Zito Blog - Art

I'm being stalked by the ghost of Frida Kahlo.

Tue, 04 May 2010 21:18:00 -0400

It had just been leaning there against the wall propped up on the bookcase – slanted, crooked, scuffed up - with a huge advertisement for Mexico plastered across the bottom of it. I’d found this poster of a great Frida Kahlo self-portrait on my block – mounted on foamcore with its museum style tourism propaganda bannered unapologetically over its bottom. Pulled it down, fumbled for the Xacto & T-square and started slicing. Like on the Playa – “No commercial messages allowed”.

Pulled the nail out of the wall – frosted with the grey rose madder of the wall color – shoved it through the top of the foam core in a leaf above the Madonna’s head, grabbed for Grampa Motto’s hammer and banged it into the wall. Ha. 14 years in this corner over Houston and not one noise complaint. Lately His Majesty Johnny Come Lately has taken to tapping his ceiling below me whenever the fancy strikes. When its late & loud I turn it down but its 14 years so he can take his little tapping stick and stick it up… … hey … wait a minute…

…this poster of Frida on the wall in my studio… I just seem to have absent-mindedly dragged it into my inner sanctum. That’s a bit strange, I mean, I’m not her biggest fan – I mean, I absolutely love her work, her energy but… hanging her self-portrait on the wall of my studio… why? What’s that about? I really just hung it up without thinking at all as if it were just the normal thing to do. Does it mean I’m unconsciously attracted to her intensity – her indefatigable drive to create art and experience life? In terms of historic fact, I actually know very little about her. Of course you think of her illness, her unrelenting pain. But beyond that her energy was bewilderingly persistent. I gather this almost entirely from her work – as I do with all artists – it seems clearer than what anyone might write about her. From what I can tell, she opened all of her doors and let the clouds blast through from every direction… and some deep raw vulnerable truth emerged… plus the lovely Miss Remedios Varo… what a time, what a crew!

Holy crap. I suddenly realized… “the painting I have hanging on the wall in my living room… its that Frida piece I did up at Summer Stage.” There it was… as I crossed the threshold into the next room, the huge painting in its big gold frame loomed against the wall. Frida Kahlo. WTF?

I had been painting live at Central Park last summer – a sort of unannounced addition to the live music… it was a way for me to get some sun, hear some music and meet some people. On that particular day I knew nothing of the bands about to perform except I’d heard it was a Latin event. So without as much forethought as I’d give a sneeze, I printed out a photo of Our Lady Frida and hauled ass (late again) to Summer Stage. I got the general idea across that day – her face, flowers in her hair, bright colors. Lots of folks stopped to say they loved it – loved her. But I never finished it. That whole summer while I was working feverishly at GalleryBar, I’d set up my easel and get to work right in the middle of Orchard Street. (They block off the street on Sundays.) I reworked it one time then and got it to a decent point. But still – not quite finished.

So – Frida Kahlo in my studio AND my living room? That’s a little strange. Not only that but it seems to have happened without my realizing it. It reminded me that Oriah had spoken with a psychic – an amazing woman who sees freely into past lives and whatnot. When Oriah mentioned me to her, this woman replied that I am moving through an intensely powerful change in my life and that I am being guided very closely. Was Frida my spirit guide?

As I walked back into my studio room still a bit curious, my line of sight fell across a new painting I’d been working on. A collaged portrait of a young Mexican girl surrounded by images of Mascaras, guerillas, families, Jesus and… FRIDA! I forgot about that! At the very top of the painting - as if the quiet center of a deliberate shrine – I had pasted in a torn image of Frida lying in bed holding a bejeweled skull to her chest.

But this was not a deliberate shrine at all. I mean, I usually work pretty intuitively – with little premeditation or preconception – I just go. But the thing is, if someone looked carefully around my home, they might think I was a little obsessed with Frida Kahlo. Which I’m not – as far as I know. I only ever saw one show of her work in Philly a few years ago. I loved it but I never gave it a whole lot of thought.

The next day I went by Oriah’s place to spend the night and morning at one of my other homes (where I’ve been taken in quite unconditionally). During the times I’ve rented out my apartment to road-weary world travelers, I’d either drive away up to East Granby or kinda move in with my new Ethiopian family and get fed nice. So on those long jaunts away from my LES pad (up to a month at times) I would set up a temporary studio out there in the “middle room” on Main Street, on Rosie Eye Land. Oriah had, in her kind way, suggested I set up an easel and paints there as well as GalleryBar so I could work on things at home with her. It wasn’t ideal but it worked in a pinch. Temporary studios are just difficult.

On that particular evening when I strolled into the middle room studio there again was Miss Frida – staring ever so intently back at me. One of us had saved the pamphlet from the Philadelphia exhibit and I had – once again – absent-mindedly propped it up against the window allowing her to oversee my workspace. There weren’t any other images of artists or artwork or anything else there – just Frida.

“You gotta be kidding me. This is too much,” I thought out loud. “That makes four.” I remembered the movie ‘Frida’ that Rani had given me when she moved… I’d watched it at my house alone. I really enjoyed it. I don’t buy movies. I rent them occasionally but I certainly don’t own very many. That could honestly be my only one. “That makes 5.”

April 28 had been a weird day. I’d woken up at 7am completely rested but gluttonously went back to sleep. I had driven back late to New York from the farm up north the night before with my 18-year-old niece, Cassie, who had just returned from a 3-month backpacking sojourn through Argentina and Chile. I was jealous and wanted to hear all about it. She needed to meet an ex-boyfriend in Brooklyn to get her stuff back (oh the drama of teen romance) and so she rode out to my city digs with me in my beloved, disheveled, be-horned, flaming, dependable bucket of Japanese bolts.

But as I mentioned it was a weird day. If I’d had amazing powers of foresight perhaps I would have recognized the symptoms of the gestation period that occasionally emerges before the occurrence of a sizeable pop of inspiration but as far as I could tell at the time I was just having a super weird day. I felt awkward in my skin – I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I had responsibilities pending – fending off the urge to even consider them, I reached for coffee, ate insanely spicy, cheap Indian food (chilies on the side next time please!) and all in all made a pretty scattered and lousy Uncle tour-guide to a kid who really didn’t expect much anyways. I guess I don’t know how to describe the day – it was just weird, frustrating. Nothing seemed right. My clothes didn’t really fit. When I caught my reflection in a window I would cringe – “is that me? God I look awful.” An old friend called and I couldn’t even talk – we were trying to catch up but I couldn’t remember what I’d been up to or what to ask… At Union Square we suddenly realized the time, hopped the train back to Suffolk Street, grabbed her bags and off Cassie went to catch her bus back home.

Back at my place alone I kinda collapsed in the studio. Raising my heavy eyelids I am met by hers… Frida’s. Oh yeah. That weird Frida thing. I laid there staring at her for a bit in some distorted uncomfortable position, wondering whether or not my mind is capable of understanding the idea that a celebrated disembodied entity is attempting to communicate with me.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to find that there are no such things as meaningless coincidences in my life. Be it a matter of perception, choice or the result of observations – my view is that these things are tied. This universe is a system, built to operate in specific ways – there are laws of nature and to assume that there is no intelligence at play would be the type of thought process assigned to another cranium’s circuitry. I am compelled to recognize the inherent interdependence and over-reaching network of expansion that links all beings, matter and energy in what I like to think of as cinematic unison. To spill it out in colloquial terms (a t-shirtism whether you will or willn’t) – Everything Happens for a Reason. Sure, we spit that out like so much ‘how’s it goin?’ but for my dough its verdad.

Then why is it so hard to wrap my skull around the consideration that I am being contacted – perhaps even guided – by the departed spirit of this renowned “south-o-the-border” pigment-wielding mujer from days of yore? Has my faith in science been so sufficiently inculcated that I’m not as free to believe what I wish as I’d like to be? Has the Western Church of Systematic Evidence so deeply engrained its tenets into my very perception that I am no longer capable of ancestral dreaming – of perceiving energy in the overlap of dimension and time? Or is it just hard to swallow based on what Doubting Thomas sees in his day-to-day meanderings?

“Don’t waste any time wondering how or why”, Oriah had said to me. “She is clearly reaching out to you so just get past whatever you have to and just tune into it.”

Sound advice (as I’ve come to expect) but maybe easier said than done?

Or is it just as simple as saying, “Ok – I’m listening. What now?” Maybe that’s all there is to it. Keeping your ‘ears and eyes’ open for whatever may come.

“I hate that painting,” I thought as I stared at the huge portrait of Frida I’d done. “Her face is ok but the background is the wrong color, her shoulders are to high and for some reason I can no longer stomach these dead-pan portraits of famous people. It just doesn’t reach past the t-shirt stigma.”

I’d been meaning to rework this piece. I remember loving the size of it – the impact of its scale… I had needed a big central piece for a show I was hanging and for lack of a better one I spent 300 bucks on a big gold frame hoping it would somehow overpower the fact that it was unresolved. I’d wanted the gold frame with the red accents but all they had was green. Well, the price was right and I needed it yesterday so I’d just went with it. Funny how in trying to sort of fluff it up I ended up actually bringing more attention to the fact that it wasn’t sorted. I don’t think I expressed this to anyone but I secretly loathed this painting of Frida, which had somehow become the center of my two primary exhibitions that year. It appeared behind me in a photo in the NY Post article about The Governors Island Art Fair as well as in a brief swoosh-by of the camera on Fox News. And I secretly cringed respectively.

In spite of her agreeing with me about the idea that I should lean away from the famous-people portraits, Oriah really liked the piece, which was part of the reason it ended up hanging in my living room. But every time I passed it I would think over and over, “That thing needs work.”

And staring up at Frida’s intense eyes as she’d painted them in the self-portrait on the poster in my studio, I realized the time had come. I hopped up, and bolted into the living room to FINALLY take that stupid painting off the wall and drag it into the studio. God, it was heavy. I took the unfinished portrait of the three Romanian shepherds that I’d begun and used it to fill the glaring void on the living room wall.

I stood the painting of Frida up on end in the center of the studio to have a good look at her. As I considered an approach, my hand drifted away from supporting the frame’s upright position when I realized that it was balancing on end all by itself. I looked up at the Frida poster – she stared back at me intensely. I looked back at the big painting in the gold frame standing on end in the middle of the studio. I gave it a little nudge. It teetered a little but righted itself. It really just wanted to stand up straight on its end.

“Okay,” I thought. “I guess I’m beginning to get acquainted with this sort of Frida-based weirdness. Now there are paintings doing balancing acts. That’s cool.” I looked back up at the poster. She was still staring at me – looking more and more alive.

I found myself a little distracted, working on some other thing a while later in the kitchen when I heard a loud >bang< from the studio room. “Shit! The painting!” I’d left it standing on end, completely disregarding the fact that this is not how a painting is meant to be left and now I envisioned, as I bounded in the direction of the studio, poor Frida lying at a horrific angle with some sort of street-scavenged debris driven spike-like through her forehead. But what I found was different than what I’d imagined. To my amazement I saw the painting still standing upright! What had fallen down was a wooden sign that I had hung on the wall near the Frida poster. Maybe she decided she needed the space… I took the sign and put it with some other objects in the corner rather than back up on the wall near my new friend. She seemed to almost be calling the shots. Her energy was sort of aggressive… no nonsense.

Suddenly I needed music! I’d been moving stuff around lately – reconsidering every inch of my apartment… rebuilding and moving my new studio into my former bedroom. The shelf that housed the stereo had just been moved a few days earlier in a fantastic space-saving act but the speaker wires were all hammered down, tucked out of sight and it was a bit of a chore I’d been avoiding to rewire them. But now I needed music. It’d been days.

Throwing furniture, boxes & paintings out of the way, I violently ripped the poor cables out, staple nails flying from their footholds until I had the whole bundle of wire at my disposal. “Just for the time being,” I thought as I flung the wires up over the door, behind a frame and up over to the stereo’s new home. There were stacks and racks of papers on top of the stereo that had to be filed and sorted (or were they already??) but more importantly they had to be moved in order to plug in the speaker wires - so I fumbled and yanked and shoved and grunted, wires in my teeth, racks and stacks in toppling bundles in my arms until -fwoop- the whole mess began to tumble over-board… slow motion cascade… unidentifiable papers and forms slipping behind the shelf destined not to be seen for a lifetime. As they careened downwards on gravity’s command, I made one ditch effort to save whatever my jutting grip could grasp – when into my hand fell solid and solitary a crisp issue of National Geographic. Of course. I understood immediately.

On the cover was a wolf. I knew in less than an instant that this would be the source of images for the element of collage that would save the Frida painting. She had practically thrown it at me. Above the shelf where the stereo now rested she started down at me, motionless in silent reassurance that yes without a doubt SHE had slapped that book of vibrant photographs into my hand. This was her choice. I felt a twinge of understanding.

So I got to work. I leapt into a frenzy of tearing the brightest, boldest and oddest images I could find out of the magazine… wolves – yes! carnivorous plants – yes! mummies, Nasca Lines – yes! Everything that came out of that book seemed as if it were bespoke specifically for Frida. I remembered my atlas – a big old book of maps with some amazing aerial photographs of the earth. I tore out a condor’s view of the Amazon, an eagle’s version of the Mississippi and some mountain ranges. When I had a stack ready to go, I set to work placing them with tape then glue onto the acrylic portrait that still stood on end in my studio.

(here it is when I began it... as of now it's still in the works :)

I dug in like mad – a true rush of inspiration gripped the wheel and the silly disconnectedness of the day drifted weightlessly into the awkward nostalgia file.

The landforms, rivers and clouds that’d been shot from above wrapped around her gleaming visage effortlessly illustrating the raw earthiness that her spirit embodies as bits of meat-eating botanicals sprouted in her bosom, wolves and poisonous snakes in her hair and the mummified remains of an ancient indigenous woman moaning on her collar bone.

For so long I had been dying for some deeper meaning in my work. I’d written over and over for years on end questioning the role (or lack) of symbolism in my work – what direction to take? – how to utilize this powerful element with grace and effectiveness? I’d even written rather defensively about it on a few occasions, stating that I’d purposely eliminated literal symbolism from my work entirely. Looking back it seems as though I just didn’t know how to deal with it. I’ve always been averse to obviousness – which I still see as the antithesis of artfulness – and misuse of symbols is generally where obviousness can be found. Essentially my desire to retain an element of unpredictability – since surprise is the greatest gift an art-seeker can hope to discover – is what drove me to shy away from the use of charged imagery. I’ve so often seen symbolism used so heavy-handedly – so irresponsibly - and I wanted to be sure to preserve the sublime aspects of understatement in some fashion. I agonized over the subject matter in my work – these simple portraits – where to take them, what to bring to them.

Looking back I recognize how the concept of collage began becoming gradually ever more apparent in my work. There was the self-portrait I’d painted in ‘05 where I’d pasted an anatomical rendering of a heart onto my chest… in my Mr. Pink portrait for Two Boots I included torn pages from an old magicians mail order catalogue as background texture. And I always liked the way it worked. More recently I was commissioned to paint a portrait of Allen Ginsburg and surrounded his face with collaged images of buildings from the Lower East Side and East Village.

But I had never REALLY used collage until I painted the portrait of a little Tibetan girl. As I’ve come to do as a matter of course, I’d torn into a National Geographic – just gutting it from end to end until I’d devoured the entire thing leaving it a spine attached to a mass of shredded book-flesh. In the Tibetan portrait, for the first time in my work the photographic images sprang to life – encircling and enshrouding the central figure with fragmented layers of color, meaning, scale and texture. I remember laughing out loud in eureka-esque moments as bits of overlapping suggestion and implication fell into place effortlessly.

Now rather than a sort of open-ended simplicity around a loose narrative of subtle implication, there was this carnival of inter-related overlap where endless symbioses thrived. It was like adding another million monkeys to the typing session… that much more Shakespeare began to emerge!

Now by proxy of symbolic overload I had created more layers of meaning than I could ever wish for. Finally my work meant something.

Pure physical fatigue began to set in as I fizzled to a pit stop with the newly collaged Frida portrait. I needed a break. It was 2am and I’d been working for hours. I must have been shoved out the door by someone (any guesses?) because I suddenly found myself on the sidewalk in front of my building.

“What am I doing here?” I asked myself. I had no idea why I had gathered up my keys, wallet, etc and shuffled down the stairs and out the door onto Houston Street. I looked out at the night… the street… the cars… My car! Where did I park? OH SHIT!!! I left it in that friggin’ film-shoot tow-zone and I was supposed to move it by 10!!!!”

“It’s towed,” I thought. “There’s no way its not towed by now. I was supposed to move it 4 hours ago.” I became immediately resigned to the fact that somehow I would need to get the $200 or so needed to get it out of the pound tomorrow. I didn’t have the money for this. “Damn you, Frida! Got me all so distracted with my artwork that I dropped the ball.” It didn’t seem fair. Somehow – as I suppose people are apt to feel in these situations – I thought that since I was following my true calling and doing just what I really ought to be doing with my life, this type of result oughtn’t come of it. Just plain sucked.

“Is there any way in hell its still there on 7^th Street??” It just didn’t seem possible. “Frida!” I hollered. “You got me into this. You can make my car still be there, can’t you? You want to prove yourself to me? Show me that you really exist? Then let me find my car parked just where I left it and I will never doubt you again.” And I took off running. It was after 2 in the morning on a Wednesday night and the streets were all but empty. I ran like a man possessed in a line-drive for 7^th and A. “I know its still there! I know it!” I huffed as I wheezed along speedily. “There’s no way its there,” my dependably negative self-destructive side chimed in.

I didn’t know what I would see when I turned that corner but I honestly expected a very empty block. Those film people didn’t mess around or make exceptions. They were all business. And when I turned the corner I saw 2 things that made me jump. The first was a tow truck that had its victim already wrapped in its gossamer grip – there was no saving that one – and just beyond that, under the shower of the tow truck’s heart-beat dappling of amber light in an otherwise dark and empty street, sat my truck surrounded by orange cones – very clearly the last in line – the next fly in the web just primed to be ingested by the City of New York.

It was a bona-fide miracle. She’d done it. Frida had come through. She’d saved me. That was it. I was convinced. Ne’er more would I doubt my newly discovered spirit guide. I now knew beyond belief that she was looking out for me.

Letting out a whoop of bewildered victory (I had felled Goliath!) I fumbled for my keys as the film’s crewman sauntered over and said,”Well you must be the luckiest sucker on earth cuz your car has been here all night and was gonna disappear in about TWO MINUTES!!” His voice creshendowed as he reached the end of his sentence and my eyes wild with life amidst the amber flashes could do no more than mumble a smattering of “I know”s and “yeah, right, wow”s.

I was never so happy to sit down on that plasticky bench seat in my cruddy little rattle-trap. I turned the key and breathed a long heaving gust of relief out over the dash. I collapsed back onto the seat my head thrown back against the head-rest. My eyes fell to pause on a clipping of paper held to the sun visor on the passenger side. Frida! Another one! For whatever reason after seeing the Philadelphia show, Oriah or I had stuck this little print of yet another Frida self-portrait to the visor. Of course there were no other images of any kind inside the car. Nothing else at all but this little forgotten snip of yet another Frida face.

“Ok,” I said. “I got you. Its for real.” I smiled to myself in the dark and drove away.

Final Call for Entries - Governors Island Art Fair NYC - Deadline August 20th

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:03:00 -0400

Open to artists in all media, The 2nd Annual Governors Island Art Fair, New York City is seeking talent. No cost to exhibit if chosen.

Visit www.4heads.org for info and submission form. Each artist gets their own room to exhibit in a former military bunker on the island for every weekend of September. Over 100 exhibition spaces will be available. The fair is also open to galleries. Volunteers are encouraged to sign up to help make it all happen.

Sponsorships available on barter or cash and donations are graciously accepted.

Good Luck!

Zito

Zito chills with P Diddy and Q Tip - of course

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:38:00 -0400

Hey thanks to everyone who came out to the opening last week at GalleryBar. It was a friggin amazing event and I painted watercolor and acrylic portraits until 2am. Sorry if I didn't get to you but here's the good news.... I will be there working on portraits most Fri and Sat nites from 9-1am (check before coming if ur going out of ur way) and every Sun afternoon from 2-7pm. I'm going to be doing this schedule until Sept 2 - the closing reception. I'm also working by appointment so get in touch with me if none of these times work for you.
Check out some photos from the opening. Remember - these are rapid-fire paintings and you will be back on the sidewalk strolling in about 10 or 15 minutes. Acrylics are painted on found materials - of which there are many to choose from - but feel free to bring your favorite flea market junk to be immortalized on - trays, cabinet doors, old paintings, prints, book covers, mirrors, etc, etc. As well as live portraits, feel free to bring a foto of someone you love (or hate - I can do mean ugly portraits too!) or your favorite deceased pop star or vapid pill-popping 70s supermodel. The offer is still on to win the 4' x 5' (48" x 60") portrait of your choosing - a piece normally priced at 10K- custom created from a foto provided by you. (In case you don't know about this) when you come to sit for a live watercolor or acrylic portrait, your piece becomes part of the current exhibition and your name is entered into the drawing to win the big painting. Minimum donation for an acrylic piece is $100 and for watercolors you can pay anything from $40 - $100 BUT you have to pay at least $100 for your portrait to get your name in the drawing. So we choose the winner at the Closing Reception which will be held yet again at GalleryBar - 120 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side on Wed Sept. 2 from 7-10. This will be your last opportunity to sign up for the drawing - and even if you don't get your portrait painted by that time you can still be in the game (as long as you lay down that C note!) As for you "outta-towners and world travellers", don't feel left out! Send me a foto and let me know what you'd like - do this by Sept 1 and you will be in the drawing for the big kahuna too. Ok I'm outta breath - NYC has been crazy this summer, between Art Battles events like the one at StuyTown Oval where Sundance Channel was filming us, to SummerStage where I recently did a portrait of QTip and met him and (???) P Diddy. I shit you not. One of the weirdest moments of my life. Driving home I saw him on a 200' tall billboard in Times Square and I said to myself, "Hey. I just shook hands with that guy." New York has got to be the weirdest place on earth. I'll also be painting Chrissy Hynde, Juliette Lewis and Cat Power at the Pretenders show happening soon at Summer Stage (thats Central Park). now I'm really exhausted and obviously no-one has read on thru this far so I can say things like lugiffit gutsmell potsnpandering newbananadeli funkshoe dooble strank voit voit fug nut. bye. Zito

Zito MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES Exhibit, Live Painting, Chance to win $10K portrait this Wed 7/15/09

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:02:00 -0400

Hello Art Lover! Oh have I got something for you! Ok so I'm doing this show at GalleryBar on Orchard Street - just another boring exhibition with a bunch of scribbles on the wall, right? NO!! This time its different! Yes, I will be doing my live painting - both watercolors on paper and acrylics on found materials... come and be painted - BUT this time - when you sign up for a portrait - you get entered into a prize drawing to win a 4ft. x 5ft. portrait canvas painted by me from any photo you provide - it can be of you, Grandma, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Farrah Faucet, the King of Siam, Oprah Winfrey, the Grand Dragon of the... no - I take that back - But you get the idea.... a huge amazing Zito portrait worth $10,000 yours for the price of a small watercolor. can ya beat it? Am I a used car salesman or what??? (No offense to my brother-in-law) but I love coming up with these crazy things. Anyways, the press release with all the details is below - the who, what, when, where bizo ... I will be hanging around Orchard Street a lot this summer - the show is up till Sept 7th. The opening is this coming Wed 7/15 from 7-10, DJ Kymber Lee is spinning the good stuff and some musician pals of mine will be making a guest appearance as well as some new crazy celebrity pals of mine (???) Then the closing is Sept 2 and thats when we announce the winner. If u can't get to GalleryBar for a live portrait (u can make an appointment with me via email or phone) then you can send me a photo and as long as you make the arrangements by Sept 1, you will be in the running for the big prizeeohholycrapola!!! Here's the press release: (download pdf) CONTACT: Susan Blond, Inc. Dani Dalesandro, 212.333.7728 x120 | danid@susanblondinc.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES: A COLLECTION OF PORTRAITS BY ANTONY ZITO ON DISPLAY AT GALLERYBAR ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE A Showcase Of The Artist's Work From July 15 %u213 September 7, 2009 New York, NY (July 7, 2009) %u213Visionary Lower East Side artist Antony Zito returns to GalleryBar (120 Orchard Street between Rivington and Delancey) with a new exhibit of portraits entitled Multiple Personalities from July 15th %u213 September 7th. Twenty of Zito's best works, painted in various styles and mediums, will be on display at the Lower East Side space, which will double as his studio for the summer. Highlights will include a large-scale portrait of President Obama (enamel on masonite, 48" x 96") as well as a 2006 piece entitled "Mercedes" (enamel and latex on found canvas). In the evenings and on Sundays when Orchard Street is closed off to pedestrian traffic, Zito will offer his signature 15-minute watercolor portraits to patrons on a suggested donation basis. These portraits will be incorporated into the show daily, expanding it by hundreds over the course of the summer. Patrons who choose to pay the full suggested donation price of $100 for their watercolor portrait will then be entered into a drawing to win a large scale painting (4'x5') created to their own specifications by the sought-after artist from a photo provided by the winner. As a Zito original, the piece will be valued at $10,000. Zito will also be painting quick-draw acrylic portraits on found materials for patrons who wish to have their image duplicated on a mirror, door, chair or other surface. Purchasers of these works will also be entered into the end-of-summer drawing (scheduled for the evening of Wednesday, September 2nd) and have their piece incorporated into the exhibit. Throughout the course of Zito's show, GalleryBar will host a number of performance events including a live jazz combo at the exhibit's opening on July 15th from 7-10pm. This will be followed by Reverend Jen's Anti-Slam (a live poetry and spoken word freak out), Art Battles (a live painting competition), and many more. In conjunction with Zito's summer exhibit, GalleryBar will also feature "Cocktail Hour" Monday through Friday where the venue will offer 50% off all specialty cocktails between 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm. Cocktail Hour provides the ideal opportunity for New Yorkers to socialize with friends while reveling in the prolific work of New York artist Antony Zito. "Zito can capture your essence by painting on a found object for 20 minutes more effectively than more formal and pretentious artists can do by fussing on a canvas for weeks. A genius!" - Michael Musto of the Village Voice. About GalleryBar: Owned by Darin Rubell and Josh Boyd, GalleryBar is one of the Lower East Side's most unique venues. Located at 120 Orchard Street, GalleryBar is a traditional art gallery space by day, exhibiting works from both emerging and established artists. In the evenings, GalleryBar transitions into a bi-level lounge, boasting two separate bars on each floor. GalleryBar offers the opportunity to socialize with friends while experiencing the newest offerings on the art scene, making it an ideal marriage of nightlife and culture.

Art and the Lower East Side

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:06:00 -0400

When I was asked to speak at an event about art in The Lower East Side, my first thought was, "I might piss a lot of people off." I have strong feelings and opinions about this neighborhood and the how it's changed so dramatically over the past decade. Its generally been pretty difficult to watch and sometimes even traumatic. But through it all I've learned a lot. I've learned how important it is to accept change, to roll with it and even thrive in it.

It's interesting to me that I have a chance to speak on the themes of Art and Home at a venue in the Lower East Side. This is my home and art is my life. So this should be easy for me. But honestly, when you're so close to something, so surrounded by it, it can appear overwhelming to assess. There are so many thoughts, so many feelings, ideas and opinions that it seems difficult to arrange them into a cohesive presentation. It's sort of jumbled up in my head and piled layer upon layer, stacked and packed-in onto itself with ideas shooting off at every angle of color, sound, form and emotion. A lot like the Lower East Side itself.

Anyone you ask - from the jaded homesteaders to the trust fund newbies - can tell you, this used to be a different kind of place. Ask the Latinos what has happened. Ask the Orthodox Jews, the Ukrainians, Germans, Irish and Italians who all came before the Latinos. It's never been anything but a shifting stage. It is a place that personifies Change. Ever since the Dutch showed up trading with their fingers crossed behind their backs, this place has been all about "out with the old – in with the new". There has been little regard for history or what came before. It's always been about new creatures coming to nest in the trees of the older ones. It's a lot like the early European settlers and their approach to the Native Americans. We all come here, year after year and - after a while – we end up saying, "This place is mine now." And in order for someone to feel at home, maybe that attitude is necessary.

In a city as vast and complex as New York, there can be no true gauge of its activity. The circles of influence and creative flux seem to overlap in infinite patterns in all directions. So what do I know about the Lower East Side and its art scene? Only what I've seen and been a part of myself. I actually consider myself a latecomer to this place. I've only been in the neighborhood for 17 years. And when I arrived, it was pretty real and pretty raw. It still had the whiff of the Wild West about it. I came to NY because I didn't have anything else to do – not because I'd always dreamed of it. I was in a band in Massachusetts and my crazy guitar player had landed a job at his uncle's button and zipper factory in Midtown. Glamorous, I know. A very bored and somewhat loyal rhythm section, we followed him here. I looked all over New York for a place to live and the cheapest rent I could find was in the East Village. I'd never even heard of The Lower East Side or Avenue A or Ludlow Street or Alphabet City or Loisaida. But it didn't take me long to realize I had discovered the heart of town. It also didn't take me long to realize that I had arrived a little late and had missed the real action. All I had to do was chat with anyone who looked remotely interesting and I would be regaled with stories of the old days. In the same way that I'd always wished I'd been here to experience the culture of the 60s – to hear Hendrix play or to meet Picasso - I began to wish I'd been a part of the art and music scene in New York a decade earlier. But that never made a real difference to me. As far as I could tell, this was the craziest place on earth and I loved it.

Everywhere I looked were wild characters, with freaky hair and tattered clothes – brilliantly and effortlessly styled. I loved the fact that I could sense the level of someone's creative intelligence by the way they looked. I felt like I could very clearly see an indication of what they were about by the way they dressed and the way they spoke. It was a sort of tribal affiliation that was worn on the sleeve that said – "I'm free. I do things my own way and I fly in the face of the establishment." There was the pervasive air of anarchy – of complete disgust with the status quo. Everyone seemed to live outside the norm, on the fringes of society – out of the box and out of reach.

With this passionate rejection of the system as we saw it, came adherence to another code of ethics. Our insistent non-conformity caused us to be attached to other ideas and burdens. The saddest aspect of youthful rebellion and the reckless punk rock lifestyle was the particular monkeys that we allowed to crawl up our backs. Lots of people were on drugs, which you could buy on the street if you wanted – anytime night or day. I was never interested in the hard stuff myself because to me it was obvious that the folks who were, didn't seem to be having the easiest time of it. But a lot of truly brilliant souls did get caught up in it and it was really difficult to watch them become strung out, and end up in rehab, in jail or dead. Heroin was particularly popular in the 90s for some reason. It was everywhere. I hated the stuff because I saw what it could do. I watched people's faces sink, teeth fall out and their bones begin to crumble. I learned some hard lessons during that time. I watched too many potential geniuses fade away to nothing.

There were lots of people squatting back then, living in abandoned buildings – which weren't too hard to find. Those of us that were paying rent weren't paying much – but we complained about it none-the-less. It was a culture of getting by on what you had. There was the air of invention and resourcefulness that I suppose a lot of us inherited from our depression-era families. We could make art or music out of anything. We could make a party out of anything. All we needed was some space, some things to make music with, some fire, some fire-water and some good company. It was about turning nothing into something – about turning trash into art. It was about churning up new ideas and flipping things inside out to see what they were made of. There was an almost entirely pervasive element to art and fashion at the time. Almost every painting, sculpture, fashion statement or musical experience you encountered was an inspired organic occurrence – it was always something that had been haphazardly, often effortlessly arranged into art from everyday stuff. We used whatever we could find to make whatever we wanted and lived in a funny little bubble where everyone seemed to be on the same page. Everyone I knew was an artist or a musician who was just squeaking by on a mission to keep on doing whatever they were doing with a passion that ranged from lazy to feverish.

It also didn't take long for me to realize that I myself was a newbie and that I was part of this big change that was happening in the cultural landscape of the neighborhood. And it wasn't all good. We were from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Philly. We pow-wowed with freaks from all over the globe but a very small percentage of them were actually born and raised in New York City. Sure, it was the melting pot but that didn't mean everyone was welcome everywhere. Even so, we felt like we were at home and as time went on, we paid our dues and did our time until we became convinced that this place belonged to us as much as it did anyone else. I've always known to respect those who've come before me and I was generally pretty careful not to step on anyone's toes. I made friends with the old crazy coots who ranted and raved on my block. I lived next door to Eddie Boros, the nutty old guy who built the tower of junk and toys that used to stand in the 6B Garden. He was in his late sixties when we met and we had a lot in common. He, like all the other artists in the neighborhood, was into collecting junk and making stuff out of it. He made insane unplayable instruments and wobbly unride-able bikes. They tore his tower down recently - immediately after he died – a real sign of the times.

As I said before, I kinda missed the whole thing – only caught the tail end of the 80s art scene, but I was there for some of it and I became part of it instantly. Around 1993, I started booking shows at the Gas Station that included art exhibitions and bands. I don't know if anyone had the foresight or the means to shoot any video during these shows but they're still alive in the memories of all who were there for it. For me they turned out to be the reason I had come to the city after all.

I started my NY art career by hanging my paintings in the Mars Bar and eventually moved on to staging exhibitions and rock shows at CBGBs and CBs Gallery. I put together a thing called The New York Rock Circus, that featured bands, performance artists, film projections and even a freak parade from Tomkins Square Park. When we hung our work at the gallery, we didn't care if we sold it – we just wanted to hang it up and see what it was about. It kind of blew our minds to see our paintings up on such big white walls. We really just wanted reactions and opinions. We thought we might find some encouragement, although no amount of criticism would slow us down. And when we did sell stuff, we went wild.

As we became more involved in what was going on in our neighborhood, we noticed more and more artists and punks coming around to be part of it all. Great bands were playing every night, small theaters were hosting insane performances, art shows were being thrown up in crazy places. It was all pretty radical, experimental and unpredictable. There were the brilliant drag shows at the Pyramid and art shows at Bullet Space. There was the absolute insanity of the Rivington School and the Gas Station, Gargoyle Mechanique and Collective Unconscious. There was Surf Reality, Todo Con Nada, House of Candles and ABC No Rio. The most damning incident – the defining moment that made it clear to me that things would never be the same again – was when they tore the Gas Station down. It broke my heart.

The Gas Station, for those of you that don't know, was this amazing construction of scrap metal and junk that had been welded together in the most insane and beautiful way. It was a corner of a city block – on B and 2nd street – that had been turned into a bewildering cage of rusty bars, fences, cars and motorcycles up in mid-air, with cat-walks and archways spanning the space. It was a wide-open yard with a little workshop in the back. During the hardcore shows there were barrels of fire burning out in the yard with all sorts of freaky looking maniacs climbing over and perched up in the criss-crossing metal structure. It's actually impossible to describe. But suffice it to say that when I discovered this place I knew I had arrived at my determined destination. And one day a wrecking crew came and tore it all down. I was destroyed. I watched in absolute shock as over the next few months a bland, lifeless brick structure went up in its place. I couldn't hate any building more than I did that one.

That experience left me pretty jaded and bitter. We had hardly seemed to notice as all around us rents started going up. But at one point we did suddenly notice things had begun to change rather dramatically. Things were always changing but this time it was different. Who were these people moving into the neighborhood that didn't seem to fit? They weren't artists or musicians and they certainly weren't Latinos or Ukrainians. As if out of nowhere, our little bubble was burst with the dawn of the yuppie. Who were the yuppies and where did they come from? And what was it about them that bothered us so much? I did have friends that lived very conservative lives but most of them lived somewhere else. Why did it make me so angry to see these Young Urban Professionals moving into my precious little neighborhood? The answer was simple. I knew it meant the gradual end of our lifestyle as we knew it. To me this was a place set aside for immigrant families of various ethnic backgrounds and for people who lived and breathed creative and expressive lives. Around here you were either old world or old school and these people were neither. It was about the time when the slogan, "Die Yuppie Scum!" started to appear sprayed on the walls and sidewalks. In retrospect, I guess these folks were actually pretty brave to move into our neighborhood but in essence we had made it easy for them. Where there was once the volatile threat of drug dealers and addicts, prostitutes and violence, there was now also just a bunch of artists and musicians. And who could feel threatened by that?

I suppose in some sense we were more afraid of them than they were of us. We knew that their appearance spelled the end of our cultural renaissance and we were pissed off about it. The story is always the same... the neighborhood is dangerous, over-run with crime and no one wants to live there. The artists and musicians don't care – they just want cheap rent – and besides they like the look of the old buildings and consider the rough parts of the neighborhood an adventure. As more and more creative people move into the area, it naturally starts to look and feel different. It gradually becomes a bit less dangerous and a lot more colorful. A cultural shift occurs with art as its pivot-point. The small-time media picks up on it first. The fanzines and independent papers start to report on what's happening until sooner or later it becomes the center of attention. As the technology of media began to evolve with the growing popularity and functionality of the internet and more information began to spread, the inevitable use of a new word arose. The "G" word. Gentrification. Who knew what that even meant just a few years earlier? But there it was, suddenly rolling off of everyone's lips... gentrification, gentrification, gentrification.

Then came another nasty "G" word: Guiliani. And along with this very pleasant and presentable individual came his "zero tolerance" cops. They were here of course to reinforce what they liked to call the "Quality of Life". He was casually referred to at that time as "Adolf Guiliani". Suddenly everyone was getting arrested. If you were drinking a beer or smoking a joint on the street you got locked up. If you were selling your art on the sidewalk without a license, your work was confiscated. Bars and clubs were fined and eventually shut down all over town. People were getting ticketed and fined for dancing or performing without a cabaret license. They came with cranes and wrecking balls in the middle of the night and started knocking down the squats. People who lived in these buildings lost everything they owned and were forced to stand and watch as their buildings were torn down without notice, their lives and posessions being destroyed and their pets being crushed to death in the rubble.

Now everything was really different. You could get stopped on the street and thrown against the wall with a gun to your head for no reason at all. It happened to me one afternoon while I was walking down the street carrying a book. They said it looked like a gun. Rents continued to go higher and higher as mom-n-pop shops were shuttered one after another to make room for corporate chain stores. The mohawks and leathers on the streets were swapped out for suits and ties and the pervasive style that drove the new culture became one of flip-flops and baseball caps. All the freaks had left town. They had lost their dirt-cheap apartments and squats and had no applicable job skills. They either had to get a job, become an entrepreneur or move out. Most of them just moved out. And those of us who found a way to stick around became bitter.

Things had gotten so weird, so fast that none of us knew what to do. We were shocked and angry at the way things had gone. A lot of us worked doubly hard at maintaining our fragile lifestyles but we were forced to change the way we approached everything. One of my favorite jokes is this one... "How many East Villagers does it take to screw in a light bulb?" The answer is, "Ten. One to do the screwing and nine to stand around complaining about how much better the old light bulb was." And it was true. It was a pretty goddamn great light bulb – and we missed it. Here I had found my sort of art school dream – an entire community in the heart of the greatest city on earth, where everywhere was a twisted genius of some kind – mad scientists of all ages and genders, working away deep into the dawn on wicked creations – passionate echoes of truth and grit, my tribe, my people... and suddenly it was all being swept away. Who wouldn't be pissed off? And so for a while I became one of those curmudgeonly old cranks who pined for the old days. Everyone and everything seemed to rub me the wrong way.

As time wore on, I slowly began to lighten up, but it did take time. And the fact that I came from an Italian background didn't help with my grudge-dropping technique. But after a while, I realized I wasn't one of those people who could ruin my own life because I didn't know how to let go of the past. I knew life was all about change and that this was a tough lesson for me but one I needed to grow from.

A few years back I saw Clayton Patterson's footage of the Tompkins Square Riots of '88 and his videos of GG Allin's last show at the Gas Station in the early '90s. It was a huge shock for me to watch this film because all at once I realized that I had become so accustomed to what the neighborhood had turned into that I really forgot how raw and insane it used to be. The weird thing was that I had changed a lot over these years too - not nearly as much as my beloved neighborhood had, but enough that it was suddenly very apparent to me. If you didn't live here back in the day and you haven't seen the film "Captured" by Clayton Patterson – you need to. Clayton is the guy with the long beard, the embroidered skull on his hat and a camera in his hand 24/7. Somehow you will see Clayton whenever anything important, interesting or controversial is happening and he'll be filming it. Do whatever you have to do to see a copy of this film. This is the most accurate and concise history that exists of the East Village and the Lower East Side in the past few decades. I hope that one day Clayton's entire library of photos and films will be made available to the general public. He has thousands of hours of video and even more photos of what has gone on around here over the years. It's a brilliant archive – one deserving of its own museum.

The culture of the Lower East Side seems to ebb in a certain way. Of course so much of the way things appear, depends upon one's perspective. And as open-minded as we all may think that we are, we only have our personal experience to fall back on as the basis for our own individual bias. But one thing is particularly clear to me in taking an overall measure of the area. It has always been a sort of energetic vortex where art, craft and creativity have thrived. No matter how it changes, it always seems to reinvent itself in a new and unexpected way. No matter how many corporate and impersonal establishments bring their brand of commerce to the neighborhood, there are always a handful more of entrepreneurial shops and interesting projects that pop up, as if in defiance. Although it clearly is coming from a different angle than it once was, there are still multitudes of little places open to the public where you can find someone working away at bringing their own personal expression to the world. And now we see a flood of new galleries opening on every quiet little block. They seem to be flocking around the New Museum as if begging to be included – asking to be accepted as a valid part of this new swell.

Its true that Iggy Pop has moved to Miami and Lou Reed isn't around anymore. Allen Ginsberg, GG Allin and Quentin Crisp are dead. It's true that Jasper Johns' former studio is now a cheesy nightclub featuring chip-n-dales dancers. Its true that all but a few of the old tenement buildings now exist in the shadow of some new hotel or condo and their windows and floors shake with construction tremors every weekday morning. It's true that there is no more Rivington School or Gas Station. Its true there is no more CBGBs – no more Johnny Thunders. But we still have Jim Jarmusch, Taylor Meade, Penny Arcade, Kembra Phahler, Debra Harry, Patti Smith and so many of the other old school folks who helped make this place what it is. Many have left but so many still hang onto their fragile leases with defiant hands. A lot of them have learned how to make their talents pay off and are doing really well in spite of the change.

The intense energy of this particular part of Manhattan will never really die because it always has been and always will be a cultural center. Wherever they still exist, we have the beautiful carvings on the old buildings that our immigrant ancestors worked to create, which seem to hum to us as we hurry past on our crowded agendas. But for someone like me, who feels caught in between what once was and what now is, the trick is to respect the past and acknowledge its heroes, while keeping the spirit of wonder and discovery alive today. The challenge is to accept all that is swirling around me as the entire state of the world changes and to do whatever I can to create for myself and for those who appreciate it, the kind of artwork that reflects this reverence. Reverence for the irreverent heroes that walked these same streets. So much has changed but their energy remains paced into the sidewalks and floors, steeped into the walls and the very air we breathe.

The trick is - of course – can you live your life and do what you do best, without altering it or watering it down to please someone else – and still live comfortably? Can you do what you would do for free anyways and still get paid? For me, it's pretty easy. I love to paint. I know that. I like people and I like to paint people. I love to collect junk off the streets of the Lower East Side and, whenever I can, I paint portraits of people on the stuff I find.

My great grandparents showed up at the docks of Ellis Island in 1890. My grandfather left the Bronx for a better life in Connecticut during the Depression. My father, my greatest teacher and strongest creative influence, was a classicist. He painted sprawling canvases more or less in the style of Titian and he created classical sculpture in stone, clay and bronze. I inherited a strong sense of tradition from him and I carry that through in my own painting. Of course, a generation makes a difference and my brushstrokes can cross over from stark and graphic to loose and expressionistic, from refined realism to pure abstraction and my use of materials found on the street take it to another arena entirely. But I will never shake what he instilled in me – this respect for history and antiquity. I work on found materials because I appreciate the historic narrative that certain objects inherently exude.

After ten years in NY, I was lucky enough to have opened a small gallery on Ludlow Street – just on the heels of 9/11 – and this turned out to have been an indispensable catalyst for my career. I shut down Zito Studio Gallery in September 2006, yet as we speak plans are underway for the next incarnation.

So what do I know about the art scene on the Lower East Side? It's hard to say. Right now, not much. I don't read the right magazines. I never make it to the important shows. It's always seemed to me to be a bit too much work. I go to see works by people I know and visit the old school galleries that still exist. And I pop in and out of the new ones once ina while too. Downtown is my home and no matter how much it changes it has a heart and a pulse that I hope will never fade. But sometimes, after so much change, I wonder if the heart of the LES is truly gone. Then every once in a while it will catch me off guard and prove me wrong all over again. Although it feels a bit awkward to me at times, I do appreciate that it has become a new center for art. And sometimes some of it can be pretty great. It certainly makes for a better stroll than the cold industrial streets of West Chelsea.

I don't fear change. In fact I love it. I revel in it and I know it is the essence of everything that this reality is based on. What I hate is bad architechture – what I refer to as visual pollution. Maybe my greatest fear is that the whole world will someday look like Midtown and there will be no more villages. This is a village and its being trod upon. I look forward to a time when art and development will see eye to eye. I hope I will live to see the day when assimilation and respect for local culture will become a part of profit and commerce. It is too easy for some folks to overlook art and beauty as a luxury, when in actuality it is culture, and the true center of this life while all other things exist in response to it.

So I guess what I've been trying to say is that things have changed around here. Soon enough my point of view will become entirely irrelevant – if it hasn't already. On days when it gets too crazy in NY sometimes I wonder if there will actually come a day when I pick up and leave for good. I know NY is addicting and I know I'm kinda hooked. I've always known that just like in a Grimm's fairy tale, this is the place to come to seek your fortune. I know I can't do what I want to do in a small town in the middle of nowhere. But who knows. Life is full of surprises. Our ideas change. Perceptions change. Circumstances change. Neighborhoods change. Styles change. Values change. Buildings change. Tastes change. Our bodies change. Our minds change. Our friends change, our families change.

This neighborhood has taught me to accept change and to do my best to understand everything as it evolves around me and through me. Clinging to the past or the way things are is a sure way to a miserable life. I may not be in love with all that I see around me but I can do my best to remain as one with change.