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10/07/2005: "Festa!!!" by Andrew Wielawski
When you put a plan into action, some things might not go the way you wanted them to. I never do things the way I thought I’d do them, and I’m not sure if this is a problem or not. Certainly, in the events I’ve organized, I’ve always become a spectator as things unfold, often with my hands off the wheel, and me somewhere other than the driver’s seat. So here’s what I planned, and a bit further on I’ll tell you what actually happened.My house, a small stone cottage in the hills of Tuscany, with a large lawn space, no neighbors, and ample parking, became the setting for an artistic ‘event’. It started when one of the local studios run by a German closed because he ran out of money and left town. The sculptors there had no place to put their work, and two asked me to store a few pieces on a lot adjacent to my house. I thought, why not set them up and make a kind of sculpture garden? We did.
Then, two more sculptors from the same place came and asked if they could, too, and the idea for a show was born. August in this area is when a lot of exhibits take place, and since I was looking for something to get me going, this became a good source of energy. Klaus * and Leonhard * are sort of conceptual minimalist sculptors, with highly finished stone and bronze work that doesn’t look like much else I’ve seen, a big plus in my book. They went to work like ants, clearing the field of rubble and cutting down thorns and weeds in record time with no equipment. Then, on a trailer, they brought in the sculptures and a small crane with a chain hoist to help them set up the work. Klaus is called ‘Klaus the Mouse’ around here, and his appearance reminds me of the advice from author Mark Helprin, that a man with a face like a rodent’s should never grow a mustache.
They hated the sculptures that their contemporaries already had placed in the ‘sculpture garden’, and didn’t want to have them in the same show they were going to be in. The idea of working that hard in front of me, and then raising some kind of objection worked, and I said they could ‘hide’ the other artists’ sculptures, as long as they set them up again afterwards. So they hauled these half ton monoliths around behind some brush, and promised to put them back after the show.
Meanwhile, I was setting up my downstairs, and positioning my own work in there as if it were in a gallery, putting in lighting, and trying to hide fifteen years of accumulated junk. I asked two painters to join the show, Marco Giordano, a recent art school grad who makes enormous canvasses based on music, and Nolde Banziger, a Swiss artist who does photo realistic work laid over rough, impressionistic canvass backgrounds. I asked Marco Golzi, a Pietrasanta gallerist with DiChiricos, Boteros, Fontana’s and others, to manage the ‘gallery’ space, and bring some collectors if he could, and also bring at least one well known work to hang with the others. I took the ‘Janusz’ article on the negative changes in the marketing of art, on the back side of the Chia critique, as inspiration for the title of the exhibit, and called it, “Vino, Cibo, Musica, e Arte” (Wine, Food, Music, and Art). I knew this would get anyone who had seen that article guessing whether or not I had written it myself, in this small town, and that a scandal would be the best publicity I could hope for. The galleries absolutely could not compete with these kinds of hooks, because in town, live music requires a permit, food’s expensive, and drinks aren’t served at gallery openings here any more. (the lowlife used to flock to openings for a free buzz).
I made a poster, and hired New York blues guitarist and friend, Jaime Dolce, with an Italian back up band for August 12th, the Friday before the biggest long weekend of the summer in Italy. We first met in NYC. When I sold the Harlequin, I wanted to throw a little seed back. My childhood friend Tim used to take me around the East Village and we’d play pool, drink, watch fights and listen to the blues. Inner Sole, Mason Casey, (web search) and Jaime were on the edge of all that, and I’d promised them if I ever sold that piece, I’d fly them to Italy and put them up for the summer. Like so many other things they’d been promised by drunks they didn’t know, they took this lightly, until one night I came back and said I’d sold it. With Tim rolling his eyes, and saying, “…Andrew, you don’t know what you’re doing!...” I took them to a travel agent and bought tickets. It was a rough summer, but with moments of magic like I’d never seen, or would see again. “Blues at Sunrise” at dawn at a party high in the mountains. Mason left at the end of the summer to play his harmonica for Wilson Picket, and a month later, Jaime was back. For good. He’s been here for the last eight years and occasionally at the mike he says, “…it’s all Andrew’s fault…”. I’m kind of proud of that, so I thought I’d tell you about itThe rest of the plan included a cloth maze in the center of my lawn, as big as a house, with nine rooms each decorated in the style of one of the countries in the European Union, putting the most stereotypical stuff I could find on the table in the center of each, sauerkraut and beer for the German room, Vodka and Kielbasa for the Polish, etc. Then, I decided to add an EU room…with nothing in it except the table. We could illuminate with candles, and the transparency of the cloth would add atmosphere. The maze idea I’d seen years ago near Transylvania.
Costs? That’s always a problem, so I thought I’d turn my VW into a bar, and sell drinks. Posters had to be made, and on my computer I came up with one, and doubled its size on a photocopy machine. The text was printed over photos of one each of our works, easy to do even for a computer idiot like me, you just run the page through the printer twice. I printed one for each artist with their work on it, and told them to go photocopy them and hang them everywhere they could. Nothing like personal motivation.
Lighting was primitive but very atmospheric. I got some big tomato cans from a restaurant, and poked holes through the sides with a chisel. With a bulb inside, when hung, they throw a circle of light down onto the ground, and little beams in all directions beyond. The field of sculptures beyond the house was lit with oil torches on bamboo poles. Since my studio had no sign, I whipped one together using stencils from my crate marking drawer, and little Pollack-esque dribbles to the sides.
As the date drew nearer, an erotic sculptor, Georg Viktor, dropped by to ask if he could join in, so I added his name to the poster, and he brought a risque’ piece. Klaus and Leonhard were horrified. The participants started asking for things they needed, and my progress slowed down to the point that I realized it wouldn’t all get done in time. The restaurant guy with the wholesaler’s pass told me at the last minute that he’d get me the supplies, but I’d also have to use my van to refurnish his business’s stock. I lost six hours of the day before the opening, and spent it watching four cooks who came in a tiny Fiat decide what they needed for that week. And my van smelled like a day old flounder when I opened the bar.
A side note about the bar…the Russians are now selling their products worldwide, and since you don’t see them every day. I got a lot of Russian beer, vodka, and champagne, labeled in Cyrillic, just to add a bit of atmosphere.The maze was the major casualty. I had six of the first friends who came help me put it up...bed sheet sized cloths held up with thousands of safety pins on strings stretched from the house to the trees beyond. It ended up a Christo style wall dividing the lawn in two, with one empty room in the middle, and a lot of piles of cloth all over the place. No other rooms, no furnishings, and nothing hung on its ‘walls’.
The first group of guests was an older crowd, looking for something unusual, and this was it. They slowly wandered the lower torch lit field, and strolled into my downstairs, made conversation with Marco,(who hadn’t brought any paintings) looked at the statues, and the stone table lit up under the gazebo. They ate the barbecued chicken, ribs, and salmon, drank wine they’d brought themselves, and munched on potato salad, a rare delicacy here in Italy. They stayed much longer than I expected, and struck up conversations I wasn’t there to hear with each other, and with me, and appeared to truly feel privileged to be there. The second group were the party animals, and they didn’t show up until midnite. Neither did the band. But once they started to play the blues, even the older crowd is moving to the music. The wine long gone, they started in on gin tonics and whiskey. At two, many of them were still there, to my surprise. The newest arrivals didn’t leave until the drinks ran out, about five, when my bartender Petra handed me five hundred fifty Euros, almost seven hundred dollars. The band, the liquor, and the food, had cost twenty five more than that. Almost break even.
And Tim, on his honeymoon, came too. He hadn’t seen Jaime play in eight years.
On her way to the car, Petra got punched by Klaus, whose advances she’d ignored even if he kept buying drinks so as to have an excuse to go back and try to hit on her again. I should mention, she’s gay. Then Simon, a buddy of hers who’s nearby, punches Klaus so hard his glasses fly down the road, and Klaus spent from five to six screaming about how he can’t see without them, and go home on his Vespa. The next morning, I drive into Seravezza for a cappuccino, and on my return, find his glasses in my driveway. I’ve just driven over them twice, once on the way out, and once on my return. A week later, he and Leonard proudly show me their new poster with some changes; everyone’s names including mine are removed except theirs, and there’s a new title for the show, ‘Zona’. The opening is scheduled for September 9th, but by the 6th Leonard has gotten angry and left. I don’t care. I know that at this point, no matter what Klaus does, it’s going to be good for me. If I keep quiet, I’m going to become the silent patron of an event demonstrating my generosity towards other artists, and above the need for publicity. Klaus calls a local TV station, the radio, and the press. Whatever sculpture isn’t his, he turns to face walls, carts off behind brush, etc., except mine, because he knows he’ll be on thin ice if he does that. He hires a jazz ensemble.
Weather threatens the opening. He asks me if he can move everyone into my studio if it starts raining, and halfway through, it does. The music and the people all crowd in, and Klaus, although disturbed by so much of my stuff and other peoples’ being in there, is thankful that things can keep going since it’s only ten thirty. The wine runs out at midnite, and the crowd leaves. All in all, it was a success; almost no one from the previous show was there, there were no fights, and everyone had a good time. Including me! Did anybody sell anything? No. But another couple of Bohemian evenings are impressed into our memories, and those of the people who were there. We wake up the day after, and trudge off to our studios with our hopes renewed for the future. If the work is strong enough, it might even draw people who wouldn’t come to just a party.
