RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,086
('this is now much better')
The German artist George Grosz
was always an odd duck to me,
but a very interesting one in any
case. He'd eventuated* here,
to NYC, in the 1930's and did
end up teaching some at the
Art Students League, where -
also odd - one of his students
was Romare Bearden, another
artist of great interest to me
and one who was still active,
teaching, and alive, at that same
Art Students League on 57th
Street during the time I was
at NYC. The Art Students
League had granted me
acceptance, or admission, or
whatever phrase they use
for their studio practice. (I
think, as it goes now, most
anyone can just rent studio
space, which is the same then
as their admission). I've been
there; it's a big, busy, nicely
old, and slap-happy art-space.
In any case, during these later
1960 years, I never did attend
it, since I had been granted
admission to the Studio School,
and in that vein scoffed at what
the League represented; I saw
it as a more conservative and
staid view of the current (then)
artworld, to which I'd been drawn.
All things have to stand the test
of time, and, in point of fact, I
don't think the 'Art' of that
1960's era holds up that well.
-
That of course is fine as it goes,
and none of those that I knew
had, it seemed, very much of a
grasp of things in that manner,
mostly being much more self
absorbed and seeking to 'express'
something, rather than just so
stoically continue to produce
'old' art. I remember I used to
call all that stuff , in my phrase,
'Tree On a Bridge' art.
-
Tree on a bridge art was a
complete misnomer, but I went
with it. It really meant more
'commercial' art, calendar art,
Vermont Country Life art: the
covered bridges,chickens, fences,
barns, silos and farms of
yesteryear.
-
Anyway, George Grosz was none
of that. He was a deft caricaturist
of the wicked and grotesque was of
Weimar, and later Nazi, Germany.
He fled to this country at about
something like 1932. His newly
acquired name, oddly enough, so
much resembled the American
word Gross that it was almost
fitting for much of his art. He
depicted the fangs, rawness and
nudity of the day, and well within
his own, fine, fashion of things.
My point here is that, in so many
respects, I began finding his
types and individuals, as if
alive and present, in so many
of the drecky dives I was soon
inhabiting. The dark, immodest
faces, rubbed with rouge, and
smeared with booze; the crooked
and the quaint - leers, grimaces,
grn, and smiles. The bent-over
and drunken gaucheries of all
that passed for bar and for street
life, around me. It often seemed
as if I stumbled from a page
on reality into one of Grosz's
more 'factual' depictions of
what a strange life brings.
-
The only way I had of taking
the 'size' of my new endeavor
and experience was by walking.
Like the famed 'walkabouts' of
the Australian 'Aborigines,' (as
thay are almost gratuitously
referred to), I was often amidst
DreamTime and setting out to
find the Sun. My stature was
nothing, as it represented only
the dumb bluster of the physical
world; on the other hand, what
all that walkabout stuff bought
forth was the capacity-overflow
of emotive consciousness. My
way was to find 'God' in all
that I saw - even those gross
caricatures of everyday 'people.'
New York City was coated with
characters, the likes of which
I'd not seen, ever, on my rather
better-padded streets of what
passed for Woodbridge and
Avenel's version of suburbia.
And boy, was I learning.
-
My biggest fight was with
'commerce.' It most often seemed
that was the only thing NYC
was about - everything had a
price and a constantly-shifting,
momentary market value. From
pig-skin to pig-knuckles, from
bagels and lox to scungilli,
pastrami and salami, mortadella
to soppressata, lo mein to chow
fun ('chow fun' always surprised
me). Shoes, laces, art, suits,
topcoats, fashions, dresses, hats,
nylons, gloves, leathers and laces.
Everything and all was available.
And let me not forget the Flower
District, at 5:30am, its best hour.
Wet-down sidewalks and streets,
crumbly old buildings, twisted,
low, and sagging (there's not
much really tall or high built
at the area of the Flower District,
being as it was a bog/swamp for
many years, through the 1800's.
Tall, towering New York can
only be built on the areas of
bedrock - of which there are
plenty - yet if you look at a
height map of NYC, all the low
and short-built areas were where
the bogs and old watery stretches
were). The Flower District, as
it is adjacent to other, storied,
districts, harbors its own, vast,
store of secrets, and ghosts.
-
What you get, when you get there
early, as I said, are all the set-ups;
the trucks and the carts, from all
those feeder houses - truckloads
of plants and cuttings. It's important
to realize, as I was just mentioning,
all of those tall buildings have
lobbies, entryways, atria; many have
entire walls of of foliage and interior
plantings (to 'enhance' both the
ambience and the dining experience),
and they all and always need the care
and replenishing the 'Flower District'
so happily and in such a quaint
and old fashioned way, provides.
Gladly provides.
-
Like I said, wet-downs, hosings,
sidewalk clamor, piles and piles
of wet and fresh deliveries of
flowers and blooms; the fragrances,
if you care about that, are sublime,
and the buildings old. I talked
to one of the guys there once, from
a truck-off-loading that came from
a floral-supplier right near where
I lived, and in speaking with the
two guys, I found out the reason
Parker Greenhouse no longer accepts
just walk-in gaden customers in their
lot. He said to me, 'We just don't
need it any longer. We make more
money and have more than enough
business with our trucks bringing
in their daily deliveries right here.
Plus, he said, in those large lobbies,
etc., they offer installation and
continued and proper care. As
he put it, 'That's where the money
is; not in som garden guy buying
a bush, or plantings, with the wife;
which ends up in the yard. That
used to be good, but this is
now much better.
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