New York/The Bowery


Rainy morning, the Bowery and Bleecker Street — © Brian Rose

A few more thoughts about Kickstarter prompted by two recent articles, one in the New York Times by David Pogue, who writes a popular tech column, and the other by Jörg Colberg in his blog Conscientious. Kickstarter, for those of you who haven’t heard, is an internet fundraising platform for creative projects. It’s only been around for two years, but has become–at least in my circle–ubiquitous. Everyone says to everyone, oh you should raise the money on Kickstarter. As if it’s a sure fire way to fund your dreams. It could, indeed, be just the ticket. But based on my successful experience with it, I’d say don’t do it unless you are really serious about your project, your prospects for funding, and your ability to follow through on that dream and the promise that is made implicitly with your backers.

Consider, for instance, that your core backers–at least to get started–are your family, friends and colleagues. In the process of asking them for money you may discover that those with the means to support your project may, in fact, be extremely stingy. Some may strangely disappear into the woodwork, or become suddenly unavailable. Others will surprise. People who you thought were only casually interested in your work, some with very little money, will jump right in with a substantial donation. In running a Kickstarter campaign, you run the risk of damaging relationships with friends, or finding out things about your friends that you, maybe, would rather not know.

In the end, fortunately, I was able to extend my network further and many backers were people unknown to me, some who heard about the project from the publicity I was able to generate, and some who were part of the Kickstarter community–people who get pleasure sifting through the projects offered on Kickstarter’s website, supporting those that interest them. Ultimately, that is what this is about–building and tapping into a community of people who want to share in the creative process, who appreciate the simple notion that dropping a few bucks into the offering basket will sustain something worthwhile. Like church, the  fulfillment is often more spiritual than tangible. In my case, however, my 85 backers were essentially pre-ordering my book, and as it has turned out, getting it for  less than the final retail price.

David Pogue in the Times, seems to regard Kickstarter as another of those Internet  phenomena that makes sense to a younger generation of early adopters while leaving the rest of us baffled. At least that’s the rhetorical device the savvy Mr. Pogue uses to frame the subject, knowing, of course, that most of his readers probably haven’t yet heard of Kickstarter. He focuses on a handful of tech products that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars above their original goals. Product concepts that took off virally, given the fact that backers do not get a financial piece of the action, seem stupefying, even crazy. For my book project, there was no runaway viral infection. It was more of a slow fever that occasionally spiked up. Much of the time I just sat hunched over my computer screen in a sweat, monitoring the trickle of donations, sending out emails, thanking backers, and generally being a nervous wreck.

Reading through the comments about the Times piece I am surprised at the number of negative responses. A lot of people have trouble with the idea that project backers aren’t investors in the traditional sense–and that the money comes with no strings attached. It seems like cheating. It is clear that Kickstarter breaks all the rules and shakes up the establishment. The gatekeepers who control the flow of money, who man the curatorial/institutional ramparts, can finally be circumvented. The democratization of the marketplace has always been the promise of the internet, often unrealized. Kickstarter harnesses that promise, at least on a modest scale.

Talk about modest. Despite Pogue’s touting projects that achieved megabucks on Kickstarter, I managed to scrape together $11,000, enough to partially fund my book Time and Space on the Lower East Side. As a freelance artist severely buffeted by the winds of the “great recession,” I have trouble landing commercial photography assignments, much less acquiring the money to pursue book projects costing tens of thousands of dollars. There are few grants available for artists in this country. We do not, apparently, as a society, believe that government should support individual artists. And most institutional support of the arts goes to other institutions like museums, symphonies, non profits that promote the arts but do little for struggling artists. Every year thousands of artists apply for NYFA (New York State) grants, and the relative handful who get selected receive significantly less than the $11,000 I made on Kickstarter. Every year hundreds of photographers apply for Guggenheim grants, and four or five get selected.  Last year I applied for money from the Graham Foundation, a Chicago based organization that funds architecture related projects, mostly to academics. It was a long shot, but I applied for money to photograph the architecture and landscape of megachurches putting a good deal of effort into the application. Had I been selected–I was not–I would have received much less than $11,000. And what do you do once you’ve applied for one of these grants? You sit on your duff for months while committees of the wise decide how to divvy up a pittance.

I have always avoided saying this, but I will now. Applying for these grants is a waste of time. It’s time to walk away. Kickstarter, and other up and coming models, offer a much better way to raise money for individual artists. It isn’t perfect. Jörg Colberg of Concientious has problems with the all-or-nothing aspect of Kickstarter. He thinks there should be more flexibility in setting goals. His point is well taken, though I understand why Kickstarter does it. Additionally, Kickstarter is a business, and both they and Amazon,  which handles the dolling out of money take significant chunks of the pie. But seriously, I am prouder of my recent Kickstarter achievement than the New York State grant I got way back in 1980 or the NEA photographic survey grant I got in 1982. Except for a few projects I’ve done which were initiated by non profits–projects I did not choose on my own–I have been shut out of by the grant giving institutions since then. With Kickstarter I was able to mobilize my resources, take control of the process, and work with others to realize my goal.

It’s time to make the grant gatekeepers irrelevant, if they aren’t already. It’s time to walk away.

 

New York/Kodak


Kodak Gallery at 43rd Street and the Avenue of the Americas, 1978, (current location of ICP) — © Brian Rose

When I first began shooting color in the mid-70s, making prints was difficult. You couldn’t easily set up a home darkroom–color enlargers were expensive, and the chemicals were finicky compared to black and white. So, for several years I just shot slide film, mostly Kodachrome, which could be projected on a screen or looked at through a hand-held viewer. In my first color classes at Cooper Union taught by Joel Meyerowitz, all our discussions and critiques involved images that were projected. Meyerowitz, at that time, was exhibiting his work as dye transfer prints made directly from Kodachromes. They were beautiful, archival, required a custom lab, and were very expensive.

At some point I began teaching myself how to print color using an enlarger newly installed at school. There was no printing class. The chemicals were poured into a drum, which rotated on a mechanical base, and I could do prints up to 11×14 inches. To make prints from Kodachromes, I first had 4×5 internegatives made, with the end product being a so-called C print. The printing process was slow and labor intensive, and the results were sometimes less than perfect. But I made 25 prints one semester, and had an exhibition in the hall of the photo department. I also began shooting  and printing from 35mm negative film, though I still liked working with the generous size of 4×5 internegatives. Looking back, that probably influenced my decision to shoot with the 4×5 view camera in doing the Lower East Side project with Ed Fausty. I liked printing from big sheets of film.

The one constant in all of this–film, paper, and chemistry–was Kodak. I had yellow boxes everywhere in my apartment until a few years later when green Fuji boxes began to infiltrate. I still have yellow Kodak boxes of film in my refrigerator and dozens of print boxes on the shelves in my studio. Although 90% of what I do now is digital, I will never entirely escape the yellow boxes.

Yesterday, not unexpectedly, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Fujifilm continues on, a nimbler, smarter company, making some of the coolest digital cameras around. However, Kodak remains the only producer of negative sheet film, and although Chapter 11 does not mean it’s over for the company, my guess is that it will rapidly shrink, and eventually spin off  different operations as separate companies. Where that leaves those of us still shooting film is anybody’s guess.

The photograph above was made in 1978 with my first camera, a 35mm Nikkormat, on Kodachrome. The Empire State Building was seen from below street level in the former Kodak gallery at 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue. The International Center of Photography now occupies that space. Kodak may soon exit the scene for good, but photography lives on, with or without yellow boxes.

New York/The Bowery


The Bowery and Great Jones Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

While reading the New Yorker I came across a quote attributed to late choreographer Merce Cunningham.  From Joan Acocela’s article:

…stories or even themes put the spectator in the position of someone standing on a street corner waiting for a friend who is late: you can’t see the cars or the buildings or the sky , he said, because “everything and everyone is not the person you await.”

Likewise with photographs. If you latch too much onto familiar visual narratives, other meanings, other connections, will not be made. This is true both for the image maker and the viewer.


The Bowery and Rivington Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

With that caution in mind, here are six recent images of the Bowery made with the 4×5 view camera. I did them in conjunction with a class I was teaching at ICP, and as part of  my ongoing project to photograph the Bowery. The block above includes the New Museum on the left, the Bowery Mission and the Salvation Army building, the tall one in the middle. The latter are vestiges of the Bowery’s skid row past, though they and a couple other organizations still provide services for a more scattered homeless/street population. The gentrification of the Bowery, however, is proceeding rapidly.


The Bowery and Delancey Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

Some of the roll-down window gates were recently decorated by artists. This one is by the notable graffiti artist Kenny Scharf.


The Bowery and Grand Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

The townhouse at left is from 1817 and is one of the few protected landmark buildings in New York to have its status rescinded. The owner wants to demolish and construct an office building. From the Villager:

(City Councilwoman) Chin noted that she has supported many landmark designations on the Bowery. “But in this instance, I have to look at the bigger picture and find a balance. There is an opportunity to help the community recover from [the World Trade Center attack], which it hasn’t done. I just hope that the advocates will see my point of view on this and that we will have the opportunity to continue to work to preserve the historic character of the Bowery. But on this building we will have to differ.” Chin said.

The reality, of course, is that the Bowery and lower Manhattan is a boomtown.


The Bowery and Grand Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

It is true that the Bowery exhibits a ragtag collection of buildings from many different time periods. It does not present a unified urban landscape in the way that historic rows of townhouses dominate parts of Greenwich Village, or blocks of cast iron loft buildings define the streets of Soho. Nevertheless, there is much architecture worth saving, though sometimes one might have to peel away some of the layers to get to it.


The Bowery and Pell Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

Another similar sized townhouse from 1785–the Edward Mooney house–a well-maintained landmark containing a Chinatown bank.

 

 

 

 

New York/Lower East Side

ArtUp on ABC News, Channel 7

From last week:

Nice to see some publicity for FAB’s ArtUp program, which involves using construction scaffolds, containers, and other kinds of spaces and surfaces for public art. My WTC mural on the sidewalk shed on East 4th Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue is shown twice in the video, although I’m not mentioned by name. It will be up until January 27, so you still have a couple of weeks to see it.

New York/Lower East Side

Some updates on Time and Space on the Lower East Side. We are looking at a mid- to late March release of the book depending on how long it takes for the shipment from the printer in Germany to arrive by sea freight and to clear customs. I expect to have a small number of books sent to me before that, which I can then start using for promotional purposes. I am working on venues for a slide talk and  book launch party, probably separate dates in March. I will post confirmed dates as soon as I have them.

The Blurb version of Time and Space will only exist for a couple more days. Once it’s down, it’s gone forever. So, if you’ve been thinking of purchasing one of these, this is your last chance. Up till now, I’ve made the entire book browsable using Blurb’s preview feature. But that will go, too. I may create a web presentation of the overall project as a resource, but the book will only be viewable as a 12 page sample.

Time and Space is now available for pre-orders  here, or clock on the image above.

 

New York/Lower East Side

Yesterday I saw the first set of proofs from the printer for my upcoming book Time and Space on the Lower East Side–they look amazing. The color is spot on with no loss of vibrancy. Having looked at lots of photo books and done my own color prints for some 30 years, I have to say I’ve rarely seen printing this good.

My publisher Bill Diodato and I went over each image individually and picked out about 20 for minor adjustments in density (light/dark). We’ll look at one more set of proofs and then go to the final printing.

The images above show the finished cover design with yellow and magenta accenting added on the front, back, and spine. The limited edition slipcovers will have the same magenta and yellow.

We also received a blank dummy from the printer to get a feel for the size, materials and workmanship. The sewn binding was beautifully done and the pages lie very flat. Holding the dummy also confirmed my sense that 9×12 inches is a good size for these images. It is spacious enough to provide plenty of detail, but not too large for comfortably holding in one’s lap.

At this point we are on schedule for an early March arrival of the books, but I may not have a hard date until we approve the second round of proofs. I should have more updates soon. Stay tuned!

New York/WTC


1 World Trade Center — © Brian Rose

I went down to the area around the WTC yesterday–January 1, 2012. Above is the view of 1 WTC, still not topped out, from Broadway and Ann Street. St. Paul’s church is to the left of the tower. 1 WTC is now around 90 stories with 14 to go. It still appears somewhat stubby for such a tall building, but I think it will look slimmer once the triangular facets extend all the way to their apexes. A large spire will go on top of the flat roof, which will greatly exceed the height of the previous Twin Towers.


Church Street — © Brian Rose

Nearby on Church Street  I took a photograph looking toward the WTC site, 4 WTC can be seen rising in the rear. An ad for the upcoming movie about 9/11–Extremely Loud Incredibly Close–can be seen at left in the subway entrance. Both photographs were shot in 4×5 negative, but the images here were made with the digital camera I use for my blog.

Two relevant stories worth noting. The 9/11 museum and the Port Authority are feuding about money, and it appears that the opening of the museum will be substantially delayed–now more than 10 years after 9/11. Article here. A muslim police cadet, Mohammad Salman Hamdani, killed on 9/11, who was initially suspected of being involved in the attack, but later exonerated and honored as a hero for his actions, has had his name relegated to an obscure part of the 9/11 memorial reserved “for those who had only a loose connection, or none, to the World Trade Center.” Article here.

New York/The High Line

We walked the High LIne on Christmas Day with relatives visiting from out of town. It was a relatively mild day with sun and clouds, the low slanting light of late December. The plantings on the High Line at this time of year are mostly brown with bits of color here and there, holly bushes and the like. As wonderful as the design of the elevated viaduct is, what interests me the most are the views of the city from it–the unique possibility of looking straight down cross streets, across the rooftops of warehouses and the hodgepodge of buildings in west Chelsea. This was once an industrial and distribution area serving the Hudson River docks. Today, it is the art gallery center of New York, and new apartment buildings have gone up throughout the neighborhood. The old warehouses are mostly occupied by businesses in the creative fields, and a media company occupies the striking Frank Gehry building located on the West Side Highway.

This is my Christmas walk up the High Line with two photographs made at ground level–a rendering of the future Hudson Yards development and a peek into the empty sun flecked Apple store back down on 14th Street with a bevy of strangely glowing screens.


The First $100,000 I Ever Made by John Baldessari — © Brian Rose


© Brian Rose


London Terrace apartments in the background — © Brian Rose


IAC/Frank Gehry on left, 100 11th by Jean Nouvel at center — © Brian Rose


Hotel Americano  by Enrique Norten at left, Starrett Lehigh building at rear — © Brian Rose


© Brian Rose


© Brian Rose


© Brian Rose


Rendering of future Hudson Yards development — © Brian Rose


Apple store, 14th Street — © Brian Rose

New York/Williamsburg


Bedford and N7th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

It’s all one big holiday mash-up this year. Christmas: December 25, Hanukkah: December 20-28, Kwanzaa: December 26-January 1.

A veritable Roman-style Saturnalia.