As we transition to our new Director Furusho von Puttkammer, we have asked our alums if they have any advice, memories, or thoughts they would like to share with AiOP. Tasha Douge, who was a Curatorial Assistant of 2016:RACE, and artist in 2021:NORMAL and friend of AiOP Founder Ed Woodham, wanted to share this:

1) What’s a strong Art in Odd Places memory that you recall?

 I have a ton of memories and a few full circle moments. I first learned about AiOP by accident in 2014. I stumbled across festival info by way of the skint website. I remember getting compliments from a gumball machine, talking to a computer and tracking Nicky Enright down to have a “Globo Exchange.” I was hooked on AiOP after that. I applied to be a curator for 2018’s theme of RACE. I didn’t get selected. However, weeks later I met with Ed for a nice lunch conversation and left accepting an opportunity to be a Curatorial Assistant. That was my first time working on a festival of this caliber. I learned ample from being in that role. Ed also encouraged me to take advantage of our speakerbox/soapbox activation. That is when I debuted my remixed version of the Pledge of Allegiance. I have made some awesome friends over the years. Yet the best memory to date is of me performing in last year’s festival for the theme NORMAL. I look forward to making more memories with the AiOP family.

2) What would you like to say to Ed as he leaves?

 Ed may be transitioning out of his previous role, but his spirit and energy aint going nowhere.  Ed is a visionary and has created an amazing legacy. I have told Ed time and time again that the way he shows up has been affirming, encouraging and uplifting. Ed has been a consistent supporter and just an overwhelmingly awesome person to know.  

3)What should Furusho know about Art in Odd Places?

 AiOP has left an everlasting impression on me. For me, Art in Odd Places is a festival that reflects the essence of NYC. Stick to the mission of reclaiming public space and the legacy will continue onward. 

4)Any advice for Furusho? 

 Welcome Furusho!  As you step into this new role, I say stay curious and keep your ears to the voices of artists. 

New Normal 2020

Speaker Box in 2018:BODY

As we transition to our new Director Furusho von Puttkammer, we have asked our alums if they have any advice, memories, or thoughts they would like to share with AiOP. GOODW.Y.N, who is both an artist alumni of AiOP2018: BODY, and friend of both AiOP Founder Ed Woodham and our new Executive Director Furusho von Puttkammer, wanted to share this:

1.     What’s a strong Art in Odd Places memory that you recall?

 I think its a tie between having the cops called on me on 7th Avenue and having cold, chunky soup spilled on me on Union Square during two separate occasions.

2.     What would you like to say to Ed as he leaves?

I’m going to miss you Ed. My performance career wouldn’t have been the same had I not met you. I will always dedicate time to “challenging myself.”

3.     What should Furusho know about Art in Odd Places? 

 AiOP is the spirit of New York’s art scene.

4.     Any advice for Furusho? 

Never forget that the people are the mission at AiOP.

These are from 2017:SENSE from GOODW.Y.N.’s “Ain’t I A Woman”

As we transition to our new Director Furusho von Puttkammer, we have asked our alums if they have any advice, memories, or thoughts they would like to share with AiOP. Lucia Warck-Meister, who is a team member alumni as a Festival Producer, Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL, and friend of both AiOP Founder Ed Woodham and our new Executive Director Furusho von Puttkammer, wanted to share this:

1 .  What’s a strong Art in Odd Places memory that you recall?

A very present memory is that all the work -and there was a lot to do!-was always so much fun. Ed was always a leader with great conviction of what he was proposing and doing and strongly believed in the importance of holding a festival in the public space, breaking with the notions of hierarchy and validation of the art that is within the four walls of an institution. The horizontal format of working was part of the success of the Art in Odd Places team.

Another memory, which I think of as our grain of sand (but no less important) was the choice in Art in Odd Places Ritual 2011 of the two curators Kalia Brooks and Trinidad Fombella who came from Black and Latinx communities. Which in these ten years have been positioning themselves with great force on the map of the arts.

2.     What would you like to say to Ed as he leaves?

Ed! Organizations like the one you founded are so necessary for artists that want to create and show their work in spaces and formats that allow them to spread their wings. I am proud to have worked and learned from you on the Ritual chapter. As Art in Odd Places continues to grow, I’m sure you have more plans and I look forward to seeing them!

3.     What should Furusho know about Art in Odd Places? 

I think Furusho knows how to do things. That Ed has chosen her to continue directing the Festival is proof that 2022: Story is going to be a success.  

4.     Any advice for Furusho? Keep doing what you’re doing! I’ll be in NYC to enjoy the Festival!

As we transition to our new Director Furusho von Puttkammer, we have asked our alums if they have any advice, memories, or thoughts they would like to share with AiOP. Claire Demere, who is an artist and team member alumni as a Curatorial Assistant: 2012: MODEL, 2013: NUMBER; Curatorial Manager: 2014: FREE: Art in Odd Places; The Artifacts (Governors Island, 2014, Curator; Curatorial Manager & Assistant Director, 2015: RECALL; , and friend of both AiOP Founder Ed Woodham and our new Executive Director Furusho von Puttkammer, wanted to share this:

1.     What’s a strong Art in Odd Places memory that you recall?  

My fondest memories of my four years with AiOP all involve my deeply collaborative relationship with Ed. Our weekly meetings at Good Stuff Diner (RIP!) fed my soul while also teaching me about problem-solving, communication, and compassionate leadership.

2.     What would you like to say to Ed as he leaves?

You are a true gem who created something extraordinarily special! A total class act through and through, passing the baton with grace and care.

3.     What should Furusho know about Art in Odd Places?

It all comes down to the communal spirit of dedicated labor and cooperation. From volunteers to curators to artists, this entire festival only happens because every person involved WANTS it to. Fostering that environment of inclusivity and shared passion is crucial.

4.     Any advice for Furusho?

Always push this festival to continue evolving and staying true to its innovative spirit.

Anything else you’d like to say? (about Art in Odd Places, you, your upcoming work or project) The skills I picked up at AiOP have formed the backbone of my entire professional career. Forever grateful!

Photo from 2015:RECALL

Photo from 2015:RECALL

Photo from 2015:RECALL

From 2015:RECALL, with Ed and that year’s Curatorial Assistant Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi

Ed and Claire

As we transition to our new Director Furusho von Puttkammer, we have asked our alums if they have any advice, memories, or thoughts they would like to share with AiOP. LuLu LoLo, who is both an artist alumni and Curator of AiOP2019: INVISIBLE, and friend of both AiOP Founder Ed Woodham and our new Executive Director Furusho von Puttkammer, wanted to share this:

1. 1.     What’s a strong Art in Odd Places memory that you recall?

There are so many memories from over the past twelve years during which I performed in six AiOP festivals and also had the honor of curating AiOP 2019: INVISIBLE.

Thinking back, what is amazing is that in my first AiOP appearance as 14th Street NewsBoy in AiOP 2009: SIGN, the festival was four weekends in October! I was out there every weekend offering the public the newspaper: The 14th Street Tribune (four issues—a different one each week) that I researched and wrote about the history of 14th Street. I wore a vintage-inspired newsboy attire (this was before the play Newsies). As the weather turned colder Joshua Suzanne of Rags Au GoGo gifted me a tweed jacket to wear. I recall that I was working on each issue each week like a real reporter and was under pressure to get the issues to the printer. The public’s enthusiasm to collect each newspaper issue was amazing—they were even contacting AiOP for back issues. Years later when I did a short stint as NewsBoy for an AiOP event, a guy was excited to see me because he never received all four issues. Performing on the street one never knows the public’s response and getting people to take a newspaper can be tricky—one favorite interaction was with a man who was hesitant to take a newspaper—I could see him at the curb looking back at me—and trying to decide to take one or not, and I yelled to him “Oscar Wilde’s play was a flop!” and he smiled and said, “You got me.” And he took a newspaper.    Another memory of NewsBoy is my looking across the street and seeing Ed smiling at me while I was performing.

In all my memories over all these years, it is the excitement and interaction with the public that has been most rewarding: from people wanting me to acknowledge them with a tip of my hat as the Gentleman of 14th Street in AiOP 2011:RITUAL; accepting blessings from Mother Cabrini in AiOP 2017: SENSE; nominating a woman for a monument in Where are the Women? in AiOP 2015: RECALL; the heartwarming conversation a man had with his deceased father in Remembrance of Phone Numbers Past in AiOP 2013:NUMBER; and with a seat strapped to my back Offering a Seat to the Elderly: the Invisible Generation in AiOP 2018:BODY; and of course the  joyous moment when the brass band came promenading down 14th street for AiOP 2019:INVISIBLE.

2.     What would you like to say to Ed as he leaves?

Ed, your vision and dedication to AiOP has made it the premier public art festival in New York City. I am extremely grateful to the freedom and the support you have given me and all the artists in the festival. Your spirit will always be a part of AiOP. Ed, as you pass the baton to Furusho, I know that you are confident that she has the ability and vision to continue creating a vibrant exciting AiOP.

3.     What should Furusho know about Art in Odd Places? 

AiOP is a juggling act of curators, artists, 14th Street, deadlines, and the bureaucracy of New York City. Furusho with her AiOP experience is aware of all of this and has navigated it successfully so far.

4.     Any advice for Furusho? 

Furusho, always follow your instincts and have a supportive team that understands your vision.  I think you already have that in place. I will always remember the moment we met, and our friendship began. I am so proud of you, and I know you will be fantastic leading AiOP into the future.

Photos Included:

LuLu and Ed, meeting to discuss LuLu Curating AiOP 2019: INVISIBLE Photographer unknown

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Group photo at the opening of AiOP 2019: INVISIBLE Photo: Paul Takeuchi

From Left to Right front row: Billy X Curmano, LuLu LoLo, Joshua Suzanne, Furusho von Puttkammer

From Left to Right Back row:  Laura Droguol,  Ed Woodham, Ron Kolm, Barbara  Lubliner (partly hidden)

I have always found 14th Street to be a constantly evolving everchanging street experience in my life. As a lifelong New Yorker, I have observed its changing history.  When I was growing up, my mother took me to the bargain hunter’s paradise, opposite Union Square Park, Klein’s department store, with its frenzy of shoppers, slopping floors, and the pretzel seller at the door. To this day New Yorkers wistfully recount their purchases from Klein’s.  My father often brought home some household gadget he had purchased from a 14th street curbside vendor demonstrating its usefulness in sideshow style. I can’t recall if we ever really used these purchases.  Union Square Park and its demonstrations figured prominently in my life too with my radical Italian American father talking about demonstrating in the Union Square Park against the execution of the Rosenbergs.  

As someone who has performed in six Art in Odd Places (AiOP) festivals and curated AiOP 2019: INVISIBLE, I know every inch of 14th Street. In 2009, fascinated about the evolution of 14th Street, I researched and wrote a newspaper The Fourteenth Street Tribune distributing free copies as the 14th Street NewsBoy for AiOP 2009: SIGN, detailing its history and such facts that both Macy’s and the Metropolitan Museum began at locations on 14th Street.

For fourteen years, Art in Odd Places has inhabited 14th Street from river to river adding to the energy and tempo of the 14th Street landscape. In March of 2020, New Yorkers went into lockdown. For the first time AiOP didn’t take place in the month of October. Our lives became restrictive, and we all questioned when we would return to what we call NORMAL. Intimate artistic energy was missing from our lives—we could only dwell on Zoom.  Finally, AiOP brought this vital energy back in May with AiOP 2021: NORMAL, curated by artist Furusho von Puttkammer with 100 artists questioning and challenging the meaning of NORMAL.

Returning to 14th Street after my enforced lockdown wearing a mask—I viewed the new NORMAL of street life including the demise of many local businesses. One of these was the especially beloved Rags-Au-Go Go at 218 West 14th Street. Rags’ owner Joshua Suzanne closed up shop and took off for Florida.

Photo: LuLu LoLo

Rags-Au-Go Go had become the Command Center for AiOP, hosting our Friday night opening pizza parties and Joshua Suzanne was always there to support the AiOP artists. 

Photo: Paul Takeuchi

Walking in New York City one always notices the random quirkiness of the public actions on the street. AiOP always adds to that mosaic of the unpredictable and it becomes a NORMAL occurrence.

Making my way on 14th Street, I spotted chalk markings on the sidewalk—they are not proclamations of X loves Y or drawings of flowers, but careful deliberate patterns of labyrinths that continue along the street. 

Photo: LuLu LoLo

I venture upon a pilgrimage along a labyrinth path. Up ahead I see someone kneeling on the sidewalk, chalk in hand, and with a few strokes another labyrinth appears on the sidewalk. 

Photo: Josef Pinlac

Immediately I have visions of the great labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral in France, appearing in miniature on 14th Street. Not stopping with one labyrinth, Chris Kaczmarek, an artist who sees “the act of walking as a praxis for artistic production,” continues drawing one hundred labyrinths every one fifth of the mile along the two-mile length of 14th Street, moving quickly and with determined purpose. “Labor Lines: The Work of Contemplation” is a performance of “endurance and repetition”. It is comforting in this time of unpredicatableness to see this simple repetitive act of “resolute production.” It brings to mind the scrawls of the cave paintings—leaving a mark that we are here on this journey of discovery on 14th Street. 

Suddenly a striking vision appears coming towards me. Is this the new NORMAL required Pandemic attire? Should not this fabulous persona be on the cover of Vogue?  I encounter Gretchen Vitamvas, “Modern Plague Doctor”, images of beneficial herbs and phrases: “I’ll be fine” “Garlic 3-5 times” “How are you?” adorn her protective outfit.

Photo: Chloe Evan

Photo: Chloe Evans

The “Modern Plaque Doctor” offers me a prescription for Stinging Nettle Urticaria dioica. At the bottom of her pants legs (as if they are sticking to her) are images of the stinging nettles that you often find in the woods. I soon learn that this prickly plant will help restore my body’s overall energy and vitality, much needed after being in lockdown all these days. 

The clock on top of her hat highlights my own insomnia, hourly marking my own nightly rituals of insomnia:

 12: in bed reading, dozing off, put the book down, wide awake

   1: still awake

Photo:  Jonathan Bumble

The “Modern Plaque Doctor” instinctively knows all my Pandemic ailments and how to cure them, handing me a poem that captures my nocturnal musings: 

“New York, I miss you. 

   Since you’ve been sleeping 

I’ve been sleeping less.

Counting down the hours.

Sometimes almost to oblivion and then

Yanked back to consciousness like my

body is afraid to let go.

Night can bring dark thoughts.”

As I bid the “Modern Plaque Doctor” goodbye, I feel much healthier. 

At the corner of Seventh Avenue, Georgia Lale, attired in a hospital gown with non-slip hospital socks on her feet, creates an intense oasis of vulnerable isolation, determination, and strength that captures a transfixed sidewalk audience. As she methodically handwashes the hospital gowns she wore during her one-week home isolation during her treatment with radioactive iodine for thyroid cancer plus the gowns donated by health professionals and well-cured Covid-19 patients. 

Photo: LuLu LoLo

In this durational performance, she silently washes and wrings out each gown, holding them aloft above her head, and then cloaks herself in the garment—continually repeating the ritual.  Her handwashing in public evokes the ancient gathering of women washing clothes in villages worldwide.  

Photo: LuLu LoLo

This act of washing by hand affords Lale the opportunity to take control and cleanse her body of the toxins of radioactive iodine and cancer. As a cancer survivor myself I understand the need for this ritual. 

The words that appear on the gowns are mottos of the four states that were hit the hardest by the pandemic: In God We Trust (Florida), Eureka (California), State Sovereignty, National Union (Illinois), and Friendship (Texas).

Photo: LuLu LoLo

This “Public Cleansing” performance addresses our national healthcare crisis beyond the Covid-19 pandemic bringing attention to the lack of treatment available to people with financial difficulties or because of their immigration status. For Lale this work’s central element is “the vulnerability of the body and the individual against viruses, diseases, and chaotic, impersonal cities like New York City.” 

Chris Kaczmarek, Gretchen Vitamvas, and Georgia Lale have once again in the spirit of Art in Odd Places brought creativity, energy, and thought-provoking work to the public space of 14th Street—capturing this time in all our lives where we grapple with “NORMAL.”

Every year, during Art in Odd Places, I have transformative experiences that result from simply walking down 14th Street, looking at my fellow passersby and wondering, is this art or just daily life? Participating as an audience member in the festival always prompts me to look closer at each passing person, each object discarded on the ground, each poster taped on storefront. I love this act of searching for poetry in my surroundings. But on my festival walks up and down 14th street, whether I actually encounter an intentional performance or art installation becomes less important. The holistic understanding that we are all performing, and that our street lives in particular contain creative and transformative potential is a beautiful reminder of how art and daily life converge. During COVID-19, the streetscape has expanded into the everyday for almost all New Yorkers, serving as a home, a meeting space, a dining room, a place for intimacy, a salesroom, etc. The streets have stretched and shifted to fit our needs, and it’s this kind of creative extension that the artists in Art in Odd Places remind us is indeed possible.

This year’s festival questioned the idea of “normal,” a term which serves as an existential goalpost for our society to survive COVID, in order to somehow magically “return to normal.” The notion of going back to a previous state of normalcy implies that our world was previously one of safety, sanity, equity, or peace. How could we think that a future normal could ever emerge out of this painful present, this abnormal now? I welcomed the chance to grapple with these questions through my own experience of this year’s festival which was, by all accounts, not normal: I interacted with Art in Odd Places entirely online. Being out of the country, I was sad to miss the spontaneity of the festival and surprise performances. Usually, if I were not able to attend something in person, I would miss it. But in our days of Zooms and Instagram Lives, there are increased options for accessing art programs virtually. The festival did an excellent job of documenting projects in real time on Instagram and building a beautiful website with detailed information. I watched all of the documentations, but a few pieces stayed with me because they reminded me of the precarity of our current times and the way such uncertainty can produce both beauty and pain, comfort and constraint.

Intimate and embodied performances, like Latefy Dolley’s I Got You, yielded moments of intensity. Two nude Black men held each other for an extended period on The High Line, an embrace that was powerful in its vulnerability. In Assembling by Sari Nordman, female-identified performers dressed in red jumpsuits moved at a grueling slow pace, transitioning from reclining to crawling to balancing. Their bodies attempted to negotiate the asphalt and stone surfaces of the street, a potentially futile search for a space of comfort.

Then there were projects with discursive qualities, offering conversation as a way of connecting. I got a glimpse of The Modern Plague Doctor by Gretchen Vitamvas, who asked passersby how they were feeling and then handed out cards with herbal remedies related to their responses. It was a friendly way to connect and be honest about our fragile emotional and/or physical states. Robert Wallace’s The New Lefty was a conversation with himself while pouring drinks, telling a meandering story of travels, bumpy rides, and wandering thoughts. It made me think of the rambling conversations I had with myself in my head while in quarantine, imagining I’m sitting at a bar with a stranger exchanging long-winded personal tales. 

The Instagram videos even had a sense of the streetscape imbued in them – you could hear the noises of the sidewalk, the conversations of people walking by, the music blaring from cars. It was not perfect documentation, and the unpolished qualities were things that I relished In, especially from the isolated perspective of me and my screen.

In the digital and online viewing era of COVID experience, I wondered if watching things like this were the new normal? Is there something about the accessibility of online platforms that will become solidified into our daily reality, and into our art reality? I left my festival experience feeling that watching in-person happenings online could be another actually meaningful way to connect – perhaps another form of experience that is emerging.

“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was…”

-Sonya Renee Taylor

This quote is the embodiment of 2020. Usually by this time of year Art in Odd Places would have wrapped up it’s annual festival. The team behind the festival would be enjoying a much-deserved break and would have probably held a dinner party to celebrate another successful festival. Due to COVID-19 though, the festival has been pushed back from October 2020 to May 2021, the team is still neck-deep in planning and preparing, and no dinner parties will be held for a very long time. Much like the art and locations AiOP showcases, this year has been odd. 

Our team is composed of Ed Woodham, the founder of Art in Odd Places, and a group of powerful young women. We have 2021 Curator Furusho von Puttkammer and our Curatorial Assistants Yasmeen Abdallah, Lorelle Pais, and Natalie Ortiz. Laurie Waxman is our designer/developer, while  Amanda Wu and Taylor Ryan make up our Social Media and Public Relations branch. The team is rounded out by Hannah Waskowitz, our Volunteer Coordinator, Clara Grusq, our Admin Assistant, Angela Liao, our Photo and Video manager and Eve Doudnique our InternOu. 

Behind any festival or show is the Curator. So for this blog post, we decided to have Furusho von Puttkammer give some insight into her connection to the festival. 

Photo includes: Furusho vo Puttkammer

What does AiOP mean to you?

 Art in Odd Places’ meaning is simply in the name for me. AiOP is about taking art outside of the galleries and museums, and bringing art out onto the streets of New York City. In the past couple of decades, art has become increasingly removed from everyday people. You walk into a gallery and you need an MFA + a dictionary in art speak just to understand what message the artist is trying to convey with their work. The art world has become increasingly elitist and inaccessible. AiOP rebels against that and acts as a tribute to the DIY Punk nature of old school NYC performance art. We’re accessible in multiple ways. Not only is the festival free to apply to and free to view and attend, the artists we work with align with our anti-elitist nature. We are here first and foremost to bring art to the masses. 

How did you hear about AiOP?

I had heard of AiOP since moving to NYC seven years ago, but I only first became involved with the festival in 2018. I was at an art opening and was introduced to Katie Hector, who was on the 2018 Curatorial Team for AiOP. After discussing the festival, she mentioned AiOP’s need for volunteers and I quickly jumped on the opportunity. In 2018 I was a volunteer and in 2019 Curator LuLu LoLo asked me to return as the Volunteer Coordinator. About halfway through the pre-production planning of 2019, I was asked to also take on the role of Curatorial Assistant. In 2020, I was asked to come back as Curator. 

Photo includes: Furusho von Puttkammer and artist Henrietta Mantooth

Because you have been a part of AiOP for a few years what is your favorite memory associated with the festival?

I’ve had so many positive memories associated with AiOP, but I think the #1 memory is when one of our artists needed a volunteer performer for his performance. His piece was about the voicelessness of those incarcerated in the US prison system and he needed a volunteer to act as a performer who would ask him a series of questions that he, as the prisoner, could not respond to. I volunteered to be the reporter and made my AiOP performance debut with Susan Fettuccine, your ditzy local neighborhood reporter. I slapped on a blond Party City wig and some blush and asked the questions in the most nasally, annoying voice I could think of. I loved every bit of it, and it was fun to inject a little humor in an extremely heavy piece. 

Close second would have to be on the last day of the festival last year in October 2019. The AiOP curatorial team all ended up meeting at Coppelia’s on 14th and 7th ave. It was a cold, rainy day and Coppelia’s was a haven from the weather. We didn’t plan to all meet there, we just all showed up around the same time in small groups. We combined our tables and spent hours drinking and eating and discussing the festival. All the stress from the last few months was gone and we could finally relax. It was such a fun time. 

How does your performance practice relate to AiOP’s performance practice? 

My personal performance practice is very closely related to AiOP’s message. I take on the role of my performance character Anchovy, a cartoonish mime, and put the character in increasingly frustrating situations. Anchovy trying to open a door painted onto a wall, trying to push a button that’s -just- out of reach, trying to fall asleep while wracked with insomnia, etc. At the core, my performances highlight the absurdity of our frustrations. How we tend to set ourselves up for failure, or how we get worked up over situations that are out of our control. I think the absurdity and playful nature of my performances is very much inline with the spirit for Art in Odd Places.

Any last comments? 

We love you NYC. Stay safe, wear a mask, and practice social distancing. We’ll be doing our part to ensure that all our viewers and performers stay safe this year as well. 

We are beyond excited for the festival. With this year’s pool of incredible artists, we hope to show how NORMAL never was. 

If you would like a more in depth conversation with the earlier stages of our team, you can check out our interview with BUST magazine:

Photo includes: Ed Woodham, LuLu LoLo, Barbra Lubliner, Billy X. Curmano, Furusho von Puttkammer, Laure Droguol and Joshua Suzanne from Rags a Go Go

If I asked you to close your eyes and describe a New York dive bar, what would it look like? Who’s bellied up to the bar next to you? What daily special is scribbled on the wall? Is it classic rock or top 20 tunes setting the mood from the boxy speakers in the corner? Do I even want to ask what it smells like? 

Of course, in the age of Covid, all these answers might be different but for anyone craving a bit of that 2019 normalcy, there’s really only one place to go and that’s East Village Social on St. Marks. 

This year will mark the 14th annual festival for Art in Odd Places. And for obvious reasons, our curator, Furusho von Puttkamer has chosen the theme: NORMAL. After the marathon of a year that was anything but normal, it seems appropriate to strangle old ideas and redefine the word in a way that allows creative control. “Throughout the pandemic, I kept hearing people wanting a return to normalcy,” shares Puttkamer. Normal, though, only ever applied to a very narrow group of people in this country: wealthy and white. If you weren’t both of these things, the rules of America apply differently to you. You can be rich, but if you’re not white you still face discrimination. You can be white, but if you’re poor you’ll be facing an uphill battle most of your life. This year’s focus is meant to highlight how restrictive and destructive NORMAL actually is for most people in this country.” 

For most of the year we agonized over postponing our festival and watched our mother-borough lose a little bit of the energy that’s always made the Lower East Side vibrational. However, one thing has held constant and kept our team virtually trudging through 2020: our community and the local establishments that surround our long held festival route. Lucky for us that includes a neighbor with reasonably priced drinks. 

Only how do you write about a historical artifact like East Village Social or a legend already known by so many? A quick google search told me what I already knew. The only information worth reading would have to come straight from the source. So AiOP sat down with the one person who knows the monument best, Gerard McNamee. 

The long time owner of EVS looks exactly how you’d want him to,but Gerard is the kind of guy who might appear different to each person he meets. To his friends at Webster Hall, where he spent a past life as the Director of Operations, he is an expensively suited door lord. To the Authorities, an occasional downtown nuisance. To his family, a die-hard comrad. But to me, emerging from the bar’s ancient basement onto St. Marks, his mask pulled just low enough for his cig to hang out the side of his mouth, he was Rock n’ Roll personified. 

He calls out to Jim, from Holyland Market one door down before wandering over to his Harley, Iyana, when I decide to make my move. We find a table over the cellar doors. I order a drink and the conversation quickly moves from the Brazilian women he names his bikes after, to city zip codes, and then eventually, to the topic of the year- Coronavirus.  

And it’s then that I understand why Furusho chose East Village Social as our neighbor to highlight. Just like Art in Odd Places, they’re a grassroots gang. Looking around at the sticker covered fort, out front, patrons meet on wobbly bar stools for “Tattoo Tuesday.” On Tuesday’s the deal states that if you have a tattoo, you get a free drink. Just be prepared to show proof, wherever it might be inked. Art enthusiast or not, it’s easy to see the operation is performance art itself. “We’re adapting every day. Everyone is, but it’s sink or swim…so you know,” McNamee pauses for a drag of his smoke and shrugs, “figure it out.” 

I find it refreshing to hear New Orleans jazz play in the background while he lists off seven different department agencies that have come to visit the bar since COVID first threw the city into quarantine. I took a chance and guessed they hadn’t come for the drink specials or the ambiance. “We couldn’t play music indoors, so guess what, fuck it, we’ll play music outdoors.” With new limitations in place, McNamee picked up the phone and called “the guys,” who I soon learned to be otherwise known as the East Village All Stars, an alternating music gang led by Smidge Malone.

I take a warm gulp of the hot toddy and feel it move down to my toes. McNamee goes on to describe Smidge as a scrappy gentleman who drinks, stays up for days on end, and screams into his trumpet every chance he gets. At this point, I’m unsurprised to hear the two go way back and oddly jealous that I might not be described as coolly by my friends. 

“So check it out,” McNamee jumps to a day in June, following the death of George Floyd. To him, New York, the city where he was raised and reinvented, seemed heavier than ever before. Manhattan had survived the peak of the virus, the looting, the protests, and the politics. “And then it was a nice day, and it was a Friday afternoon,” the pace of his words speeding up, “and the fucking sun came out at 80 degrees, and seven businesses on the block opened up for the first time in a long time, and the band was here that day. It was like a collective sigh of relief. I could get emotional just thinking about it.” 

The bar’s Instagram will give you a small glimpse of that day. Tenants hung off their fire escape to listen to Smidge blow his horn, while passers threw money on the curb. Unfortunately, not everyone shares the same appreciation for street jazz. News of the All Stars at EVS had blown it’s way uptown to the Mayor’s office and eventually on to the Governor’s office, who responded directly.

McNamee leans forward with a new cigarette between his fingers and a grin, “We got Five n’ a half million hits, on Twitter.” Up until now there had been a few modest name drops, but this time he was owning it. 

At East Village Social the servers are properly masked, taking orders from behind a plexiglass window, and providing food with each drink. McNamee respects the rules even if he bends a few every now and then. Him and his staff, like all the small businesses in the Lower East side, haven’t had it easy this past year, but he is genuine when giving credit to the city for allowing street seating.

As with most performance art, EVS is learning to finesse their limitations in real time.Their outdoor seating has managed to keep the bar open and it’s employees scheduled throughout quarantine, but the motivation to help the creative community has been an ambition McNamee’s advocated since his days at Webster, where he pioneered the Quarterly Arts Soiree. 

Listening to Gerard describe the Q.A.S., I could’ve sworn he was reciting the founding pillars of Art in Odd Places. Our mission, our own beliefs, they pretty much matched word for word. The freedom to create outside of public space regulations has been the propelling force of our organization for 14 years. With this past year being one huge regulation. It’s given our team and our selected artists even more reason to get art on the streets. 

Museums, though rich in history and curation, also tend to exhibit a sense of intimidation and privilege that keeps a lot of people from visiting. It keeps a lot of people from learning, from questioning, and from interacting in a space that’s real, messy, and genuine. Because of this, the price of admission for AiOP’s festival has always cost nothing more than sidewalk curiosity. 

“This kid that we had up on the walls a while ago was going to throw away his collection of photorealistic paintings of the 27 Club. So I threw them up in the bar and a few weeks later a piece sold for $500. He couldn’t believe it.” Not a bad come up for what would’ve been garbage. “I’m willing to give a platform to anyone who believes they’re the next Basquiat or a rock star. This is all art, art is for everyone.” 

I catch myself nodding like I’m at a rock show. I believe wholeheartedly in his words, but I’m also pretty sure I was starting to feel the effects of the third toddy I’d ordered. East Village Social is the last punk bar on the block and perhaps the one with the most heart. It’s a haven for those looking for a place to play their music, hang their art, and shoot the shit with someone at the next table. At a time when we’re all thirsty for a little engagement it’s places like EVS and public art festivals like AiOP where we can catch a glimpse of the old New York. Real, messy, and genuine. For the length of our interview it really is 2019. There’s no coronavirus, no protests, no politics and I don’t want to leave. 

I take my last sip while McNamee puts out another cigarette. “Sure, I could be doing other things, landscaping, construction, driving, but this is my life…throwing parties. That’s what we do here every day. We protest sadness and we throw parties.” 

I sway on my wobbly stool and silently decide that’s the best way I’ve heard anyone describe a New York dive bar.

Written by: Taylor Ryan

Thinkers in Residence spend time on 14th Street over the festival weekend reflecting on 14th Street, patterns of movement, artists, pedestrians, publics, personal reflections, and participation. Their responses take the form of writing, walking, image-making, poetry, or on-the-spot conversations with the public.

And now the observations of Sean Mooney:

2019.10.22

Sean Mooney

Notes on Art in Odd Places

Lucio Pozzi performance, “Beating the Odds”

Saturday, October 18 and Sunday, October 19, 12:00 – 12:32 pm

Lucio Approaching; Sean Mooney

I had the pleasure to reunite with Lucio Pozzi, after not seeing him for perhaps 25 years. In many ways, his participation in this year’s Art in Odd Places festival, my long hiatus since seeing him and other artists taking part, and the poignancy of the many changes that have happened along 14th Street during the intervening years, are merged in my mind into a fused symbolic experience, reflective of the central theme of this year’s festival. The fact that this year’s curator, the artist LuLu LoLo, has chosen to include artists over the age of 60 as her central organizing principle, lent a contemplative quality to the event. Acutely felt were the full lifetimes of labor, thought and experience embodied in this group of artists. There was an uncanny attention to temporal issues: to life’s passage, to the changes one accepts (begrudgingly or otherwise) over time, to transitions of body and environment; and to the deeper contemplation of anxieties and meanings which we, as aging individuals in this very particular location, cannot help but feel and to push back against. Lucio’s performance, in this context, suggested these and may other unstated realities, while doing so in restrained gestures.

The performance itself can be described in simplistic terms as such: the artist drew with several colors of chalk on the sidewalk a series of overlapping shapes that suggested the outlines of human bodies, not unlike the sort of cartoons once considered typical at the scene of a crime. The multi-colored shapes were drawn in a fragmentary fashion: some are clearly human bodies, others are disembodied limbs and heads, or altogether ambiguous. In all, they suggested a flattened-out pile of disorderly figures, as if shadows or ghosts remaining in a battlefield. 

Next, the artist put on a white face mask, a Venetian carnival mask which is formed with a long bird’s beak, a skull-like face, and prominent outlines of eyeglasses painted in black. He was otherwise dressed in a dark costume and shoes, and carried a small wooden baseball bat. At the strike of a small brass gong, the artist – now transformed into a shamanic being – began an unstructured dance, in which he incanted an unintelligible, guttural song while occasionally striking towards the drawn figures in a threatening manner with the baseball bat. The shaman pantomimed a violent event, but did so gently, symbolically, his magic bat never hitting the ground, his movements never overt or quick. It was not quite the slow-motion movements of Japanese Noh theater, but close to that tradition in spirit, one in which the silent passages and stillness between gestures and words form the heart of the dance narrative.

Lucio describes this performance as an exercise in ambiguity (this is my paraphrase, not a quotation from Lucio). However, several distinct meanings are suggested throughout this dance: the shaman-dancer is playing a role acted out in many traditional cultures since prehistoric times; a mediator with the spirit world, the mask transforms him both physically and emotionally. I am reminded of the annual Qasgiq dances of the Central Yup’ik people of Alaska; and of the many shamanistic ceremonial dances of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of British Columbia. By contrast, there are the reports of improvised dances at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich by the early Dada artists, wearing masks by Marcel Janko. In the case of these Dada performances, which happened during the most brutal days of the Great War being enacted just across the Swiss border, participants responded to the breakdown of European society into chaotic disorder and unprecedented violence, and (what the artists considered) the failures of their hierarchical social traditions. For them, the wearing of masks, the dances with drums and loud instruments, the recitation of nonsensical, invented languages that communicated nothing but grunts and howls, mimicked the frustration with sense and order, and mocked its meaning. They attempted to combat literacy and logic with their own invented chaos and bacchanalian ceremonies, an emotional query that ultimately led them, and their offspring the Surrealists, to explore the spheres of anthropology and the art of indigenous societies.

Kotsuis and Hohhung, ‘Nak’waxda’xw (Noaktok) masked dancers, ca. 1914, British Columbia; photo Edward Curtis

Quite the opposite is true among traditional societies, however. For most indigenous peoples, masked dancing represents the highest social orders, reflected and enacted in ceremony. It suggests communion between the spirit world and the village, between what is known and unknown, between past and future, between life and death. It is the ultimate recognition of ancestral lineage, a distillation of tradition and harmony. Masked dancing is, in the case of the Yup’ik people, Agayuliyararput (“our way of making prayer”).

Yup’ik masked dancers performing in the Qasgi house, Qissunaq, Alaska, 1946; photo Alfred Millotte.

Having these thoughts in mind lent meaning to the responses of the unsuspecting passers-by who witnessed Lucio’s masked dance on 14th Street. Most everyone looked confused but seriously at the masked dancer: Was the yielding of the baseball bat threatening? Was the unintelligible song a crazed rant? Some smiled as they passed, or slowed down to watch, stopped to take a photo. Others pretended to ignore it, some gave it a wide berth. The presence of a circle of watchful attendees signaled that this was an organized event, and that the artist was not merely a raving lunatic, but rather an eccentric actor in some sort of play. While Lucio purposely made the staged boundaries of his chalk drawing small enough to allow those passing through to have a clear pathway around him, all who wished to pass respected not only Lucio’s personal space, but also the space occupied by the drawing. Pedestrians stepped into the street rather than cross on top of the drawing. This was significant since it suggests a deep taboo against stepping upon a work of art, which, especially when the images represent human figures, in itself is suggestive of violence. Lucio’s masked shaman, waving a bat at the drawings, as if beating them, reinforced this association. Naturally, most people avoided entering what could understandably be interpreted as a battlefield, a space of repression, albeit one in which no obvious harm was being done to any living being.

While Lucio’s dance suggested violence (including sexual violence, as he interspersed the danced beatings with phallic gestures with the bat), it also suggested the ritual destruction of this place we consider home. Home is always sacred ground. Native Americans almost universally ascribe their lands to be imbued with power and spirit. To name but one example of many, the Central Yup’ik of Alaska use the term Ella to describe this: it is simultaneously the word for the weather, for consciousness, and for all the known and unknown spiritual and physical entities of the universe. Ella is like the Catholic Holy Spirit, all that is seen and unseen, ever present and pervasive. Another Yup’ik term is Yua, which is the personalized human spirit (the soul, to use a Christian analog). But in the Yup’ik concept, Yua is both personal and interchangeable; it may inhabit any living creature, animal, plant, rock or cloud. All entities in the world have the capacity to be embodied with Yua, the “personal human.” Therefore, the Yup’ik relationship to homeland is highly sacred, in that everything around is teeming with ancestors, spirits, continuity and life. And because all animals are possessed with Yua, a human spirit, the hunter approaches prey with respect, since he does not know whether he may encounter the spirit of his own grandfather.

Watching Lucio’s performance I felt this very keenly, and personally. As someone who has lived in New York since being born here in 1967, the immediate vicinity of 14th Street is rife with associations. For me, this place is full of ghosts, sacred and profane. I recall the numerous friends and acquaintances whom I’ve walked with on these sidewalks, many of them now gone. I note how each decade in New York has brought with it strange physical changes, new residents, tourists ( when did they arrive?! and why? ), the destruction and reconstruction of buildings, the ebb and flow of traffic patterns and changing pedestrian habits (why is everyone so slow these days?). Most poignantly, there are those ineffable “feelings” of the street, qualities one cannot describe precisely, but sense, like a brisk wind in a changing season. We always understood which blocks were dangerous, which were safe, where to find solace and where to avoid. It wasn’t that long ago (or was it?) when Union Square Park was boarded up, inaccessible, during an attempt to keep out vagrants and druggies and troublemakers and whatever other misfits the city authorities may have thought deserved a categorization with rats. I sometimes peeked inside that fence late at night to get a glimpse of the trees.

West 14th Street was, up until recently, a “midtown” version of the loosely post-industrial “downtown” of SoHo and Canal Street, where artists traditionally kept studios (in the years I consider “my days” of inhabiting that scene). Marcel Duchamp kept a studio at 210 West 14th Street, from 1942 until 1966, where he made his famous final sculpture, Étant Donnés (Lucio’s performance was enacted directly across the street; a coincidence?). But 14th wasn’t considered the center of the action. It was an off-center, not-quite-there street, as far as the official “art world” was concerned. Even Duchamp was considered “lost” at this “lost” location; at the time, everyone had assumed he had stopped making objects altogether. West 14th Street was a scattering of weird shops and ethnic restaurants. There was the YMCA, an assembly of transients. Nearby was the center for the blind and a string of other residences for recovering people of various ailments. There was usually a scattered parade of homeless passing through. There were a jumble of night clubs which did not advertise their presence and were mostly sub-basement joints, devoid of light or bathrooms or cabaret licenses. I once danced the night away at such a place on 14th Street, alone, with a small handful of strangers and a live band. I don’t believe this club had a name, it was just a place one wandered into and back out of, not quite real, flickering, like life itself, a dream half-remembered. 

Lucio Attacking; Lorenza Sannai

Lucio, in his trance, bearing a strange white mask and beating against fragmented drawings of human figures on the sidewalk, was acting out a sacred ritual of dispersion, ritually scattering all our ghosts, perhaps also his own. (This white mask is suggestive of an inverted white Raven figure, one of the most divine of all beings in Alaskan tribal mythology: there is a legend in which the Milky Way is defined as “the tracks of White Raven,” made by a spirit who was originally the color of white ivory before being covered in coal dust to teach him humility). Spirits of an unrecorded New York were concentrated below him, overlapping. Our own lives and our own city flew out into immutable space, into ether, into dust, into nonsense, into poetry. 

Much of the 14th Street I remember from my youth no longer exists, and many things in this familiar place are strange. Just days before the festival, in fact, cars were permanently banned from driving along 14th Street, to make way for busses, and on this first weekend of this new experiment in urban planning there was an eerie quiet, sucking out an element of the vitality of this once-chaotic street. Not exactly silence, but another layer of oddity in this oddly banal location.

At the end of 32 minutes, the gong was rung again, for 32 beats, and the shaman froze, the performance ended. 

Illustrations:

Lucio Pozzi, performing Beating the Odds, October 20, 2019

Yup’ik masked dancers performing in the Qasgi house, Qissunaq, Alaska, 1946; photo Alfred Millotte.

Kotsuis and Hohhung, ‘Nak’waxda’xw (Noaktok) masked dancers, ca. 1914, British Columbia; photo Edward Curtis

Thinkers in Residence spend time on 14th Street over the festival weekend reflecting on 14th Street, patterns of movement, artists, pedestrians, publics, personal reflections, and participation. Their responses take the form of writing, walking, image-making, poetry, or on-the-spot conversations with the public.

And now the observations of Joshua Suzanne:

So my thoughts about this years festival AIOP 2019 NYC “INVISIBLE:

Thanks for all the fun 

Thinkers in Residence spend time on 14th Street over the festival weekend reflecting on 14th Street, patterns of movement, artists, pedestrians, publics, personal reflections, and participation. Their responses take the form of writing, walking, image-making, poetry, or on-the-spot conversations with the public.

And now the observations of Destinee Forbes.

As I made my way downtown the Saturday of the festival, I was looking forward to seeing how each artist chose to interpret the theme of invisibility at this year’s Art in Odd Places festival. The performances I saw that day each broached on the topic of invisibility in subtle ways, however I was most interested in the performances that attempted to make visible gestures of compassion and care. 

The first performance I saw was Anna Marie Shogren’s choreographed dance piece Falls. An ensemble of six or so dancers occupied the corner of 14th and 8th Avenue. They swayed uniformly and invited people to participate in their performance. As I arrived, I spoke with Anna briefly about the piece, and she said it was an interactive performance of intergenerational caregiving and wellness. Participants were guided through the piece by dancers. The dancers held the participants hands leading and guiding them through a series of motions. 

Each move subtle, with soft caresses leading the individual in and out of seated and standing positions. A dancer’s hand gently guided the participant at all times never leaving contact. The invisibility in the performance rests in the idea of the work of caregiving being an unseen and unnoticed act. In the act of choreographing a didactic performance about the gesture of giving care, Shogren’s performance sheds light on the amount of effort, patience and work that is involved in the process of caring for another, and also, how it can be both an individual and collective task. 

Next to Shogren’s performance was Donna Maria de Creeft’s visual and interactive installation Useful Invisibility/ Diatom Prayer. Before I had the chance to introduce myself, de Creeft handed me her phone and asked if I could help her document her performance. I quickly obliged without even knowing what was going to happen. A string of small flags of fractal shapes hung beside her connected to a construction walkway overpass. 

As she stood next to these flags, she began giving out small cards for people to take as they walked by her. As she extended these small gifts to the passersby, people quickly ignored her, very rarely accepting what she had to offer. After several minutes of passing out the cards, she paused and I asked her what she was handing out. She handed me a small card that shared the same fractal imagery as the hanging flags. The design was on one side of the card, and on the other the word ‘diatom’ with the sentence, “Diatoms have precise ecological requirements and are used to monitor environmental conditions.” I asked her about the meaning of the sentence and she began explaining that a diatom is a microscopic single-celled alga that is vital to our living but no one really knows about them. She was inspired by not only their beauty, but their purpose and how their work goes unnoticed. They are cells that are literally invisible to the naked eye, and also cells that are overlooked in terms of their function and purpose. As I looked carefully at the card in my hand, she remarked with a laugh, “[and] what could me more invisible than someone handing something out on the street in New York.” I smiled acknowledging and agreeing to her remark. She resumed her position near her flags and began handing out cards one by one. Some would accept and most looked the other way. de Creeft was not asking for anything, but simply sharing knowledge. In extending her hand, she was attempting to connect with others so that they might be able to share that information with someone else. 

The task of making visible gestures of kindness, care and compassion requires work in that the participant or viewer must acknowledge and understand the labor and effort of the other. It is an act of not only compassion but empathy as well. It requires the other person to fully understand the emotional effort of the other, and realize that they are giving part of themselves without asking for anything in return. It is an act of acknowledging another’s vulnerability and accepting it without question or judgement.

Thinkers in Residence spend time on 14th Street over the festival weekend reflecting on 14th Street, patterns of movement, artists, pedestrians, publics, personal reflections, and participation. Their responses take the form of writing, walking, image-making, poetry, or on-the-spot conversations with the public.

And now the observations of Nicole Goodwin.

Deformed (The Stress of Being Imprisoned By Silence)

                                    -For All the Immigrant Children

All my life I’ve been silently

Sleepwalking.

Clear as day, I see the vision in my mind

A destiny that I am supposed to have but in reality

Is lost to me.

Someone else is living my dreams.

I holler—mouth-wide open.

Out comes no sound; nothing resonates.

Ayuadame is scratched into my eyes.

I cry the word out!                                                                              Rat-tat, rat-tat

Through crystal tears.

My cries go unheeded.

My pain goes on,                                                                                Unnoticed.