Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
KRONOS ROCKS (and THEN SOME)!!!
On Saturday night it was like witnessing the reincarnation of Jim Morrison and The Doors as PABLO & THE DREGS rocked a packed house at KRONOS with the audience screaming for more! Check out more images from the night on our new feature "ARTerati"!
Friday, February 22, 2008
THERE WILL BE ART...
Ladies and gentlemen, I've traveled over half my house to get to my computer to write this blog entry so I can be with you here today. I couldn't get away sooner because the new show is coming soon at KRONOS Art Gallery and I had to see about it. So, ladies and gentlemen, if I say I'm an art man you will agree. You have a great chance here, but bear in mind, you can lose it all if you're not careful, since the current show is only up for three more days. Out of all men that beg for a chance to sell you art maybe one in twenty will be art men, the rest... well, God knows. I'm fixed like no other art gallery in this field because at KRONOS we truly know and love art. We make it our business to find the most exciting and challenging artists for you to see. And this is why I can guarantee you art like nowhere else around. I assure you, whatever the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won't be there...
Sunday, February 17, 2008
KRONOS ROCKS!!!
On SATURDAY NIGHT February 23rd @ 8pm, KRONOS, the art gallery that will gladly kick any other art gallery's ass, presents the FABULOUS psychedelic jazz rock band PABLO & THE DREGS just returned from their European tour!!! Prepare to move, to sweat, and to rock the f*** out! AND it's FREE!!! KRONOS Art Gallery... Anything else just ain't right.
Monday, February 11, 2008
"VALENTINE'S VAUDEVILLE NIGHT" @ KRONOS!!!
Bill of Fare...
MUSIC
"Archie & Edith" performing "Those Were the Days"
Classical Violin by Megan Hefner
Matt Warner singing "The Verb Song"
Luciano Rigatoni performing "The William Tell Overture" on his face!
POETRY & STORY-TELLING
The Amazing Philip Chodrow perfoming Ginsberg's "HOWL"!!!
The Incomparable Sophia Cliffe and the tale of "Gretel the Cook"!
DRAMA
The Fainting Boy starring in Homer's "The Odyssey"!!!
The Mighty KRONOS Art Players in "MIAMI VICE"!!!!
COMEDY
The Comic Stylings of TONY JONES!
MAGIC
The Astounding Mind-Reading of The Great Rinaldo!
FEATS OF DARING-DO
The DEATH-DEFYING SKILL of "The Incredible Hammerhead"!!!
COME ONE COME ALL, AND BE AMAZED!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
PROPERTY IS THEFT!!!
I just learned that an art gallery in Washington D.C. pays $5000 a month to rent their space. Perhaps if you live in D.C. or any other large metropolitan city you are not at all surprised by this, but to me (living in Staunton, Virginia) this came as a shock. This is yet another reason (and granted, a big one) why these so-called "high-end" art galleries are reluctant in the extreme to open their walls to artists whose work doesn't hold the promise of large and immediate payback. But the consequences of this simple action are many.
For the gallery, instead of being a place of freedom--for isn't freedom what art should be about--it becomes a place of constriction, where every decision is governed by making rent. So instead of selling a wide variety of work from a wide variety of artists they must limit their scope to focusing on work that will bring the most money per square foot of canvas (and wallspace). And by definition this leaves out a substantial amount of art from artists whose work should be seen on the national level, but they're ignored simply because they don't have the right cachet, "brand", or resume. And this reminds me of a woman I once encountered. A fine abstract painter she was, yet she proceeded to give me a lecture on the absolute necessity of having a proper (and extensive) resume. She then related a cautionary tale of a young friend of hers, an excellent painter, who approached a high-class white-walled Boston art gallery. The gallery's director after viewing her work told the young artist that it was quite beautiful and would look perfect in the gallery, however she (the director) regretfully had to decline because the young artist just didn't have a "good enough resume". (!!!) My response was that since resumes are so all-important and precious why don't these fancy galleries put the artist's resume up on the walls instead of the artwork! (To any thinking person the word BULLSHIT must come immediately to mind.) Another artist friend told me of a gallery in New York City which can only survive financially by selling work from famous artists like DeKooning, Hockney and the like. But wasn't there a time fifty years ago when DeKooning couldn't get a show, couldn't sell a painting--which means that these art galleries are ALWAYS going to be 50 years behind the times! And how is this good for Art with a capital "A"? It certainly isn't any good for the artists who are not DeKooning and Hockney.
So with outrageous rents in all big cities this is another reason to support the assertion that the most exciting and vibrant art being made today is art that is counter to this mindset (and therefore in venues where there are cheaper rents). What's needed here is the long view. Art as a continuum. After all, doesn't it seem the least bit hypocritical for an art gallery to have a show called "DeKooning's Early Work" (which commands top dollar), yet when DeKooning was actually doing his "early work" this same gallery would have shunned him? But I believe the problem does not rest with the art gallery and its owner but ultimately with the landlords themselves. Proudhon* once declared that, "Property is theft." What else would you call it when someone does all the work to keep an art gallery going (and there's a lot of it!) while someone else just sits back and collects a $5000 paycheck each month for doing nothing. For owning something. This is beyond reprehensible. And yes, it is one of the side-effects of capitalism, that glorious experiment in making a few people really, really rich while the rest of us supply the labor. And how do you change this? How do you rid the human heart of greed? I don't know. But I do know that if history has taught us anything it's that everyone has a breaking point. If you keep taking and taking eventually you reach a limit. And this limit is called "revolution", be it on the personal level or the political and societal level. And who's better at being a revolutionary than the artist? As T.S. Eliot once said:
"The artist is the only genuine and profound revolutionist, in the following sense. The world always has, and always will, tend to substitute appearance for reality. The artist, being always alone, being heterodox when everyone else is orthodox, is the perpetual upsetter of conventional values, the restorer of the real. His function is to bring back humanity to the real."
*Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the 19th century French anarchist, believed that the common conception of property had two distinct components which, once identified, demonstrated the difference between property used to protect liberty and property used to further tyranny. He argued that the result of an individual's labor which is currently occupied or used is a legitimate form of property. Thus, he opposed unused land being regarded as property, believing that land can only be rightfully possessed by use or occupation. As an extension of his belief that legitimate property was the result of labor and occupation, he argued against such institutions as interest on loans and rent. (!!!)
For the gallery, instead of being a place of freedom--for isn't freedom what art should be about--it becomes a place of constriction, where every decision is governed by making rent. So instead of selling a wide variety of work from a wide variety of artists they must limit their scope to focusing on work that will bring the most money per square foot of canvas (and wallspace). And by definition this leaves out a substantial amount of art from artists whose work should be seen on the national level, but they're ignored simply because they don't have the right cachet, "brand", or resume. And this reminds me of a woman I once encountered. A fine abstract painter she was, yet she proceeded to give me a lecture on the absolute necessity of having a proper (and extensive) resume. She then related a cautionary tale of a young friend of hers, an excellent painter, who approached a high-class white-walled Boston art gallery. The gallery's director after viewing her work told the young artist that it was quite beautiful and would look perfect in the gallery, however she (the director) regretfully had to decline because the young artist just didn't have a "good enough resume". (!!!) My response was that since resumes are so all-important and precious why don't these fancy galleries put the artist's resume up on the walls instead of the artwork! (To any thinking person the word BULLSHIT must come immediately to mind.) Another artist friend told me of a gallery in New York City which can only survive financially by selling work from famous artists like DeKooning, Hockney and the like. But wasn't there a time fifty years ago when DeKooning couldn't get a show, couldn't sell a painting--which means that these art galleries are ALWAYS going to be 50 years behind the times! And how is this good for Art with a capital "A"? It certainly isn't any good for the artists who are not DeKooning and Hockney.
So with outrageous rents in all big cities this is another reason to support the assertion that the most exciting and vibrant art being made today is art that is counter to this mindset (and therefore in venues where there are cheaper rents). What's needed here is the long view. Art as a continuum. After all, doesn't it seem the least bit hypocritical for an art gallery to have a show called "DeKooning's Early Work" (which commands top dollar), yet when DeKooning was actually doing his "early work" this same gallery would have shunned him? But I believe the problem does not rest with the art gallery and its owner but ultimately with the landlords themselves. Proudhon* once declared that, "Property is theft." What else would you call it when someone does all the work to keep an art gallery going (and there's a lot of it!) while someone else just sits back and collects a $5000 paycheck each month for doing nothing. For owning something. This is beyond reprehensible. And yes, it is one of the side-effects of capitalism, that glorious experiment in making a few people really, really rich while the rest of us supply the labor. And how do you change this? How do you rid the human heart of greed? I don't know. But I do know that if history has taught us anything it's that everyone has a breaking point. If you keep taking and taking eventually you reach a limit. And this limit is called "revolution", be it on the personal level or the political and societal level. And who's better at being a revolutionary than the artist? As T.S. Eliot once said:
"The artist is the only genuine and profound revolutionist, in the following sense. The world always has, and always will, tend to substitute appearance for reality. The artist, being always alone, being heterodox when everyone else is orthodox, is the perpetual upsetter of conventional values, the restorer of the real. His function is to bring back humanity to the real."
*Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the 19th century French anarchist, believed that the common conception of property had two distinct components which, once identified, demonstrated the difference between property used to protect liberty and property used to further tyranny. He argued that the result of an individual's labor which is currently occupied or used is a legitimate form of property. Thus, he opposed unused land being regarded as property, believing that land can only be rightfully possessed by use or occupation. As an extension of his belief that legitimate property was the result of labor and occupation, he argued against such institutions as interest on loans and rent. (!!!)
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