Ben La Rocco, Grains of Beauty, 2009
Tomorrow is the big day and blogpix, organized by the ravishing and lovely Olympia Lambert, opens at Denise Bibro Fine Art’s Platform Project Space (529 West 20th St., #4W).
On view from March 5 – 28, 2009, blogpix brings together four art bloggers (Roberta Fallon & Libby Rosof, Joanne Mattera and lil’ ole me) who have each chosen an artist (or artists) for the show. My choice was Brooklyn painter Ben La Rocco. When Olympia first approached me to participate, she asked me to chose a street artist for the exhibit but I quickly realized that the venue wasn’t well suited for that type of work I had in mind so I went with something totally different and I think it all worked out in the end.
Part of the reason I chose Ben for the show lies in the fact that as art bloggers we can often overlook work made by people like Ben, individuals who create work that doesn’t reproduce well and shy away from any web presence–no website, Facebook account, etc.
His absence from the blogosphere was reason enough for me to include him but the fact that he creates some very skilled and poignant art works that require time is also very “anti-blog.” Considering how much information we plough through as bloggers (or online readers) the quiet and subtle is often overlooked in favor of controversial, issue-based or graphic (hell, I even chose Ben’s more graphic work to illustrate this post). Also, in the interest of full-disclosure, I should also mention that Ben is an editor at the Brooklyn Rail, which I write for though I first met him over 5 years ago when we were both writers at the same publication.
While the show opens tomorrow (Thursday), I will be participating in a panel discussion this Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 5:00 PM (EST) also at the gallery.
But don’t fret if you can’t physically make it to the panel since you can join us online via the blogpix Twitter account, www.twitter.com/blogpix, all the best panel discussions are doing it. Also, feel free to tweet me directly during the panel–though I can’t promise that won’t piss off my co-panelists and audience members. Also, I may blog, tweet or Flickr live from the panel…yes, I really am THAT ADHD!
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