Artist's Installation Diary
back to Elevator Project / Tom Moody main site
September 28, 2002. I have two exhibitions coming up in October, and plan to use this weblog as a kind of "show diary." (I'll try to make it as entertaining as possible.) I've been leasing a studio in Jersey City since I joined the diaspora out of Manhattan a couple of years ago, and although I'm giving up the space soon, I couldn't resist participating again in the Jersey City Artists Studio Tour, which the burg puts on every year to enhance real estate values--I mean, showcase all the creativity in the community. Ironically, the city government has been pressuring my landlord to get rid of his artist tenants because we're "non-conforming users" under the zoning laws, and I should be boycotting the tour because of this. However, since I'm vacating anyway, I won't get on my high horse about the city's TOTAL F*CKING HYPOCRISY. Anyway, the dates are Saturday and Sunday, October 5-6, 12-6. If you're interested, take the Newark/Journal Square PATH to Grove Street and they'll have maps at the station. More on this as the date nears.
I'm also participating in The Freight Elevator Project 2, curated by Ombretta Agrņ, which opens October 18 in connection with the D.U.M.B.O. Art under the Bridge Festival (click here to see the e-card). I'll be installing a large temporary piece in a freight elevator at 50 Washington Street in Brooklyn, which will stay up for the three days of the festival. I plan to create a 5 X 14 foot "wall molecule," and one of my challenges is how to attach strips of pre-cut, computer-printed paper to the elevator's supersmooth, aluminum-clad walls. Yesterday I went in at 4:30 pm to do a test, mounting several strips of paper using different brands of double-stick tape. My plan was, since they close the elevator for the weekend, I'd hang the strips on Friday evening, then come back Monday morning to see what was lying on the floor and what wasn't.
I'd supposedly cleared all this with the DUMBO festival organizers and the building management, but it became immediately obvious once I got into the chaotic environment of the building's VERY busy end-of-the-week freight delivery schedule that no one had a clue what I was doing. The "test strips" must have looked like art, because they aroused immediate commentary and implied threats from the construction workers, delivery men and custodial staff who were coming through on the average of one every five minutes. I mean sh*t, these were just white strips and circles of paper with the words "TEST PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE" in generic block capitals, but for the half-hour I was hanging them I felt like Robert Mapplethorpe.
It wasn't too encouraging seeing boot prints three feet up the sides of the elevator, as if some testosterone-crazed nut had been in there for the previous three hours jumping up and down pretending to be Peter Parker. Equally troublesome was the quartet of construction guys, knocking off work and heading for attitude adjustment hour, who all felt like they needed to weigh in. The one with the thickest neck looked at the strips and said sarcastically, "I'm not even going to say anything," and then said: "You know, that paper's going to be up there for about an hour." "Yeah," said another, "See these boot prints? Wait'll that guy gets in here." They all had a hearty yuck. It was like being back in gym class. Anyway, I hung the strips close to the ceiling, above the control panel, in a kind of grid, thinking it might fool someone into believing it was a template for some new controls. One artist got on at the 5th Floor, where they have studios, and studied the strips intently all the way to the ground floor. (The finished piece won't get that much sustained attention!) And yes, like an idiot, I'm going back over there Monday morning to see if anything survived.
Photography is going to be a problem, because there is no way, even with the wide angle lens, to frame the entire 14 foot length of the wall. Also, the walls are super-shiny so the light is super-uneven (but only in the camera--in person the three overhead fluorescent panels provide almost gallery-like lighting). Also, I'll have to disable the flash, since it creates laser beams bisecting the image. Below is a head-on image; the piece will occupy most of the wall where the test strips are hanging (see upper right).
Back to the Jersey City Artists Studio Tour: the Jersey City Reporter came out yesterday, with a spread on the tour. My name was listed under "N" (along with about seven other Ms) but they got the location right on the map. My studio is Number 17 on the tour map. The city mails out balloons (leftover from the Mayor's last campaign, I noticed) which we're supposed to hang outside our studios, along with a big number. This week I'll be test-driving the spheres and struts I'm using for the elevator piece by installing them vertically in the studio--a kind of practice run for the DUMBO event. (Here's how they look oriented horizontally).
October 4, 2002. I spent the last two days installing Molecular Dispersion (Vertical) in my studio in preparation for the Jersey City Artists Studio Tour tomorrow (Sat-Sun, Oct 5-6, 12-6 pm, maps at Grove PATH stop, I'm Studio 17, come on down!). It took 9 hours to put up, but I took a lot of breaks, trying to figure out what the thing was supposed to look like. Oriented vertically, it's less the bramble it was in my apartment and more of a failed dymaxion shape. I say failed because the polygons don't "close" the way they do in a true geodesic structure. The piece is only an illusion of a sculpture (it weighs about a pound, all of which is held up with pins), so there's more opportunity for fun and games: pseudoEscheresque spatial gags, struts that just kind of stop in midair, and passages assembled for no reason other than that they make nice color combinations. Because the piece is vertical, I had a devil of a time keeping it from being anthropomorphic. The "dispersion" in the title is a coy reference to the postminimalist Alan Saret, who made "sprays" of painted chickenwire that were very theoretical back in the day (early '70s) but look rather forlorn now in museums. I think my piece looks forlorn, too, and it's brand new!
October 16, 2002. The Jersey City studio tour came and went and now I'm gearing up for the elevator installation in D.U.M.B.O. this weekend. I'll post a building map and directions tomorrow. I was a bit disappointed in the turnout from the five boroughs for the JC tour, but it was fun. I probably had a couple hundred visitors through my studio in two days, and got some interesting responses. Casual viewers don't seem as put off by the use of the computer as typical "sophisticated" collectors who shop in Chelsea; most seemed comfortable with my hybrid of the machine and the hand. A lot of viewers thought the new molecular wall-pieces were painted frescos, to which I can only say: yay! Someone commented that they resemble the interconnected spheres and struts of the Atomium in Belgium. Big difference between my work and '50s atomic art: with mine the pseudoscience is right up front.
Thanks to everyone who came or emailed. I greatly appreciate your support!
October 17, 2002. As I've been mentioning, I'm doing an installation in a freight elevator in D.U.M.B.O. (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), Brooklyn, as part of The Freight Elevator Project 2, curated by Ombretta Agrņ. The elevator project is under the auspices of the D.U.M.B.O. "Art Under the Bridge" festival, a three-day event of gallery openings, open studios, and performances. Here's how the curator describes my piece: "In Molecular Dispersion (Elevator Kit), Tom Moody has assembled a 70-foot-square lattice of molecular spheres and struts drawn and printed on his home PC. This 'kit' consists of several hundred individual pieces, put together improvisationally within the elevator site."
See http://www.dumboartscenter.org/festival/ for more information and a DUMBO map. The Elevator Project is described under "open studios." The Festival's (and elevator's) hours are: October 18-20, 2002, Fri 6-9 pm and Sat/Sun 12-6 pm. Below is a map showing how to get to my elevator. I hope you can stop by over the weekend.