gallery which has agreed to do the show again in Prague in August, which is when I'd prefer to do it. But the space is very small, less than half of what we had in Horazdovice. I think in this case, I would have to cut the number of artists to 4, maybe 5 if we use the outside garden and one is a video projection. Some works would change, maybe one new artist. I am also considering a much larger space than Horazdovice in a gallery I won't name, but there it would not be possible to have the exhibit until 2011, which on one hand gives us enough time to apply for grants to build up the number of artists participating (especially from the US), for instance. But the idea/concept could also lose its momentum in this lapse, of two years. Then the question is should I do a smaller version meaning a “Lil Freak” show in 2010 in a small space then a grander version in 2010 and would there even be interest in so many variations of this show? Should I just do something else instead? These are questions under consideration!! If I finally do the Lil Freaks show next summer, this gallery we would have it in is run by artists who also book indie rock and experimental bands from US, Canada, etc. so with their collaboration the Freak Show could eventually take the form of a Prague version of All Tomorrow's Parties, but with an art focus. Different locations every year, some of the same artists, always some new ones and with a music component in the whole event. This could really take off, if there is a public interested.... I would do it!

To read more related posts, click on the following:
Anticipating the Freak Show

Showing up for the Freak Show

Show and Tell

by Drew Martin

I just got back from the Freak Show opening (see previous posting) at Galerie Califia in Horazdovice, Czech Republic and my lasting impression has less to do with the show, which was great, than is does with the concept of the word show. This old English word once meant to behold, which is perhaps a better concept for art, which is inherently interactive, mesmerizing and contemplative. To show sounds one-way and commercial (as in a car showroom). The day prior to the opening and the opening itself made me think about this word more in terms of showing up...both the exhibiting artists and the visitors. There were artists who shipped over their work and let the gallery install the pieces and then there were artists who arrived a couple days ahead of time, installed their own work, all the while making adjustments and really giving a lot of thought of how they wanted the work to sit in the gallery and interact with the other pieces. These were the artists who interviewed with the journalists and were present at the curator's opening speech to the attendees. They are also the artists whose works I feel much closer to...not because I heard them explain themselves but because I got to see these works as extensions of their personalities and something they cared deeply about.

On leaving Europe, I stopped by Frankfurt, Germany for a day and visited the Städel Museum. It is an impressive collection and on the day I toured its galleries there was also a phenomenal Edvard Munch exhibit. Despite the countless and priceless works, what touched me the most were the guided tours and the keen interest of the visitors who all seemed consumed by the docents' explanations. Museums such as the Städel can put on the best shows in town but they are nothing without the public interaction. No matter how isolated the artist or the viewer, the real chemistry happens when the artist (living or respectfully curated after his or her death) and the viewer show up for each other.

Pictured above left: some of the exhibiting artists (Drew Martin, Lenka Vítková, curator-Tony Ozuna, Marie Hladíková and Veronika Bromová)

Pictured above right: a work by Marie Hladíková

Pictured left: my Homeless self portrait in Galerie Califia.

Freak Show

Galerie Califia in Horazdovice, Czech Republic is an artist-run, non–commercial space, showing both international and regional art. From August 21st to October 31st, the gallery will be presenting Freak Show, an exhibit curated by Tony Ozuna. The title plays off of the theme as artists as freaks in the eyes of villagers.

The artists are from Czech, Holland and the United States: Josef Bolf, Veronika Bromova, Marie Hladikova, Doro Krol, (me) Drew Martin, Jolana Rucharova, Clint Takeda and Lenka Vitkova.

I designed the poster, which includes drawings for each artist but not specifically of anyone in particular. Half of the drawings were drawn when I lived in Usti nad Labem and Prague in the Czech Republic in the mid 1990's.

I will be showing a homeless self portrait sculpture. Following, are pictures and a writing about the project. The difference will be a change of clothes and instead of the crochet covering there will be a blanket I made, which is covered in my drawings. I want this piece to read more now as a collection of drawings than as a sculpture:

A Homeless Self Portrait

by Drew Martin

Several years ago I created the Museum of Peripheral Art (MoPA) to give direction to my artwork and to open projects to collaboration and community engagement. MoPA is not a museum building or even a gallery; It is a concept and, in its greatest realization, a network of public art projects, both subtle and serendipitous. The museum’s very first project which is still maintained today is a communal art wall on a busy street corner of my property. Neighbors and passersby arrange and add to its eclectic collection of objects.

MoPA’s most recent project is a self-portrait /homeless man sculpture, displayed on the streets of different towns and cities in America. It is about riches-to-rags reality and the anxious self-defenses (physical and emotional) against utter failure.

The sculpture is a study of the human form, simultaneously realistic and abstract. There are, for example, believable legs, which make the sculpture human-looking but it is also an amorphous mound of cloth. The Dying Gaul and reclining Buddha references are lost on the pathetic heap. Influences are found here but the homeless man sculpture is less realistic than Duane Hanson, less dramatic than Edward Kienholz, less rigid than George Segal and less graphic than Kiki Smith.

Viewing the homeless man sculpture plays on our levels of politesse: to witness but not stare. There is an initial shock but the stillness is serene and one sees past the taboo of homelessness. The sculpture suggests "Let sleeping dogs lie" (not so much to avoid provocation, but to allow temporary peace to endure: in this dream state the realities of the outside world don’t exist).

The sculpture can be viewed at on another level: commenting on this kind of street art...without a home: gallery or museum. The sculpture is more accurately a homeless sculpture. People who indifferently pass this object as either a desperate human or an art project share the same apathy. By being interested in the object (human or sculpture) one realizes that our interest in art is not as superficial as it is often suggested: that it is really an interest in humanity. Apathy, can also have a deeper meaning. When people walk by MoPA projects and no longer stare, it means that this art has become part of their environment and, in turn, they become part of the project. This is central to the homeless man sculpture. There is a statement in the work but there is as much a statement in the reaction to the work.

This sculpture is about the rock-bottom core of having nothing else to lose. This is true of viewing and understanding the work and of the creative process in general. We are all impoverished on many levels: perhaps it is in love, faith or even one’s sense of potential and we let that part of us lie on the ground like the homeless man.

Homeless people are simply considered living trash. The church gives us a charitable perspective but long gone is the ancient Greek perspective, which was relayed to us best by Homer: that the poor man may indeed be a god, perhaps even Zeus, fooling us and therefore we must always pay respect. This is very different than the church’s notion that God might be judging us on by our actions. The pragmatic mind does not entertain the Greek thoughts and so humanity and art, which go hand in hand, are lost together. In the jacket pocket of the sculpture is a copy of Homer’s Odyssey.

Before the work began I decided not to turn this project into performance art (by including a real body) in order to reinforce this link of humanity and an art object. Francis Bacon said that art is just a game to distract man and that the most challenging aspect for the artist was to deepen the game in order to return the onlooker to life more violently. The homeless man sculpture does this through realism. The first time I displayed the homeless man sculpture in front of my house, an old lady who was driving by called the police.

The sculpture is by default a self portrait. The proportions are from my body and the clothing and accessories are my own including a hat I made. Such an article goes beyond the notion of found objects because there is much personal labor invested in the components. The throw on the sculpture was crocheted my great grandmother. It is a beautiful antique quickly disintegrating. On the throw is random stitching, which were attempts by me as a young man, when this object was trusted to me for safe-keeping, to maintain it. The most interesting part of the sculpture for me are the shoes. The shoes are at least a decade old and were once very expensive dress shoes. On the feet of the statue they are sadly in disrepair. Their patina came from the miles I walked through New York City streets.

The fact that the homeless man is a sculpture and not a painting or photograph is important because, in this case, the sculpture assumes an element of time. If it were a painting or a photograph one could not check it’s vital signs or feel it’s material. Here there is a play on words because this kind of artwork, like many other MoPA projects are tactile and accessible for direct encounter. I call this kind of work "touchables" which is appropriate for an "untouchable."

This is degenerative art, especially when compared to the bronzes of ancient Greece and Roman marbles. Poor materials and a pathetic human representation may not be the best way to promote ourselves as advanced beings and the pedestrian takes offense to things that he or she does not find beautiful but it is this lack of perfection and humbleness that strikes a chord.