They’re watching you. We’re watching you! In the post apocalyptic world of globalization and digital communications, surveillance and celebrity meet. There are close to 5,000 surveillance cameras below 14th Street. They wink at you from every corner and apartment building. Everywhere you go, they track your moves. And when they’re not tracking you, you’re tracking you through Instagram, FB, Twitter.
Be warned! When you enter the gallery you are entering a temporary autonomous zone. Anything and everything you do may be streamed LIVE on the homepage of our website. Day or night, you never know what might be happening at Howl!; openings, performances, panels, everyday gallery gossip, artists and ordinary folks performing live on camera.
This never ending movie directed by no one is about happy accidents: close ups of tattoos and women’s breasts as they lean in for a glass of wine, a guy picking his nose, two identically dressed kids in scary masks, a topless bunny, and panels and performances by colorful people, young and old. From my perch on the mesa in Northern New Mexico, I’ve been to openings and watched fellow-travelers mug for the camera. A teenage boy/girl placed his head fully in the frame and stood motionless except for one eye- a deliberate, ad-libbed performance that was beautiful in its cinematic effect. It was worth the wait.
“I like being bored” – Andy Warhol
Some of us are children of the Conceptual 70s when boredom was an aesthetic experience! We have no problem letting the camera linger and stare at the street and passersby outside our window. There’s always something going on or you can make it happen. One of our other heroes, John Cage said: “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
Unscripted, time-based, real life, accident and chance do a dance for the camera inside and outside the gallery- 24/7, every minute of every day. We may be closed but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something going on… in the gallery, on the street, in the air. Even when nothing is happening, we’ll be there at 4 in the morning to illuminate the endless time warp of Warhol’s Kiss, Sleep, Blow Job, and Empire and the era of Manhattan Public Access TV when you never really knew what you might see, but it was sure to be bizarre and interesting.
While the gallery is open (Wed-Sun, 11-6pm), come and make an exhibition of yourself. Talk to our audience, listen to the poets, and look at the art. Can’t make it to the opening? No problem. Be part of the action on the homepage: modern narcissism is alive and well at Howl! Happening and you will be rewarded by your patience.
Susan Martin, Creative Consultant at Howl! Happening
