To
Eric Miller's homepage
Examples of Jim Power's mosaic
work on lamp-posts in NYC's East Village are here, here, and
here. “Festive Art in a Festive Neighborhood: ©2000 by
Eric Miller <eric@storytellinginstitute.org> |
Introduction... |
1 |
Festival... |
2 |
Pilgrimage... |
10 |
Marketplace... |
13 |
Animal Behaviors of
Marking... |
15 |
History of Mosaics... |
19 |
Public Art... |
22 |
The Future... |
33 |
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Footnotes |
39 |
Bibligraphy |
44 |
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“The Mosaic Man,”
poem |
47 |
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Introduction Constituting the northernmost section of
New York City’s Lower East Side, the East Village is a modest-sized
neighborhood. It is bordered by Broadway to the west, and the East
River to the east; by Houston St. to the south, and 14th St. to the north.
From Broadway to the East River is eight long blocks (one mile); from Houston
St. to 14th St. is 14 short blocks (3/4 of a mile). The visitor’s traditional entrance corridor
into the East Village begins at Broadway and St. Mark’s Place (also known as
8th St.). The visitor proceeds eastward along St. Mark’s Place to 3rd,
2nd, 1st Aves., and finally to Ave A, where she comes upon Thompkins Square
Park, which occupies the area from 7th to 10th Sts., from Ave. A to Ave.
B. If the visitor takes a right and walks down to 7th St. and Ave A.,
she will have walked to the very heart of the neighborhood. There on
Ave. A, across from the park, is Ray’s 24-hour news and egg cream storefront,
outside of which, day and night, one can usually find people gathered, talking. Our visitor may not have noticed, but in
taking this stroll she has passed by a good deal of mosaic work--on tables,
floors, and interior walls of shops and restaurants (much of it visible from
the street); on a planter; on numerous external walls and storefronts;
embedded in the sidewalk; and on perhaps 10 lampposts (to many of which are
attached pedestrian and traffic lights). These mosaics are by Jim
Power, who began this work in 1987. Jim’s street art, as well as many
others’, is also scattered throughout the rest of the East Village. Jim’s mosaic work is made up of a wide
variety of materials: tiles, crockery, colored glass, mirrors, and seashells;
some purchased, some donated, some found; the small pieces (many of them
broken or cut by Jim) have been glued into place, and in many cases grout has
been added imbetween the pieces. There is abstract design, figurative
representations, and a good deal of lettering. Some of the lettering
announces the cross streets and the names of shops and other landmarks; in
one place it spells out “NYPD” and even the names of three police officers of
whom Jim is especially fond. Jim was paid to do much of this work--the
mosaics on storefronts, for example, are decoration and lettering for
advertising. But some of this work--on walls, sidewalks, and
lampposts--Jim undertook on his own. The miracle is: almost all of it
has remained unmolested. Jim is a longtime and very visible resident of
the neighborhood. People seem to enjoy the mosaic work and find it
interesting. The set design of the original production of RENT!, the
musical about life in the East Village, prominently featured mosaic work very
similar to Jim’s; and Jim and his work have been covered in numerous
television programs, newspapers, and magazines. In short, this work has
become emblematic of the East Village, which is one of the world’s premiere
artistic and bohemian neighborhoods. This paper interprets Jim Power’s mosaic
work--and the East Village itself--as festive. It finds that the
mosaics are festive most of all in that they are decorative. The paper
asks: What are some facets, functions, and implications of this
decorating? Among the paper’s answers are that to decorate in this
manner is to frame, appropriate, and transform. In the course of
exploring these issues, I will discuss festival, pilgrimage, and marketplace;
animal behaviors of marking their environments; and the history and nature of
mosaics and public art. The paper argues that public and commercial
artwork such as Jim’s adds a great deal to the quality of life in a
neighborhood. Finally, the paper considers the future of Jim’s mosaic
work in the East Village, and offers some general suggestions regarding art,
business, and life in communities. Festival
New York City culture is famous for people
breaking through formality and talking to each other on the street.
There is a great deal of verbal interchange, conversation, in New York
City. There is a festive quality to being able to strike up a
conversation, or share a witty remark, with total strangers. Mother
told you, “Don’t talk to strangers,” so to do so is to be bold and
adventurous: yes, it opens one up to possible danger, but “nothing ventured,
nothing gained.” Street communication gives one a chance to give others
“a piece of one’s mind.” The act of speaking with other individuals, in
addition to being festive, can also present opportunities for subversion
against authority figures, who have often maintained power by following the
dictum, “divide and conquer.” But what is festival? And what makes
a neighborhood, or art, festive? One very demanding definition of
festival (which the author admits is rarely fully found in practice) is:
“Reversal, intensification, trespassing,
and abstinence are the four cardinal points of festive behavior.”3 Of
these four conditions, Jim’s lamppost mosaics might qualify regarding the
first three: the blank (silver), state-supplied and managed lamppost surfaces
are reversed and intensified into colorful, hand-made objects of art.
And it must be admitted that this was done by acts of trespass and
transgression--the very work testifies to this, as it supplies the
incriminating evidence. Another author stresses the grotesque and
disgusting nature (as perceived from a middle class perspective) of much
festival activity.4 However, it seems to me that much of Jim’s
work is beautiful. It transforms via lamination and aggregation.
It customizes by decoration:
One aspect of festival that definitely
relates to Jim’s mosaic work on lampposts is time. Festival time
is time-out-of-time, that is, there is a sensation of timelessness, an
eternal now, a dissolution of the structure, divisions, and measurements of
time. The electric lights on lampposts come on at night and go off
during the day: thus they mark and regulate night and day. The attached
traffic and pedestrian light signals likewise regulate traffic, telling one
to go, or to wait before going. These signals consist of two colors,
red (dark) and green (light), with the transitional blinking yellow.
“Without rigid adherence to predictable routines a large compact society
would scarcely be able to maintain itself. The clock and the traffic
signal are symbolic of the basis of the social order in the urban
world.”14 Since shortly after the coming of the Industrial Revolution,
the state--using state-supplied electricity--has precisely measured and
rationed time for its citizens. Similarly, we have time-at-work and
time-off, and weekdays and weekends (holidays). Some social critics
have found this rationing to be oppressive:
At festive times, “we ornament life...by
getting dressed up and bringing out the best China and silverware.”16
Common to festival behavior is a change of context--putting on public view
things from the private world.17 With Jim’s mosaics, the best China has
been broken up and cemented into public view! One aspect of mosaic work is the
presentation and organization of a great number of small forms. These
small objects are in a sense representative of the people of the neighborhood,
or can be seen as their offspring:
In New York City, as in festival, life is
experienced at high pitch. As the saying goes, “There is a broken heart
for every light on Broadway.” There is much broken glass in the city,
which can represent the many hopes and lives that have shattered there.
I find it comforting to see some of these broken pieces of glass, plates,
etc., recycled into Jim’s mosaics. I conducted a very informal street survey,
asking what distinguishes the East Village as a neighborhood. One
answer I received was that it is a place to “get high, make art, and make
love.” This is a more refined version of the 60s call for “sex, drugs,
and rock and roll,” and echoes the older, “wine, women, and song” (the latter
statement being from the heterosexual male perspective). It should
noted, however, that Jim Power adamantly opposes the use of white powders
such as cocaine and heroin, having seen many friends die of their use.
Recently Jim has stenciled the words, “No Heroin,” on numerous sidewalks of
the East Village. “Both fair and festival operate in the zone
of nostalgia, as reminders of life in a simpler economy and technology, when
individuals ‘could do for themselves.’”24 I do not believe that
this applies to Jim’s work, which I read as a message demonstrating and
encouraging direct action. The use of hard, shiny objects for the
festive decoration of public space is an ancient and universal
practice--although of course each culture does it differently. The
following is from the Epic of the Anklet, committed to writing some 1600
years ago in Tamil Nadu, south India:
As mentioned, the East Village is famed as
a site of 60s culture (musical and other). Its much older history as a
center of labor and political struggle is forgotten by many: it seems that
our (pseudo-festive?) mass-media consumer culture facilitates historical
amnesia about such things. In any case, it can be said that, for many
reasons, the East Village is a pilgrimage site:
Around the world there are many tales of
kings and others who have headaches or other infirmities which can only be
relieved by visiting, or building and maintaining, shrines of a
divinity. The maintenance often includes the placing of fresh flowers,
the reciting of prayers, and the lighting of candles. As Emile Durkheim
explained in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, the divinities
and the sacred images of a community can be seen as projections embodying and
symbolizing the collective membership, ideals, and history of that
community. Generally-speaking, the human problem is disconnection,
alienation; and the cure is integration. “The pilgrimage site is where
the divine has issued forth into the human realm. The shrine is a
rupture in the ordinary domain, through which heaven peers.30 Jim’s
mosaics represent such ruptures, which I believe can facilitate healing
integration. “The cornerstone of the sacred journey is
the quest for the culturally validated ideal (often depicted as a
deity).”31 Of course, the worthiness of all cultural ideals is contested.
Some would say that the East Village and all it represents to them are
worthless. To visit or to patronize anything related to the East
Village is in a sense to cast a vote in favor of it.
“At the end the pilgrim...is exposed to
powerful religious sacra (shrines, images, liturgies, curative waters, ritual
circumambulations of holy objects, and so on).”34 Going from one mosaic to the other would
perhaps be a modern equivalent of “beating the bounds”:
As mentioned, Jim’s
mosaics serve many purposes. One is to advertise local
businesses. These advertising mosaics help one remember a store: the
ambiance of store is largely the thing by which it is remembered.
Advertisements are often considered to be visual pollution.38 However,
when advertisements share a common style with adjacent public art, they can
unify the environment and convey the sense that not everything is for
sale. Moreover, “a beautiful celebration is good business.”39
Jim’s advertising mosaics create a festive atmosphere around the businesses
that have sponsored them. Consumerism need not be a dirty word,
especially when commodities are tempered by the presence of
non-commodities. Advertising decoration such as Jim’s “expresses not
only the purpose of the building and its internal function but also
symbolizes the traditions, aims, and ethics of the community.”40 Marketplace and
fair are associated with liberty...the marketplace displays alternative
things to buy and ways to act. The market encourages choice and freedom
of exchange.41
Jim Power himself is a small
businessperson. In addition to the mosaic services he provides, he also
makes mosaic-top tables, which are very marketable commodities. When
assistants have been around and the mood has struck, he has made quite a
number of mosaic tables, some of which are placed in local cafes, such as
alt.coffee (139 Ave. A, between St. Marks Place and 9th St.). There are
continuities here--often unthought of in mainstream USA culture--between paid
laborer, artist, and businessperson, and between art as commodity,
advertisement, and public art. The East Village is tucked away along the
East River. It is equidistant from the City’s two great skyscraper and
business centers: Mid-town to the north and the Financial district to the
south:
Animal Behaviors of Marking Their
Environments Humans are not the only animals which leave
imprints on their environments. Before proceeding to consider the
production of mosaic and public art in human civilization, it may be of value
to widen our perspective and briefly observe ways in which other animals mark
their environment: doing so may shed some light on the various motives
inherent in human decorative activities. Snails (littorina littorea) commonly
secrete mucous (slime), leaving trails. There is often a high
concentration of calcium in such deposits, which can build up and become
permanent features of the landscape. It is not known precisely what
function this serves the snail, aside from making the environment its
own.44 Numerous species of ants lay alerting
trails, which signal their fellows to follow the same path.45 This is
done by the depositing of chemical secretions that are perceived by
scent. Many mammals share this practice:
Height is an important quality for messages
that are meant to be cast far and wide. “Animals can signal over longer
distances by elevating themselves above ground...The territorial songs of
birds are usually delivered from a raised song post, which increases their
effective range, while grassland birds such as meadowlarks sing as they
fly.”48 Trees are very popular scent-posts (in an urban environment, a
fire hydrant will do). Trees also offer sites for nesting and for the
laying and storing of eggs. Animals marking territories need to be
persistent, repeating their efforts again and again. Why expend the
effort to stake out and mark an area? To mark an area can be to lay
claim to it and its resources. It has been carefully documented for
many species of birds that: “1) only territory holders succeed in mating, 2)
there is a surplus of individuals that do not hold a territory, and 3)
mortality among the non-territorial birds is much higher than among territory
holders.”49 Males with large territories are more successful in
attracting females. Females that deposit eggs in protected territories
have greater reproductive success because fewer eggs are lost to predation
(both by other males of the same species, and by animals of other
species).50 In other words, having a place can improve one’s chances
for long life and successful reproduction.
History of Mosaics Mosaics flourished early in the East.
Chaldeans were skilled mosaicists by 2500 BC, at which time mosaics also
existed in Ur and in Egypt.56 From the lands of the eastern
Mediterranean, the art of mosaic reached Rome as part of a wave of
Hellenistic luxury that, much to the vexation of the highly conservative
Romans of the old school, put an end to the simplicity that had been
predominant both in private homes and public buildings during the
Republic.57
Throughout the Roman Empire, outdoor
mosaics were created in courtyards, gardens, and temple complexes.
Floor mosaics (indoor and outdoor) are almost the only ones to survive from
the pre-Christian era, due to the durableness of the materials and the ground
itself. Floor mosaics were composed of “tesserae,” which are
cube-shaped pieces of natural stone, such as marble. Mosaics on walls
and ceilings--which have for the most part crumbled along with the surfaces
on which they were composed--were usually made of colored glass, often
covered with gold leaf or other substances.60 The specialty of Sosos of Perganon was the
so-called “asaroton mosaic” (asaroton means “unswept floor”). In a very
lifelike manner, Sosos represented in floor mosaics all kinds of scraps left
over from a meal: lobsterclaws, fishbones, nutshells, and fruit
peelings.61 A favorite medium of public art in Ancient
Greece was sculpture of the human body, which was presented in idealized
physical beauty. This was increased to a monumental scale in Imperial
Rome, where the production of awe towards the state’s gods and heroes was the
goal. Classical antiquity presents the deity as
an object in space. In the early Christian era the divine image in bodily
form largely disappears, and the space itself, and the surfaces that surround
and enclose the sacred cult, become divine, through the application of
two-dimensional art such as mosaics and frescoes.62 The change was from
the human-centered exuberant outward-looking attitude of Classical antiquity,
to the transcendental inward-looking attitude of the Middle Ages.63 The
corresponding shift in the ideals of art was from the imitation of nature, to
the presentation of symbols and abstract designs meant to stimulate
contemplation.64 In Classical times, many had seen mosaics
as a painting in stone. By the Middle Ages, mosaic had developed into
an independent artform, often employing larger stones, which were set so as
to reflect light at different angles. In the inner and outer walls of
many cathedrals, “the daylight, or the light of flaming torches is
transformed by the mosaics into something supernatural, refracted and
reflected by thousands of separate flashing surfaces.”65 “The whole universe as a divine creation
was embodied in a Medieval building, as well as in the images that
embellished it.”66 :
Public Art The goal of creating a “New Jerusalem” has
proved elusive.69
There have been many counter-movements to
revive and develop embellishment in public space, as, for example, in
Victorian architecture of the nineteenth century.
The preservation or insertion of pockets of
artfully designed nature in urban areas was one of the central goals of
the great American urban designer, Frederick Olmstead.76 The deployment
of nature and art has been seen as a charitable gift
However, the rise of the nation-state and
then the corporation called for monumental, awe-inspiring architecture:
“Unity of sentiment, solemnity, and splendor...should be the dominant
qualities in the artistic expression of great public buildings.”79 A “corporate
style...conveys an aesthetics of uniformity, conformity, anonymity, and
order. Control and power are coded in these monumental
structures.”80 What this means, in the words of Native-American critic
Jimmie Durham, is that cities built in this style “establish themselves
against their environment. The USA is a political/cultural construction
against the American continent.”81 The overriding aesthetic development in
modern urban design has been that of bare simplicity, efficiency, and
functionality:
As Lewis Mumford wrote 40 years ago,
a) Types of public art. a) Types of public art. There are many types of public art.
To begin with, there are stand-alone structures such as monuments and towers.
Although the mosaics that decorate the
bases of the Watts Towers is somewhat similar to Jim’s mosaics, the contexts
are extremely dissimilar. Jim’s mosaic work is mostly on the
street. It breathes with the neighborhood, very much like the NYU
campus a few blocks to the west. The sharing of the streets, and the
fact that pedestrian culture is still dominant, is a great glory of New York
City, especially Manhattan. In California, in contrast, a person tends
to stay in his car and home, and on his property, until he can escape to
nature. Jim’s lamppost and storefront work is
opportunistic: it adds onto that which is already there. As such it is
place-specific and site-specific:
In Berkeley some years ago, the tops of
hundreds of parking meters were sawed off overnight and replaced with
flowers. This was a destructive type of public art that was destined to
be short-lived: the parking meters were soon replaced. The 1983 ribbon-around-the Pentagon project
was a one-time political demonstration against the stockpiling of nuclear
weapons. This effort demonstrated the connection between festive
decoration and political power: the very fact that the organizers could
mobilize and bring together tens of thousands of participants from all over
the country alerted politicians to the depth of anti-nuclear sentiment. Cristo’s wrappings of buildings and bridges
are temporary publicity stunts, conceptual art projects that have little
relationship with or lasting effect on the chosen sites. Another
example of public modern art are the steel sculptures that embellish many
urban developments.
“Public art has generally been meant to put
us in awe of the power of our government or the power of corporate
sponsorship.”92 In contrast, Jim’s mosaic work puts one in awe of what
one individual can do. Actually, Jim’s work is difficult to even pin
down and label as art: it includes utilitarian public signage (announcing
streets, avenues, and landmarks) and advertising for businesses, as well as
pure decoration on public surfaces. It is difficult to pin down what
its function and legal status is in its various locations: here it has been
commissioned by a local business, here it has repaired a hole in the
sidewalk, here it has covered state-owned property in a pleasing manner--in
one case, as mentioned, with a salute to the NYPD and three of its officers,
honoring their presence as valued members of the community, a gesture that
surely has not hurt the chances of the mosaics’ survival. In fact, with
much of the mosaics, Jim has acted as a self-appointed city worker, including
tour guide. Suzi Gablik, author of The Reenchantment
of Art, writes of “the Cartesian dualism that isolates an autonomous
intellectual self from a world which becomes a value-free ground on which
fantasies of a world can be inscribed”(93)--but this is not the case with Jim
and his work: he is a member of the neighborhood that he is decorating and
which he obviously loves and identifies with very much. b) Public art in neighborhoods. One role that Jim’s mosaics play is to
unify the walls, sidewalks, storefront interiors, and lampposts of the
neighborhood. From the sidewalk to the sky, there are mosaics.
This is not obvious, as there are truly not that many mosaics in the
neighborhood. In fact, one reason why the citizens and the authorities
have permitted the mosaics to remain is that Jim knew when to stop, so as to
prevent his work from becoming too insistent and noticeable.
Nonetheless, the subliminal effect of continuity is there, both horizontally
and vertically. As mentioned, these mosaics lend a style
and identity to the neighborhood. Many designers have pointed out the
need for visual themes, to help one orient oneself in a city.94 Jim’s Mosaic Trail is somewhat akin to the
“history trails” that have appeared in American cities in the last
decade.95 These trails lead visitors to valued local sites, where
historical--and sometimes legendary and mythical--are claimed to have taken
place. Public decorations are a “witness to the
values of the people that live in that area”96:
c) Issues of control, and the
relationship between the artist and the community
In the late 60s and early 70s, many artists
rejected the commodity status of art through happenings or becoming community
artworkers. However, most did not want to sink to the working-class
level and make signs for businesses (commodities to sell commodities): they
for the most part wanted to receive funding from neighborhood and art
agencies, which meant a cumbersome process of getting plans approved.
Although Jim is well-aware of the artworld, he is not at all of the gallery
and dealer scene: if people want him to make a table for them, they must seek
him out. Jim is of working-class Irish descent, and is proud to be a
Vietnam veteran. He did not need a public-art-related club, federation,
or society to act as a bridge between artists and the public, for he is a
member of both groups.103 He is a working-class person as well as a
professional artist, and as such he is living testimony to the artificial
dichotomy between these two worlds. As Jim was repairing a lamppost mosaic the
other day, a number of people stopped by to chat and place a piece of tile on
the post. At one point, Jim called out to a passing friend, also of
Irish descent, to stop for a moment and put onto the lamppost a “customary”
piece. I am not sure if this is exactly the word that Jim meant to use,
but it seemed fitting, and reminded me of people in a pub having a customary
pint together. The artist in this instance was acting as facilitator
for others in the neighborhood, enabling them to partake in a common creative
and traditional act. e) The balance between order and
disorder.
In architecture, public art, and other
fields, the correct balance between complexity and repose is the key to
beauty: ”Aesthetic success is conditional upon the victory of order, but
there has to be sufficient complexity to make the victory
worthwhile.”106
The Future Will the bright colors and shiny surfaces
of Jim’s lamppost mosaics, like fireworks, disappear? I recall once
mentioning to my friend Lincoln that I particularly liked the graffiti
painting of an antelope on the wall across the street from his storefront
home on East 4th St. He replied wistfully that it is the nature of our
neighborhood that images come and go. Lincoln, who was physically
disabled, died some years ago when he was unable to crawl out of his
apartment in part because the regular entrance was blocked due to efforts to
evict him and renovate the building. Although people may not be consciously
aware of it, all know that it is illegal to put anything on a lamppost and
that this mosaic work could be stripped away at any moment. The city
showed how serious and effective it could be by eradicating subway train
graffiti virtually overnight in 1989: it simply purchased a new set of trains
and cut off entry to the trainyards. There is now on the street an army
of uniformed welfare recipients who have to work a certain number of hours
per week. These people could easily be assigned to scrape the lampposts
clean. Thus, the lamppost mosaic public art presents a drama, a tension
between permanence and fleetingness: it is a drama to which many longterm
East Village residents can relate, for the unsanctioned mosaics on public
surfaces are similar to their own precarious and poignant existences.
Many in this neighborhood live, at least in part, on monthly electronic
deposits of SSI or SSD money (physical or mental disability) or some other
government benefits, and there is an increasing possibility of such benefits
being discontinued. Many are harassed by landlords who wish they would
move out so that renovations could be made and rent could be radically
increased. How can an illegal act be promulgated as an
international symbol of neighborhood and community? There are instances
where a community practice is illegal and yet continues to thrive: for
instance, cockfighting in Bali and elsewhere. But fighting cocks can be
hidden: lamppost mosaics on Ave. A are utterly, pathetically vulnerable. There are some things that when brought to
the attention of the authorities, the authorities have little choice but to
act upon in a repressive manner, even if they would prefer not to. Some
conflicts cannot be solved satisfactorily, so it is best to avoid them.
Might it be possible to grant landmark status to that which is there, while
saying that future work would need to be approved in advance. I am not
sure that Jim or others would agree to such conditions, even if they could
somehow be offered. It would be wonderful if the mosaic
lampposts could be awarded landmark status, but I can’t really conceive of it
being possible. It is seemingly an impossible precedent for the city to
allow. There is much to be lost, and little to be gained by forcing the
issue with the authorities at present--or even by bringing it to their
attention. My sense is that the local police are doing their best to
look the other way. So it is probably best to simply continue as is,
living with and appreciating the lamppost mosaics from day to day, with no
security or guarantee of what will come tomorrow. Is festivity necessarily antithetical to
order? Perhaps festivity enables order, by providing an outlet for wild
emotion. Is it possible that less repression would be necessary if people
were able to express themselves more freely? While many leaders of
festivities are consumed by it all, others are leading artists, thinkers,
conversationalists, and entrepreneurs in the community. In any event,
the fame and wealth of the East Village is due to people like Jim, who are
often master community-builders and promoters. Jim’s unsanctioned
mosaic lampposts, for example, have surely contributed to the neighborhood’s
rising real estate values. “New York is a summer festival” ran an add
campaign a few years back. Every night of the summer, Ave. A. is mobbed
with visitors looking for something interesting. Most will settle for
going to a bar. Hispanics, poor artists and musicians, self-fashioned
leftists and rightists of various stripes, unique people with style, are
being driven out, replaced by consumers, not producers, of East Village
culture. Every night of the summer, performers, masseuses, and crafts
people could work all along Ave. A. The park curfew of midnight and the
crackdown on performance clubs have done much to curtail night activity, but
still much more could be done. People need to learn how to give
performances and workshops on the street with a minimum of baggage and
furniture, as police will tell people to move even temporary tables. As mentioned, on Ave. A between 7th St. and
St. Marks Place is Ray’s newsstand and egg cream store, the anchor of the
neighborhood. Ray has operated this business since he purchased it from
the previous operator thirty years ago. People congregate in front of
Ray’s 24-hours-a-day, but especially at night. There are about a dozen
regulars, all men. It is shocking that the neighborhood may soon lose
this store: Ray claims that the rent is being increased from $3,000 to $7,000
this coming July, and he will be forced to leave. This would be
devastating for the culture, economics, and safety of the neighborhood.
From the doorway of Ray’s, one can see three mosaic lampposts. Even if
Ray should decide to retire, we are hoping that the 24-hour store will
somehow survive. It seems that the tiny storefront is owned
by Leshko’s restaurant next door, which stretches to the corner. The
recent remodeling of Leshko’s is ominous: the windows used to cover almost
the whole front of the building; now the windows are smaller and there is a
lot of blank wall. Leshko’s used to be a neighborhood
working-class-type place, of the culture of the Eastern European people who
were the heart of the neighborhood for many years. The breakfast
special was $3. Now it is a yuppie bar-restaurant. Brunch is
$8. It is darker inside, and much brighter outside at night, which
discourages people from standing around or sitting against the wall.
This is an excellent example of destruction of community public social space through
excessive street lighting. The East Village is inexorably being
cleaned up. On its east side, near the River, in Alphabet City, there
are still many Hispanic people. The East Village has for many years
been a mix of white (Ukrainian, Polish, etc.), Hispanic, black, etc.; upper
class and working class. The traditional border has been Ave. A.
Today Aves. B, C, and D, are increasingly filled with expensive French
restaurants and clothing boutiques: the Soho-ization of the East Village is
well under way. Lately, a new type of object has appeared
on the street scene: plastic stands that contain free “newspapers” and
advertisements, and that are chained to lampposts. These stands are a
hazard and an inconvenience to pedestrians, for they block walking
space. They have nothing to do with the neighborhood, and clearly are
only there because someone paid money to the city to allow them to be chained
there. In short, the goose that laid the golden
egg is getting cooked. The neighborhood is undergoing a cultural
cleansing, which is slowly eroding the artistic nature that made it
attractive in the first place. But this is a universal process on the
planet: if things are bad in the East Village, they are probably worse in
other urban centers. Chains of multinational stores are transforming
every neighborhood. This is not all bad, of course. The East
Village has two Kinko’s--many denizens appreciate the high quality photocopy
and computer services, available 24 hours. The photographs that
accompany this paper are from the East Village’s K-Mart and Duane Reade
stores: the one-time-use (recycled) cameras were purchased, and the 1-hour
developing was done, at these places. It is only high technology in
large, expensive, well-maintained machines that can automatically develop
photos in one hour. Locals appreciate the availability of such
services. These modern facilities can help locals with their media
projects; they can help locals communicate with, and make money from, the
rest of the world. I would only suggest that there should be some sort
economic encouragement for locally-owned stores; and for partnerships of
local stores and multi-national chains. International chains stores
should be required to hire local artisans, to take on local decor, to sell
some local goods, and to give some local control. Jim Power has lived in many locations in
the East Village and has had numerous working studios. At present, he
is living in a limited space and does not have much of a studio, which means
that it is only on the streets or on a job that he can do mosaic work.
This makes it difficult for him to make tables and plaques, and to take on
assistants and students. Jim likes to work with others: he has had a
number of informal apprentices. He would like to work with groups, but
his nature is not conducive to working with bureaucracies. Jim Power is also a video documentarian and
artist. He was one of the first in the neighborhood to own a camcorder
with a large (4 inch) built-in screen. He has for many years
periodically submitted videotapes to Manhattan public access cable
television. And...Jim has been making websites since the early
90s. His first websites revolved around his idea for an Ave. A Artists’
Association, which he continues to promote. However, the website he is
currently developing, and which he owns, is www.eastvillage.com His plan is
for www.eastvillage.com to eventually include an interactive map, a full list
of neighborhood goods and services, and for it to enable access to and
communication between neighborhood artists of all media. He would
charge shops a yearly fee for listings; facilitate art sales with visiting
tourists and dealers. The project has yet to make any money, but more
and more people are asking to be involved and to help. Jim’s electronic
work goes hand-in-hand with his manual work. In recent weeks Jim has
been writing “www.eastvillage.com” in chalk on the sidewalks of the East
Village, in some cases adjacent to his mosaic work. Jim does not own a computer. He uses
the computers at the local cybercafe and at the very fine public library
branch on Tenth St., between Aves. A and B. Here one can have free
internet access for 30 minutes at a time. One of Jim’s long-range goals
is to have such a facility, preferably in a storefront that would remain open
24-hours, which would include video equipment, with editing and special
effects, so that video-audio could be streamed live 24-hours-a-day to
www.eastvillage.com Operating this set-up would provide training and
employment for people in the neighborhood--in terms of multimedia production,
marketing services and goods, taking visitors on walking tours, bringing them
to performances, introducing them to local artists, etc. Jim has been
talking for quite a while about wanting to give mosaic-making workshops via
internet video. In-the-flesh tourists and other visitors could be
offered the opportunity to join in the work, for fun and/or profit. In
sum, such facilities would enable neighborhood members to organize many
festive activities. Activities in all media go hand-in-hand:
each form of communication has its own advantages and difficulties. The
internet is no substitute for physical street presence and art.
Sometimes people talk with hope about the freedom and sociability of the
internet because they feel they have lost these opportunities on the
street. It is also possible, incidentally, to combine the internet with
street life: there could be large-screen displays in public and commercial
spaces, indoors and out. Transmitter-receivers could likewise be
operated anywhere in the neighborhood. All could be portable. The excitement of festive togetherness
increases as outsiders visit, and as people return for a reunion with each other,
the neighborhood, and the things it represents to them.
Consumer-celebrants, by their very presence, contribute to that which is
being consumed-celebrated: they become part of the spectacle they have come
to watch. This process works with in-the-flesh and
electronically-mediated participants. The most successful aspect of
eastvillage.com so far is the guestbook: at least once or twice a day someone
leaves a typed message on a scroll for all others to read. It is almost
like putting a piece of tile in a mosaic. Actually, Jim has been
talking about enabling people online to make mosaics together. A
television or computer screen is after all nothing but a constantly-changing
electronic mosaic, usually consisting of at least 400 pixels (picture elements)
horizontally and 300 pixels vertically). The East Village presents a festive
environment for people of the world to visit, partake of. But the East
Village level of restlessness, of soul-searching, of living on the edge, can
be relentless and disturbing. Even today, around Thompkins Square park
one can hardly avoid seeing people sacrificing their bodies on some sort of
vision quest. People tend to behave intensely, expressively, even
theatrically, and with abandon (although often with a calculated sense of
display). There is also a great deal of humor. People of all
races and sexual orientations socialize very easily and openly in the East
Village. This is all normal for people in the neighborhood, but to many
others, the East Village is “a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to
live there.” The fact is, the goal of most people in the world is to be
able to go to work, then relax, unwind, and calm down. People generally
want to go along and get along; they want to avoid rocking the boat. The East
Village is is a center of marginality, a shrine to art and self-expression,
whether it is accessed face-to-face or through electronic mediation.
Both types of visitors will be able to select to observe and participate with
what they like, to the degree of intensity that they like. The East
Village, like any other place, is finally a state of mind and a style of
communication as much as a physical locale. If Jim Power can help it,
East Village culture, including his mosaic work, will continue to be
available to whatever individuals desire it, wherever there is a market. Footnotes 1) Victor Turner, “Introduction,” in Celebration,
Studies in Festivity and Ritual, Victor Turner, ed., Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, p. 7. 2) Alessandro Falassi, “Festival,
Definition and Morphology,” in Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival,
Alessandro Falassi, ed., Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1987, p.
2. 3) Falassi, p. 3. 4) Peter Stallybrass and Allon White,
The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.
Press, 1986, p. 9. 5) Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,
“The Future of Folklore Studies in America: The Urban Frontier,” Folklore
Forum16 (1983), p. 215. 6) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p. 193. 7) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p. 183. 8) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p. 190. 9) Lucy R. Lippard, The Lure of
the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society, NY: New Press,
1997, p. 249. 10) William Shakespeare, The
Tempest, Act II, scene 1. 11) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p. 179. 12) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p.
222. 13) Nancy D. Munn, “Symbolism in a
Ritual Context: Aspects of Symbolic Action,” in Handbook of Social and
Cultural Anthropology, John J. Honigmann, ed., Chicago: Rand McNally and
Co., 1973, p. 582. 14) Louis Wirth, On Cities and
Social Life: Selected Papers, Albert J. Reiss, Jr., ed., Chicago: U. of
Chicago Press, 1964, p. 74. 15) Lewis Mumford, The City in
History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, NY:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961, p. 546. 16) Roger D. Abrahams,
“Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience,” in The Anthropology of Experience,
Victor W. Turner and Jerome Bruner, eds. Urbana and Champaign: U. of
Illinois Press, 1986, p. 65. 17) Julian Barnard,
The Decorative Tradition, London: Architectural Press, 1993, p.
73. 18) Nancy D. Munn, Walbiri
Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolism in a Central
Australian Society, Ithaca: Cornell U. Press, 1973. p. 164. 19) Abrahams, 1986, p. 180. 20) Roger D. Abrahams, “The Discovery
of Marketplace Culture,” Intellectual History Newsletter,April 1988,
p. 28. 21) Barbara Babcock, “Too Many, Too
Few: Ritual Modes of Signification,” Semiotica23(1978):3/4, p. 296. 22) Roger D. Abrahams, “An American
Vocabulary of Celebrations,” in Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival,
Alessandro Falassi, ed., Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1987, p.
180. 23) Abrahams, 1987, p. 180. 24) Abrahams, 1987, p. 181. 25) Prince Ilango Adigal, Shilappadikaram
(The Ankle Bracelet), translated (from the Tamil) by Alain Danielou, NY:
New Directions Books, 1965, p. 22. 26) Adigal, p. 5. 27) Turner, 1982, p. 7. 28) Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image
and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives, NY:
Columbia U. Press, 1978, p. 5. 29) Turner, 1978, p. 6. 30) Turner, 1978, p. 5. 31) Alan Morinis, “Introduction,” in Sacred
Journeys: the Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Alan Morinis, ed., Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, p. 3. 32) Turner, 1978, p. 7. 33) Erik Cohen, “Pilgrimage and
Tourism: Convergence and Divergence,” in Sacred Journeys: the Anthropology
of Pilgrimage, Alan Morinis, ed., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, p.
52. 34) Turner, 1978, p. 8. 35) Henry Frederic Reddall, Fact,
Fancy, and Fable, a New Handbook for Ready Reference on Subjects Commonly
Omitted from Cyclopaedias; Comprising Personal Sobriquets, Familiar Phrases,
Popular Appellations, Geographical Nicknames, Literary Pseudonyms,
Mythological Characters, Red-letter Days, Political Slang, Contractions and
Abbreviations, Technical Terms, Foreign Words and Phrases, Americanisms, etc.,
Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1889, p. 63. 36) Roger D. Abrahams, 1988, p. 27. 37) Roger D. Abrahams, “The
Marketplace Experience and Festive Play,” unpublished manuscript, no date, p.
31. 38) Charles Mulford Robinson, Modern
Civic Art: The City Made Beautiful, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1918, p. 76 39) Robinson, p. 373. 40) Barnard, p. 135. 41) Abrahams, no date, p. 9. 42) Abrahams, 1988, p. 26. 43) Abrahams, 1988, p. 27. 44) Mark S. Davies and Susan J.
Hutchinson, “Crystalline Calcium in Littorinid Mucus Trails,” Hydrobiologia309(1-3),
1995, p. 120. 45) David McFarland, Animal
Behaviour: Psychobiology, Ethology, and Evolution, 2nd ed., NY: Wiley,
1993, p. 392. 46) David Attenborough, The Trials
of Life: A Natural History of Animal Behavior, Boston: Little, Brown, and
Co., 1990, p. 111. 47) Attenborough, p. 111. 48) Aubrey Manning and Marian Stamp
Dawkins, An Introduction to Animal Behavior. Cambridge:
Cambridge U. Press, 1998, p. 164. 49) John Alcock, Animal Behavior:
An Evolutionary Approach, Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 1998, p.
291. 50) Alcock, p. 93. 51) Manning, p. 169. 52) McFarland, p. 385. 53) Norimitsu Watabe, “Shell Repair,”
in The Molluska, Vol. 4, A.S.M. Saleuddin, ed., NY: Academic Press,
1983, p. 293. 54) A. O. Christie and R. Dalley,
“Barnacle Fouling and Its Prevention,” in Barnacle Biology, Alan J.
Southward, ed., Rotterdam, A. A. Balkema, 1987, p. 421. 55) Financial Times,
“Identifying Chalk Fossils,” 1/13/00,
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/cuttings/2000011301.html 56) Ferdinando Rossi, Mosaics, a
Survey of Their History and Techniques, translated (from the Italian) by
David Ross, NY: Praeger, 1970, p. 12. 57) Hans Peter L’Orange, Mosaics,
translated (from the Norwegian) by Ann E. Keep, London: Methuen, 1966, p. 35. 58) L’Orange, p. 7. 59) L’Orange, p. 38. 60) L’Orange, p. 7. 61) L’Orange, p. 37. 62) L’Orange, p. 4. 63) L’Orange, p. 5. 64) L’Orange, p. 8. 65) L’Orange, p. 10. 66) Barnard, p. 4. 67) Walter Crane, “On the Decoration
of Public Buildings,” in Art and Life, and the Building and Decoration of
Cities: a Series of Lectures by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society, Delivered at the Fifth Exhibition of the Society in 1896, London:
Rivington, Percival, 1897, p. 138. 68) L’Orange, p. 9. 69) Robinson, p. 263. 70) Robinson, p. 27. 71) Malcolm Miles, Art, Space and
the City: Public Art and Urban Futures, London: Routledge, 1997, 72) Cliff Moughtin, Tanner Oc, and
Steven Tiesdell, Urban Design: Ornament and Decoration, Oxford: Architectural
Press, 1999, p. 3. 73) Barnard, p. 9. 74) Barnard, p. 18. 75) Barnard, p. 40. 76) Lippard, p. 250. 77) Robinson, p. 13. 78) Robinson, p. 6. 79) Crane, p. 133. 80) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p.
191. 81) Jimmie Durham, as cited in
Lippard, p. 198. 82) Moughtin, p. 3. 83) Barnard, p. 7. 84) Barnard, p. 11. 85) Barnard, p. 7. 86) Mumford, p. 555. 87) Moughtin, p. 22. 88) Lippard, p. 110. 89) Lippard, p. 263. 90) Lippard, p. 274. 91) Miles, p. 189. 92) Judy Baca, as cited in Lippard,
p. 265. 93) Miles, p. 189. 94) Kevin Lynch, The Image
of the City, Cambridge, MA: Technology Press, 1960, p. 10. 95) Lippard, p. 111. 96) Barnard, p. 131. 97) Moughtin, p. 14. 98) Moughtin, p. 3. 99) Robinson, 357. 100) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p.
181. 101) Raven, as cited in Miles, p.
167. 102) Miles, p. 205. 103) Robinson, p. 263. 104) Turner, 1982, p. 13. 105) Richard Sennet, The Uses of
Disorder, London: Faber, 1996, p. 17. 106) Moughtin, p. 10. 107) Abrahams, 1988, p. 26. 108) Richard Sennett, The
Conscience of the Eye: the Design and Social Life of Cities, NY: Knopf,
1990, p. 128. 109) Miles, p. 197. 110)
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1995. |