THIS IS MY LAST WORK AT GUTTENBERG ARTS
This is my last work (maybe?) at Guttenberg Arts.
It’s a screen printing edition of 30. Between 5 to 9 Colors. Paper: 14x14“ Print: 10x10“
I used one screen with one exposure of one image.
All pictures look different.
Now we are preparing our exhibition here at Guttenberg Arts...
See you Friday 28th at Guttenberg Arts!
Well, I´ve seen pics, the website, moved images while skyping, read and talked about it, but entering Guttenberg Arts for the first time to visit Florian and his collegues, I was really impressed by the great room, atmosphere and facilities they offer artists to work! Since 3 years Matt Barteluce and his business partner Russ Spitkovsky run this wonderful institution. With its printing equipment, the ceramics studio and the individually adaptable working spaces for visual artists it is an arts non-profit that hosts an artist residency, provides free public workshops, artist talks, and gallery exhibitions.
Well, I visited the highly professional space and would like to share some visual impressions.
Guttenberg Arts supported and inspired Florian to produce great works in the last months and to break 3 records in the residency program - hours working, works produced, size of works - quoting Denise, the office manager. FM
Two months of my Residency are over, one more month to stay. I experienced so many great things, met many people and produced a lot of art. Somehow, I should be over the peak but I can’t stop working. Ideas are coming, whether inspired by the city or by my own practice and I have to work them out. The people at Guttenberg Arts became something like an extended family. The studio is as beautiful and well equipped as ever, just I brought some new big screens for silk-screening into it.
I visited great spots like the Knockdown Center, the Socrates Sculpture Park with its current goat exhibition - both in Queens - and the Smack Mellon in Dumbo, Brooklyn. But then I experienced a real NY highlight, and not a NYC but a NY Upstate highlight. I did a beautiful 1,5 hour train ride along the Hudson River, the clouds were beautiful, the hawks were flying around, the air got nice and breathable. I headed there of course for the famous Dia:Beacon Museum. It´s a collection of mostly US minimal artists around the 70ies, though there are some international positions as well. The museum is huge! It just uses daylight for the artworks - that’s amazing, the opening times change due to the season and the sunset. The exhibition started with two almost 100m works by Walter De Maria. Here, art has the space that it deserves and needs. Especially such minimal works need a lot of attention in the space. Just enjoy the pics ...
After the museum I strolled around in Beacon and ended up in the local brewery, talking about American, European and Austrian beer. Back in NYC the air changed back to what it is in the city - shitty.
Another impressing spot in Queens is the Sculpture Center, with its industrial architecture, the basement exhibition space, the good art and the nice openings in the yard. Back in Manhattan I have been at the opening of my Austrian college Karl Salzmann at the Austrian Cultural Forum. He did an amazing performance where he destroyed a microphone in a vice during shouting the Human Rights into it.
Finally I went back to Jersey where Matt, the director of Guttenberg Arts, invited me for BBQ. There was his family and friends. Do you have an idea how old the two persons in the picture on the right side are? Together almost 200, she is 82 and he is 95, he drove the car and had some beer with me… Amazing! Matt did a great job with BBQing and offered one of the best steaks I’ve ever had. Finally we had some fireworks in the backyard of Guttenberg Arts.
Although I have been here for before, I am always busy in this hottest of all cities. I live and work in NJ and pearl always to NY. My daily routine looks the same each day: I get up, make a tea, go to the Bulls Ferry Studio of Guttenberg Arts, 10 minutes away and work until I take the bus to Manhattan or Brooklyn in the afternoon or evening.
The studio I am working is madness! It is huge, has the best light I've ever had in a studio and is extremely well equipped. I would love to have such a studio in Vienna! The staff is all friendly, it is quiet and everyone has enough space ...
Since the part of NJ where I live and work (Guttenberg) lies on a cliff, I have the best view on Manhattan during my half-hour bus trips to Manhattan. It is amazing in these different moods and even if the weather is not so good, people still make wedding photos in front of the mega-scenery. Looking from the other side of the cliff, it looks the complete opposite. There is New Jersey State, it is so pure America: roads, houses, shopping malls, trade, industry, almost no public transport and smoke always rises from somewhere, yes I can hear the fire brigade very often ...
Back in Manhattan the district, where there are countless galleries and I personally like it most for the art is the Lower East Side. There I just did an extensive gallery tour - not for the first time.
I was already on some openings but I was especially pleased to meet my friend Tariku at his opening again. I met him on my last NY trip, when we shared a studio in Bushwick… In this exhibition, he didn’t limit himself to pictures on the wall with his cool small-format painting, but didn’t stop painting his sweater. He is also on show at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Apropos: There I’ve been, of course, already. Together with the Irish artist Elaine Byrne, who has been working for some time in NYC at the ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program). I went through the rooms and was very amazed as there are many paintings on display. Furthermore, many artists have been given very generous space. Several very inspiring works are on view.
To know Tariku is really great. Because he studied at the Parsons - The New School, he knows a lot of artists in NYC. We met some of the colleagues at the opening of the Curators in Residence of the Whitney Independent Study Program in the exhibition room The Kitchen in Chelsea. Very conceptual show, Afro-American and feminist topics end up in a very high quality of the exhibition. Afterwards there was a cool after party in a shitty bar, as a colleague said but it was big fun.
Another after party at an extremely beautiful place was celebrated the exhibition opening of my German colleague Anne Neukamp in the Marlborough Contemporary in Chelsea. Anne I met as well during my last NY stay, she also had a studio at the ISCP. The gallery is really great and Anne’s pictures are technically perfect and an interesting combination of opposites like colored and black / white, painterly and graphic, representational and abstract. Countless people were at the opening and the party was in the rooftop bar with terrace of the Janes hotel with a view on NJ.
There was also a closing reception at Guttenberg Arts and we had even visitors from Austria and Germany, for what I was very happy. Another Austrian woman is also super in touch with the New York art world - Laura Welzenbach, she is Director of Residencies at Eyebeam, an institution for art and technology. Their space is situated in the so-called Industry City in Brooklyn, really cool and with a view onto the sea, Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Especially the washbasins that they have are technology-like…
A highlight of music had also already taken place. A solo concert by the pianist Anthony Coleman in the club founded by John Zorn - The Stone. It was a real NY atmosphere - dark, cool and weird. Anthony put some things into(!) the Piano, asked for small money in the audience and also this he stretched between the sides, he has remained true to his experimental jazz tradition…
