Category Archive for 'chrisrobbins' at Life is sweeter than jewish wine

Archive for the 'chrisrobbins' Category

Trade School

February 9th, 2010 by nkatz22

I love Trade School in NY even if it is just hipsters for hipsters.
And anyway christopher robbins will be there.

Ideas,Pedagogy,chrisrobbins Add a comment

i’m not usually one to romanticize (manual) work (labor) in my art practice, but the process of building the clay oven for fare il pane a bologna has been really enjoyable. you can see some photos of the work here. not that i am opposed to doing the work necessary to realize a project, but it hadn’t been a defining feature of my work for some time. i am just as happy focusing on idea, and/or collaborating with others in the realization of an idea, but not needing to get my hands “dirty” to feel that i have “made” something.
i remember spending some time in graduate school joking with a friend in the ceramics department about how unfortunate it must be to be in a material based program. and now, the two major post grad school projects that i have worked on have involved hard work, construction, and surprisingly both involved a fair amount of clay. not sure if there is a thesis to this post, other then that perhaps after graduate school and without major institutional support (college loans) one finds that in order to get anything done, you have to do it yourself… so thanks again to chris robbins for reminding me that it’s okay to make stuff.

Tags: christopher robbins, dawn holder, fare il pane a bologna, la vida es un teatro. Geography,Ideas,My work,Narrative,chrisrobbins,friends Add a comment

christopher robbins blog re-enactment

March 11th, 2009 by nkatz22

My friend Christopher Robbins is vehemently opposed to the categorization of a life lived as Art. So, to test his credo, I re-enacted one of his blog entries to see whether: a) his life as reported is mundane, b) can be mundane-ized, c) whether there is an aesthetics to his life, d) whether I can identify those aesthetics, e) whether a life lived may not be art, but does a life blogged becomes art, and f) what about his life lived is so uniquely a life lived that it abhors an artistic categorization.

Hills with nikki

I had a little adventure during my mountain jog with Nikki this morning. I went up the hill directly behind my house, but this time I kept going where I usually turn back because it looks like it becomes a path through someone’s private land. I’ve found that most paths that look like private driveways or path’s through fields tend to let out onto public roads, and so far no-one has yelled at me except that one guy with the rifle.

So, I went up, up, up, up. Past the high house, higher than I’d ever been before this close to town, and finally, let out on a big dirt road. This high? Hmm. So, we kept up the road, and after rounding the bend, there was that red and white tower that looms over Vranje. The one the US-lead NATO forces dropped a depleted uranium bomb on. The one people tell me not to go to (though I am not sure if it is becuase of radiation rumors or military restrictions).

I guess the important part was that they told me no to go there, and as I am much more scared of Serbian Authority figures than I ever was of Fijian ones, I turned around. The timing also seemed bad, a lone American rooting around a site his country had bombed, right after the recent controversies concering Kosovo and the burning of the US embassy in Belgrade.

So, on the way back down, I got lost, and stumbled upon what was either a dog or a wolf. All I know was I saw a grey canine butt shaking as it dug pretty deep into the forest floor. And I remember last time I went up this high (though further out of town), I bumped into some hunters who managed to express something along the lines of “There are wolves up there and they will rip your dog’’s throat out. You they’ll leave alone, but your dog…” and then a facial expression that was like this: teeth bared, fingers clenched like claws on his own neck, hios hand rrrRIPed away and his teeth clamped down while his face screwed up into something mean looking and he shook his head back and forth.

Anyway, I thought it best not to wait to find out, so we took off down the path at a trot.

Speaking of which… withina minute or two, we stumbled onto a man leading a horse and walking with a child. Upon seeing us, the fat child leapt back and pressed himself against a tree, cringing and crying at the sight of Nikki. (Envisioning, I guess, a teeth clenched throat ripping head shaking end)

To reassure him, I stopped and said “Nema, Dobro! Dobro!” (No, Good! Good!) and shoved my hand into Nikki’s mouth to prove my point.

The father basically said “Fine, Dobro. But will you get on out of here my son is scared.”

So, off on the run again, this time embarassed. And then the path ends and we are out on an open field, So I keep running with Nikki, to the corner of the field, around a bend, and FOUR BIG BLACK BARKING DOGS!

So its off again, hopping from farmer’s field to farmer’s field down the steep hills, no regard for paths anymore.

Eventually, the field lead to a path that lead to a dirt road that turned into the very same paved road we had started our ascent on earlier that morning.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:03 am and is filed under my personal life, balkans.

Hills with Wolf

I had a little adventure during my mountain walk with Wolf this morning. I went up the hill directly behind my house, but this time I kept going where I usually turn back because it looks like it becomes a path through someone’s private land. I’ve found that most paths that look like private driveways or path’s through fields tend to let out onto public roads, and so far no-one has yelled, not even a guy with a rifle.

So, I went up, up, up. Past the high house, higher then I’d ever been before this close to town, and finally let out on a small dirt road. This high? Hmm. So we kept up the road, and after clearing some bushes, there was a long wooden veranda construction looming over Bologna. It was still under construction, with muddy grounds and piles of wooden poles.

Standing there, cutting a regal figure was a small woman who I could easily imagine standing on an Andean plateau in Peru. I stopped and said “Salve” (greetings) and threw the pink ball for Wolf to catch. She asked me Wolf’s name and I told her. At which point I asked her if she spoke Spanish. She said yes, and that she is from Peru.

We spoke in Spanish for a while on the top of the hill surrounded by the strange long wooden veranda. She told me that she is a live-in nanny with a family in Milan, caring for their two-year old child. The parents of the mother live in the house that owns the strange wooden veranda. She came to visit, and brought her daughter and the nanny along.

I asked if she knew what the strange wooden veranda that we are standing under is. She told me that the parents of the mother of the child that she cares for are collectors of roses. They cultivate hundreds of varieties of roses from all around the world. They plan to complete construction on the strange long wooden veranda in time for spring, and to transplant their rose bushes along the veranda.

So on the way back down, I got lost, and stumbled upon what was an annoying little poodle. All I know was a heard obnoxious poodle barking from across the natural vine wall on the path.

Anyway I thought it best not to wait and see Wolf (a German Shepard) tear off the poodle’s head.

So, off on the run again. And then the path ends and we are out on an open field, So I keep running with Wolf, to the corner of the field, around a bend!

So its off again, hopping from farmer’s field to farmer’s field down the steep hills, no regard for paths anymore.

Eventually, the field lead to a path that lead to a dirt road that turned into the very same paved road we had started our ascent on earlier that morning.

Tags: italy. Narrative,chrisrobbins,friends 3 Comments

are we human?

February 1st, 2009 by nkatz22

i was just thinking about my friend chris robbins yesterday, and then he posted very “kindly” about my new natives on his blog. i’m still formulating a response chris. but until then, i will say that i was thinking about you because of this song “human” by the killers. i realize it is probably old news, but as i’ve been out of the country for a while, i was excited to hear this melodramatic anti-conformism stadium anthem. and well, it’s been on repeat for a couple of days.

Human [4:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

chrisrobbins,friends 2 Comments

my life is a work of art

July 18th, 2008 by nkatz22

collaboration with chris

it also got me up and out of bed early, and in honor of the day i started by re-reading kaprow’s “the meaning of life”. it put things into a nice context for me and also set me off on my plan for the day, which was to approach it with the mindfulness that thich nhat hanh talks about with his dailly reminders… “breathing in i am eating an orange… breathing out i appreciate the person who picked this orange… etc.”

being at putney is an interesting place for this experiment as the days are so carefully planned so as to keep all of the kids focused and in line… free time is planned… the structure while constricting to some kids is actually really appreciated by others who may not so easily negotiate social relations. interesting for the experiment in that my day was ordered and there is already a certain aesthetic to that ordering and so the authorship of this day for me is shared with tom howe the director of the program. during the day i appreciated that about him.

after reading kaprow and before breakfast (at about this time) i walked over to the cow barn to visit the calfs. one had been born a week ago but i hadn’t yet had a chance to see her. what better time to do that then during this day. at the barn, i was fully aware and enjoying my life as a work of art.

breakfast is followed by morning sing, where the entire campus comes together and starts the day off with singing. one of the songs that we sang today, and a personal favorite is old polish/russian yiddish song tumbalalaika.

my workshops during the day were riddled with technical problems, i blamed them on the full moon, though i think it is actually today. nontheless, trying to figure out those technical problems while my kids were animating took me away from them a bit, but actually focused me very much in the present. i felt the urgency of getting things fixed so as not to slow my kids down. during this i also thought of the overall aesthetics of the day. well, looking at the day removed from the day there is a movement to it, a rhythm. and i thought to myself, looking at it this way, the day, my life, in what we preceive to be “art terms”… who gives a fuck.
and i started getting annoyed (while also acknowledging that the annoyance works well in the aesthetics of the day…) i got annoyed because i felt this experiment to be overly reductionist, and while i do think the way you reduce things is a useful device, i felt annoyed that maybe this was not a reduction of what i had initially proposed, but a clever manipulation by you.

i spent a couple of hours annoyed and i thought this to be an important part of the process of the day so i let it be. after workshops i ran into my friend rachel and we talked for a bit. i had told her about our planned collaboration previously and now she was a willing listener to my frustration. she is a ESL teacher and does not consider herself an artist, the art she makes is mostly utilitarian… knitting hats, etc. but she also lives a life that i view romantically and aesthetically… her husband is a carpenter, together they built a barn and renovated their home, they raise goats, eat vegetables that they grow.

speaking with her, she told me that while she finds it interesting she is having difficulty connecting any of this to something familiar to her, a way that she can make sense of it. the closest thing was a sermon she heard as a child, the pastor was telling of a day in which everything he did, he did as a prayer, and that as a result he became more fully aware of every moment in his day. it brought it right back to thich nhat hanh for me again and i recommitted to practicing mindfulness for the duration of the day. i asked rachel if later that evening she would take part in my day of “my life is a work of art” (purposefully) by having a conversation with me in a pretty gazebo that i discovered this morning.

after dinner i led a yoga class for other teachers. it was really fun, i’ve been doing that for the past couple of weeks. i never led a yoga class before and having to speak each asana, where the arms go, the legs, the head is a very useful exercise in recognizing to myself what exactly i am doing and what what i am doing is exercising, stretching.

following yoga rachel and i had our conversation under the gazebo. the full moon was rising. the sound of kids frolicing during in the grass in the background. it was a beautiful night last night. we didn’t talk about anything in particular, no more art talk, we overheard some of her students far away struggling through english in order to communicate with each other, it was cute. the resident three-legged cat came running up to visit us and roll around in the grass. it was getting late, the bugs were out and we said good night.

back in my room i thought about an essay i had read by boris groys “on the new” where he compares kierkigard concept of christ as new new, not just new different to duchamp’s readymade. new different is never entirely new because we can identify it’s differences with what is already familiar, so it is always in relation to something that has come before it. new new (like for kierkigard, the embodiment of god in a human, or duchamp’s embodiment of art in the profane) is something that we have no previous experience to compare to, a difference beyond difference.

to this thought i fell asleep.

thank you chris, i enjoyed our first experiment as a warm up to precursor to a possible collaboration.

Artists,Ideas,My work,Narrative,chrisrobbins 2 Comments

robbins-katz collab (continued)

July 15th, 2008 by nkatz22

the chris robbins and nathaniel katz possibly maybe toying with collab continues here

Ideas,My work,chrisrobbins Add a comment

katz-robbins (continued)

June 22nd, 2008 by nkatz22

chris’ latest response

and here are some strategies/thoughts/questions (without coopting chris’ language)

-not sure what the value of distinctions are when it comes to saying that “certain activities can function as art because they… contain myth, involve creation, hard work, etc.” it’s more a matter of the language, tools, education that we are equipped with having followed a certain path.

-life is not pure. it is constantly intervened on by so many unnatural conditions… capitalism, science, religion, technology, ideology. so why is it so important to exclude art, or to make the distiniction so necessary?

-i think that object (as in making something) oriented art is the same as object (as in having an end goal) oriented art. and i think this is a limited view of the function of art. and goes a long way to confuse purpose and goal in an uninteresting way. and, isn’t it just another way in which art reaffirms capitalism?

-if art as life, life as art did not require the validation of the institution would it be so infuriating? i believe we are assuming personas and performing in all social situations. a consciousness of the performance, or a conscious performance go a long way toward creating a defamilliarization.

two goals (in a continuous loop) that my work as an artist:

1. continues the narrative of art as cultural production, so as to…