The Underbelly Rising

The Underbelly Project is coming up for air, and, I suppose, a spot of cash and glory too. I just got an email from the project (you can sign-up on the web, here). Here’s the scoop:

After taking time to reflect on The Underbelly Project, we felt it was important to share what it was like in the abandoned subway station. To show the work being created, to show the life that was happening on the dust lined tracks. To do this we will be holding an exhibition during Art Basel Miami. For this exhibition, time lapse videos will be shown of each artist creating their work, a video walkthrough of the station will show the entire station right after the work was completed, and photo documentation will help illuminate how the artists created their work . Unique artifacts from the abandoned station will give viewers insight into the process. It is our hope that this show will help convey what it was like in our dark corner of the world for that brief time.

In addition to the documentation of the project, we thought it was important to showcase new works created by artists from The Underbelly, outside of the physical limitations of the tunnel. To showcase work that was created in favorable conditions without the fear of being arrested or discovered. For this a sampling of the painters, sculptures and installation artists from the tunnel were chosen to represent the variety of talents that left their mark in this abandoned subway station.

That opening phrase—“after taking time to reflect . . .”—is, of course, bullshit. Which may well be OK depending on all sorts of things, including what actually happens at the installation at Art Basel in Miami this year.

Here’s more:

Fashioned to simulate the rawness of the abandoned station four stories beneath the bustle of New York City, the exhibit will attempt to capture the experience of artists’ that were invited leave their creative mark four stories beneath the city streets. The show will feature video footage of artists at work, still documentation, as well as recorded sounds heard in the tunnel.

Exclusively at The Underbelly Show, the unreleased We Own the Night: The Art of The Underbelly Project book, will be available as a limited edition collectors boxed set before the public release in February. This boxed set will include a hard cover book along with 9 unreleased photos packaged in a hand crafted oak box engraved with the names of each artist that contributed to the project. Before the general viewing there will also be a book signing featuring many of the aforementioned artists.

This had to be planned, if not from the very beginning, at least from some time well before, like, March or April of this year, or even before November or December of last year. Workhorse and PAC may not have planned the book and the Art Basel exhibition from the beginning. But they must have had something like it in mind, otherwise they wouldn’t have documented the process from the get-go.

We're also told that "this exhibition will highlight the essence of the abandoned New York City station known as the Underbelly." THE essence? Really? Color me skeptical. Why? Because going to a chi-chi pop up gallery Art Basel is not the same as illegally going underground into an abandoned tunnel system that's dark, dirty, and genuinely scary. Not the same at all.

Still, the exhibit might nonetheless be effective. Or it might be hype. It's hard to tell without actually being there.

Of course, unless you live in or near Miami, you have to be part of the 1% to get there and get in to see the show. And to actually buy the art, you have to have a top 1% income in order to afford it.

Because that’s how art is. And a few, a very few, artists make enough scratch that they can enter the 1% themselves instead of serving them as high class serfs. Will any of the Underbelly writers and artists make it into the 1%? The gallery owner? Who knows?

You can follow developments on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/UnderbellyArt