Eat, Drink, Create: The B(A)NO{S} Show

The complete works of B(A)NO{S} will be on view and for sale at This Must be the Place Gallery this month. The opening reception is Friday, Feb 10 at 6pm.

B(A)NO{S}: EAT, DRINK, CREATE

In the mid 1990s, Milton Carter was invited to attend Boys Night Out with a group of older guys in Asheville, NC who met once a week. Everyone chipped in a dollar and they had different themed nights, like jam (music) night or bowling but it was basically a frat hangout for art dudes. After moving to New York, Carter proposed the idea of a "boys night out" for artists to his new friends: designer Derick Holt, painter Harrison Marshall, graphic artist Mike Reddy, and later illustrator and artist Nathan Gelgud. Gatherings would be used to make and discuss art--not just as excuses to get out of the house. {Society} was added—tongue partially in cheek—with the intention of creating a fraternal organization with outposts in different cities. Dues were raised to five dollars. And so, in 2008, B(A)NO{S} was born.

Organized around semi-regular meetings, B(A)NO{S} projects take place in one night. Members rotate hosting duties, and create a project based on certain materials, concepts, or inspiration. In addition to devising the project, the host also cooks dinner for the other members. With a few exceptions, each member must begin and complete his piece that evening.

At a typical meeting, time constricted art-making takes place amidst an environment of food prep, a generous amount of snacks, responsible drinking, and general buffoonery punctuated by a steady stream of personal insults. Each member’s personal work outside of B(A)NO{S} is given serious discussion. Every meeting is meant to push the limits of every participant’s skill and to give him the opportunity to assess his life as an artist alongside other like-minded artists with similar pursuits.

The work on view represents the complete B(A)NO{S} catalogue up to now. In the few cases where the original work was not available, photos fill the gap. Also on view are some works that are the results of collaborations between certain members made outside of meetings, many of which apply techniques developed in B(A)NO{S}, and all of which are made in the spirit of camaraderie that is vital to the group.

Propaganda Posters

Host: NG at MR's

NG, who's been reading a A Portrait of David Hockney by Peter Webb, read about that painter's very early series of "vegetarian paintings" like "Cruel Elephant," and proposed that (B)ANO[S] members create some propaganda of their own. After some discussion, it was decided that members would all do posters on topics of their own choosing.

NG uses a slogan and self-portraits to make an anti-nukes statment. The use of glasses provides a through-line, from the reflection of the bomb to the way the frames are left sitting on the skull, providing consistency to the series of images. The pun of the slogan (which provides another through-line, back to the newspaper in the first panel) juxtaposes with the solemnity of the sentiment.

DH took the classic marijuana-legalization theme and created a kinetic, bold poster with immediate impact. He uses clear iconography (a joint, breaking handcuffs) and a classic red-black color scheme to get the message across, and the text has the one-two punch of slogan-statement above and below the drawing.

MR's poster is a playful departure from classic protest themes and the typical clarity of propaganda art. He makes a cheeky statement about social aid. His imagery contains anachronism, as it recalls bygone Cold War paranoia even as the poster references the freshly-retired space shuttle, nevermind that neither the Cold War nor NASA have much of anything to do with Social Security or Medicaid. A sly subversion of the night's theme, in true B(A)NO[S] spirit.

  

MC used a very worthy environmental cause in order to work with a subject important to his life, livelihood, and aesthetic: the beach. His weeping seagull references a watershed moment in the history of anti-pollution campaigns (note the Native American headdress in his prep sketch below), and his cartoonish waves reference his own work in patterns and textiles. His drawings have a naive innocence that makes the destruction of the shores they depict especially saddening.

Preparatory Drawings:

Further reading: Angry Graphics by Karrie Jacobs and Steven Heller

The other B(A)NO[S] poster project.

Working With Leather

Host: MC

This was a wide open project, the only guideline being to make something with the leather and tools provided by our host. Creation of an art object, rather than something strictly decorative was encouraged, but--as often discussed--that border is a porous one.

Taking his inspiration from Hermes scarves,
DH used chalk to sketch a design and an X-Acto to etch it in,

creating a muscular rendering, almost a repeating pattern, of

rope interplaying with free-floating pillars

MC's menagerie covers Pop figuration, American Southwest

decorative emblems with silhouette and stitching,

a Guston-inspired ghost with jewel eyes,

and the bold simplicity of  a two-tone rectangle with clear dimensionality

Special guest MM's bird figure also evokes an American Southwest folk/outsider piece, and makes effective use of the creepy accoutrement of a trained hooded condor

MR's lumbering horse has multiple layers but remains

obstinately flat, with a playful leather string curling out from the face, and a defiant hole punched into the base layer

After an early struggle, NG created an homage to the

cigarette-holding hands and watches of B(A)NO[S] fave Philip Guston

 Prior to the above, NG made a beastly totem figure,

using orange paint and yellow chalk

See these photos as well as process documentation here.

Printmaking: a well-documented session with a SPECIAL GUEST

Host: DH

For this BANOS session we were joined by special guest MOMO. Learn more about him here.

Using cardboard tubes, lots of ink, and household supplies like rubber bands, string, rope, buttons, and burlap, members created prints.

Steps:

1. Paste, tape, or otherwise adhese things to a carboard tube.
2. Coat the tube in ink or paint either by coating it with a brush or rolling it on or slathering the tube in a puddle of ink.
3. Roll the tube onto paper. Repeat on a few sheets to experiment and to see how the pattern changes.
4. After the first layer dries, try adding to it with more shapes and patterns, or re-applying the same shapes or patterns with different colors.

Tubes

DH's rubber band and button print.

MOMO's circles and relief.

Incidental life prints. Better than the intended product? Your call.

MC's lifestyle shapes with webbing, inspired by satellite member HM's reminiscence of printing a whole pair of shorts.

MR's "am I here ... or over here?" print.

NG's repeated rope plus table football.

Materials. 

Clean-up time.

Don't forget to visit member web sites:

MC

DH

MC & DH store

NG and NG store

MR and/or MR blog

Honorary member

Ab Ex Sculpture

Host: MR via MC

Inspired by his trip to the MoMA Abstract Expressionism exhibit, MR's project was Abstract Expressionist sculpture, to be made from cardboard scavenged in the neighborhood. Materials turned out to be provided by some one stop shopping as a nearby condo had just put out a bunch of boxes from some flat pack furniture.
In concept, the product is the photo itself, not the sculpture, which was a dynamic way to shift the ideas in the 2D canvases of De Kooning et al into a 3D format and then back to something flat. This is of course keeping in mind that in BANOS spirit the process is just as much a part of the project as the product and interpretation of the project is meant to be loose, as we'll see in the following photos.

MC's sculpture looks like the future as conceived by an AbEx era pop scientist. Especially considering the materials involved, he gets a remarkably sturdy effect here that gives the mismatched upper half and angular base stronger energy.  

MR makes excellent work of shadow, does a nice job of capturing the AbEx spirit in his shapes, and even incorporates the angle of the traffic boundary in the background for a strong juxtaposition. He and MC both showed quick mastery of the materials and heart of the evening's project.

 

DH created a deeply personal piece, which included hair clippings. The "before and after" feel of two separate sculptures provides tension. Note that DH did not set the two pieces neatly beside each other.

NG's tiny pot on a rising coil strays from the abstract in Abstract Expressionist, but he let the materials determine the shapes, and this is what emerged. The way the jagged shadows made by the angular flames play out against the coil is the strongest element here. 

Zine-Making

Over dinner, members decided on a theme for the zine, which turned out to be Fantasy and Sexuality. 

Source material.

Using materials that some members brought, in addition to stuff from around the house (a jar of vintage matchbooks), and a stack of vintage sports and soft-core magazines, we each created many pages for a zine. Each of us worked within the dimensions of half of a standard sheet of letter sized paper.

Completed pages laid out on kitchen 

floor for determining order.

We chose as a group which ones we liked, attempting an even distribution of works per member. Then we laid them out and called off-site member Harrison to determine an arbitrary order for the zine by asking him to name a random series of numbers.

We all used all 3 of the following techniques: drawing, collage, text. Furthermore, we often used two or all three approaches within one page.

Examples, after photo-copying:

Text

Collage

Text/collage/drawing

Drawing (back cover)

The next day members who were available to do so went to Staples and ran off copies, then reassembled at Milton's to collate and staple pages.

Contact us if you'd like a copy of the first official B(A)NO[S] zine, titled Mushrooms and Clams.