Thursday, February 01, 2001
Scavenging the riches of New York's streets
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
A bunch of us part-time expatriates were sitting on the enclosed deck of a friend's upstate New York house, sipping after-dinner drinks and admiring the room, with its tastefully assembled eclectic furniture. It reminded me of any number of hideaway bistros, most recently Danal, a little French restaurant on E. 10th Street, with its homely atmosphere, where diners sit on 19th century wicker, bentwood and turned wood chairs and equally unmatched tables, facing wall shelves filled with sets of earthenware and porcelan dishes. Our friend's rooms were likewise dripping with charm, all that he was missing were the restaurant's branches of cherry blossoms and the dressmaker's wire mannequin that autheticates its Frenchitude.
Guess what, it turned out that our host had assembled a lot of the artfully arranged furniture and objects directly from the streets of New York, with only a little help from country auctioneers and garage sales. The talk naturally turned to scavenging, the method by which many of us, on one occasion or another, equipped our post-collegiate living quarters. New Yorkers, with their fat pay envelopes and fickle tastes, are notorious discarders of what the rest of the world would consider good gear. Someone remembered a story of assembling a matching set of discarded imitation Marcel Breuer chrome tube chairs, which had notoriously fragile caned seats, replacing the latter with petitpoint over wood-base cushions, and creating a personal style that was snubbed by a visiting critic, in print, either in the New York Times or New York magazine. That reminded someone else of having picked up student art - canvasses, note books, sketches - on a Soho street. The latter, mounted in cheap Kulicke frames, elicited a number of inquiries about the unidentified artist. "You're all now thinking, how come I did not sign some kind of false name to them. Well, I did not, not because I'm too honest for such a prank. I might have enjoyed tricking the world into chasing up a false trail, but I am an accountant, not an arts person, and I have to protect my reputation." The art was eventually lost in storage, depriving the bunch of us amateur detectives of an opportunity for idle speculation.
That brought on my Andy Warhol story. Soon after the artist's death, in 1987, I passed the Union Square block where his latest factory was located, to find a mixed media painting, framed with wooden mouldings and a solid back, leaning against a building. It was a woods scene, in ink over white clay relief, and weighed a ton.
I dragged it home, the white clay ruining a suit in the process, to find that it was not acceptable as decoration, regardless of the prominence of the artist whose name was signed in the corner. Arguing was useless, so I called Christie's auction house, and they agreed, after viewing (this time I took a taxi), to put it into a Post-Impressionist sale. Well, it attracted no bidders, and I had to store it, pending disposal. By this time I was sick of the whole thing, and decided to offer it to museums, as a gift, circulating a photograph. Guess what again, no takers.
Finally, I paid an art gallery $100 to authenticate it and a small institution needing wall art accepted it. I I lugged it over there, to be hung in an obscure spot. When I last visited the location, it was gone, another blow, and I did not have the heart to inquire. So much for gold on the streets.
That was enough for a younger participant, who had listened respectfully until now. He had his new tech contributions to impart, on a more positive note. New York might be a good place for art, but for scavenging computers, video and audio equipment nothing beats a class college town, like New Haven or Cambridge, we were advised. Graduating students, who have to free up their dorm rooms (lower classpeople can put stuff into storage), leave behind not only futon couches, chairs and shelving but also most desirable, high quality stereo sets with heavy speakers, the weightier the better. Books are also easily acquired. We also heard the sad tale of the graduating scholarship student who refused to leave, locked himself in, and the hose master and the resident scholar had to come and gently pry him out of his cherished home away from home.
"How about CDs," the storyteller was challenged, breaking the reverie. The challenger had a story: "This graduating kid was a Kuwaiti, son of a sheik, and did not dare bring back home his collection of degenerate Western music, mostly good rock. He hesitated until it was too late to do anything about the records, except to discard them. I know the guy who picked them up, he ended up with a better rock collection than the campus radio station."
We fell silent, in respect, ther was no topping that story.
As an aside, licensed cartmen and scavengers were the growing 17th century New York City's sanitation system's operators. First sewer was installed in 1703; dumping of non-salvageable refuse in the harbor was curbed in mid 19th century (stopped by the US Supreme Court in 1934!), a Board of Health was created in 1866. There is a whole fascinating story. Later.
A bunch of us part-time expatriates were sitting on the enclosed deck of a friend's upstate New York house, sipping after-dinner drinks and admiring the room, with its tastefully assembled eclectic furniture. It reminded me of any number of hideaway bistros, most recently Danal, a little French restaurant on E. 10th Street, with its homely atmosphere, where diners sit on 19th century wicker, bentwood and turned wood chairs and equally unmatched tables, facing wall shelves filled with sets of earthenware and porcelan dishes. Our friend's rooms were likewise dripping with charm, all that he was missing were the restaurant's branches of cherry blossoms and the dressmaker's wire mannequin that autheticates its Frenchitude.
Guess what, it turned out that our host had assembled a lot of the artfully arranged furniture and objects directly from the streets of New York, with only a little help from country auctioneers and garage sales. The talk naturally turned to scavenging, the method by which many of us, on one occasion or another, equipped our post-collegiate living quarters. New Yorkers, with their fat pay envelopes and fickle tastes, are notorious discarders of what the rest of the world would consider good gear. Someone remembered a story of assembling a matching set of discarded imitation Marcel Breuer chrome tube chairs, which had notoriously fragile caned seats, replacing the latter with petitpoint over wood-base cushions, and creating a personal style that was snubbed by a visiting critic, in print, either in the New York Times or New York magazine. That reminded someone else of having picked up student art - canvasses, note books, sketches - on a Soho street. The latter, mounted in cheap Kulicke frames, elicited a number of inquiries about the unidentified artist. "You're all now thinking, how come I did not sign some kind of false name to them. Well, I did not, not because I'm too honest for such a prank. I might have enjoyed tricking the world into chasing up a false trail, but I am an accountant, not an arts person, and I have to protect my reputation." The art was eventually lost in storage, depriving the bunch of us amateur detectives of an opportunity for idle speculation.
That brought on my Andy Warhol story. Soon after the artist's death, in 1987, I passed the Union Square block where his latest factory was located, to find a mixed media painting, framed with wooden mouldings and a solid back, leaning against a building. It was a woods scene, in ink over white clay relief, and weighed a ton.
I dragged it home, the white clay ruining a suit in the process, to find that it was not acceptable as decoration, regardless of the prominence of the artist whose name was signed in the corner. Arguing was useless, so I called Christie's auction house, and they agreed, after viewing (this time I took a taxi), to put it into a Post-Impressionist sale. Well, it attracted no bidders, and I had to store it, pending disposal. By this time I was sick of the whole thing, and decided to offer it to museums, as a gift, circulating a photograph. Guess what again, no takers.
Finally, I paid an art gallery $100 to authenticate it and a small institution needing wall art accepted it. I I lugged it over there, to be hung in an obscure spot. When I last visited the location, it was gone, another blow, and I did not have the heart to inquire. So much for gold on the streets.
That was enough for a younger participant, who had listened respectfully until now. He had his new tech contributions to impart, on a more positive note. New York might be a good place for art, but for scavenging computers, video and audio equipment nothing beats a class college town, like New Haven or Cambridge, we were advised. Graduating students, who have to free up their dorm rooms (lower classpeople can put stuff into storage), leave behind not only futon couches, chairs and shelving but also most desirable, high quality stereo sets with heavy speakers, the weightier the better. Books are also easily acquired. We also heard the sad tale of the graduating scholarship student who refused to leave, locked himself in, and the hose master and the resident scholar had to come and gently pry him out of his cherished home away from home.
"How about CDs," the storyteller was challenged, breaking the reverie. The challenger had a story: "This graduating kid was a Kuwaiti, son of a sheik, and did not dare bring back home his collection of degenerate Western music, mostly good rock. He hesitated until it was too late to do anything about the records, except to discard them. I know the guy who picked them up, he ended up with a better rock collection than the campus radio station."
We fell silent, in respect, ther was no topping that story.
As an aside, licensed cartmen and scavengers were the growing 17th century New York City's sanitation system's operators. First sewer was installed in 1703; dumping of non-salvageable refuse in the harbor was curbed in mid 19th century (stopped by the US Supreme Court in 1934!), a Board of Health was created in 1866. There is a whole fascinating story. Later.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 12:39 PM 
