I apologize for the extreme delay! Sorry sorry sorry!
But moving on…
Last month, from March 6-11, was the Armory Arts Week. For those of you who don’t know what this is: Armory Arts Week is a week in New York City dedicated to the arts. Galleries, museums, and institutions throughout the city showcase their work to visiting artists, curators, collectors, etc. The mission of Armory Arts Week is to highlight different neighborhoods/boroughs’ art scenes through events. Events include art tours, performances, discounted admission, open art studios, panels, artist discussions, special receptions, and parties. People from all over the world come to New York City this week each year just to look at art. So, if this is your first time hearing of the Armory Arts Week, you should definitely check it out the next time you can. It’s fabulous~
During Armory Arts Week, I had the opportunity to work with the founders of the event, and of The They Co., Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, on their first run of the SPRING/BREAK Art Show. The show took a new approach to the traditional format of Armory Arts Week art shows/galleries: a curator-driven art fair. Under the theme, Apocalist, artists created art that showcases their feelings and interpretations of the apocalypse. The show was held inside St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral School on Mott St. in Nolita. Talk about a creepy venue for an unsettling topic.
At the show, I was an exhibition docent. My responsibilities were to guard the artworks and to direct visitors throughout the building. Some notable cases:
1. On the first floor, the boys restroom was transformed into an art space: this was a video projection on the wall above the stalls. Anyone could walk in. And we had to make sure NO ONE used the restroom here.
2. I guess, as a result of issue #1, lots of men went into the actual women’s restroom on the 2nd floor, thinking it was an exhibition. Especially because 1) there was no door to close the restroom and 2) on the wall, in huge black letters, was “SMART GIRLS ARE PRETTY.” So lots of men would stick their head in and snap a shot of the wall. That was harmless I suppose. But what was funny was this one instance: A man and a lady, boyfriend and girlfriend, were walking around, I guess looking for the restroom. The girlfriend said she was going to use the restroom here. They both went in, and before I could tell him that the men’s restroom was upstairs, he went into the last stall. When he came out, he was dazed and confused. Then he looked at the sign by the door that said “Women’s Restroom” and laughed. He told me that he probably had one too many drinks. Haha Well, no harm, no foul.
3. There’s a huge tree bark hanging from the ceiling in the center of the first floor. 
On one of the days, I spent most of the time guarding this one artwork. At first, I thought, it’s humongous. How could people NOT notice it? Well… Visitors would notice it at first and walk right by. But then, several minutes later, they would walk by it from the opposite direction and completely forget about it. Of course, some of the offenders were texting when they collided with the sculpture. Most were not. This was completely beyond my comprehension. I saved about 7 people from crashing straight into it. But I missed about 3. It’s very difficult to tell whether or not someone is going to hit into it. Harder than it seems. One particularly funny case: a man was walking out from the bar, approaching the sculpture, holding his drink in one hand and his dog in the other. He laughingly asked me if my job was to simply guard people from hitting into this artwork. A protector of some sort. I said yes. And right at that moment, his shoulder grazed the piece. Talk about ironic! (I wasn’t thinking about writing this post when I took this photo. So, unfortunately, the photo does not convey the magnitude of the artwork. Or why people kept bumping into it.)
Now, some of the cool artworks:
My favorite piece was Fall On Your Sword’s Sea of Fire. At this installation, visitors walk into a small, dark room. On the wall is a huge projection of a man dressed up as the Statue of Liberty, periodically reciting lines from Rutger Hauer’s death speech from Blade Runner. And in the center of the room is a lobotomized antique piano. When you press different keys on the piano, the video switches from the man dressed as the Statue of Liberty to various Hollywood movie clips of the destruction of New York City, particularly of the Statue of Liberty. The artwork mocked Hollywood’s obsession with the apocalypse and the destruction of NYC and the Statue of Liberty. It was really well done. The projection was huge and the volume was deafening. And since I went into this installation room alone, it was even scarier. But I couldn’t help going back in each day of the show. Click on the link for a video of the video. (Please disregard the stupidly huge watermark.) (Also, my video does not do the artwork justice. You had to have seen it and experienced being in the small, dark room.)
Another piece I enjoyed was the video interpretation of Ted Hughes’ Crow by Simon Lee and Algis Kizys. The video was a montage of abandoned photographs from the 1960s with a reading of Ted Hughes poems in the audio. The film was screened in a large darkened room. A very haunting piece, indeed.
There was also a segway tour, mocking both the traditional museum audio tour and death. I did not personally experience the tour. But it sounds fun.
Here is a video by NY1 of the SPRING/BREAK Art Show: click me!
For everything else, I shall document with photos! Poorly taken photos, that is.
