Bloomberg's State of the City

on NY1 State of the State adress 1/16/10

NY1 VIDEO: Governor David Paterson gives his second State of the State Address before a joint legislative session in Albany on Wednesday, January 6, 2010.

Kandinsky at the Guggenheim 10/07/09

What a great show. I didn't realize the range of Kandinsky's work and to be able to witness his progress on the Guggenheim's spiral was amazing. The Thannhauser Collection sort of gave a context of art that was going on around the same time, contrasting with Kandinsky's explorations into nonobjectivity. There was also a room of Kandinsky's drawings that were charming and quirky. With his paintings, it was interesting to see a progression of his color palette to the lighter, more pastel colors of later works.

However, I was totally floored by the Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres pieces (Paired Gold) on the top floor at the end of the Kandinsky show. They, in a way, were asserting the dominance of contemporary art and illustrated how powerfully art has moved beyond the canvas. On previous floors were Memory by Anish Kapoor and Intervals (two pieces) by Kitty Kraus which I found darkly poetic, sort of mirroring the darker palletes of Kandinsky's earlier work.

Tracy Morgan at Carnegie Hall 10/06/09

My first time to Carnegie Hall was to see comedian / actor on my favorite show 30rock, Tracy Morgan. He was ridiculously funny.

Of the 30rock cast, I've also seen Judah Freidlander's stand up at Comix and I saw Tina Fey filming part of an episode in Battery Park City.

Elizabeth Peyton artist talk 10/05/09

Elizabeth Peyton showed some of her work and played some tunes for us at the SVA theatre and gave a brief talk. She was a bit nervous, which she told us. She was wearing a beautiful shirt with these different animal print patterns and what looked like leather pants. Her presentation and her presence were elegant and inspiring.

Prozac Nation

I just watched Prozac Nation starring Christina Ricci, based on the autobiographical book by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I thought it was a great movie and an unflinching portrayal of clinical depression. In a holistic and honest way, it shows the context of the problem (family conflict, change, drug use), the effects (emotional instability, inability to work) and the process of recovery.

Some lines in particular really struck me as accurately articulating what it feels like to be going through depression:

That's how depression hits. You wake up one morning afraid that you're going to live.

How exhausted I am, even in my dreams. How I wake up tired. How I'm being drowned by some kind of black wave.

What I want is for someone to understand, but they don't really. And that makes the platitudes harder to bear.

Jesus. Listen to me. All I say is the dark side of everything. Poor Ruby. I kill her joy. Look at her sad, discouraged face.

type posters

These are the final posters. I had done some earlier versions using more typefaces, but was unsatisfied with the results for the most part. These incorporate a script handwriting and photo-manipulation (which are the last two images in the post).

I was listening to the album, "Wormhole" by Ed Rush & Optical from 1998 while working on these. The album is really tough and the album artwork by Fergus Quinn is a direct influence.

The idea behind the phrase, "The Price of Radmission," came from reading the book "The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates" by Daniel Golden. I have an ongoing interest in class issues in America and I thought the book did a good job of exposing class bias in the college admissions process.

For example, with Title IX -the law providing gender equality in collegiate athletics- some schools give admissions advantages to athletes in upper class sports such as rowing and horseback riding. Thereby displacing student athletes from less priveleged backgrounds with access only to more working/middle class sports.

I think that class bias is unfair though deeply entrenched in American society. But class bias cuts both ways, in that the upper classes are excluded from admission into activities or lifestyles that are the territory of other classes. For example, rich kids may be seen as posers when they try to act like they are from the streets.

So, lets say there is a college or society or class of the rad. You know, what does it take to be rad? What's the price of radmission?