As noted earlier, artist Steve Powers and a trio of lawyers were waterboarded in Coney Island on Friday for the sake of art. Though no video is available, Art Forum weighs in with some photos of the torture, including the one above of a troubled looking Powers watching David Dames get waterboarded, and reports:
The participants left the room for a minute, then burst through the door; Powers, now hooded, was roughly guided to the inclined waterboarding table … Ritz then stuffed a large black rag in Powers’s mouth, held the artist’s nose with one hand, and poured a steady flow of water onto the rag like a frat boy pours a pitcher of beer. After about eight seconds, Powers began to twitch and jerk on the table, and Ritz quickly removed the rag. Dazed and flushed, the artist was led out of the room … and, after a beat, said, “That sucked!”
Not content with just simulated waterboarding, artist Steve Powers, creator of Coney Island’s new Waterboard Thrill Ride, submitted to the slow drowning torture technique with a trio of lawyers on Friday night. “In a private room at Coney Island, with an audience of artists, journalists, friends and family, former Army interrogator Mike Ritz roughly stuffed a towel into his victims’ mouths, one by one, and poured water until they struggled.” “I think if you’re for or against this technique, the conversation about this needs to start. We need to recognize what it truly is — which is torture,” said the former military interrogator hired to waterboard the group. [Washington Post]
New York documentarian Richard Sandler will be screening two of his films, Brave New York and Sway, at the 6B Garden on August 22.
Brave New York is a free form documentary that loosely chronicles the last 12 years of intense change in the east village “hood.” From the reopening of a newly curfewed Tompkins Square Park and Wigstock in ‘92, to the destruction of the cherished Loisaida Community Gardens, to the yuppie invasions of the dot com years, to the present era, indelibly stamped with post-9/11 grief, this durable, lusty neighborhood survives in spite of a real estate gold rush that has excluded all but the well-to-do. The movie’s main voices are those of the artists and street people whose wisdom and commentaries upon the dominant culture give us pause amidst the speedy approach of a “Brave New World.”
“Kristin Victoria Barron is a Brooklyn-based artist who makes, among other objects, odd-looking dolls out of human hair, leather, and latex. What appear to be the priests sit huddled in legless clumps while human-haired, blue-faced, chicken-footed twin girls lie not far from them.” [ANIMAL]
The NY Post went to Coney Island, and paid a dollar to see Steve Powers’ Waterboard Thrill Ride. Watch the video clip of Powers’ animatronic torture below.
Tomorrow night, Invisible NYC opens 50/50, an exhibit of French artist Gael “YUCK” Cecchin and NYC’s own Spaze Crafte One (SC1). YUCK and SC1 bring their respective talents as a graphic designer and multi-disciplinary art educator to create a somewhat twisted world of eccentric monsters and abstract graffiti works that’s both collaborative and personal. The show opens from 7 to 10 PM on August 7th and runs through September 6th at Invisible NYC (148 Orchard Street, Manhattan).
Artist Steve Powers, who has the unlikely distinction of being a favored graffiti artist andFulbright scholar, is taking it back to Coney Island this summer with a simulated waterboarding display. For just one dollar you can see an animatronic torturer waterboard an orange jumpsuited prisoner. Pouring water over the cloth covered face, and up the nose and mouth, the pricisoner experiences the process of drowning and struggles at his restraints (robotically in this case). Powers’ intent is to get people thinking, and he asks, “What’s more obscene, the official position that waterboarding is not torture, or our official position that it’s a thrill ride?”
Here are some crowd reactions to the display:
“It’s not something to be made fun of. It’s just something they’re trying to make a quick buck off, I guess.”
Best known for his street installations, on his own and with Leon Reid, Artist Brad Downey, was recently asked what work he is most proud of.
“It’s hard to say. But I am quite fond of taking CCTV cameras down. I have a nice little collection of these objects. It is something I have been doing since 2005, I think this work is important. I do not know if its art but I am proud of it.”
Graffiti: is it vandalism or is it art? There will never be a simple answer to such a broad question but one gallery is asking anyway. For one night only, Anonymous Gallery Project hosts an exhibition to explore different perspectives on graffiti as well as benefit the five members of England’s DPM graffiti crew who have been convicted and sentenced for conspiracy to cause criminal damage. Photographs of the writer’s work on display with their rap sheets will be for sale in editions of 50 to support DPM. The exhibition will go on from 6 to 9 PM at An Anonymous Gallery Project Space (27 N. Moore Street, Manhattan).
Speaking of streetwear, Bad Ass Mother Fucker Fi5e, aka Evan Roth, created an unauthorized “New Era” covered in dozens of shiny gold stickers to show everyone how super fresh the hat, and by association, the wearer is. The hat is super exclusive, limited to an edition of 20 and not for sale right now, making it perfect for all those suffering from lack of more conspicuous and exclusive head wear.
Not content with just simulated waterboarding, artist 
