Taurobolium from Nick De Pirro on Vimeo.

As promised, albeit rather late, here is the mostly edited two-camera video sequence from Taurobolium. Thanks to freelance videographer Brian McGinn, and Mark Remollino of Ambush for the camera work; editing by Project Studios. The original audio composition was created Brian Beard. This is documentation footage. The artwork is the performance, this is not intended to be a replacement for it.

Taurobolium was performed for the Hoboken Studio Tour event October 19. 2008. I just recently got my paws on the second DV tape, so the delay is now over. We created a small-scale poster campaign for the show using my big Xerox Phaser. The first poster uses the infamous Neumann emblem and the second poster usurps a Frederick Remington image of a steer being roped for branding. The Phaser can print wax right to heavy printmaking paper, so the posters had a good weight to them and looked like they came from a silkscreen shop.

I might as well describe a bit of what this performance was about. At the time, the Neumann Leathers factory complex was the center of a development and zoning dispute in Hoboken. From the start, I was always skeptical and am still convinced that the developers will get their hands on the property very soon.Taurobolium was representative of the face offs that were very literally happening once a month at Hoboken City Hall. Ian and I wanted to create a face off of our own, borrowing loosely from the Agamemnon battle scene from Time Bandits. The minotaur is a anthropomorphized factory, and the gladiator is progress, development, etc. Taurobolium is a historical term describing a Roman practice of bull sacrifice, and in this case, the tragic figure of the Minotaur, with the unfortunate circumstances of his conception, is a perfect representation of the factory. Dirty, toxic, neglected, and exploited, the factory stands to loose. Progress wears him down like a matador wears down his opponent through tricks and choreography. The bull only knows the basic rules for fighting and can’t see what is really happening to him.

Visually, the piece consists of two performers, a twelve-foot clay powder circle ringed by a plaster powder stripe. The space is a derelict room in the Neumann Leathers factory on the ground floor. The space is unused and thick with dust. It also contains a massive tumbler used in the tanning process. The tumbler room is lit from the inside, so spectators can get a good look at its details. The Neumann Leathers logo crest is outlined in white plaster in the center of the clay ring. The bovine character’s body is coated in wet clay slip. Additional wet clay leeches out of a yoke around his neck built of bundled leather strips made in the former factory itself. The bovine mask is a modified and exaggerated bull skull with a maine and a tail that drags at his feet.

The opponent wears the clothing of a factory worker, including a leather apron, work gloves, boots, and coveralls. He is dusted with clay powder, and wears an elaborate Roman centurion’s helmet. He is a hybrid figure having the features of both destroyer of the minotaur and the maker of leather goods.

This battle, for me, is the perfect model for the labyrinthine machinations of a development project as it engages the target and destroys it. Every word and every maneuver is dubious. The old factory that served a purpose becomes an anathema and must be destroyed so that the future can take its path and forget its mistakes.

I suppose the factory itself is a labyrinth as well, with the Taurobolium at the center of the maze, but this is perhaps the first read of the piece. The factory is a maze in a very practical sense, an unknown black spot for most of the residents of Hoboken. If for some viewers, this is the maximum depth of meaning for the performance, we would be satisfied. The battle itself is intended to carry the underlying narrative of the battle between the future and past, or in the site specific context, development versus the past. Whether or not the viewer sees the link between themselves and the matador is another question altogether.

As the performance progresses, the audio track becomes more energetic and the face off of the performers gets a little more aggressive. It is all posturing and compensating; a chase. The clay and plaster drawing becomes destroyed by charging feet, and the bull eventually crashes into the center of the ring, wiping out the emblem.

A few links to other images and stories from the event are below. There was not much press, mostly because Hoboken’s art scene is pretty weak no matter what they tell you.

NJ.com’s Jersey Journal

Photo of one of the posters

Studio Tour Map

On a regular basis I find vandalized corporate material around NYC. I am not talking about graffiti, which has its own dynamic. I am only referring to straight up advertisement damage. I like what I see. It is pretty pure expression in a form that is very different from graffiti, which can sometimes be pretty boring because it is getting more and more absorbed into corporate identities and campaigns. Ad vandalism isolates the attack element of graffiti from the creative or drawing side. Some of these are hacked up with knives, others appear to be some kind of solvent smear. For me, because of what I am into, they recall image hacking from ancient Egypt. One of the best that I have seen was a poster promoting a condominium in Jersey City that was re-postered with an anti-condo image with text that described lower class displacement. I missed my opportunity to get a good shot of that one, unfortunately. These are all iPhone shots at this stage. I don’t have the conviction to seek them out with a real camera. This is strictly off the cuff. I think my second solvent attack image is a little blurry. 

I made a little New Year’s resolution for myself. Working so much in NYC exposes me to so many people asking for help, either homeless or worse, so I thought that I might agree to help instead of hurrying by. I came up with a simple rule, if somebody asked and I had change, I would give them my change. Because I need my cash for tolls or even for emergencies, like a few days ago when the Christopher Street Station refused my MetroCard in every single turnstile and I had to put cash into the machine to get a stupid paper card.

It is quite a challenge to uphold the rules of this program because I am conditioned to ignore everything around me like everybody else. Maybe that is what this is really about. Surely my stupid pocket change is not really helping anybody, but there are studies that show that being ignored has very negative psychological effects on people. Don’t make me cite the study here, I just remember that it was about people who worked in retail like somebody at Sam’s Club who offers you a sample of some Italian sausage from a little grill. It drives people nuts when you walk by instead of just saying, “No thanks.”

I am usually either trying to see a client or rushing home as fast as I can, so have to force myself to stop, but usually I can do it. I was at the Broadway-Lafayette Station last week and a guy came right up to me and asked for change. I waived him off almost automatically. I immediately realized that I just broke my rules because I had change in my pocket. I started to follow him down the platform, but he turned around first and came back my way. He came up to me again as if he already forgot he approached me and before he could ask, he had my quarter. There is another guy who works with this outfit called the United Homeless Organization or UHO as it it written on his money jug. I understand that this is a kind of organized panhandling outfit, but that doesn’t change my exercise. If I have change, I give it. If the argument is that handing money directly to the person asking is wrong because it will not help him, I propose that without the cash in my pocket last week, I would have been standing in the Christopher Street Station trying to figure out how to get home.

I have seen several blogs that trash the UHO because the person asking for the donation usually gets to keep whatever they can get, minus fifteen bucks that they have to turn over to their headquarters, wherever and whatever that is. So, if that is not really a problem for me, then I guess the other complaint is that the organization pays some CEO for travel and expenses. Perhaps that is a problem, but again, because I am a quarter down at the end of the day hardly means that I have made a huge negative impact on myself or somebody else. Perhaps the president of the outfit is more than a pimp, I can’t say. Yes, obviously, a donation to a legit organization would be money better spent, but don’t tell me that another non-profit won’t spend the money on something other then direct aid to people on the street. I a pretty sure that people sitting in cubicles at most non-profits have a larger paycheck than I do. Is Lincoln Center a non-profit? The budget for their renovation is a cool 1.2 billion dollars. I heard the lead architect on WNYC last week talking about how the street is where all the city’s energy is and that Alice Tully Hall will bring the center down to street level, whatever that means. Does it really have to do that? Does Lincoln Center use all of its money for support of the arts, or does it pay somebody to drive people around or make copies?  Most of the sites that I checked out for background on the UHO were pretty callous, and one was actually about hanging out in the Hamptons, but the author took time out to belittle homeless people just to change it up, I guess.

1.2 billion is an amazing amount of cash, but I guess it is about the cost of a single B-2 Spirit, so maybe it’s not that great. I think 1.2 billion would be a nice number for some seed money to start a street-level arts micro loan program and still have enough money for your CEO’s expenses at the end of the year. Bloomberg was speaking at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Lincoln Center today and he said that there were twenty-thousand ballerinas in NYC looking to fill the one-hundred ballerina positions at the center. Really, twenty-thousand, or is that just cute billionaire talk. If there are that many ballet dancers out there, how many painters are there that could use a micro-loan to get their practice up. It is unfortunate that we live in Sparta and not Greece. The stimulus bill has next to nothing for the arts, a mere fraction of the budget for the Lincoln Center facelift at 50 million dollars, and I’m sure most if it will go to Shakespeare theaters that do a great national service promoting English plays with American money. Perhaps there is a way to do a micro-loan program for artists and really take it down to the street level, after all, that is where all the energy is. If there was a sanctioned program, there would likely be a way to get art onto the streets for real. We could get those ballerinas out for a few open-air performances. Can you imagine a serious sculpture or suite of paintings right out in the street? They closed streets this summer so that people could walk and bike them, and in some instances there was spontaneous dancing, so why not fund the dancing and throw in some heavy duty visual art too. It sounds weird but it could work, and every artist I know has a shovel ready project. I have one that I could start tomorrow.

Speaking of that kind of thing, I recently saw a lost/stolen BMX bike up in Clifton, NJ on the side of Route 46. I turned around and grabbed it and tossed it in the truck. No seat, no brakes, it is a typical abused and abandoned bike. It was probably stolen, but it doesn’t look like it was garage kept, if you know what I mean. I guess I snaked it because I saw the Mongoose decal on the down tube, and that sealed it. I have wanted a Mongoose since I saw a Trend video with Dennis McCoy riding his Hooligan. The plan is to fix it up and ride it around the West Village and the Bowery as a sort of performance. I have no idea what direction it will take, but maybe it is a warm up for Bantam Mechanics; a sort of build project with a performance to get my feet wet before we start the big one. Besides, I really want to ride in NYC and a found bike could wind up staying in NYC when the performance is finished. No real loss, given that the parts I need will hardly amount to a substantial sum. Maybe I can find a reputable non-profit to accept the bike, or perhaps I can just give it to somebody who asks.

The sequel to Get Serious, The Boss was also created as an identification photo at the Sherman Studio Art Center. Ian saved this one as well. Speaking of Sherman studios, I came this close to tossing a roadkill skunk into one of the glass furnaces over there one night. This photo features a Delille Oxygen welding cap, in effect!

The Neumann Leathers Tenants Association (NLTA) has won their battle for the future of the Neumann studio building complex. I should say, the NLTA is happy with the results of the Hoboken Zoning Board’s unanimous decision to deny approval to the Trammel Crowe Company’s proposal to develop a colossal condominium project on the Neumann site.  I should say, portions of the NLTA that are most represented by the group of small businesses that occupy leased space in the Neumann Leathers Company buildings are satisfied that they will continue to be able to have inexpensive space in a prime location without any kind of oversight or inspections of their premises that would normally be expected in a leased commercial space in such a competitive and densely populated market. I should add, many of the artists that are primary lease holders or sublease holders are also pleased that they can continue to provide, and in the latter case, work in, squalid studio spaces without fire code compliant walls or doors. They can continue to incorrectly and even illegally dispose of volatile organic compounds. I must assume that the building’s owners must be disappointed to not be rid of their toxic and poorly maintained structures, their absolutely decrepit parking lot, and their thousands of gallons of underground fuel oil.

The most recent mass email message from the NLTA proposes a new development project. Should I say another development project? The model and drawings have not been revealed, but one can assume that it will be more focused on supporting the existing Neumann community. I should say, one can assume that it will be more focused on providing space for the companies that can afford renovated loft space in a prime property in Hoboken. Perhaps, one should assume, that music rehearsal space and perhaps even sculpture studios may be considered too noisy for such a development. I am quite certain that commercial space will be available to those who can afford it, but how loud can I be?

Originally, the artists were the face of the NLTA, but it was plain to see then, and it is certainly the case now, that the small business contingent is the dominant voice. I should say, business contingent, if I am to include some of the multi-million dollar operations that are housed in some of the buildings on the property, for they are certainly not small. 

I suppose that now is a time to begin thinking about the future of the buildings on the property. I am willing to participate in a remodel of the property, but I fear that my small company won’t be able to absorb the additional costs associated with such a massive project even if it is a co-op, which has not been specified at this time. Given that the mission of Project Studios is to provide the most inexpensive studio spaces possible, the company is not posting record profits that could capitalize a major renovation.

I am happy to keep the Project Studios spaces on the third floor of Neumann Building H, and I will keep those studios available as long as possible. I estimate that it could be as short as one year, or as long as five, barring any arson or other maneuver of last resort from a would-be developer. I am currently seeking additional studio space for myself and for the greater Project Studios LLC company space for music and visual arts in another building or buildings in the immediate area.

The new (used) etching press has arrived. Remo and I unloaded it about a week ago and I finally got around to really cleaning it up and setting the micro-gauges so that I  can actually use it. I still need to level it, but the floor is so uneven, I will probably just put blocks under the feet. I apologize for the photos, I took them with my iPhone under fluorescent lights. I did all this setup from memory, and the last time I put a hand on a press was almost 10 years ago. I have my Dad’s awesome printmaking book, but I have not taken it out yet. The press itself is a joint venture between Kivetz, Ian Williams, and myself. Here is a little description of what I did to fire it up.

Step one: Get yourself an etching press. I guess you could build one, but it might be faster to buy one. To build one you are going to need a GTAW machine, Engine Lathe, and Milling Machine. You can probably buy most of the bearings pretty easily, but I digress. I bought a used one from a guy up in Teaneck. It was in his garage, just about completely walled in with junk. It was a pretty serious job extracting it. Remo had a good time because he appreciates humorous situations. We loaded it on my trailer, took it down the turnpike, and then rolled it right into the shop on a pallet jack. This press has a 28″ x 48″ bed. Not too shabby, but the real nice thing about this press is the size of the rollers. It also has a gear reduction crank case and no captain’s wheel. I am pretty sure I can make a big wheel for it, but I am not sure if I can secure it without removing the crank case. I would like to keep them both if possible. 

Step 2: Polish that old hulk. I cleaned up all of the visible metal on the press with non-woven abrasives and steel wool. I removed some pieces to better clean them, but I didn’t go crazy. W-D 40 all around. The blankets are from the previous owner, and they are pretty moth-eaten and there is no sizing catcher. Add blankets to the shopping list. Also, the Martek label fell off.

Step 3: Zero out the press by bottoming out the top roller against the bed. Once you hit the bed, take up the slack in the threads so that all the play is out, but the roller is not lifted. I am talking about maybe a half turn or less. You can now move your gauges to the zero mark and lock them down.

Step 4: Cut some grid paper and cover that newly shined up bed. You could be all 17th century and leave the bed exposed, but let’s make it easy and register everything on a nice sheet of 1/8″ grid.

Step 5: Get a sheet of Lexan and cut it to the measurements of the bed. Cover the grid paper to keep your grid and your final print media clean. I just used some clear packing tape to secure it to each end of the bed. Note: Lexan is not all that easy to work with. You are also going to have to be aware that you just added thickness to the bed, so your zero mark is not zero any longer- not that it matters.

Step 6: Run a few test prints to get your pressure set. I don’t have a sizing catcher, and the pusher blanket is in pretty bad shape, but I was able to get a print. The main issue is that the studio is a sculpture shop, and I don’t have everything for proper printmaking yet. I was not able to soak my paper, so I just spritzed it and blotted it. Apparently not enough sizing was removed and the print was pretty light with a good amount of ink left on the plate. I am pretty sure my pressure was good, but it probably could have been a bit higher. Having proper blankets would have probably helped also, but I am pretty sure this was a paper issue. I was happy just to smell the ink again.

Here is the print. Again, lousy iPhone image, but you get the idea. The plate is a “full sized” Revere zinc plate that has been exposed to the elements for about 10 years or more. It had cardboard against it at one time, so it etched naturally. I am working the image very slightly, adding dry-point marks. Eventually, this will become the substrate for an image of the American Bantam rooster, or maybe not. I am planning some Bantam prints no matter what. I just never know what any plate is going to look like when it is done.

Periodically, events that occur outside the studio can impact your art practice substantially, or so the story usually goes. This changed my life, that really opened my eyes to new possibilities, and so forth. I am pretty sure that my artistic tendencies represent a set of core values that I have had since I was very young, so events don’t seem to influence my practice any radical way. Drama, in other words, has no place. It is all rather matter of fact.

Then I received the call. The first thing that entered into my mind after hanging up the phone was that I had made the wrong decision. The studio’s business model was dangerous and could easily be destroyed by a single event. There was too much risk. I always knew that a fire in the building like the one I experienced in the former Union Tools building studio in Columbus would spell the end of a studio space, but I never considered a stranger’s suicide as a possibility.

I still know very sparse details, and as requested by those close to the individual, I won’t disclose personal information because it is not relevant. The story as I understand it follows. A member of one of the bands using the rehearsal studio that connects to the Project Studios main space was going through some kind of emotional difficulty and decided that the only option remaining for him was suicide. He was found hanging there the following morning by a band that had booked practice time. They called Chris Gibson and the police, and that ended it. Astoundingly, the band went ahead with their rehearsal once the coroner left the scene.

By the time I received that call from local band guru Chris Gibson, everything was all wrapped up. The body was gone. The police had taped off the studio, photographed the scene, and finished their work. They left behind only two scraps of yellow police line tape. It was somehow similar to that scene in American Psycho when Patrick Bateman returns to his old apartment only to find that everything was normal and everything that happened there was erased by his former landlord to avoid damaging the property’s value. Then I started thinking about how the timeline played out. I invented a narrative. “I just can’t spend another night on a studio couch,” he must have thought. I can imagine just looking at a piece-of-shit couch and thinking, “That’s it, fuck it.”

At the time, my main studio was still up on the third floor, and basically, every other studio space opened into mine. I never had any theft issues, and I don’t mind the artists who lease from me using my tools, so I didn’t build walls until I moved downstairs. For the purposes of this story, the only thing you really need to understand is that the rehearsal space in question has a door that opens directly into my studio with nothing more than an implied barrier between my studio and a common walkway.

Artists are selfish by nature, and paradoxically want to please others and maybe even serve the greater good, but when I think about this event, I admit that I lean toward the selfish, or at least, consider myself within the invented narrative even though I have no real part in it. The thing that still drives me crazy is that this guy had to walk right past a pretty substantial sculpture (Plaster Neumann) to get into the space where he killed himself. I can’t help but think that if the work was better, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Would you still do it if you had to walk past Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul? Would some art that was actually good give you pause enough to not kill yourself five minutes later? This is the selfish artist’s thought patterns.

In the end, this has had no influence on my work in any way. I think about it sometimes, and wonder how this guy’s friends let him get to that point, but in the end, it is was his decision. I am annoyed that he chose to do it within my studio, but I guess it is difficult to think through how it will affect other people once you have crossed that line. I wonder if a better sculpture could have done some good in this situation. I doubt it, but it is an interesting proposition.

After moving to the ground floor (temporary?) studio in Neumann, I started going through boxes of junk that I keep dragging with me every time I move. One box contained some old photos including some good ones from my final year at Indiana University. I have been thinking about IU these past few weeks because I have been discussing etching presses with Ed Bernstein. That is another story that will hopefully be told soon. I am negotiating a price for a Charles Brand clone that is for sale up in North Jersey.

This photo shows me hammering a Dale Newkirk bronze that we melted down for a pour. Whenever you get the chance to smash art made by the guy who is the chair of your thesis committe, say yes, and have one of your boys snap a picture. Look how mad decently I know how to wield destructive force.

Here is an image from the digital archive circa September 2003 at the Columbus, OH studio in the Arena District. This dude, John Bobb III gets the photo credit. I am sure I will elaborate on the circumstances of the Columbus studio in a future post. As far as characters go, the Union Tools studio had a cast that represented a full order of magnitude beyond any other place I have set up shop.

The steel ball in the photo was built for the public library in New Albany, OH, a suburb of Columbus. I guess it is a suburb, it is more of an enclave, I suppose. Whatever the town is, they needed a globe for the main space right in the center of the building above the circulation desk. I got involved in the project through a friend, sculptor Alan Hamwi, who works almost exclusively in bronze and lacks the structural welding chops to safely weld something that would hang above children’s heads. Al produced an element that went inside the ball. The final sphere was pretty tricked out, and actually split in half along two concentric bolting rings so that I could get it out my door and into the library. The photo shows it pretty early in the fabrication process with my DeLille Oxygen cap in full effect.

Here is the most celebrated polaroid of all, the infamous Get Serious tool crib identification picture. I don’t recall who took the photo, but they obviously amused me in a big way. This photo was saved by Ian Williams so that he could always keep in mind that he needed to get serious. Also, it had my phone number on it. Both numbers are now obsolete. The purpose of the photo is supposed to let everybody know who is allowed in the shop. It also keeps away evil spirits by intimidating them.