One of the (many) problems facing artists who live in
Suburbia is that we are grossly discriminated against. Never mind color, gender
or religion, you can’t be successful in the art world as long as you come from
the suburbs. Artists I know often give borrowed New York City addresses,
knowing that a home in the suburbs is the kiss of death in the art world. My
work was once recommended to Ivan Karp, the legendary gallery owner, and he seemed
interested until he asked me where my studio was located. When I told him
Stamford, he closed my portfolio and grandly announced that he “had a twenty
minute radius” for artists. My daughter used to tease me that to be successful
I needed to hire a beautiful twenty-five-year old “doppleganger” from a trendy
neighborhood to pretend to be me.
A
number of years ago, a group of local “artistes” (note the “e”,) Carolee Ross
the writer/poet, Steven Auslender, a sculptor from Wilton and Carolyn Ginsburg
and I, both artists and teachers at the University of Connecticut decided to
give living in the suburbs some cachet. We (anonymously) put together a spoof
of all those totally unintelligible manifestos that accompanied the avant-garde
art movements of the 1920s and ‘30s. The Futurists, Dadaists, Suprematists,
Surrealists, Vorticists, Rayonists etc. all had manifestos; you couldn’t have a
movement without one. The last one of any note probably belonged to Fluxus in
the 1960s. The four of us intended to produce
an “uber” manifesto” for Lower
Fairfield County and call it The Journal
of American Suburban Art, a title we deemed sufficiently pretentious.
Carolee contributed her epic poem, “Suburbiad,” (several people recognized
themselves in it and never spoke to her again), Carolyn did a riff on an Archie
comic, replete with backyard swimming pool, I did an acerbic guide to how to
become successful in the art world and Steve created a sealed packet of
“French” postcards which we never dared show anyone. We mailed about fifty
manifestos (in plain wrappers) to people we knew and offered subscriptions for
a dollar. The responses poured in and we soon had at least fifteen subscribers,
including one who paid in pennies. I don’t remember if we ever got to mailing
out the second issue, but we do have enough material for several more. We even
have a bunch of submissions to a Merritt Parkway Surrealist Bridge design
competition that are pretty interesting .
Last
month, I donated a dozen copies of “JASA, Vol.I, Issue 1” to a fundraiser for
the Franklin Street Works gallery at
41 Franklin Street in downtown Stamford. If you think the latest art in
Brooklyn is far out, FSW is every bit as challenging. We’ll make you a copy of
the Manifesto (very limited edition) but you need to pay for it with a tax
deductible contribution (any amount) to FSW. We’ll show those pseudo intellectual poseurs from Brooklyn we’re not
all boobs out here!
And
if you encourage us, we might even put out a second issue.
Chorus from the Suburbiad
by Hieronymous the Anonymous (to be
sung like a rap tune)
Oh it’s not very Good, but it’s not very bad
And lately they tell me that I should now add
That it’s now being called by folk Far and folk Near,
The Suburbiad,
an Epithet, they’ve now come to Fear.
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