Arts Coun­cil Member’s Show

Inter­na­tional Flux­hi­bi­tion #4 is online and might I say, Cecil Tou­chon has done quite an amaz­ing job. While a for­mal intro­duc­tion (shak­ing of hands and how-are-you?s) does not yet exist between us, the use of “Mr. Tou­chon” seems a bit for­mal here so I shall assume we are now on a first name basis. There’s a new Flux Case project and we Flux­ers have our ephemera all in a wad over it. I’m think­ing some stere­op­ti­can slides, sliced pre­cisely to fit, might have to be part of my offer­ing to the project. I have quite a num­ber of the slides and noth­ing is more flux than blend­ing two pic­tures into one three-​dimensional image — am I right or what!?

ON another note: Cecil’s works in a brief­case idea really appeals to the assem­blag­ist in me. Being a touchy-​feely artist, a suit­case street show will cer­tainly be my next project. (link to Cecil’s Stend­hal Gallery offer­ing avail­able below) The art world of Fluxus and Mail Art seems incred­i­bly vibrant and alive with pos­si­bil­i­ties. Every­one wel­comes input. Could this be the True Art Par­a­digm? An atmos­phere of shar­ing and coöper­a­tion rather than exclu­siv­ity and rejec­tion? I, for one, hate hate HATE hav­ing work “judged” and vow to enter for a fee no more. My art sim­ply IS my art. The Free­dom of Know­ing reigns supreme over The Con­fines of Judg­men­tal Atmos­pheric Stratospheres.

Back to my next FREE ART hap­pen­ing. I hear you ask­ing “How does one come up with these bril­liant ideas?” I hear me answer­ing, “Sim­ple, really. Our local arts coun­cil cur­rently hosts a member’s show. This rather sta­tic event is inter­est­ing and fun but none of the sub­mis­sions move or inspire human liq­uid­ity.” I decided to Flux-​It-​Up and posted a FREE ART! TAKE IT! IT’S YOURS! dis­play and gifted local patrons with Artists Books. Hand­made and deli­cious but not for human con­sump­tion. Assem­blages are hands-​on arti­facts. I want peo­ple to touch and scru­ti­nize my work. We live in a such a HANDS OFF THE PAINTINGS, DO NOT TOUCH, STAND BEHIND THE ROPE world, it’s tough to get it across to folks that I want them to par­tic­i­pate in my art.

Tak­ing the free art idea and com­bin­ing it with Cecil’s recent Stend­hal Gallery offer­ing …

Know­ing many con­trib­u­tors to the Flux­mu­seum would be at the Stend­hal Gallery for the exhibit: Greet­ings from Dad­da­land: Fluxus, Mail Art and Rub­ber Stamps, I hastily gath­ered together a num­ber of small works from flux­h­i­ni­tion #2, #3 and #4 that would fit into a brief case and took them with me to ‘show and tell’.

I have come up with a new idea.

A TrAV­el­iNG FluX mUSEum.

Unfor­tu­nately, my cur­rent stu­dio and per­son­age is within the con­fines of a rather diminu­tive rural south­ern town. My act­ing out the Street Cor­ner Trav­el­ing Fluxus Show would prob­a­bly result in a manda­tory 72-​hour stay on the fourth floor of the local county hos­pi­tal, signed by local mag­is­trate David Cur­tis. Still, hope abides deep within and per­haps I can per­suade the arts coun­cil to spon­sor me — an act which pos­si­bly, quite maybe, would result in some smat­ter­ing of deco­rum and authen­tic­ity and not in my incar­cer­a­tion in a nearby “for your own safety” facility.

Here’s my proposal.

Think 3-​card monte meets street ven­dor, NYC-​style. Only I’m shuf­fling artists books and I do not want your money. The Assem­blag­ist will fill the four-​legged suit­case with Artist Books and ephemera. The Amaz­ing Suit­case will be placed in front of a will­ing estab­lish­ment and next to suit­case will be a wooden kitchen chair of inde­ter­mi­nate lin­eage but sturdy enough for the Assem­blag­ist to sit upon as she opens the suit­case and dis­penses the con­tents to all who are will­ing to accept them. As of today, the only will­ing estab­lish­ment is the Dead Mule Stu­dio loca­tion, which is a good six blocks from down­town com­merce and not a part of Music in the Street but I will per­se­vere and ever-​hope for my con­tin­ued success.

This show goes live on May 24, 2010 but it’s gonna’ have to be on my front porch and avail­able only through­out Memo­r­ial Day week­end. While you’re wait­ing for me to pho­to­graph and load images of the

Trav­el­ing Flux Museum Amaz­ing Suit­case Street Show,

you can watch this YouTube video about how NOT to be scammed by Three-​Card Monte shys­ters on Broad­way.