Tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day of The Outsider Art Fair. One is totally allowed to think that the high price tags on Bill Traylor's seemingly childish drawings are ridiculous. Or indeed much other work. But I would defy ANYONE to visit this art fair and not exit without being intrigued and fascinated by something/s.
Bill Anthony’s drawings @ Joshua Lowenfels (Outsider Art Fair 2020)
photos HERE
and tomorrow (Sunday) is the very last NYC performance of a revelatory Broadway production of the musical Oklahoma!. Everyone knows the songs but never sung since birth with such freshness as they are here. It was such a bold musical in its time, of so many ways, and director Daniel Fish (no relation to any amphibian on this website, only in belief:) has simply and exquisitely sculpted, out of the Rodgers and Hammerstein material, the miracles that were always pulsating in Oklahoma landscape. The casting is totally fascinating; you won't hear Ezio Pinza, Howard Keel, Alfred Drake or Brunnhilde here. Exemplary singing technique sporting comic timing you will. But many members of the audience could feel almost welcome in joining the cast on stage to sing and dance such is the effortless evocation of that old-fashioned sense of community. Ultimately, though, this production is anchored in its stone by deeply fraught sadness for the simple American dream that only is ever realized for a few.
If there was 'outsider' Broadway then this show is that. As should be any Broadway show worth its salt. Nobody wants fake anymore, though inevitable they are seduced by such. This production, would have stopped playwright Bertolt Brecht in his tracks or rather highjacked words to propel that Runaway Train. It's hard often to forgive. Even harder, though, to admit that just maybe one should have looked more deeply into how life is marketed to you. And that maybe one is part of the problem and not the solution.
When I spake above that the American Dream was but for a few, I didn't in any way mean it was not within reach of the many. Only, the system that has/is constructed to re-enforce such a diadem, never architectonically nor organically sound in the first place, will almost by default throw any/everyone off the wheel. And that wheel has become a thing in and of itself rather than a cog for the greater good.
If one thinks that I /we could never be Bernstein or Sondheim, or Herman or Kander and Ebb or Larson or dozens of others then there really is no beginning nor end. Simply stagnation. The beginning and the end is believing that what you do is real (no matter how fictional it may sound). Real to YOU. Therefore to the US.
The finale of Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George couldn't be considered the greatest piece of music on planet earth. Yet it seems so, and will continue to be. Why do I always gravitate to it when I improvise? The seeming is REAL. Real inside us. What truly creates belief and greatness is the impulse, the impetus, and the bravery to say HERE I AM! HERE YOU ARE TOO. WE ARE HERE TOGETHER! (Jerry Herman's La Cage aux Folles created a cliche due to such gravity).
tbc…..[having troubles correcting italics/links etc on my dinosaur dragon interface but will visit a cave soon offering cookies;)}
rum n cookies- happy dragons:) Sat Jan 25-9.54pm;)
So segue back to the Outsider Art Fair (as organizers wouldn't let me into the preview of the Pink Squirrel Fair: NOT. NO. wearing a trunk and flannel pajamas to, hmmm, bunch of aging:….stop there Andrew…!) ;) Pink Squirrel commerce in NYC…
They weren't very obliging to that revolutionary raccoon, either!
HUMPF!
The drawings from the photo atop (this posting) were part of a much larger collection of very disparate observations. They caught my eye at the preview, though, didn't feel in any way they were exploitative of women. Rather, more celebratory of female strength and empowerment. So: speaking to the gallerist Joshua Lowenfels it turned out that last year (I missed these) that out of 9 other drawings, 7 were bought by unknown clients, totally disparate, all female buyers. Go figure!
TRUST YOUR EYES.
TRUST YOUR EYES.
These drawings also: Hirsch & Adler (well known gallery/well established-also to little me). So: when your eyes (YOUR eyes) are drawn to something-trust them! Jeanne Brousseau was molested by her father when young and her mother turned a blind eye. The early drawings are simply b/w with annotations of tin RAGE. Later she went into therapy. A long while later she took up drawing again but in color. Forgiveness is a very strange concept, oftentimes. Maybe only give-ness may emerge from such experience. A friend suggested she speak to a gallery sympathetic to Outsider Art. There Jeanne is.
…..photo to come form cave…
oh-happy col:or photo…
Jeanne Brousseau
If ever there was reason read the tiny creature
scratches….
Contrary to some newsfeeds, Iguanas are not auditioning for my new movie 'playing dead' in Florida. Once again the temperatures down there in the 90th floor agin sends them into shock. Still don't know what happened to my '2' iguanas;) in search of Tennessee Williams. I fear the worst over the border…I wish they'd written to me Quentin! One is never fully dressed without an iguana as they say on Broadway.
So if you are not an animal and privy to what happens in the 6th dimension, like The Kitty, what can a human do in NYC this weekend- thanks Andrew for suggesting things that are past. (very good reason for that!:) Well: there are such things as embargoes, but I did see a 'display' of cats and dogs on NY's West Side last night. Wow! We RAW/ROAR- sorry, I forget we're in the human world again. But RothKMoth had the best advice on this: watch the predators that move inexorable forward to their prey, except in this case their beloved.
I fear the KittyTimes may be bought by the NYTimes but we hang in there don't we lemurs! I knew a kitten and she danced for you
The old soft paw...
She jumped so high
She jumped so high
Then she'd lightly touch down….
Globalism Pops BACK Into View: The Rise of Abstract Expressionism
Wonderfully curated show (vested gallery interests of course) but many of these names haven't crossed folk's paths for many a decade, if at all. So go see and be amazed.
Grey Art Gallery has a great exhibition until APRIL 4! Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s. Oh meerkats, what a show! Most have never heard of any of these artist but they are as progressive, astute and profound as anywhere else in the world including little 'ol U.S.A.
And the world-renowned experimental The Wooster Group have a show at NY University's Skirball Theater. Certainly not sure it maybe the best introduction to their oeuvre without vested interest. (But if you’ve never seen a Wooster Group show then culturally you haven’t lived to the max! )
Fascinating to me though as I did see that last Tadeusz Kantor show Aujourd'hui c'est mon anniversaire in Paris all those centuries ago;)- as you couldn't, and now so can so easily do…helas…
As if they had never sung in Godard/Demy flics: Wimoweh- the lion sleeps tonight.
And solitaire's the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself, it's easy to pretend
He'll never love again
And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He's playing solitaire
Till the moo’ deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you
Till the tropic sun grows cold
