Artist Brent Birnbaum, a.m.f. projects

Just arrived in Miami this morning, and I’m having a great time at the fairs.  I will keep updating my experience on the blog with pics of my favorite work.  By  far the winner of Day 1 is “The Amazing Ultran”.  Mostly I’m upset because I didn’t think of it!  Pay one dollar and the Amazing Ultran will write you your personal destiny.  I had mine done and was pretty impressed.  The ‘machine’ wrote an entire page for me, and with a constant line of one dollar destiny seekers, The Amazing Ultran may have an amazing business plan as well.

The Amazing Ultran

Upside Down Goggles- Amazing contraption if you can feel at ease knowing they have your credit card in case you accidentally damage these $1500 contraptions.

This Thanksgiving break I was able drag my family over to Carsten Holler’s new exhibit, Experience, at the New Museum in NY. I’d been looking forward to this exhibit for quite a long while.  Perhaps ever since the words ‘deprivation tank’ were uttered, I was hooked on the idea.  Unfortunately, as I was warned, the show was a little too good .  After standing in line just to enter the New Museum, I was immediately told (with great sympathy by the front desk lady) that they would be accepting no more people for

the already impressive lines leading to the four story slide and the “Psycho Tank”, an eerie plastic deprivation tank where one can float alone and naked in a soup of New York humanity (tempting…seriously).

Unfortunately, the carnival aspect that made this show such a hit in New York was just a tiny bit too effective…complete with all the lines but non of the triple fried food.  Although a bit let down by the circumstances, I suspect if one was able to sneak into this show at odd hours of the weekday, it could be a completely different experience…

My favorite part. Viewers were able to take a pill. Most were empty...some had mysterious white powder...

Their words, not mine.  Radio press coverage of my latest show, New (Now). at the Hamiltonian Gallery on view now through September 10th.

WAMU 88.5:

August 12, 2011 – Five local artists are having a coming-out party of sorts, thanks to the Hamiltonian Gallery.

Speaking of nineteenth century religious leaders represented as feral monkeys…love this description of the Flashpoint show (sorry guys-shows over. But you can catch my latest at Hamiltonian this Saturday).

Hamiltonian Gallery Kicks it off with a brand new show with brand new artists.  Super excited to be included in this.  Make it out this Saturday the 13th 7-9pm for some chilled wine, relaxed atmosphere and exciting art.

The American Spiritual Tent inside view

Read all about the ongoing show, American Temple, at Flashpoint Gallery in downtown DC at New American Paintings.

The clock is ticking as myself and the “engineering crew” (a.k.a. Rubin and Ryan, my two esteemed electrical engineers) race to install American Temple, possibly the most ambitious project I have ever bitten off.  Up to our eyeballs in coding, videos, LED’s and velvet, we burn the midnight oil to take the New American Spiritual Tent to its final incarnation.  This project, a rumination of consumer culture meets human spirituality, promises to calculate your very own personal purity score…based on American standards that is.

Once you step inside this brightly colored tent you suddenly find yourself in a luscious scarlet room, more akin to the red light district in Amsterdam than a DC gallery.  Directly in front of you sits something between a slot machine and a faberge egg.  “Do you compost?”, “Are you a good person?”  The machine matter-of-fact asks you the answers to these questions so prepare yourself for a delightfully  absurd cross examination.

The opening is 5-7pm this Saturday, June 18th at Flashpoint gallery.  You can read what other people say here.

So as many of you faithful blog readers may have guessed or already known, my adventure in India has come to a close.  My apologies to those who may have wondered whether I fell off the planet.  The truth is I came home to the US one month ago today, and it has taken me this long to disentangle my mind.  What was once a veritable ball of  yarn is now a series of snares I’ve given up trying to sort.

When I look back at my time in India, I’m left with a sort of bittersweet feeling of fondness, as if thinking about an unruly sibling whom you’ll never quite understand but love just the same.  “Oh, India,” I could hear myself sigh wistfully, or more often, “Incredible India!” muttered under the breath as an expletive—a play on the Incredible India! Tourism campaign logo.

I came back to the US and was struck by two things.  The first was how quickly I took for granted those objects that I had longed for eight long months: hot showers, television, jogs, sandwiches and clean air.  I took those things in like a drowning man takes in air.  But past the first week the only thing I noticed was the absence of those desires.

The second most noticeable difference was the temperament.  Being in India was like going to a concert and sitting in the front row….everyday.  Leaving India was like stepping out of that concert.  Your ears would ring and your eyes would adjust and all that was left was an overwhelming sense of silence.  Then you looked around and wondered, “Where are all the people?”  When I look at the sidewalks, they look like deserted zombie lands.  When I drive on the roads, it’s as if nobody exists.  You can see cars as far as the horizon, but no people.  They’re all tucked away safely behind tinted glass, barricaded in their metallic bubbles.  In India the concept of road rage didn’t exist.  Driving was enough of an Evil Knievel stunt as it was.  No one got upset, no one got petty.  There simply were too many people.

Living in India was like being in an impenetrable river.  You went with the flow.  In all things no matter what they were, you went with the flow.  Many travelers discover to their chagrin that when you try to move against the current, you’d get swallowed by the waves.  In order for anyone, foreign or local, to survive in a country with 1.2 billion people and about as many problems, you had to learn to cope, to float, to let the water slide off your back.  It was the only way.

But here in the US it’s a different story.  We’re all supposed to take control of our fate, to determine our own results.  It’s a country with a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” type of culture.  And it’s driving us all a little crazy.

I miss the elastic time and the long conversations over what seemed like a never ending tea break.  I miss the instant barrage of overly personal questions: “Are you married?”, “Are you a Christian?”, “Do you make money as an artist?” I miss strangers offering me homemade lunch on a crowded bus ride, or the frequent and earnest bequests that I visit a stranger’s home.  Americans now seem somewhat cold and aloof to me in their irritatingly punctual appointments and their lack of offering refreshments, tea or otherwise.

But I know that for me, this is home. This is where I fit in and make the most sense.  Still, I try to take a little of India with me, a little reminder of that intensely opposite culture.  I try to remember that overwhelming hospitality, that vivacious optimism and that strong sense of community and blend this with my own American sensibilities.   While I don’t know how this experience has affected me, I know on a very deep level that it has affected me.  And I can’t wait to see what comes out.