FACEBOOK FREINDSHIP OR FACADE

IS FACEBOOK EVOLVING 
THE DEFINITION OF FRIENDSHIP?

An incredibly poignant exhibit is currently on display on the 4th floor of the Portland Museum of Art.   It is the brain child of artist Taja Alexia Hollander and it is titled: "Are you Really my friend?" The Facebook Portrait Project.
It is more than just a art exhibit I'd liken it more to a anthropological experiment.   It's one part photo essay,  one part installation- art exhibit to two parts sociology experiment - interactive discussion.  

  " Are you really my friend?"  when distilled down really questions the substance of friendship.
Is friendship Photographable? What is the life blood of a friendship? Oh to have 633 friends!
Is it possible to have 633 friends?  Do you Facebook?  How many friends do you have?
Whats your Facebook story? Do you check once a day, once a week, oh you don't Facebook or care,  oh that really doesn't matter because if you don't,  that becomes your Facebook story. 

One of Taja's FB Friends; June Fitzpatrick Photo byTAH

Hampshire College BA grad & Maine Resident Taja Alexia Hollander had 633 or 663 Facebook friends when she started this project ( she has a lot more now).  She started thinking about the forms of friendships she saw an opportunity to discover what the new meaning of the word friend is. Requesting her Facebook friends if they would meet with her and allow her to photograph them 143 responded and thus started the Are you really my friend, the Facebook Photo project. Taja a seasoned photographer she traveled around the country and shot images of her willing Facebook friends in the comfort of their living rooms, their kitchens or their offices.  The images captured by a camera that actually uses film,  imagine that, have a quality of stillness,  portray a diverse cross section of folks. For me some are a little haunting and I'd say even a tad sad, others the architecture is as captivating as the people. All in all the power of the images is that they visually share a cross section of a life that you don't see when cyberjumping on someones Facebook wall.

As mentioned this show is as much an installation art piece as it is photo expose' it's perhaps one of the most interactive gallery shows I've experienced.  Ms Hollander has provided an opportunity to comment and collaborate, to become a part of the exhibit. The communication options on the installation piece are varied from the modern with a touch friendly IPAD step right up access the web or Facebook and actually go to the "Are you really my friend Facebook"  page and leave a post.  There are other communication means you can go "old school" with a post it note and stick it up on the Facebook post it wall of fame,  or really old school with a 3" x 5" card and a pencil. I think the power of the show is it's desire to have you communicate your feelings & impressions. The show participation is evidence of a changing landscape in relationships. It is digital & written proof  that we are evolving everyday. Darwin would be proud of  Taja and her effort to expose an ever changing  world.  A world where an artist becomes the lens that focuses the light on real & virtual comrades who in turn force us inward to reflect on what friendship really is for us.

  My favorite part of the exhibit is the Post it note wall where you the viewer get to comment and participate.
Here are a few of my favorites:

Friendship is life without them who are we?
Good Idea real friends are cool too!
The Soul is missing on Facebook how impersonal!
Real friends are the ones you can call at midnight
My Favorite is with out a doubt;
besides cheese friendship is the most important thing in the world.

Why go see Taja Alexia Hollanders 

ARE YOU REALLY MY FRIEND?

 The Facebook project 

Get a Friend & Go because your good minds needs good art!  

FACEBOOK BY THE NUMBERS (as of Dec 2011) :
845 million the number of monthly active Friends/Users.

80 the percentage number of  monthly active Friends/Users outside of North America

70 the number of Friendly languages offered on Facebook

483 million the number of daily active Friend/Users on average

425 million the number of monthly active Friend/Users who used Facebook mobile products

The exhibit "Are you Really my friend " hangs through June 17th and is part of the CIRCA Series of exhibitions featuring the works of Maine artists. Thanks to PMA, The Maine Arts Commission, Donald Sussman & Portland creative thinkers the VIA group.  To find out more and see tons of images of the friends and the show go here.

 The Gallery Talk is made possible by the generosity of the 
WMPG Radio listening community.  This blog is the text version of the 
art rant heard every Thursday at 7am, 5 & 9:30pm on
WMPG college and community radio broadcasting
   from the University of Southern Maine

90.9 , 104.1 and streaming on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/  

Note: WMPG 90.9 fm has increased it's FM signal strength from 1100 watts to  4500 watts! Thank you for making that possible. This means that you are now able to hear MPG on your car radio from Brunswick Maine to Dover, New Hampshire.  The station management, the University of Southern Maine & DJ's are totally pumped and excited about the ability to bring you fresh diverse live radio with a clean crisp sound! 

Visual Poetry at Portland Library

"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood"  T.S. Eliot

Enjoying a selection in the Portland Public library

It's usually all about the printed word in the Portland Library.
This Month there is an opportunity for the visual to alliterate.

Three Titans of Portland Art community collaborate for a show entitled Visual Poetry.

All three Galleries possess a stable of solid quality artists.  What some see as a collaborative show I see as a battle royal between the heavy weight contenders of the P-city art community.
In this corner with youthful exuberance and the edge of a razor The June Fitzpatrick Gallery, and in this corner from Boothbay Maine with a touch of class it's the Gleason Gallery.  Last but not least! Defending their Crown as P-City's most prestigious, it's the HHHHUUUUTTTT!,  AKA the GreenHut Gallery.
And the Winner is ?
Of course as always with art it's in the eye of the beholder.

Be that said, none can deny the knock out power of the impressionistic piece of the HUT's Jeff Bye,  his "FDR drive" bespeaks a style that is liberal and thick with brush, the image presented, the dots not all connected. Contrasting that with another Hut artist;  Joel Babb & his piece "Portland's Middle & Exchange."  Babb possesses a style for detail more befit a watchmaker, with a micro brush and the ability to pause time,  Joel's work forces oil into the digital age...visually.  Rhode Island School of design grad John Whalley's graphite on paper work called Photoday is riveting, what a story each face beholds. My awe & another verse exposed  when I realized Whalley's keen skill with the most common of writing implements, a pencil.   Oh there's more,  David Driscoll's woodcut shares with us the poetry of a women's curves and it speaks loudly. Forget not Fitzpatrick's stud; Tom Hall, his mixed media is a Collage of a sky line you'll recognize as a close friend if you've ever strolled Portland's Back Cove or SoPo's Spring Point.

June Fitzpatrick Artist Tom Hall's  Portland Collage

The cool thing about this show for me is that it did forced me into the prose as I looked up a favorite poets most infamous of works.    TS Eliot's Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town" it's a poem from Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats ,  not known to all but this is the basis for the most successful of visual & audio Broadway shows; Cats!. Here's an excerpt from the poem :


Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones--
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs—he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!
He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impeccable back.
In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names is
The name of this Brummell of Cats;
And we're all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to
By Bustopher Jones in white spats!

Elliots power is his vocabulary and the ease that he has in allowing the reader to create an image.
The Visual Poetry exhibit allows proficient visual artists the opportunity to pontificate on the pallet.  Providing you the chance to view the poetry of the moment presented. 

Poetry the written form can be found on the shelves of the Portland Public Library,
but for VISUAL POETRY drop down into the Library's Lewis Gallery.

Why Go see the Visual Poetry of three of

 Portland's Landmark Art Galleries? 

Go because your good mind needs good art! 

 

 The Gallery Talk is made possible by the generosity of the 
WMPG Radio listening community.  This blog is the text version of the 
art rant heard every Thursday at 7am, 5 & 9:30pm on
WMPG college and community radio broadcasting
   from the University of Southern Maine

90.9 , 104.1 and streaming on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/  

Note: WMPG 90.9 fm has increased it's FM signal strength from 1100 kilowatts to  4500 kilowatts! Thank you for making that possible. This means that you are now able to hear MPG on your car radio from Brunswick Maine to Dover, New Hampshire.  The station management, the University of Southern Maine & DJ's are totally pumped and excited about the ability to bring you fresh diverse live radio with a clean crisp sound! 

FREE FOR ALL Unjuried Art Chaos corraled

This is Gallery Talk WMPG’s window into the world of art with host Lars…

The Space Gallery's Free for All exhibition Feb1 - March 3rd

Often I recount on the fact that as a resident of southern Maine I feel fortunate to have the SPACE GALLERY in my life.   Space is truly adventurous in the world of cutting edge art & ideas.  Right next door is the Maine College of Art and they give the Space Cadets a serious run for their money when it comes to that bleeding edge,  but time after time Space goes above and beyond imagination with fresh innovative takes on visual art, spoken art & music art plus any number of hybrid combination of these disciplines.    Space is supported & sponsored by a diverse bunch of advocate groups,and buiness' with the Andy Warhol foundation being one of the more recognizable, that said they give the Space Gallery a huge amount lot of room for artistic interpretation.

The current show is call “FREE FOR ALL”  and is an unjuried show that allow any and all artists to submit a single piece for display and sale or not for sale.   It’s a fantastic forum for young artists and experienced artists.    Proficient Oil painters hanging side by side with some of the most experimental works imaginable. Now one of my favorite pieces of the exhibit Imagination played a huge roll.  The piece was called “cotton candy”  what originally looks like a old black & white photograph of a turn of the century carnival cotton candy vendor, the soft hazy focus indicative of the pictoralist photographers of that time actually is a staged model, in miniature,  photographed in a macro mode it’s a classic representation worthy of a Hollywood movie set.  Yes it’s right here in Maine and it’s only one of over 200 works!   This is the kind of show if you think you can paint or sculp you immediately say I can do better than that!  Perhaps you could, you'll get a chance next year ...  Do this show with friends and have a hoot with it be the art critic and rip a part the pieces you think are weak and praise the pieces with great imagination.  It's my guarantee you'll see at least one you love, one you hate, several that leave you emotionless and one you'll say I can do that!  So bring your best attitude and let your mind be free there ‘s plenty of art to spark your imagination and as mentioned it’s for sale and there are values to be had… 

The Space Gallery is open Wed - Sat 12-6pm and during special shows. 

Why go see the Free for all at the Space Gallery?

Show up, ”free your mind the rest will follow”and Your good mind needs good art.

 The Gallery Talk is made possible by the generosity of the 
WMPG Radio listening community.  The blog is the text version of the 
art rant heard every Thursday at 7am, 5 & 9:30pm on
WMPG college and community radio broadcasting
   from the University of Southern Maine

90.9 , 104.1 and streaming on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/  

Note: WMPG 90.9 fm has increased it's FM signal strength from 1100 kilowatts to  4500 kilowatts! Thank you for making that possible. This means that you are now able to hear MPG on your car radio from Brunswick Maine to Dover, New Hampshire.

  The station management, the University of Southern Maine & DJ's are totally pumped and excited about the ability to bring you fresh diverse live radio with a clean crisp sound!

Here are a few more of the images I like:

Portland Art Outside!

Public non-sanctioned art has always been about making a statement.  Over the past couple months street art in the form of large poster size images of people smiling, winking and frowning

appeared on Portland's city buildings, traffic abutments, city statues and even on the steps of Portland's city hall. 



Portland's Insideout Public Art on display in Congress Square



If you saw the images you know what I'm talking about,  if you didn't see them let me tell you it was hard for me to look away. The large images made me want to look more and try to figure out what the heck is going on? Who is this person?  Are they one of the 30 mayoral candidates that were running in the last city election?? Street Art that evokes ideas, thought, and perhaps mental chaos is in my opinion successful, if you can connect the dots quickly it's just not as effective.   A tip o the hat to the MECA students in pulling off their version of "Inside out" a cool thing about this format is the images are plastered up with wheat paste thus this art with all it's visual punch & power is only temporary.

What exactly is "inside out" is about using art to turn the world inside out, it all started with a French tag artist named JR that decided to go big or go home.  He plastered huge walls with images of people, no one super special, not a Mike Jordon or anyone that you would recognize just a building sized image of a person. He efforts received such notoriety and effected so many people that he was identified as a person who had indeed changed his world.  As a result of his actions he received a TED award.  There were youtube videos of his efforts and they have motivated hundreds of people to go out and change their world. 

The MECA students have documented the whole process from idea, installation and public reception in a film called  "Under the umbrella".  The film will screen at 7pm on 1st Friday February 3rd in the safe confines of the 2nd floor Osher Hall gallery in the infamous Maine College of Art.  **

WHY EXPLORE FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK  

and the Insideout documentary "Under the Umbrella"

GO BECAUSE YOUR GOOD MIND 
NEEDS GOOD ART! 

** what's really cool is this project had a lot of participants; Major support for Portland INSIDE/OUT comes from Creative Portland Corporation, Portland Color, and VIA The INSIDE/OUT MECA artist team is collaborating alongside Portland neighbors, organizations and building owners including The City of Portland, Creative Trails, Cultivating Community, Parkside Neighborhood Center, Company of Girls, The Telling Room, the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA, Mark Marchesi, Pete Nenortas, Michael Berube, Parallax Partners, No Umbrella Media, Winky Lewis, and many, many more. 

 The Gallery Talk is made possible by the generosity of the 
WMPG Radio listening community.  The blog is the text version of the 
art rant heard every Thursday at 7am, 5 & 9:30pm on
WMPG college and community radio broadcasting
   from the University of Southern Maine

90.9 , 104.1 and streaming on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/  

Note: WMPG 90.9 fm has increased it's FM signal strength from 1100 kilowatts to  4500 kilowatts! Thank you for making that possible. This means that you are now able to hear MPG on your car radio from Brunswick Maine to Dover, New Hampshire.

  The station management, the University of Southern Maine & DJ's are totally pumped and excited about the ability to bring you fresh diverse live radio with a clean crisp sound!