Jazz Age for a better age

James writes:

The annual Jazz Age Lawn Party, a two-weekend event that now takes place each summer on New York's Governors Island, is as much about the revival of lost taste as it is about the revival of lost music. Over a recent hot summer weekend, the curious spectacle of the event, in which not only the performers but most attendees dance and picnic in period attire, presented its own genteel challenge to the cultural status quo. Not unlike the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia, where customary roles were temporary reversed, the Lawn Party presents a space where modern conventions get overturned. Yet in our upside-down times, the difference here is that the world inside the Jazz Age venue is the dignified, social reversal of our otherwise Saturnine culture.   

We have Michael Arenella, the Lawn Party's impresario and bandleader of its Dreamland Orchestra, to thank for growing this remarkably interesting and attractive happening from a small gathering in 2005 of "fellow torch carriers of a by gone era" into a cultural touchstone—and the late photographer Bill Cunningham for documenting its emerging manifestations each year.  

The Lawn Party's popularity speaks to the shape-shifting, skin-changing nature of our Millennial generation, who make up a majority of its attendees. Feeling understandably little allegiance to their given time and place, they look for better ones. Certainly, their broadcasted experiments in self identification may descend into narcissism. Yet as a cultural indicator, the Jazz Age Lawn Party offers a hopeful sign that they also grasp for the return of a culture of manners.

At least set to the music of Arenella's Dreamland Orchestra, along with Queen Esther, Molly Ryan, Gregory Moore & the Dreamland Follies, and Roddy Caravella & The Canarsie Wobblers, all spread over two stages, the Jazz Age Lawn Party offers an afternoon of elegant escape that, we can only hope, may again become the norm.  

"Joe Zucker: Armada" in The Brooklyn Rail

Joe Zucker: Portrait of the artist. Pencil on paper by Phong Bui.

"Joe Zucker: Armada," the exhibition I organized at The National Arts Club, is reviewed by Harrison Tenzer in The Brooklyn Rail

Joe Zucker has avoided the limitations of working in a cohesive style, instead embracing logic to produce diverse bodies of work that seek to unite subject, technique, material, and support. From his cotton-ball paintings depicting the ills of slavery with the very commodity that fueled the trade in human flesh to his lake paintings, the result of paint being poured and hardening in a shallow container to create monochrome works about their own creation, Zucker constantly intertwines art history with practical craft, logic, and wit. Much has been written about this formal and conceptual balancing act, but relatively little attention has been paid to Zucker’s subject matter in itself. Armada, the recent retrospective of his works on paper and studies from the 1970s to the present that feature nautical themes curated by James Panero offers an opportunity to consider a specific topic that has proven particularly fruitful to Zucker over the decades: piracy. 

Read the full review here. 

What can the tech bubble learn from the art bubble?

James writes:

What can the tech bubble learn from the art bubble? I offer some thoughts in this piece by Gary Sernovitz in The New Yorker.

The art world knows about prices floating ever higher on abstraction and hope. The resonances aren’t completely coincidental. Both venture capitalists and art buyers are in the business of valuing the invaluable. Both stake their reputations on exquisite selection. Both nurture talent before it can support itself. Both have a soft spot for youth, for unbowed ego, for the myth of solitary genius, for the next new thing. Both operate in a world of frustratingly limited information and maddeningly unpredictable success. Both depend on consumer culture while holding themselves superior to it. And both the art market and venture investing have become increasingly winner-take-all games, with more clout to the companies and artists backed by the most powerful dealers or venture capitalists.

Complete article here.