An Exhibition on the Centenary of the NT 1913 Armory Show Andrianna Campbell E R and Daniel S

DE NY/ CE DC

An Exhibition on the Centenary of the NT 1913 Armory Show Andrianna Campbell E R and Daniel S. Palmer

February 17-April 7, 2013 September 11-December 20, 2013 Abrons Art Center Luther W. Brady Art Gallery The Henry Street Settlement The George Washington University 466 Grand Street 805 21st Street, NW New York, New York 10002 Washington, DC 20052 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction iv David Garza, Executive Director, Henry Street Settlement

Introduction v Lenore D. Miller, Director, University Art Galleries and Chief Curator

Digital Art in the Modern Age 1 Robert Brennan

Rethinking Decenter 2 Daniel S. Palmer

Decenter: Visualizing the Cloud 8 Andrianna Campbell

Nicholas O’Brien interviews Cory Arcangel, Michael Bell-Smith, James Bridle, Douglas Coupland, Jessica Eaton, Manuel Fernandez, Sara Ludy, Yoshi Sodeoka, Sara VanDerBeek, and Letha Wilson 14 Nicholas O’Brien

The Story of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Armory Show 20 Charles Duncan

Reprint of the Founding Document of the Abrons Arts Center 23 Winslow Carlton, President of Henry Street Settlement

Artworks 24

List of Works 47

Acknowledgements 50

Published in conjunction with the exhibition: DECENTER NY/DC: An Exhibition on the Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show, Abrons Arts Center, The Henry Street Settlement February 17-April 7, 2013 and Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, The George Washington University, September 11-December 20, 2013. Catalogue designed by Alex Lesy

ISBN: 978-1-935833-07-9 NOTES

1. This essay evolved out of numerous conversations with part of the cultural sphere. See Leah Dickerman, “Inventing NICHOLAS O’BRIEN INTERVIEWS scholars, writers, artists, and thinkers, who acknowledge Abstraction,” in Inventing Abstraction, 1919-1925 (New that the maelstrom of the digital has permeated every York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2013), 29. aspect of life in the Western world and beyond. I begun CORY ARCANGEL, MICHAEL BELL-SMITH, this essay in Mexico City and am now finishing it in India- 14. Gertrude Stein, Picasso (New York: Dover Publica- where many working class people (i.e., rickshaw drivers) tions, 1984), 20 Kindle. Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The sport smart phones. However, issues of connectivity still Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French plague many developing countries where frequent power Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), JAMES BRIDLE, DOUGLAS COUPLAND, outages or low Wi-Fi capabilities make it difficult for the 213-214 n. 7. Paraphrased in Stephen Kern, The Culture of average person to manage large digital files at home. Time and Space 1880-1918 (Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1983), 7 and 288. 2. See a recent mapping project from GeoTel Communica- JESSICA EATON, MANUEL FERNÁNDEZ, tions, which are working with Columbia University and 15. John Welchman, “Here there and otherwise,” Artforum MIT to map the Internet. International (September 1988): 18. 3. Recent mapping efforts from GeoTel Communications 16. Of course, on a larger scale the 1917 Russian Revolution. SARA LUDY, YOSHI SODEOKA, SARA only account for the millions of miles of major pathways. 17. This is not a technological determinist argument 4. The fall 2011 issue of October, “Digital Art,” dealt primar- postulating that technological innovations encouraged ily with film, video and photography; all three are areas formal innovations in art on a one-on-one basis. Rather VANDERBEEK, AND LETHA WILSON where technological advances change the “look” of their that they expose new visual languages from which artists product. Photography and digital video were important can adapt, adopt or disavow. As Martin Heidegger wrote, components of our exhibition, but we wanted to include too often technological arguments focus so much on the painting and sculpture in a consideration of the digital. instrumental function of tools and their affect on form that we lose track of the “essence” of technology. For 5. I am thinking here of Claire Bishop’s controversial instance, state of the art digital users and tools function as article, “Digital Divide,” in the September 2012 issue of instruments most professionally when they are recreating Artforum, in which she announces the “subterranean pres- or improving upon the “real” as seen in a survey of the ence” of the digital revolution was helpful for the formation plethora of Hollywood blockbusters from 300 to Star of this essay. Other scholars such as Rainer Usselmann call Trek. The sophistication of digital tools means that these the digital revolution a “dud.” See “The Dilemma of New real/hyperreal environments are the ideal for general Media Art: Cybernetic Serendipity at the ICA London,” audiences; however the simplified look of the Internet Leonardo 36 (2003): 389. Curatorial projects like Rhizome, aesthetic in contemporary art does not always make full Triple Canopy, and e-publications such as Hyperallergic use of these advanced tools. The essence of technology are devoted to these issues. David Joselit, After Art (Princ- then is not solely in its instrumentation. eton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), 43. 18. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cam- 6. Art made using digital technology is meant to define art bridge: MIT Press, 2001): 69. As Manovich notes, by the that has been conceived, processed or fabricated using 1990s, digital photography was capable of capturing more digital technologies in the post-1989 period. It certainly detail than light based photography. For our purposes encompasses terms such as computer-generated graphic then, pixelation is an aesthetic choice made by artists in art, and even at times new media art. It does not account order to foreground the relationship to technology. for earlier terms such as Cybernetic art, which could be used to categorize works from as early as 1956. 19. I found Julian Stallabrass’ discussion of the sublimity of data useful. See ‘A Conversation with Trevor Paglen’, 7. The impact of digitization in the musical and literary arts October 138 (Fall 2011): 3–14. has been tremendous. Whereas art made with digital tools TO SAY THAT there is “something hap- for contemporary exhibition. This project DIT mentality that spurred the intro- has been under- discussed. This is notable because similar 20. Lauren Cornell’s Free exhibition at the New Museum, pening” in the arts right now would be a uses the 100-year anniversary of the duction of the avant-garde to American arguments for the impact of media on content and style are October 20, 2010-January 23, 2011 was based on this merg- central to art history-for instance the shift from tempera ing of the physical and virtual space. Also, David Kennedy bit of an understatement. Certainly, a new Armory Exhibition in 1913 as a starting audiences remains incredibly relevant in to oil in the Renaissance has been fodder for generations Cutler’s “The Sky Inside” CUSP-Ryan Wallace (New York: alteration has been in the works arguably point to reflect on the ways in which art today’s contemporary artist-run apartment of scholars. Morgan Lehman Gallery), 2012. Yves-Alan Bois, “Kahnwei- ler’s Lesson,” Representations 18 (Spring 1987): 44. since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, or has both radically changed and strikingly galleries and online exhibition spaces. 8. The 1913 Armory Show officially was known as the First at least since Y2K. With the wall coming remained the same. Although much has The counter-cultural inspiration that 21. Ibid, 41. International Exhibition of Modern Art in America (New down, international conversations of changed since the introduction of Mod- moved the artists of the early 20th Century York, 1913). Carlton’s letter is reproduced in this catalogue 22. N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Post-Human as well as the 1963 one. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999), 12. contemporary art started to disseminate ernism to American audiences a century certainly holds true to the spirit for many

th across obsolete geographic borders. That ago, central themes remain for today’s within our current time. This spirit then 9. This 50 anniversary exhibit was held at the Munson Wil- 23. Cornell’s exhibition Free, 2010 was admirably one of liams Proctor Arts Institute. See Daniel Palmer’s essay and the first to investigate artwork that was made by digital marked shift also sparked new channels artists. These topics revolve around not only pervades the work, but also the Charles Duncan’s reflection on the impact of 1963 exhibit. means, but did not exist solely online. of communication to stretch to more in- how artists attempt to respond, react, infrastructure that emerged to support the 10. I am thinking of the Museum of Modern Art’s Inventing 24. Bois, “Kahnweiler’s Lesson,” 44. ternational audiences. Around this time is and rethink the contemporary technolo- voice of these respective generations. Abstraction, Montclair Art Museum’s The New Spirit: when the infrastructure of contemporary gies of their time. Where Duchamp and Putting technological innovation aside, American Art in the Armory Show, 1913, the NY Histori- 25. This intersection can lead to what viewers see as cal Society’s The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and “flatness” in contemporary work. This move towards telecommunications started sustaining the Futurists tackled the surmounting one can argue that the material, the con- Revolution, and the Phillips Collection’s History in the flatness is nothing new for abstract art; however, allowing a more dominant role in reshaping our mechanization of movement and vision, ventions, or the subjects of western art Making 100 Years After the Armory Show. a machine to create an all-over surface does seem to give more of an even distribution of emphasis to foreground perspectives on culture, media, and art. artists like Cory Arcangel and Sara Ludy have not changed drastically during the 11. The majority of the abstract works in the 1913 exhibit and background. It would be a mistake to say that these address the ways in which the digital has past 100 years. However our approach to were not completely non-objective. Many featured the figure, wild use of color, and modern subject matters. In 26. The archive is of particular importance to Bishop’s shifts are without precedent, or else altered our senses and selves. the concerns, devices, and culture of our addition, besides Kandinsky, the Russian avant-garde was discussion of the impact of the digital on changes in per- occurring in some kind of completely The similarities run deeper than the time has a much more measurable and not represented. Only Analytic Cubist examples were ception. See “Digital Divide,” 438-440. She references Hal unique cultural vacuum. In fact, prece- surface concerns of the artists of the impactful discrepancy worthy of further shown from Picasso and Braque, who also rejected the Foster’s explorations of the archival impulse as well as his idea of complete abstraction. In Marcel Duchamp’s Nude focus on material archive as opposed to the “technologi- dents like early video art, conceptual art, avant-garde and the problems that face scrutiny. It is in the disparity between Descending a Staircase and Francis Picabia’s Procession cal” one epitomized by the Internet. See “An Archival performance, Fluxus, and experiments contemporary makers. It is in the very the past and the present that we begin to in Seville, there is simultaneity and movement. For a Impulse,” October 110 (Autumn 2004): 3-5. with analog synthesis are all the more core of the mounting of the Armory of see the clear importance of the art of our reminiscence of the 1913 show by Duchamp, see Toutfait. “Marcel Duchamp: Armory Show Lecture, 1963” http:// 27. See Seth Price, “Dispersion” http://www.distributedhis- pressing as the dominance of network 1913 where a resonant chord continues time. To imagine, for instance, that we www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/news/miller/ tory.com/Dispersion2008.pdf. (Accessed October 4, 2013). technology engulfs more and more of our to reverberate into the eardrums of today. could begin to broach the subject of iden- miller1.htm (accessed November 12, 2012). 28. Mabel Dodge distributed Portrait of Mabel Dodge at immediate attention. In short, being able The early exhibition took place thanks to tity and the figure, as the Dadaists did, via 12. These could be societal ills, a utopian or spiritual vision. the Villa Curonia at the 1913 Armory show. The pam- phlet was also reprinted in the June 1913 issue of Camera to look back seems to be an essential the efforts of The Association of Ameri- a platform capable to reaching millions 13. Technology is defined in the broader sense so tools, Work, 3-5. Dodge’s article “Speculations” included a often part of looking ahead. can Painters and Sculptors, a group of of individuals simultaneously—and that machines scientific innovation, but also information reprinted description of Gertrude Stein, “In a large studio It is in this spirit that Andrianna Camp- young artists that took it upon themselves this process could happen in real time, systems. By 1913, the airplane, automobile, photography, in Paris, hung with paintings by Renoir, Matisse, and non-Euclidean mathematics, Semiotics, telegraphy, gramo- Picasso, Gertrude Stein is doing with words what Picasso bell and Daniel S. Palmer’s Decenter ex- to do their own fundraising, organizing no less—is, in and of itself, a remarkable phone, trans-continental and trans-Atlantic travel et al were is doing with paint,” 6. hibition takes its cues and posits a vision and publishing. This retrospective DIY/ change from 1913.

13 14 It could be argued that despondency, mentioning that in the future the only to a part of the architecture that I had by which I was able to track down and in a sense, is the lifeblood that runs way people are going to know about this never been. I came across several stories purchase the original stock images which through the work of the 1913 Armory piece is this conversation. of empty floors and was immediately were used in the hotels; thirdly, the “real show into the veins of the Decenter exhi- caught in this space where everything space” system you bring up, the fact that bition. It is in the unrealized horizon of a MF: I think digital practice can be was familiar from my previous these images exist on the walls of hotel future void of current discord where the seen as a very important aspect of experiences of the architecture, but rooms all across North America. avant-garde appears to perpetually rest. contemporary art practice. The first the structure was entirely different. In response, the project of Modernism Armory show was influenced by After taking roughly 200 photographs, DC: The 1913 Armory Show aims to bring the unconscious into mate- technological advancements, and this I narrowed down a selection of about foregrounded the massive collective rial form as a means to make that discord theme connects to the modern age, 7 varying perspectives to create a time trauma, which was created in the western physical. One can draw parallels between shaping formal aspects and conceptual based perspective and space portrait of mind by the introduction of radio and this original pursuit and the desire of thinking derived from it. the architecture. other modes of mass communication. today’s artists working online to make In 1913, people were unlearning ancient physical their digital creations. SVB: When starting a project, I often begin MBS: My work in the show, Piano ways of experiencing time and space The motivation behind the desire of with image-based research, either by and Violin Variations, is a web-based and replacing them with then-mysterious artists to make physical the virtual, var- taking the images myself or using archival collection of images of hotel interiors. new ways of interpreting distance, time, ies between Modernism’s pursuit of the material. For this piece, I asked Andrianna While the photos were taken all over individuality, mass culture, the picture

unconscious and our current moment’s , 2012. Digital image and Daniel to send me archival images North America (mostly by travelers plane and …well, just about everything investment in the not-yet-conscious— from their research of the original Armory reviewing their rooms for travel sites), we associate with the twentieth century. a borrowed term from José Muñoz to Pipe show for inspiration. The sculpture I the same two photos hang on the wall In 2013, we’ve collectively experienced a describe a performed state of futurity. designed is informed by images from the of each room: a close-up of a violin and similar collective trauma of perception. The pursuit of this translation of the original Armory exhibition and is created a close-up of a piano. This situation In a tiny amount of time we’ve absorbed not-yet-conscious into the physical is of concentric patterns that have come out illustrates the strange overlapping search engines, the Internet, personal an attempt at redeeming the potential of a consideration of a larger continuum systems within which images operate computing, smartphones and… well, just that technology has promised for a of forms, eternal patterns shared amongst today. In this case, there’s the “real about everything we associate with the better tomorrow. The false promise of Douglas Coupland, Courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery. many different cultures and times. The space” system, the fact that these images twenty-first century. digital technology lies in its purposefully simple patterns found in ancient forms actually exist on the walls of hotel rooms naïve and manipulative faith in a com- Sodoeka uses maps, videos, and other temporary arts and its ongoing relation- are not that different from the baseline all across North America. There’s a LW: I started working on video pieces ing utopia brought on by our collective online imagery to talk about a specific ship with technology. pixel formations of a digital image. I think semiotic/class system, with the photos in grad school at Hunter. In those video “plugging in and switching on.” But the location from his childhood home. Again, material, space, process and form are of the piano and violin selected for their pieces it was important to layer images work within this exhibition—and the where both artists output might have Can you talk about the visual links more resonant in this time of pervasive connotations of sophistication, or “Art.” in the software for the final result… exhibition of 1913—takes this naivety as immense difference, an underlying inter- you are making between your work digital awareness. And there’s the system of commercial The work is about the distance between a point of departure to discuss the how, est—in this pairing, negotiations of space and the concepts that drive the digital image circulation, by which I was interior and exterior. The photograph in the face of a failed techno-utopia, we and its representation through online DECENTER exhibition? SL: My process is similar to that of able to track down (and purchase) the transports you between one world and can still create hope. In other words, it is media—begins to develop a network of Cubists in how I combine various original stock images used in all of these another. In this video, the gallery walk because of the troublesome impossibility interests that create a parallel. CA: The piece in the show is a good perspectives of a space to create a hotels. Our day-to-day lives require that and the canyon walk floats between for potentially emerging out of techno- These similarities in modern techno- example of what I would call a software new perspective of that space. The we sort through an increasing number those two worlds. logical inequity that artists continue to logical times are the central issue that kinetic sculpture. A few years ago, I had architecture in Transom is of a business of these different systems of meaning as explore what this technology can offer underlies Campbell and Palmer’s project. a Blackberry, and it had Shazam—one of complex in Leesburg, Virginia called we encounter images and other media. YS: [#46 — 35.23N 139.30E [FAC as an alternative to the status quo. With In this way, Decenter situates itself as an these programs that allows you to listen Market Station. It is made of several In many ways, the work is a response to 3097] E5150xx] is sort of like a fiction this in mind, we can consider works exhibition creating a network of conviv- to music and tell you what it is. I hardly uprooted historical barns and gristmills that condition and the anxiety it brings. about espionage and conspiracies. One within the Decenter exhibition, both ial affinity. This affinity respects varying ever used it except in real emergencies from the area that were combined to For me, this project was about the of the key elements in this scenario is online and off, as heeding the call of an approaches, but also allows for shared when I had to know what the music form a new complex for businesses in intersection of three systems: first, the that digital transmission technology has everlasting trail blazing into the ways in interests to echo throughout a wide was. So I had only Shazamed 7 or 8 the 1980’s. My mom owned a hair salon semiotic/class system, with photos always existed since the 70’s, and they’ve which technology can continue to shape casting web. It is through this creative tracks in the many years of having this there for 13 years. I went back a couple of a piano and violin representing been secretly trying to experiment with it and influence culture. exploration of positive association phone. For DECENTER, I downloaded of years ago to photograph the new sophistication; next, the system of in a very unsuspected location, which is Where some artists, like Manuel Fer- that breathes life into a network often all those tracks; I put them together; complex and found a door that led me commercial digital image circulation, Totsuka, Japan in this case. nandez, focus on an emergent aesthetic considered exclusive, insular, or opaque. then I uploaded them to the Internet of stock footage and Photoshop transpar- Decenter undoes some of that tension as a mix to share. I tried it on all these - ency patterns to signify some kind by not only showing diversity but also different services and kept getting those - of eminent transience, other artists, like showing commonality. copyright errors. SoundCloud wouldn’t Letha Wilson, reflect on how that aes- In the following interviews, I ask let me upload it. YouTube would let me thetic coming from the screen can inform artists about the ways in which this upload it but wouldn’t let people play it. and complicate what we’ve tradition- exhibition reflects on the shared senti- So in the end, I decided these copyright ally considered to be analog. Although ments between 1913 and now, as well as errors were maybe more interesting this pairing has aesthetic difference, the critically questioning artists about the than the mix. So, I left it. So, the mix underlying conceptual interests remain tools they use to make their work. Per- is online, but can’t be listened to. It’s a , 2009. Digital video. quite close in that both are attempting to haps unsurprisingly, I found many artists real-time performance demonstrating all critique how the digital has reformatted show a marked reservation against the of these automatic intellectual property notions of the natural. Similarly, Michael devices and platforms that their work is systems that companies run. It has (Tran Double Buffalo Western Bell-Smith uses the homogenous imagery born and bred. This resistance, though copyright violations from 9 different of Residence Inn interiors pulled offline similar to the sentiments sparked by the huge international corporations. It is a to discuss varying economies of im- 1913 Armory, sheds light on a unique representation of how these systems

ages and temporary-space, while Yoshi moment currently underway within con- operate. . . It is also probably worth Letha Wilson, in Buffalo onto the Wilder scriptions of Walks Versa) ness and Vice

15 16 JE: I am not an academic. While I have of presenting multiple moments at once walkers. To me the most interesting Since the early 21st century, one starts read a bit and am familiar with some of more so then the formal qualities of thing about what is going on is that to see a consolidation of digital life at all the works in the 1913 Armory exhibition, the work. people are just in front of their screens levels which has profoundly transformed it would be wholly dishonest of me to all day. It tends to be everybody...my society, changing traditional notions of start trying to postulate the types of YS: I honestly didn’t think too much aunt, my mother, myself. It is all my space and time. These conditions have connections you are asking about. From about that! As I understood the scope friends. And each group of friends has enabled the ampliation of traditional my own mind, all things like this seem of the show, I figured that presenting a different social network that they notions of what we understand as art, slightly arbitrary to me. I feel like if you an artwork, as one of the artists, who like. So, all these types of things have expanding into almost every field. I think look for connections between any two represent the newer generation, would been introduced into life. That is what the historical moment we are living has things you could start to make them be significant enough. As an artist who is of interest to me. Remember when certainly many similarities with the first should you chose. Or you could connect is influenced by Cubism, I think that my people used to warn you about sitting Armory Show. through disconnect, even. piece embodies a similar spirit and ideas too close to the TV or watching too that Cubism presented. much TV? People thought it was going How do you undertake the installation JB: Rorschmap is a project, which to ruin people. But now it is as if the of your work outside of a digital both emphasizes the strangeness and The DECENTER exhibition and TVs are out in the real world and people networked environment (like a criticizes the lack of imagination in projects commemorates the 100th are watching while walking, or in the browser)? Is it important for your contemporary digital maps - and by anniversary of the Armory show, subway, or in the car. So, it is like the work to exist outside of that context? extension, much of contemporary and in turn the centennial of a “New TVs have taken over, but it is not TVs, it Are there specific material concerns technology. Digital maps are not like Spirit” of Modernism coming to the is the computer. that happen in that process? Does one traditional maps; they are animations, United States. Do you think that there always have to default to standards they are alive, they are in constant flux. is a similar movement or momentum LW: There are actual objects in the presented by the traditional art world? But they are also presented as classically that is happening around current physical exhibition so in discussing the as possible: as flat planes, as definitions digital and new media practices that digital realm, the exhibition focuses on JB: My work appears in a wide variety of rather than approximations, as facts DECENTER encapsulates? the way these digital formats, techniques, If I Could Redo formats: as websites, as books, as essays, rather than visualizations, as truth tools, processes and thinking have as physical installations, as images rather than merely as one way of seeing. SL: Yes. I find that the most relevant inserted themselves into the work of both digital and framed on a wall. This Rorschmap attempts to disrupt this and exciting works today are the result many artists. There ends up being a is entirely dependant on the work, and illusion, exposing the way in which this of how digital technologies and online conversation among the works. the format, which seems at the time to viewpoint is constructed, and opening social dynamics are informing the suit it best. But it is always, hopefully by it up to other forms of expression. All artist’s practice. JB: The New Aesthetic is illustrative design, capable of being returned to the technologies open up new ways of of deeper changes in cognition and network, to being shared, distributed, re- experiencing the world, from oil paint in DC: One thing I’ve noticed is the way experience produced by networked enacted. These are the operations which tubes to lines of code in distant servers, people go online and visit gallery sites technologies - with the emphasis on the the work ultimately has to address if it but they are also easily reduced to and inhale hundreds of artists in one “networked” part. That paradigm shift is concerned with network technologies: simplistic, reductive and controllable go, sweeping through rosters and - and understanding if it has occurred the ability to move seamlessly across metaphors. It is one of the jobs of art to sucking the information in like nicotine. or is occurring - is the business of the networks, while interrogating those fracture that top-down view. Everyone is aware of everything now, New Aesthetic. If we recognize that seams, and the transformations that and ‘being first’ no longer feels like it’s understanding the world and ourselves occur in the work as it negotiates the What similarities do you find between enough to justify lionization of one artist is always an unfinished project, we must politics and processes of different your work and the methods of Cubists over another. Also (and we all know always look to “the new” to find different media. My work has only recently been exhibited in Armory? this) online culture has stripped the ways of seeing and understanding. But of interest to the ‘traditional’ art world: vernissage of its potency as a moment at the same time, that “newness” is often it’s not my background and it’s not my DC: Flattening. Definitely a flattening. and, from what I see, and from what an illusion: the tools and techniques for primary concern. We’ve taken cutting and pasting and gallerists tell me, people are simply no seeing exist already, we just need to abstraction to profoundly new levels in longer going into physical galleries as have them brought to our attention, to MBS: There’s a lot angles one could take which time and space is reduced to a much. Museums, on the other hand, see them from a different angle. In this in talking about the distinction between glyph, and yet we don’t bat an eye. seem to be doing well… possibly way, perhaps, certain digital artworks working online and in traditional art because they promise their attendees and the Internet function exactly as contexts: economics, audience, access, MBS: I’m not sure about methodology, a larger core dump of information. Cubism and the Armory Show did agency, etc. I’ll pick a basic one: the idea but Picasso was working with Cubist in 1913. of self-publishing. Most work online is representations of violins and pianos CA: Well, I guess I would have to back self-published, neither validated nor (the “subject” of my work for the show) up and say what excites me in the real MF: The digital revolution has brought vetted by an external entity (gallery, a hundred years ago. Those objects world. Art tends to follow what is going the most significant historical shift since , 2013. Plaster: 88 x 8 6". Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures. Background: Andrew Kuo. curator, publisher, etc) before reaching

had a different meaning in the early on in the real world. It is like that thing the industrial revolution. The European XXIV its viewership. It’s a simple fact, but I 20th century, but there’s something that happens today. When you are avant-garde art of the early 20th century think it’s worth reminding ourselves of enduring about what they can represent. walking down the sidewalk and you was strongly inﬂuenced by the social periodically. It makes for a unique set In addition, the photographs on the are behind someone, who is walking changes that were derived from the of potentials. Online work can be more walls in my piece act as surrogates for a little slow and you are like “what is advancement of technology and inclusion liberated, more out there, more likely the idea of high art. In that respect, going on?”...Finally, you realize it is and standardization of machines in war, to hit an untapped audience or vein they’re a weird by-product of the early just because they are on their phone work and daily life. of genius. But it’s also more apt to be modernists’ legacy. texting. That happens all the time now You can see examples of direct terrible, uneven, and desperate. Some , 2013. Acrylic and carbon transfer on panel and paper, 51 x 38". Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Gallery. , 2013. Acrylic and carbon transfer on panel paper, and to me that is really a kind of real life inﬂuence of technological progress in artists deal with this freedom through SVB: I have always had an interest in marker that we have entered some other movements such as Impressionism that an abundance of work, throwing things

the simultaneity of Cubism, its sense territory now. They are like Zombie reacted to the emergence of photography. Foreground: Sara VanDerBeek, Tuesday at the wall to see what sticks, hoping

17 18 the hits overshadow the misses. I tend them are of deep concern. But that in a photographic print as it exists as an generous lender from his own collection, to work in the opposite way: slowly itself can be radicalized through a greater object first and as information second, THE STORY OF THE he cultivated among the citizens of Utica and deliberately. Maybe it seems a bit understanding and literacy in these I think that is where I struggle to find an appreciation for twentieth-century old-fashioned, but it’s about marrying technologies: they can be mastered, and a way to appreciate and engage with art. In 1949 Root made his first gift to the newer ideas and approaches with a more turned to our own uses. technology that I feel is effective. The FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY institute: Vermont Landscape of 1944 traditional set of values around what I way in which we get and engage with 1 by Luigi Lucioni. Over the next seven care about in art. I don’t want to throw CA: In a way, there is still this reaction media has changed dramatically and for OF THE ARMORY SHOW years the collector donated hundreds the baby out with the bathwater. that says, “Wow! Look at what this can the better, but it seems to me the greatest of works of art, and at his death late in do,” but it is very massaged now by impact the Internet has is as a living, 1956, Root’s bequest to the institute was DC: Well, online presentation does lead powerful forces that have entered into dynamic and ever changing archive, and CHARLES H. DUNCAN comprised of 227 American modern- to the raping and pillaging of gallery sites the arena. Google is a perfect example working with it as a point of capture, ist paintings and drawings, including by image-crazed browsers. We’ve all of a company that sells us “Wow! Look organization, and communication is signature works by Charles Burchfield, done it. The hyperavailability of images at what we can do” but it is so perfectly when it is most effective. Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh, Arshile creates an expectation of more, more, polished. It is now somehow combined THE STORY OF the fiftieth anniversary of tured environment in New York City and Gorky, Theodoros Stamos, Mark Rothko, more, now, now, now, free, free, free. A with advertising and fashion. It doesn’t MF: I identify with two approaches. I the Armory Show begins not in New York Washington, D.C., that emphasized the and Jackson Pollock. show now has to do something, anything, appear the way technology used to don’t believe in the autonomy of an artist City, Chicago, or Boston, but in central importance of the visual arts. His father, In 1954, as Root was settling the terms to make the visitor experience different appear. It is more seamlessly intergrated to create works from nothing, I believe New York State, in the city of Utica. Lo- Elihu Root, Sr., was Theodore Roosevelt’s of his bequest, the board of trustees of from an online experience. into life because it is more part of that in a collective progress, therefore, it cated in the rugged Adirondack foothills secretary of state, a senator from New the Munson-Williams-Proctor embarked commercial capitalist river. It is still is true that working online shaped the celebrated by James Fenimore Cooper, York, and a founder of the American on a campaign for a new Museum of Art Do you find any resonance with the around so we don’t notice it, as much works I do, and I think that this elements Utica became an art center during the Federation of Arts. As a child Edward building, as the Fountain Elms struc- political and social implications that anymore…It is enough to say this is what of screen space influence my work too. 1830s with the founding of the Utica Art Root summered in Clinton, New York, ture was too small and aesthetically were taken up during the work of is going on. I’m interested in how we perceive the Association, which brought exhibitions eight miles southwest of Utica, and later unsuited to showcase his collection. artists represented in the 1913 Armory? reality framed by a device screen and to the city and nurtured a number of was graduated from Hamilton College in Historian Henry Russell Hitchcock was We are living in a time of drastic the way that an artwork is distributed artists early in their careers, including 1905. Early in life Root pursued a career contracted to help select an architect, MF: More than political, I find implications change, which is bringing about and received by an audience that views Arthur B. Davies. In 1935, descendants as a journalist in New York City, where and the following year the commission in breaking the barriers between social tremendous progress, as well as deep most of the exhibitions on smartphone of industrialist Alfred Munson founded he formed enduring personal bonds was awarded to Philip Johnson, who had classes and the democratization of the and troubling shared dilemmas. We or tablet screens. I am also interested in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, with leading artists and galleries and just completed a twelve-year tenure as social in general. The artist status is enjoy much of what the virtual world blurring the boundaries between digital and their Victorian-era Italianate man- developed into an astute and passionate director of the Museum of Modern Art’s democratized today. Everyone with a provides yet often are fighting against and reality because we live in a time sion, Fountain Elms, became Utica’s collector of contemporary American art. department of architecture and design. computer can make works and give them its continual presence within our lives- when both are the same reality. Many first art museum. It was here that in 1961 Root believed it was his duty to support When the new Munson-Williams-Proctor visibility on the Internet. its distractions, its sense of alienation of my works can be read in this sense, Joseph S. Trovato, assistant to Museum the work of Americans, and he acquired Museum of Art opened in October 1960 -it feels unsustainable yet exciting- we especially “Text to speech” makes direct of Art director Edward Dwight, set out directly from artists many paintings and with three floors of simple but elegant YS: Some people in digital art community are part of an ever-growing yet fragile reference to it in a quote from William to restage the historic Armory Show as drawings soon after they were created. A galleries proportioned for the display may be politically motivated in a direct structure. How far can and do we want Gibson that says “One of the things our a comprehensive exhibition. Trovato’s notable example is his purchase from the of modern art, Utica proudly became way more so than I am. I flirt with that to take it? With all of this tension, the grandchildren will find quaintest about us inspiration for this enormous undertak- Armory Show of Maurice Prendergast’s home to the first in a series of renowned sometimes in a passive way like the actual becomes even more significant. is that we distinguish the digital from the ing was Edward Wales Root, a collector Landscape with Figures of 1912, an art museums designed by Johnson in one I did with ASCII BUSH. But maybe real” but this sentence was from the 1984 and teacher of art appreciation who had acquisition encouraged by Root’s friend the International Style.3 Reviews of the that could be also seen as a joke against SVB: I am interested in how various Neuromancer book. almost single-handedly transformed George Luks. museum in popular and architectural political art and I kind of like it that way. technologies especially mobile media, Utica into an important regional center Root’s association with the Munson- publications offered approving head- It’s up to how people want to interpret it. Photoshop and the Internet are changing I feel as though the networking of for modern art. Williams-Proctor began in 1938 as lines: “The Perfect, Professional Mu- I’m mainly a visual artist, and my main the way we consider photography, pieces and makers presented in the Like his contemporaries Lillie P. Bliss, he neared retirement from Hamilton seum” and “Utica Museum Ranks with goal is to make challenging visual art. images, and communication. So online exhibition of DECENTER Albert C. Barnes, Walter Arensberg, and College, where he taught from 1920 to Finest Anywhere.”4 Appropriately, the And it just happens to be that politics can much of our digital interface is about speaks to a sense of community John Quinn, Root was a groundbreaking 1940.2 The timing for the young institute first exhibition staged in its galleries was be an inspiration for some visual work I documentation and sharing and the surrounding art made and distributed collector of modern art and both lender was fortuitous. As a consultant, Root “The Edward Wales Root Bequest.” make, sometimes something else. quality of documentation is changing the online. Do you consider that network, to, and purchaser from, the original developed the museum’s collection of Buoyed by the rising stature of the way we understand art. The theatrical or any sense of peership with other Armory Show. Root was raised in a cul- American and European modernism; as a institute, Trovato and his staff embarked Within digital networks there is a desire and dramatic images of 20th century art makers, when creating works to be on the task of securing loans for “1913 to often fetishize how connected we books with their strong light, shadow, primarily presented online? Do you Armory Show Fiftieth Anniversary Exhi- are—regardless of how often we utilize and saturated blacks of the duotone print think that this networked sensibility bition.” Their charge was daunting, as the or mobilize on that connectivity. Do you process are giving way to flat, bright does something to the work itself? original exhibition included over 1,300 find your work to reflect on the ways in images created with the Internet in works, many of which had been retitled which we fool ourselves with the notion mind. I think the Internet is engendering SL: When I create a new work, I only since the original show or were impre- of constant tele-presence? How can we a more sophisticated, educated viewer consider the network for publishing cisely listed in the catalogues for the remain radical in the arts when our and creator of images, but I also think strategies. I don’t consider others when original three venues. An exciting discov- tools are supplied to us by corporations it is making it harder to distinguish making the work itself. ery in the library of the Art Institute of that often cannibalize culture for the imagery and to keep someone’s attention Chicago of installation photographs from sake of profit? Is it important to stay within an actual space.I am interested JE: There is a huge difference in how we the Chicago exhibition increased the radical like the Cubists and Futurists of in bridging both and using technology are all connected, specifically the time- number of visually documented works the 1913 Armory? to expand my practice but I make work space aspects of how you could connect to a total of eighty, but still, only a single considering much more the actual then versus now, but underlying in both watercolor by John Marin was found JB: It’s always important to stay radical, object as it rests in a space, and the cases is technology. In 1913, you could with an intact label from the original and I think the ways in which digital tools significance of viewing it in person. get on a train. Today, you can just log on. Armory Show.5 Appeals through the New are tightly controlled and constructed by The context of the room in which it is In 2013 you can do a lot more without York Times and other periodicals helped corporations and the people who built being shown, the unique qualities of putting on pants. Q enormously in locating works in private

19 20 LIST OF WORKS-DC

16. Corin Hewitt 23. Brenna Murphy 29. Rafaël Rozendaal Recomposed Monochrome Latticescanr, 2012 http://www.fromthedarkpast.com, 2009 (216, 115, 177), 2011 Website Website Digital pigment print: 34" x 26" Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York 24. John Newman 30. Lisa Ruyter Collections and Corrections Arthur Rothstein “Dry and Parched 17. John Houck with Vermillion, 2011 Earth in the Badlands of South 1400 Iterations of Black Grid Cast bronze, stones, wood, Japanese Dakota,” 2009 on a White Ground, 2013 paper, wood putty, papier-mâché, Acrylic on canvas: 47" x 59" Digital video acqua resin, acrylic and enamel paints: Courtesy the artist and Connersmith Courtesy the artist 13½" x 27½" x 12½" Courtesy the artist and Tibor de Nagy 31. Travess Smalley 18. Butt Johnson Gallery, NY Composition in Clay #32, 2013 The Curse of Knowledge, 2012-2013 Framed unique C-print: 46" x 33" Crayon on incised Dieu Donne cotton 25. Gabriel Orozco Courtesy the artist and Higher Pictures paper: 40" x 28" Fluttering Flowers, 2011 Courtesy the artist and CRG Gallery Pigment ink and acrylic on canvas: 32. Travess Smalley 5 23 ⁄8" x 31½" Animated Optical Texture Pattern 19. Barbara Kasten Courtesy the artist and Marian for Alexander Peveret, 2011 Construct PC IX, 1982 Goodman, NY Animated GIF Polaroid: 24" x 20" Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist and Bortolami Gallery 26. Gabriel Orozco Green Web Drops, 2011 33. Sara VanDerBeek 20. Andrew Kuo Pigment ink and acrylic on canvas: XXIV, 2013 5 If I Could Redo Tuesday, 2013 23 ⁄8" x 31½" Wood: 88" x 8" x 6" Acrylic and carbon transfer on Courtesy the artist and Marian Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures panel and paper: 51" x 38" Goodman, NY Courtesy the artist and Marlborough 34. Sara VanDerBeek Gallery 27. Gabriel Orozco Baltimore Dancers Nine, 2012 Invariant Animation, 2005 Digital C-print: 8" x 6" 21. Liz Magic Laser Digital video Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures The Digital Face, 2012 Courtesy the artist and Marian Performance and two-channel video, 10 Goodman, NY 35. Sara VanDerBeek ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS minutes, 2012. Featuring Alan Good and Baltimore Dancers Ten, 2012 Cori Kresge as former President George 28. Ellington Robinson Digital C-print: 8" x 6" H. W. Bush and President Barack Obama. Spin, 2011 Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures Courtesy the artist Acrylic, collage, ink, and oil: 48" x 48" 36. Letha Wilson All installation photographs of our panelists from the February 17, 22. Douglas Melini Courtesy the artist and Double Buffalo Western (Transcriptions DECENTER NY are courtesy of Patrick 2013 “1913 Armory Show Centennial Fragrant Portal, 2011 Project 4 Gallery of Walks in Buffalo onto the Wilderness Lyn Photography © 2013. Event” panel including Charles Duncan, Acrylic on canvas and wood: and Vice Versa), 2009 Marilyn Kushner, Mary Murray, and 53½" x 45½" x 1¾" Digital video We would like to thank the artists, the Brian Droitcour. We would also like to Collection Geoffrey Young; courtesy Courtesy the artist lenders to the exhibition, our families, thank the sponsors of the New York of Feature inc., NY and the following people who patiently exhibit: The Andy Warhol Foundation helped us along the way: Graham for the Visual Arts, Annisa Restaurant, Anderson, Ella Christopherson, Jonathan The Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Durham, Gregory Fellows, Robert Department, CHIPS-NY, The Foundation Fellows, Roger Gaitan, John Keon, Alex for Contemporary Arts and TBD Design Lesy, Patrick Lyn, Kristian Nammack, Studio. Finally, our warmest thanks to Natalie Musteata, Adrian Saldaña, Lenore Miller and Olivia Kohler-Maga Carolyn Sickles, Joshua Weiselberg, from the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery at Lauren Wistrom and Miriam Zemel. The George Washington University and For enriching our understanding and Clarice Smith for sponsoring this exhibit discussion of these ideas, we thank in Washington DC.

49 50 / NY E D DC E C T N R E