First up was the Armory Show, which brought quite a few folks to New York last week. Like many, I have a conflicted relationship with art fairs. I continue to go to them, although the experience is a manic exercise in ambivalence: one is alternately perturbed by crowds of art socialites, happy to run into people one knows (which causes one to worry whether one is posing as an art socialite), worried the art might be decent but that the context is spoiling it, and elated and relieved when encountering a few strong artworks that stand out from the huddled thousands on display. I came away with the impression that much of the art presented at the Armory was decorative and generally uninspiring, although there were a few notable exceptions. I’m a fan of David Shrigley’s work, and there were a few good pieces on display at Anton Kern’s booth, including a most clever projected animation entitled Lightswitch (2007). Ronald Feldman Fine Arts played host to a witty boutique-within-a-boutique with Christine Hill’s The Volksboutique Armory Apothecary, for which the artist worked from behind a counter to dispense personalized remedies to the sundry ailments of visitors. I also had the pleasure of seeing my friend and accomplished video artist Lida Abdul, whose work was on view at the booth of Giorgio Persano Gallery.

Of the handful of satellite fairs also going on, I made it to Pulse and Volta (whose names sound rather ridiculous next to one another) and enjoyed poking around the booths with my most esteemed colleagues Lisa Freiman and Allison Unruh.

Much less fussy than the Armory, these fairs can be a great way to see good art by emerging and mid-career artists in a setting much less likely to induce the mixed emotions described above. At Pulse, the Parsons MFA Fine Arts program put curator Eva Diaz to the task of organizing the smartest of mini-exhibitions, in which she elected to show all program artists instead of a juried few. Small-scale artworks were displayed thoughtfully in an artist-built structure alongside the books the students were reading at the moment.

A most entertaining curiosity cabinet-cum-reading room. What I value most about going to fairs and seeing such a high volume of art at once is how helpful it can be in expanding nascent exhibition ideas. Say I’m interested in doing a comprehensive group show about pencil drawing since the 1980s, then I can learn of Paul Chiappe‘s minute recreations of photographs through Madder 139 at Pulse and see excellent works on paper in The Drawing Center’s current exhibition Apparently Invisible by Michaela Frühwirth and Anne Lindberg.

On Thursday I met up with Danish artist Tue Greenfort, who lives in Berlin but is currently in residence in New York to work on a project for Creative Time. His work is currently on view at Peter Blum Gallery, and he and I are beginning to speak about the potential for a project in Indianapolis. Stay tuned for news of his visit to the IMA this Spring, which I am anticipating greatly. Lisa and I also had the pleasure of visiting Tara Donovan in her studio/home in Brooklyn (sorry no pictures! I got distracted and forgot), where we saw several stunning works on paper that are in development for an upcoming gallery show. We discussed with Tara an exhibition of her work here in Indianapolis in 2010 (hooray!) and spoke about all of the possibilities surrounding such a project.

Last, but not least, I visited the place that has been mentioned to me every time I talk to someone in New York about 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: SoHo’s restaurant Hundred Acres.

I mean, it’s delicious and all, but it’s just not as pretty—or as full of innovative art installations—as our developing project. And we come by our name fairly, legitimately covering 100 acres of woodlands, wetlands, meadows and a 35-acre lake, which I must admit I was happy to return to at the end of my trip.

Here’s a link to our project description.

Since the Conflux Festival is “The art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space” we thought this would be an ideal place to expand our ideas and methods for documentation as we prepare for a number of upcoming projects in the contemporary department.

So, here’s the plan: we have a bag full of recording equipment that those ever-helpful Nuggets let me use (note to self: don’t get this bag ripped off) and a bunch of interesting projects and artists to investigate.  Rebecca and I have identified three perspectives for “viewing” an artist’s work:

1) Artist Vantage Point
The artist documents his/her perspective of the work.
2) Participant Vantage Point
The participant in a work documents his/her experience.
3) Witness Vantage Point
The witness or observer documents the work.

Of course, there’s some cross over between these three perspectives, but by identifying them this way we’ll be able to pick specific projects that best illustrate them.

Here are some projects that we’ll be working on:

49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs: Grand Finale by John Cage, a realization by Twiceband.

“The piece calls for participants to do a performance of their choice, or make an audio recording, or listen to the environment at any 49 of 147 randomly selected locations in New York City. For Twiceband’s realization, we are using the locales originally selected by Cage (using the I Ching), and will document all of the waltzes with text, audio recordings and photography.”

Here’s a link to a NYT article about this project, and a link to Kurt Gochstalk’s blog that discusses the project.

9/10 by Lucas Murgida

“A cabinet will be constructed and left on a sidewalk. I will be hidden inside and not reveal myself until someone assumes possession and brings the cabinet to their home.”

Here’s a link to Lucas’ Twitter (http://twitter.com/lucasmurgida) and Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucasmurgida/) sites, where you can follow his adventure live this Saturday.  Also, here’s a link to his web page (http://lucasmurgida.com/) , where you can see a picture of him in the cabinet.

Acting Stranger by Andrew Schneider

“I act out and document short, scripted scenes with complete strangers as my scene partners. We set up a date, time, and location. The camera is rolling when they arrive, the only words out of our mouths are scripted, and there are no “thank yous” or “goodbyes”. We interact as dictated by the words. There is no direction. There are no second takes. There is nothing that is not within the context of the scene. We experience each other. The scene ends. We leave.”

I think there’s still time to sign up for a scene , if you’re gonna be in the City.  Here’s a link to Andrew’s blog.

Urban Disorientation Game Led by Calvin Johnson and Scott Knowles

“In this 2-3 hour game, participants are blindfolded and driven to a location several miles away from Conflux Headquarters. The game-players are divided into teams, and each team will be led by a UDG “guide.” The guides will each supervise a team, making certain that all precautions are taken to insure a fun and safe play of the game. Teams will not be allowed to use cell phones, maps, or transportation of any kind other than walking, and will only be provided the most minimal of tools in order to find their way back to the Conflux.”

Here’s an article in yesterday’s AM New York that mentions the UDG, and also that this is the last year for the Conflux Festival.

Clearly, Rebecca and I have enough to do to keep us busy for the next few days.  So busy that I don’t think I’ll even have time to visit any museums, but I’ll certainly have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the world: Candle 79.

Despi and I headed to Brooklyn to have lunch with Shelley at Juniors. [Quick side note: do you realize I ate cornbread, a fried chicken breast, mac and cheese, and mashed potatoes with gravy?] The food was absolutely delicious and it was a chance to catch up with Shelley about museums, technology and our projects. It’s rare to spend time with someone that is so honest and open and willing to collaborate or share experiences. That is what Shelley has done at Brooklyn and it’s that same spirit that we try to follow in Indianapolis.
This is not the first time the Brooklyn Museum has been mentioned in an IMA blog post. We routinely plug other institutions we admire, envy or _______. But in the world of museum technology and the visitor experience, Shelley and her team are simply brilliant, and I’m not ashamed to say that I really look up to them.

So – I’m not going to bore you with a complete transcription of our lunch conversation (although it actually would be pretty funny), but I will recap some of things we discussed and I really do want to highlight some of the Brooklyn projects. Yes, I am sending you away from our site – it’s very Web 3.0 of me. Here are few quick projects -

I tend to raise an eyebrow when people go nuts about Web 2.0 applications, etc. but flickr is a site I LOVE. And of course the Brooklyn Museum showed us (the museum us) how to successfully use it. So check out there page here or their Brooklyn Bridge group here. BTW, ours is here.

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. What happens when you develop an application for Facebook that pretty much any museum can join? Well, ArtShare brings works of art from Brooklyn, IMA, the Met, the Walker and many more museums directly to your Facebook profile. Thank Brooklyn for that one.

When we were devising the IMA blog, guess who we looked to and called? Check out the Brooklyn blog. Multiple authors, lots of imagery, and frequent posts. It’s the only way to roll.

And finally, Shelley and others are organizing a community focused exhibition called Click! that is going to be a smash hit. Remember you heard it here second, so check it out here.

That’s the quick recap. We also talked about our IMA projects – but we always mention those in our blogs, so I’m taking a break today. I know this is a very surface level overview of our meeting, but sorry – I’m in New York, and in between meetings and shooting video, I’ve got to go find a cannoli. I’m sure Despi and Shelley will chime in.