I’m told it’s a Capricorn thing. That no matter how much we “accomplish,” we still feel like we’re not doing anything. By all measures, 2011 was just as intense as 2010. On paper it is fewer projects (~14 in 2011 compared to 20-something in 2010), yet the scope and level of planning increased. And the month of May alone almost brought me to my knees. The following rundown is mostly a record for myself, and isn’t intended to be a “look how much I did this year” post. Rather I’m hoping to discover any misfires or arcs that require more attention. To help drive 2012 and beyond.
Highlights include being a part of a group show at Winkleman Gallery,* the CreativeTime commission, a few days with a live turkey in Berlin, and cutting string for audiences at the V&A Museum (and online) for the alpha-ville festival in London. And more recently coming to The Wassaic Project to recharge.
As always, I am so grateful for all your support. So much of what I do couldn’t exist without it. Thank you for engaging, and continually challenging me.
_____________________________________________
January
#hamskull at the Maximum Perception Performance Festival, Brooklyn, NY
February
#24hLike at the EFA Project Space, NY, NY
Started making collages in earnest.
March
NEWSOME & #24hClerk at SKYDIVE art space, Houston, TX
April
Non-stop preparation for:
May
Idée Fixe at Winkleman Gallery, NY, NY
#140hBerlin at Freies Museum, Berlin, Germany and Invisible Exports, NY, NY
SP Weather Station collaboration with Angela Washko, Long Island City, NY
Random Number Multiples (ltd ed print & one-day exhibition), Brooklyn, NY
#24hPort for Creative Time Tweets at Port Authority Bus Terminal, NY, NY
June
#UsNotMe for Curation Myth Ministries at Box 13 ArtSpace, Houston, TX.
Also took a “vacation.”
July
I survived. Barely.
August
Went to work for Tara Donovan and started a short lived (though still not entirely extinct!) coffee roasting company called The Hand.
September
#FEEDFEED organized by Stephen Truax and Janis Ferberg for Portal, NY, NY and Sydney, Australia
#GreyMatter at Netil House and The Victoria & Albert Museum Sackler Center, London, UK
October
I occupied Wall St. A lot.
Finished this drawing, which was something like 17 months in the making.
Started “$,” an ongoing project tracking my finances
Recent Case Studies (Suggest) at Norte Maar, Brooklyn, NY
November
Gave a talk at Pratt in the Digital Arts Department
#BigGroupPortrait (still need to finish the output!)
Occupied some more
Tied up loose ends.
December
Began 3-month residency Wassaic Project.
_____________________________________________
And now a quick snapshot of Google Analytics for both this Tumblr and my site. Sometime around April or May I became a Tumblr “spotlight” artist. This increased my pageviews/followers, uhm, substantially. Like, I’m pretty sure I had ~300 followers when that happened. Now I have over 12,000. Not surprisingly though I’m getting seemingly more meaningful time spent on my personal site. Anyhoo, here are some numbers:
Tumblr overview (1/1/11 - 12/28/11)
manbartlett.com overview (1/1/11 - 12/28/11)
More on Tumblr: The most popular post was ”$, a document" with 1,118 unique views. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t include reblogs.
More on manbartlett.com: Unique views in the performance, drawing and collage sections of my site were, respectively: 1,945, 1,632, & 1,285. Not surprisingly, these are also the order they are in on my site.
I could probably go into a lot of greater depth with all these numbers, but that might be for another day. Or not…
_____________________________________________
Ok! Glad that is done with. It frees me from looking back too much. Until next year around this time. In the meantime, the next couple months are set to be pretty busy again. Something in January (shh), group show of collages also in January, Collages in Detroit opening March 3rd, and showing I’m-still-not-sure-what-yet in Chicago opening that same day.
til soon
xoxo
Man
*Seriously, on my way to that opening, thinking about how my work was on those walls, I shed some tears of gratitude/mini-triumph.