SOLSTICE FROG AND MRS. CLAUS

SANTA AND A FROG WALK INTO A BAR

    No, it’s not a set up for a dirty joke. It’s just another holiday season in the Catskills. As the rest of America bristles and argues over impeachment and wonders what North Korea is going to send us for Xmas, here in the mountains all is calm. You wouldn’t think a far left of green, radical progressive frog could have a civil conversation with a raging, MAGA red suited Santa, but you’d be surprised just how easy it is. Here’s an example as best that I can remember:

    “I’ll have a martini.” I order at High Voltage, our local bar in Mountain Dale. Sonia the owner smiles and turns to find the vodka. Carlo is buying. He’s just back from China and Moscow on some sort of secret mission for the Art Department. (Shhhhhhhhhush) “I’m Catskill rich.” he crows and pays for my drink. Money from Rudy? (the lawyer not the reindeer). I’m dressed as a green bull frog, wearing a suicide vest of glitter bombs. Butch Resnick is dressed as Santa and already wiping booze out of his beard. Butch is my neighbor and owner of most of Mountain Dale. Carlo is in civilian clothes. We all clink glasses and slide into the holidays. The solstice is upon us. Here comes summer.

   “You like Trump, right Froggy?” Santa asks. My long green fingers tighten around my martini glass. Obviously Santa has not been paying attention in church. “I hate the motherfucker!” I admit. Santa looks over his wire rim glasses in disbelief. “You’re kidding.” he questions “You mean to tell me with all your anti-establishment shit, you don’t like the guy.” I hop up and down stamping my webbed feet and glare at Santa. “The guy’s a disgrace Santa. How can you defend him?” Santa smiles that big grin of his. “The economy you stupid frog.” he declares. Santa (and Butch) are the kings of the capitalists. “I can put up with anything with an economy this good.” Santa continues. I adjust my suicide vest. Should I just let ‘er rip? No. It’s the holidays. I grin right back at Santa, work my gills filled with vodka and as my mother would say, “Agree to disagree.” We toast and hug. Hark the herald angels….

   

    This is the second year Mountain Dale has gathered in a half-assed, hastily conceived attempt at bringing strangers to town to eat, drink and buy stuff. Is it working? It depends on who you ask. Most Catskill communities like Neversink, Livingston Manor and Callicoon, market holiday festivities in the more traditional “chestnuts roasting” and “carolers caroling” theme. We all got snow, but the tone of Mountain Dale is about as “off the beaten path” as the hamlet itself. Pinning the pickle to the Pussy Pole, destroying the environment with glitter and getting drunk all afternoon is more our speed. Butch, who was pitching the place to a new potential investor, said the "mark" thought Butch had hired actors to put on a passion play in order to impress them. HA! Solstice Frog, a wise woman, Daesh the Red Nose Reindeer, Drunk Santa and Buddy the elf (a prominent local politician) are all locals, always ready for a good time and an excuse to party. Although hiring us is a novel concept that I’m not opposed to.

    Herein lays the problem for expanding the crowd. We are a group of cliquish, clannish, subversives who store up ammunition year round just to shoot ourselves in the feet. We may make outsiders a bit uncomfortable. Between disappearances to check out the snow conditions on the slopes, Santa is the worst of the bunch. He may profess to be all about the economy, but under that beard he (and Mrs. Claus) are good hearted, generous, party animals. Santa doesn’t really care if the North Pole (or Mountain Dale) is solvent, or if that next investor ponies up the green to buy more toys. All he cares about is a good place to hang out. I see you Santa. We are all admittedly misfits in paradise. The rest of America may not be able to get along, but I thank the LGM that here in the Catskills we all (green, blue and red-eyed) can. HAPPY HOLIDAYS ONE AND ALL!   

OLD SHUL FOR SOCIAL SCULPTURE

BLACK FACE PETES

THE ZWARTE PIET TRADITION

    Henry Hudson may have been English, but his boat the Half Moon was Dutch. He landed in what is now New York harbor on September 11, 1609. Then he sailed up the river that one day would bear his name. It was known for centuries as the North River. The Delaware was known as the Zuidrivier or “South River.” Both names reflect the predominantly Dutch aborigine inhabitants of the Catskills and North River valley. The river wasn’t universally referred to as the Hudson River until the mid-19th century. 

     I note this historical fact because about the same time that the North became the Hudson a Dutch school teacher Jan Schenkman published a book depicting Saint Nicolas’ helper or “servant” as a black man. A tradition was born. This image  was actually seen as a progressive, less “racist” depiction of Santa’s helper, who in former (less enlightened) times was depicted as a “chained and fire-scorched demon.” —an evil black man who punished children who weren’t “good.” As the American slave trade was winding down the less scary Zwarte Piet or “Black Pete” archetype was embraced joyously in Amsterdam. Just like in America, black face buffoonery in minstrel shows was all the rage for years to come. The evolutionary move from demon to fool was seen as racial progress. 

   Every year around this time, as the Dutch Sinterklaas festivities kick into gear in Amsterdam, the conversation again erupts over the racist depiction of Black Pete—yay or nay? My ancestors were early immigrants to New York, Dutch aborigines, arriving in Kingston (Wildwyck) in 1653. They were also slave owners, until the practice was legislated out of existence in New York State in 1827. Osterhouts in Texas kept the “tradition” alive until 1865. The Civil  War finally ended the “traditional” conversation as to slavery. 

     The history of the Dutch slave trade is no secret. But most of their slaves went to the Dutch West Indies and North America. The black population of Holland today are also immigrants, like my kin, not like in North America, predominantly descendants of Dutch and English slaves. They have no political currency. Their numbers are small and they remain marginalized. The racist depictions of Black Pete around the holidays are seen by many more affluent and politically powerful whites in Holland as benign, again explained away as “traditional.” And if you don’t like it, as Trump would say, “Go back to your shit-hole country.” They point to the “burned” demons of the Middle Ages or Santa Claus sliding down the chimney with ease-dropping chimney sweep assistants brushing the way—as to why Pete’s face is black. It’s not racist; it’s an occupational hazard. The “servant” isn’t a slave he’s a “helper,” cleaning out the chimney for Santa Claus. Have a candy cane. Ho-ho-ho.

   It’s not coincidental that the political cartoonist Thomas Nast also masticated old Saint Nic, Krampus and Sinterklaas, spitting him out as the non-threatening jolly, old, white “pedophile” we know as Santa around the same time. All these so-called traditions begin during the ultra-racist 19th century. Thankfully Black Pete never gained traction in the U.S. The Dutch have long since become the minority—even in the Catskills. Although the old Beekman patent of Rhinebeck, NY still holds a Sinterklaas festival, sans Black Pete, in Holland they hold onto Pete for dear life. Re-branding Black Pete as the more acceptable “Chimney Pete,” doesn’t quite fly either. What’s with the curly haired wigs and bright red lips? The make up and costume hasn’t changed. The name means nothing. Nobody’s coming to clean out your flue pipe who looks like that.

    “Traditional” is another one of those excuses like “rule of law,” that rings hollow. Confederate flag flying rednecks always use that weak refuge. Dixie will rise again—if we just “remember” hard enough with stars and bars decals and Confederate statues. The fact that so many photographs of politicians wearing black face have recently surfaced makes you wonder what the hell their tradition was when the cameras weren’t clicking. The most surprising thing is that we are actually still having this “discussion.” Another lame tradition. Black face at any time of the year is inappropriate and YES racist. Duh. If the boneheaded Dutch can’t accept that they should be shamed globally. They may be inclusive and progressive on the surface, but Black Pete reveals a very deep, disturbing, racist core. As our arbiter of racial correctness white Kim Kardashian recently tweeted, “The Dutch tradition called: “black pete” is disturbing!” #kimdisapproves You give it to ‘em Kim! Wake up you fucking Dutch idiots! As a direct descendant of Dutch immigrants I have (white) skin in this game. Zwarte Piet (and the Socratic tradition surrounding him) must go. End of discussion. 

WALTER ROBINSON- B&S

BROKEN AND SCREWED

“A court in Denmark will rule on Monday on whether to prohibit a pair of Faroese art provocateurs from destroying a painting by the Danish artist Tal R and using pieces of the canvas as decorative faces for a line of luxury wristwatches.

Tal R in October dismissed the project in an email to the Politiken newspaper, as a “disrespectful” attempt “to make money and get attention by making a product out of my art”.

His lawyer, Jørgen Permin, argued in a one-day hearing at the maritime and commercial court in Copenhagen in November that the scheme was a clear case of copyright infringement.

“He acknowledges that whoever purchases one of his works would be at liberty to sell it on or even destroy the work,” Permin said. “But what he is not obliged to accept is for someone to alter the work and then reintroduce it to the public domain, and particularly not for commercial reasons.”

   This Danish court case interests me. Beginning in the 1980’s I embarked on a number of projects involving the work of other’s. I began by inventing a color—I.K.G. or International Kohl Green. For you art historians reading my blog, you will recognize an obvious nod to the French artist Yves Klein and his “color” I.K.B.—International Klein Blue. Instead of painting monochromes like Klein, I decided to “slime” canvases of other artists. I, in essence, altered the work and reintroduced it into the public domain as my own. I don’t think I sold any so the “commercial reason” was moot. 

    Just like the watchmakers, I took an iconoclast’s approach to the the actual canvas—not the image—reassigning value to the work and authorship to myself. Some of these artworks by artists like Walter Robinson, David Ireland, Robin Winters and Tony Oursler already had market value. Because my work didn’t then (and doesn’t now) have market value, I essentially defaced for no good reason other than the artistic statement; reason enough in my book.       

                                       

Dann Thorleifsson and Arne Leivsgard, who five years ago founded the Kanske watch brand, bought Paris Chic, one of Tal R’s brightly coloured Sexshops series, for £70,000 at the Victoria Miro gallery in London in August.

In October, they revealed plans to use the canvas as raw material to manufacture between 200 and 300 watches for Letho, their new brand, which they aim to sell for 10,000 Danish kroner (£1,150) each.

 “We needed an artist that was esteemed by experts because we also needed to get a reaction,” Thorleifsson said. “If we just took a $100 canvas, no one would really care. It needed to be a true masterpiece.”

   From what I’ve seen of Tal R’s work in general and this painting Paris Chic in particular, the “masterpiece” assignation is arguable. But that’s neither here nor there. They did pay $70,000 pounds for it. That ain’t chicken feed. If the court finds in favor of the artist the owners of the work intend on destroying the canvas in public. I do believe in burning money—but only a dollar at a time. I don’t believe in destroying another’s work. The “alterations” I did were limited to one per artist. And I did not destroy any. I defaced. This is important. The work survives in another form.     

 “Thorleifsson and Leivsgard plan in a fortnight to destroy the painting at a public event they are calling a vernissage, a term more commonly used for a preview of an art exhibition.”

   I can see both sides of this argument. Although most artists whose work I defaced had no problem with the process, not all were so willing to see their work altered. Some were hurt. Others were just pissed. The last series I did was called Broken and Screwed. There’s only one in this group. It’s a canvas by the painter Walter Robinson. Years later when I showed it to him he swore he never painted it. The signature on the back proves otherwise. I don’t think this Danish court case will have much effect on my work. But Tal R. should be thankful to those iconoclastic watch makers. If they didn’t buy (and threaten to destroy) his work, few would ever had heard of the guy.