Jazz & Wine, Behind the Scenes at the Drive-By Gallery

Another smashing event at Lift Trucks: Louise Baranger and her rockin' Jazz trio  accompanied Fred Tregaskis with his talk (also heard on NPR) about  how wine and jazz came together in the 20th century. The fund raiser for our district  Asemblyman Robert J. Castelli brought the crowds in. A well heeled reception  here for the newest and most excellent Lift Trucks Discovery: Artist Erica Hauser's stunningly  simple paintings of America.  Drive By, view the paintings from the comfort  of your own car!

An Evening of the Arts

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Bowery Folk Art Sign

The Bowery (where this piece is from), is definitely a place where people could use some good old fashioned salvation from Jesus. Just take a look at our new favorite book, “Flophouse, Life on the Bowery”, a collection of short stories about the people living in skid row, written by David Isay and Stacey Abramson. You probably don’t know what a flophouse is, because they barely exist anymore. It’s a hotel, but not your typical Four Seasons or Marriot. These places will charge $5-10 a night and have mostly long-term stays. This metal piece stayed lit in the hallway of a flophouse, to provide some sort of salvation for the customers.

These two documentarians went to the flophouses and interviewed some of the fine connoisseurs of these establishments. Take a look at what these gentlemen had to say:

“I started sniffing glue when I was ten. There were these kids from Brooklyn that I was hanging out with, and they got me into it. I’m pretty sure it gave me brain damage”

“Now I have a little bit of a weight problem. It would never seem like I’m 425 pounds, but I am. Sometimes I knock off a 26-ounce can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. That’s for five people in the family!”

The stories go on and on. Sadly, these flophouses are closing, and will soon be a part of history, along with this cross.  

The Irritable Shoeshine Man

The most interesting part of a shoe-shine box isn’t the actual box, but the wild story that is behind it. Shoe shiners where a diverse group, but they always had one thing in common; a crazy attitude that was needed to be a shiner.

Take for example this 1920’s piece. At a first glance, it might just seem like a very simple box. A closer look however shows the story of a man who shouldn’t be in customer service. Above the shoe rest is written “look at your shoe”, meaning the customer has to stare at the floor the whole time and not make any eye contact. Below that on the hatch he has written “mind your own damn business”, as if the customer is going to be nosy while staring at the floor.

Even the actual red lettering seems angry. He originally had the price written at 5 cents, but wrote 10 cents on top without covering up the original price. It’s like the discount stores that show the manufacturer’s price and then their cheaper price, but the exact opposite. He wants double his money, and doesn’t care who knows.

Who knows if this actually worked, maybe the customers thought the attitude was funny, or appreciated his no-b.s. approach. Or his shines where just so good that he could take the “Soup Nazi” tactic. Either way it’s clear you needed to stick out to make it in the business.

My brief conversation with Rbt. Hughes plus a better story by Ben Genocchio

I got to hang out with Mr. Robert Hughes once. Here is a photo of us practicing irritable looks having a beer at an alternative art space in Westchester. Actually got on and I got to ask him about Andy Warhol to see if his view had softened at all. Mr. Hughes was famous for hating Warhol and he said "...yes in retrospect, Warhol was good and important." Mr. Hughes talked like Hemingway. He went on to say that it was the people around Andy that were so horrible and that ruined the experience for viewing his art. We had a nice time until I mentioned my German gallerest. "What the f***k is a galleriest?" Mr. Hughes asked. I explained that they called themselves that if they did not sell secondary market or dead guy art. A galleriest deals in living artists only. "Bullshit" Mr Hughes exclaimed crushing a Fosters can on his forehead with one hand. 

By Benjamin Genocchio  Here is a story about this famous critic by a real writer!

Published: August 7, 2012

For more than four years, I had the assignment to pre-write critic Robert Hughes’s obituary for the New York Times. I was a young critic at the newspaper, and coming from Australia seemed the right person for the assignment. I never wrote the piece.

Part of my reluctance to finish the assignment was perhaps understandable: By the time I was assigned to the obit Hughes had already cemented himself as the greatest art critic of our time. His popular history books had broadened his audience and made him a personality, as they say. He was a minor celebrity in his own right.

 

For a baby critic living in Australia, I grew up in awe of Hughes. He was a towering literary figure who it seemed to me was trapped in a minor genre. Looking back, he was the greatest prose stylist since Ruskin to write art criticism. He was also a near ubiquitous presence in publishing and on television, defining my views on art.

But Hughes influenced and changed me in other ways. He legitimized art criticism as something worthy, even valuable. He made it seem like it was the most important thing in the world. I wanted to be him; at the least, I wanted to write like him.

There is no imitating Hughes’s literary style, and believe me I tried. His combination of highbrow erudition and gritty vernacular gave his writing a distinctive tone along with his astonishing wit and flair. I’ll never forget the first time I read his description of the groupies that hung around Warhol’s factory as “social space debris.”

Part of Hughes’s fame derived from his ability to exploit television as a new vehicle for disseminating his ideas, most famously with the BBC series “Shock of the New,” which was seen by more than 25 million viewers worldwide when it first aired in 1980. Four decades later the book of the same name remains in print.

But another part of his legend derived from his platform, Time Magazine, the global weekly magazine which was to some extent the internet of its age — you could buy it and read Hughes anywhere in the world. He got to define art to a global audience in a way that no other critic has enjoyed before or since. Television only increased his reach. 

Years later, meeting Hughes here in New York where eventually I also came to work, I was struck by his roughness of character, which is very Australian actually, and his astonishing erudition. He was very much like his writing, a mixture of high and low that appalled and excited in equal measure. He was coarse, crude, and yet brilliant.

I am not going to venture any views on his critical opinions of art and artists, most of which were shaped in the early 1960s and which, by the 1990s, increasingly seemed out of touch with developments in contemporary art. He found little to like, turning into a kind of reactionary crank. Eventually he gave up writing reviews altogether.

And yet reviewing his writing he also seems astonishingly prescient: He prophesied and decried the colonization of the art world by money and the celebration of empty celebrity. He was direct, even insulting in his views of those whom he disliked, making sport of “fraudulent” artists and “fawning” collectors and curators. All of which, however, made his writing an enjoyably compelling read.

I would see him occasionally at openings and at dinners, hobbling on his cane after a car accident in 1999 that nearly cost him his life. I pitied his physical decline, though he still commanded an audience. He had gravitas, and was very much aware of it. He was one of those people who upon entering a room everyone turned to admire.

I prefer to remember him, however, as more than this, as the kind of god of criticism that he was to a generation of young writers like myself. He could turn a phrase on a dime, he could paint and write poetry, he could speak Latin, Spanish, and Italian — he was a polymath in an age of imbeciles. He was, in short an intellectual warrior, fierce in his views, frequently combative, but ever passionate about the necessity of art.

Benjamin Genocchio, a former art critic for the New York Times, is editor in chief of artinfo.com.

by Benjamin GenocchioPublished: August 7, 2012For more than four years, I had the assignment to pre-write critic Robert Hughes’s obituary for the New York Times. I was a young critic at the newspaper, and coming from Australia seemed the right person for the assignment. I never wrote the piece.
Part of my reluctance to finish the assignment was perhaps understandable: By the time I was assigned to the obit Hughes had already cemented himself as the greatest art critic of our time. His popular history books had broadened his audience and made him a personality, as they say. He was a minor celebrity in his own right.

 For a baby critic living in Australia, I grew up in awe of Hughes. He was a towering literary figure who it seemed to me was trapped in a minor genre. Looking back, he was the greatest prose stylist since Ruskin to write art criticism. He was also a near ubiquitous presence in publishing and on television, defining my views on art.
But Hughes influenced and changed me in other ways. He legitimized art criticism as something worthy, even valuable. He made it seem like it was the most important thing in the world. I wanted to be him; at the least, I wanted to write like him.
There is no imitating Hughes’s literary style, and believe me I tried. His combination of highbrow erudition and gritty vernacular gave his writing a distinctive tone along with his astonishing wit and flair. I’ll never forget the first time I read his description of the groupies that hung around Warhol’s factory as “social space debris.”
Part of Hughes’s fame derived from his ability to exploit television as a new vehicle for disseminating his ideas, most famously with the BBC series “Shock of the New,” which was seen by more than 25 million viewers worldwide when it first aired in 1980. Four decades later the book of the same name remains in print.
But another part of his legend derived from his platform, Time Magazine, the global weekly magazine which was to some extent the internet of its age — you could buy it and read Hughes anywhere in the world. He got to define art to a global audience in a way that no other critic has enjoyed before or since. Television only increased his reach. 
Years later, meeting Hughes here in New York where eventually I also came to work, I was struck by his roughness of character, which is very Australian actually, and his astonishing erudition. He was very much like his writing, a mixture of high and low that appalled and excited in equal measure. He was coarse, crude, and yet brilliant.
I am not going to venture any views on his critical opinions of art and artists, most of which were shaped in the early 1960s and which, by the 1990s, increasingly seemed out of touch with developments in contemporary art. He found little to like, turning into a kind of reactionary crank. Eventually he gave up writing reviews altogether.
And yet reviewing his writing he also seems astonishingly prescient: He prophesied and decried the colonization of the art world by money and the celebration of empty celebrity. He was direct, even insulting in his views of those whom he disliked, making sport of “fraudulent” artists and “fawning” collectors and curators. All of which, however, made his writing an enjoyably compelling read.
I would see him occasionally at openings and at dinners, hobbling on his cane after a car accident in 1999 that nearly cost him his life. I pitied his physical decline, though he still commanded an audience. He had gravitas, and was very much aware of it. He was one of those people who upon entering a room everyone turned to admire.
I prefer to remember him, however, as more than this, as the kind of god of criticism that he was to a generation of young writers like myself. He could turn a phrase on a dime, he could paint and write poetry, he could speak Latin, Spanish, and Italian — he was a polymath in an age of imbeciles. He was, in short an intellectual warrior, fierce in his views, frequently combative, but ever passionate about the necessity of art.
Benjamin Genocchio, a former art critic for the New York Times, is editor in chief of artinfo.com.

Mayall not Mayer

And yep, we did indeed know it was John Mayall not John Mayer.

He's about 90 now.  Actually born 1933, but still rocking away. Kind of living proof that keeping active, doing something rather than watching tv or glogging on The Facebook all day long might work. Maybe living the creative life keeps you alive and young? Think of all the doctors who retire, take up art then keel after their last Monte Cristo sandwich pulling into port on the Norwegian Dawn.

This concert was in Ridgefield at a high school auditorium turned venue for rockers like Los Lobos and Dr. John and White Snake. White Snake would be a concert where you would want to set up a folding chair in the parking lot to see just what kind of person would show up for a White Snake concert. Seats are a little cramped but you can drink heavily while watching so it makes up for that.  Some of the audience here brought their own Mountain Dews and Hostess treats to enjoy.

We keep hoping Keith Richards will hop up on stage,  he's a local and owns part of a neighborhood restaurant.  Another great rocker, though he reportedly looks more like Skeletor than ever and on good authority we have heard the Devil had a sign out that read "Welcome Keith! " But after 30 years Ol' Scratch reportedly got tired of waiting and took the banner down. Go Keith Richards, go!

 So John Mayall's famous Bluesbreakers had everyone from Jeff Beck to Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton in his former bands. A rocker-blues-farm-team where you'd play the blues, learn the showmanship, then move onto and start your own band. His current band is great. The guitarist who is kind of overweight but really ripped, the rest of the guys looked like John Mayall picked them up for this gig Chuck Berry style where you hit town, run down the list of available musicians and grab whoever was handy to slam out a show.  

A friend of our describe Mayall as the Abe Lincoln of the blues. The grand ol' Man. Mr. Mayall referred to a 3-ring binder for his playlist but after 23 albums that might be expected. His voice was distinctive and very clear. Perfect timing from the father of English Blues.

If you get a chance go see this rock legend!

Vuillard at the Jewish Museum: A Painter and His Muses

Edouard Vuillard, Mother and Daughter Against a Red Background, 1891, oil on cardboard. Private collection.

An overbearing Mom with her trapped daughter. This young lady can't wait for Mom to take her afternoon nap in front of Jeopardy so she can sneak out to the skate park with her friends or maybe the frozen pond by the old Dutch white-clay pipe store.

Here's a real muse for you. We bet he couldn't wait to paint these narrative scenes. A great painter driven on by what he had to say about his home life, his close friends and his keen observations of interior life. All this meant something important to him. His early canvasses had more tension in a small space than Bonnard's but basically the same inspiration. Explosive pent up stuff in small rooms.

The first room of this beautiful exhibit at the Jewish Museum is filled with 10 or 15 portraits, all brilliant with radical compositions, full of power and all displaying a complex range of emotions in diminutive scale.

Visitors tip: after the first two rooms, put your head down and run to the nearest exit. The show's over.  

We came to this show wondering what made Vuillard tick and here it is; his later "muse' became the evil God mammon.  Two things happened: his new dealer, Jo Hessel, took him on with a gaggle of wealthy clients and then Vuillard took up with his gallerists young wife! Shame on you Edouard, poor show, old chap!

But actually who can blame him and who wouldn't get tired of those Bohemian's and their smelly-sweatered, dreary poetry readings and subtitled art movies accompanied by relentless lentil soup ? 

Pretty much all of Vuillard's later work took a nosedive after about 1904 or 5. Maybe there are some hidden gems like Nolde's "Paintings never painted", beautiful postcard sized pictures secreted away after the Nazi's ordered him not to lift a bush again, or else! But somehow we kind of doubt it. Looks like the discrete corruption of bourgeois life pounded him.

 Just say NO comrade artists!  Pay attention as here's what not to do if you are an artist. Or if you are a collector ready to bully your artist. Let the painter alone, no more waving 'C' notes before him, let him do what he wants. Grosz and Goya got away with poking fun at the foppery and degradation. And great works exist for us through the ages. 

 See below for a classic late Vuillard. A telling portrait, a man holding a magnifying glass his life defined by his trophy's hanging on the walls like big game animals. Look at me, he says, I am too a cultured dude with much art, in gold frames, even!

In spite of the later works this is an exhibit about a great artist, and should not be missed. 

Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses runs May 4th through September 23rd at The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128. 

Edouard Vuillard, David David-Weill, 1925, oil on canvas. Private collection.

Hoist One and Light a Cigar for Leroy

“It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one.” -Chuck Palahniuk

One of our most popular pieces at the Ekphrasis show at Lift Trucks was a 1961 drawing of Sardi's by Leroy Neiman. Interestingly enough it was this piece that got a lot of people talking about the show. "I didn't know Leroy Neiman could draw like this" was commonly heard. So, naturally, just three days after his death, a New York Times piece entitled “Achieving Fame Without a Legacy” got our attention. Not even in his grave and Mr. Ken Johnson from the Times is already dissing him?

 

While he might not leave the legacy of Picasso or Warhol, Neiman definitely had a masterful drawing ability and was capable of some very interesting work. Take said drawing "Sardi's"; it's based on the famous New York hot spot where celebs and show business folks went to dine and to be seen. It was tough to get a table unless you were among the exalted few fortunate enough to be caricatured on the walls. Mr. Neiman's sketch offers a unique observation with the commanding figure of Vincent Sardi splitting the page as a sentry-gate keeper wielding a huge shield-like menu. In a draughtsman's shorthand Mr. Neiman offers glimpses of what could lie in store for you. If you could only get by the maitre 'd, you might join the lucky sot at the leather and wood bar or get a table by the couple on the left and have a waiter fawn over you too. This drawing, obviously done on the spot, reveals an interesting story with an economy of line. Try drawing from life in a crowded room sometime. Now try to make the drawing "talk". Not that easy. Really.

But for many who trumpet their own art authority with credentials like going to an art  "...grad school..."  a mastery of journalistic drawing just isn't good enough.

One of Mr. Johnson's main points is that Leroy Neiman isn’t part of the “galleries like those lining Chelsea” or art “whose orbit included New York Times critics”. Point taken. If that's all that matters. And yes, Mr. Neiman did tragically throw it all away with the endless golfers, wild animals and that awful Olympics mural for Channel 7 Sports. But at least check out his early sketches and the exquisite Femlin he created for Playboy. 

Almost all "art" critics miss the point as they endlessly parade around the same galleries with the same artists in the same neighborhoods and the same art fairs and yawn, the same curated museum shows.

We would like to invite you to take another work at a man, who like his hero Frank Sinatra "Made it my way".

Let us now hoist our tiki mugs high and give it up for Leroy. Not a bad life 'ol boy. Better than tragically worrying about snarky critics. Who cares?  And whose going to light this cigar for me?

A Shoeshine Box with a Story

This bright red painted shoebox was featured in the now sadly defunct, Ike Turner (of Ike and Tina Turner fame) Museum of Afro-American History. Another interesting aspect of this piece is the smiley face. At a quick glance it just seems like another attention-grabber, but upon a closer look you can see that it is made out of Louisiana welfare coins. Considering how welfare is associated with being poor and unhappy, this smiley face was making something positive out of the negative. It could have also been a way to draw customers in by showing how badly the shiner needed money.

There is also a strange discrepancy in the piece. While the front side has a 15 cent price displayed, the back says 10. Could it be the shine guy used this to his advantage by turning the box around when he saw well heeled customers who could swing the extra nickel? Early advertising at it's best

 

Digital Kool-Aid

Click for more of Carl's artwork
Shades of Mad Men!  Carl Van Brunt showing at Oriole 9, began his career in the advertising world as a creative director at  Doremus.  We love the advertising world. Carl did very well reportedly and went on to open his own fab agency in New York.

He then founded the Carl van Brunt Gallery, by far the best gallery and art project space in Beacon. And that is including that mind numbing stuck-in-a-tar-pit DIA dinosaur with their never ending miles of dull art.  Wow! Here's a hole in the ground!  Look, if you squint some string kind of looks like a sheet of glass. The whole point of the clever Beuys Coyote performance was, you guessed it, the performance!  Not the artifacts stuffed into a third story closet. The DIA lawn is the best part with the little bricks working their way into the grass as you dutifully trudge into this art mausoleum.

Carl's place was like opening a window in the stuffy lunch room at Art Forum magazine, a breath of fresh air to the Hudson Valley.  

Carl has always been an artist and looks to wisely have found his true and real calling. Swirling Psycadelic art with no pretense of handwork but all gorgeous digital wonder. And yes, it is wonderful.  

The handling of color and deep perspective draw you in and leave you with sitars and floating butterflies. In a good way.    

It is extremely cool and a must see in, yep, Woodstock. Makes you want to paint your bus and go On the Road.

http://carlvanbruntart.blogspot.com/

Who is Rosie Camenga?

      Everybody has heard of Sailor Jerry and Ed Hardy, but how about Rosie Camenga?While those two ended up on almost every shirt in New Jersey, Rosie Camenga could be selling hot-dogs for all we know. Even Ed Hardy, who was so inspired by Rosie’s art that he singlehandeldly got it into museums, hasn’t been able to reach him. That’s why there is 1910-? written in Rosie's biography.

In the late 60’s, Sailor Jerry and Rosie had tattoo shops a block apart. While Rosie’s drawings started off crudely, they evolved and got so great that Sailor Jerry had a schoolboy admiration. So why are those two making millions while their favorite artist is broke? Perhaps Rosie’s art wasn’t “artistic” enough to be featured on a sparkling purple t-shirt. His work was crude but at the same time very complex, and wasn't the typical commercialized flash, which sets it apart but also kept him from achieving mainstream success. 

He is the underground artist of the tattoo world who mysteriously fell off the map. Actually, his whole career is filled with mystery. None of his flash-art is actually signed or dated (well that might not have helped his marketability), and is written in poor English. This is also seen in the actual art, with pictures of a reaper playing a guitar or a woman clutching an eagle with no explanation. When he does include text, it makes the images even stranger, like the dragon tattoo that says next to it “you are in the dark, but I can get you”.

So even if you can’t find his art at the mall, it is very complex and beautiful, and definitely worth checking out. 

"Let me know if you need anything"

Let me know if you need anything!” “Oh I will…” I said, muttering dammit! as I walked away. Every time I’m bored and looking in a store, these people always find a way to bug me. Can’t I just look and maybe buy something down the line? I’m not ready for a commitment yet.  And if you think being in shoe store is bad, just wait until you go into a gallery, or even worse, an art opening.

These gallerists won’t even ask you if you need help, but instead will offer their ten-minute interpretation of the piece you were thinking of buying. Before it can even be on your wall you’re already sick of the piece. This goes without mentioning the other snobs looking at pieces, or the smelly cheese and uptight receptionists. 

That’s why at Lift Trucks we are trying a new experiment called The Drive By Gallery. It’s a simple focus on art, where you drive (or walk) by to view the art, and don’t have to deal with anything else. It offers the ultimate convenience that we’ve had when ordering burgers and tacos (or liquor if you’re from Wyoming) for decades, but instead allows you to experience great pieces of art.      

Frieze Art Fair comes to NYC

We love the arrival of this new art fair from London to Manhattan!  

The light is great at Frieze. It's in a huge canvas tent on Randalls Island which lets lots of light and fresh air in, a nice break from other art fairs with recycled TWA Airlines "oxygen."  So you don't get tired and the art is presented really well with lots of room to see it, not all jammed together in miserable little aisles.  And the Frieze staff was really nice to us with press passes and free catalogs and stuff. Many glittering famous people were there, most of whom we could not recognize by name, but you probably would from movies and tv shows. And the actual big name gallery owners were present in their booths to say hi in a friendly way. 

This is a refreshing breath of fresh air in the stale artworld of burned out fairs. Very much unlike the dour Armory which is marginally entertaining but very dreary. But to us, even the Armory is a joy compared to the others like Scope and Pulse where you feel you are walking through the dog pound, sad eyes glomming your every step, "pick me, pick me" telepathically beaming out to you. And someone had the brilliant idea of a multicultural cuisine roach coach in the middle of Scope so there was this horrid stink of curry flavored MSG encrusted tacos cooked in repugnant vegetable oil recycled from Burger King, spreading in oil covered clouds everywhere. Shame on you Scope organizers!  We will never try to sneak in with our bogus passes to your event.


Now for some of the art:  Paul McCarthy's dwarf sculpture is brilliant in a blue color with an arm disintegrating displayed nicely at Hauser and Wirth, There was a cool car that came apart at another gallery and some very good painters at others. A nice sculpture was at Team Gallery with a huge 88 which is probably related to a NASCAR car or some reference. Tracy Emin had some very nice neons of female naughty bits on a gallery wall. Unfortunately that is about it for us. We were collared and led to the door by a military looking security dude who wanted us all to get press passes, not just one of us. But guess what? We all got press passes then! They are very nice here.

Some other journalists asked how we could write about an entire art fair with so many booths when we spent most of the time at the beer garden, which was lovely by the way. "How could you possibly write a review of this important art fair after only one hour?" They asked? Well, we didn't say it would be a good review. Go yourself. It's really fun.

Ankle Deep in Ink

A young woman stands in the parlor of who knows whose Victorian mansion. She is clearly a member of a higher society, dressed like a circus acrobat, clad with gold, jewels, and pearls. As the eye of the gentleman wanders down to her ankle, something unusual appears. Leaves of green on her skin, not worn, but tattooed. What is this tattooed Jezebel doing then and there while covered in a fortunes worth of gold? We wonder too. 

In this day and age, most wouldn't necessarily think of tattoos as being something so exclusive for the social elite, but in the olden days, when tattooists were just traveling artisans, only the wealthy could afford the luxury of being inked. The Queen Mother of England, and even Winston Churchill’s mother both had tattoos. 

Whoever this young lady was, someone must have paid a small fortune for her to have been covered in gold and painted by who we have identified as an unknown American painter. We like to think of this piece as the first shovel of mysterious dirt that covers our time capsule of tattoo art. We know this is from some time around 1880, but the woman's identity is unbeknownst to us. Not much else can capture the mystery and allure of such a strange time period like a painting like this. 

If anyone has insights about this unusual piece, please let us know. 

 

Chris Machins at DGAF Gallery

Chris Machins is a good friend of ours here at Lift Trucks. He is a master of pinstriping, and provided the surfboard for our Tattoo Flash exhibit a few months back. We are happy to say that he will have his work shown at the DGAF Gallery for their exhibit starting on March 10th from noon to 10 pm. We hope to see you there.