Gone to Where Joe’s From July 15, 2007

For all the web hits I get from people looking for information on the Museum of Modern Arthur, since I actually visited the place today, I might as well talk about it, right? Right.

After taking advantage of this week’s N train diversion to dart out to Ditmars and check out the adorable newly opened Oleput (excellent iced coffee, and not hardly as overpriced as some of the Astorians.com chatter would lead one to believe), I headed all the way through the city and down into Brooklyn in search of DUMBO. For five years of living in this city, DUMBO is not a neighborhood I’ve spent much time in, with the exception of one Brooklyn Bridge wedding, and, um, I don’t think that counts. I dunno. I don’t really do Brooklyn all that much.

Finding the “museum” itself wasn’t difficult – it’s three blocks toward the river from the York St. station on the F – despite the fact that I hadn’t been able to determine if they were officially open, and if so, whether they would be open on a Sunday. I’d postponed a visit in the hopes that they would announce official hours or something, but finally had the day free and decided to just bite the bullet and go. I wasn’t entirely surprised to find a closed and locked gate, but was somewhat disappointed.

I did the window-peek thing for a few minutes, then decided to explore DUMBO a little on my own and see if, you know, maybe they’d be open at 2 or something, cause who knows.

Exploring DUMBO on my own turned out to be a good call, as it resulted in a few cute little cafes (if I’d been hungrier, the Mexican place on Jay St. looked delicious) and one perfect used bookshop, P.S. Bookshop. The Strand just doesn’t do it for me where used books are concerned – no, that’s not sacrilege, it’s just fucking expensive, while at P.S.B. I found two tempting paperbacks at $2.50 each. Prices varied, but selection was enticing and by the time I emerged, it was 2:15 and I decided to investigate MOMAR once more.

Thank god, because the place was now wide open for business, meaning that my trip across three boroughs wasn’t in vain. I wandered around for a few minutes checking out the paintings, and actually had a near-miss with the artist himself, as I saw Joe coming out of the bathroom on his way out the door. Sadly, my nerves got the better of me and rather than actually, you know, say something, I ducked back in to the back room.

Another time, maybe.

I’m a fan of Joe primarily for the music and his writing, and the art has never been the primary thing to draw me to him, but I have enough of a sense of his work to be able to guess what period certain paintings were from. Some of the paintings on display had the older, “alien”-cave-painting thing going on, many were from what seems to be a recent Jackson Pollock-esque phase (check out the main picture on the MOMAR site, which is also the album cover for Let’s Just Be, if you don’t get what I’m talking about). I was most intrigued by a few multi-canvas pieces in the back room. None of them were live show paintings, but rather some of his more intimately created stuff.

Most unique piece? A fridge from his last apartment, fully decked out in thick Joe-paint, and a decorated TV on top, completely converted so that only a little static shone through the eyes of the painting. Hey, look, there’s a reason why words don’t do this stuff justice (if they did, you know, he’d have just written them). Go check it out for yourself.

I chatted a little with Lauren out front, who admitted that the hours are not set in stone although the place is officially open. She was overseeing a table of CDs as well, and I wound up walking away with a copy of Joe’s somewhat rarer 2003 album Holding the Void, which I’m currently listening to and falling in absolute love with (good recommendation, Lauren!) I didn’t even dare to ask about the price of the art, given my budget, but checking it all out was worth the trip alone even before you factor in the new CD. Actually, the new CD made it worth the trip all the more.

What I’ve really come to love about Joseph Arthur in the last couple of years is not only his raw expressiveness, but his apparent lack of self-editing. There’s something very primal and pure about his seemingly manic album output and his multi-disciplinary voice. The idea behind the gallery may seem a little batty, but the place has a great vibe, it sums up the artist more than any single album or live show possibly could, and hopefully the word will get out. Anyone who appreciates his music should make the pilgrimage.

Hopefully, when they do, the damn place will be open. But if it’s not – just give it a few minutes, and if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll even bump into Joe.

Joseph Arthur, “Invisible Hands”, Paris, 2005.