Scene in the City: New Museum

Rhizome Artbase 101 @ The New Museum

The opening Wednesday night was lovely. The New Museum was packed and hot and sweaty, but we had fun watching people listen and watch and drink. As Keith and I pulled up to the museum I saw a woman's familiar face standing outside. A black woman in a classic black dress, with long locks and big, pretty eyes. But who could she be? Where did I know her from? Then it struck me; it was Damali Ayo -- the conceptual artist and our co-consirator in Internet work exploring race. Ayo is perhaps best known for her work Rent-a-Negro, but these days I've been thinking lots about her work Living Flag, a "DIY Reparations program" in which she panhandles for reparations and allows black passersby to take what they like. What gets me about this project is not that reparations could get done in this way. (And there's a fear that white Americans would answer "I already gave at the office!") What really gets me is that there is a real moment in which individual white people have to make a decision on the spot: Do I owe black America anything? And they do: yes or no, in the presence of a smiley black woman. And sometimes the black passersby who take their 15 cents. What would you do if you were passing by her. Would you give money? Would you take it? Anyway, Damali and we had emailed for the past few years and D, K, and I had even co-hosted a discussion about what was called "Net Blackness" for the Australian based global email discussion list empyre, but had never met in person. "Damali?" we said, "We're Mendi+Keith". There was smiling and hugging. "It's like meeting family!" she said.

Also seen were Michael Mandiberg (another co-conspirator in the world of conceptual Internet work on commerce, whom I hadn't seen since the Powering Up, Powering Down conference at UCSD), Rachel Greene (who is co-curator of the show with Lauren Cornell -- whom I couldn't find), Mark Tribe (who is starting a job at Brown -- his alma mater -- and enjoying fatherhood), and Anne Barlow (the curator of NM's Media Lounge).