This is not particularly fun...
Despite the gallows humor that pervades the sidewalk in front of Dewey & LeBoeuf, there's something noxious about people making 40 thousand a year getting screwed by people making 4 million a year. Even now, after this exact theme has been wrestled with on dozens of my previous canvases, and even now, although many of the 40K folks appreciate the catharsis offered by a blue Sharpie and the white expanse of The Former Chairman, it's still not particularly fun to watch.
LawEnron is one of my favorite comments so far.
Logistically, I would rate yesterday a huge success. Many of these 6th Avenue buildings have sprawling plazas out front (in which I am not allowed to exhibit) and numerous enigmatic side doors through which employees enter and leave. 1301 Ave of Am is not one of them. I was able to set up the painting almost directly in front of the front door, at a distance of perhaps 30 feet. It was, actually, perfect.
In part because of this, Day One went well. For the first time in a long time, employee comments outnumbered general public comments. One guy wrote, if I remember correctly, "Can't be seen writing on this painting; still have a job," but the truth of the matter is that most people figured they didn't have anything to lose, so they grabbed a pen and had at it.
For a while, a reporter from American Lawyer was hanging out in front of the painting with a photographer. This, I can assure you, did dampen the participatory spirit. The headline of the related article referred to me as an "attention-seeking painter", which does piss me off. Not that it, de facto, isn't true. But it's the simplicity of the observation, the lack of any meaningful insight into what the hell is actually going on here (some of which requires the seeking of attention, even on a level as basic as saying to passers-by "Can I tempt you with a marker, sir?"), that disappoints me.
More on this later, but one last American Lawyer carp: I read the headline, become annoyed (see above) and try to read the full article, only to be stymied by my lack of a password. That really annoyed me. And for the record, I don't remember sending a press release to American Lawyer--which is what any self-respecting attention-seeking painter would have done. They just wandered up to me and asked me some questions. All I did was answer them. You could, in fact, suggest that they are the attention seekers--given their inflammatory headline--and I'm just one more working painter.
Fuck you.
This is what somebody wrote on my painting, and in no way an expletive directed at American Lawyer.
LawEnron is one of my favorite comments so far.
Logistically, I would rate yesterday a huge success. Many of these 6th Avenue buildings have sprawling plazas out front (in which I am not allowed to exhibit) and numerous enigmatic side doors through which employees enter and leave. 1301 Ave of Am is not one of them. I was able to set up the painting almost directly in front of the front door, at a distance of perhaps 30 feet. It was, actually, perfect.
In part because of this, Day One went well. For the first time in a long time, employee comments outnumbered general public comments. One guy wrote, if I remember correctly, "Can't be seen writing on this painting; still have a job," but the truth of the matter is that most people figured they didn't have anything to lose, so they grabbed a pen and had at it.
For a while, a reporter from American Lawyer was hanging out in front of the painting with a photographer. This, I can assure you, did dampen the participatory spirit. The headline of the related article referred to me as an "attention-seeking painter", which does piss me off. Not that it, de facto, isn't true. But it's the simplicity of the observation, the lack of any meaningful insight into what the hell is actually going on here (some of which requires the seeking of attention, even on a level as basic as saying to passers-by "Can I tempt you with a marker, sir?"), that disappoints me.
More on this later, but one last American Lawyer carp: I read the headline, become annoyed (see above) and try to read the full article, only to be stymied by my lack of a password. That really annoyed me. And for the record, I don't remember sending a press release to American Lawyer--which is what any self-respecting attention-seeking painter would have done. They just wandered up to me and asked me some questions. All I did was answer them. You could, in fact, suggest that they are the attention seekers--given their inflammatory headline--and I'm just one more working painter.
Fuck you.
This is what somebody wrote on my painting, and in no way an expletive directed at American Lawyer.
posted by Geoffrey at 7:05 AM
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