ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Why Must We Always Ride A Divided Highway?
Be on the lookout for a Big Rig tricked out as a travelling art gallery and performance space – “America: Now and Here,” the brainchild NYC painter Eric Fischl, may be coming to a town near you, The New York Times reports:
The idea, [Fischl] said in an interview, grew out of a strong conviction in the years after 9/11 that the country, as it grew more politically polarized, was losing a sense of its place and direction in the world, more so than at any time since the 1960s.
“This came just from talking to friends, peers, acquaintances, students, local grocers, whoever I talked to,” he said. “America doesn’t usually turn to its artists for help with something like that, but I actually think it’s something that artists do very well. And I thought, ‘If America won’t turn to its artists, then I know a lot of pretty famous artists and I’ll ask them to go out and do it themselves.’”
[I]n fall 2012, the plan is for six trailer trucks to hit the road, stopping in towns and smaller cities that have yet to be selected, where the convoy will set up like a miniature state fair, swapping the Tilt-a-Whirls and show pigs for paintings and photographs by artists like Ed Ruscha, Susan Rothenberg, Gregory Crewdson, Laurie Simmons and David Salle; short, conversational plays by writers like Edward Albee and Marsha Norman; and music by artists like Lou Reed, Philip Glass and Roseanne Cash. Four of the truck trailers will partially unfold and link together to create a 3,300-square-foot gallery space, and two more will contain materials for a covered pavilion and a screen and seating area to show short films by documentary makers like Lauren Greenfield and Mitch McCabe.
The project has also recruited 54 well-known poets, who collaborated on “Crossing State Lines,” a book of linked verse in the tradition of the Japanese renga, published this week by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
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