mr-damon/arts

"Chimurenga, a pan African publication of writing, art and politics has been in print since March 2002. It was founded by Ntone Edjabe. The journal is published on the page three times/year, online monthly and through themed performances called "Chimurenga Sessions." The intellectual project has snaked from a Miltonian swamp of murky morality and "paradigms lost" if not into a Garden of Eden, at least into a more lucid landscape where intellect, integrity and humanity are valid tools for growth. A flowering of organic schools of thought grown in backyard gardens, tilled and fertilised by the fundamentals of humanity preached and sometimes practiced."

A detail from ''Summer Mountains,'' attributed to Qu Ding.

Ooh.

"The real estate listing would read something like this: Approximately 800 square feet, ground floor, no windows, no heat, no drain pipe under the sink (slop bucket required), constant traffic noise, fine coating of black gunk on everything...

"Called Honey Space by its creator, the gallery has sprung up in one of the last unused (and as yet undeveloped or demolished) old warehouses in the booming, polished Chelsea art district. No rent is paid by the gallery. There is no sign. The door on 11th Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets looks a little like a breach in the wall. The gallery will generally keep Chelsea hours, open Tuesdays through Saturdays. But most of the time there will be no one attending it. (The security gates will be lifted in the morning and lowered in the evening.)

"If you like the art inside, you can call the artist's phone number on the cards lying around. You could also steal it. But the people involved with the gallery hope that you appreciate the cultural value of this little eddy in the rushing stream of development that has all but swept away such scrappy artists' spaces in Manhattan."