LOTS HAPPENING THIS WEEK!
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29th--The Visulite Cinema in Staunton presents the artwork of KEVIN POSTUPACK, KRONOS's fearless leader, with a new show of experimental photography entitled "Kaleidoscope". The show will be up through October. PLUS, check out the cover story on The Visulite & Adam Greenbaum in the new issue of "81"!!!
KRONOS DOUBLE OPENINGS!!! (Yes, 2 openings in 2 days! Only KRONOS would DARE such a thing!)
THURSDAY, AUGUST 30th--L'Italia in association with KRONOS Art Gallery presents a duo show of two KRONOS artists: LESLIE BANTA, paintings & mixed media (on the 3rd floor) & KEVIN POSTUPACK, paintings & mixed media (on the 4th floor). The show will run till September 26th. OPENING RECEPTION is Thursday, August 30th @ L'Italia from 6:30 till 8:30pm. FREE! Refreshments served. L'Italia Restaurant 23 E. Beverley Street, Staunton, VA.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 31st--Another fantastic ART PARTY @ KRONOS, the gallery that's so cool it melted the polar ice cap (sorry!). OPENING RECEPTION from 6:00 till 9:00pm (or later if there's dancing!) for ED DOLINGER from Monroe, VA & his SOLO SHOW entitled "finish.line"--mixed media abstract paintings. Plus, in "the Collection" room, great new art from 15 local & regional artists including Leslie Banta, Diana Young, Lorraine Rees, Kim Willoughby, Joyce McCarten, Den Frumen, Barbara Quackenbush, Jordan Roeder, Alix Mantallana, Briana Shelton, PSM, Bernadette, Stu D. Mader, Elyse Cooner, & Kevin Postupack. PLUS everyone's favorite LIVE DJ--BRIAN BOYD spinning ultra cool-groove dance tunes. Plus rumored extra special guests Lou Reed, Cindy Sherman, & Maynard James Keenan. It's FREE (although coolness is required & will be verified @ the door with the KRONOS Koolometer). KRONOS Art Gallery 14 Byers St (on the wharf) Staunton, VA (540) 213-1815
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Eat the Rich!
The other day in New York City, Christie's, the famous auction house set a new record: 71 million dollars for an Andy Warhol painting. It seems that every few months, Christie's or Sotheby's or some other auction house around the world gleefully announces a new record price paid for a painting, while those that happen upon the story in the news shake their heads in wonder at how a piece of art could possibly be worth so much. Well, the reality is that they're not. Let's call these high-class art auctions what they are, which is nothing but a glorified excuse that rich people have concocted to publicly enhance their status and declare how much money they have to the world. (Regarding the bank accounts of the super rich, size does matter.) After all, after one of these phenomenal bids is accepted doesn't the audience burst into applause? And it's not for the painting, it's for the money, that one person can so boldly, so publicly pay 71 million dollars for a work of art! What an art lover! What a patron of the arts! What BULLSHIT! It's a sham and for God's sake it's not about art. If it were then Joe Blow's painting (which is much better than Andy Warhol's) could conceivably get as much or even more at Christie's. But here's the rub: since Joe Blow is working as a waiter at a cafe on Mott Street and can barely get his stuff in a gallery he's not on the rich people's radar. How does one get on the radar, you ask? Well, they must first do two things: 1. Become Famous 2. Become Rich. You see, the rich only regard fellow members of the club. Art is decidedly not the point, unless it is by some famous dead guy, and then they arbitrarily agree to elevate his work in the public consciousness by paying ridiculous sums at auction. And this is done for two reasons. The first is that if they paid 70 million, this means that two years down the road someone else might pay 100 million! ($30 million profit!) For the rich, EVERYTHING is looked at for its investment potential, and this is especially true in the world of high price art where what they're really buying is the artist's "name". The second reason is perhaps the more despicable of the two: that by paying 70 million dollars at auction for a painting, the rich person reclaims the virility they never had in the first place and which they compensated for all these years by becoming extremely rich. For them, to publicly flaunt the size of their bank account-cum-penis is their summum bonum. And this brings us back to Joe Blow (the truly great and inspired artist living a life of obscurity making ends meet as a part-time waiter in the Village). There's no cachet to supporting such a nobody--no investment value, no Viagra-like boner from putting his work on the wall (unless like Basquiat, the arbitrary forces conspire to make him a viable investment opportunity), but for every Basquiat there are tens of thousands relegated to anonymity. (And besides, look what happened to Basquiat!) Which brings me to my final point. Who actually makes the money at these art auctions besides the auction house itself? A recent event at Sotheby's netted $91 million for a Klimt painting, however the heirs of the Klimt estate received not a penny. It turns out that a rich person bought the painting from Gustave himself for a song back in the day, and now the heirs of this rich person, not the heirs of Klimt, made the 91 million. What else is new? The rich get richer, the artists get by as best they can.
(reprinted from SAMIZDAT June/July 2007)
(reprinted from SAMIZDAT June/July 2007)
Marsupial Man @ KRONOS!
This Friday, August 24th @ 8pm, KRONOS, the art gallery that's first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of its countrymen, is proud to host a reading & booksigning by PSM, author of the controversial novella "Marsupial Man". FREE! Mature audiences.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Noblesse Oblige
--The idea that people born into the nobility or upper social classes must behave in an honorable and generous way toward those less privileged.
Eleanor Roosevelt believed this. As First Lady she constantly badgered FDR to do the right thing regarding the poor, civil rights, and women's rights. John Kennedy believed this. As President, after reading a book on poverty in America* he publicly declared war on it--a cause championed by Lyndon Johnson after JFK's death. Bobby Kennedy believed this. In his last years he was an enlightened crusader against poverty, injustice, and inequality, and then he was assassinated. And perhaps the idea that those in power have a responsibility to help those less fortunate died as well that early June day in 1968, leaving us to a string of leaders whose actions spoke less of altruism and more of avarice**. Which brings us to the present day, our present regime and its "Fuck You!" attitude towards the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the environment, and anything remotely threatening to their "kick ass take names" approach to making obscene amounts of money--the war in Iraq the apotheosis of this, as the U.S. spends 100 million dollars on the war every 12 hours! So what has this got to do with ART you might ask? Simple. We follow the example our leaders set for us. Nixon was just in the right place at the wrong time. Back then an air of "Sixties righteousness" still floated about--a national conscience, if you will. But now after several decades of doublespeak, disinformation, propagandizing pundits, soundbites, and religious dogma we've devolved into what Hobbes called a "war of all against all" (or "my Hummer's bigger than your Hummer!"). How curious that Bush cronies decry evolution in favor of "intelligent design" but yet their actions exemplify the heart of Darwinism--survival of the fittest! Or rather, survival of the richest! Which brings us back to art. With this redefined Darwinism in mind, most artists are not very fit, and might indeed find that they have more in common with the dodo bird than with the wealthy Republican. So in an atmosphere of wealth at any cost and the devil take the hindmost, how is art and the artist in America to survive? Five hundred dollars for an original one-of-a-kind piece of artwork is rather low-end, as far as prices go for fine art. However, your average middle-class American does not have $500 to spend in such a way (enter Pier One and Michael's Craft House!). Which leaves it up to the rich to keep art and artists afloat. The rich have the money. They have the big houses with the wallspace. Now all they need is taste and a generous spirit--the first I believe a possibility, the second, well... Until a new national conscience is forged, a conscience that is much more Bobby Kennedy and much less George Bush, I think the arts and our artists are in for a bad time.
* "The Other America: Poverty in the United States" by Michael Harrington
** Jimmy Carter notwithstanding, who was well-meaning, but nevertheless knuckled under to public opinion and political pressure generated by the conservative ideologues allied against him. A salient example being his decision on aid to El Salvador.
Eleanor Roosevelt believed this. As First Lady she constantly badgered FDR to do the right thing regarding the poor, civil rights, and women's rights. John Kennedy believed this. As President, after reading a book on poverty in America* he publicly declared war on it--a cause championed by Lyndon Johnson after JFK's death. Bobby Kennedy believed this. In his last years he was an enlightened crusader against poverty, injustice, and inequality, and then he was assassinated. And perhaps the idea that those in power have a responsibility to help those less fortunate died as well that early June day in 1968, leaving us to a string of leaders whose actions spoke less of altruism and more of avarice**. Which brings us to the present day, our present regime and its "Fuck You!" attitude towards the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the environment, and anything remotely threatening to their "kick ass take names" approach to making obscene amounts of money--the war in Iraq the apotheosis of this, as the U.S. spends 100 million dollars on the war every 12 hours! So what has this got to do with ART you might ask? Simple. We follow the example our leaders set for us. Nixon was just in the right place at the wrong time. Back then an air of "Sixties righteousness" still floated about--a national conscience, if you will. But now after several decades of doublespeak, disinformation, propagandizing pundits, soundbites, and religious dogma we've devolved into what Hobbes called a "war of all against all" (or "my Hummer's bigger than your Hummer!"). How curious that Bush cronies decry evolution in favor of "intelligent design" but yet their actions exemplify the heart of Darwinism--survival of the fittest! Or rather, survival of the richest! Which brings us back to art. With this redefined Darwinism in mind, most artists are not very fit, and might indeed find that they have more in common with the dodo bird than with the wealthy Republican. So in an atmosphere of wealth at any cost and the devil take the hindmost, how is art and the artist in America to survive? Five hundred dollars for an original one-of-a-kind piece of artwork is rather low-end, as far as prices go for fine art. However, your average middle-class American does not have $500 to spend in such a way (enter Pier One and Michael's Craft House!). Which leaves it up to the rich to keep art and artists afloat. The rich have the money. They have the big houses with the wallspace. Now all they need is taste and a generous spirit--the first I believe a possibility, the second, well... Until a new national conscience is forged, a conscience that is much more Bobby Kennedy and much less George Bush, I think the arts and our artists are in for a bad time.
* "The Other America: Poverty in the United States" by Michael Harrington
** Jimmy Carter notwithstanding, who was well-meaning, but nevertheless knuckled under to public opinion and political pressure generated by the conservative ideologues allied against him. A salient example being his decision on aid to El Salvador.
Quote of the Month (August)
"The artist seizing power over public taste signaled the beginning of modern art."
--from a documentary on Edouard Manet
--from a documentary on Edouard Manet
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
MUSIC NIGHT!
FRIDAY August 17th is another MUSIC NIGHT @ KRONOS, the art gallery that's so cool it makes ice jealous. Our featured artist is original singer/songwriter DEN FRUMEN. The event begins at 8pm and it's FREE!
Friday, August 10, 2007
Vaudeville @ KRONOS!
Wednesday August 15th @ 8pm KRONOS, the gallery that's so cool it should be in black & white, is having VAUDEVILLE NIGHT! What's better than Keanu Reeves? Answer: TWO Keanu Reeveses! Two actors (Rob Banta & Alejandro Rosa) are both Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare (with lots of Keanu's signature lines thrown in!). "You're goin' down, Macbeth! Whoa!" A tribute to the greatest actor of our time!
PLUS... KRONOS fave Nathan Moore doing MAGIC instead of music! With juggling and a short skit "The Fainting Boy". Great summertime entertainment for the whole family (unless you're the Manson family, in which case you should go to "Serial Killer Night" @ the McDoofie).
PLUS... KRONOS fave Nathan Moore doing MAGIC instead of music! With juggling and a short skit "The Fainting Boy". Great summertime entertainment for the whole family (unless you're the Manson family, in which case you should go to "Serial Killer Night" @ the McDoofie).
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